Quinn Norton
Americans have an opportunity to learn something about ourselves in the Russian invasion of Ukraine. This is how we looked when we invaded Iraq 20 years ago. Just about exactly. We were not any better, and like Russia we destroyed our victim country for no reason but refusing to obey us.
...I guess that makes the UK our Belarus.
pettter
@quinn Being part of the largest global wave of demonstrations _in history_ and it doing absolutely squat for stopping the Iraq invasion was an important part of my political awakening, honestly.
Quinn Norton
Anyway, that should help you understand why so many countries, especially in Africa, are like "whatever" when it comes to the western nations demanding poorer countries denounce Russia and stop working with them.
pettter
@quinn Not being american, I don't know if I have that much of a good insight, but my impression is that the Iraq "victory" and subsequent war was of a very very different character than Vietnam. Not least because of the lack of support for any resistance against the US from major powers.
Quinn Norton
@pettter yeah. I wasn't surprised on either score, but boy did we fall in line fast after that. At least Vietnam had ongoing protest progress. I guess that's why they declared victory so fast.
Quinn Norton
@jorgecandeias @owenblacker I don't actually think they're worse. I think it's all so far beyond the pale we're just arguing if the serial killer who eats his victims is worse than the serial killer who feeds his victims to his dogs.
Jorge Candeias
@owenblacker @quinn Yeah, and that's one of the things that REALLY piss me off in this whole mess: by acting even worse than the US or the west overall, the Russians are managing to laundry out the vast assortment of western crimes in the eyes of many, many people, allowing some quite unsavoury people to pose as the good guys.
That in itself is a crime against humanity that should lead to the Hague.
Owen Blacker
@quinn @jorgecandeias Also, our leaders (still!) try to pretend that "we" are Different and Better and Good.
Quinn Norton
@jorgecandeias @owenblacker So the original contention is that what we did was as bad as what Russia is trying to do now and I think looking at Iraq and Afghanistan that's hard to argue with, and Vietnam is the exception because they beat our asses and we lost, not because anything we were trying to do helped anyone.
Jorge Candeias
@owenblacker @quinn True, but let's be frank: you weren't the only ones. That was pretty much established practice of both sides during the cold war.
(Not to mention the frequency of it backfiring)
Owen Blacker
@jorgecandeias @quinn you're right, but we did set up puppet states afterwards, which isn't **a lot** better
Jorge Candeias
@quinn I generically agree, but there's one word that changes a lot, and I mean a LOT: annexation.
That puts this in a whole other level, comparable only to the invasion of Chekoslovakia and later Poland by the Nazis. It's a direct attack against the whole edifice of international law built since WWII.
Nobody in the west did that.
Quinn Norton
This is nothing against Ukraine, they are legitimately the victim of something horrible right now and I hope they get aid and it all somehow ends quickly and they can start the process of putting themselves back together with international help. Just, Iraqis deserve that too. They deserve reparations, and they deserve meaningful political control their own natural resources. Which they don't have now.
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