[Sakos]

Our culture has reached a point where there are no good guys or bad guys. Just look at Star Wars, where the latest director and actors try to argue that it's just a matter of perspective, the Empire isn't necessarily evil (despite good vs evil being the whole point of the original trilogy). So people are somehow unable and unwilling to consider anybody a good guy or anybody a bad guy. Like all the handwringing about how Putin must've been forced to invade Ukraine by NATO, it must be the US's fault, because the US has done bad things too.

[shiroiushi]

I wonder how much of this is because of GWB's disastrous and illegitimate invasion of Iraq in 2004. It really really no more justified than Putin's invasion of Ukraine, though it was handled far more competently from a military perspective so it ended much quicker.

[Sakos]

I'm sure it's due to plenty of things the US has done. In the end, people are often unable to hold conflicting ideas in their head. So it ends up being "the US invaded Iraq so the US is always bad and Russia isn't bad because they aren't the US". There are clear differences between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq. Even if they are both illegitimate that doesn't make them in any way alike, and the invasion of Iraq simply doesn't justify the invasion of Ukraine in any shape or form.

I also attribute much of this to Chomsky, who spent the past 50 years railing on US imperialism, but never updated his world views when the cold war ended. I used to devour everything he said and wrote until I realized, you know, maybe there are other bad guys too and it's not all the US's fault (like Russia).

[shiroiushi]

>Even if they are both illegitimate that doesn't make them in any way alike, and the invasion of Iraq simply doesn't justify the invasion of Ukraine in any shape or form.

I never said it does. It certainly doesn't. But to outsiders, having the US say how bad and evil Russia is for illegally invading Ukraine sounds ridiculous when the US illegally invaded Iraq only 20 years ago with equally absurd justification.

>There are clear differences between Russia's invasion of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq.

Like what? The only thing I can see is that Iraq was run by a crappy dictator, while Ukraine was a troubled and corrupt democracy. Otherwise, it was really just as bad. The US's claim that Saddam was working with Al Qaeda on a WMD program is probably even more absurd than Russia's claim that Nazis are running Ukraine.

>maybe there are other bad guys too

Basically all the major powers are bad guys. Some are just worse than others. In the mid-2000s, the US was the worst; today, Russia is the worst with China a close 2nd (constantly threatening an invasion of Taiwan and bullying their SCS neighbors).

[aguaviva]

But to outsiders, having the US say how bad and evil Russia is for illegally invading Ukraine sounds ridiculous when the US illegally invaded Iraq only 20 years ago with equally absurd justification.

You know, you can also just completely ignore whatever "the US says" about the topic (or supposedly says based on whatever news feeds seem to be bubbling up for you in the last 10 minutes). Both its narratives and its moral posturing. In fact, you basically go on with most of your life if the big bad ole' USA never existed at all. Even if you happen to be stuck living there for some dumb reason.

And instead just do your own research -- ideally grounded in lots and lots of solid history, but also along other axes, such as talking to people actually from either of these other much more fascinating places, and even (if it seems safe for you to do so) visiting them yourself. And then come to your own views about how bad and evil Russia (or whichever putatively evil thing) is or is not, on its own merits (or lack thereof). Completely without reference to whatever "the US" supposedly has to say about anything.

In general this whole emphasis on "hypocrisy" is really not useful in terms of making useful judgements about what actually happened in the world, or why. On the whole it seems to serve no other purpose than to cloud people's minds, promote anxiety ... and get them to start ruminating, fulminating and devoting way too much energy on the topic of whether a certain person (or an entire country, allegedly) is "hypocritical" about a certain putatively evil thing on the world -- rather than the actual facts and etiology of the actual putatively evil thing in itself.

[Sakos]

This is a great argument. One just has to go to countries like Ukraine and the Baltic states to see what people think about Russia. Russia is an existential threat for these people. Not just some ideological opponent in global politics. The illegal invasion of Iraq doesn't change this. It doesn't change how Ukrainians are affected by Russia's war on them.

[wiseowise]

> But to outsiders, having the US say how bad and evil Russia is for illegally invading Ukraine sounds ridiculous when the US illegally invaded Iraq only 20 years ago with equally absurd justification.

I don’t remember US trying to re-establish its long gone failed empire that collapsed under its own weight.

> The only thing I can see is that Iraq was run by a crappy dictator, while Ukraine was a troubled and corrupt democracy.

“The only”

> Otherwise, it was really just as bad.

