Difficult question - Ukraine vs Iraq

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I'm yet to meet someone who knows all truth to give it to any media... but streaming time is limited by human life so it wouldn't work anyway.
Sure there are biases, pressures and particular interests. But the level we're talking about in case of Russia is outright lies and jail for anyone who claims otherwise.

Russia has been occupying parts of Ukraine for eight years.

Banning TV news from promoting the interests of an occupying army is not unusual in democracies. I would rather the decision was made by a regulator outside of political influence, like Ofcom in Britain, but to act as if this disqualifies Ukraine from being a democracy, well, I don't think that's rational.

historically, the US hasn't cared an awful lot whether a government was democratocally elected or a dictatorship - and has instated dictators as long as they joined the economic world order led by the US.
And: it is difficult to argue whether the characteristovs of a government should make much difference anyway, considering the people of a country are not its government, but those that will suffer.

so: the difference between Ukraine and Iraq is that Iraq was "other", Ukraine is "us"(-ish), at least compared to Russia.
Oh, and: don't forget Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo, and the extrajudicial killings by drone strike under Obama.

But, even if Europe wanted to: it's a bit hard to sanction the US, after all, the US are the military and economic hegemon in this hemisphere. They call the shots.

I have given this a lot of thought, because it does bother me on at least some levels that we (US) have virtually ignored so many conflicts going on around the world in which people are murdered, starving and otherwise tortured, but are intensely involved in Russia's attack on Ukraine.

Part of it is, I believe, that we (US) see Ukrainians as more "us" than people in underdeveloped countries. (Racist, yes.) Certainly Europe sees Ukraine as European. Europeans have been allies of the US, in general, for some 200 years.

But the deciding factor for me and my interest is that Russia has nuclear bombs and is likely willing to use them. I don't see Putin as rational and in order to work, MAD requires all parties be rational. Nuclear bombs have the potential to destroy many more lives and innocent, uninvolved lives, (and poison the earth for decades or hundreds of years) than a conflict in, say, the Sudan. (Just an example, not wanting to go into that war.)

Growing up under the cloud of nuclear war, I'm not sure that those folks younger than my generation really feel the nuclear threat in their guts the way we do.

I don't believe that just because country A did X, that country B gets a pass at doing X. That is elementary school reasoning. (Johnny didn't get punished and he did it too!) How is a war started by Putin justified because some other country started a war in the past?

For the record, I think the wars waged on Iraq by the US were wrong and I was opposed to these wars. I was opposed to the Vietnam War as well.

I don't see Putin's actions toward Ukraine as analygous to the Cuban Missle Crisis. Khrushchev was not Putin. Or perhaps it should be phrased, Putin is no Krushchev.

As I read Walrus and DW, these sound like accurate, rational explanations for the difference between the two wars.

It's my theory the world would be more peaceful today had the US not led the Desert Storm invasion of Iraq after Iraq annexed Kuwait. One could argue that Iraq had a valid claim on Kuwait plus consider that borders in that region were drawn by British imperialists.

Feel free to speculate as to how the world would be a worse place now had Desert Storm not happened.