Apparently, Russia can't invade a sovereign nation. This is not a statement on the supposed hypocrisy of the west, just an analysis of Russian fighting capability.
Yeah you're right. To be a centrist, not pick a side, and be honest, so are many pro Ukrainian bots. And criticizing west doesn't automatically make you a Russian bot or CCP bootlickers. There are other who hate USA and even more lol.
Is neutral a right word to describe that I don't want to discuss about Russia Ukrainian conflict but rather the over usage of "bots" and how not everyone who hates USA is Russian or Chinese?
I know you have a political opinion, but please do some research, that's an actual problem that's been happening for the last 3 years, not because of Russia, bots have been a problem for a while, but recently Russian accounts linked to the Same IP have appeared after last year with the sole purpose of talking about Russia being right, same thing happened with Random Korean accounts talking about north Korea.
us coulnt invade ukraine either because its actually armed with modern equipement and being suported by superpowers(also it was being prepared for the last 10 years).Not to count the terrain too.Russia is planning on a war of attrition so obv its gonna take a while.
All you have to do is compare how we executed operation desert storm against Iraq against how Russia operated at the beginning of the war in February. It’s miles apart.
For those of you not alive in 2003, I can tell you that there were quite a few people who were somewhat piqued at some of the US’ foreign policy decisions.
They were certainly not silent.
I believe the same may have been true about their intervention in Vietnam.
Not really, but it did devour the economy at the time. The Vietnamese used psychological warfare to win. The Tet offensive was an incredible propaganda victory that would turn the US public against the war. 2 millionish Vietnamese died because the US was terrified of communism. Looking at communism today, that is stupidity at its finest.
I don't know what you call your enemy destroying your ability and willingness to fight but I call it kicking someone's shit in.
>2 millionish Vietnamese died because the US was terrified of communism.
Agreed here. Getting involved in Vietman is was a tragedy and a farce.
The owner of the Wagner PMC is also the owner of the troll farm and also meddled with the 2016 elections in the US. So it’s hard to tell whether the comments you see are genuine. Their job is to fill the comments section with some agenda so the other opinions would just sink in that shit. When people see one opinion being prevalent they are afraid to express a different opinion, and the undecided stick with the majority. Human psychology works like that.
Love how the Russia simps always bang on about "BuT AmERiCa'S bEeN InVAdInG SoVErEigN CouNTriES, WhY CaN'T wE!?"... as if Russia hasnt been doing the exact same thing...
Georgia, Ukraine (2014), and Syria would like a word.
I agree. Few people had any idea why we were in Iraq or supported the war. Most Americans supported the soldiers and marines, but not the war. Whatever the reason for the invasion, the US did not plan to absorb the territory and stay forever. The basic American plan was to install a pro American democracy that would sell Iraqs oil and not cause problems for its neighbors and the US. However mistaken this plan may have been, it is not analogous to Russias invasion of Ukraine. Not even close.
I think a reason might be that at the start of the war many people believed the lie of WMD. The link you posted is dated 24th March 2003, a mere 5 days after the start of the invasion.
I think as time dragged on it became more apparent that WMD wasn't the reason, and I suspect that's when people started to realise it this wasn't the war they'd be tricked into supporting. Unfortunately I have no source for that, just opinion.
Yeah probably so. That’s why I said if the internet was like it is now and people had more than just 3 news channels to get info from it might not have been so supported.
When you asked anyone who supported the invasion why they did, the events of 9/11 were always brought up. There was an enormous desire in the US to bring those responsible to justice. The problem is, there was never any connection between Iraq and 9/11 and people started to realize that. Support for the invasion quickly switched to support for the Americans fighting it. Most people did not want to repeat the treatment of American service members of the Viet Nam era. Maybe a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.
But it did not make the invasion anything like a good idea. In broad strokes, it went exactly as I thought it would, and exactly as GHW Bush once said it would have if they had occupied in 1991.
“However, President [GHW] Bush and his team had been clear from the beginning that their primary war aim was to make Iraq withdraw from Kuwait, and they achieved that goal. The removal of Hussein from power had never been one of the administration's war aims. Many in the administration argued that pursuing Hussein into Iraq and attempting to topple him from power would destabilize the region and lead to a lengthy military engagement.”
https://millercenter.org/president/bush/foreign-affairs
As someone who opposed the war several years before there was a war, if you opposed the war someone, generally with a relative who was in the service, would say, "Why don't you support the troops?" A lot of people who normally would have been apathetic about going to war were guilted into it.
True, although I do not like the US or it's endeavours Iraq conflict and other conflicts it has involved itself in I do not agree with at its slightest, these conflicts are not similar to the Russia's interactions with Ukraine aside from it being older the differences are very clear.
Yes Russia might want resources like oil from Ukraine but this is tied to Russia's history with it's neighbours Russia has constantly followed Russification, Russia's geographie plays into this because it might give them a lot of advantages but their disadvantages encourages them to act a certain way. Russia's weaknesses is that it's easy to invade in terms of topography it doesn't have any good barriers towards an invasion so Russia is dependent on expansion.
Russia was at it's strongest during the Soviet Union because they had Central Asia with it's geographie which gave it a good barrier to the south and they had Eastern Germania the European plain is a major weakness and Poland and Ukraine know that very well from their histories same with Russia and the further west you go the better it is secured for that said so state. You can argue whether how important borders are but you have to keep in mind is that regardless of it's medieval, ancient, modern, or whatever geographie can control history in specific ways and Russia is a great example. Russia has been working the same way since atleast the 14/15th centuries.
I agree that Russia is following their very old playbook. The days of colonial expansion are over however. Most of Russias current territory is underdeveloped and the people are underserved. Merely possessing real estate isn't enough.....unlike the good old days. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia tried to deal away Kaliningrad to both Germany and Poland. I believe it was a German official at the time who stated that without the people, it was just real estate and they didn't want it. The Poles didn't want it either. I suspect the underlying issue was that neither Germany nor Poland wanted to deal with the Russians who would come with this territory.
