> even though the Ukranian thing was entirely a result of exploiting the crisis and near lawlessness that was already happening there.
"We were just protecting Russian citizens" right?
I'm not saying they didn't do those things or were justified. But that was a very different scenario as Ukraine was very unstable.
The Syrian stuff is a whole other beast. US partners like Saudis and Qatar are supporting some pretty awful stuff in Yemen and Syria too. Even the supposedly moderate rebels the US is backing were apparently extremely hostile to US soldiers who deployed in a village recently, calling them invader devils. Aleppo is bad but if the rebels took the save exit to other towns as the UN chief offered then the horror the civilians stuck there are facing would end. The cease fire failed so I'm not sure what their plan is as the US isn't going to double down. Unless they are betting on Clinton being a war hawk.
The jews suffered heavily from this in the early 20th century/late 19th century, they were constantly used by others for justifications of power grabs or used as distractions. Before that "Vikings" were heavily used as a constant abstract threat by the English government in the 13-15th century. The church used it to recruit and crown used it to justify authority. In public announcements and oratory they would often warn the population about the threat of savage invasion, spreading fake stories of previous invasions, even though there were zero significant viking events in those times. Much like how anti-semites spread a fake story of Jewish consipracy to take over the world https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Protocols_of_the_Elders_of...
Russia is flawed, corrupt, has some backwards policies and cultural norms (see: homosexuality), and does pose some danger in a foreign policy sense, but largely they're a heavily weakened state with a far bigger bark than bite. Any serious conflict with them would turn nuclear fast so any large war is extremely unlikely. But for the people in question bark is all that's need to exploit the situation.
For example if you're an influential person with deep PR connections and embarassing papers come out, you can make the narrative about the Russia rather than the leaks. 75-90% of the recent coverage of Wikileaks has been about Russia instead of the leaks.
The US military dreams of having a modern military/navy like Russia as an adversary. The military industrial complex is hugely incentivized to promote this narrative and push it heavily in the press.
NATO recently released a statement warning of a repeat of the Ukraine incursion in places like Estonia/Latvia... even though the Ukranian thing was entirely a result of exploiting the crisis and near lawlessness that was already happening there. Russia didn't just randomly decide to invade a sovereign state. So it's so incredibly highly unlikely they'd invade stable NATO counties because they happen to have minor Russian populations.
NATO and other security organizations which are seemingly out of date in a world of modern terrorism warfare are also continuing to pump up the threat to justify their existence (NATO only THIS year opened a counter-terrorism department).
There's lots of other examples of people exaggerating the Russia threat for their own ends but this comment is long enough as it is.