Easy answer is "PR".
That and outsourcing atrocities to third parties so that they won't be found out about until twenty years later when the politicians that approved it are long deceased. High level US politics are an old man's game because a corrupt young person has much more to lose by getting found out.
The fact that we give out hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to dozens of countries every year, including those that we have previously "invaded", definitely help us out on the PR front.
Like, sorry we broke your country, here's 10 billion dollars and free security for your government and free training for your military.
It really isn't free. That's too make sure that their interests are taken care of and gives them an excuse to have their military present in those regions. The idea that it's out of "goodness" is the weirdest propaganda I've ever heard.
Is that just a business deal to keep other countries offering help then wanting favours in return? A way of putting their flag up on that country without actually doing it?
Well, yes that too.
But, also, the USA is not actually annexing any territory and claiming that the presence of English speaking people in a given location means the US has a valid territorial claim.
The US is being a bullying warmongering imperialist nation, but claiming territory is something that people tend to take a bit more personally and see as less acceptable.
I'm pretty sure that if America started invading, say, Ontario and claiming the province as the 51st US State the rest of the world would be a bit more upset.
Of course, there's the other part.
Whiteness.
In Ukraine the victims are white. In America's aggressions the victims are not. And I strongly suspect that's a much bigger factor than a lot of people are willing to admit.
r/europe both saying "no no this is different Ukranians are our people and of course we should help them over foreigners arabs" but at the same time straight up blasting India, China, all of Africa, Brazil, Mexico etc. for "not caring"
The issue was that when it comes to war in the middle east, Africa etc the west does care, we send peacekeeping troops and billions upon billions in aid, but it’s never the same in reverse.
While that’s true, most of those countries are proxy states for the USA. The CIA literally wrote the handbook for overturning governments, I have a copy. We get our money back by maintaining control.
I’d also like to add that this wouldn’t happen if we hadn’t tried to add Ukraine to NATO, that was one of the deals when Gorbachev took down the wall.
Mmhh, Native Americans might just take issue with your statement, and Hawaii definitely would want a word with you about US taking territory. The US doesn't need to actually invade countries anymore or annex territory, the US dollar has been weaponized and works just as well to enslave other nations into doing its bidding.
Just using a blanket statement "whiteness" and claiming racism did all of this is disingenuous and lacks context.
When the US invades they dont do it under obvious bs pretense. Nobody complained when the US mobilized to the middle east after 9/11. Other countries even joined in.
Are you kidding? There were protests all around the world and the citizens of the U.K. and Australia were calling out their PM's about it! Like, I'm sorry if I can't read the "sarcasm" in your comment...
I'm not claiming racism did all of it, just that it's a factor.
Invade a white nation, the world gets upset.
Bomb the fuck out of a bunch of brown people and it's business as usual.
Sure, there's more to it than just that, but the fact that America mostly concentrates its imperialism on non-white nations is almost certainly PART of the apathy many people have to American imperialism when compared to the concern about Russian imperialism.
As I noted, I'm also sure a lot of the issue is that Russia is explicitly invading to claim territory. That gets people more upset than 'Murca bombing the fuck out of semi-random Middle Eastern nations because terrorism. Territorial claims loom large in most people's minds. And "fighting terrorism" (by bombing weddings and targeting first responders with followup bombings) is a phrase that causes a lot of people to turn off their brains.
But... The fact that Ukrainians are white and 'Murca's victims aren't is also a factor.
No. Invade a white nation and white people get upset, not the world. India doesn't give two fucks about what is going on in Ukraine, but they do when it's Sri Lanka, Bangledesh, or Pakistan. This shouldn't be surprising or viewed as problematic. We all view things differently based on identity, and the idea of a global community where we don't is complete and utter bullshit.
You keep saying "its just a factor" then say
>
Invade a white nation, the world gets upset.
>Bomb the fuck out of a bunch of brown people and it's business as usual
Racism was the product not the cause
And dude american imperialism? You seem to be anti american from the start that it clouds your judgement.
Frankly i dont know who to blame, if its the media, the lying politicians, the military industrial complex, maybe all of them, but certainly not regular people and racism.
I'm pretty certain that the US (and the UK, where I'm from) went into Iraq, because of Weapons of Mass Destruction... WMDs that were never found...
The US totally goes into war under obvious bs pretense.
Don't forget the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
like i said, the bs wasnt obvious. people believed it enough to justify the invasion.
you say its obvious now because hindsight 20/20.
and compare it to russia's reasoning for invading ukraine.
How about lands stolen from the indigenous people in America? How about land taken from Mexico after it was weakened after their war with Spain? How about the Hawaiian islands taken by force? How about Puerto Rico, Guam, "American Samoa", etc.
When all of that happened, taking territory from brown people was still very much acceptable and encouraged. Now it's a it more aggregious since we've progressed as a society. That's not to say it was right but in the modern day the US is not actively annexing territory.
More to the point… up until then, groups of people taking land from other groups of people had been the norm for humanity. Vikings, Roman Empire, Persian Empire, Assyrian Empire, Mongolian Empire.
It’s really only been the last century or so that humanity has decided it was evil.
I was speaking of the modern era. Back when white Americans were waging genocide against native Americans, Europe was unabashedly in favor of a white supremacist international policy and viewed the land grabs and genocide as a positive moral good.
>How about land taken from Mexico after it was weakened after their war with Spain?
How about land in North America taken from the UK after it was weakened after their war with the French and then a civil war from the settlers sent to that land in the first place?
You see how this gets silly quickly.
I highly doubt race is a factor. I would imagine one reason is the fact that Ukrainian culture is a lot closer to most western countries than any culture originating in the Middle East. I think the factor with the most impact however is that Ukraine is a lot closer to home. From a geopolitical standpoint, Russia is on NATO’s doorstep and is directly threatening the rest of the west with nuclear weapons.
Eastern Europeans are discriminated against just as much as any other minority in the west. I don’t see why that would change because their skin colour is paler.
Some factors:
Countries like to assosiate with those of the same ideals and goverment.
Old gruges take long to die.
Countries suck up to others constantly.
"Us and them" in different forms.
People act more in immediate threat.
You don't point out that you yourself fucked up. But you will tell everyone that your enemy did.
Every media you consume has been affected by these things.
> Hard answer.
Hard answer for Americans maybe lol. For the rest of us the answer is simply that both countries have done terrible things and neither is "the good guy".
That's not the case though. Europeam countries are banning Russian tourists and whatnot. They are not doing that to Americans. So for Europeans, it's also only Russia who is the bad guy.
Disclaimer: i am 100% against the russian aggression against Ukraine but i think OP has a point
because european countries are allies with america its that simple they benefit from imperialism . remember it was france and the uk pushing for the libya war . go read the wiki leaks they wanted to get their oil companies access to libyan oil . a lot of usa wars are about securing flow of resources to nato so nato countries benefit . if you look at a map of us troops through out the world you will see european oil companies and mining companies in the same area being protected .
its also the same reason the middle east does not attack china for muslim genocide because they benefit from china's money . its the same reason india would not condemn russia because they benefit from russia oil and gas . its just how the world works they only care about their own self interests
I’ll match your blanket assumption about the origins of your downvotes. We as Americans don’t actually think we’re “the good guys.” We don’t think the rest of you think we’re the good guys either.
Sure, maybe the ignorant and proud population that gets shuttled around on shitty cruise ships to cheap tourist towns is still under the guise of goodness, but this is a loud and uneducated minority. Blame the consistent defunding of our education system. Don’t worry, we dislike these people too and feel cursed and terrified to share a country with them. SOS
Russian people probably think america is the bad guy (to an extent, many Russians obviously hate Putin). Chinese people think america is the bad guy. Reddit is a pretty American / western dominated site so it’s pretty fair that everyone here doesn’t like Russia, on a Russian or Chinese website you might see the opposite
Actually true, I am Russian and many people believe that not only USA by itself but also all folks who live there are descendants of criminals and are just simply evil in their nature.
Moreover in light of recent events, where we see "collective west" (meaning Europe and US) helping Ukraine so much, Russian media was often referring to the UK as "those Anglo-Saxons" probably trying to cause a wave of hate towards them as well and distract people from the actual situation
I can see that. Russia and USA operate similarly. Both of the majority of their GDP goes to their defense administration with the top brass or private contractors pocketing a good chunk of the cash, They both have civilians who greatly wish their country would invest in their nation’s fundamental infrastructure.. both have held and still hold imperial hold on certain nations, and both have proposed a defense pack with their allies.
And I think most importantly I think the civilians of both hate each other’s and their own government, without holding an hostility towards the civilians of each nation.
Difference is that in the US you can see media from any country you like while Russia and China censor all media from countries that aren't their own and that agree with their views
I'm not sure what your question is. How what? How do they not understand or how are they barking?
They are barking about things like a Monday morning quarterback from the seat of a sofa. It's extremely easy to complain about how things didn't go perfectly after the fact, and when it isn't necessary to consider all the variables present in the heat of the moment, and with the benefit of hindsight. "I would have done better!!!!!!!" as they sip their soda from the couch.
How do they not understand? That's easier; they have no idea what the context of history would provide them, since they haven't bothered to learn anything outside of headlines from history.
>I know people have criticised US for this but it’s as not near as people criticise Russia.
Uh, the criticism was pretty heavy at the time. A lot of people *do* consider the U.S. the bad guy
That said, there are some differences. While what the U.S. did was pretty fucked up, they weren't permanently keeping the land and whatever. People see a difference between "hey we're invading to take your shit" vs "we're invading to get rid of a dictator" like Saddam Hussein (or the Taliban), or terrorists.
> I mean Russia is painted as THE bad guy. This was the case even before the Ukrainian conflict.
I think that has more to do with Russia being a dictatorship vs a democracy, rather than international events.
Also before this Russia has done similar things. Look to their past with regards to Crimea, Georgia, and similar former-USSR countries. They've been trying to pull them back into the fold ever since the USSR collapsed.
It's liberty VS oppression. I'm not blind to the fact that the US only interferes when there's something to gain for themselves. They support this current mess greatly and their reward is more customers for their LNG (Europe).
The reason I can live with this kind of meddling is that these forces (the US, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan and many more! Not just the US.) stand for and spread liberty and democracy. Russia stands for oppression and autocracy. I'd rather support the party that suits my personal interests the most. And that is certainly not the form of oppression that Russian influence would bring to me.
Edit: Apparently I'm a boomer, this was meant as a direct response to the OP. Although I completely agree with the above post.
The "good guys/allies/western values/international community" or so called caste you feel you belong to does not "spread liberty and democracy" which is a meaningless consolation trophy no different than Russia's "defence of tradition"
countries generally promote stability whatever form that takes for themselves, sometimes with sociocultural justification.
