Try following along instead of wrongly claiming scepticism towards something that is well documented.
I've always thought of myself as left-wing. I came of age in the 'War on Terror', and recall the collective skepticism of the American establishment. I remember the attitude of left-wing intellectuals like Chomsky, and the public reaction to what many other young people like myself thought was a war fought not for justice, but for American foreign policy interests. I don't see this kind of skepticism anymore.
Skepticism is good, but has to be grounded in something plausible otherwise it isn't as much evidence of critical thinking, but rather of something else.
> Aren't there enough historic examples of how the American media establishment have been used to further American foreign policy objectives?
The Economist is British.
No, you're being asked to at least attempt to find out the truth rather than dismiss all reporting as western propaganda. What would you accept as the truth? Would you accept Ukrainian reporting?
Here's a Ukrainian documentary about two children who were essentially kidnapped and managed to escape with the help of an aid group in Ukraine: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zPyWA9ZK4Qs
TL;DR they were in occupied territory and their school principle set up a "2 week study trip" to Crimea. After the 2 weeks were up they were not released and were instead forcibly enrolled in new boarding schools.
Here's another interview with kids who were eventually released: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukraine/comments/11zpeuy/children_t...
There are posts on social media of Russians who are "adopting" children from occupied territory https://mobile.twitter.com/saintjavelin/status/1642893921024...
Everyone able to make a rational decision can see Russia are are the sole cause of this war. If Russia decided to leave Ukrainian territory tomorrow, the war would end tomorrow, and Ukrainians could get on with their lives in peace, and the stolen children hopefully get to go home.
This is the same as rational people being able to see that the United States was wrong to invade Iraq in the second Gulf War. Fake weapons of mass destruction. David Kelly the British scientist forced to lie by Tony Blair who goes on to commit suicide, it was a dark time.
The information I got about the Iraq war at the time was from the "mainstream media", by the way.
Just because the US (and the UK) was making bad decisions in Iraq 20 years ago doesn't mean they are making bad decisions in support of Ukraine now. The Russians would love you to think they are however.
Why wouldn't it mean bad decisions now? What did happen to those who made bad decisions at all levels of the government 20 years ago?
Russia's roulette wheel of dishonest justifications for the war and countless other documented war crimes would lend one to directing skepticism toward questioning any legitimate humanitarian basis for this invasion. There have been a litany of other documented war crimes by Russia -- why would imprisoning dissidents trip your "skepticism" red flags?