Indeed, and unlike the Russian excuse of the fake bio weapon labs, the US had the totally valid excuse of weapons of mass destruction that were 100% real and not invented by the Bush administration.

Good thing the entire world opposed the war when the USA decided to go against the UN vote. Because letting those of hundreds of thousands of innocents die just because the USA are the strongest bully of the planet would be weighting heavily on our conscience otherwise.

Everyone would remember.

We continue the good work by supplying weapons at taxpayer's cost to extend the war against the evil Russians and the definitelly not corrupt Ukranian government, instead of, idk, crazy idea, try to push for peace.

I smell the sarcasm, but something is telling me this could be someone’s true thought, lol

As I mentioned elsewhere on this thread. Like siblings, sometimes two countries need to duke it out without the parents coming in and taking over.

What are you trying to say here? Russia is intentionally kidnapping children and murdering innocent non-combatants in a campaign of terror to break the spirit of Ukraine. They're launching cruise missiles into apartments and hospitals. They told their own soldiers that the Ukrainian people wanted Russian occupation so badly that their army sent riot police instead of regular army when they made their first push toward Kyiv. The US made a lot of mistakes but the soldiers on the ground did the best they could to not harm people. In the invasion of Ukraine murder of noncombatants is so routine that it's a matter of course to mention it.

It's disingenuous to claim that the US and Russia are exactly the same and that they both fought for the same things in both wars. The war in Ukraine is a land grab for Putin to expand his power.

Funny that you use a throwway while OP is using his real account to state opposite but equally risky positions.

This reeks of propaganda.

> Russia is intentionally kidnapping children

Imagine that. Russia is removing orphans from a warzone. How awful of them. /s

> The war in Ukraine is a land grab for Putin to expand his power.

No. The land grab was by the EU and NATO. It wasn't russia that staged a coup in ukraine and ousted the democratically elected leader of ukraine. It was the EU and NATO. If russia was expanding into canada or mexico, we'd invade canada or mexico. Russia is liberating ukraine for national security reasons. We invaded iraq for oil. Big difference.

I smell sarcasm, but still, you're not that wrong. The motivation absolutely matters - US Imperialism is much softer, even in it's war crimes, than Russian Imperialism that comes with genocide bundled. In the former case where it hurts is that they try to paint a rosy picture (freedom and democracy etc.) while committing war crimes / invading left and right for business interests, and that hypocrisy is very annoying. At the same time when the Russians invade, they're brutal, war crimes are part of their process. I'd take the former over the latter any day, even ideally neither should be a thing in the 2020s.

The official motivation in Irak were WMD, eventually revealed to be a complete fabrication by the Bush administration.

The United Nation voted against the war, and the US went anyway, under the pretense there was a link with 9/11, which we know now is BS.

If Russia did this, you would call it what it is: a bunch of greedy bullies that seized the opportunity provided by a terrorist attack to justify the occupation a country because it's a military and economic winning move.

But apparently the US gets a pass at being a monster.

Yes, that's correct. No matter how much US lead wars caused distruction and suffering it was "mostly" collateral damage and naive stupidity that they can change things to their own accord. Russian invasion in Ukraine is pure evil for the sake of showing how evil they are just to scare off the enemy and the future opponents. This is just as barbaric as did Mongols to Slavs, burning entire towns. Next thing after they lose the war I expect them to turn inwards and start murdering their own people a-la Stalin's purges.

> it was "mostly" collateral damage and naive stupidity that they can change things to their own accord.

That is “mostly” just a PR narrative. The notion that it should be accepted at face value is farcical.

Can we compare the list of invasions and proxy wars started by America and Russia?

To justify the atrocities of the west is the height of hypocrisy.

After the second world war:

- War in Iraq. Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF; March 2003 - November 2011) ...

- War in Afghanistan. Operation Enduring Freedom (OEF; October, 2001 – December, 2014) ...

- Persian Gulf War (1991) ...

- Vietnam War (1962 - 1973) ...

- Korean War (1950 - 1953)

And this does not include things like coups in South America, or the fact they are surrounding Iran with missiles.

The USA is the biggest war mongers of the worlds, they have killing millions since 1950, and everybody seems to just go "meh".

War in Afghanistan

War against China in Mongolia

War against Georgia

War against Finland

War against Insurgenst in eastern europe

War against Insurgents in ukraine

War against Checheyna

War in SouthKorea

War in Vietnam

Bloody beasts those empireus..

