The difference is actually quite stark. Iraq didn't need a massive reconstruction effort at the end of the war.

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.

You have got to be joking. I'm sorry but what? Iraq has barely recovered as we speak. The infrastructure still hasn't recovered. Compare Kyiv to Baghdad or even Kherson to Fallujah and yeah, Iraq got pretty destroyed all right.

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"

How does this whataboutism exactly help Ukrainians, again? I missed where the ‘U.S. bad’ narrative gives Russia permission to do whatever they want. You are basically changing subject here and say ‘Russia can do whatever they want because (yada yada) [someone did something somewhere as well]’.

Irrelevant.

Nobody is saying that. We are just capable of acknowledging more than one bad thing existing in the world. It doesn't mean either of them are right.

You are basically repeating the same tired paragraphs without even reading what I said. Who is talking about whataboutism here? I was replying to a comment that repeatedly downplayed the Iraq war. Maybe don't do that? You aren't "owning the Russians" by asserting ridiculous and false narratives (like that Iraq wasn't somehow destroyed). I never changed subject, I just called out white washing of the Iraq invasion.

You posted almost a dozen flamewar comments to this thread. That's not allowed here, regardless of how right you are or feel you are—and yes, I totally get that you have good reasons to feel the way you do.

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.