https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Journey_from_St._Petersburg_...
Even a drunk driver, who hits a child, is seen differently than a sober driver who purposefully decided to run one down.
The moral equivocating is absolutely despicable.
Has the US killed children? yes! Was that ever the stated or unstated goal? Never.
I would add, contrary to that, physical eradication of certain parts of society has been and is the goal of Russian rulers. (Ukrainian hunger, Ukrainian dams in 1930s - the purge of Ukrainians didn't start February last year)
In addition to that, it's strictly forbidden to plunder or steal, or harm women, children and elderly in the Islamic jihad. Pretty high standards the USA cannot and would not even dream of achieving. Snowden revelations come to mind.
The US regime has (a) committed repeated genocides including children against Native Americans and black slaves (b) perpetuated the Jim Crow laws including terror, bombings and lynchings against the black population up through the 60s (c) invaded or directly supported lethal coups, dictators and genocides in Guatemala, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay, Indonesia (d) overthrown governments and participated in assassination plots in South Vietnam, Congo, Iran (e) supported Saudi Arabia in their shameful war in Yemen. An incomplete list to be sure.
It's not that this is worse or better than [some other nation]. It's just that it's bad and pretending that the regime "meant well" is indefensible.
Do you want to spell out what countries, specifically, you have in mind here?
That isn't to mention CIA backed coups, etc.
Isn't it weird most Americans can't name, much less find on a map, the nations they are at war with?
It is really funny to see western leftist pointing American imperialism here and there and when obvious non-American imperialism start happening all the western leftists are trying to bend over backwards to justify how Russia is not doing imperialism, how SVR and GRU squads can't be compared to what CIA is/was doing. Their doublethink is palpable.
And one of the very core attributes of modern imperialism is using real faults in other nations to subvert, divide, and discredit local movements. It's hard to condemn another state without inadvertently contributing to your own state's nationalist propaganda.
But it was the exact opposite in reality. Notice how Germans hadn't said the same about other eastern european nations before 2022. Despite the fact that other nations were hit just as hard if not harder by Germany in WW2, and unlike Russians - didn't started the WW2 as allies of hitler.
Somehow the debt only applied to the authoritarian militaristic country that has lots of gas, not to its victims.
The historical self-depreciating rhetoric of some pro-russian Germans was used to justify siding with the bully against the victim because it's more profitable and historically it was the "realpolitik" choice.
Yes, imperialism is bad. But sucking up to imperialist regimes just because they aren't your own country isn't the answer. WTF people.
The point you're making seems good I just don't know why you're trying to make it to me is all.
Russia had more than it's fair share of heartache, but it is not an outlier in not having been through the Western European developmental pressure cooker.
Also traditional example is the feud between Greek city states and Persia (Which is documented in the painstakingly historically accurate movies such as ‘300’).
I’m not saying peoples are predestined to be forever in one system of governance, but the differences predate enlightenment way, way back.
As Timothy Snyder points out, Europeans didn't stop engaging in imperialist wars because they grew morals and humanist thought, they stopped engaging in imperialist wars because in the 50s and 60s they either lost them all, or knew they couldn't afford to win them.
Russia may or may not undergo the same development, but losing in their war of conquest over Ukraine is a prerequsite to any kind of progress in this area.
For example Winston Churchill lamented deeply the loss of India and considered Gandhi an annoyance.
Another reason was that the American system of rule based relations instituted after second world war meant former colonial masters could still economically utilize the raw inputs from their colonies without risk of losing the colony to another colonial power and hence being cut off from those markets and resources.
Before second world war any territories unable to defend themselves from european powers were more or leas up for grabs - hence you were afraid that giving your colony independence, another colonial power would have simply annexed them, thus you would lose the resources and the market.
The US rule based order was overall good for the world, regardless of so many documented events of behaving as dicks within it.
Racist thinking was prevalent and helped justify colonialism and humanism existing at the same time.
But you’re right, if Russia loses, everyone will win, even Russians.
Centuries ago all countries were committing atrocities and all kinds of large scale crimes one can imagine. You do not even have to go back that far.
It was always like that. For centuries.
I have heard stories about NKVD methods since childhood. The victims were my family members living in the estern Poland, after it was invaded by Stalin at the very beginnings of WW2.
What was happening before red revolition, during tsars rule, is in the literature.
It is funny how generations of intelligent, well-educated westerners live in denial, unable to admit that the barbarians have been always the neighbors. It never changed. The methods of .ru government never changed and the political whitewashing of it never changed.