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Comment by finikytou | Hacker News Reader

I guess you one of the well-informed french that would probably have called on chirac being a crazy man for not siding with usa when they went to bring "democracy" to irak against a bad dictator that had weapons that did not exist. because between above narrative and russian one that went there to "denazify" and fight a dictature of nazis there's not a big difference. every information is one-sided and no one can control it. it is easy to make fun of people that believe things on facebook. much harder to understand that you at your level are also one of them

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While I don't want to justify the invasion (or rather the motivation behind it and it’s actual execution), Sadam’s regime was OBJECTIVELY worse than the Ukrainian government. They are not even on the same level, the Ukrainian government may be thoroughly corrupt but they did not murder hundreds of thousands of their own people (using both conventional and chemical weapons).

The real crime was propping up Sadam in the 80’s when US did not see him as a threat and living him alive in 1991 (which just prove that US had zero actual concerns about the wellbeing and freedom of the people of Iraq in 2003)

It doesn't matter though. Both invasions were based on very similar lies. Just because in Iraq the lies were 10% true and in Ukraine 3% true doesn't make any difference.

The invasion itself was a far far worse crime that supporting Saddam materially.

> living him alive in 1991

what?

1991 was the same decision to make as 2003, except they chose restraint. When they flipped in 2003, almost everyone universally agrees, including you

> the US war in Iraq was unjustified

it was a bad decision, thus 1991 was the right move.

> except they chose restraint

No they chose to instigate https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991_Iraqi_uprisings and then left the rebels out to dry. Thousands (possibly hundreds of thousands) of Iraqis were killed by Sadam's forces.

The equivalent of 1991 (obviously on a very different scale) would be the Allies stopping at the border of Germany in 1944 (after liberating France) and allowing Hitler to stay in power (while simultaneously claiming that it’s the job of the German people to remove him).

Team America: World Police

Since you were intending to reply to me, I'll try to answer you here.

I'm really not sure I actually understood what you meant, though. In my opinion, the US war in Iraq was unjustified and the Russian war in Ukraine is unjustified as well, and indeed between the US narrative back then and the Russian one today, there is no big difference.

But the main take I get from our conversation is that you were the one that was initially misinformed (thinking French mustard mainly comes from China), didn't read or believe the linked article by a "respectable" established news outlet (that clearly says the mustard in question comes from Canada), then spread your wrong information (in your comment) and now you're trying to say that I'm as misinformed as anyone when you are factually, indisputably, the one person who is misinformed in this particular discussion.

I do believe I am more effective at checking the accuracy of the the information I read or hear about than other people. I do not think that everyone is equally as misinformed, far from it.

> between the US narrative back then and the Russian one today, there is no big difference.

The US war in Iraq can be unjustified, while the US' intention against an actually terrible Saddam regime being benevolent, while Russia's is actually selfish territorial control and Donbas resources. Equating the Saddam regime to Zelenskyy's Ukraine is egregious.

I made a mistake between mustard and pickles that are indeed made in china and you directly jumped to me looking at facebook post and being misinformed. but my point is the same. making abroad and branding it as dijon is a fraud.

And just to let you know. go back in time a bit. any one that was against iraq was someone "misinformed" that was not following mainstream opinion. so at that time you would have indeed said that chirac was spreading wrong information :) people like you - the ones that are always on the good side / the right side of history are more dangerous than people that inform themselves on facebook

> I guess you one of the well-informed french that would probably have called on chirac being a crazy man for not siding with usa when they went to bring "democracy" to irak against a bad dictator that had weapons that did not exist

This was actually probably Chirac’s (and Villepin’s) finest hour.

It is also a non sequitur. Invading Iraq was (as was predicted back then) a catastrophe. We are still paying for it, even France, and will in the foreseeable future.

Invading and annexing a peaceful, if corrupt, neighbouring country, however, is much worse. Genocide in Iraq was well documented and at least the point could be made. There is nothing remotely similar in Ukraine, even ignoring both bits of disinformation (WMDs in Iraq and Nazis in Ukraine).

I think the point GP was trying to make is, the 'good old days' when there was no misinformation was when it was still possible to manufacture consent without your rivals interfering. The current wave of competing worldviews is... one could say difficult to assimilate... but if people evolve better bullshit filters as a result, we'll probably be better off than when we were being fed smaller amounts of bullshit from only one entity at a time.

Which doesn't help your family and their weak bullshit filters, of course, and my condolances for their situation - if I knew how to speed up developing such a filter, I'd share it.

Edit: Didn't realise GP wasn't addressing you, my comment on your family was meant for someone else - how easy it is to be confused by online discussion even without bad intentions.

>>I guess you one of the well-informed french that would probably have called on chirac being a crazy man for not siding with usa when they went to bring "democracy" to irak against a bad dictator that had weapons that did not exist.

I'm not french, I have no idea who "chirac" is, and in general I think you maybe replied to the wrong comment?

sorry my reply got wrongly placed I was talking to seszett

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