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this post was submitted on 17 Aug 2024
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"I didn't want the war to be in MY country!"
As an American who opposed the Iraq War and watched so many of my fellow Americans, mostly conservative, beat the drums of war and slapping yellow ribbons on their suburbans... The same sentiment was definitely here. People treated war in Afghanistan and Iraq like a game. Americans especially as of late have never really felt the direct impact of all-out war. In fact Putin learned a lot about domestic propaganda from those Bush years.
Yeah there's a fair amount of cross pollination between Fox News and co and Russian state sponsored tv, like Alex Jones for example used to appear on various Russian channels.
The first few minutes of this video are a good illustration of the parallels https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7OFyn_KSy80
I try to tell people just how bad war is and how much it should be avoided. But that Hollywood idea is just too dug in. I really enjoyed the civil war movie that just came out though. I hope people saw it's message on the sheer capriciousness of suffering in war.
What movie?
I believe they are talking about the movie actually called Civil War about a modern civil war.
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt17279496/
I haven't seen it myself. Apparently, the movie never explains why there is a war, which would annoy me too much.
The war is there because the right talked about it so much until they got it
Oh I saw that... it was decent but I agree it relied too heavily on the purposely not explaining things to create mystery? Otherwise the interaction between characters is good and I believe it had Pedro pascal in it
This is true, but it's not what the movie is about so not really an important part.
They drop enough hints to satisfy curiosity but they do not go into details
I might watch it eventually if it drops hints, but I am really tired of movies like that which don't actually tell you why it happened. I felt that way about The Road and also about Leave the World Behind. Fans argue that the actual reason everything ended, or is ending in the case of the latter, don't matter because it's all about the characters... and if that works for you, fine. I need something more than "it just happened."
I totally understand where you are coming from and agree in those particular examples; sure, the characters give us something to watch but without understanding what is actually happening, the story loses tons of steam
In the case of Civil War I think it works because of the following (no spoilers):
Cinematography is amazing and it does have that odd vibe that A24 movies have. I liked this movie a lot.
Okay, you have convinced me. I will put it on my very long list. Thanks.
I don't think it's quite the same situation because an attack on US soil preceded the war in Afghanistan. I think people in NYC felt the direct impact of war on 9/11.
The Taliban offered to give up Bin Ladin in exchange for us to stop bombing them before our invasion. We refused and invaded anyway. Worked out great, I'm told.
Yeah fair point. I think much of America felt they had an obligation to respond directly to those directly involved with 9/11 (and yet, we never touched Saudi Arabia), so I can understand a limited operation to find OBL.
... Yet literally within 6 months of 9/11, George W Bush famously said, "I don't know where he is, nor do I spend much time on it to be honest with ya[...] I truly am not that concerned about him." Source
It took Obama to clean that up with precision, which is how it always should've been.
That being said I should note that Iraq had fundamentally nothing to do with 9/11 in any way. There were many lies spread by right-wing media and the Bush Administration trying to tie Iraq and Saddam to Al Qaeda and Bin Laden, but none of those bore any truth.
I was politically conscious back then and from amn outside perspective the stupidity was very obvious.
Understandably 911 worked to get people into the mindset.
Russia is different: the people do not care about the reasons for this war, they are depolitisized and powerless and just hope to get through this somehow. They do not seem hungry for this war and are either conscripts or volunteers who get a fairly high salary.
I'm Ukrainian who has lived in the US for almost 30 years. Only now, after Ukraine has bee invaded, did I realize what having that yellow ribbon in "support of our troops" meant. It doesn't matter what kind of "altruistic" reasons you assign to it. Any time a country invades another, they are the bad guy because ANY war means the deaths of innocent people and should be avoided at all costs, no matter the reason.
Much respect to you for evolving your views! There's an incredible documentary, Once Upon a Time in Iraq that shows the war through the perspective of Iraqi civilians. One of the best docs I've ever seen.
