Umair Haque is a technologist and future thinker whose writings are insightful. A few days ago, he posted an article asserting that World War III has already started, and we are asleep. It is well worth your while to read this article in full. He argues that Putin has cleverly sowed dissension in the U.S., in the U.K., and in Europe. Based on new evidence, he believes that Putin helped Trump win the election in 2016. Trump advanced Putin’s goals by threatening the future of NATO and bringing about division in the U.S. He also argues that Putin funded BREXIT, which weakened the Atlantic Alliance.
He writes:
Do you remember the story of the Trojan Horse? Troy accepted it as a gift, knowing full it shouldn’t have — because it was a gift to their gods, fine and beautiful. It was made irresistible by the Greeks. A Trojan horse was delivered to our societies in the West — one that glittered, too. It was made of Russian money, Russian oil, resources, finances. And we accepted it, without a second thought.
That was just after the fall of the USSR, as Putin came to power, in the late 2000s or so. What happened next? Our societies in the West began to destabilize, badly. A new far right movement began to emerge. It gained power and ascended in influence. Where had it come from? Nobody could quite say. And yet it spoke literally the language of Putin’s philosophers — figures like Dugin and Ilyin, who called for a “planetary confrontation” against “globalists” and spoke of the soil belonging to the pure of blood and true of faith.
This new far right movement had seemingly emerged from nowhere all across the West. From America to Britain to France and beyond. Mighty coincidence, no? An even bigger coincidence that it spoke the literal language of Putinism. An even bigger coincidence that it deployed the Kremlin’s Orwellian “firehose” model of propaganda: gaslight reality, turn it inside out, call the peaceful people the Nazis and fascists, call freedom the enemy of peace, bombard innocent people with those messages a million times a day on Facebook and Twitter. Carpet-bomb them with the inversion of reality — War is Peace, Freedom is Slavery, Ignorance is Strength — until their weary minds, baffled, finally gave out…and gave in.
What a coincidence. Of course, it was no coincidence at all. That the far right had suddenly emerged in the West all at once, in unison, like a choir of idiocy. That hate had begun to proliferate like a pandemic, and a kind of bilious populist rage was shaking the foundations of the Western world. That it used tactics from a literal Kremlin propaganda manual. As we know now, all this was funded, financed, organized, and coordinated by Russia.
But back then? The West was still innocent. That the first stages of World War III were beginning. Instead of worrying about these obvious links, the West still revelled in the easy money oligarchs gave it, as they bought up entire districts like Mayfair and Chelsea, and straddled Cannes and Nice in their superyachts. The West was still seduced by how the Trojan horse glittered and shone — even as the soldiers poured out.
What happened next? The attacks began. The big ones. All the disinformation and propaganda that was by now being poured across the West like a great toxic oil slick had a point. And now Russia smiled, and flicked a match.
Has WW III already started? Almost surely, Yes. What should the US take from that reality? Don’t be late.
WWIII already started?! That’s terrifying and chilling because WWIII will involve nuclear weapons and the decimation of cities in multiple fireballs. Will we look like Syria or Ukraine….I certainly hope not.
“What a coincidence. Of course, it was no coincidence at all. That the far right had suddenly emerged in the West all at once, in unison, like a choir of idiocy.”
Really? The far right emerged in the U.S. all at once right when the USSR fell? Wow, the lack of historical knowledge behind that statement alone is mind-boggling. So, prior to Putin, the U.S. didn’t have 400 years of slavery followed by years of KKK terror, Jim Crow laws, nazi marches and other far-right madness? What parallel universe have I stepped into?
“But back then? The West was still innocent.”
Ah, yes, the peaceful, innocent West. The ones who created the nuclear bomb and remain the only ones to have used it against civilian populations. The ones who massacred civilians by the millions in Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, etc.
This mass rush to white-wash U.S. history and tolerate no dissent when the facts are plainly documented otherwise is by far the most disturbing thing about this whole Ukraine-Russia thing. People would rather pretend that Putin is just some kind of irrational madman than acknowledge that there’s 70 years of diplomatic history in which no side has clean hands (although, I will point out that the Soviets are the ones who sacrificed 27 million of their people fighting the nazis, while the U.S. swooped in at the last moment, lost a few hundred thousand and claimed victory for the whole thing, and then imported nazis while the Jews lingered in concentration camps (not that the Soviets were any more welcoming of the Jews).