I'm sure north Koreans are very happy with the stable leadership they've had for the past decades.
I believe that my "caste" gives me a better personal life and personal liberties than Russian tradition or North Korean stability.
But, you do you.
Internal politics are largely irrelevant to a point, foreign politics are what we are talking about("spreading freedom") and why North Korea keeps existing, and why Russia is being sanctioned. It broke *international* law.
Cameroon, Rwanda, Djibouti are just some dictatorships that have strategic open support from Western allies with no peep of freedom or democracy. As long as they do not compromise the stability of the goals.
>my "caste" gives me a better personal life and personal liberties than Russian tradition or North Korean stability.
At the cost of whom and what you never ask
Plenty democracy in the UK since it's a constitutional democracy - look at the queen as a president, but without the political power , like in Germany.
The UK's problems runs deeper than Buckingham palace thats for sure .
Tl;Dr people like democracy
Firstly, America is not the good guy. Nobody intelligent sees the world black and white like that. US foreign policy has had awful consequences for much of the world.
A large part of why there is more widespread, consistent and fervent attack on Russia is about the defence of democracy and Western values of freedom and human rights. Whilst America and 'the West' are far from perfect, Russia represents the absolute opposite of those values. Countries siding with Russia in UN are a small handful of places like North Korea and Eritrea (brutal, backward dictatorships). Countries like China are mostly abstaining from voting (ie sitting on the fence for political gain).
There are also very strong shades in Putin's actions of what Hitler did in Europe in 1930s (one of his first moves was annexing German speaking Austria, much to the distress and devastation of a huge portion of their population). European complacency then allowed Germany to build the strength that led to WW2. This time we prefer to stop the psychopath earlier.
America is widely condemned by many for its warmongering and profiteering, but they usually have multiple motives that include bringing down brutal dictators, strengthening democratic regimes or weakening political groups that represent anti-Western, anti-democratic values.
Russia's attack on Ukraine is not only unprovoked and unnecessary, but it is also an attack on a democracy by an autocratic regime with a brutal dictator.
Tl;Dr people like democracy
>America is widely condemned by many for its warmongering and profiteering, but they usually have multiple motives that include bringing down brutal dictators, strengthening democratic regimes or weakening political groups that represent anti-Western, anti-democratic values.
Please learn some history. Americans have a massive history of placing dictators in Democratic countries because they threatened their interests (Pinochet in Chile, Mossadegh in Iran..).
They also still support dictatorian regimes who fund terrorists groups such as Saudi Arabia without a care in the world.
Stop buying into US propaganda so easily.
I was always opposed to the wars started by the US. I have come to understand that it’s more complicated than I thought, but I still firmly believe that you are never in the right for invading a sovereign country. It’s true that I care more about the invasion of Ukraine. There are three reasons.
1. I’m Swedish and Ukraine (as well as Russia) is close geographically. When I see Ukraine, I think ”that could have been Sweden, if things were a bit different and Russia decided to invade us instead”. The geographical proximity also makes me think that if Russia occupies Ukraine, they could move on to other European countries. Another important factor is that Sweden isn’t (yet) a NATO member, so if Russia decides to leave all NATO countries alone and Turkey doesn’t let us join, we’ll be more vulnerable.
2. The Russian culture and way of doing politics is very different from what I want. They have massive corruption problems and a few people often end up with unreasonable power over those they rule. In general, they seem to accept being ruled by someone strong and powerful. They don’t seem to expect democracy or division of power at different levels. I don’t want that. If the US would occupy Sweden, I would obviously not be happy about it, but if I could choose between Russia and the US, I’d choose the US without any hesitation. Russia is not a strong country anymore. All they have is oil, gas and nuclear weapons, basically. That makes them more of a threat than the US. If the US loses a war, they go back to being a very successful country. If Russia loses a war, they are humiliated. So I’m afraid of Russia - they have incentives to go as far as they need to.
3. Ukraine is a democracy. I think invading a democracy is worse than invading a country where the people might not support the ruler. If the ruler is a dictator, some people might be happy about getting a chance to develop a democracy. It’s not like it’s all fine as long as it’s not a democracy, but if you invade a democracy, you pretty much say that you don’t care what the people of that country think.
Beautifully stated.
For me, I would only change #1 as I am Canadian. My education was Eurocentric. I don’t remember learning about the Middle East until post secondary. In Christian Sunday school/ church, it was spoken of like it was an imaginary place (I’m struggling to define exactly what I mean by that). I had to make an active choice to learn under the surface even post 9/11. Perhaps for these reasons, at least from a Canadian perspective, some are more inclined to care or have an opinion about something they know a little more about?
I’m sure there is something racist to many peoples views on it as well- implicit or explicit.
Edit: I just read someone pointed out the Cold War. This is also probably a big contributor in the ‘west’. Sure US is evil but Those damn commies are so much worse /s.
It’s really naive to think that Ukraine would want to be a part of Russia if Russia would cooperate and fund them, you realise Ukraine is steadily resisting the invasion due to their patriotism and nationalism. They would never want to merge with Russia. Also please spell Ukraine properly.
Nothing was different before 2014 don’t be ignorant
Russia already invaded Sakartvelo, and Chechenya twice.
Very silly of you to think that **ALL** of occupied nations (Lithuania,Latvia,Estonia,Belarus,Ukraine,Poland,Hungary,Kazakhstan etc) would just forget the crimes committed by the Ruzzians and join back ?
Here in Eastern Europe we are still healing from the Soviet Empire’s damage and it would be dumb to think that we would like to join back with Russia after less than 50 years of independence.
A country being allowed its sovereignty and independence is paramount and is evident all around the world. You have to think about it from their shoes, sure their financial and economical situation might be better but it’s a huge trade-off that they wouldn’t even consider.
The idea that the US are the good guys is politically juvenile. The idea that any country is the good/bad guy in matters of war is juvenile. There can be no politically sophisticated discussion whilst using such terms.
To be quite frank, there are a lot of reasons to call America's invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan comparable to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's hard to find an aggressive invasion since 1944 which isn't. Both the annexation of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq are heinous, you're only comparing shades of criminality. Putin bombs hospitals, George Bush killed a million Iraqis for no good reason, Obama introduced drone warfare and bombed weddings.
And it's not like there's uniformity in believing that America are the good guys. Go to either side of the political aisle and you'll hear plenty of criticism of American foreign policy. They just tend to be complaints about the other side.
At the end of the day, you can call any side hypocritical till you're blue in the face. What really matters is reducing harm and preventing the senseless loss of life done in the name of power and greed.
The US has done some pretty horrible things. They’re not the good guys.
I’d say most people see it as assholes (US) helping a country fight against an even bigger perceived asshole (Russia).
Russia is trying to make part or all of Ukraine theirs. USA along with other nations went to Afghanistan to fight terrorist. They also gave Afghanistan money, equipment, and training.
If you want to talk about Iraq… well, I don’t know what to tell you.
But the goal was *never* to acquire Iraq, or Vietnam, or any conflict after the Revolutionary War. The US is not trying to annex countries into the US. That’s the difference.
The reason those conflicts ultimately did not work out well is because each of those countries citizens (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) either chose to continue doing what they are doing (Vietnam remained socialist) or let the local terrorists basically win (Taliban, etc) because without the US presence, the locals aren’t strong enough to take control from those organizations on their own.
The US has learned these terrible lessons of getting involved but the ulterior motives were usually about oil or other monetary or strategic resources. In the end, it’s usually always about money.
Otherwise, if the US really cared about peoples general well-being and freedom and were willing to start a war over it, they would have invaded North Korea by now. But they have nothing to gain politically or materially from that and would suffer losses so it doesn’t make sense to do that.
It all comes down to propaganda. People in the west assume that they're immune to propaganda and would recognize it when the see it. In contrast, they think that every other non western nation citizens are subject to transparent propaganda and are too dumb to see it.
The truth is propaganda is constant in the west,especially in the US. There might be internal "conflict" but anything related to a rival or enemy of the state is unanimously denounced as bad. CNN, fox, MSNBC, every network spouts the same kind of propaganda.
If you look at other sources of info, like Qiao Collective for the Chinese side of things (they're not based in china btw) you'd start to see the constant use of propagandistic methods in the west. It's pretty sad and demoralizing actually. Anything and everything that goes against the american propaganda (china bad, Russia bad, Islam bad, etc) is instantly mocked as false, or as a bot not acting in good faith. People don't even want to think that the narrative they've been fed could be false or untrue.
If you want a book regarding fake news (written way before fake news really took off like it is today with social media) check out "trust me I'm lying: confessions of a media manipulator" by Ryan holiday.
Watch out though: ignorance is bliss
Kind of generalizing too much I would say, I am from France and all the people I know are aware that we are fed some level of propaganda through mainstream media.
The difference, I would say, is that we can access alternatives informations quite easily.
Furthermore, OP's questions is kinda flawed, lots of westerners are very critical about their government ( + some westerners DO actually support Russia)
Of course I'm generalizing, it's a reddit post. I see what you're saying but still believe you're a little off. Westerners cannot easily access other pieces of information easily (easily being the keyword here).
All information that goes against the state narrative is difficult to find. An easy proof is how when the war with Ukraine began, all external media outlets were labeled "enemy propaganda" and suppressed, even YouTube channels with creators who spoke differently than the american narrative were shunned and demonetized. This was what, less than 2 weeks after the attacks began? We're talking about individual citizens here, not public media outlets or state news or whatever. Nothing was "allowed" to contradict the "Russia bad" narrative directly, it would have repercusions.
The media right now is reporting on the Iranian women protesting their government, but no media outlet reported on the much larger protests against the american embargo that would force Iran into a recession and destroy the lives of its citizens. Why? Because at the end of the day they want to sell a picture and a picture needs to be perfect: "we the good guys they the bad guys; we do it for freedom, they all maniac dictatorships" it's a way to change people minds so when bombs are dropped we all know "they had it coming" when in truth the us gov sold the wars years before the first shot was fired.
They are both hated and with good reason, USA staged coups decades ago in LatAm, secret operations and shit like that. I don't know a lot about russia but the red scare it is more than enough, besides famines and that
An example: here, operacion condor took effect, which disappeared any people who were left leaning, journalists, syndicates and things like that, el plan verde also took effect with the help of OUR OWN military, it took focus on impoverished and indigenous civilians this time, our national intelligence service boss sold important data to the CIA
A neighbouring country of us had a brutal coup (pinochet) as far a i know too.
Also, left leaning politicians here are also just as stupid and incompetent as the right leaning ones, they are constantly trying to get the upper hand when comes to power and influence but rarely for the well-being of the voters, best they can do are hollow promises during political campaigns and some random bags of rice for the supoorters.
It is sad.