Just as bad? Don’t be ridiculous, Jesus.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_war_crimes

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_war_crimes

And the war isn’t over yet! I can’t imagine how much more shitshow is happening in the background in occupied territories and how much has already happened in 10 years.

> The US's claim that Saddam was working with Al Qaeda on a WMD program is probably even more absurd than Russia's claim that Nazis are running Ukraine.

For an outside viewer, first one looks far more plausible than the second one.

> Basically all the major powers are bad guys. Some are just worse than others. In the mid-2000s, the US was the worst; today, Russia is the worst with China a close 2nd (constantly threatening an invasion of Taiwan and bullying their SCS neighbors).

No, US wasn’t the worst in 2000s.

Chechnya, Georgia, Syria, Ukraine.

https://istpublishing.org/en/russian-colonialism-101-maksym-...

Not even talking about terror on her own people.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination_of_Anna_Politk...

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beslan_school_siege

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kursk_submarine_disaster

And many more.

[shiroiushi]

>I don’t remember US trying to re-establish its long gone failed empire that collapsed under its own weight.

No, it was trying to maintain an empire of sorts.

>“The only”

What difference do you see in the justification for these wars?

>Just as bad? Don’t be ridiculous, Jesus.

I'm not. It's just as bad. I'm not talking about war crimes; if you had bothered to read more carefully, you'd see I was talking about justifications for the wars, not how the wars were actually conducted once underway. Of course, the US did far better.

>For an outside viewer, first one looks far more plausible than the second one.

How so? Any fool could see at the time that there were no WMD, that the US was rushing to a war on flimsy evidence, and the whole idea that Saddam was in league with Al Qaeda was simply made up, when all the hijackers were actually from Saudi Arabia. I could see it was all BS at the time, and I was just someone watching the news.

>No, US wasn’t the worst in 2000s.

I'm pretty sure the US invasion of Iraq resulted in more civilian deaths than Russia's actions in the 2000s.

And how is the Kursk incident evidence of some kind of evil? It was incompetence and stupidity, sure, but it was an accident: it's not like Russia's government wanted a disaster on their own submarine. What a bizarre comment.

[wiseowise]

> No, it was trying to maintain an empire of sorts.

You can call it whatever you want. If we compare Russia to US in terms of "empireness" then US is nowhere near Russia.

> What difference do you see in the justification for these wars?

>> Along with Iraq's alleged development of weapons of mass destructions, another justification for invasion was the purported link between Saddam Hussein's government and terrorist organizations, in particular al-Qaeda.[83] In that sense, the Bush administration cast the Iraq war as part of the broader War on Terrorism. On February 11, 2003, FBI Director Robert Mueller testified to Congress that "seven countries designated as State Sponsors of Terrorism – Iran, Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Libya, Cuba, and North Korea – remain active in the US and continue to support terrorist groups that have targeted Americans".[33][34]

From https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rationale_for_the_Iraq_War.

Which sounds far more "plausible" than whatever Russia has. 9/11 happened and linking Iraq to it is weak, but "kind of makes sense" if you get what I mean.

Russia, on the other hand, has a looong history of subjugating Ukraine, but let's focus on just after collapse of USSR. Ever since USSR collapsed, Russia been trying to install pro-Russian puppets to rule Ukraine with 50% success rate. All the "accidental" military stockpile explosions, disinformation campaigns, corruption were part of hybrid war they waged for 30 years. In 2014, when Ukraine was in turmoil, they blatantly invaded and occupied Crimea and east of Ukraine. When Ukraine got its shit together and decided to kick out the occupiers, Russia used this as a pretext for further occupation because "Russia is in danger now". Just read the book I've linked in previous message, it gives broad overview of tactics Russia uses.

https://debalie.nl/programma/russian-colonialism-101-13-05-2...

> I'm pretty sure the US invasion of Iraq resulted in more civilian deaths than Russia's actions in the 2000s.

They seem to be pretty comparable if you combine two Chechen wars and Georgian invasion.

> And how is the Kursk incident evidence of some kind of evil? It was incompetence and stupidity, sure, but it was an accident: it's not like Russia's government wanted a disaster on their own submarine.

They've accepted Norwegian and British help after 5 days of the disaster!

Does this look like a face of a person who is heartbroken after losing 120 people?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4K7chXFqpIo

I urge you to find this woman and ask her if all of this was evil or not: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jFBOfIiqW0o