I was only born in 2001. I know London and DC had enormous protests, but none of the details. So eyewitness accounts are great but I need historical data too.
With the triumph of YouTube I can follow the war closer than I’d frankly like to. But how does that track with people who watched the Iraq war in 2003: American, European and otherwise? Has public sentiment on war changed?
The public reception of the US invasion of Iraq was very different in Europe (in particular France and Germany) and in the US. In the former, the attempts of the US government to justify the invasion were generally considered to be lies. It was clear that Iraq had no substantial collection of WMDs, and was not harbouring Al-Qaeda. On the other hand, Saddam Hussain was widely reviled in Europe, too, and the fall of his regime considered a positive outcome of the war. Here, we have the first important difference in the reception of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and the US invasion of Iraq: Both see an Imperialist Power invading a country under flimsy pretext, but in the former, the victim is a democratic country with a (now) extremely popular elected leader, in the latter, the victim is a dictatorship led by a genocidal maniac.
The next important difference is the timeline: It took just about 3 weeks from the start of the US invasion to the fall of Bagdad. As such, the US military quickly became the best hope for re-establishing order and security in Iraq. It was one thing to believe they never should have invaded in the first place, but a different thing to call for them to leave before "the job was done".
This again is in contrast to the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Here, "just go home right now" never ceased to be the right thing for the Russian army to do.
At the bottom line, I believe very few people in Europe received news of US combat losses in Iraq positively; certainly not with the kind of grim satisfaction many react to Russian losses in Ukraine.
People in general dislike war, but also believe that sometimes, a war is worth fighting. And so we have:
Do you believe the Invasion of Iraq (2003) was worth fighting for, given the information available at the time?
Something similar applies to the war in Ukraine. The difference is the number of people who think "yes", "no", and "neither yes or no". Since you have said "I think [the Russians] deserve to die", you fall in the camp that thinks the war in Ukraine is worth fighting. It doesn't mean you like war, but it does mean that you think the suffering in Ukraine caused by war is nonetheless a necessary evil, since it contributes to some greater purpose. Most of the Western world/media think so too, so you see few anti-war protests, but they do happen.
tl dr: public sentiment on war hasn't changed. It's just that there are more people that consider this war worth fighting than there are that consider the invasion of Iraq worth fighting.
One difference is temporal.
Taking the groupings in Allure's answer you'd find that a number of people moved from the "support" group to the "oppose" group over time.
The reasons are various. The WMD claims seemed, to some, credible in the beginning, then that turned out wrong. Some people really thought democracy could be brought to Iraq. On the US side, the long grinding casualty count was not apparent in the first 6-8 months - that gradually ramped up the revulsion, along with places like Fallujah and scandals like Abu Ghraib.
To add to that that for those operating in the public sphere, past support for the war is now best disavowed but quite a few were on the record supporting it.
On the flip, the Russian invasion seems to have struggled having much of a "support" base outside of its own population from the start.
As a comment states, temporal drift cuts both ways. Meduza.io claims (Nov 6th) that Russian propaganda has made some good headway in Germany towards injecting a "Russia was pushed into it" sentiment (note however that we disagree somewhat about the reason).
We outsiders are all spectators. Only the invaded can speak of the real "indignation" - I spent my early years in Iraq during Saddam's worst days - here's what life was like
If you are asking whether some Americans were pissed at their government for invading Iraq (whatever the pretext), yes they were. Protests against the Iraq War cites that in 2003, around the beginning of the Iraq war, anti-war protestors were a vocal minority. But by 2007, (according to a Gallup poll) most Americans believed the war was a "mistake". Nevertheless, the Iraq War didn't generate as much political agitation in the US as the Vietnam war, unlike in Europe which did see large anti-war demonstrations.
What about today in Russia vis the Russian invasion of Ukraine? Currently, the support for the invasion to fight "Ukranian Nazis", integrate Crimea with Russia and annex other Russian speaking border locales in Ukraine is quite huge - Russians think they’re engaged in a heroic struggle with the West.
Now, the question is will this support last? Or will it wane like it did in America with the Vietnam war, the Iraq war and the Afghanistan war?
It's hard to say because for the Americans all these wars were being fought in a far off foreign country, against foreigners that Americans couldn't culturally relate to, and the war itself didn't really endanger ordinary resident Americans. The Russians however have a more vested interest in Ukraine as they believe they are fighting their own people whom they know and once respected (Ukraine is considered as a "brother nation" by Russians). And they genuinely believe they have a claim to the land they are trying to seize and annexe. Moreover, the Russian politicians and military are convinced that these annexations are strategically vital to their national security. (Americans probably experienced something like this only during the Cuban Missile Crisis and during 9/11).
But of course, historically, any war that drags on tends to become unpopular. Especially if people are forced to fight these - drafts during the Vietnam war proved hugely unpopular and Russians are now being conscripted (and some are definitely trying to dodge it). The Russian leaders are aware that long-drawn out conflicts isn't politically good for them and as per a Russian propaganda news site, Russian politicians are already trying to prepare their citizens and are warning them that the war may go on for another few years - A confession from Putin suggests that the Ukraine conflict could last for years.
Note: Many western media do acknowledge that there is public support among Russians for the war. (See here, here, here, here, and here for more info). They also try to be dismissive about it by claiming that it is so because of strong government propaganda. That's misleading and dangerous because it tries to minimise the fact that people believe the propaganda and are convinced by it.
That said, new propaganda (like trying to convince people of a new political situation, like a war) is often difficult to sustain in the long-term in the face of reality. When the Americans failed to achieve the objectives of their war, and the returning soldiers revealed the ugly truth of war to the general public, popular leaders and government lost support of the people.
Both Ukrainian and Russian leaders will similarly soon face this, especially if the war continues to drag on for a long time.
One thing that built indignation about the Iraq war of 2003 was that it was clear for some months that it was likely to happen, that it was likely a case of making aggressive war, and that the people making the decisions knew this, but were ignoring the issue, or constructing flimsy rationalisations.
In comparison, most people weren't aware that Russia was going to escalate its conflict with Ukraine until it happened. This was an obvious case of aggressive war, and Europe and North America responded to it in a reasonable way, in accordance with their commitments to NATO and the UN Charter.
There was little outrage in North America or Europe against our own governments: that was confined to people who will support any cause that opposes their government, and people who were part of the Russian propaganda system. Outrage against one's own government, in states where this is permitted, can readily be much more conspicuous than indignation against another government.
The politics of the Ukraine conflict are more like the Gulf War of 1990-91. Iraq's invasion of Kuwait was obviously aggressive war, and it was both moral and politic to oppose it. The military and geographic circumstances are very different, of course: this analogy can't be pushed any further.