So what you are saying is that the US has a track record almost as long as what we consider one of the worst example of dictatorship in the world.

Stating you have only being 80% the serial killer that jack the ripper was is not really what I would strive for in life.

Im saying, that the structure of empire, does not give a damn about the values, it corrupts all, infiltrates all, from the highest king to the lowest peasant, the mindset starts to differ, the values start to differ, the processes start to devolve and dissolve, turning a democratic process of searching for compromise into a partisan war of conquest. The outcome is the same, but one struggles against it and the other embraces it to the fullest as the natural order of things.

The dosage makes a thing a poison, but this beast can not be dosaged, as the lack of self-control is in its very heart.

I agree, but that is not widely understood.

A lot of people still think the USA are angels liberating the world.

Well, compared to the alternatives that go around, dressed up in nice propaganda but horrific beneath.. they still kind of are even though heavily deformed by 70 years of empire.

Go ahead: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_wars_involving_Russia

Even since the fall of the USSR, Russia was not at war only in 1998 when their economy collapsed in the aftermath of Asian financial crisis and they simply couldn't afford it.

And the list doesn't include covert operations all around the world. For example, Latin America in the 20th century was greatly affected by them, Nicaragua in particular. Deep involvement in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is missing too.

> than Russian Imperialism that comes with genocide bundled

The United States has killed well over a quarter million Arab civilians, many of those directly through war crimes, in an ethnically motivated invasion. Explain what isn't genocide about that.

Why was this downvoted?

The US actively supported death squads, drug trafficking, and dictators in Central America in the 80s. Nothing about what the US did during the Cold War (and realistically the “war on terror”) could even remotely be called “soft”, or for “good intentions”.

Propaganda is when other countries sell a narrative.

It's not the same, but there are similarities. It's not like the US hasn't knowingly killed civilians before.

And speaking of the war in Ukraine, I truly believe the US provoked Russia. Of course, Russia is responsible for its war crimes, but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

There was a time when we could have made Russia an ally, but now they are an enemy and aligned with China.

Our politicians either are too stupid, too corrupt, or both.

> [..] but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

This is simply not correct, and even Gorbachev has confirmed this. There has never been any agreement stating that NATO is not allowed to accept new members in any particular direction. There were statements made by western politicians but never any pen to paper. The sovereign states that have joined NATO have not done so because of some US campaign or persuasion, but by their own free will. Your statement is indirectly saying that these countries are too dumb to decide for themselves, it's incredibly condescending.

> There were statements made by western politicians but never any pen to paper

Thanks, you just confirmed that you shall never trust what America says till you have that in writing.

Are you saying, you trust diplomats and politicians solely on their word? I'm happy, there are still so innocent people :)

How cute, blame the deceived for being deceived.

"Very American, very like!" - Borat

Why does it matter whether statements were made? It’s quite obvious to any objective observer that a large, powerful nation would perceive an enemy alliance expanding to its border would be perceived as a threat.

How would the US respond to an enemy alliance incorporating Mexico or Canada?

> There was a time when we could have made Russia an ally

That was at best a narrow window in the 90s. The Russians backed Serbia during the Yugoslav war.

And that’s wrong because?

Srebrenica? Siege of Sarajevo? (lifted by NATO intervention)

The most popular theory for the North Stream sabotage is that the US did it, so there is that.

President Biden said the US was going to stop it.

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OS4O8rGRLf8

> but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

Yeah, there's absolutely no desire from the local populations to join the EU and NATO at all...

> Of course, Russia is responsible for its war crimes, but the US and its allies are the ones who wanted to encircle Russia by expanding NATO eastwards, even after they promised not to.

That so-called promise is a lie made up more than a decade later. Russia and NATO have in writing[1] that they agree to respect that third countries' are free to choose their allies, and even when asked specifically about Eastern Europe joining NATO in 2004 (which was overwhelmingly their initiative, against the hesitancy of existing members), Putin personally said that it's fine and Kremlin's official press release repeated it, without any mention of any broken promises or other grievances.[2]

[1] https://www.nato.int/cps/en/natohq/official_texts_25468.htm

[2] http://www.en.kremlin.ru/events/president/news/30678

The lasting contribution of the Iraq war is that it has permanently poisoned this discourse. It's all just whataboutism from here on.