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Comment by NoGravitas | Hacker News Reader

> Russians have a responsibility to protest the regime now, carrying the personal risk despite perhaps having little to no personal responsibility. Else they have the blood of Ukrainians on their hands.

Back in 2003, Americans had a responsibility to protest the Bush regime. And hundreds of thousands of us did, but it didn't do a damn bit of good. We still have the blood of over one million Iraqis on our hands.

Russia's invasion of Ukraine is illegal and unjustified, but what moral grounds do Americans have to say anything about it?

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> Russia's invasion of Ukraine is illegal and unjustified, but what moral grounds do Americans have to say anything about it?

The same moral grounds as when we condemned and protested the US's invasion of Iraq? Yes, we were a minority. The majority was hopped up on state propaganda about WMDs and 911 etc. Basically the same as Russia's "denazification" message or whatever it is today, only the US establishment is much better at it.

I'm sure many of the people who supported attacking Iraq are condemning Russia's war on Ukraine right now, but I'd rather support their current positive stance rather than take them to task over past views and seeming nationalist hypocrisy.

The US really isn't much better at it. Everyone in the world knew the US was lying about it.

I still remember the Dixie Chicks: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dixie_Chicks_controversy

What country doesn't have a history filled with blood?

Since the dawn of the liberal world order and international law?

Or throughout human history? We aren’t condemning Russians for atrocities even 50 years back we are talking the past 2 weeks or possibly the past 8 years.

Well, both Putin and Bush started their terms roughly at the same time. I see only one of them ruling today. America is by no means perfect, but Russia is entirely different thing.

This is crediting the citizens for something achieved by fundamentally different systems of governance and people in power. Yeah the Iraq war eventually was seen as a mistake, if you believe the polls it still took 2-3 years to convince people of that fact, it still took far many more years to pull out. At some point we have to recognize the fact that a citizen _not_ protesting something isn't a sign of support so much as its a recognition of the fact that even millions on the street doesn't necessarily achieve anything.

I think we need to accept that some problems are bigger than single generation. Each can push border just a little bit in each direction. But it's important to keep pushing, because otherwise you end up like Russia - in lawless country where citizens either feel powerless or so flooded with propaganda, he does even sees that anymore.

Obama came to power on a wave of optimism - he was going to close gitmo and stop the drone strikes.

Years after he left the scene gitmo is still open and drone strikes still happen.

GWB is gone but his policies endure. Turns out US leadership likes it that way.

Obama tried to close gitmo, but he wasn't the emperor, and there were many politians who opposed him. These politians were elected by US citizens.

Obama was Commander in Chief and had authority to instruct military and replace members of Joint Chiefs of Staff until it got done. Obama kept the military conflicts rolling.

> And hundreds of thousands of us did I think more than that, right? Millions across the US, probably some individual protests were in the hundreds of thousands? Largest protests ever until recently? It was a bit of a coalition too. General anti-war activists, weirdo far-left maoists with their pamphlets, paleocons, libertarians talking about peak oil, and plenty of us regular ass liberals. And we didn't make any difference.

I won’t comment whataboutism in this thread or any other.

> what moral grounds do Americans have to say anything about it?

Interesting question, but even if every American shuts up billions of us can still speak up.

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