But to outsiders, having the US say how bad and evil Russia is for illegally invading Ukraine sounds ridiculous when the US illegally invaded Iraq only 20 years ago with equally absurd justification.
You know, you can also just completely ignore whatever "the US says" about the topic (or supposedly says based on whatever news feeds seem to be bubbling up for you in the last 10 minutes). Both its narratives and its moral posturing. In fact, you basically go on with most of your life if the big bad ole' USA never existed at all. Even if you happen to be stuck living there for some dumb reason.
And instead just do your own research -- ideally grounded in lots and lots of solid history, but also along other axes, such as talking to people actually from either of these other much more fascinating places, and even (if it seems safe for you to do so) visiting them yourself. And then come to your own views about how bad and evil Russia (or whichever putatively evil thing) is or is not, on its own merits (or lack thereof). Completely without reference to whatever "the US" supposedly has to say about anything.
In general this whole emphasis on "hypocrisy" is really not useful in terms of making useful judgements about what actually happened in the world, or why. On the whole it seems to serve no other purpose than to cloud people's minds, promote anxiety ... and get them to start ruminating, fulminating and devoting way too much energy on the topic of whether a certain person (or an entire country, allegedly) is "hypocritical" about a certain putatively evil thing on the world -- rather than the actual facts and etiology of the actual putatively evil thing in itself.
This is a great argument. One just has to go to countries like Ukraine and the Baltic states to see what people think about Russia. Russia is an existential threat for these people. Not just some ideological opponent in global politics. The illegal invasion of Iraq doesn't change this. It doesn't change how Ukrainians are affected by Russia's war on them.
You know, you can also just completely ignore whatever "the US says" about the topic (or supposedly says based on whatever news feeds seem to be bubbling up for you in the last 10 minutes). Both its narratives and its moral posturing. In fact, you basically go on with most of your life if the big bad ole' USA never existed at all. Even if you happen to be stuck living there for some dumb reason.
And instead just do your own research -- ideally grounded in lots and lots of solid history, but also along other axes, such as talking to people actually from either of these other much more fascinating places, and even (if it seems safe for you to do so) visiting them yourself. And then come to your own views about how bad and evil Russia (or whichever putatively evil thing) is or is not, on its own merits (or lack thereof). Completely without reference to whatever "the US" supposedly has to say about anything.
In general this whole emphasis on "hypocrisy" is really not useful in terms of making useful judgements about what actually happened in the world, or why. On the whole it seems to serve no other purpose than to cloud people's minds, promote anxiety ... and get them to start ruminating, fulminating and devoting way too much energy on the topic of whether a certain person (or an entire country, allegedly) is "hypocritical" about a certain putatively evil thing on the world -- rather than the actual facts and etiology of the actual putatively evil thing in itself.