Will libs have a collective realization about Ukraine like they did with Iraq or will they stay stubborn in it forever?

In ten years every liberal who was frothing about russian orcs will confidently tell you they always said the neo-nazi problem in Ukraine was bigger than the invasion, and that they correctly predicted all these terror attacks all over Europe, and they're definitely anti-fascists from way back.

Key difference: there's no US boots on the ground in Ukraine. Like with Vietnam, a lot of the Iraq rhetoric is centered on the american soldiers who were killed and maimed. Notice how US/NATO intervention in Libya and Kosovo, which was accomplished primarily through air power and without significant losses, has not had any critical reexamination—I would think the lack of american corpses has a good deal to do with that

disclaimer: this is not financial advice, i am just a small worm

when they have a collective realization it usually comes long after it stops mattering (like denouncing the coup in Chile that happened 50 years ago)

It'll be like conservatives with Vietnam: a stab in the back narrative (albeit less visceral due to it being a proxy war.)

I think that they will continue to do the "russia was the aggressor" but they'll almost certainly start saying "we should have negotiated sooner, it was obvious we had bad intelligence (or, if we're lucky, 'it was obvious the media was lying') about how weak the russian army/economy was"

They're already hate eastern Europeans for being poor "white" people (the thing a liberal hates the most), and truly do not see how the west is responsible for this poverty. My whole life I've heard them mock the cheap, durable housing that was built throughout the USSR with no appreciation for this mass, collective effort to house everyone after a devastating war. It's almost like libs don't actually recognize these people as humans.

Even more apparent is their failure to connect fascism with capitalist collapse and false scarcity. Libs hate that there's visible fascists in eastern Europe, but think it's an individual failing of these unenlightened people, not an obvious consequence of the west winning the so-called cold war.

These currents in liberal thought are so strong, and have been so prominent for decades, that I would say there's no chance of reconsidering the narrative that is essentially bad things happen because Russia exists.

Edit: A lot of libs I think ultimately found the racism directed towards Muslims and Middle easterners to be unseemly, and this was a good starting point for reanalysis. I don't see Slavs and their neighbors getting that same treatment.

I think it's gonna be more like how cons dealt with Iraq. They eventually will just say it was bad strategy, we should have just started WW3 essentially. They will not examine it to understand that is what they are saying, but it will be a tragic failure of NATO not being strong or something like that.

The libs will still be anti-Russian in general, but the state and the media will definitely pull a 180 when Ukrainian neo-nazis begin their campaigns of violence across Europe, the libs will then pretend they never normalized global neo-nazism and decry Ukrainians in the same strident tone they currently decry Russians

The blowback from this war will be hideous and the libs are going to be extremely obnoxious about it the whole time, I suspect by 2025 the libs will all become Polish nationalists and start accusing the "tankies" of being neo-Nazis apologists for opposing the deportation and liquidation of every Ukrainian refugee for the actions of Nazis that libs armed, that's the level of absurdity I'm expecting

Get ready for the whiplash

They will not because they see Russia as the main reason why Trump became president instead of Clinton. "Russia kinda had a point in the invasion" will never be accepted by them. They desire the complete destruction of the Russian Federation, and when it becomes clear that the invasion is not leading to the downfall of the Russian state anytime soon, they will not only not come to see the truth but double down on their delusions. As the US and the rest of the west continues to decline, cope about Russia collapsing any day now will blend with cope about China collapsing any day now.

Gen alpha libs will. They'll say that "X conflict we're supporting is unlike America's past mistakes such as Ukraine, which is ancient history."

Their realization with Iraq is not "we shouldn't have supported the war", it is "we should be in charge of it, not GW Bush, who screwed it up by not going full Thomas Friedman SUCK ON THIS mode".

That is why Biden and Clinton supporting the Iraq war lost them zero votes in the Dem primary, since the libs don't blame them for the war because Bush is the one who fucked it up. Should have sent more troops!

No because the US invaded Iraq and thus is basically impossible to ever defend. They will literally ALWAYS say Ukraine support was justified because Russia started the physical invasion that all the western news agencies reported. Anything that's more complicated than the Iraq invasion is going to be defended forever the same way they deliberately misinterpret Molotov-Ribbentrop, etc.

I don't know but I intend to blame every supporter of the war for killing 500k people both russian and ukrainian with bloodthirsty nationalism. I will not let it go. They will respond "Putin's war". I will continually repeat that they are nationalists that sent all of these people to their deaths over lines on a map. Some of them might realise their own nationalism, maybe.

