I remember following news during the buildup to that war. It was fairly obvious that those WMD claims was weak, and that was definitely brought up in the news. While I was mostly following European sources, so American sources might have been less insistent on that. But seriously, if your country wants to go to war, and local news sources is the only thing you look at. Then you aren't trying very hard to stay informed, and if you are fortunate enough to speak English, there is so many serious news sources out there with different viewpoints it's crazy. So there is not much of an excuse.
I'm reminded a little bit of a clip[0] in which an AP reporter challenged a State Department official about some of his claims about the Russian plans for a war on Ukraine. It's aged in a weird way, because of course, the war happened - but it does show the weird dynamic at play between journalists, the people, and the state security apparatus.
Essentially, they can't give you the details. Sometimes they lie, for national security, operational security, or even pathological, political reasons.
I guess the one takeaway that's stuck in my mind from this morass is that the people who led us to war in Iraq should have gone to jail. That would have been the only way to maintain the integrity of the security apparatus they misused to trick their nations into going along with it.
False flag operations were very common in Ukraine from both sides of the parties. It was often a war about publicity and perception to get third parties to act.
Russian/orthodox world perspective: whether the west likes it or not, ukraine's illegal coup government went out of its way to oppress Russians all over the country. Azov was on a campaign of war crimes against the east long before the current war: "russia instigated the ethnic Russians in the east to rebel!" Come the cries, but, even if true, our answer is to shrug and say the United States does this all the time. Turn about is fair play.
Moreover, the view from Greece and Serbia is that the United States and Europe are causing needless Ukrainian deaths by encouraging them to fight a hopeless war. Western propaganda claims lives in this case.
> whether the west likes it or not, ukraine's illegal coup government went out of its way to oppress Russians all over the country. Azov was on a campaign of war crimes against the east long before the current war: "russia instigated the ethnic Russians in the east to rebel!" Come the cries, but, even if true, our answer is to shrug and say the United States does this all the time. Turn about is fair play.
Sure, and I think that's why Russia more or less got away with Crimea and Donbas. But this kind of open invasion seems like a different level, something we haven't seen (post-9/11 notwithstanding) since Serbia/Kosovo, and indeed that's the parallel Russia often draws - but the justification for that was a well-documented massacre of civilians. Is that kind of thing evidenced in what the Azov Battalion et al are accused of? (Genuine question, I'm interested to hear what's being said on every side).
> Then you aren't trying very hard to stay informed
I don’t disagree with this, but I don’t think the burden should entirely be on us common folk. We are the ones being lied to. We can’t only focus on “staying informed,” it is critical that we start demanding the truth from the institutions we’re supposed to trust. If they don’t change, we need new institutions.
Back then, news was thought to be a counter to government. Government had its power and news told the truth about that power. This turned out to be an illusion and that illusion has been breaking down over the last 20 years, but it's very stubborn. I first remember it during the Clinton / Monica Lewinsky scandal. All the news outlets chose to ignore it. Drudge ended up getting the scoop at which point the news had to cover it. If it weren't for Drudge, it might not have ever come out. This was what, 1996?
There isn't much in the way of alternatives either. When they do pop up, they are coincidentally labeled as "misinformation," and censored.
