This wouldn’t be unusual — it’s what happened in the run-up to the post-9/11 Iraq war, when American and British media were arguably far too unquestioning of Western officials’ claims that Saddam Hussein was awfully close to having a nuclear bomb or had a huge stockpile of weapons of mass destruction.

There was then British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s “dodgy dossier” and U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell’s defining speech at the U.N. Security Council, where the formerly staunch critic of intervention announced Washington had solid evidence of sophisticated and illicit Iraqi weapons programs. But there was insufficient media skepticism overall, and alternative voices and awkward questions were all too often crowded out.

Unfortunately, it seems we’re now in danger of repeating this very same mistake, as we all too quickly dub those who question current Western strategy as defeatists or accuse them of advancing Russian propaganda.

Next 𝑔𝑜𝑜𝒹 𝓌𝒶𝓇, every propagandist who writes in support of it is immediately sent to the frontline. If they survive, they’re shot.

Did people even ask the easy questions (without being banned and censored)? Y’know… questions that would have been answered by looking at the photos of the Ukrainian soldiers and the symbols they wore? Or the posts and comments they frequently made? I’m actually curious what the “hard” questions could be, when a lot of the answers were pretty apparent.

The first casualty of war is truth.

But also, such bad pronoun use is classic centrist drivel. Who is “we”? Does the author mean themself, or their publication? Of course not. They want to blame you and me … for their own reporting… which may or may not be horrible shit, they speculate, but they haven’t decided just yet.

(I am not commenting on the war itself here. Only the sad excuse for journalism.)

or will we find, at times, we allowed our sympathy for the Ukrainian cause to overlook matters we shouldn’t?

When dust settles there will be no sympathy for Ukrainians anymore. They will be again relegated to the “subhuman asiatic horde” exactly like Chechens were. And it could be even worse, millions of Ukrainians are currently working and living in EU and a lot of them will not get back after the war ends. They will inevitably be used by USA and their European compradors as scapegoat in possibly hugest immigrant scare campaign possible in order of destabilise and vassalise EU even more.

I find it funny how the article ends up being self referential regurgitating the tropes it laments against

There are certainly credible and cogent arguments to the contrary, such as those stating that a weakened Russia simply won’t have the wherewithal to attack NATO anytime soon, whether it wins or loses, and that Putin’s forces are clearly no match for sophisticated, well-equipped Western armies.