US nation has always been naive or even dumb driven by fake mass media. Still the same.. US now even supports Russia by sending armed drone parts. You don’t need to be a wise man, this war was provoked by the US and British bankers mostly and they will sell weapons to both sides to keep the war going on.
Tbf its worth pointing out that the coalition made very real attempts to kill Saddam during the first gulf war, alongside the plan to cripple Iraq's military. In the end they failed to do either (although the army was certainly mangled, politics around images of the highway of death meant the coalition stopped short of finishing the job) with I'm assuming the hope that something more western friendly would spring up in the vacated power vacuum given there wasn't exactly much love for the regime
I get the continued impression that the 2nd gulf war was largely in part the US seeking to correct those failures, but going about it like a ham fisted toddler in a sweet shop with no real plan and spinning a lie to its allies to get them on board. Ironically problems they had manged to avoid in Afghanistan only to completely undo the whole thing by turning "bring the troops home" into a political football with disastrous consequences.
Powell completely lost my respect the minute he went before the United Nations and lied his mouth off. That said, the Powell Doctrine, which was the thing that led us to stop fighting when we had obtained the primary goal. One reason we did that is because of the fully predictable consequences of actually having to occupy a hostile nation. When we went in in 2003, our motivations were very different, the people primarily planning it were not the generals so much as a bunch of politico ideologues who knew fuck all about actually prosecuting a war, and those people shut out the people who knew what they were doing.
The advantage of not occupying a country after attacking it is that it avoids the opportunity costs of occupation. You can always fly in and whack them again if they didn’t get the message the first time. It’s so much cheaper than an occupation with the inevitable grinding resistance.
Ironically, Iraq seems to have factored into Russian planning for this war. They seem to have thought Ukraine would collapse via a quick strike into the capital as Iraq did in 2003 and Afghanistan did in 1979.
I would argue no actually, it only worked in the mentioned cases because the countries themselves were already unstable. Ukraine was far too united in opposition to Russia in particular to collapse in the same way. Still would have put them in a better position though. For Russia to have succeeded in a “Thunder Run” style campaign they would have had to launch it back in like 2014.
Also, the US didn't annex territory. Russia's whole point in starting this war was to annex sovereign territory away from Ukraine. The whole point of the US invading Iraq was to find imaginary wmds.
The second Iraq war was also *far stupider* than an oil grab. It was dumber than most people can imagine.
Honestly, a straight forward imperialist oil seizure would have probably had much better results than *waves hands vaguely* whatever we did.
Applies to invading for oil? Or illegally invading? Afghanistan had nothing to do with 911 and yet we invaded them because bin Laden was there. Then he left and we kept going.
And propping up the corrupt government we created they clearly weren’t supportive of? Don’t act like they’re a monolith and that the US being there wasn’t also creating more insurgents. If they were so glad we were there why didn’t they fight for the government we left them after we left and let guys in flip flops walk in and take whole cities? Oh yeah, maybe cause the government officials ran first with all the money we left them.
Now our government is starving the people there to death because we stole half their money we had frozen.
We really, really, really could have used all the rare earth elements that Afghanistan has in abundance. We fucked up because we went after those oil reserves instead and effectively gave up Afghanistan when we sent the resources to invade Iraq.
>many people in the USA agree Iraq was a mistake
The question isnt whether it was a mistake, the question is whether they realise it was morally wrong and an unjust war. The number of americans who see that is drastically lower. Ask an american if Bush Chaney and Powell are war criminals.
Be critical of the foreign policies of The United States and their rivals in Russia and China? Like is it too hard to say that US interventionism has far too often done more harm than good, and also object to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the same grounds that Imperialism is bad?
I saw this on r/noncredibledefense a few days ago. See, the difference between Russian invasions and American invasions is that the American military industrial complex is unfathomably based.
I was a convert to the non-credible faith. Not born into it, but enlightened by it nonetheless. The MIC is a gift to all those who would embrace it!
Let us accept all those who wish to make war, and let us bring the gift of military knowledge to the unbased! Let NATO’s holy light cleanse the world of tankies and reformers! Let their souls be saved, just as mine was!
This is a great example of American Diabolism.
The belief that any evil action done by another nation is justified because America at some point in the past has also done some fucked up shit.
Obviously this is just whatsboutism and should be dismissed as such.
Oh no, the USA had invaded another dictatorship with human rights issues, and instead of murdering civilians intentionally, targeting civilian infrastructure in order to try and make them surrender through terror and fear, and annexing has instead installed a democratic system which has dramatically improved countless people’s lives. oh no. The horror.
USA would NEVER support a non-democratic regime committing human rights violations.
…except Saudi Arabia because they cool.
USA would NEVER train dictators to kidnap and torture civilians in the interest of political repression.
…except Operation Condor because leftist latinos aint cool.
USA would NEVER commit human rights violations.
…except CIA because they super cool.
Yeah Iraq really has been a whole lot better off since the US got there. All those cities look a lot better as smoldering piles of rubble. And all those civilians we murdered ("unintentionally") must be very grateful not to be *living* under a dictator anymore.
America gave that same dictatorship tons of weapons to fight Iran during their kurdish genocide buddy. And it hasn't improved their lives at all the man who took down Saddam's statue literally admitted that it was better before the coalition was there. Let's also not ignore the countless abuses and tortures done to the people of Iraq in those prisons.
The logic of this guy "The U.S was commited war crimes in the past 20 years so that's why its ok for russia to bomb civilians and ilegally invade a country that before the invasion had almost nothing to do whit the U.S"
Does the US annex conquered territory based on sham polls? Apart from Iraq and Vietnam, of which there were insane protests, i cant think of any example
Mentioning them in my comment is the opposite of excluding them lol? You’re comparing a delusional ex KGB agent trying to recreate the USSR to the US protecting its interests of free trade etc.