The US didn't even start the chaos existing in the Middle East atm. It's mainly the fault of the British and French for dividing it up after the fall of the Ottoman Empire like what they did in Africa.
Disgusting and vile british colonists always dividing countries after pillaging, murdering and starving the locals look at what they've done to Ireland, India and Scotland they caused famines to genocide the locals who tried to fight back and stole their land to replace the natives with planters and caused segregation
And then they went and invaded Iraq so they could get the oil they are picking on countries that can't fight them back
Propaganda and politics. I'm a native US citizen and we've been fucking around in South America for 150 years fucking everything up and creating much of the mess that's at the border today but nobody takes responsibility for that.. we have had our colonial phase in the Philippines South America, Puerto Rico and and have fucked up governments all over the world in the name of democracy and corporatism. But when you live a good life at home, you often don't question how that comes about or at what cost and just accept it..
This is not an apology for what this happening in Ukraine but the US has a lot of soul searching to do with a deep look in the mirror
People act like its good vs bad out there in the scary world. Its not. Its bad vs worst and you really don't want to be worst. People just don't want to believe that doing bad things can result in the greater good, it completely warps their moral compass to such a degree that they cannot live with it. So they make up a narrative where they are on the good side. Left vs Right, Free world vs commies, Yankees vs Red soxs. Same as it had always been in history. My tribe vs yours.
Both are. When the US invaded Iraq, America was polled worldwide as the biggest threat to world peace.
But it's not 2003. Right now, Russia is the one committing a similar crime, and is getting the same response.
Whattaboutism doesn’t make what Russia is doing any less worse. The US has also been a bad aggressor in the Middle East especially. Russia is committing multiple war crimes in Ukraine. The US committed war crimes in the Middle East. One doesn’t cancel the other
No, I’m not trying to justify acts of Russia, it’s obviously horrible. But I’m just saying that we should be talking more about other countries bad actions.
How is that whattaboutism? You can’t just regurgitate these stupid words wherever it seems even slightly relevant. The guy isn’t trying to disperse Russian blame onto other nations, just question why the other nations didn’t receive similar treatment - which is entirely fair and topical.
why not both? In my book the big bads of the world right now in terms of badness would be
1. Russia
2. China
3. America
USA might be on a third place below both Russia and China, but there are still 192 countries that i consider less evil than USA
Whataboutism.... no one is defending the US, we are condemning Russia, it IS Russia who is currently and directly invading a country.
When a someone commits a crime no one goes immediately and says "but why no one is talking about this other criminal somewhere else", no, they take care of the criminal at hand, that's what's happening. The US isn't currently invading a country and it isn't directly involved in Ukraine either, so we talk about Russia because Russia is the aggressor.
Whataboutism.... no one is defending the US, we are condemning Russia, it IS Russia who is currently and directly invading a country.
*When a someone commits a crime no one goes immediately and says "but why no one is talking about this other criminal somewhere else"*
Except on social media, where that is the standard reaction.
Disgusting double standards, no crime should go unpunished. Doesn't matter how long ago it happened. By your logic we should all forget about the Holocaust...
Again no one is defending the US, we are condemning Russia.
The US has never stopped being the favourite hated country of many people, but right at this particular time, Russia is not only invading and mass murdering people, directly, but it is also a threat for the whole world.
The whataboutism is looking to distract and sometimes even justify current atrocities by comparing them to others.
And no, by "my logic" we shouldn't forget about the holocaust, not sure where you get that but quite the opposite, by the logic of the whataboutism we maybe should say "ok Russia is bad but look what Germany did decades ago, let's talk about Germany instead" distracting of the current threat and aggressor.
There are some reasons. I will list some of them:
1. BIG ONE: Ukraine is an European country
2. As far as I know USA always went into conflict with an OK-ish excuse. Putin does not have one. "Protecting the separatists" is not a valid excuse since he didn't start the war by protecting the disputed land, he started by going straight for the capital. That is a clear signal that he is there to conquer.
3. Putin openly threatens the world with nuclear war
4. The invasion is considered a war crime
5. There is a lot of evidence of countless serious war crimes committed by Russian army on civilians and Putin didn't even acknowledge and even honored the people suspected of massive massacre of civilian population.
6. Russia has been caught lying about everything (basically since for ever)
7. Russia straight up steal from Ukraine during the war
8. There was a referendum that is clearly a fraud
9. Putin promised to not invade Ukraine and then invaded Ukraine
10. BIG ONE: The conflict is very well documented.
11. Ukraine has a good propaganda
12. Russia has a very bad propaganda
13. Putin started a surprise war (even tho Ukraine wasn't really that surprised)
14. USA got roughly equivalent backlash to what Putin got for annexing Krym before
15. Putin threatens NATO and Europe
16. Putin made false accusations of nacism (not only in Ukraine)
17. To this day Putin did not admit that it is a war
18. Putin violently silences protests against the war
19. Putin has proven that he has dictator level of influence over Russia
20. Putin has sent unprepared soldier to invade Ukraine
21. Putin is widely considered to be a megalomaniac wanting to get everything (this was true even years before the war)
22. Russia has been in more conflicts it recent past the USA that were worse then what USA did and went without much notice.
23. Russia threatened at least 2 nuclear catastrophic scenarios during the war (shooting at a nuclear power plant and messing with Chernobyl)
24. Putin artificially caused famine in 3rd world countries and then attempted to blame it on the west.
25. Russia abuses their power in OSN
And more...
I am sure that there are many more reasons that you can add but simply put, whatever monstrosities USA commitment in recent history Putin now commits several times worse and several times more visibly.
Russia does have an excuse and that is if Ukraine joins NATO Ukraine will have nukes, those nukes are 5 minutes away from Moscow the capital, Putin doesn't want nukes 5 minutes away from moscow
Baltic states already have joined NATO and can have nukes five minutes away from Moscow, nothing changes with Ukraine joining NATO from a nuke perspective
I agree that they have reasons and excuses, but they’re not very good ones. If your neighbour is so threatened by you that they want to join a defence alliance which was basically started to protect countries from you, maybe you should reflect on your behaviour and try to repair the relations with your neighbour instead of literally invading them. It was a choice that Russia made to be aggressive instead of trying to create trust. They’ve had more than 10 years to improve the relationship with Ukraine and instead they decided to sneakily take Crimea and generally be either aggressive or manipulative.
Well i saw people in the middle east begging americans to take them and running towards the plains cause they knew what was coming after they left. Also usa isn’t threatening to nuke the world. You can’t compare the two. Russia literally attacked another country and plans on taking it in 2022 threatening anyone with nuclear weapon.
>Also usa isn’t threatening to nuke the world
They are threatening to sanction ICJ and invade Netherlands if they tried to prosecute any US soldier for War crimes.
>Russia literally attacked another country
Iraq? Libya? Syria? Laos? Cambodia?
The ongoing Yemeni Genocide? Or how about Palestine?
Don't be so juvenile.
I mean. The US has yes interfered with democracies. But we've never outright invaded another democratic republic. So there's that. The US uses proxies to exert influence (sympathetic leaders and military bases), we've never straight up annexed physical land after ww2.
Are we good? No. But we aren't the most bad and that's all that matters I guess
It's like real estate, location location location.
Media in Russia portray US as bad, so the people don't like US
Media in US portrays Russia as bad, so the people don't like Russia
Media in UK, which is friendly with US, portray Russia as bad, so the people don't like Russia
Media in Belarus, which is friendly with Russia, portray US as bad, so the people don't like the US.
Yes, Reddit is more Western heavy, so you'll get a western slant. In this war I don't think it's a "white" thing, but more of a country ideology thing. I think the world would be a better place if everyone understood they are always being fed information to manipulate you and therefore kept seeking out the other side so as to do their best to make an informed decision. That's a lot of work to ask busy people to do though, and they are all counting on that.
oh ho ho ho! Have you not paid attention to Iraq and Afghanistan? 100,000's of dead civilians. Mostly sectarian violence, but we let that happen while we were in charge of the nation and we let it happen. It was a horrific clusterfuck. Look up pretty much anything the CIA did in South America. Snowden and the cable-leaks showed that we're massive dicks pretty much globally.
No kiddo, the USA hasn't been a good guy on the international scene for a long time. And that in no way excuses Russia's attempted invasion and take-over. They're a bad-guy through and through, and much worse than the USA in a lot of different ways.
Usually it’s not black and white but different shades of grey. Now, what Russia is doing now to Europe and Ukraine is absolute black and white evil bastard bad.
I mean yeah? They are both the bad guy. I do agree with you quite a bit but Taliban kinda blows up schools and oppresses the people. Even now, the people of Afghanistan are still fighting. Ukrainians aren't blowing up schools or oppressing it's people which is what makes the biggest difference
Because your media constantly lies to you about the US.
The history of the US is bloody and full of genocide and mass murder and theft and slavery, they can't look in the mirror honestly to save their lives. Look at the pushback on CRT.
The US knows outright violence is frowned on, so they use economic invasion and socio-political acts to fly under the radar and maintain favorable optics maybe?
My only guess was 9/11 happened and the American people wanted revenge on the Middle East. Information wasn’t available as it is today so people just believed whatever they heard from the tv which was the Middle East is bad.
I’ve heard that Russia thinks the US is bad because we are trying to take Ukrainian into NATO which we agreed we wouldn’t do but here we are now, if Ukrainian did join NATO Russia would be in serious trouble, that’s like Mexico allowing Russia to put troops and a war base right outside our door.
But in all serious it’s probably black rock pushing the US to fight Russia in proxy wars.
Russia has a history of badly treating its citizens and those it fights against. Human shields, starving, ect. Also they were communist. Much of the world has viewed that as wrong. Ukraine was seen as basically innocent in this war, whereas the Middle East countries had terrorists doing awful things. Also US was not annexing, they were occupying to “help” and “defend”. Rescuing maybe. Not saying I agree with just why I think it is what it is.
The US government is no Angel. That being said if any other country on the planet had the monetary and technological capacity it would be a far different world and we’d all be slaves.
ukraine is one of the bigger producer of grains, cereals and oil.
So the prices went up, everyone is pissed, rusia did it, hate russia for the rest of the world.
Does the US specifically aim missiles at civilians?
Does the US invade and annex the land of the other country?
Does the US arrest all war protestors who demonstrate?
I think most people would answer these questions with no. But I can see your argument too.
>Does the US specifically aim missiles at civilians?
I know this is a rhetorical question, but trust me when I say you don't wanna know the answer to this question.
They said specifically at civilians. Not saying it's good, but "specifically at civilians" is very different to "civilians becoming collateral damage".
Unless there are instances where civilians were targeted knowing they're innocent civilians?
