Not defending any of the US' wars, but it's a little disingenuous to compare them to the Ukrainian conflict.
Source: living in Ukraine my last five years.
Comparing _that_ to the U.S. is hilarious to say the least. Russians rape, torture, steal, destroy. Just for the sake of it. Just because they can. Targeting civilians en masse. Did any other nation do that during the last century? Not the U.S. if so.
Are hn-crowd that stupid in general to discuss that silly whataboutism ‘US bad too’ seriously?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Abu_Ghraib_torture_and_prisone...
That's exactly what they did, actually.
It's not whataboutism to bring up a counterexample in this case and calling it such is nothing less than jingoist propaganda.
Meanwhile, a UN envoy collects extensive evidence that the torture and murder of Ukrainian (civilian and military) prisoners held by Russia is not only widespread, but shows clear signs of being coordinated in method and promoted from above in command.
We'll probably only have half decent numbers a decade from now, if that.
What relative rates are you talking about? I literally live in Ukraine and you tell me the Russian ‘U.S. bad’ narrative, ‘propaganda and fog of war’.
What fog of war? It’s unclear to you who is the aggressor, isn’t it? Is that the fog of war you are talking about?
Do you personally know anyone who was murdered by the U.S.? No? Well, I do know people that were murdered by Russians. For no ducking reason. Some of them were protecting their country from an aggressive invaders, others were just peacefully sleeping in their beds.
I think this ‘U.S. is also bad’ take is irrelevant and inappropriate, especially in this very timeframe of ongoing war.
This is nothing but personal bias. An Iraqi could say the same thing, but with the roles swapped.
> I think this ‘U.S. is also bad’ take is irrelevant and inappropriate, especially in this very timeframe of ongoing war.
Again, that is your personal bias showing.
Two things can be bad at the same time. We can acknowledge that Russia is doing bad things in Ukraine and that the US is helping defend the country. That doesn't absolve the US from its sins committed elsewhere, however.
It's so weird that considering your experience, you are blatantly dismissing and downplaying what the US did. You can talk about how bad Russia is without white washing the Iraq war. Iraqis also died fighting against invaders, by the way
Not necessary something we should try to repeat, though.
Russia, on the other hand has levelled whole cities to dust, de-populated them and forced millions to flee as refugees because they deliberately target civilians as a matter of policy. They also torture and execute important local political figures where they occupy and immediately start their sinister policy of 'Russification'.
We see this in the west (and most of the rest of the world), and naturally despise the perpetrators.
By the way the US sure did target civilians, they just labeled them militants. Drone strike collateral damage etc. Do you think Russians also don't use euphemisms? Again, even if Iraq was not destroyed or civilians weren't deliberately and openly targeted, it has nothing to do with my point.
We saw a war caused by literal lies and imperialism lead to 1 million total deaths and we don't despise the citizens of the invading country. And you obviously downplay the war in Iraq because you were far removed from it (from the perspective of the Iraqis I mean). Obviously you feel more connected to Ukraine and Ukrainians but it's no reason to downplay or white wash the Iraq war by rationalizing and giving the benefit of the doubt to "our side"
Irrelevant.
Nonetheless, taking HN threads into hellish flamewars does nothing except make things worse, and it's not allowed here (for anybody, regardless of nation).
If you wouldn't mind reviewing https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html and taking the intended spirit of the site more to heart, we'd be grateful.
So invading and bombing other countries without annexing them is now fine? Good to know that's how far the goalposts have moved.
That's an absolutely insane comparison.
Police are funded from your taxes to protect you. Countries haven't paid taxes tot he US to come invade/drone strike them.
In your country, do police officers from other countries routinely break into your house to tear it up, steal your shit and beat you up for doing nothing? Sounds more like criminals than police.
https://securingdemocracy.gmfus.org/incident/chinese-serbian...
In all seriousness, America does not pull their weapon to prevent bad things from happening (or at least, not primarily).
The US primarily works through Nato and the UN to intervene in their 'world police' role, but they are happy to start other conflicts without the support of Nato and the UN (see Afghanistan, Iraq, Vietnam, ~~Korea~~).
If the US were really the 'world police', then where were they in Rwanda, in Sudan, in North Korea, in Sri Lanka, in Nigeria, in Myanmar, in DRC, in Ethopia, what are they doing for the Uyghurs, the Rohingyas...
EDIT: see correction from OfSanguineFire, I was wrong about Korea, which was indeed a UN-led intervention.
The US involvement in the Korean War was organized under the nascent UN.[0] "During the course of the war, 22 nations contributed military or medical personnel to UN Command. Although the United States led the UNC and provided the bulk of its troops and funding, all participants formally fought under the auspices of the UN, with the operation classified as a 'UN-led police action'."
But is the annexing part the part that really matters or is it the countless dead and wounded civilians?
Do you mean like not calling it an intervention? It's been sometime, but I don't think the Ukrainians care too much about Russia calling it a “special operation”…
It's an entire category.