You must have a pretty unique perspective on the Russian-Ukraine war. Hoping any family and friends you may have over there are safe.
Experiencing your native country at war changes your perspective on A LOT of things. It makes it easier to understand the wars of the past, and also, puts them in perspective...amongst many many other things. I will consider watching that documentary if there is no actual gore in it, because that's not something I am willing to watch. My relatives are physically ok right now, but they're angry and emotionally drained. It is scary seeing them talk about a recent nearby explosion and making sure everyone is ok.
But yea, it doesn't matter who was "right" or "wrong" prior to war. As soon as you invade, everything prior to that gets overwritten and you're 100% the bad guy, no matter how you justify it.
You are underplaying the struggles of civilians in a war zone just because they happen to live on the wrong side of the border.
Civilians have all the rights to not want war on their country, at their doors, no matter which side of the border they are, and they are allowed to lament the incompetency of a government that hides critical information from them in an attempt to cover up its failures.
The Ukrainians have the right to keep fighting, and I hope they win this war. Putin is a criminal and he must pay for his crimes. This doesn't mean that civilians caught in the crossfire are being petty.
A lot of Russians support the war, though. Those deserve what they're getting. And they're very lucky it's the Ukrainians invading them, not the Russians.
But how many of them support the war because the only media available is Russian state propaganda?
the answer is - it doesn't matter. the biggest learning from the nazi germany was that you don't need the entire population of a country to be homicidal psychopaths. all you need is a small group of those psychopaths, control or media, propaganda and you get a perfectly functioning system where normal everyday folks go to their normal everyday jobs.
just those jobs are in gestapo. or in maintenance of gas chambers. or making food for the equally confused soldiers.
of course, we should avoid civilian casualties as much as we can (but apparently russian army is not required) but the system needs to be stopped.
russia has cancer. chemoterapy is not a pleasant procedure that affects both ill and healthy cells. the alternative is, unfortunately, to allow that cancer to spread to the entire planet.
I'm just saying we can't just assume these people would be in favor of the war if they weren't forced to only consume pro-regime media. I'm sure a lot of North Koreans support the Kim regime because they've been indoctrinated since childhood with basically no accurate information about anything, so they just don't know. But if you read the accounts of the ones who do end up escaping to the south, they're just floored by how the world really is.
Of course we cannot. I agree with you that nobody is born evil or a criminal (even psychopaths are not guaranteed to become serial killers).
By all means, if not for propaganda, we would live in a very different world.
But the unfortunate fact is that they did consume enough of that propaganda to do nothing, or worse, follow the orders.
Yes, they are not criminals by nature, but what they do is crime or at least they are an accessory. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accessory_(legal_term)
I think you mean peripheral https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peripheral
No, I meant an accessory as in:
An accessory is a person who assists, but does not actually participate, in the commission of a crime.
I'm all for having sympathy for Russian civilians and even soldiers in some cases. I get that overt opposition to the war (and even calling at a war) is a very dangerous opinion to have out loud in Russia. I'm very sympathetic to those citizens that oppose the war and the administration, but keep quiet about it. I wish they'd do more, but I don't expect most Russian citizens to stick their neck out like Navalny did.
All that said, Russian propaganda isn't magic brainwashing that entirely prevents rational thought. It's just propaganda, and many (possibly most) Russians know that it is propaganda. Unlike North Korea they've still had access to alternative news sources (all maybe not for much longer). They have had plenty of time to smell the bullshit and look for less biased news.
The propaganda does make it harder for the average Russian citizens to recognize this war for the atrocity it is (or even a war), but they're not brainwashed zombies, and they're also not morons, so they're still responsible for their choices. If they choose to actively support this war, or if they choose to actively support this regime, that puts some blood on their hands - even if it's mostly because they chose to continue to live in ignorance despite all the signs.
You could say that about fundamentalist religion too, and yet there are a whole lot of extremists out there of various religions and a big part of it is that they were indoctrinated from birth.