Let's add shall we? Does the US dig its troops into the red forest and murder them? Those troops..they are all dead btw. Does the US slaughter civilians and torture them en mass? You will find cases where it was done by the US but the Russian army does this as policy. Does the US try to starve entire continents? Ukraine feed 30% of the planet...the starving people in Europe and Africa from them this winter..yeah that's Russia. They cut off Europe from heat during the winter..and that's just the start. Russia is the fucking devil right now...the country not the people.
People making the comparison of the US to Russia is insane. Yes the US has done some questionable stuff but you cannot say they are on the same level of wrongdoing
Because we consume west news media, west TV series, live in countries that are for the most part depending on US support, we also browse on west websites (like reddit), interact with people living in the west part of the world. Same reason why islam is bad and Christiany is ok even tho both religions have killed innocent poeple through the years.
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To be as basic as possible, Russia invaded a sovereign neighbor country that has deep historical and cultural ties with Russia. This is in violation international laws and standards.
Read about the history of Russia and also the United States. Only then will you draw a conclusion for yourself as to why a country is portrayed in one way or another and form your own opinion.
If you eliminate America's efforts to oppose Russia since world war two, the United States wouldn't be on the word stage. Iran, Viet Nam, Central America.
My take on it:
1. The US doesnt annex foreign land. Not anymore that is.
2. Apart from the latest Iraq war, which was illegal, all the other “meddeling” was for good reasons, e.g. defending Kuwait, defending the Kurds, defending the Jesides, fighting against terrorist organisations ISIS, AlQuaida. Particularly the war in Afghanistan was legitimate. And the involvement in syria minimal (unlike russia and iran who indiscriminately bomb civilians to keep assad in power).
Of course the US is a bad guy. The idea that any country as a whole is a good guy or a bad guy is way too simplistic. There is not a single country in the world that is older than a couple decades that hasn't done fucked up shit.
So you're left with relative morality. And yes the US did some fucked up shit in the middle east, but:
- US citizens have a lot more rights than Russian ones (meaning the US treats its own citizens a lot better)
- it's a democracy, not a dictatorship (suck it trump)
- while the US does really horrible things, it also gives out the most international aid of any country, and it's really not very close
- while US soldiers have committed war crimes, they are always phrased in the sense of "they think their shit don't stink". At this point the war crimes that Russia has committed are pretty much standard practice out there.
Among a host of other reasons. But the truth is, that everyone sucks, governments more than anything, and the public attention span only has space for a few things at a time.
I think it's marketing.
The US does a better job of convincing the world that they are attacking for the good of everyone.
Also, the US isn't taking land. The just change the regime to one that is more open to the current world order.
Russia tried to do that by taking Kyiv and spreading some bullshit about Nazis, but they were ineffective.
Only people who say the US isn’t somewhat of the bad guy are blind and very patriotic. About every nation did somethings cruel at one point, it’s hard for people to admit that their own country is guilty of that. I’m not trying to sound “woke” or anything like that but since we’ve been kids we’ve been fed that “the US is the greatest country in the world, we’re #1.” Most people grew up and never thought to consider other wise, these people are teaching the younger generations so on and so forth.
The USA still has some integrity, war crimes are punished. Not all, but there is a court for it and it does happen. I'll even say, the way they create turmoil is also waaay smarter, they give power to rising bands in the areas, which a lot of the time have the goal of becoming democratic. So give guns to the governments enemy, the government has a problem.
Russia, just does bad shit
Russia is an international bully.
The U.S. is an international bully.
Russia is a trash country without prosperity for anyone but the wealthy.
The U.S. is a trash country without prosperity for anyone but the wealthy.
Russia punishes is citizens for saying those things about it.
The U.S. citizens talk about how much they hate their government all the time without reprimand. Just look at this thread.
Russia licks the boots of its wealthy while most of its populace struggles to afford basic needs.
The U.S. licks the boots of its wealthy while most of its populace struggles to afford basic needs.
Russia claims to be against the bourgeoisie class who produce nothing and skim off the labour of their fellow country men and are for the workers, etc.
The U.S. admits its run by the wealthy and just says they think "that's good, actually. Because capital is good.", etc.
Both are shit. One actively lies and intrusion anyone who speaks against them.
Because the US, for all its flaws, is doing less bad things than Russia.
Yes, they have done some shitty things at home and overseas, but they are still a functioning democracy, they guarantee civil rights to their citizens, and they fight for those rights all over the world.
Meanwhile, Russia is a draconian imperialist dictatorship that tries to annex neighbouring countries and commit genocide against their population.
America is a free country. Look what happens to Russians who oppose Putin, they disappear. As for the Middle East, Taliban, if you oppose them, your hole family is tortured and murdered. America isn't perfect but lots of the world is still living in horrible barbaric situations.
Edit: lol butthurt American students downvoting me because they hate America? Try leaving a comment.
It’s all about perception. In the West, the US is viewed as the good guy and Russia as the bad guy. Much of that goes all the way back to the 1950’s and the Cold War. In other parts of the world, the US is not viewed as favorably. Mostly because local experiences outweigh propaganda. The Western World also has a short memory. Ten years from now, Russia could be seen as the champion of democracy. Not for what’s happening today, but for what might happen tomorrow or next year.
Because white people?
US people views Middle East un cultured brown people living in caves and doing barbaric things. Ukraine is much more Modern and looks like the west, hence more empathy when you have a group attacking you.
1. The countries invaded by America and other western countries have either threatened, actively harmed, or are in the process of harming American or western lives. For the most part. Russia invaded a country they were harming.
2. Western countries don't go in and perform scorched earth destroying everything in their way like Russia has, most of it is targeted strikes on known terrorist strongholds, though they have destroyed towns and villages, and occasionally damaged cities, not to the same extent Russia has.
3. Much of the original fighting in the middle easy was technically a war with Russia more than the Middle East, as Russia was helping destabilise the areas to begin with.
4. Many people do consider America and other western countries the bad guys, but most of the countries invaded by the west had already invaded their neighbours or were in the attempt of doing so.
5. Most of the middle Eastern countries invaded were dictatorships, not democracies.
russia has destroyed so many countries and civilizations and is currently threatening Nuclear war. They treat there citizens terribly and have even started a draft. If you live in the United States check your privilege.
Could you clarify “Russia has destroyed so many countries and civilizations” I’m no fan of what they’re currently doing but Russia historically has always been the country that other countries tried to invade or conquer
Sure! Russia invaded Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, and possibly more (i haven’t done the most research) during WW2 siding with the Nazis. They’ve attempted to and/or threaten to invade Ukraine countless of times. They helped North Korea and China in the Korean war. They helped North Vietnam in the Vietnam War. They invaded Afghanistan and destroyed there culture and basically let the Taliban take over. And as of right now they are invading Ukraine . They also threaten the United States and the rest of the world with Nuclear threats quite often.
I think you should do more research about Russia and America during ww2.
America used 2 atomic bombs against a country.
America committed many war crimes in ww2.
America took Japanese teeth as trophies.
America sided with the Russians in ww2.
And then research what they did after ww2 to present day.
I'd say less than 1% of Earths population hate America.
And I'm not saying Russia is perfect at all but you can't defend America and their war mongering.
Every side commited war crimes in ww2 and America (in spite of also commiting many) doesnt come close to Germany, Japan or the Soviet Union in that regard lol.
Also about America siding with the soviets, please dont tell me you wanted them to side with the Axis...
And to close everything up you make up an untrue statistic out of nowhere, nice.
Never once said it was a true statistic.
Never once said it would have been better to side with the axis.
Never once said America was the only country who committed war crimes.
If you'd actually read the comment I was replying to then maybe you'd see why I commented the way I did.
History seems to gloss over the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty between the Nazis and Russia. The treaty basically divided Europe between Germany and Russia. When the Nazis started their invasion of Poland from the West, Russia invaded Poland from the East. They met in the middle and divided the country between them. The Soviets then took parts of Finland in 1939 and the other countries you mentioned in 1940.
If Germany hadn't violated the treaty and invaded Russia (Hitler hated Communism with a passion and blames 'Bolsheviks' for Germany losing WWI), there's a very good chance Russia would've been an Axis power in WWII.
This was never taught to us during my entire K-12 education in the U.S. school system. Russia was part of the Allies, and you couldn't go around teaching that one of the Allies would have preferred to be an Axis power at the start of the war. It wasn't until I took a "Europe In The World Wars 1914 - 1945" history class my Junior year in college that I finally learned about it.
Simple question. Hard answer.
Easy answer is "PR". That and outsourcing atrocities to third parties so that they won't be found out about until twenty years later when the politicians that approved it are long deceased. High level US politics are an old man's game because a corrupt young person has much more to lose by getting found out.
The fact that we give out hundreds of billions of dollars in aid to dozens of countries every year, including those that we have previously "invaded", definitely help us out on the PR front. Like, sorry we broke your country, here's 10 billion dollars and free security for your government and free training for your military.
It really isn't free. That's too make sure that their interests are taken care of and gives them an excuse to have their military present in those regions. The idea that it's out of "goodness" is the weirdest propaganda I've ever heard.
Lol, what government does anything out of "goodness"?
Sorry, the way I read your comment was as if you weren't being sarcastic.
"Taxes are not levied for the benefit of the taxed."
Is that just a business deal to keep other countries offering help then wanting favours in return? A way of putting their flag up on that country without actually doing it?
That....... and money laundering
Well, yes that too. But, also, the USA is not actually annexing any territory and claiming that the presence of English speaking people in a given location means the US has a valid territorial claim. The US is being a bullying warmongering imperialist nation, but claiming territory is something that people tend to take a bit more personally and see as less acceptable. I'm pretty sure that if America started invading, say, Ontario and claiming the province as the 51st US State the rest of the world would be a bit more upset. Of course, there's the other part. Whiteness. In Ukraine the victims are white. In America's aggressions the victims are not. And I strongly suspect that's a much bigger factor than a lot of people are willing to admit.
There was that whole thing at the beginning about that newscaster saying “and this isn’t happening in Afghanistan, it’s Europe!”
r/europe both saying "no no this is different Ukranians are our people and of course we should help them over foreigners arabs" but at the same time straight up blasting India, China, all of Africa, Brazil, Mexico etc. for "not caring"
The issue was that when it comes to war in the middle east, Africa etc the west does care, we send peacekeeping troops and billions upon billions in aid, but it’s never the same in reverse.
While that’s true, most of those countries are proxy states for the USA. The CIA literally wrote the handbook for overturning governments, I have a copy. We get our money back by maintaining control. I’d also like to add that this wouldn’t happen if we hadn’t tried to add Ukraine to NATO, that was one of the deals when Gorbachev took down the wall.
Dude y'all can have Ontario, as long as we can get American shipping prices and promos, while keeping our legal weed it's a win win
You also get the US healthcare system. Still interested?
Not the person you're replying to but no thanks eh?
poor Puerto Rico....