BTW, what do you all think the end-game is here? Do you really think the U.S. is all about saving the Ukrainian people? Then why is Zelenskyy himself begging the U.S. to do something? Ukraine has no chance of winning this war on its own no matter how many weapons we send (and how many weapons manufacturers we make rich). Helping Ukraine is not the point. The point is to create another Afghanistan-like quagmire for Russia, bleed it dry, cut it off from the rest of the world, reduce support for Putin at home and ultimately carve up and Balkanize Russia like the U.S. has wanted to do since the fall of the USSR. And from the U.S. point of view, that may actually be a brilliant strategy (if we can avoid taking ourselves down too), but it has nothing to do with helping Ukraine – in fact, they are the pawns who need to be sacrificed to bring down the queen.
It’s frightening how all dissenting voices have been silenced as “Russian disinformation”. THE RUSSIANS HAVE STATE OWNED MEDIA!!! shrieks a nation that has media owned by the same corporations who own the media. When you silence someone, you don’t convince anyone they were lying, you only convince people you are scared of what they have to say. If RT, Consortium News, Scott Ritter, John Mearsheimer, etc. are indeed all obvious Russia disinformation, it should be easy to counter their arguments without silencing them, right? What happened to the oft-repeated claim on this blog, “I may not agree with what you say, but I will fight to the death for your right to say it?”
Please, please wake up and realize that, just like with the run-up to Iraq in 2003, there are other valid perspectives besides what U.S. media are feeding you. Be honest and brave enough to at least look at those perspectives with open eyes, even if you ultimately reject them. The U.S. has a long and ugly history of lying in matters of foreign affairs. There is no reason to believe that we are being given the whole truth this time.
If you are truly concerned for Ukrainian lives, the best way to save them is to negotiate a lasting cease-fire. Ask yourselves why your government has rejected that approach.
Dienne, didn’t you write on this blog that Putin would not invade Ukraine and that only warmongers thought he would? Didn’t you assure us that the 190,000 Russian troops on Ukraine’s borders were no threat to Ukraine? Where did you get your misinformation?
There are many of us in the U.S.–a majority, in fact–who detest the history to which Dienne alludes, our failure to live up to our highest ideals, and who insist upon history being truthfully taught to keep it from being repeated.
But there is a difference between loyal opposition and traitorousness. One cannot in the same breath decry horrific abuses of human rights and violations of peace while supporting horrific abuses of human rights and violations of peace.
Yes, Dienne was the one who wrote, again and again, on this blog that Putin’s military build-up was just exercises and that anyone who thought he would invade Ukraine was just believing “Biden’s” propaganda. She clearly has no shame.
Trolls have no shame.
Treating trolls as if they were simply mistaken folks who can be convinced simply legitimizes their point of view.
Because it makes their point of view something that real people would have. And even the conservatives I know who didn’t like Biden are more than willing to call out Putin as a murderous and horrible warmongerer who is targeting civilians.
dienne77 is still spending her time legitimizing Putin’s invasion and his assault on civilians by saying that it’s no different than what the US does. She won’t even criticize Putin because she is a troll, not a real person. Except for Tucker Carlson – also basically a troll who said whatever lie served those in power – no one in real life is saying what dienne77 is saying except trolls. They are willing to criticize Putin. dienne77 is not. Read her posts carefully to see that she never does (except to refer to him as if he was ill mannered, which is the same way she would “criticize” Trump.)
DIENNE: If you are truly concerned for Ukrainian lives, the best way to save them is to negotiate a lasting cease-fire.
BOB (pictures a pasty little shirtless killer with a gun to the head of a toddler and dead children around his feet saying, “I am here to negotiate.”): Unbelievable.
Let me emphasize that I did not call Dienne a traitor. I suspect, given the character of her arguments, that she is, rather, deluded.
The delusion takes the form of not seeing the blatant contradiction between a) supporting Putin, the murderer of civilians and dissenters, and b) opposition to oppression. Putin is a fascist and a criminal. He has made himself into a Maximal Leader. He has brutally suppressed dissent in his country via systematic campaigns of murder and intimidation and state control of the media, and he has set up a kleptocratic state to enrich himself and his cronies, taking his vig from every major transaction like any Mafia boss. One cannot claim to be a champion of the oppressed while simultaneously supporting this man.
As Gary Kasperov, the former world grand champion chess player puts it (this is from memory, so I might not have the quotation exactly right): “Anyone who thinks that there is moral equivalence between the West and Putin’s state should go live for a while under his version of the KGB.”
