> And, yes, some perpetrators of unjust invasions are punished worse than others.

In other words, there are no norms or standards for handling these situations. It's purely political.

If you want perfect fairness for bullies, not victims, then you don’t actually care about victims at all.

This whataboutism is a circular argument where any brazen invasion can be justified by some previous perceived slight. Because someone somewhere got away with something, now anything is permissible.

>[NATO] is forcing [Ukraine] to degrade or destroy [Russia], who retaliated fiercely and successfully.

is a weird way to see it. I rather doubt your average peer human sees it that way.

The UN's "deplores in the strongest terms the aggression by Russia" vote was 141 yes 5 no, the 5 nos being Russia and allied dictatorships.

If you think that is an open and honest assessment of the international order, I’ve got a cup of polonium tea to sell you.

There has never been an "unprovoked aggression against Yugoslavia". More than 130K people were killed and 4 million displaced (mainly by Serb troops) and people begged for an intervention, which came to late (think about Sarajevo, Srebrenica).

It doesn't fit your narrative.

What they actually see is a despondent and divided West with no stomach for a fight, ripe to gleefully exploit open values and norms for their own gain.

It's clear from the last decade or so that there is much to gain from portraying oneself as a victim, to appeal to supposed liberal values, all to mask what is really a commitment to naked Realism and Tribalism, the true principle that consistently binds the "global south" together. They do not care for colonialism, oppression or "bullying", it's only wrong that it should happen to them. Otherwise they're quite glad to brutally suppress their own internal separatist movements or opposition. That is what the "average" person thinks.

You can convince a few useful idiots in universities to act against their own interests, but people elsewhere aren't stupid to see what one's intentions really are.

Please list the countries that have been "destroyed" by NATO specifically.

You speak mostly of murderous autocrats who attack their own people. That covers Libya, Syria, Yugoslavia.

Not sure where you are going with Bahrain.

As far as Yemen the official government of Yemen is a democracy and its opponents believe in eternal theocratic autocracy blessed by God.

When NATO attacks someone, it's murderous autocrats... when anyone not NATO attacks it's attacks om __Democrazy__

No Those very specific countries were run by murderous autocrats attacking their own people to maintain their unjust and injustifiable rule.

Don't you think there's a chance that that narrative of "murderous autocrats" was manufactured post hoc to rationalize NATO's aggression?

Otherwise it's a mighty coincidence that the West only "intervenes" in places that are simultaneously relevant to Western geopolitical-economic interests and just happen to have a "murderous autocrat" begging to be toppled.

So convenient that the bloc which dominates the global media landscape is always narratively-justified in its murder campaigns. Nothing fishy there!

Let's pick one. Milosovic. Would you like to take a stab at defending him or shall I speak for the prosecution first?

> they see a complicated proxy war where the bigger bully is forcing an institutionally-weak nation to degrade or destroy an enemy state

This is so, so ridiculous take of the war that I refuse to believe there are any significant number of people outside of Russia believing this. NATO/US is forcing Russia to destroy Ukraine, really now? They really are forced to wage an expansionist, genocidal war against a small neighbour?