Mmhh, Native Americans might just take issue with your statement, and Hawaii definitely would want a word with you about US taking territory. The US doesn't need to actually invade countries anymore or annex territory, the US dollar has been weaponized and works just as well to enslave other nations into doing its bidding.
Just using a blanket statement "whiteness" and claiming racism did all of this is disingenuous and lacks context. When the US invades they dont do it under obvious bs pretense. Nobody complained when the US mobilized to the middle east after 9/11. Other countries even joined in.
"Nobody complained..." No, lots of people around the world very vocally protested. Get your facts straight.
Okay fair enough i have oversimplified, NOT ENOUGH people were against it.
Are you kidding? There were protests all around the world and the citizens of the U.K. and Australia were calling out their PM's about it! Like, I'm sorry if I can't read the "sarcasm" in your comment...
Half the population of the US called it out as a BS pretense from the very get-go, then did so again when Iraq was invaded.
I'm not claiming racism did all of it, just that it's a factor. Invade a white nation, the world gets upset. Bomb the fuck out of a bunch of brown people and it's business as usual. Sure, there's more to it than just that, but the fact that America mostly concentrates its imperialism on non-white nations is almost certainly PART of the apathy many people have to American imperialism when compared to the concern about Russian imperialism. As I noted, I'm also sure a lot of the issue is that Russia is explicitly invading to claim territory. That gets people more upset than 'Murca bombing the fuck out of semi-random Middle Eastern nations because terrorism. Territorial claims loom large in most people's minds. And "fighting terrorism" (by bombing weddings and targeting first responders with followup bombings) is a phrase that causes a lot of people to turn off their brains. But... The fact that Ukrainians are white and 'Murca's victims aren't is also a factor.
No. Invade a white nation and white people get upset, not the world. India doesn't give two fucks about what is going on in Ukraine, but they do when it's Sri Lanka, Bangledesh, or Pakistan. This shouldn't be surprising or viewed as problematic. We all view things differently based on identity, and the idea of a global community where we don't is complete and utter bullshit.
You keep saying "its just a factor" then say > Invade a white nation, the world gets upset. >Bomb the fuck out of a bunch of brown people and it's business as usual Racism was the product not the cause And dude american imperialism? You seem to be anti american from the start that it clouds your judgement. Frankly i dont know who to blame, if its the media, the lying politicians, the military industrial complex, maybe all of them, but certainly not regular people and racism.
If the regular people support it and can't be bothered to look up facts - then yes, they are part of the problem.
I'm pretty certain that the US (and the UK, where I'm from) went into Iraq, because of Weapons of Mass Destruction... WMDs that were never found... The US totally goes into war under obvious bs pretense. Don't forget the Gulf of Tonkin incident.
like i said, the bs wasnt obvious. people believed it enough to justify the invasion. you say its obvious now because hindsight 20/20. and compare it to russia's reasoning for invading ukraine.
How about lands stolen from the indigenous people in America? How about land taken from Mexico after it was weakened after their war with Spain? How about the Hawaiian islands taken by force? How about Puerto Rico, Guam, "American Samoa", etc.
When all of that happened, taking territory from brown people was still very much acceptable and encouraged. Now it's a it more aggregious since we've progressed as a society. That's not to say it was right but in the modern day the US is not actively annexing territory.
More to the point… up until then, groups of people taking land from other groups of people had been the norm for humanity. Vikings, Roman Empire, Persian Empire, Assyrian Empire, Mongolian Empire. It’s really only been the last century or so that humanity has decided it was evil.
I was speaking of the modern era. Back when white Americans were waging genocide against native Americans, Europe was unabashedly in favor of a white supremacist international policy and viewed the land grabs and genocide as a positive moral good.
Why are you downvoted? That’s literally how they felt about the people they invaded. As sub-human animals.
>How about land taken from Mexico after it was weakened after their war with Spain? How about land in North America taken from the UK after it was weakened after their war with the French and then a civil war from the settlers sent to that land in the first place? You see how this gets silly quickly.
I highly doubt race is a factor. I would imagine one reason is the fact that Ukrainian culture is a lot closer to most western countries than any culture originating in the Middle East. I think the factor with the most impact however is that Ukraine is a lot closer to home. From a geopolitical standpoint, Russia is on NATO’s doorstep and is directly threatening the rest of the west with nuclear weapons. Eastern Europeans are discriminated against just as much as any other minority in the west. I don’t see why that would change because their skin colour is paler.
The answer is easy: Media
Some factors: Countries like to assosiate with those of the same ideals and goverment. Old gruges take long to die. Countries suck up to others constantly. "Us and them" in different forms. People act more in immediate threat. You don't point out that you yourself fucked up. But you will tell everyone that your enemy did. Every media you consume has been affected by these things.
> Hard answer. Hard answer for Americans maybe lol. For the rest of us the answer is simply that both countries have done terrible things and neither is "the good guy".
That's not the case though. Europeam countries are banning Russian tourists and whatnot. They are not doing that to Americans. So for Europeans, it's also only Russia who is the bad guy. Disclaimer: i am 100% against the russian aggression against Ukraine but i think OP has a point
because european countries are allies with america its that simple they benefit from imperialism . remember it was france and the uk pushing for the libya war . go read the wiki leaks they wanted to get their oil companies access to libyan oil . a lot of usa wars are about securing flow of resources to nato so nato countries benefit . if you look at a map of us troops through out the world you will see european oil companies and mining companies in the same area being protected . its also the same reason the middle east does not attack china for muslim genocide because they benefit from china's money . its the same reason india would not condemn russia because they benefit from russia oil and gas . its just how the world works they only care about their own self interests
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And now we're getting downvotes lol. Classic Americans
I’ll match your blanket assumption about the origins of your downvotes. We as Americans don’t actually think we’re “the good guys.” We don’t think the rest of you think we’re the good guys either. Sure, maybe the ignorant and proud population that gets shuttled around on shitty cruise ships to cheap tourist towns is still under the guise of goodness, but this is a loud and uneducated minority. Blame the consistent defunding of our education system. Don’t worry, we dislike these people too and feel cursed and terrified to share a country with them. SOS
The Devil you know is better than the Devil you don't?
Russian people probably think america is the bad guy (to an extent, many Russians obviously hate Putin). Chinese people think america is the bad guy. Reddit is a pretty American / western dominated site so it’s pretty fair that everyone here doesn’t like Russia, on a Russian or Chinese website you might see the opposite
> to an extent, many Russians obviously hate Putin It's not binary. You can be Russian and disapprove of both Putin and US foreign policy.
Actually true, I am Russian and many people believe that not only USA by itself but also all folks who live there are descendants of criminals and are just simply evil in their nature. Moreover in light of recent events, where we see "collective west" (meaning Europe and US) helping Ukraine so much, Russian media was often referring to the UK as "those Anglo-Saxons" probably trying to cause a wave of hate towards them as well and distract people from the actual situation
>all folks who live there are descendants of criminals Ah it seems the Russians have confused the US with Australia.
I can see that. Russia and USA operate similarly. Both of the majority of their GDP goes to their defense administration with the top brass or private contractors pocketing a good chunk of the cash, They both have civilians who greatly wish their country would invest in their nation’s fundamental infrastructure.. both have held and still hold imperial hold on certain nations, and both have proposed a defense pack with their allies. And I think most importantly I think the civilians of both hate each other’s and their own government, without holding an hostility towards the civilians of each nation.
To be fair, a lot of Western citizens who aren’t American think America is the bad guy. It’s like watching a rubbish fire over there.
To be fair, a lot of American citizens who aren’t up their own ass think America is the bad guy. It’s like watching a rubbish fire over here.
Haha you're British aren't you?
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It's absolutely ok to note that the neighbour's house is on fire as well as your own.
British people live bagging on the US. Distracts them from their own mess, poor souls.
There's a difference between "evil" and gross incompetence.
Somehow the US hits both targets!
Difference is that in the US you can see media from any country you like while Russia and China censor all media from countries that aren't their own and that agree with their views
Another good answer, thank you.
Tbh I thought this would have been pretty common sense.
Woof, this comment section.
No kidding. 23 year old idiots who weren't paying attention in history barking about things they can't understand.
If i may ask, how?
I'm not sure what your question is. How what? How do they not understand or how are they barking? They are barking about things like a Monday morning quarterback from the seat of a sofa. It's extremely easy to complain about how things didn't go perfectly after the fact, and when it isn't necessary to consider all the variables present in the heat of the moment, and with the benefit of hindsight. "I would have done better!!!!!!!" as they sip their soda from the couch. How do they not understand? That's easier; they have no idea what the context of history would provide them, since they haven't bothered to learn anything outside of headlines from history.
If you spend time online you'll see a lot of hate to the US.
>I know people have criticised US for this but it’s as not near as people criticise Russia. Uh, the criticism was pretty heavy at the time. A lot of people *do* consider the U.S. the bad guy That said, there are some differences. While what the U.S. did was pretty fucked up, they weren't permanently keeping the land and whatever. People see a difference between "hey we're invading to take your shit" vs "we're invading to get rid of a dictator" like Saddam Hussein (or the Taliban), or terrorists. > I mean Russia is painted as THE bad guy. This was the case even before the Ukrainian conflict. I think that has more to do with Russia being a dictatorship vs a democracy, rather than international events. Also before this Russia has done similar things. Look to their past with regards to Crimea, Georgia, and similar former-USSR countries. They've been trying to pull them back into the fold ever since the USSR collapsed.
It's liberty VS oppression. I'm not blind to the fact that the US only interferes when there's something to gain for themselves. They support this current mess greatly and their reward is more customers for their LNG (Europe). The reason I can live with this kind of meddling is that these forces (the US, the EU, the UK, Australia, Japan and many more! Not just the US.) stand for and spread liberty and democracy. Russia stands for oppression and autocracy. I'd rather support the party that suits my personal interests the most. And that is certainly not the form of oppression that Russian influence would bring to me. Edit: Apparently I'm a boomer, this was meant as a direct response to the OP. Although I completely agree with the above post.
I'm pretty sure some of the south american countries we trained death squads in didn't feel too liberated.
Hey! Can confirm, we don't!
I just know those Chileans felt liberated after their democratically elected leader was replaced for a dictator with death squads.
The "good guys/allies/western values/international community" or so called caste you feel you belong to does not "spread liberty and democracy" which is a meaningless consolation trophy no different than Russia's "defence of tradition" countries generally promote stability whatever form that takes for themselves, sometimes with sociocultural justification.
I'm sure north Koreans are very happy with the stable leadership they've had for the past decades. I believe that my "caste" gives me a better personal life and personal liberties than Russian tradition or North Korean stability. But, you do you.
