Bush invades Iraq. Putin invades Ukraine. Who's worse?
Before we get too upset with Putin invading Ukraine, let's not forget what we did to Iraq.
Putin is merely following our example.
For him to be a bigger bastard than we were, he'll have to kill between 400,000 and a million and a half Ukrainians, many of them innocent women and children, which is what we did to the Iraqis.
Let's see if he manages to kill more Ukrainians than we did Iraqis.
Then we can see who is the more evil empire.
What Putin won't do is destabilize an entire region, like we did in the Middle East.
What he won't do is hand Isis an incredible recruitment tool, and let them build themselves into a massive terrorist organization that threatens the world, which is what we did.
He'll probably be better at installing a puppet government in the Ukraine, unlike the way we screwed up trying to install a puppet government in Iraq.
What he won't do is send his Secretary of Defense to the United Nations, to come up with some BS excuse for why he is invading Ukraine.
Putin just wants back what Gorbachev gave away. Ukraine used to be part of Russia, so he thinks this gives him a reason to take it back.
It's kind of a local matter between two neighboring states. Putin wants Ukraine back as a matter of Russian pride, not for any mercenary reason, like Bush invaded Iraq so he could get oil deals for his Texas oil buddies.
One could say that pride is maybe a more forgivable casus belli (war ecuse) than money.
Anyhow, the world is certainly not anywhere near as dismayed as it was when Bush was getting ready to invade Iraq.
Let's not forget that Bush's war threat occasioned the biggest protests in human history.
According to the French academic Dominique Reynié, between 3 January and 12 April 2003, 36 million people across the globe took part in almost 3,000 anti‑war protests, the demonstrations on 15 February 2003 being the biggest. On that day, for example, more than a million marchers took to the streets of Rome to protest Berlusconi backing a U.S.-led war against Iraq.
Who's marching against Putin's war? Nobody. It's not as if he's going halfway around the world to attack Australia or something, like we went thousands of miles to go and kill Iraqis.
Wouldn't it be nice if President Biden said something like this:
"It'll be a sad day for the world when Putin invades Ukraine, just like it was a sad day for the world when we invaded Iraq. At least we will be able to punish Russia with sanctions, while when we invaded Iraq, we got away with it scot-free. The world didn't punish us with sanctions, like it had every reason to do, and maybe should've."
But don't expect such honesty from us.
After all, we're the nation who started 30 wars since WW2, in Korea, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Lebanon, Cuba, Dominican Republic, Grenada, Libya, Persian Gulf, Panama, the Gulf War, Somalia, Bosnia, Herzegovina, Croatia, Haiti, Serbia, Afghanistan, Yemen, Iraq, Pakistan, Uganda, Syria, sometimes twice in the same places.
How many wars have Russia started since then?
A few. Afghanistan, Chechnya and Crimea spring to mind, as well as them helping Bashar al-Assad in Syria. Also, Russia put down a number of uprisings against them in Eastern Europe—in Czechoslovakia, Hungary and East Germany.
Otherwise, they got the hell out of Eastern Europe, the way we also finally got the hell out of Latin America.
At least the two of us did that; we stopped killing and oppressing people in our respective backyards.
But otherwise, we two big nations have gone on our merry way, committing war crime after war crime against smaller nations.
In recent years, Russia can confidently claim than our wars have caused more harm to the world than theirs.
They didn't start a war against Cambodia like Nixon did which allowed Pol Pot to get in there and create a massive genocide, killing two million of his own people.
Their nine-year war in Afghanistan didn't end up creating the massive mess we created there in our 20-year forever war.
Nor did their intervention in the Syrian Civil War create a massive mess in the Middle East, like we did when we invaded Iraq.
They've had their bastards in Stalin and Putin; we've had our bastards in Nixon and George W. Bush.
Let's face it: evil empires are evil empires, whether it's Russia or us.