BTW, I suspect that the U.S. did supply support to the popular uprising in Ukraine against the Russian puppet government. It would be naive to think otherwise. What constitutes LEGAL support, under international law, is a question for legitimate debate. But such support of a popular uprising is entirely different from installing and supporting a brutal dictator like Pinochet or the Shah of Iran. That much should be obvious. What evidence exists that this was a popular uprising? LOOK, for crying out loud, at the current Ukrainian resistance to Putin’s brutal incursion. Ukrainians want Ukrainians, not Putin, to govern in Ukraine. HOW MUCH MORE OBVIOUS COULD THIS BE?
A poem about the crisis in Ukraine. To understand the current crisis and this poem, it helps to be aware, as most folks sadly are not, of the allied invasion of Russia at the end of World War I.
Strangelove II: Battle On the Ice
“And we are met as on a darkling plane, where ignorant armies clash by night.”
From “Dover Beach” by Matthew Arnold
An Open Poem, to the President:
Please, before we send anything to Holy Kiev, or flaming Donetsk–
defensive killing machines, or Adam and Eva’s boots on the ground–
before we smite the Rus, before we try that again—
remember our battles on the ice,
of the Great War, when Rus came out of the fog,
and buried our boys from Detroit.
Cossacks, Kulaks, murdering monarchs,
White and Red, hating us
after that grim fight in the snow.
Archangel looks down,
a half-remembered nightmare,
with tears that turned to steel and ice.
Long before that, Bonaparte marched east, to Moscow,
to destruction, and centuries before,
Tatars and Teutons, had faced off,
not just rattling sabers.
Deutschland had three tries,
and millions died.
Hearts heavy for the dead,
again, again.
Our mutual fire balls can fill the sky,
Can sweep around the world—
Immediate global warming,
Duck-and-cover-time again.
And this fight would leave no
ballets, or Tchaikovsky’s.
Prokofiev’s music will be dead.
Mussorgsky’s Pictures
Will not be heard again.
Nor is there likely to be a
Slaughterhouse story, this time–
or anyone to read it.
(For the story of the US invasion of Russia, 1918, google “Polar Bear Expedition,” or “The Ignorant Armies,” by Halliday.
Jack, who invaded Ukraine?
Who is bombing schools, hospitals, and apartment buildings?
Hint: it is not the U.S.
The U.S. participated in the ousting of Ukraine’s government in 2014. How many countries has the U.S. dropped bombs on since 2014? Your selective outrage is telling.
Aside from Putin, the Ukrainian Maidan Revolution of 2014 is widely recognized as a genuinely popular revolution against a Putin puppet, who fled to Russia. The people in the streets for months had no weapons. The government forces were well-armed. If the US “participated” in the Maidan Revolution, the protestors would have had weapons. They did not. No one but Putin sympathizers thinks that Ukraine is not an evolving democracy. Unlike Russia, it has a president who was elected by the people.
The Orange Revolution (and many of these color revolutions) was a popular uprising. Did it receive CIA support of some kind? Yeah, probably. But it was a popular uprising. The proof of that? The dramatic resistance that ordinary Ukrainians are putting up against the brutal invasion of their country. Ukrainians want Ukrainians to govern Ukraine, not Putin.
Some readers on this blog will insist that there is no popular resistance to Putin in Ukraine. What you see with your own eyes is American propaganda.
darkling plain
This repetition of the stuff about the Polar Bear Expedition reminds me of something that happens with grammar and editing. A lot of people have learned some supposed rule (Don’t split infinitives. Don’t begin a sentence with a coordinating conjunction.) that becomes, for them, a pet peeve. And they go nuts when they see a violation of this in another person’s writing while at the same time, often in the same breath, violating many other conventions or standards of English grammar, usage, punctuation, capitalization, etc. Yes, a long, long time ago (1918-19), the U.S., at the request of Great Britain and France, sent a small force to fight the Bolsheviks in Arkhangelsk, Russia . What TF does this have to do with Putin’s blatant violations of international law in Ukraine? This is like saying that we shouldn’t intervene to stop a genocide like that which occurred in Rwanda because of the Mystic Massacre. Yes, the Polar Bear Expedition was a horrific mistake. But that doesn’t make the invasion of Ukraine OK. It’s ridiculous and irrelevant whataboutism.
“A little learning is a dangerous thing; Drink deep, or taste not the Pierian spring” –Alexander Pope
In retrospect, if the creation of the Soviet Union dictatorship had been stifled in 1918, if Russia had been led by Mensheviks not Bolsheviks, millions of lives would have been saved, in Russia and elsewhere. No Ukrainian famine, no mass murders of kulaks, no collectivization of agriculture, no Gulags, no murders of dissidents and artists.
