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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

Is what Russia is doing in Ukraine right now too different from the US military in Iraq and Afghanistan?

It's certainly different from Afghanistan. The invasion of Afghanistan by the United States was preceded by an attack by Al Qaeda on New York City. The attack by Russia on Ukraine is completely unprovoked.

You're right.

Russia's unprovoked attack on Ukraine is much more equivalent to America's unprovoked attack on Iraq.

It's a closer match than Afganistan at least, although I don't think that Ukraine under Zelenskyy is remotely similar to Iraq under Saddam Hussein. Let's hope that Ukraine backfires on Russia at least as severely as Iraq did on the US.

I'm not aware of Ukraine kicking out weapons inspectors from known previous WMD sites, or bluffing about having CBRN weapons. The invasion of Iraq was bumbling and based on piss-poor intelligence, but the belief in a threat wasn't groundless. https://www.csmonitor.com/layout/set/amphtml/World/Global-Ne...

The current Russian claims about Ukraine, however, do appear groundless, based on the consensus of international media.

The belief in a threat was manufactured by cherry-picking any weak scraps of intelligence that could be assembled into a believable marketing pitch for an invasion. Your average mouthbreathing intel analyst wouldn’t recommend invading a taco stand based on the shady sources and thin reporting used to justify this war.

Source: Former mouthbreathing analyst

Although I am certainly not well informed, as I could not predict this scale of military operation, I'd like to say that "consensus of international media" is not worth much at times of war. Because I feel like there is never a lot of disagreement in media during such crises. Maybe after, when the situation calmed.

It wasn't piss-poor intelligence. It was misinformation crafted specifically for the purposes of justifying invasion to USA voter.

I feel like I'm being way too obvious here, but Al Qaeda is not Afghanistan or Iraq.

I also feel like I'm being obvious here: Al Qaeda was sheltered by Afghanistan during and after the attack on NYC. (I agree that there were essentially no ties between Al Qaeda and Iraq.)

All the people who did the attack on NYC died in the attack on NYC. None of them went back to Afghanistan after flying planes into towers.

Actually reminds me a lot of the run up to Iraq ca 2003, which was a disaster for all involved. Who in the world looks at the US invasion of Iraq and thinks it was a good idea that should be emulated?

I wonder if this is bot or paid Russian troll..

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