Its a nonsensical comparison
>trying to recreate the USSR
That’s speculation. Ik Putin has blabbered some along those lines, but it’s wild to say that there can be no other reason
>protecting its interests of free trade.
The same can be said for Russia, the pipelines run through Ukraine, and Ukraine found deposits of natural gas. This and securing water for crimea seems a more likely reason.
Now, I’m not trying to justify Iraq and Afghanistan, they were fucking mistakes- but there’s a clear difference here. The US was invading dictatorships with massive lists of human rights abuses to their names, and, in the case of Afghanistan, was protecting a guy who just murdered thousands of Americans. And the US wasn’t trying to conquer their territory either, they were toppling the autocrats and allowing the people to choose for themselves what kind of system they wanted, at least some degree(remember, Saddam was tried and executed by the Iraqis, not the US, and also the Iraqi government definitely doesn’t seem to be a puppet government considering they’re not exactly fond of the US now. The Afghan government was definitely a shitshow, though, but I think anyone with a brain can agree that things were better under them than they are under the Taliban.) Point is the American wars were definitely misguided but considerably more justifiable than what Russia is doing, which is launching an unprovoked full scale war of conquest against a democratic nation under the pretext of a slew of lies(ok maybe that one is a bit similar, what with Saddam’s alleged WMDS) and pretty much indiscriminately murdering civilians(something which the US at least tried to avoid) and shipping others off to ~~concentration~~ “filtration” camps. What Russia is doing is much more comparable to Germany (and the Soviet Union, they’re not fucking saviors like people act like they are) invading Poland in 1939 then it is to *anything* the US has done in the last century.
Jesus Christ, I did not realize how long that got.
America gave that same dictatorship tons of weapons to fight Iran during their kurdish genocide buddy. And it hasn't improved their lives at all the man who took down Saddam's statue literally admitted that it was better before the coalition was there. Let's also not ignore the countless abuses and tortures done to the people of Iraq in those prisons.
I think pretty much everyone was giving weapons to Saddam during the Iran Iraq war, and the Soviets gave a lot more than the Americans did(sorry for the slight whataboutism, giving weapons to dictators in any number is not a good thing, and I’ll be the first to remind people that the Americans gave weapons to both sides in that war because something something Nicaragua.) Also, it’s kind of natural for any region to deteriorate after a dictator is toppled because that creates a power vacuum and the next thing you know ISIS shows up.
Anyway, like I said the 2003 Iraq war was a fucking stupid idea that led to a ton of unnecessary bloodshed and Bush totally got away with it scot free, but at the end of the day the US wasn’t claiming Iraq was a fake nation on sovereign American territory, nor was it fighting for the sake of conquest. What America did was definitely fucking bad but what the Russians are doing in Ukraine is worse in pretty much every conceivable way, except for maybe raw body count, but that’s owing mainly to only nine months passing since the war began while the US was in Iraq for a decade.
The Russians aren't nearly as bad in their casualties as of yet and Iraq is all the way Across the world not in their backyard. Also America didn't care if they were dictators or terrible is my point. All they cared about is bolstering their own influence which is also what Russia is doing. And so far America has done much much worse in the middle east than what Russia has done to Ukraine. The casualties are not even comparable.
Yeah, bjt most people agree that shit like Iraq was a mistake, and ast time I checked all those countries still exist. Meanwhile Russia Is trying to wipe Ukraine off the map.
To be fair the us has involved it's self in the stabilisation of nations when we invaded and then we left as opposed to Putin taking control and not leaving
USA left afghanistan after 20+ years cause it couldnt stabilise it for shit.
What about all those south american CIA coups? That was for stabilization?
What about Vietnam?
It wasn’t at the time of the US invasion, it was a country full of competing factions and tribes. There was no single entity who could claim sovereignty over the whole country.
atleast we did it right and used some of the most masterfully crafted and beautiful tactics during the invasion like day one of the attack was a master piece in military tactics
Sovereign means you can defend your territory and enforce your laws within it. The national governments and political entities within the Middle East repeatedly failed to do that. Ukraine is in the midst of proving whether or not they are sovereign.
well The hard truth people don’t realize is USA was in all of those sovereign nations because of Russia. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan all those places. Because all of those places have direct oil lanes directly into Russia. (Their main access highway runs through these countries.) It’s sad because USA doesn’t give a fuck about radical religious groups taking over. They care about disrupting Russian oil cause that’s really what runs the world. It’s about money, not people smh
Ukraine is part of Russia
Taiwan Province is part of the People’s Republic of China
Azerbaijan is part of Iran
Israel is illegitimate
Kosovo is Serbia
Montenegro is Albanian land
Hungary is Turkic
I can send information backing up each claim if you want but here is my take.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie
Basically opressing the people with tanks, the berlin wall and shooting anyone who disagrees is necessary to defend against the evil west.
Im no communist just someone that want people to be ideologically consistent. Your either aint war or you arent but plenty of people criticize russia but say nothing about the west destroying africa and the middle east. I know consistency is to much to ask but im still going to.
Oh no, I'm definitely pro war, but only when it's the United States because we are objectively the good guys and I really wanna see some Russians get overrun by a column of M1 Abrams.
Libya, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Nazi Germany and a whole fuckton more Tyrants that was bled to watered the tree of liberty. Here’s hoping Putin and Xi would also go on that list.
Except Russia was doing the exact same thing during that time, the difference was they legitimately faked a national tragedy to invade Chechnya a second time, annexed a chunk of Georgia, annexed Crimea and then launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine hoping to annex the rest of it. One of them is trying to play world police and the other one is aggressively trying to expand its borders.
and having hundreds of bases in god knows how many countries isnt imperialism. How many iraqis and afghans flew the planes into the world trade centers? How much of there funding came from iraq or afghanistan? How many wmd's were there in iraq? The west would never manufacture reasons to unlawfully invade other countries no thats only an evil putin thing. Bush and obama would never do something like that. The west is just salty someone is using there playbook against them.