These alternative histories are fascinating to think about! Imagine this! Wow. No Holodomor. No gulags. No kangaroo court show trials. No de facto dictatorship.
I’m going to Mexico City in a couple of weeks, first time. We will visit the Trotsky House, where one of his trusted aides put an ice ax in the back of his head, on behalf of Stalin.
Wow. Exciting. And La Casa Azul, I suppose? Have a wonderful and safe trip, Diane!
Yes, we have tickets for Frida Kahlo’s house. It’s a delayed bar mitzvah gift for a grandson—delayed by two years due to COVID.
Two years!!! Wow. How wonderful that you can now do this. A safe and joyous journey to you and yours!
You’re an experienced traveler, so I suspect you know how to keep safe. There is a “Do Not Travel” recommendation for Mexico from the State Department right now, primarily due to Covid but also due to the high crime rates. So please exercise extreme caution. But you are an experienced traveler and know all this stuff better than I, I suppose. A safe and delightful journey to you and yours, Diane.
Thank you. I don’t do anything risky when I travel.
That said, I hasten to add that the poem, Mr. Burgess, is well written, if misguided.
And what was the gift the US offered to the world – calling it ‘human rights’ and ‘democracy’? Ask the people in Iraq, Vietnam, Afghanistan, Somalia, Yugoslavia, Kosovo and so many other ‘gift recipients’ who were left with their countries one big pile of rubble. And not a single sanction has been imposed on the US to this day…not a single one. Don’t hold your breath if expecting reparations or even a civilized apology.
Yes. The US offered democracy to the world. And we also didn’t try to bomb and kill women and children in Ukraine which you now seem to support. Shame on you, peskyvera.
This post is exactly what Russia propaganda is. Notice that Putin’s reprehensible action are DEFENDED as being fine.
Shocking display of malice toward the families of Ukraine in this post.
We have much to atone for. So does Russia in Ukraine.
Russia under Stalin created a massive famine in Ukraine in the 1930s by seizing their grain and shipping it to Russia. Millions of Ukrainians starved to death.
Pesky-
The Afghan women after the U.S. departed?
Yes, Putin exploited the weaknesses in democracy. Not just in the US, where the National Rifle Association seemed to become an entirely owned and operated subsidiary of Putin’s Russia, but also in the far more progressive countries of Western Europe.
The “invasion” got too many gullible people to vote against their self-interest by completely buying into the demonization of whatever so-called “enemy” Russia propaganda knew would appeal to them.
Whether the Putin-manufactured enemy was evil democrats or evil immigrants or evil BLM who were scapegoated for ruining the country, the answer was always to vote against whatever was likely to make the country better and stronger. And the propaganda was NEVER directed at the people who were Putin’s lackeys (Trump and the Republicans) — they always remained blameless for the ills of the country.
Well, cuz we “won” the Cold War. So we stopped paying attention & partied like Americans do. Like the Trojans did.
Reblogged this on silverapplequeen and commented:
Click on the original article by Umair Hague, it’s a must-read. It makes a whole lot of sense.
Geeze Louise, we certainly have a lot of Putin apologists making comments here. Oh, boo hoo, poor Czar Putin the Terrible is being forced to bomb Ukraine and kill innocent civilians by the thousands. This whole bloodbath is due to Putin, period, full stop.
I agree with part of the article by Umair Haque (vampire?) and disagree with other parts. Why does he self-describe himself as a vampire?
We’ve had a right wing in this country long before Putin was even born and the right wingers have been spewing their filth on the radio for many decades before Putin came to power. I do agree that Putin has invaded Ukraine in part to intimidate the West, the NATO countries and the countries bordering Russia and Ukraine. But mostly Putin wants to install a puppet regime in Ukraine answerable to him alone. I think that Biden is probably doing the best that he can so as to avoid an all out war with Russia.
During WWII, Russia, (the USSR) and the USA were allies and we shipped weapons and armaments to the USSR.
Umair Haque attributes too much power to Russia, he goes overboard on the supposed genius of Russian psy-ops. The US is no slouch in the psy-ops department and was our war of choice against Mexico in 1846 similar to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine? We annexed about half of Mexico from that war. But I digress.
They are the same old trolls. And they are trolls. Trolls can be identified by their unwillingness to ever acknowledge being wrong, even when it means that they condone Putin targeting civilians and killing as many innocent families as he wants.
