Every time I see Ukrainians post photos of the unprovoked Russian shelling of their cities, I think "In 2003 that was how Iraqis felt about us."
About 7000 Iraqi civilians were killed in the first 2 months of our "Shock and Awe" bombing campaign.
That pregnant mom in Mariupol dying from a Russian bomb? In 2003 that was an Iraqi mom and an American bomb.
Iraq did nothing to us, and yet one day we showed up and started slaughtering people.
Yes, of course Vladimir Putin is worse than George W. Bush. Yes, the U.S. tried harder than the Russians to avoid targeting civilians. Blah blah blah.
Doesn't change the fact that we invaded a country without provocation and slaughtered many innocents.
The Iraq War destroyed much of the positive reputation we had built up as stewards of the liberal order after WW2. It ended the trend toward greater liberalism, and put the world on course for the creeping authoritarian nightmare we face today.
noahpinion.substack.com/p/the-darkness
The darkness we face in the 2020s is something we had helped to imprison and restrain in the 20th century, at incredible cost.
And then in 2003, in our arrogance, we willingly released that darkness into the world again.
There's a straight line from Bush 2003 to Putin 2022.
The terrifying world we face today -- a world where "countries are...like tigers eyeing their prey, keen to find every opportunity among the ruins of the old order", to quote a Chinese professor -- is the world we unleashed in 2003.
Now we need to play our part in restoring the order we mortally wounded in 2003. But we haven't yet reckoned with the crime that we committed then. And until we do, I believe we will not fully regain our moral standing in the world.
(end)
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