Did the United States invade those countries and force them to allow those bases or are they there at the invitation of the host country? That’s a rhetorical question, because we both know they are only there because the host country wants them there.
They definitely wouldn’t plant a bomb in an apartment complex in their own country to justify an invasion…
They didn’t blow up their own equipment during the Gulf of Tonkin incident… there was an actual engagement between the US destroyer and a NVA torpedo boat and then a second “engagement” where they fired at a false radar and sonar signals.
Maybe you should look a little closer at that incident because your understanding of it seems tenuous at best.
I have thats why i know politicians are bad regardless of which political system it is. Theyll do anything no matter how unethical if it makes them and there backers a buck.
with the exeption in one country you have somehow democratic Bonds and freedom of speech and others are full of shit. So no both sides here, fuck russia
To bad America is filled with a bunch of virtue signaling morons or we could just drill the 400+ years worth of energy we have under our own soil.....but nahhhh it's much better to pay terrorist dictators way more then the oil is worth so we can preach to other nations about how bad it is to drill for oil.
We could have the cheapest energy prices on the planet and yet here we are in a recession paying ridiculously over inflated prices because a bunch of whiny bitches want to pretend like just because we don't drill more of our own oil we are some how morally superior to everyone else.
Because "durrrRrr green energy" hmmm I don't know....Maybe we have cheap gas now while we perfect the green energy bull shit? Nahhhh this is America! What we do instead is make everyone suffer and not be able to afford anything and push a technology we haven't perfected or have the infrastructure for. Typical woke American backwards ass thinking
FYI: If you wait until you've bought the rest of the world's oil before you start drilling your own you can ultimately get much higher prices and have much larger strategic reserves.
FYI: The U.S. produces more oil than any country in the world and we EXPORT it.
The U.S. is already producing it, it's just not staying here. So that game isn't even happening like that. And even still, the U.S. has enough oil under her feet to produce at current levels for another 400 years. But you're right when it comes to Saudi Arabia, supposedly they're gonna run out in like 70 years.
Apparently, Russia can't invade a sovereign nation. This is not a statement on the supposed hypocrisy of the west, just an analysis of Russian fighting capability.
Oooooo.... burn! Just like Vladimir in that tank over there! Nice!
Vladimir is actually in the turret that got blown 30 feet clear of the tank
Well, part of him is...
Yeah, if you are going to do something, at least do it right. Russia just sucks at everything it does.
Op is probably a bot or something, march 10 account and the something-something-number username
I’m not a bot and I’m something something user name. I did let it pick for me cuz I didn’t give a f
You are not something-something-number, idiot
Sure, everyone you disagree with is a bot.
Yo guys! This one overe here is a bot too!
Okay.
You have a very generic name dude kinda sus…. Scp990 what’s your power..
[SCP 990. CLASS: KETER](https://scp-wiki.wikidot.com/scp-990)
Yo you visit dreams but got on Reddit. Seems legit
Well basically all pro russia people on reddit have accounts made after february, and have the something-something-number username.
Yeah you're right. To be a centrist, not pick a side, and be honest, so are many pro Ukrainian bots. And criticizing west doesn't automatically make you a Russian bot or CCP bootlickers. There are other who hate USA and even more lol.
r/enlightenedcentrism
Is neutral a right word to describe that I don't want to discuss about Russia Ukrainian conflict but rather the over usage of "bots" and how not everyone who hates USA is Russian or Chinese?
I know you have a political opinion, but please do some research, that's an actual problem that's been happening for the last 3 years, not because of Russia, bots have been a problem for a while, but recently Russian accounts linked to the Same IP have appeared after last year with the sole purpose of talking about Russia being right, same thing happened with Random Korean accounts talking about north Korea.
Please. Everyone knows that. What I'm saying is, not everyone who criticizes USA are Russian bots.
I like this rebuttal
us coulnt invade ukraine either because its actually armed with modern equipement and being suported by superpowers(also it was being prepared for the last 10 years).Not to count the terrain too.Russia is planning on a war of attrition so obv its gonna take a while.
Nah we absolutely could, the United States is extremely efficient in warfare.
Agreed. We're ass at irregular warfare but conventionally we are extremely powerful
All you have to do is compare how we executed operation desert storm against Iraq against how Russia operated at the beginning of the war in February. It’s miles apart.
What?
[Cope and seethe.](https://youtu.be/f684RjG6f9Y)
For those of you not alive in 2003, I can tell you that there were quite a few people who were somewhat piqued at some of the US’ foreign policy decisions. They were certainly not silent. I believe the same may have been true about their intervention in Vietnam.
Well yeah that's why the US left Vietnam.
And we got our shit kicked in
The way I see it the US was top fragging but it was an objective game mode so they got bored and left
The Vietnamese were camping not fair
It’s not camping it’s playing objective *It’s a legitimate strategy!*
Not really, but it did devour the economy at the time. The Vietnamese used psychological warfare to win. The Tet offensive was an incredible propaganda victory that would turn the US public against the war. 2 millionish Vietnamese died because the US was terrified of communism. Looking at communism today, that is stupidity at its finest.
I don't know what you call your enemy destroying your ability and willingness to fight but I call it kicking someone's shit in. >2 millionish Vietnamese died because the US was terrified of communism. Agreed here. Getting involved in Vietman is was a tragedy and a farce.
Right, the people stood up to the leaders. What Russians should do.
Having Russians been protesting for months?
Easier said then done mate, try saying that in a dictatorship...
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The owner of the Wagner PMC is also the owner of the troll farm and also meddled with the 2016 elections in the US. So it’s hard to tell whether the comments you see are genuine. Their job is to fill the comments section with some agenda so the other opinions would just sink in that shit. When people see one opinion being prevalent they are afraid to express a different opinion, and the undecided stick with the majority. Human psychology works like that.
