“I didn’t want the war to be in MY country!”
As an American who opposed the Iraq War and watched so many of my fellow Americans, mostly conservative, beat the drums of war and slapping yellow ribbons on their suburbans… The same sentiment was definitely here. People treated war in Afghanistan and Iraq like a game. Americans especially as of late have never really felt the direct impact of all-out war. In fact Putin learned a lot about domestic propaganda from those Bush years.
Yeah there’s a fair amount of cross pollination between Fox News and co and Russian state sponsored tv, like Alex Jones for example used to appear on various Russian channels.
The first few minutes of this video are a good illustration of the parallels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFyn_KSy80
I try to tell people just how bad war is and how much it should be avoided. But that Hollywood idea is just too dug in. I really enjoyed the civil war movie that just came out though. I hope people saw it’s message on the sheer capriciousness of suffering in war.
I don’t think it’s quite the same situation because an attack on US soil preceded the war in Afghanistan. I think people in NYC felt the direct impact of war on 9/11.
The Taliban offered to give up Bin Ladin in exchange for us to stop bombing them before our invasion. We refused and invaded anyway. Worked out great, I’m told.
Yeah fair point. I think much of America felt they had an obligation to respond directly to those directly involved with 9/11 (and yet, we never touched Saudi Arabia), so I can understand a limited operation to find OBL.
… Yet literally within 6 months of 9/11, George W Bush famously said, “I don’t know where he is, nor do I spend much time on it to be honest with ya[…] I truly am not that concerned about him.” Source
It took Obama to clean that up with precision, which is how it always should’ve been.
That being said I should note that Iraq had fundamentally nothing to do with 9/11 in any way. There were many lies spread by right-wing media and the Bush Administration trying to tie Iraq and Saddam to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, but none of those bore any truth.
I’m Ukrainian who has lived in the US for almost 30 years. Only now, after Ukraine has bee invaded, did I realize what having that yellow ribbon in “support of our troops” meant. It doesn’t matter what kind of “altruistic” reasons you assign to it. Any time a country invades another, they are the bad guy because ANY war means the deaths of innocent people and should be avoided at all costs, no matter the reason.
Much respect to you for evolving your views! There’s an incredible documentary, Once Upon a Time in Iraq that shows the war through the perspective of Iraqi civilians. One of the best docs I’ve ever seen.
You must have a pretty unique perspective on the Russian-Ukraine war. Hoping any family and friends you may have over there are safe.
You are underplaying the struggles of civilians in a war zone just because they happen to live on the wrong side of the border.
Civilians have all the rights to not want war on their country, at their doors, no matter which side of the border they are, and they are allowed to lament the incompetency of a government that hides critical information from them in an attempt to cover up its failures.
The Ukrainians have the right to keep fighting, and I hope they win this war. Putin is a criminal and he must pay for his crimes. This doesn’t mean that civilians caught in the crossfire are being petty.
A lot of Russians support the war, though. Those deserve what they’re getting. And they’re very lucky it’s the Ukrainians invading them, not the Russians.
But how many of them support the war because the only media available is Russian state propaganda?
A lot of Russians have no idea what’s going on. Rural communities get their information from state media and their local politicians.
I remember people in rural areas of my East European country being interviewed about politics and they were completely clueless. Some thought the president was still the same guy who was violently overthrown in bloody revolution over a decade before. Many would vote for whoever their mayor told them to vote for. I remember someone being asked why she’s voting for someone and her answer was “because he’s the president” (he was running for a second term). She honestly didn’t know how it all works and found it natural to vote for the president, not some other guy.
So yeah, if people like that are told those guys are oppressed and we sent an army to liberate them, they’ll believe it and support the war. That doesn’t mean they deserve to be victims of that war.
“Support the war or go to jail for 10 years!”
How many are going to take the 10 years?
A lot of Americans supported the equally illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, I still don’t think they deserve even how shitty their non-occupation civil government is.
Given how war works I’m almost certain there will be war crimes against the civil population here. Not as bad as what the Russians are doing in their occupied territories I sure as fuck hope and expect, but worse than anyone deserves. I can see Ukrainians getting to be a bit vindictive etc about this, they’ve earned it, but as armchair commentators online at a safe distance we should fucking show some empathy for people in a shitty situation they have very little control over.
I can’t control my government and I live in a democracy. I don’t blame Russians for most of what their state does either.
You are underplaying the struggles of civilians in a war zone just because they happen to live on the wrong side of the border.
A lot of Russians support the war, though.
You’re not making a point here about the situation, but you are making a point about yourself.
Don’t suggest you’re okay with collective punishment: we’re supposed to still hate war crimes.
Really? Does that also count for Germans during WW2? They suffered a ton more than the Russians in Kursk do now. Just to be clear, I would be strongly opposed to fire bombing Russians (as we casually did to WW2 Germans/Japanese civilians). However, I would say that the current Ukrainian invasion into Russia falls well within the bounds of a proportional response.
I said nothing about Ukranians’ actions being unjustified, nor do we have any reason yet to think that war crimes are being committed in the area. If this brings them an inch closer to winning the war, I wholly support them.
Still, laughing at people suffering because of war is such an abhorrent behaviour to exhibit, and the fact that people are bending logic to justify it is wild.
You all should learn some empathy.
People crying for these Russians, who are in relative safety and who were free to go, are just comical to me.
Where were you when all these Ukrainian cities were shelled and other war crimes happened?
People crying for these Russians, who are in relative safety and who were free to go, are just comical to me.
There is no “relative safety” in war and “free to go” means abandoning their homes and belongings, which is a fucking awful thing to do. Who are you, random armchair commentator, to speak like that?
Where were you when all these Ukrainian cities were shelled and other war crimes happened?
I was crying for them as well, just as I’m crying now, just as I will always cry for people caught in the flames of war, which is one of the worst experiences a person can be asked to live through.
Y’all think that having fucking empathy for civilian lives means rooting for Putin, which is not true. Putin is a dictator, a criminal and an abhorrent human being, and I hope he pays for his crimes. Here, I said it again. But this article is not about Putin, it’s about a woman lamenting that her government lied to the population instead of doing anything to protect them, and now she hasn’t heard from her elderly parents for days.
It’s something that I wouldn’t wish happened to anyone, ever. The fact that they are Russians doesn’t suddenly change the tale into a comedy. Laughing at the expenses of random civilians who happened to live under the autocratic rule of a violent narcissist is not something that I will ever condone. I can root for the Ukranians while also keeping my humanity. But apparently you can switch it on and off at will depending on who you are looking at.
Of course, since, according to the article, you can’t legally say “war” in Russia anymore… they could actually say what they wanted or didn’t want.
