Violence Inflicted by Anti-Kiev Forces Too

I’ve been awaiting evidence of excessive or gratuitous violence inflicted on people by anti-Kiev militia, and here is one report of abductions and beatings. A number of persons are still being held captive. The source is Human Rights Watch.

Violence like this diminishes the moral credibility of any force of fighting men or anyone who orders it, what there may be of such credibility when resort to violence is adopted in the first place.

Once violence is chosen as a means of action in any situation, the aggressive tendencies of the human being tend to emerge more strongly. Restraint diminishes. Right and wrong are pushed out of consideration as aggression takes over and as the more aggressive people come to predominate in a group. This sequence has happened countless times in human history. It happened in World War II as both sides became more brutal. It happened in Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia as violence escalated. It happened in Iraq. Governments that were, in liberal and democratic theory, supposed to control and limit violence became the largest perpetrators of it. Institutions, laws, customs, rules and inhibitions that were designed to keep violence within bounds of some sort of justice, these were shunted aside, stretched, ignored, wounded and broken. They had to be reconstructed and brought back after the hostilities ended, but only after having been damaged and having had their usefulness questioned.

If a man is willing to die for a cause while killing those who oppose him and as part of a fighting force, why is he not willing to die or sacrifice his life without killing his sworn enemies? Does the latter take more courage than the former?

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6:59 am on May 7, 2014