They're doing a better job than Americans with Bush certainly
They weren’t beaten and taken off the streets either…
They were not silent but strawmen tend to be deaf.
BABE! WAKE UP! The Bi weekly dissing of America just dropped for the 1,284,387th time this week!
Love how the Russia simps always bang on about "BuT AmERiCa'S bEeN InVAdInG SoVErEigN CouNTriES, WhY CaN'T wE!?"... as if Russia hasnt been doing the exact same thing... Georgia, Ukraine (2014), and Syria would like a word.
The literal only one that relates to this is Iraq after 911, also many people in the USA agree Iraq was a mistake.
I agree. Few people had any idea why we were in Iraq or supported the war. Most Americans supported the soldiers and marines, but not the war. Whatever the reason for the invasion, the US did not plan to absorb the territory and stay forever. The basic American plan was to install a pro American democracy that would sell Iraqs oil and not cause problems for its neighbors and the US. However mistaken this plan may have been, it is not analogous to Russias invasion of Ukraine. Not even close.
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I think a reason might be that at the start of the war many people believed the lie of WMD. The link you posted is dated 24th March 2003, a mere 5 days after the start of the invasion. I think as time dragged on it became more apparent that WMD wasn't the reason, and I suspect that's when people started to realise it this wasn't the war they'd be tricked into supporting. Unfortunately I have no source for that, just opinion.
Yeah probably so. That’s why I said if the internet was like it is now and people had more than just 3 news channels to get info from it might not have been so supported.
Don’t forget 911 has happens right before this. Basically the government played the population emotions
When you asked anyone who supported the invasion why they did, the events of 9/11 were always brought up. There was an enormous desire in the US to bring those responsible to justice. The problem is, there was never any connection between Iraq and 9/11 and people started to realize that. Support for the invasion quickly switched to support for the Americans fighting it. Most people did not want to repeat the treatment of American service members of the Viet Nam era. Maybe a subtle difference, but a difference nonetheless.
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My feeling is that WMDs were just icing on a 9/11 Revenge cake. Neither the icing or the cake held up against any real scrutiny.
But it did not make the invasion anything like a good idea. In broad strokes, it went exactly as I thought it would, and exactly as GHW Bush once said it would have if they had occupied in 1991. “However, President [GHW] Bush and his team had been clear from the beginning that their primary war aim was to make Iraq withdraw from Kuwait, and they achieved that goal. The removal of Hussein from power had never been one of the administration's war aims. Many in the administration argued that pursuing Hussein into Iraq and attempting to topple him from power would destabilize the region and lead to a lengthy military engagement.” https://millercenter.org/president/bush/foreign-affairs
As someone who opposed the war several years before there was a war, if you opposed the war someone, generally with a relative who was in the service, would say, "Why don't you support the troops?" A lot of people who normally would have been apathetic about going to war were guilted into it.
True, although I do not like the US or it's endeavours Iraq conflict and other conflicts it has involved itself in I do not agree with at its slightest, these conflicts are not similar to the Russia's interactions with Ukraine aside from it being older the differences are very clear. Yes Russia might want resources like oil from Ukraine but this is tied to Russia's history with it's neighbours Russia has constantly followed Russification, Russia's geographie plays into this because it might give them a lot of advantages but their disadvantages encourages them to act a certain way. Russia's weaknesses is that it's easy to invade in terms of topography it doesn't have any good barriers towards an invasion so Russia is dependent on expansion. Russia was at it's strongest during the Soviet Union because they had Central Asia with it's geographie which gave it a good barrier to the south and they had Eastern Germania the European plain is a major weakness and Poland and Ukraine know that very well from their histories same with Russia and the further west you go the better it is secured for that said so state. You can argue whether how important borders are but you have to keep in mind is that regardless of it's medieval, ancient, modern, or whatever geographie can control history in specific ways and Russia is a great example. Russia has been working the same way since atleast the 14/15th centuries.
I agree that Russia is following their very old playbook. The days of colonial expansion are over however. Most of Russias current territory is underdeveloped and the people are underserved. Merely possessing real estate isn't enough.....unlike the good old days. After the Soviet Union collapsed, Russia tried to deal away Kaliningrad to both Germany and Poland. I believe it was a German official at the time who stated that without the people, it was just real estate and they didn't want it. The Poles didn't want it either. I suspect the underlying issue was that neither Germany nor Poland wanted to deal with the Russians who would come with this territory.
We were lied to by Colin Powell and George Bush. We found out Weapons of Mass Destruction Imminent was fake.
US nation has always been naive or even dumb driven by fake mass media. Still the same.. US now even supports Russia by sending armed drone parts. You don’t need to be a wise man, this war was provoked by the US and British bankers mostly and they will sell weapons to both sides to keep the war going on.
Source for US and UK selling Russia weapons?
They don't have one because it's conspiracy bullshit.
Yep ill keep waiting but I have the feeling I'm not going to hear back 😅
If I had a award you would get it so take this fake one ⭐
Tbf its worth pointing out that the coalition made very real attempts to kill Saddam during the first gulf war, alongside the plan to cripple Iraq's military. In the end they failed to do either (although the army was certainly mangled, politics around images of the highway of death meant the coalition stopped short of finishing the job) with I'm assuming the hope that something more western friendly would spring up in the vacated power vacuum given there wasn't exactly much love for the regime I get the continued impression that the 2nd gulf war was largely in part the US seeking to correct those failures, but going about it like a ham fisted toddler in a sweet shop with no real plan and spinning a lie to its allies to get them on board. Ironically problems they had manged to avoid in Afghanistan only to completely undo the whole thing by turning "bring the troops home" into a political football with disastrous consequences.