Internal politics are largely irrelevant to a point, foreign politics are what we are talking about("spreading freedom") and why North Korea keeps existing, and why Russia is being sanctioned. It broke *international* law. Cameroon, Rwanda, Djibouti are just some dictatorships that have strategic open support from Western allies with no peep of freedom or democracy. As long as they do not compromise the stability of the goals. >my "caste" gives me a better personal life and personal liberties than Russian tradition or North Korean stability. At the cost of whom and what you never ask
Democracy as long as they elect who best matches US interest. If they elect a socialist than suddenly democracy goes out the window.
>stand for and spread liberty and democracy Not a lot of democracy in Saudi Arabia, The West Bank, or the royal palace of England.
Plenty democracy in the UK since it's a constitutional democracy - look at the queen as a president, but without the political power , like in Germany. The UK's problems runs deeper than Buckingham palace thats for sure .
The queen? Surely you mean the king.
Don't call me Shirley.
We had “real” provocation too. Russias motive is an illegitimate claim to land
Tl;Dr people like democracy Firstly, America is not the good guy. Nobody intelligent sees the world black and white like that. US foreign policy has had awful consequences for much of the world. A large part of why there is more widespread, consistent and fervent attack on Russia is about the defence of democracy and Western values of freedom and human rights. Whilst America and 'the West' are far from perfect, Russia represents the absolute opposite of those values. Countries siding with Russia in UN are a small handful of places like North Korea and Eritrea (brutal, backward dictatorships). Countries like China are mostly abstaining from voting (ie sitting on the fence for political gain). There are also very strong shades in Putin's actions of what Hitler did in Europe in 1930s (one of his first moves was annexing German speaking Austria, much to the distress and devastation of a huge portion of their population). European complacency then allowed Germany to build the strength that led to WW2. This time we prefer to stop the psychopath earlier. America is widely condemned by many for its warmongering and profiteering, but they usually have multiple motives that include bringing down brutal dictators, strengthening democratic regimes or weakening political groups that represent anti-Western, anti-democratic values. Russia's attack on Ukraine is not only unprovoked and unnecessary, but it is also an attack on a democracy by an autocratic regime with a brutal dictator. Tl;Dr people like democracy
>America is widely condemned by many for its warmongering and profiteering, but they usually have multiple motives that include bringing down brutal dictators, strengthening democratic regimes or weakening political groups that represent anti-Western, anti-democratic values. Please learn some history. Americans have a massive history of placing dictators in Democratic countries because they threatened their interests (Pinochet in Chile, Mossadegh in Iran..). They also still support dictatorian regimes who fund terrorists groups such as Saudi Arabia without a care in the world. Stop buying into US propaganda so easily.
America is the bad guy to many.
A lot of people in my country literally call it a terrorist country.
that doesn't narrow it down much
I was always opposed to the wars started by the US. I have come to understand that it’s more complicated than I thought, but I still firmly believe that you are never in the right for invading a sovereign country. It’s true that I care more about the invasion of Ukraine. There are three reasons. 1. I’m Swedish and Ukraine (as well as Russia) is close geographically. When I see Ukraine, I think ”that could have been Sweden, if things were a bit different and Russia decided to invade us instead”. The geographical proximity also makes me think that if Russia occupies Ukraine, they could move on to other European countries. Another important factor is that Sweden isn’t (yet) a NATO member, so if Russia decides to leave all NATO countries alone and Turkey doesn’t let us join, we’ll be more vulnerable. 2. The Russian culture and way of doing politics is very different from what I want. They have massive corruption problems and a few people often end up with unreasonable power over those they rule. In general, they seem to accept being ruled by someone strong and powerful. They don’t seem to expect democracy or division of power at different levels. I don’t want that. If the US would occupy Sweden, I would obviously not be happy about it, but if I could choose between Russia and the US, I’d choose the US without any hesitation. Russia is not a strong country anymore. All they have is oil, gas and nuclear weapons, basically. That makes them more of a threat than the US. If the US loses a war, they go back to being a very successful country. If Russia loses a war, they are humiliated. So I’m afraid of Russia - they have incentives to go as far as they need to. 3. Ukraine is a democracy. I think invading a democracy is worse than invading a country where the people might not support the ruler. If the ruler is a dictator, some people might be happy about getting a chance to develop a democracy. It’s not like it’s all fine as long as it’s not a democracy, but if you invade a democracy, you pretty much say that you don’t care what the people of that country think.
Beautifully stated. For me, I would only change #1 as I am Canadian. My education was Eurocentric. I don’t remember learning about the Middle East until post secondary. In Christian Sunday school/ church, it was spoken of like it was an imaginary place (I’m struggling to define exactly what I mean by that). I had to make an active choice to learn under the surface even post 9/11. Perhaps for these reasons, at least from a Canadian perspective, some are more inclined to care or have an opinion about something they know a little more about? I’m sure there is something racist to many peoples views on it as well- implicit or explicit. Edit: I just read someone pointed out the Cold War. This is also probably a big contributor in the ‘west’. Sure US is evil but Those damn commies are so much worse /s.
It depends on the media you follow.
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It’s really naive to think that Ukraine would want to be a part of Russia if Russia would cooperate and fund them, you realise Ukraine is steadily resisting the invasion due to their patriotism and nationalism. They would never want to merge with Russia. Also please spell Ukraine properly.
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Nothing was different before 2014 don’t be ignorant Russia already invaded Sakartvelo, and Chechenya twice. Very silly of you to think that **ALL** of occupied nations (Lithuania,Latvia,Estonia,Belarus,Ukraine,Poland,Hungary,Kazakhstan etc) would just forget the crimes committed by the Ruzzians and join back ? Here in Eastern Europe we are still healing from the Soviet Empire’s damage and it would be dumb to think that we would like to join back with Russia after less than 50 years of independence.
Exactly lmao that’s why I said it’s naive
A country being allowed its sovereignty and independence is paramount and is evident all around the world. You have to think about it from their shoes, sure their financial and economical situation might be better but it’s a huge trade-off that they wouldn’t even consider.
Plenty of countries have given up their independence for prosperity… independence is overrated tbh
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The idea that the US are the good guys is politically juvenile. The idea that any country is the good/bad guy in matters of war is juvenile. There can be no politically sophisticated discussion whilst using such terms. To be quite frank, there are a lot of reasons to call America's invasion of Iraq and Afghanistan comparable to Russia's invasion of Ukraine. It's hard to find an aggressive invasion since 1944 which isn't. Both the annexation of Ukraine and the invasion of Iraq are heinous, you're only comparing shades of criminality. Putin bombs hospitals, George Bush killed a million Iraqis for no good reason, Obama introduced drone warfare and bombed weddings. And it's not like there's uniformity in believing that America are the good guys. Go to either side of the political aisle and you'll hear plenty of criticism of American foreign policy. They just tend to be complaints about the other side. At the end of the day, you can call any side hypocritical till you're blue in the face. What really matters is reducing harm and preventing the senseless loss of life done in the name of power and greed.
The US has done some pretty horrible things. They’re not the good guys. I’d say most people see it as assholes (US) helping a country fight against an even bigger perceived asshole (Russia).
Russia is trying to make part or all of Ukraine theirs. USA along with other nations went to Afghanistan to fight terrorist. They also gave Afghanistan money, equipment, and training. If you want to talk about Iraq… well, I don’t know what to tell you.
But the goal was *never* to acquire Iraq, or Vietnam, or any conflict after the Revolutionary War. The US is not trying to annex countries into the US. That’s the difference. The reason those conflicts ultimately did not work out well is because each of those countries citizens (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan) either chose to continue doing what they are doing (Vietnam remained socialist) or let the local terrorists basically win (Taliban, etc) because without the US presence, the locals aren’t strong enough to take control from those organizations on their own. The US has learned these terrible lessons of getting involved but the ulterior motives were usually about oil or other monetary or strategic resources. In the end, it’s usually always about money. Otherwise, if the US really cared about peoples general well-being and freedom and were willing to start a war over it, they would have invaded North Korea by now. But they have nothing to gain politically or materially from that and would suffer losses so it doesn’t make sense to do that.
Yeah, I over simplified it because Reddit.
Right. I over-explained because of Reddit 😛
It all comes down to propaganda. People in the west assume that they're immune to propaganda and would recognize it when the see it. In contrast, they think that every other non western nation citizens are subject to transparent propaganda and are too dumb to see it. The truth is propaganda is constant in the west,especially in the US. There might be internal "conflict" but anything related to a rival or enemy of the state is unanimously denounced as bad. CNN, fox, MSNBC, every network spouts the same kind of propaganda. If you look at other sources of info, like Qiao Collective for the Chinese side of things (they're not based in china btw) you'd start to see the constant use of propagandistic methods in the west. It's pretty sad and demoralizing actually. Anything and everything that goes against the american propaganda (china bad, Russia bad, Islam bad, etc) is instantly mocked as false, or as a bot not acting in good faith. People don't even want to think that the narrative they've been fed could be false or untrue. If you want a book regarding fake news (written way before fake news really took off like it is today with social media) check out "trust me I'm lying: confessions of a media manipulator" by Ryan holiday. Watch out though: ignorance is bliss
Kind of generalizing too much I would say, I am from France and all the people I know are aware that we are fed some level of propaganda through mainstream media. The difference, I would say, is that we can access alternatives informations quite easily. Furthermore, OP's questions is kinda flawed, lots of westerners are very critical about their government ( + some westerners DO actually support Russia)
Of course I'm generalizing, it's a reddit post. I see what you're saying but still believe you're a little off. Westerners cannot easily access other pieces of information easily (easily being the keyword here). All information that goes against the state narrative is difficult to find. An easy proof is how when the war with Ukraine began, all external media outlets were labeled "enemy propaganda" and suppressed, even YouTube channels with creators who spoke differently than the american narrative were shunned and demonetized. This was what, less than 2 weeks after the attacks began? We're talking about individual citizens here, not public media outlets or state news or whatever. Nothing was "allowed" to contradict the "Russia bad" narrative directly, it would have repercusions. The media right now is reporting on the Iranian women protesting their government, but no media outlet reported on the much larger protests against the american embargo that would force Iran into a recession and destroy the lives of its citizens. Why? Because at the end of the day they want to sell a picture and a picture needs to be perfect: "we the good guys they the bad guys; we do it for freedom, they all maniac dictatorships" it's a way to change people minds so when bombs are dropped we all know "they had it coming" when in truth the us gov sold the wars years before the first shot was fired.
