[lII1lIlI11ll]

> How does this differ from Russia invading Ukraine?

As a Ukrainian I would assume US forces don't intend to conduct a campaign of mass murder, rape and looting, and US government overall doesn't plan genocide and erasure of national identity of Venezuela together with annexation of its territories?

[lanternfish]

See: Panama, Vietnam, Cambodia, Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

OP's question was about how the current Russian invasion of Ukraine is different, not about some grand total score of infractions by major powers in 20th century. Overall I find this opinion of many western liberals that it is only fair for Russia to murder some Ukrainians, loot their homes and rape their women because US did some bad things before quite perplexing.

[lanternfish]

That wasn't my point. My specific argument is about US operational policy on the ground in similar engagements. Based on precident, we would expect them to engage in the behavior the commentor indicts.

I dream that neither of these imperial powers - Russia or the US - will be allowed to inflict imperial violence, but I wouldn't be mistaken and assume that this military action will be any different than, say, JSOC in Iraq.

[lII1lIlI11ll]

Do you expect US soldiers to systematically loot homes on occupied territories? Or arbitrary murder anyone speaking language they don't like or found to be subscribed to Telegram channels they don't approve of on mass scale? Do the US plan to conduct genocide and annex Venezuela in your opinion?

The conduct of VSRF in Ukraine could perhaps be compared to the US conduct in Vietnam but definitely not in Iraq.

[lanternfish]

In Iraq, JSOC operational doctrine was literally to target assassination campaigns based on 'nodal analysis' from contacts lifted from cellphones; if telegram had existed, they certainly would have used it too.

Famously, they didn't have enough Arabic translators, so Delta Force was often taking targets entirely based on reported association. They couldn't target based on language because they couldn't even tell what language locals were speaking most of the time.