The headline is very revealing of the incredibly slanted way the Ukraine war has been covered in "Western" media.<p>When I read the headline, I immediately thought to myself, "which war?", until I saw the article was from the Economist and I knew they were referring to Ukraine. Just the use the term "the war" implicitly implies that Russia's invasion of Ukraine is the only war (or at least the only war worth mentioning by "western media") raging. In fact, there are numerous wars raging right now. As a US citizen and close observer of our foreign policy and actions around the world, I have been floored by the hypocrisy and double standards in the coverage of the Ukraine war (despite hypocrisy and double standards being the norm). This is not an endorsement of Russia's illegal war of aggression against Ukraine but an indictment of "western media" and "western" governments in general.<p>For example, we (the United States), illegally invaded Syria a decade ago. A war of aggression just as illegal under international law as Russia's invasion of Ukraine. There were no indignant outcries on NBC or CNN or by any of the pundits who are today absurdly crying about the "disruption of the post world war 2 order". Our troops are illegally occupying Syria, today. Over 350,000 people have died there since the war started a decade ago. We bombed (and continue to bomb) civilian infrastructure with absolutely no military value in Syria. How can politicians and pundits (not to mention my fellow citizens) cry about the depravity and the crimes of Russians when our own country is engaged in the same crimes, right now, today? Many will exclaim this is "whataboutism" to explain away their cognitive dissonance. But it's about universal standards, credibility, and hypocrisy. If we condemn Russia for their illegal war while at the same time prosecuting illegal wars of our own, we expose ourselves at liars and hypocrites who don't oppose illegal war, just Russia. It is quite sickening when our so-called leaders stand up and give sanctimonious speeches about defending "democracy and human rights" while prosecuting our own illegal wars and propping up the most vicious dictatorships in the world, from Saudi Arabia to Egypt, where democracy and human rights are completely absent.<p>Again, this is not a defense of Russia's illegal war, although it will be taken as such by people consumed by the blanket propaganda saturating our society. This is a defense of universal standards, truth, morality and objective reality. If we want to be able to credibly condemn the wrongdoing of others and claim the moral authority to mete out justice, then we need to lead by example and actually earn the moral authority that we falsely claim.<p><a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.nytimes.com/2022/01/20/us/airstrike-us-isis-dam....</a>