Does it matter to the discourse re Ukraine though? Being hypocritical doesn't mean being wrong in every case. Not to mention that by that same token, the people who condemn the US for its actions in Iraq and Afghanistan would be as hypocritical for not condemning Russia's actions in Ukraine.
You also seem to miss that the actions can serve more than one actor. Europe's goals can be aligned with the US without it being hypocritical - they simply align.
War is bad, mkay?
Yeah, but it is good to keep in mind that it also works the other way around: "People who condemn the USA for invading Afghanistan and Iraq are hypocrites unless they also condemn Russia for invading Ukraine."
And who else was going to stop the genocide that Ukraine carried out against ethnic Russians for 8 years? Diplomacy certainly failed, so Russia had no other option left.
And who else was going to destroy chemical weapon in Iraq? Diplomacy certainly failed, so the USA had no other option left. /s
Russia and the USA are imperialist states that do care about people only when it is also in their interest.
Chemical weapons in Iraq clearly didnt exist. Remember Colin Powell presenting washing powder as "chemical weapons" at the UN? That was the only proof ever given. Russia will doubtlessly present proof for its claims once the war is over, and then we can see if it was true.
If Russia joined the war for imperialist reasons, that means they were planning to profit financially. How do they profit if they know that they were going to be sanctioned severely? Its much easier to believe that they were concerned about their security, considering that Ukraine threatened to acquire nuclear weapons just a few days earlier.
There is clearly no genocide.
From Putin himself:
"[The Donbass residents], who did not agree with the [2014] coup [in Kiev], were immediately hit with punitive military operations. A blockade was immediately put in place against these people. They were subjected to systematic shelling, air strikes. This is what is called 'genocide'".
This is a civil war, not a genocide. By the way, preventing a genocide is a legitimate reason to ask for an intervention of UN. This is not the path they chose.
On chemical weapons, it is clear today that they "do not exist" but at the time, they were "proof" from the CIA and the Italian secret service that they existed. They were all fake, however, they were several proofs. It was word against word. French for example said chemical weapons existed but there were no production and Iraq agreed to cooperate for their destruction so they were against war. In the end, some old and mostly unusable chemical weapons were found in Iraq. I think we agree on this issue, I just wanted to bring nuance on what you wrote.
They profit way more from Ukraine as a puppet state than as an allied of Europe.
Imperialism is not just a question of money.
You assume that Putin anticipated sanctions. He clearly anticipated some of them but not that much. He also thought that way more Ukrainian would support the invasion (like in Crimea) and that the Ukrainian army would be less prepared and so on. But it is a whole other debate.
They annexed Crimea in 2014. Do you really think that the annexion of a region from a sovereign state is not a clear sign of imperialism ? Furthermore, I find it much easier to believe that Putin wants to submits Ukraine to Russia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/On_the_Historical_Unity_of_Russians_and_Ukrainians).
There were 14.000 civilians killed in Donbass by the Kiev regime. As your quote says, "this is what is called a genocide". And genocide often happens during wartime, so the fact that there was a civil war does not preclude a genocide at all.
So you admit that the chemical weapons claims were invented. Then why was no one punished for those false allegations which resulted in millions of deaths? Why wasnt the CIA dissolved, and reparations paid to the innocent Iraqi people? Is that what you call justice?
I did not state that the situation was fair in Iraq. In fact, I condemn the American invasions. So, I also condemn Russian invasion for the very same reasons.
To come back on the false allegation of Putin that there is a genocide.
And genocide often happens during wartime, so the fact that there was a civil war does not preclude a genocide at all.
I totally agree with you. However, this is not a genocide for two reasons: there is no will to destroy Ethnic Russians of Ukraine and 99.9% of the Ethnic Russians of Donetsk and Luhansk survived this so-called genocide.
I suppose your figures are true, which means 14.000 civilians of Ethnic Russians were killed by the Ukrainian regime. There are more than 6 millions people living living in Donetsk and Luhansk, around 40% are Russians. It means 0.1% of them were killed. To compare, between 60 and 75% of Armenian were killed during the genocide in the first world war, depending of estimations.
Genocide is the intentional destruction of a people, usually defined as an ethnic, national, racial, or religious group. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genocide)
Don't get me wrong: It is a tragedy but it is no genocide.
This war will kill thousands of Ukrainians and Russians for no justifiable reason. Trying to justify it because "NATO imperialism" is just nationalism. I don't think leftists should accept and repeat such propaganda.
Most European territories serve the USA’s geopolitical goals. Sanctions against Russia right now are part of that. There’s nothing moral about it. It’s simply a service to the USA for being in its sphere of influence. There is nothing, not a single shred of integrity in that.
European countries must send a strong message that war in Europe is not worth it... hence sanctions. They are not dooing it because they "serve the USA’s geopolitical goals".