## Metadata - Real Title:: [The Pictures Out of Buch...](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1510417607903612931) - Author:: [[Bret Devereaux]] - Via:: - Publication-Date:: - ReadwiseID:: 14500555 - Last Highlighted:: 2022-04-03 - Imported: 2022-06-02 from twitter ## Highlights ### id306125549 > The pictures out of Bucha, my God. > I'm not going to repost them, they're not hard to find but you will need a strong stomach. - [View Tweet](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1510417607903612931) ### id306125550 > As a historian, I'm not surprised. Armies with intense hazing have a tendency to brutalize civilians and the Russian army has a well known hazing problem. > And it's not unusual that such organizations failing and bogged down vent their frustrations on civilians. - [View Tweet](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1510417609476431875) ### id306125551 > That is, to be clear, not to pardon or excuse anything; nothing of the sort. > It is to point out that Russia and Putin have built and encouraged precisely the kind of organization that does this, they have deliberately crafted a war crime machine and now that's what it does. - [View Tweet](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1510417610860597248) ### id306125552 > So I'm not surprised, but I am horrified. > And yes, war is ugly by its very nature (but then whose fault is it that there's a war?), but there are differences in degree; there are armies that try to limit the ugliness and armies that maximize it. > Russia has unleashed the latter. - [View Tweet](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1510417612244717568) ### id306125553 > For folks looking to understand why armies turn to atrocity: > I. Hull, Absolute Destruction: Military Culture and the Practices of War in Imperial Germany (2005) > S. Ienaga, The Pacific War, 1931-1945 (1978) > @GabrielDBaker , Spare No One: Mass Violence in Roman Warfare (2021) - [View Tweet](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1510417613507158025) ### id306125554 > The point here is that the organization structures and incentives that lead to this kind of ugliness are known. > These sorts of things don't 'just happen' they are products of institutional culture and command decisions. - [View Tweet](https://twitter.com/BretDevereaux/status/1510419135628550150)