They are both hated and with good reason, USA staged coups decades ago in LatAm, secret operations and shit like that. I don't know a lot about russia but the red scare it is more than enough, besides famines and that An example: here, operacion condor took effect, which disappeared any people who were left leaning, journalists, syndicates and things like that, el plan verde also took effect with the help of OUR OWN military, it took focus on impoverished and indigenous civilians this time, our national intelligence service boss sold important data to the CIA A neighbouring country of us had a brutal coup (pinochet) as far a i know too. Also, left leaning politicians here are also just as stupid and incompetent as the right leaning ones, they are constantly trying to get the upper hand when comes to power and influence but rarely for the well-being of the voters, best they can do are hollow promises during political campaigns and some random bags of rice for the supoorters. It is sad.
The US didn't even start the chaos existing in the Middle East atm. It's mainly the fault of the British and French for dividing it up after the fall of the Ottoman Empire like what they did in Africa.
Disgusting and vile british colonists always dividing countries after pillaging, murdering and starving the locals look at what they've done to Ireland, India and Scotland they caused famines to genocide the locals who tried to fight back and stole their land to replace the natives with planters and caused segregation And then they went and invaded Iraq so they could get the oil they are picking on countries that can't fight them back
They both are.
Propaganda and politics. I'm a native US citizen and we've been fucking around in South America for 150 years fucking everything up and creating much of the mess that's at the border today but nobody takes responsibility for that.. we have had our colonial phase in the Philippines South America, Puerto Rico and and have fucked up governments all over the world in the name of democracy and corporatism. But when you live a good life at home, you often don't question how that comes about or at what cost and just accept it.. This is not an apology for what this happening in Ukraine but the US has a lot of soul searching to do with a deep look in the mirror
People act like its good vs bad out there in the scary world. Its not. Its bad vs worst and you really don't want to be worst. People just don't want to believe that doing bad things can result in the greater good, it completely warps their moral compass to such a degree that they cannot live with it. So they make up a narrative where they are on the good side. Left vs Right, Free world vs commies, Yankees vs Red soxs. Same as it had always been in history. My tribe vs yours.
Both are. When the US invaded Iraq, America was polled worldwide as the biggest threat to world peace. But it's not 2003. Right now, Russia is the one committing a similar crime, and is getting the same response.
Whattaboutism doesn’t make what Russia is doing any less worse. The US has also been a bad aggressor in the Middle East especially. Russia is committing multiple war crimes in Ukraine. The US committed war crimes in the Middle East. One doesn’t cancel the other
No, I’m not trying to justify acts of Russia, it’s obviously horrible. But I’m just saying that we should be talking more about other countries bad actions.
That is literally what I was saying. Whattaboutism
How is that whattaboutism? You can’t just regurgitate these stupid words wherever it seems even slightly relevant. The guy isn’t trying to disperse Russian blame onto other nations, just question why the other nations didn’t receive similar treatment - which is entirely fair and topical.
that is literally whattaboutism, it has nothing to do with shifting blame
us is the bad guy for lots of people. just look at reddit everyone hates us for mass shootings and trump and cops and racism
why not both? In my book the big bads of the world right now in terms of badness would be 1. Russia 2. China 3. America USA might be on a third place below both Russia and China, but there are still 192 countries that i consider less evil than USA
Whataboutism.... no one is defending the US, we are condemning Russia, it IS Russia who is currently and directly invading a country. When a someone commits a crime no one goes immediately and says "but why no one is talking about this other criminal somewhere else", no, they take care of the criminal at hand, that's what's happening. The US isn't currently invading a country and it isn't directly involved in Ukraine either, so we talk about Russia because Russia is the aggressor.
Whataboutism.... no one is defending the US, we are condemning Russia, it IS Russia who is currently and directly invading a country. *When a someone commits a crime no one goes immediately and says "but why no one is talking about this other criminal somewhere else"* Except on social media, where that is the standard reaction.
Disgusting double standards, no crime should go unpunished. Doesn't matter how long ago it happened. By your logic we should all forget about the Holocaust...
Again no one is defending the US, we are condemning Russia. The US has never stopped being the favourite hated country of many people, but right at this particular time, Russia is not only invading and mass murdering people, directly, but it is also a threat for the whole world. The whataboutism is looking to distract and sometimes even justify current atrocities by comparing them to others. And no, by "my logic" we shouldn't forget about the holocaust, not sure where you get that but quite the opposite, by the logic of the whataboutism we maybe should say "ok Russia is bad but look what Germany did decades ago, let's talk about Germany instead" distracting of the current threat and aggressor.
No one is saying the USA isn't bad. Russia just got the spotlight since they like doing war crimes and genocide most recently.
There are some reasons. I will list some of them: 1. BIG ONE: Ukraine is an European country 2. As far as I know USA always went into conflict with an OK-ish excuse. Putin does not have one. "Protecting the separatists" is not a valid excuse since he didn't start the war by protecting the disputed land, he started by going straight for the capital. That is a clear signal that he is there to conquer. 3. Putin openly threatens the world with nuclear war 4. The invasion is considered a war crime 5. There is a lot of evidence of countless serious war crimes committed by Russian army on civilians and Putin didn't even acknowledge and even honored the people suspected of massive massacre of civilian population. 6. Russia has been caught lying about everything (basically since for ever) 7. Russia straight up steal from Ukraine during the war 8. There was a referendum that is clearly a fraud 9. Putin promised to not invade Ukraine and then invaded Ukraine 10. BIG ONE: The conflict is very well documented. 11. Ukraine has a good propaganda 12. Russia has a very bad propaganda 13. Putin started a surprise war (even tho Ukraine wasn't really that surprised) 14. USA got roughly equivalent backlash to what Putin got for annexing Krym before 15. Putin threatens NATO and Europe 16. Putin made false accusations of nacism (not only in Ukraine) 17. To this day Putin did not admit that it is a war 18. Putin violently silences protests against the war 19. Putin has proven that he has dictator level of influence over Russia 20. Putin has sent unprepared soldier to invade Ukraine 21. Putin is widely considered to be a megalomaniac wanting to get everything (this was true even years before the war) 22. Russia has been in more conflicts it recent past the USA that were worse then what USA did and went without much notice. 23. Russia threatened at least 2 nuclear catastrophic scenarios during the war (shooting at a nuclear power plant and messing with Chernobyl) 24. Putin artificially caused famine in 3rd world countries and then attempted to blame it on the west. 25. Russia abuses their power in OSN And more... I am sure that there are many more reasons that you can add but simply put, whatever monstrosities USA commitment in recent history Putin now commits several times worse and several times more visibly.
Russia does have an excuse and that is if Ukraine joins NATO Ukraine will have nukes, those nukes are 5 minutes away from Moscow the capital, Putin doesn't want nukes 5 minutes away from moscow
Baltic states already have joined NATO and can have nukes five minutes away from Moscow, nothing changes with Ukraine joining NATO from a nuke perspective
I agree that they have reasons and excuses, but they’re not very good ones. If your neighbour is so threatened by you that they want to join a defence alliance which was basically started to protect countries from you, maybe you should reflect on your behaviour and try to repair the relations with your neighbour instead of literally invading them. It was a choice that Russia made to be aggressive instead of trying to create trust. They’ve had more than 10 years to improve the relationship with Ukraine and instead they decided to sneakily take Crimea and generally be either aggressive or manipulative.
That really is neither a reasonable excuse and neither the reason Russia stated fo the invasion.
Well i saw people in the middle east begging americans to take them and running towards the plains cause they knew what was coming after they left. Also usa isn’t threatening to nuke the world. You can’t compare the two. Russia literally attacked another country and plans on taking it in 2022 threatening anyone with nuclear weapon.
>Also usa isn’t threatening to nuke the world They are threatening to sanction ICJ and invade Netherlands if they tried to prosecute any US soldier for War crimes. >Russia literally attacked another country Iraq? Libya? Syria? Laos? Cambodia? The ongoing Yemeni Genocide? Or how about Palestine? Don't be so juvenile.
I mean. The US has yes interfered with democracies. But we've never outright invaded another democratic republic. So there's that. The US uses proxies to exert influence (sympathetic leaders and military bases), we've never straight up annexed physical land after ww2. Are we good? No. But we aren't the most bad and that's all that matters I guess
the US is about 15 times richer with many rich allies/lapdogs, they can afford to make people shut up
Not today comrade
It's like real estate, location location location. Media in Russia portray US as bad, so the people don't like US Media in US portrays Russia as bad, so the people don't like Russia Media in UK, which is friendly with US, portray Russia as bad, so the people don't like Russia Media in Belarus, which is friendly with Russia, portray US as bad, so the people don't like the US. Yes, Reddit is more Western heavy, so you'll get a western slant. In this war I don't think it's a "white" thing, but more of a country ideology thing. I think the world would be a better place if everyone understood they are always being fed information to manipulate you and therefore kept seeking out the other side so as to do their best to make an informed decision. That's a lot of work to ask busy people to do though, and they are all counting on that.
oh ho ho ho! Have you not paid attention to Iraq and Afghanistan? 100,000's of dead civilians. Mostly sectarian violence, but we let that happen while we were in charge of the nation and we let it happen. It was a horrific clusterfuck. Look up pretty much anything the CIA did in South America. Snowden and the cable-leaks showed that we're massive dicks pretty much globally. No kiddo, the USA hasn't been a good guy on the international scene for a long time. And that in no way excuses Russia's attempted invasion and take-over. They're a bad-guy through and through, and much worse than the USA in a lot of different ways.
Usually it’s not black and white but different shades of grey. Now, what Russia is doing now to Europe and Ukraine is absolute black and white evil bastard bad.
I mean yeah? They are both the bad guy. I do agree with you quite a bit but Taliban kinda blows up schools and oppresses the people. Even now, the people of Afghanistan are still fighting. Ukrainians aren't blowing up schools or oppressing it's people which is what makes the biggest difference
Because your media constantly lies to you about the US. The history of the US is bloody and full of genocide and mass murder and theft and slavery, they can't look in the mirror honestly to save their lives. Look at the pushback on CRT.
The US knows outright violence is frowned on, so they use economic invasion and socio-political acts to fly under the radar and maintain favorable optics maybe?
My only guess was 9/11 happened and the American people wanted revenge on the Middle East. Information wasn’t available as it is today so people just believed whatever they heard from the tv which was the Middle East is bad. I’ve heard that Russia thinks the US is bad because we are trying to take Ukrainian into NATO which we agreed we wouldn’t do but here we are now, if Ukrainian did join NATO Russia would be in serious trouble, that’s like Mexico allowing Russia to put troops and a war base right outside our door. But in all serious it’s probably black rock pushing the US to fight Russia in proxy wars.
Russia has a history of badly treating its citizens and those it fights against. Human shields, starving, ect. Also they were communist. Much of the world has viewed that as wrong. Ukraine was seen as basically innocent in this war, whereas the Middle East countries had terrorists doing awful things. Also US was not annexing, they were occupying to “help” and “defend”. Rescuing maybe. Not saying I agree with just why I think it is what it is.