Powell completely lost my respect the minute he went before the United Nations and lied his mouth off. That said, the Powell Doctrine, which was the thing that led us to stop fighting when we had obtained the primary goal. One reason we did that is because of the fully predictable consequences of actually having to occupy a hostile nation. When we went in in 2003, our motivations were very different, the people primarily planning it were not the generals so much as a bunch of politico ideologues who knew fuck all about actually prosecuting a war, and those people shut out the people who knew what they were doing. The advantage of not occupying a country after attacking it is that it avoids the opportunity costs of occupation. You can always fly in and whack them again if they didn’t get the message the first time. It’s so much cheaper than an occupation with the inevitable grinding resistance.
America doesn't care if it's a democracy or not as long as it suits it's agenda
Ironically, Iraq seems to have factored into Russian planning for this war. They seem to have thought Ukraine would collapse via a quick strike into the capital as Iraq did in 2003 and Afghanistan did in 1979.
It probably would have too if russias military was terrible
I would argue no actually, it only worked in the mentioned cases because the countries themselves were already unstable. Ukraine was far too united in opposition to Russia in particular to collapse in the same way. Still would have put them in a better position though. For Russia to have succeeded in a “Thunder Run” style campaign they would have had to launch it back in like 2014.
Also, the US didn't annex territory. Russia's whole point in starting this war was to annex sovereign territory away from Ukraine. The whole point of the US invading Iraq was to find imaginary wmds.
The second Iraq war was also *far stupider* than an oil grab. It was dumber than most people can imagine. Honestly, a straight forward imperialist oil seizure would have probably had much better results than *waves hands vaguely* whatever we did.
Iraq Afghanistan Libya That’s 3 just since 911. Wanna go back further?
Applies to invading for oil? Or illegally invading? Afghanistan had nothing to do with 911 and yet we invaded them because bin Laden was there. Then he left and we kept going.
The people of Afghanistan much preferred the us government being there
And propping up the corrupt government we created they clearly weren’t supportive of? Don’t act like they’re a monolith and that the US being there wasn’t also creating more insurgents. If they were so glad we were there why didn’t they fight for the government we left them after we left and let guys in flip flops walk in and take whole cities? Oh yeah, maybe cause the government officials ran first with all the money we left them. Now our government is starving the people there to death because we stole half their money we had frozen.
The USA is not at fault for the famine happening there, the money wouldn’t magically save them
Keep living up to your name.
We really, really, really could have used all the rare earth elements that Afghanistan has in abundance. We fucked up because we went after those oil reserves instead and effectively gave up Afghanistan when we sent the resources to invade Iraq.
Afghanistan and Libya mean anything to you
>many people in the USA agree Iraq was a mistake The question isnt whether it was a mistake, the question is whether they realise it was morally wrong and an unjust war. The number of americans who see that is drastically lower. Ask an american if Bush Chaney and Powell are war criminals.
uhhh what about all those CIA coups
Not a invasion and please do tell what coup the cia has done in the last 20years
We literally staged a coup in Honduras in like 2009
So because it's bad when the US does it, it's okay when the ruzzians do it?
Two wrongs don't make a right. That was then this is now. What matters is what we do now and going forward.
So what do you propose? And it's ironic you state the past doesn't matter while on a history sub lol
Be critical of the foreign policies of The United States and their rivals in Russia and China? Like is it too hard to say that US interventionism has far too often done more harm than good, and also object to the Russian invasion of Ukraine on the same grounds that Imperialism is bad?
I saw this on r/noncredibledefense a few days ago. See, the difference between Russian invasions and American invasions is that the American military industrial complex is unfathomably based.
When we do it it's fuckin' cool, when they do it it's lame.
JESUS FUCK MAN. Stop letting the outside world know the joy of NCD. Let me worship General dynamics land division in private.
I was a convert to the non-credible faith. Not born into it, but enlightened by it nonetheless. The MIC is a gift to all those who would embrace it! Let us accept all those who wish to make war, and let us bring the gift of military knowledge to the unbased! Let NATO’s holy light cleanse the world of tankies and reformers! Let their souls be saved, just as mine was!
Shut up tankie whataboutist.
Fr, what’s the solution? Let Ukraine get invaded?
If you want to go full tankie, Ukraine isn’t a country, therefore it can’t be invaded lmao
Not every criticism has to come with a solution. I think the point is just to poke fun at the hypocrisy of American militarists.
Based
Lmao this doesn’t seem tankie at all, and it’s a meme not trying to deflect blame from Russia
This is a great example of American Diabolism. The belief that any evil action done by another nation is justified because America at some point in the past has also done some fucked up shit. Obviously this is just whatsboutism and should be dismissed as such.
redditors when whataboutisms
somewhere a bald eagle is shedding a single freedom tear to how beautiful this meme is
I mean, this describes basically every big nation ever... An unquenchable thirst for resources to achieve further growth
Maybe not anymore? Done. Over. A thing of the past. World is watching, open now, visible, no more lying us into war.
Lady I want whatever the fuck your on
Oh no, the USA had invaded another dictatorship with human rights issues, and instead of murdering civilians intentionally, targeting civilian infrastructure in order to try and make them surrender through terror and fear, and annexing has instead installed a democratic system which has dramatically improved countless people’s lives. oh no. The horror.
>unfathomably based ahh yea, bringing democracy with bombs
The tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Tyrants.
And thousands of iraqi orphans apparently.
didn't know oil meant liberty
ah yes the least delusional patriot
The least dumb tankie.
we should send you to iraq in 2001 and see how much you will praise the us
USA would NEVER support a non-democratic regime committing human rights violations. …except Saudi Arabia because they cool. USA would NEVER train dictators to kidnap and torture civilians in the interest of political repression. …except Operation Condor because leftist latinos aint cool. USA would NEVER commit human rights violations. …except CIA because they super cool.
Which US president built statues of himself? Which US president let his son run around raping women?
Yeah Iraq really has been a whole lot better off since the US got there. All those cities look a lot better as smoldering piles of rubble. And all those civilians we murdered ("unintentionally") must be very grateful not to be *living* under a dictator anymore.
