The differences are just in what and how its reported on.

Maybe US has not invaded a neighbor but invaded globally practically on daily basis, engaged in 230 or so war's post ww2, while countries' borders and bordering countries are kinda natural national interests especially if the population is to the considerable percentage of same ethnicity, countries 10.000km away are much less so

When it comes to destruction, Ukraine war is destructive mostly to combatant forces, but in terms of destruction of infrastructure or civilian lives lost  Ukraine war is not even remotely close to levels inflicted on Iraq, 

Just civilian deaths via drone assassination programs outnumber Ukrainian war civilian death tool and Obama got the Nobel Peace prize and by now probably 100mio$ for non existent movies and shows (Netflix Spotify,Amazon) that no one watches as a reward.( of course to keep up the illusion drone war strike casualties classification was creatively accounted for till basically anyone old enough to hold a gun was classified as terrorist or a combatant).

When it comes to the destruction of real estate,US razed to the ground Falluja twice, Mosul once ,Raqqa, Ramadi destruction on a scale incomparable to Ukraine ,of course , US also did not even attempt to rebuild anything,not only that actively prevents rebuild of Syria 

YouTube

More than 22,000 civilians likely killed by US strikes since 2001

How many civilians have US strikes likely killed in 20 years of the 'Forever Wars'? Airwars gathered every reliable assessment together and reached the start...

By the way when can we expect the seizure of Bill Gates or Jeff Bezos assets, sanctions, 100 billion $ of military aid for Syria to combat Illegal US and Turkish occupation for however long it takes? Syria would count as one of those special military operations that somehow doesn't count as war or Syria a sovereign country.

You could literaly take any of the countries that supplied arms to syria as states supporting terrorism  in an effort to regime change .

Anyone that thinks Syria was/is civil war has to then take Ukraine as civil war . 

YouTube

Flashback 2005 - CNN's Amanpour Tells Syria's Assad: 'US Govt is Coming For You!'

In late 2005 Christiane Amanpour interviewed Bashar Al-Assad ahead of the publication of a UN report on an investigation into the assassination of Rafik Hari...

mpopenker said:

Well, cynically speaking, you do the same all around the globe, so why others shall be any different?

Interesting map.

I see that France is in "red", so labeled as "invaded by the US".

When did France gets invaded by the US?

Oh, of course, in 1944, during the operation "Overlord"!

So, liberating France from German invasion is called in this map "US invasion of France".

Well, if the rest of the map is colored with this same amount of bad faith and technical stupidity, then it's value is not really high...

mpopenker said:

Does that statement of yours means that that anything that happened before 2022 was basically all right and thus should not have been avoided?

Once again you are dishonestly trying to give a different meaning to what I said. 

My statement means only what I said:  The US did not start this war.  Russia did.

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

...bordering countries are kinda natural national interests especially if the population is to the considerable percentage of same ethnicity...

That is true.  It is also an excuse that has been used by other aggressor nations in the past.

But it does not matter if some Ukrainians are ethnic Russians.  Russia is still the aggressor.

stancrist said:

That is true.  It is also an excuse that has been used by other aggressor nations in the past. But it does not matter if some Ukrainians are ethnic Russians.  Russia is still the aggressor.

Lets just say lowers the threshold for action considerably. Yes i agree Russia is the aggressor here and that Invasion is illegal, but in the same vein can not be differentiated from US or Nato initiated wars we have seen in the past two decades against countries that were of no threat to US national security, purely wars of choice.

And the next thing are extraterritorial and particularly impactful and very much illegal secondary sanctions that are waged against about 40 nations around the globe that result in a war like death tools in some countries that are not resource rich, are even worse as they are taking their tool outside The Sun paid advertising on Youtube so folks have no clue on how much damage they are causing to common folks in targeted countries while causing absolutely none to the elites. 

At least this part now seems to have broken irretrievably, irony is that primary sanction breakers are actually US allies from GCC

*I have traveled through all countries on 'axis of evil' except North Korea, including some pre & post-sanctions so have some first-hand insight into how that works out in practice .

They probably ran out of Nobel peace prizes to award .

YouTube

Half a Million Children Have Died - Madeleine Albright - "The Price Is Worth It"

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

Yes i agree Russia is the aggressor here and that Invasion is illegal...

Thank you.

Mr. T (MrT4) said:

...but in the same vein can not be differentiated from US or Nato initiated wars we have seen in the past two decades against countries that were of no threat to US national security, purely wars of choice.

I agree that the US invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq were wars of choice. 

In that sense, there is no difference with the Russian invasion of Ukraine.

However, Russia's goal in Ukraine appears to be annexation of more land.

That is significantly different from the US intentions in Afghanistan and Iraq.

mpopenker said:

I'm all for a multipolar world...

As is Putin.  And it looks like we may be headed in that direction.

However, Putin's idea of a multipolar world is one in which Russia has total control of its part of the world and is free to invade its neighbors.

In reality, the multipolar world as it actually develops may well prove the old adage of "Be careful what you wish for, because you might get it."

YouTube

Turkey Navigates the Ukraine War || Peter Zeihan

Despite the threat a Russian victory over Ukraine poses to Turkey, they are taking a far different approach to international affairs than Japan...and it make...

YouTube

The Russian & Chinese Partnership || Peter Zeihan

Russia and China have entered a "strategic partnership" but Putin and Xi are likely just keeping their enemies within striking distance. Only time will tell ...

YouTube

Building the Anti-Russian Alliance || Peter Zeihan

The European space has historically been disconnected. Between geographical barriers, neutral countries, and bloody history, that shouldn't come as a surpris...

Meme time.  

Europe built an anti-Russian alliance several times. Last time it included Finland too.

But some people just never learn, I guess. And some things never change

mpopenker said:

Europe built an anti-Russian alliance several times. Last time it included Finland too. But some people just never learn, I guess.

Indeed.  And it is certainly true of Russians, perhaps more than other people. 

Russia started the Crimean War by invading and occupying Ottoman territory.

Russia helped start World War II by attacking and invading Poland and Finland.

Russia got its ass thoroughly kicked by the European allies in the Crimean War.

Russia reportedly had in excess of a million soldiers killed and wounded by Finnish forces during the Winter War and Continuation War.

One might think that those costly experiences would have caused Russia to abstain from such acts of aggression, yet here we are again.

But I guess some people are just too dumb to learn.  Or gluttons for punishment.