I'm not an expert on these things, but I'm pretty sure Russians and Ukrainians are doing a fine job of killing each other without direct U.S. intervention.
We sent 76 billion dollars worth of aid to Ukraine in a year and a half. That is four times their own defense budget for 2023. We're funding their defense. It's a proxy war between US and Russia. I mean, we've already been intervening -- in 2014 we were trying to influence the outcome of their government during their revolution, you can read some analysis here: https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-26079957.amp
Edit: if you flipped it on it's head, this war is like if Mexico had a revolution that overthrew their corrupt government, and while the protests were happening Russia was supporting key members of the ones overthrowing the government. US feels threatened that our neighbor is strengthening ties with our enemy, and so we invade Mexico. It's obviously not right for the US to invade sovereign Mexico. It's obviously not right that Russia is fucking around in Mexico's revolution. But in this case, Russia doesn't care if Mexico beats back the invading US, they just want to keep supplying them with weapons to prop up Russia's own domestic "defense" industry, prop up the economy, claim moral necessity, unite the party against a common enemy, bobs your uncle, you're elected again
Don't forget that it's politically advantageous to have a big bad enemy country to unite your party. For Democrats, it's Russia. For Republicans, it's China.
Obviously both Russia and China are authoritarian as all fuck, but Israel is an authoritarian occupier as well, and we're perfectly fine with them.
Sure, but who isn't "against" China in the West? They commit atrocities left and right.
But I think it'd be more difficult to find many who'd support military conflict with China, proxy or otherwise.
Edit: honestly, scratch that. I think it would be pretty easy to get popular support for a conflict with China, in the same way it was easy to get popular and unwavering support for a conflict with Russia
I mean, there's really only one whataboutism in my comment (what about Palestine and Israel), but sure, you can say there are four in there.
And honestly I think it's a fair point. The US is not purely interested in defending nation states from authoritarian occupation, because if we were, we'd not support the state of Israel in their oppression of Palestinians. So there must be other factors behind our support for Ukraine, some might be legitimate (protecting Ukrainian exports to keep global economy stable) and others not so much (protecting profits for private arms companies). And I think it's more likely the latter, considering the size of our "defense" budget.
What do you have to say to that? I'm interested in your take, not in you just accusing me of whataboutism.