Russian troops are deliberately targeting civilians on a large scale and call ukraine a fake country. They've deported children that are being adopted by Russian families. And they had a bit of a phase where they liked to threaten various countries with nukes. America isn't covered in glory but Russia is full on dreadful with the mass destruction and death they are carrying out.
Russia wants Ukraine. We only wanted oil. If those people didn’t put their country on top of Halliburton’s oil, there wouldn’t be such problems In the world.
Of course, I am not suggesting that one heinous act is excusable because someone else did a similar heinous act. That's just like Republican "whataboutism".
I'm with you on this. The replies arguing moral superiority of the US make my stomach turn. I'm glad Putin is seen as a pariah by much of the world, but I'm disturbed that did not happened with the US and Iraq (not to mention all the coups we've supported....)
Yah the PTSD thing. Why do the actions of the US seem so reminiscent? Maybe has something to do with their constant Manifest Destiny imperialistic marathon... SSDD. Somedays I wonder what planet I'm on since I feel like an alien, or alienated in my own lands
OhLookie!!! My dead relatives, 250 men women, and children were massacred!!! 20 Americas were awarded the medal of honor for this.
"The difficult Indian problem cannot be solved permanently at this end of the line. It requires the fulfillment of Congress of the treaty obligations that the Indians were entreated and coerced into signing. They signed away a valuable portion of their reservation, and it is now occupied by white people, for which they have received nothing." General Miles.
"O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!" [Manifest Destiny much?]
Such good people, those Americans running about the world disrupting other governments, deliberately invading countries for the wrong reasons. Gotta love em for doing all these things in my name and the name of the citizens. B F'n Sheit!! Let's see here...Saudis masterminded and carried out 9-11 so..WAIT I KNOW!!! Let's invade Iraq and bomb the bejesus out of the country and accidentally gain control of their oil fields. OMG I'm so moved by the patriotism of the nation "Oh say can you see". Yeah I can see but I don't like what I see!
No they are not sorry for their multitude of transgressions over numerous generations, for all the brutal heinous murders and thievery that they have committed or caused around the world (often in cahoots with the English). Really what can one honestly conclude except the USA, at least its leadership, is a malevolent entity? The saying "chickens have come home to roost", is normally used to mean that the bad things that someone/nation has done in the past have come back to bite or haunt the individual. Bad Karma Baby! Now Americans are trying to overthrow Americans. Surprised? Imma pray about it! In Jesus's name, I/we will be forgiven and vindicated? Right? I doubt it sincerely.
According to the Washington Post, the USA has tried to overthrow other democracies 72 times. (Sorry, the story link is a paywall.) Try google for same/similar verification.
My PTSD is through the roof from this thread. I consider all of the Bush years to be trauma I endured. I did not see combat from the home front as a spouse, but I felt such extreme stress that I will never be the same. The Dump cult didn’t shock me because I saw these blood thirsty assholes start rising in earnest on 9-11-2001. I nearly got into a fist fight that day with a wife that is probsbly on a compound in Montana right now, hoping to overthrow our democratically elected government. Instead of beating her to a pulp, I humiliated her with Murrah Building bombing memories. Remember all those Muslims were were looking out for as the white ex-Army guys were trying to get away? I do. I shut her up for at least that afternoon. Fuck all these assholes. It’s not even 8am and I need a drink.
It’s completely different and completely the same. Whats really important is that we don’t undercount the differences and therefore forgive what Putin has done here. That serves the right wing. In terms of logic, reason and humanity, however, it’s valid to question it. Add in the other pieces, though, and things were very different. Any comparison make me extremely nervous in terms of feeding into the “meh” narrative. Rs are busily producing memes questioning the $ we are spending to aid Ukraine. We were wrong in 2003. Very, very wrong. We are not wrong now.