I could and I do. Being born into religious fundamentalism is no more a moral get out of jail free card than being born on Russian soil. In both cases you got dealt a rough hand, but you're still responsible for your actions. Supporting atrocities isn't ok, no matter what your upbringing was.
A lot of Russians have no idea what's going on. Rural communities get their information from state media and their local politicians.
I remember people in rural areas of my East European country being interviewed about politics and they were completely clueless. Some thought the president was still the same guy who was violently overthrown in bloody revolution over a decade before. Many would vote for whoever their mayor told them to vote for. I remember someone being asked why she's voting for someone and her answer was "because he's the president" (he was running for a second term). She honestly didn't know how it all works and found it natural to vote for the president, not some other guy.
So yeah, if people like that are told those guys are oppressed and we sent an army to liberate them, they'll believe it and support the war. That doesn't mean they deserve to be victims of that war.
I get what you're saying but it's still supporting the war. It's like if someone grew up bigoted because of their upbringing. Guess what, they're still a bigot.
Your choice to be ignorant about the world doesn't excuse you when the world bites you in the ass. We can only hope the war at their doorstep is a wakeup call.
You realize the interview only showed the people who give the best sound bites? I bet you could find someone living in Washington DC who still thinks Clinton is President. And maybe someone who thinks Hillary Clinton is President.
People are responsible for who they vote for. Being uneducated is not a good excuse when there's only a few choices. It's not like they're being asked to run the entire country. If they are voting, they have a major responsibility and entire years to make up their minds.
Those villages didn't have electricity or running water at the time. They lived in the middle ages. My wife's grandparents lived in such a village. Her grandfather was thrown out by his parents as a kid because he was too small. He lived in the woods, surviving on roots and berries for years. Who is president was the least of his concerns. If the guy who gave him a piece of land to call his own told him that the best candidate is X, then that's who he'd vote for.
There were thousands of villages like that one all over the country. Reporters didn't need to hunt for he best soundbites, just pick a random village and you'll get all the material you need.
In most of those placed the mayor would come down before elections bringing gifts and telling them how everything they have is because of his party. And they have no reason not to believe him, since he's the only contact they ever have with any type of politics.
“Support the war or go to jail for 10 years!”
How many are going to take the 10 years?
If everybody took the jail, there'd be no war. Of course you can't expect it of people, but it's true.
A lot of Americans supported the equally illegal invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan, I still don’t think they deserve even how shitty their non-occupation civil government is.
Given how war works I’m almost certain there will be war crimes against the civil population here. Not as bad as what the Russians are doing in their occupied territories I sure as fuck hope and expect, but worse than anyone deserves. I can see Ukrainians getting to be a bit vindictive etc about this, they’ve earned it, but as armchair commentators online at a safe distance we should fucking show some empathy for people in a shitty situation they have very little control over.
I can’t control my government and I live in a democracy. I don’t blame Russians for most of what their state does either.
That's a stretch to call the USA a democracy with all tactics to keep right-wingers in power.
Thank you for saying this. People (like the below commenter) dunking on people just trying to live their lives who live in a country where their government fucking sucks is gross and not well thought out. (And even if a lot of Russians support the war, its worth remembering that their access to information is limited, and all nations of people become stupid and nationalist in times of war. That doesn't forgive it, but it doesn't mean they deserve to live in a war zone as punishment.)
Really? Does that also count for Germans during WW2? They suffered a ton more than the Russians in Kursk do now. Just to be clear, I would be strongly opposed to fire bombing Russians (as we casually did to WW2 Germans/Japanese civilians). However, I would say that the current Ukrainian invasion into Russia falls well within the bounds of a proportional response.
Leopard 2s eating Z faces right now.
Of course, since, according to the article, you can't legally say "war" in Russia anymore... they could actually say what they wanted or didn't want.
I remember a time when people where arrested for standing with a blank white paper
"I did not fake vote for that!"