Cognitive Dissonance and The War in Ukraine vs. The War on Terror
A Supplement to Episode #114 of MGSW, written by Anya Kaats
I’ll be honest. I don’t pay very close attention to the news these days, especially not when it concerns national or global politics. Call me uninformed, privileged, or lazy, and I won’t deny that you might be right about at least one or two of those. The truth is, I’m just overwhelmed. I am no doubt what modernity likes to call “a highly sensitive person,” or what I prefer to call “a normal person whose nervous system was not built for civilization”.
I used to invest a great deal of time and energy staying in the loop about what was happening politically. In middle school, I remember sobbing in between classes when Bush got elected, and was suspended for three days after participating in a sit-in to protest the invasion of Iraq. In the years that followed, most of my “political engagement” could be most accurately described as neurotic media consumption and virtuous whining. I subscribed to various news publications, listened to podcasts reflecting a variety of ideological viewpoints, studied political polarization in college, and did my best to watch every single Rachel Maddow episode, despite my unrelenting urge to throw the TV across the room due to her inability to get to the point.
The energy and attention I dedicated to staying (very tightly wound up) in the loop led to hours arguing with strangers on Facebook, outbursts of displaced angered frustration at people I loved, and ultimately, total burnout.
Initially, I felt guilty for no longer being able to keep up, especially after attacking so many people over the years for their decision to opt out, accusing them of “unchecked privilege”. It wasn’t until recently, when I stumbled across Deepa Iyer’s Social Change Ecosystem Map that I was able to finally let go of some of that guilt.
I recognized that my “social media activism” and media consumption conduct was not only not activism, but actually counter-productive.
When it comes to fighting for equality, liberation, justice and solidarity, a variety of roles need to be fulfilled, and none of them include “Angry and virtuous Facebook commenter”.
To learn more about the Social Ecosystem Map and about each of the roles, you can listen to my conversation with Deepa Iyer here:
This is all a giant disclaimer to say that when it comes to my own role in a social change ecosystem, I am now acutely aware of the fact that I can best serve in ways that don’t require me to stay up to speed on every last detail of history and political context. In other words, when it comes to comparing the War in Ukraine and the War on Terror, I’m know I’m no expert. In fact, my total lack of political and historical expertise is what led me to omit any discussion of it on my most recent podcast episode, even though it feels painfully obvious to me that there is a great deal of hypocrisy, bias, and unexamined cognitive dissonance at work when it comes to our attitude toward Russia’s invasion of Ukraine vs. our attitude toward the U.S. invasion of Iraq (and the War on Terror that followed).
That said, as I sat down to watch the Zelensky interview on 60 minutes last night, pausing it almost immediately to critique its conspicuous hypocrisy and propaganda, it was hard for me not to notice my own hypocrisy. Maybe my fear of being “wrong,” and my self-proclaimed political ignorance was nothing more than a rationalized excuse for doing the same thing I kept finding myself blaming everyone else for - casually omitting any mention of the fact that many things about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine have felt eerily similar to the U.S.’ invasion of Iraq.
Even Medhi Hasan, someone with a great deal of clout, credibility and expertise, also felt the need to thoroughly disclaim his comparison of the two wars in this segment from a few weeks ago, fearing that by making the comparison he would be accused of the same “whataboutism” employed by Putin to justify the invasion to begin with.
Is all of this avoidance and blatant disregard (which seems to exist on both sides of the aisle) warranted and innocent? Or is it just a symptom of the propaganda we’ve been fed for years?
As I scroll through Instagram, I’m met with detailed maps and depictions of the violence against the citizens of Bucha and graphic imagery of civilians in mass graves. How is it that I don’t remember seeing comparable detailed maps marking how and where the 400,000+ civilian deaths occurred during the War on Terror?
The non-stop coverage focused on charging Putin for war crimes makes me wonder why all of the civilian deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan weren’t covered in the same way, but instead labeled “accidental” or “tragic mistakes.” Is the “De-Nazification of Ukraine” really all that different from “Operation Iraqi Freedom”?
As I read accounts of Russian soldiers coming to terms with the fact that “everything they were told was fake”, I can’t help but be reminded of my friend Kaj Larsen’s account as a Navy Seal fighting in Afghanistan, referring to the mission as “murky and opaque,” and fighting for “a cause [that troops on the ground] barely understood.” In an Instagram post following the U.S.’ (incompetent) withdrawal from Afghanistan he wrote, “We should have studied our history better. Now we are just another headstone in the graveyard of empires… Who were we even fighting and who were we fighting for?”
Watching Scott Pelley ask a Ukrainian woman on 60 minutes if she, like Zelensky, had a hard time believing that humans could “do something like this” felt nothing short of patronizing.
If I’m not mistaken, humans have been doing “something like this” since the dawn of civilization. From widespread displacement and genocide of indigenous populations, to centuries of slavery, colonialism, conquest, racism, class warfare, etc., Russia’s invasion of Ukraine seems to me like business as usual.
It doesn’t surprise me that Westerners (read as: white, Judeo-Christian folk) may have a greater capacity to feel empathy for Ukrainians than for citizens of the Middle East. Our ability to put ourselves in the shoes of people who look like us (and our inability to do so with people who don’t), is in many ways, an expression of human nature.
However, if we find ourselves incapable of understanding or empathizing with the values of the Middle East, perhaps we should also recognize that we have no right to assume we know what’s best for them.
My point in writing all of this and comparing the two wars is not simply to call attention to the parallels between the two (although there are many), but more-so to point out that in avoiding the comparison we are missing out on an opportunity to learn about our own biases, both personally and collectively.
I’m no expert, historian, or political scientist.
However, as a weaver, “I see the through-lines of connectivity between people, places, organizations, ideas, and movements.” And as as a disrupter, I feel it is my responsibility to “take uncomfortable and risky actions to shake up the status quo, to raise awareness, and to build power.”
Perhaps I’m naive for believing that maybe, one day, our country (and the greater Western world), could gain the ability to self-reflect. And perhaps I’m ignorant for holding out hope that the mainstream media could be used as a vehicle to provoke at least some of that self-reflection.
In the meantime, I want to own up to my own avoidance of facing this hypocrisy head-on by way of rationalized ignorance, “high sensitivity” and media overwhelm. I hope that by doing so, I can encourage all of you to own up to your own hypocrisies, biases and cognitive dissonance in whatever way feels (painfully and uncomfortably) right to you.
My husband, who follows the news closely and is a smart political thinker, made this same connection -- the war in ukraine vs the invasion of iraq -- and the need for the US to reflect on the similarities. I hadn't heard this idea from anyone else until I read this. Thank you for sharing your thoughts.