The news keeps reporting how the Russian people are against the war, and how Russian soldiers are being humiliated and yelled at by Ukrainians. as if those actions will stop the war. The US populace couldn't stop the Iraq war, and I don't think any of the US soldiers in Iraq were swayed by pleas from Iraqis. So I guess I'm trying to figure out how the Russian people can stop this way.
@She sat there and she said... Plenty of US soldiers were swayed by pleas from Iraqis. It still stopped nothing. It may have made some things better temporarily, for some people. In the end, though, a whole bunch of extremely wonderful people were murdered after our troops moved out to different areas. What matters is who holds the power. It’s why I’m extremely nervous about an insurrection. If shit breaks apart here now it’s clear we will have a fuckton of loons in charge of the weapons. Doesn’t matter that half the enlisted troops are Dems. It’s who is in charge. Who has the keys to the weapons lock up. It’s the same in Russia. The absolute only thing that stops it is a complete uprising where there are more bodies to confront the troops than there are bullets to stop them. Outside of that, it must be an inside job, a night of the long knives but for good and not evil. It looks like attempts have been made. If it happens, what walks into the void afterward? I only know that Russians aren’t to be discounted. Ever. What they did in WW2 is something we don’t even begin to appreciate enough. Maybe they’ll throw bodies at bullets. I don’t know. But the coming economic collapse could be a nudge.
I’m not going to defend our actions in Iraq, but that was provoked in part by Saddam Hussein pledging to take care of the families of suicide bombers that blew themselves up in Israeli restaurants and public places. Suicide attacks in Israel were happening all the time after he did that.
The Bush administration took that as a green light to invade. Plus the oil. That was used as a carrot to all in the coalition if they helped invade.
Iraq was a clusterfuck and mostly done for the wrong reasons but Hussein provoked the issue and gave Cheney the opening he needed to get his Halliburton in there.
By this logic of how Hussein provoked the issue, THE WORLD should be dropping bombs on the US for provoking issues. That's not happening, and the US certainly did not face the level of pushback to Iraq that Putin is. I'm not saying Putin shouldn't get the pushback he is: he should. I think we need to be honest though that the US was able to attack Iraq unprovoked on a lie of weapons of mass destruction -and have other nations join the attack too- because of its super-power status. Hussein pledging supporting for suicide bombers in no way justifies bombing the shit out of his country.
That's fair -- the higher ups should have received justice, and they never did. The Bush administration sanctioned "enhanced interrogation," and "the fish rots from the head."
But Lynndie England and the rest of them -- fuck them. They deserved court-martial.
@DavisBacon They did deserve it. What they did was utterly depraved. They murdered at least one prisoner, but nobody was held accountable for that. I don’t have a problem with the accountability meted out upon the guards. I have a huge problem with the people that directed them to fulfill their twisted fantasties. The one guard had a long record of torturing prisoners since that was his gig in civilian world. There’s a reason he was placed where he was. Their psycho was an asset. That fucker is out waltzing around free. He dumped Lynndie after she had his baby and hooked up with another one of the females in the torture pictures. Lynndie was just a brainless hillbilly doof. Her man was and probably still is, pure evil. He should have been prosecuted for the abuses he perpetrated in his civilian job.
The Iraq war was a travesty. We did unleash hell on that country. That's a totally fair comparison.
But as egregious and wicked and awful as that was, it's still night and day. We did not target civilian neighborhoods with artillery. We did not sanction soldiers raping children. We did not sanction torture -- though everyone remembers, it shamefully did happen.
Russia is determined to reduce Ukraine to "a fine, fine ash," as Julia Ioffe put it. That's policy, under their rules of engagement. That's not what we did in Iraq.
What we did in Iraq, was to open up the gates of hell, partly by allowing Zarqawi's "Al Qaeda in Iraq" to slaughter Shia Muslims, which ushered in a civil war, or a near civil war, and unending tribal violence.
But that violence was not committed by U.S. troops. It was ushered in (in large part) by the war that we started -- but it wasn't committed by U.S. soldiers.