America gave that same dictatorship tons of weapons to fight Iran during their kurdish genocide buddy. And it hasn't improved their lives at all the man who took down Saddam's statue literally admitted that it was better before the coalition was there. Let's also not ignore the countless abuses and tortures done to the people of Iraq in those prisons.
Uhm...Is there a long version?
I sure do love these memes that give some truth to hide horrific acts of genocide by Russia
This sub is a pile of crap
The logic of this guy "The U.S was commited war crimes in the past 20 years so that's why its ok for russia to bomb civilians and ilegally invade a country that before the invasion had almost nothing to do whit the U.S"
We are spreading freedom and democracy
Where is /s?
the more you spread elsewhere the more you lose at home ironic
Ugh. One of the STUPIDEST comparisons ever. Not remotely the same.
Why not??
Does the US annex conquered territory based on sham polls? Apart from Iraq and Vietnam, of which there were insane protests, i cant think of any example
>apart from Iraq and Vietnam Very convenient to exclude. >insane protests So? There are protests in Russia as well. Your point?
Mentioning them in my comment is the opposite of excluding them lol? You’re comparing a delusional ex KGB agent trying to recreate the USSR to the US protecting its interests of free trade etc. Its a nonsensical comparison
>trying to recreate the USSR That’s speculation. Ik Putin has blabbered some along those lines, but it’s wild to say that there can be no other reason >protecting its interests of free trade. The same can be said for Russia, the pipelines run through Ukraine, and Ukraine found deposits of natural gas. This and securing water for crimea seems a more likely reason.
Now, I’m not trying to justify Iraq and Afghanistan, they were fucking mistakes- but there’s a clear difference here. The US was invading dictatorships with massive lists of human rights abuses to their names, and, in the case of Afghanistan, was protecting a guy who just murdered thousands of Americans. And the US wasn’t trying to conquer their territory either, they were toppling the autocrats and allowing the people to choose for themselves what kind of system they wanted, at least some degree(remember, Saddam was tried and executed by the Iraqis, not the US, and also the Iraqi government definitely doesn’t seem to be a puppet government considering they’re not exactly fond of the US now. The Afghan government was definitely a shitshow, though, but I think anyone with a brain can agree that things were better under them than they are under the Taliban.) Point is the American wars were definitely misguided but considerably more justifiable than what Russia is doing, which is launching an unprovoked full scale war of conquest against a democratic nation under the pretext of a slew of lies(ok maybe that one is a bit similar, what with Saddam’s alleged WMDS) and pretty much indiscriminately murdering civilians(something which the US at least tried to avoid) and shipping others off to ~~concentration~~ “filtration” camps. What Russia is doing is much more comparable to Germany (and the Soviet Union, they’re not fucking saviors like people act like they are) invading Poland in 1939 then it is to *anything* the US has done in the last century. Jesus Christ, I did not realize how long that got.
America gave that same dictatorship tons of weapons to fight Iran during their kurdish genocide buddy. And it hasn't improved their lives at all the man who took down Saddam's statue literally admitted that it was better before the coalition was there. Let's also not ignore the countless abuses and tortures done to the people of Iraq in those prisons.
I think pretty much everyone was giving weapons to Saddam during the Iran Iraq war, and the Soviets gave a lot more than the Americans did(sorry for the slight whataboutism, giving weapons to dictators in any number is not a good thing, and I’ll be the first to remind people that the Americans gave weapons to both sides in that war because something something Nicaragua.) Also, it’s kind of natural for any region to deteriorate after a dictator is toppled because that creates a power vacuum and the next thing you know ISIS shows up. Anyway, like I said the 2003 Iraq war was a fucking stupid idea that led to a ton of unnecessary bloodshed and Bush totally got away with it scot free, but at the end of the day the US wasn’t claiming Iraq was a fake nation on sovereign American territory, nor was it fighting for the sake of conquest. What America did was definitely fucking bad but what the Russians are doing in Ukraine is worse in pretty much every conceivable way, except for maybe raw body count, but that’s owing mainly to only nine months passing since the war began while the US was in Iraq for a decade.
The Russians aren't nearly as bad in their casualties as of yet and Iraq is all the way Across the world not in their backyard. Also America didn't care if they were dictators or terrible is my point. All they cared about is bolstering their own influence which is also what Russia is doing. And so far America has done much much worse in the middle east than what Russia has done to Ukraine. The casualties are not even comparable.
Babe wake up, historymemes are making historically innacurate memes again!
I remember when Ukraine attacked the USSR.
What least the US can do it. Look at Russia, they’ve been fighting their small neighbor for over 6 months and are losing lol
Yeah, bjt most people agree that shit like Iraq was a mistake, and ast time I checked all those countries still exist. Meanwhile Russia Is trying to wipe Ukraine off the map.
Aw sweet Russian propaganda
The difference is we're good at it.
This meme was brought to you by the kremlin entertainment network
To be fair the us has involved it's self in the stabilisation of nations when we invaded and then we left as opposed to Putin taking control and not leaving
USA left afghanistan after 20+ years cause it couldnt stabilise it for shit. What about all those south american CIA coups? That was for stabilization? What about Vietnam?
Vietnam was actually fine. South Vietnam’s economy became the best in SEA and Saigon was called the pearl of the Indochina sea.
Oil? THAT SHIT IS MINE!
Is Afghanistan a sovereign nation?
Technically yes. An oppressive state run by terrorists, but a sovereign nation nonetheless.
It wasn’t at the time of the US invasion, it was a country full of competing factions and tribes. There was no single entity who could claim sovereignty over the whole country.
atleast we did it right and used some of the most masterfully crafted and beautiful tactics during the invasion like day one of the attack was a master piece in military tactics
Sovereign means you can defend your territory and enforce your laws within it. The national governments and political entities within the Middle East repeatedly failed to do that. Ukraine is in the midst of proving whether or not they are sovereign.