Lots of independent journalists have said where the far right movement came from. They say it is a symptom of corporatism & oligarchy throughout the world. Middle class & working class families are struggling to survive, politicians on both the left and the right serve corporate interests rather than voters, so the people turn to right wing populists hoping that they will improve the standard of living. Look at what’s happening with the Biden admin. and his inability to pass build back better. Why would a working class voter vote for a party that can’t do anything for them? Zelensky won in Ukraine as a populist anti-establishment, anti-corruption candidate against corrupt Billionaire Poroshenko who was supported by Obama admin. after the 2014 revolution/coup. Zelensky won by circumventing the corporate media, taking his campaign straight to the people via the social media. The argument that Putin might be invading to stop the growth of authentic democracy in his region makes a lot of sense to me. The US has also undermined authentic democracies in other countries throughout the world when they get in the way of trade. The US corporate media is not going to take the position that the oligarchs who pay their salaries are responsible for the growth of right wing extremism. If they did that they’d lose their jobs.
The U.S. has had a far-right in this country for most of its history. The Nativist Party, the Know-Nothings, the Ku Klux Klan, the White Citizens Councils, the America First movement (1930s), McCarthyism, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Oathkeepers, white supremacists, militias, etc. Trump emboldened them all to come out of the shadows.
Exactly
Ryan Girdusky’s interview posted at the Pat Buchanan site tells the story of a different origin. Fyi- Girdusky founded the 1776 PAC to fund school board members who opposed CRT. Media report that the guy who is VP of EdChoice in Ky. is also associate director of the Catholic Conference of Kentucky.
Corporations air program content and ads that will be viewed as liberal knowing that it generates conservative votes for the party of business- the GOP.
The conservative Catholic majority on SCOTUS strangled democracy.
The right wing Nationalist movements started long before Putin came to power. Did we forget that Timothy McVeigh attacked Oklahoma city in 1995. And the faux outrage about Waco in 93 was widespread.Say what you will, stockpiling weapons and bombs should be no more tolerated from the Right than it was from the Left. There was no such outrage when seven square blocks of Philadelphia were taken out with C4 explosives from the air and left to burn. That event only a few years before Waco and without 51 days of waiting. The press and the Government failed to pursue McVeigh’s ties to extreme ultra nationalist religious groups. They portrayed him more as a disgruntled lone wolf.
Much the way they failed to look at the totality of the Mueller report. Being able to prove a conspiracy and a conspiracy existing are two different issues. The totality of the facts and of Trumps actions leave no other conclusion other than a quid pro quo existed whether it was spelled out or simply “understood” as Michael Cohen asserts. The characters like Roger Stone and Bannon surrounding Trump some for decades speak for themselves. As well as their connection to Easter European authoritarians and American ultra right groups.
Putin seized on the economic discontent in both Russia and the West. Would he have come to power without the economic disaster Jeffery Sachs et al. brought to Russia. As absurd as Michael Lind’s claim in “The New Class War” ,that the right wing anti immigrant, anti globalization, populism we are seeing in the West is primarily the fault of an educated technocratic neo liberal elite. The failure to at all tie those neo liberal policies to Putin’s
rise in Russia and the discontent in the West is equally bankrupt.
Thatcherism in England, Reaganomics in the USA,with policy that attacked the working class and shifted significant income to the Wealthy investor class sowed the seeds for Putin to exploit. Macron after a nearly 2 to 1 victory over the fascist Le Pen, attacks Unions, cuts taxes on the wealthy and levies a gas tax that falls hardest on the working class. Shocked simply shocked that the Yellow Jackets arose and Le Pen gains support.
The U.N. General Assembly needs to invoke Resolution 377, aka the “Uniting for Peace” Resolution,” which allows that body to override a Security Council determination in a circumstance in which the Security Council has been unable to come to a decision resulting in a peaceful resolution of a crisis. Based upon this, it needs to establish a U.N. no-fly zone above Ukraine and send into Ukraine an overwhelming peacekeeping force.
The U.N. needs to act, and act now, not the U.S., not NATO, the U.N. Putin’s criminal war threatens the security of the entire world.
I agree that this is a defining moment for the UN, not NATO. If the UN cannot unite over the issue of inviolate borders, it is doomed as a political body. Its toleration of US violation of Iraq, which was done unilaterally, was a huge blow. Its toleration of Putin will herald a new age of adventurism elsewhere.