As bad as GWB's war was, there is still a huge difference between it and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
I'm pretty sure that the USA actually did choose civilian targets in the Haliburton War. An estimated half million Iraqi civilians died, and private houses were destroyed. The Bush administration referred to the aerial bombings as "shock and awe". It seems to me that the real reason for the attack on Iraq was for the Haliburton company to make a fortune with no-bid contracts.
France rightfully criticized the Haliburton War, so Rebublican morons taught France a lesson by calling french fries "freedom fries". There were also a few restaurant owners who stood up against France by pouring out expensive French wines that they had already purchased!
It isn't really, it's all based on power and control. America lied about Iraq to garner support for the invasion, not unlike Putin claiming Ukraine was run by nazis.
With SM being what it is now, it is much harder to silence a bunch of people who have access to their phones and the internet.
Sorry but I really don't understand your logic. We invaded Iraq on a complete lie and I really don't think a desire to "inflict democracy" was ever part of the plan. Russia at least is rightly seen and treated as a pariah by much of the world. That did not happen with the US and Iraq.
The lie/excuse was that Iraq had chemical weapons.
However, the real reason from the neocons was an attempt to establish a democracy that would spread more democracy through the Middle East and lead to a region friendly with the US. W. was probably persuadable because of Hussein's assassination plot against his father.
I think the difference would/will be the consequences.
If Russia "wins", there will be total genocide. That has been stated, quite clearly, as the intention. It would be very foolish to disbelieve it.
Many innocent Iraqis died, but Russia would/will make that look like a walk in the park.
A Republican government would/will facilitate the process.
Russian troops are deliberately targeting civilians on a large scale and call ukraine a fake country. They've deported children that are being adopted by Russian families. And they had a bit of a phase where they liked to threaten various countries with nukes. America isn't covered in glory but Russia is full on dreadful with the mass destruction and death they are carrying out.
Russia wants Ukraine. We only wanted oil. If those people didn’t put their country on top of Halliburton’s oil, there wouldn’t be such problems In the world.
I made the same point about five months ago with this post on Daily Kos:
Of course, I am not suggesting that one heinous act is excusable because someone else did a similar heinous act. That's just like Republican "whataboutism".
I'm with you on this. The replies arguing moral superiority of the US make my stomach turn. I'm glad Putin is seen as a pariah by much of the world, but I'm disturbed that did not happened with the US and Iraq (not to mention all the coups we've supported....)
Vietnam war is a better comparison, imo. We fucked that country up, really really badly, and we absolutely targeted civilians as a matter of policy.
Here, the "napalm girl" from the famous photograph, wrote an opinion piece in the nytimes (gift article, no paywall): "It's Been 50 Years. I am not 'Napalm Girl' Anymore"
Yah the PTSD thing. Why do the actions of the US seem so reminiscent? Maybe has something to do with their constant Manifest Destiny imperialistic marathon... SSDD. Somedays I wonder what planet I'm on since I feel like an alien, or alienated in my own lands
OhLookie!!! My dead relatives, 250 men women, and children were massacred!!! 20 Americas were awarded the medal of honor for this.
"The difficult Indian problem cannot be solved permanently at this end of the line. It requires the fulfillment of Congress of the treaty obligations that the Indians were entreated and coerced into signing. They signed away a valuable portion of their reservation, and it is now occupied by white people, for which they have received nothing." General Miles.
"O beautiful for patriot dream
That sees beyond the years
Thine alabaster cities gleam
Undimmed by human tears!
America! America!
God shed His grace on thee
And crown thy good with brotherhood From sea to shining sea!" [Manifest Destiny much?]
Such good people, those Americans running about the world disrupting other governments, deliberately invading countries for the wrong reasons. Gotta love em for doing all these things in my name and the name of the citizens. B F'n Sheit!! Let's see here...Saudis masterminded and carried out 9-11 so..WAIT I KNOW!!! Let's invade Iraq and bomb the bejesus out of the country and accidentally gain control of their oil fields. OMG I'm so moved by the patriotism of the nation "Oh say can you see". Yeah I can see but I don't like what I see!
