I think a material difference between Iraq (v2 anyway) and Ukraine is that they can keep doing the “well Russia was the aggressor” thing indefinitely even if the reality is more complicated.
also yes obviously some libs are still stubborn about Iraq, the worst ones, but for the most part its generally agreed that the Iraq War was a bad thing.
revolutionary defeatism is for use against imperialists, not anti-imperialists combatting the world hegemonic empire. If I was in Syria I would be fighting for Assad. If I were in Iraq during US invasion I would be fighting for Saddam. If I were in Libya, I would fight for Gaddafi. The right to resist imperialism supersedes all else, it’s the primary contradiction.
Most MLs I have spoken to think revolutionairy defeatism absolutely applies to Russia and praise activists fighting the draft there.
Russia may be a lesser evil on the geopolitical stage but treating them as purely an antiimperialist force worth uncritically supporting to the point where you actually take up arms for their revanchist activities (and yes, part of the motive for Russia’s actions is revanchism, NATO encirclement and Donbass also factor in, but denying the revanchism is foolish).
Well I disagree with most western MLs and instead agree with DPRK, China, Cuba and other AES ML nations who are allied with Russia
Russia has won my trust after Syria and Belarus, they have consistently acted in an anti-imperialist manner for many conflicts now. Why they are acting in this manner is not relevant, only that they are. China, DPRK, Cuba all agree with me
Geopoltiically aligning with Russia is different from being a Russian citizen living in Russia. Do you condemn Russians fighting being drafted into a war they don’t want to participate in?