The only way a dent gets made in any of this in the long term is by chipping away at american nationalism. Otherwise they'll just do the same thing for the next war which totally won't be just like all the others.

If significant blowback happens then you'll see people start to turn in large quantities.

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Another key reason it's different - US troop involvement. A bipartisan part of anti Iraq war movements was the 'save our troops' angle, lamenting the poor American soldiers who stepped on mines while destroying Iraq.

Ukraine, with it's new labour laws, and banderite sympathies will be either be under Ukrainian control a derelict country of exploited people, many scarred physically and mentally by war, with no social safety net. They will undergo an 'economic miracle' and the libs will say job done, when the miracle is really just further reappropriation of wealth to the rich through cheap labour. The top 1% and foreign 'investors' will make millions while the people starve. Under Russian control, probably much the same, but with a fuse lit, ticking away until the war starts again with new funding. The cycle may repeat.

I think there’s probably going to be some parallels with the Yugoslav wars with Russians occupying this spot of “group of irredeemable people predisposed to ethnic cleansing” that Serbs got (the Yugoslav wars being more complex and shitty than the popular narrative).

Everyone’s going to say arming Ukraine was the right thing that stopped a full genocide of Ukraine. Donbass, Crimea etc will be the new Tibet, Xinjiang.

I actually don't think they'll ever change their minds about this one. They'll just bury the nuance forever. In 10 years they're not going to be saying "I always knew it was wrong" they're going to be saying "what? a war in ukraine? sorry i havent read about that, i dont really know ancient history"

The Ukraine war is a lot more nuanced than the Iraq war, so no.

If the libs follow precedent, they won't change their minds about Ukraine as much as stop talking about it and assume it's as done and over as covid.

Idk, I've seen many libs still justify Iraq. It's not likely, given how almost cult-like the libs have gotten with this war. Any disagreement and they call you a Z Putin Bot or a 50 cent army

Which libs realized anything about Iraq?

They didn't change their minds, they just went from believing thing a to believing thing b without ever passing through a midpoint, it is an instantaneous process with no regard for prior conditions

No. Their role is to support it, like Iraq, then lament the consequences after the fact as damage control.

I remember Chris Hedges saying something to that measure in regards to Iraq. The liberal intellectual class is there to support the state and American project.

The closest they'll come is saying "we didn't know any better" or admitting it didn't go well but not recognizing the US's role and still seeing us as just "trying to do what's right"

Nah, best case they just forget about it (unless Ukraine goes full nazi and invades Moldova or something). Think the US support of the mujahideen in Afghanistan against the Soviets, or the northern alliance in Afghanistan against the taliban.

There was significant opposition to the Iraq War among mainstream US Democrats from the beginning. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Authorization_for_Use_of_Military_Force_Against_Iraq_Resolution_of_2002?wprov=sfla1 Also very large protests at the time in the US and EU.

If the conflict stays like it is, just a constant battlefield with meters traded back and forth every week, then they probably won't. It'll just ... slowly fade away from their minds.

Now, something big is going to have to happen like a bomber full of ordinance gets knocked out of the sky over a densely populated civilian area or a nuke plant melting down... something that kills a TON of people in a very short period of time... then they might "burn their uniforms" a year or two later.

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I don't know that there's a collective left to realize things like in the days of the Iraq hangover. Sure there’s like your CNN watchers, but thats a shrinking group and more people now get their shit algorithmically on some level. (Consensus) reality isn't what it used to be, like my favorite cult blue curtains classic In the Mouth of Madness.

Nope. They'll just pretend they were anti-war from the start.

Probably not. The rivalry between Russia and China is only starting.

yes, but news are just commodities and they'll just stop paying attention to it in 2 years unless you bring it to them after 2-3 glasses of wine.

You can see how news has been commodified when journalists don't have any accountabilities (like a 9-5 jobs with questionable practice where you can pressed on the person and they'll respond: "well it's capitalism, i have to eat, i'm just following order, i try to stay away from the politics of it) for reporting disinformations during the Iraq wars, Chinese Ballons or any others subjects; not even an official editorial apologies (they really don't have to because people don't care)

I remembered in a national radio broadcast, they invited a chinese expert who said that Chinese people like to create a political scandal (chinese ballon) to pressure the opponent before a diplomatic visit (blinken's visit). I doubt that the radio station will not invite him back for the next chinese "political scandal"