“I didn’t want the war to be in MY country!”
As an American who opposed the Iraq War and watched so many of my fellow Americans, mostly conservative, beat the drums of war and slapping yellow ribbons on their suburbans… The same sentiment was definitely here. People treated war in Afghanistan and Iraq like a game. Americans especially as of late have never really felt the direct impact of all-out war. In fact Putin learned a lot about domestic propaganda from those Bush years.
I’m Ukrainian who has lived in the US for almost 30 years. Only now, after Ukraine has bee invaded, did I realize what having that yellow ribbon in “support of our troops” meant. It doesn’t matter what kind of “altruistic” reasons you assign to it. Any time a country invades another, they are the bad guy because ANY war means the deaths of innocent people and should be avoided at all costs, no matter the reason.
Much respect to you for evolving your views! There’s an incredible documentary, Once Upon a Time in Iraq that shows the war through the perspective of Iraqi civilians. One of the best docs I’ve ever seen.
You must have a pretty unique perspective on the Russian-Ukraine war. Hoping any family and friends you may have over there are safe.
Experiencing your native country at war changes your perspective on A LOT of things. It makes it easier to understand the wars of the past, and also, puts them in perspective…amongst many many other things. I will consider watching that documentary if there is no actual gore in it, because that’s not something I am willing to watch. My relatives are physically ok right now, but they’re angry and emotionally drained. It is scary seeing them talk about a recent nearby explosion and making sure everyone is ok.
But yea, it doesn’t matter who was “right” or “wrong” prior to war. As soon as you invade, everything prior to that gets overwritten and you’re 100% the bad guy, no matter how you justify it.
You are underplaying the struggles of civilians in a war zone just because they happen to live on the wrong side of the border.
Civilians have all the rights to not want war on their country, at their doors, no matter which side of the border they are, and they are allowed to lament the incompetency of a government that hides critical information from them in an attempt to cover up its failures.
The Ukrainians have the right to keep fighting, and I hope they win this war. Putin is a criminal and he must pay for his crimes. This doesn’t mean that civilians caught in the crossfire are being petty.
Thank you for saying this. People (like the below commenter) dunking on people just trying to live their lives who live in a country where their government fucking sucks is gross and not well thought out. (And even if a lot of Russians support the war, its worth remembering that their access to information is limited, and all nations of people become stupid and nationalist in times of war. That doesn’t forgive it, but it doesn’t mean they deserve to live in a war zone as punishment.)