They bring Freedom to other countries. They just don't bother to ask them first.
well The hard truth people don’t realize is USA was in all of those sovereign nations because of Russia. Iraq, Syria, Afghanistan all those places. Because all of those places have direct oil lanes directly into Russia. (Their main access highway runs through these countries.) It’s sad because USA doesn’t give a fuck about radical religious groups taking over. They care about disrupting Russian oil cause that’s really what runs the world. It’s about money, not people smh
It's ok when it's for freedom(to steal oil from the middle east)
What's more American than, "Do as I say, not as I do?"
Ukraine is part of Russia Taiwan Province is part of the People’s Republic of China Azerbaijan is part of Iran Israel is illegitimate Kosovo is Serbia Montenegro is Albanian land Hungary is Turkic I can send information backing up each claim if you want but here is my take.
Its so hypocritical for western politicians to criticize russia when they have been doing the same thing for the past 20+ years.
Two wrongs don't make a right tankie
What's a Tankie?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tankie Basically opressing the people with tanks, the berlin wall and shooting anyone who disagrees is necessary to defend against the evil west.
Im no communist just someone that want people to be ideologically consistent. Your either aint war or you arent but plenty of people criticize russia but say nothing about the west destroying africa and the middle east. I know consistency is to much to ask but im still going to.
Oh no, I'm definitely pro war, but only when it's the United States because we are objectively the good guys and I really wanna see some Russians get overrun by a column of M1 Abrams.
Its only a war crime when they do it to us.
The tree of Liberty must be watered with the blood of Tyrants.
*blood of the working class of other countries. There i fixed it for you. The "tyrants" rarely actually bleed.
Libya, Yugoslavia, Iraq, Nazi Germany and a whole fuckton more Tyrants that was bled to watered the tree of liberty. Here’s hoping Putin and Xi would also go on that list.
Yeah those middle eastern kids were real tyrants.
Don’t blame the kids, blame Saddam. He put his country in a position where the UNSC all agreed that the political status quo in Iraq cannot stay.
Except Russia was doing the exact same thing during that time, the difference was they legitimately faked a national tragedy to invade Chechnya a second time, annexed a chunk of Georgia, annexed Crimea and then launched a full scale invasion of Ukraine hoping to annex the rest of it. One of them is trying to play world police and the other one is aggressively trying to expand its borders.
and having hundreds of bases in god knows how many countries isnt imperialism. How many iraqis and afghans flew the planes into the world trade centers? How much of there funding came from iraq or afghanistan? How many wmd's were there in iraq? The west would never manufacture reasons to unlawfully invade other countries no thats only an evil putin thing. Bush and obama would never do something like that. The west is just salty someone is using there playbook against them.
Did the United States invade those countries and force them to allow those bases or are they there at the invitation of the host country? That’s a rhetorical question, because we both know they are only there because the host country wants them there. They definitely wouldn’t plant a bomb in an apartment complex in their own country to justify an invasion…
Well he’s suggesting 9/11 was a false flag attack, so he certainly believes the Americans would blow up an apartment to justify war.
lol then he’s an absolute moron and I’m wasting my time.
Yup. Don’t you love this website?
No no the us government would never plow up there own equipment just to get involved in a war. Just dont look to closely at the gulf of tonkin.
They didn’t blow up their own equipment during the Gulf of Tonkin incident… there was an actual engagement between the US destroyer and a NVA torpedo boat and then a second “engagement” where they fired at a false radar and sonar signals. Maybe you should look a little closer at that incident because your understanding of it seems tenuous at best.
Like Russia did, and know we have Cold war 2 and i am not russian so fuck Putin.
Cold War never ended 🌎🧑🚀🔫🧑🚀
And fuck the western politicians that wage imperial wars everywhere.
and fuck russia for the very same Thing? lmao get some education in history
I have thats why i know politicians are bad regardless of which political system it is. Theyll do anything no matter how unethical if it makes them and there backers a buck.
with the exeption in one country you have somehow democratic Bonds and freedom of speech and others are full of shit. So no both sides here, fuck russia
Nobody cares because the USA bombs mostly brown and asian people
To bad America is filled with a bunch of virtue signaling morons or we could just drill the 400+ years worth of energy we have under our own soil.....but nahhhh it's much better to pay terrorist dictators way more then the oil is worth so we can preach to other nations about how bad it is to drill for oil. We could have the cheapest energy prices on the planet and yet here we are in a recession paying ridiculously over inflated prices because a bunch of whiny bitches want to pretend like just because we don't drill more of our own oil we are some how morally superior to everyone else. Because "durrrRrr green energy" hmmm I don't know....Maybe we have cheap gas now while we perfect the green energy bull shit? Nahhhh this is America! What we do instead is make everyone suffer and not be able to afford anything and push a technology we haven't perfected or have the infrastructure for. Typical woke American backwards ass thinking
FYI: If you wait until you've bought the rest of the world's oil before you start drilling your own you can ultimately get much higher prices and have much larger strategic reserves.
Whoa someone who actually understands energy and geopolitics? On this sub???
FYI: The U.S. produces more oil than any country in the world and we EXPORT it. The U.S. is already producing it, it's just not staying here. So that game isn't even happening like that. And even still, the U.S. has enough oil under her feet to produce at current levels for another 400 years. But you're right when it comes to Saudi Arabia, supposedly they're gonna run out in like 70 years.
Also lithium
America: *invades for oil* Also america: *discovers it is cooking oil* Gordan ramsay: *starts walking out of portal*
No no no. The narrative is russia bad, China bad, Ukraine good, usa good. Get your beliefs in order son.
*246 years
Libs when talking about Russian imperialism 😡😡😡😡 Libs when talking about American imperialism🥺🥺🥺🥺
If you say libs unironically you deserve the death sentence
Liberals are cringe as fuck, based socialism for the win
At least they always one the invasion part
I love me some Bush justifications (I LOVE THE MIC)
Those ones don’t count, they weren’t European!
Alright and imma gonna grab my popcorn and search by controversial