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by wiseowise 643 days ago
> 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.

1 comments

>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.

> 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