Not necessarily. Any minor expression of regret or acknowledgement that perhaps you were caught up in the mass hysteria, as many good people were, would completely absolve you in my mind. Until then, when I see your screen name, I see the guy that he wanted to pull the plug on people in the hospital. I'm morally obligated to say something.
You believe the world is round. If a Russian also believes the world is round, does that mean it isn't? That's been your entire defense this whole time. That if someone from Russia espouses a similar narrative, then that narrative automatically becomes Russian propaganda or a lie.
One can be critical of his own government without being a Russian sympathizer. Allow me to make it abundantly clear to you: In my mind, Russia is a terrible country. They don't have the freedoms we have enjoyed. Russia's economic prosperity is in sharp decline. Putin is corrupt. Putin jails his political opponents. Russia has invaded multiple foreign countries recently. Why would I want to sympathize with the official propaganda narratives a country like that? There would be absolutely no benefit whatsoever for me to promote those narratives. I don't want to live under Russian rule. I want Russia, as a system of government, to fail.
That doesn't mean I'm willing to excuse the leadership of my own country, the United States of America, for engaging in the same behaviors to counter them. I don't want US to become Russia, just to fight Russia. The first time I touched AFG soil was in 2001 and the last was 2018. I invested a lot of my time and career there. So when I recall my experiences there, it's not just to score debate points. To watch it fail miserably in the end just so that our leadership can begin the process of entangling the US in yet another foreign conflict only a few short months later, where we will send even more vast amounts of treasure, and ultimately American lives isn't something I am required to do quietly as much as you would like for me to.
I'm going to say what I believe and let the chips fall where they may. That's the nature of free speech and what I want to preserve. That's what made us better than the USSR/Russia. If you want to more adequately silence my dissent, do so with substance, not dismissal.
As you tout the capabilities of the Russian propaganda machine to reach deep into the hearts and minds of veterans and what not to manipulate them according to their will, do you honestly... honestly... believe that the US does not also have that capability ten-fold, and aggressively using it around the world? Unbelievably Naive.
You have the basis for a decent argument to be made. But you ruin it with ridiculousness like this. You just fabricated a straw man from silliness that no one here has brought up... just so you can make a spectacle of yourself swatting down bullshit that you, yourself, created. It's dumb. It's childish.