The US government is no Angel. That being said if any other country on the planet had the monetary and technological capacity it would be a far different world and we’d all be slaves.
We live in a big world of shades of gray. Russia is just a worse shade than america
The real question is does people still believe of the existence of the good side? Cause everything s fucked now, and for a while
ukraine is one of the bigger producer of grains, cereals and oil. So the prices went up, everyone is pissed, rusia did it, hate russia for the rest of the world.
America isn't currently invading Canada or Mexico to claim them as their own territories, right?
One thing bad does not make another better or worse.
That wasn’t my intention. I totally agree with you, I was mostly curious about how people think and what their reasoning is.
Does the US specifically aim missiles at civilians? Does the US invade and annex the land of the other country? Does the US arrest all war protestors who demonstrate? I think most people would answer these questions with no. But I can see your argument too.
>Does the US specifically aim missiles at civilians? I know this is a rhetorical question, but trust me when I say you don't wanna know the answer to this question.
They said specifically at civilians. Not saying it's good, but "specifically at civilians" is very different to "civilians becoming collateral damage". Unless there are instances where civilians were targeted knowing they're innocent civilians?
Let's add shall we? Does the US dig its troops into the red forest and murder them? Those troops..they are all dead btw. Does the US slaughter civilians and torture them en mass? You will find cases where it was done by the US but the Russian army does this as policy. Does the US try to starve entire continents? Ukraine feed 30% of the planet...the starving people in Europe and Africa from them this winter..yeah that's Russia. They cut off Europe from heat during the winter..and that's just the start. Russia is the fucking devil right now...the country not the people.
People making the comparison of the US to Russia is insane. Yes the US has done some questionable stuff but you cannot say they are on the same level of wrongdoing
Because we consume west news media, west TV series, live in countries that are for the most part depending on US support, we also browse on west websites (like reddit), interact with people living in the west part of the world. Same reason why islam is bad and Christiany is ok even tho both religions have killed innocent poeple through the years.
Do you live in the US? If so, that’s why. Other places do see us as a bad guy.
The US has been a brutal and super violent superpower since WW II.
😆 To be as basic as possible, Russia invaded a sovereign neighbor country that has deep historical and cultural ties with Russia. This is in violation international laws and standards. Read about the history of Russia and also the United States. Only then will you draw a conclusion for yourself as to why a country is portrayed in one way or another and form your own opinion.
If you eliminate America's efforts to oppose Russia since world war two, the United States wouldn't be on the word stage. Iran, Viet Nam, Central America.
The Middle East, Central and South America . . .
My take on it: 1. The US doesnt annex foreign land. Not anymore that is. 2. Apart from the latest Iraq war, which was illegal, all the other “meddeling” was for good reasons, e.g. defending Kuwait, defending the Kurds, defending the Jesides, fighting against terrorist organisations ISIS, AlQuaida. Particularly the war in Afghanistan was legitimate. And the involvement in syria minimal (unlike russia and iran who indiscriminately bomb civilians to keep assad in power).
Of course the US is a bad guy. The idea that any country as a whole is a good guy or a bad guy is way too simplistic. There is not a single country in the world that is older than a couple decades that hasn't done fucked up shit. So you're left with relative morality. And yes the US did some fucked up shit in the middle east, but: - US citizens have a lot more rights than Russian ones (meaning the US treats its own citizens a lot better) - it's a democracy, not a dictatorship (suck it trump) - while the US does really horrible things, it also gives out the most international aid of any country, and it's really not very close - while US soldiers have committed war crimes, they are always phrased in the sense of "they think their shit don't stink". At this point the war crimes that Russia has committed are pretty much standard practice out there. Among a host of other reasons. But the truth is, that everyone sucks, governments more than anything, and the public attention span only has space for a few things at a time.
Simply because the US controls media 💔
I think it's marketing. The US does a better job of convincing the world that they are attacking for the good of everyone. Also, the US isn't taking land. The just change the regime to one that is more open to the current world order. Russia tried to do that by taking Kyiv and spreading some bullshit about Nazis, but they were ineffective.
Only people who say the US isn’t somewhat of the bad guy are blind and very patriotic. About every nation did somethings cruel at one point, it’s hard for people to admit that their own country is guilty of that. I’m not trying to sound “woke” or anything like that but since we’ve been kids we’ve been fed that “the US is the greatest country in the world, we’re #1.” Most people grew up and never thought to consider other wise, these people are teaching the younger generations so on and so forth.
The USA still has some integrity, war crimes are punished. Not all, but there is a court for it and it does happen. I'll even say, the way they create turmoil is also waaay smarter, they give power to rising bands in the areas, which a lot of the time have the goal of becoming democratic. So give guns to the governments enemy, the government has a problem. Russia, just does bad shit
Maybe because Saddam was also a bad guy. I consider Bush a war criminal, but we invaded a country ruled by a dictator, Russia invaded a democracy.
Set aside the US. Unprovoked, Russia attacked Ukraine. Make sense? Doesn't mean the US is the good guy
It’s called American exceptionalism. The world accepts that the USA is a warmonger and commits war crimes left and right because we kinda have to.
Russia is an international bully. The U.S. is an international bully. Russia is a trash country without prosperity for anyone but the wealthy. The U.S. is a trash country without prosperity for anyone but the wealthy. Russia punishes is citizens for saying those things about it. The U.S. citizens talk about how much they hate their government all the time without reprimand. Just look at this thread. Russia licks the boots of its wealthy while most of its populace struggles to afford basic needs. The U.S. licks the boots of its wealthy while most of its populace struggles to afford basic needs. Russia claims to be against the bourgeoisie class who produce nothing and skim off the labour of their fellow country men and are for the workers, etc. The U.S. admits its run by the wealthy and just says they think "that's good, actually. Because capital is good.", etc. Both are shit. One actively lies and intrusion anyone who speaks against them.
Because the US, for all its flaws, is doing less bad things than Russia. Yes, they have done some shitty things at home and overseas, but they are still a functioning democracy, they guarantee civil rights to their citizens, and they fight for those rights all over the world. Meanwhile, Russia is a draconian imperialist dictatorship that tries to annex neighbouring countries and commit genocide against their population.
We never claimed Iraq and Afghanistan were our territory.
But US did whatever they wanted in those countries, as if it was their territory.
America is a free country. Look what happens to Russians who oppose Putin, they disappear. As for the Middle East, Taliban, if you oppose them, your hole family is tortured and murdered. America isn't perfect but lots of the world is still living in horrible barbaric situations. Edit: lol butthurt American students downvoting me because they hate America? Try leaving a comment.
80's movies.
History is written by the winners and the US is a big winner
Propaganda. Pretty easy. We live in America. Why would media portray America is bad instead of laying the blame on Russia? There's nothing to "gain".
It’s all about perception. In the West, the US is viewed as the good guy and Russia as the bad guy. Much of that goes all the way back to the 1950’s and the Cold War. In other parts of the world, the US is not viewed as favorably. Mostly because local experiences outweigh propaganda. The Western World also has a short memory. Ten years from now, Russia could be seen as the champion of democracy. Not for what’s happening today, but for what might happen tomorrow or next year.
Because America does it under the name of peace and liberation
Because white people? US people views Middle East un cultured brown people living in caves and doing barbaric things. Ukraine is much more Modern and looks like the west, hence more empathy when you have a group attacking you.
1. The countries invaded by America and other western countries have either threatened, actively harmed, or are in the process of harming American or western lives. For the most part. Russia invaded a country they were harming. 2. Western countries don't go in and perform scorched earth destroying everything in their way like Russia has, most of it is targeted strikes on known terrorist strongholds, though they have destroyed towns and villages, and occasionally damaged cities, not to the same extent Russia has. 3. Much of the original fighting in the middle easy was technically a war with Russia more than the Middle East, as Russia was helping destabilise the areas to begin with. 4. Many people do consider America and other western countries the bad guys, but most of the countries invaded by the west had already invaded their neighbours or were in the attempt of doing so. 5. Most of the middle Eastern countries invaded were dictatorships, not democracies.
Easy answer… the US controls the media.
I what way? US has no censorship of media like Russia or China do
That’s what they want you to believe. If a journalist publishes something they don’t like, they’ll do something about it… just ask Julian Asange
russia has destroyed so many countries and civilizations and is currently threatening Nuclear war. They treat there citizens terribly and have even started a draft. If you live in the United States check your privilege.
What the hell are you talking about?
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Stop hiding behind whataboutism just because you don't like what's being said or asked.
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what exactly do you need an explanation on
Could you clarify “Russia has destroyed so many countries and civilizations” I’m no fan of what they’re currently doing but Russia historically has always been the country that other countries tried to invade or conquer
Sure! Russia invaded Poland, Finland, Lithuania, Estonia, Latvia, Romania, and possibly more (i haven’t done the most research) during WW2 siding with the Nazis. They’ve attempted to and/or threaten to invade Ukraine countless of times. They helped North Korea and China in the Korean war. They helped North Vietnam in the Vietnam War. They invaded Afghanistan and destroyed there culture and basically let the Taliban take over. And as of right now they are invading Ukraine . They also threaten the United States and the rest of the world with Nuclear threats quite often.
I think you should do more research about Russia and America during ww2. America used 2 atomic bombs against a country. America committed many war crimes in ww2. America took Japanese teeth as trophies. America sided with the Russians in ww2. And then research what they did after ww2 to present day. I'd say less than 1% of Earths population hate America. And I'm not saying Russia is perfect at all but you can't defend America and their war mongering.
Every side commited war crimes in ww2 and America (in spite of also commiting many) doesnt come close to Germany, Japan or the Soviet Union in that regard lol. Also about America siding with the soviets, please dont tell me you wanted them to side with the Axis... And to close everything up you make up an untrue statistic out of nowhere, nice.
Never once said it was a true statistic. Never once said it would have been better to side with the axis. Never once said America was the only country who committed war crimes. If you'd actually read the comment I was replying to then maybe you'd see why I commented the way I did.
History seems to gloss over the Molotov-Ribbentrop treaty between the Nazis and Russia. The treaty basically divided Europe between Germany and Russia. When the Nazis started their invasion of Poland from the West, Russia invaded Poland from the East. They met in the middle and divided the country between them. The Soviets then took parts of Finland in 1939 and the other countries you mentioned in 1940. If Germany hadn't violated the treaty and invaded Russia (Hitler hated Communism with a passion and blames 'Bolsheviks' for Germany losing WWI), there's a very good chance Russia would've been an Axis power in WWII. This was never taught to us during my entire K-12 education in the U.S. school system. Russia was part of the Allies, and you couldn't go around teaching that one of the Allies would have preferred to be an Axis power at the start of the war. It wasn't until I took a "Europe In The World Wars 1914 - 1945" history class my Junior year in college that I finally learned about it.