No they are not sorry for their multitude of transgressions over numerous generations, for all the brutal heinous murders and thievery that they have committed or caused around the world (often in cahoots with the English). Really what can one honestly conclude except the USA, at least its leadership, is a malevolent entity? The saying "chickens have come home to roost", is normally used to mean that the bad things that someone/nation has done in the past have come back to bite or haunt the individual. Bad Karma Baby! Now Americans are trying to overthrow Americans. Surprised? Imma pray about it! In Jesus's name, I/we will be forgiven and vindicated? Right? I doubt it sincerely.
According to the Washington Post, the USA has tried to overthrow other democracies 72 times. (Sorry, the story link is a paywall.) Try google for same/similar verification.
My PTSD is through the roof from this thread. I consider all of the Bush years to be trauma I endured. I did not see combat from the home front as a spouse, but I felt such extreme stress that I will never be the same. The Dump cult didn’t shock me because I saw these blood thirsty assholes start rising in earnest on 9-11-2001. I nearly got into a fist fight that day with a wife that is probsbly on a compound in Montana right now, hoping to overthrow our democratically elected government. Instead of beating her to a pulp, I humiliated her with Murrah Building bombing memories. Remember all those Muslims were were looking out for as the white ex-Army guys were trying to get away? I do. I shut her up for at least that afternoon. Fuck all these assholes. It’s not even 8am and I need a drink.
It’s completely different and completely the same. Whats really important is that we don’t undercount the differences and therefore forgive what Putin has done here. That serves the right wing. In terms of logic, reason and humanity, however, it’s valid to question it. Add in the other pieces, though, and things were very different. Any comparison make me extremely nervous in terms of feeding into the “meh” narrative. Rs are busily producing memes questioning the $ we are spending to aid Ukraine. We were wrong in 2003. Very, very wrong. We are not wrong now.
The US wasn’t trying to capture and annex Iraq.
I’m not going to defend our actions in Iraq, but that was provoked in part by Saddam Hussein pledging to take care of the families of suicide bombers that blew themselves up in Israeli restaurants and public places. Suicide attacks in Israel were happening all the time after he did that.
The Bush administration took that as a green light to invade. Plus the oil. That was used as a carrot to all in the coalition if they helped invade.
Iraq was a clusterfuck and mostly done for the wrong reasons but Hussein provoked the issue and gave Cheney the opening he needed to get his Halliburton in there.
They are/were after the same thing - the oil.
The Iraq war was a travesty. We did unleash hell on that country. That's a totally fair comparison.
But as egregious and wicked and awful as that was, it's still night and day. We did not target civilian neighborhoods with artillery. We did not sanction soldiers raping children. We did not sanction torture -- though everyone remembers, it shamefully did happen.
Russia is determined to reduce Ukraine to "a fine, fine ash," as Julia Ioffe put it. That's policy, under their rules of engagement. That's not what we did in Iraq.
What we did in Iraq, was to open up the gates of hell, partly by allowing Zarqawi's "Al Qaeda in Iraq" to slaughter Shia Muslims, which ushered in a civil war, or a near civil war, and unending tribal violence.
But that violence was not committed by U.S. troops. It was ushered in (in large part) by the war that we started -- but it wasn't committed by U.S. soldiers.
As bad as GWB's war was, there is still a huge difference between it and Russia's invasion of Ukraine.
$.02
It isn't really, it's all based on power and control. America lied about Iraq to garner support for the invasion, not unlike Putin claiming Ukraine was run by nazis.
With SM being what it is now, it is much harder to silence a bunch of people who have access to their phones and the internet.
They were both plenty bad, being based on lies and being poorly executed, but the Russian one is worse.
Russia is trying to destroy democracy in Ukraine. The US tried to inflict democracy on Iraq.