Very well put, Roy. You freaking nailed it. This is one of those defining moments in history.
So Bob who is it exactly that would be supplying the manpower and military hardware to enforce the no fly zone against Putin and Russia.
Thus any UN no fly zone is clearly a confrontation between Western Nations including Canada and Australia vs Putin. In short WW3.
17 thousand stinger missiles and anti tank weapons is within the accepted rules of cold war proxy engagement. An F16 or 35 with an American pilot and a UN sticker making a turkey shoot of Russian armor and aircraft is not .
The events in Ukraine may be heartbreaking but this is not the first time we have seen Putin use these tactics. Europe and the US need to end their dependency on oil and gas. If not for Climate Change which should be enough. Than to stop being blackmailed by authoritarian oil states from the Saudis to Moscow.
If it takes a war effort that includes Nationalizing American oil controlling the price while increasing production to make up for Russian oil and gas. At the same time as we provide people with even heavier incentives to use Green Energy, so be it .
Don’t hold your breath!
A UN Force would be a UN force, made up of weaponry and fighters from around the world.
The UNGA vote to condemn the invasion was 142 to 5.
Thanks for the minimal shout-out to right wing religion’s role in getting out the GOP votes – it was unique to the thread.
How does the United Nations enforce a no fly zone over Ukraine? Shoot down Russian planes that enter the zone? Whose planes would be shooting down Russian planes? Who would be flying them? Does this risk nuclear conflict?
A UN peacekeeping force might consist of non-NATO nations. Many of them have pilots.
To those who say our “little” invasion of Russia way back in 1918 was nothing, well it’s taught in Russian schools. It’s not “nothing” to them. I wonder how we would feel if Russia had intervened way back in our Civil War…or as recently as 100 years ago? Would we have forgotten it? Or if our country had been invaded several times, would we have just overlooked it? And then there’s the matter of our sincerity or lack of it about “democracy” and “self-determination,” what we said we were fighting for in Viet Nam. And since there were not WMD’s in Iraq, way back in ’03, and we knew it, what were we fighting for when we destroyed Iraq? What about Libya? And all the Latin American countries we’ve invaded? Not to mention our harassment of Venezuela. And many of the leaders of those countries were or are allies of Putin. Does that make him a good guy? Of course not. But if we want to get an agreement to stop the invasion of Ukraine, somebody on our side is going to have to find something on their side to agree with–some common ground. (Btw, we’re not uneducated out here in Ohio, and some of us have a lot of experience negotiating. Do our critics)? I suggest we agree that we’ve all done things we shouldn’t, we all have a right to exist, and allow the Russians some breathing room on their borders. Just as we came close to blowing up the world in ’62 to keep the Russians out of Cuba–our “sphere of influence” (remember the Monroe Doctrine?)–maybe we could agree to not push the EU and NATO right up against Russia. They don’t have oceans on each side, as we do. They have hard-to-defend borders, and they’ve been invaded numerous times, in what we call “modern” times.
I’ll close with JFK’s statement from ’63: “If we cannot end our differences, at least we can make the world safe for diversity.”
If Russia takes control of Ukraine, it will be even closer to NATO nations.
I don’t think Russia should get “breathing room” by murdering tens of thousands of Ukrainians and destroying the infrastructure of the entire nation.
Russia is commiting war crimes by its indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets. Have you been watching the news?
And yes, I wish the Soviet regime of terrorism had been throttled in 1918, and that Hitler had been assassinated in 1938, before he launched WW2 and his extermination camps.
“[W]hat were we fighting for when we destroyed Iraq?”
The legal pretext for invading Iraq in the Second Iraq War was false, as is Putin’s pretext for invading Ukraine. It did not meet the requirements under international law justifying aggression. The so-called “Bush Doctrine” of preemptive war is not an established principle of international law.
Bush was a president elected by Americans who failed to do the right thing. They overlooked both his and Cheney’s fatal flaws.
In my lifetime we have had Vietnam, The Soviet Union’s invasion of Afghanistan, our own Afghanistan, and the Iraq War. In watching the events unfold in Ukraine it seems to me that the hubris of militarized nations blinds them against the power of self determination. Our high tech war machines have made wars more brutal and unending. The Middle East remains a violent quagmire. Simply stockpiling advanced weaponry, including nuclear missiles, does not make the rest of the world behave as the so called super powers would like. You would think the fearless leaders of these nations would finally learn that wars are cannot be won. Nah, delusions of grandeur bring narcissists to the fore.