The US and NATO have never been sanctioned for starting wars. Why?

The reaction to Russia’s attack on Ukraine, no matter what you think about it, has exposed the West’s double standards

BY Robert Bridge

The West has taken an extreme stance against Russia over its invasion in Ukraine. This reaction exposes a high degree of hypocrisy considering that US-led wars abroad never received the punitive response they deserved.

If the current events in Ukraine have proven anything, it’s that the United States and its transatlantic partners are able to run roughshod across a shell-shocked planet – in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Syria, to name a few of the hotspots – with almost total impunity. Meanwhile, Russia and Vladimir Putin are being portrayed in nearly every mainstream media publication today as the second coming of Nazi Germany for their actions in Ukraine.

First, let’s be clear about something. Hypocrisy and double standards alone do not provide justification for the opening of hostilities by any country. In other words, just because NATO-bloc countries have been tearing a path of wanton destruction around the globe since 2001 without serious consequences, this does not give Russia, or any country, moral license to behave in a similar manner. There must be a convincing reason for a country to authorize the use of force, thereby committing itself to what could be considered ‘a just war’. Thus, the question: Can Russia’s actions today be considered ‘just’ or, at the very least, understandable? I will leave that answer up to the reader’s better judgment, but it would be idle not to consider some important details.

Only to the consumers of mainstream media fast food would it come as a surprise that Moscow has been warning on NATO expansion for well over a decade. In his now-famous speech to the Munich Security Conference in 2007, Vladimir Putin poignantly asked the assembled global powerbrokers point blank, “why is it necessary to put military infrastructure on our borders during this [NATO] expansion? Can someone answer this question?” Later in the speech, he said that expanding military assets smack up to the Russian border “is not connected in any way with the democratic choices of individual states.”

Not only were the Russian leader’s concerns met with the predictable amount of disregard amid the deafening sound of crickets, NATO has gone on to bestow membership on four more countries since that day (Albania, Croatia, Montenegro, and North Macedonia). As a thought experiment that even a dolt could conduct, imagine Washington’s reaction if Moscow were building a continuously expanding military bloc in South America, for example. 

The real cause for Moscow’s alarm, however, came when the US and NATO began flooding neighboring Ukraine with a dazzling array of sophisticated weaponry amid calls for membership in the military bloc. What on earth could go wrong? In Moscow’s mind, Ukraine was beginning to pose an existential threat to Russia. 

In December, Moscow, quickly nearing the end of its patience, delivered draft treaties to the US and NATO, demanding they halt any further military expansion eastwards, including by the accession of Ukraine or any other states. It included the explicit statement that NATO “shall not conduct any military activity on the territory of Ukraine or other states of Eastern Europe, South Caucasus and Central Asia.” Once again, Russia’s proposals were met with arrogance and indifference by Western leaders.

While people will have varying opinions as to the shocking actions that Moscow took next, nobody can say they were not warned. After all, it’s not like Russia woke up on February 24 and suddenly decided it was a wonderful day to start a military operation on the territory of Ukraine. So yes, an argument could be made that Russia had concern for its own security as a justification for its actions. Unfortunately, the same thing may be more difficult to say for the United States and its NATO minions with regards to their belligerent behavior over the course of the last two decades.

Consider the most notorious example, the 2003 invasion of Iraq. This disastrous war, which the Western media hacks have chalked up as an unfortunate ‘intelligence failure’, represents one of the most egregious acts of unprovoked aggression in recent memory. Without delving too deep into the murky details, the United States, having just suffered the attacks of 9/11, accused Saddam Hussein of Iraq of harboring weapons of mass destruction. Yet, instead of working in close cooperation with the UN weapons inspectors, who were on the ground in Iraq attempting to verify the claims, the US, together with the UK, Australia, and Poland, launched a ‘shock-and-awe’ bombing campaign against Iraq on March 19, 2003. In a flash, over a million innocent Iraqis suffered death, injury, or displacement by this flagrant violation of international law.

The Center for Public Integrity reported that the Bush administration, in its effort to bolster public support for the impending carnage, made over 900 false statements between 2001 and 2003 about Iraq’s alleged threat to the US and its allies. Yet somehow the Western media, which has become the most rabid proliferator for military aggression bar none, failed to find any flaw in the argument for war – that is, until after the boots and blood were on the ground, of course.

It might be expected, in a more perfect world, that the US and its allies were subjected to some stiff sanctions in the wake of this protracted eight-year ‘mistake’ against innocents. In fact, there were sanctions, just not against the United States. Ironically, the only sanctions that resulted from this crazy military adventure were against France, a NATO member that had declined the invitation, together with Germany, to participate in the Iraqi bloodbath. The global hyper-power is not used to such rejection, especially from its purported friends.

American politicians, self-assured in their Godlike exceptionalism, demanded a boycott of French wine and bottled water due to the French government’s “ungrateful” opposition to war in Iraq. Other agitators for war betrayed their lack of seriousness by insisting that the popular menu item known as ‘French Fries’ be substituted with the name ‘Freedom Fries’ instead. So the lack of French Bordeaux, together with the tedious redrafting of restaurant menus, seems to have been the only real inconveniences the US and NATO suffered for indiscriminately destroying millions of lives.

Now compare this kid gloves approach to the US and its allies to the current situation involving Ukraine, where the scales of justice are clearly weighed down against Russia, and despite its not unreasonable warnings that it was feeling threatened by NATO advances. Whatever a person may think about the conflict now raging between Russia and Ukraine, it cannot be denied that the hypocrisy and double standards being leveled against Russia by its perennial detractors is as shocking as it is predictable. The difference today, however, is that bombs are going off.

Aside from the severe sanctioning of Russian individuals and the Russian economy, perhaps best summed up by the French economy minister, who said his country is committed to waging “a total economic and financial war on Russia,” there has been a deeply disturbing effort to silence news and information coming from those Russian sources that might give the Western public the option of seeing Moscow's motivations. On Tuesday, March 1, YouTube decided to block the channels of RT and Sputnik for all European users, thereby allowing the Western world to seize another chunk of the global narrative. 

Considering the way that Russia has been vilified in the ‘empire of lies’, as Vladimir Putin dubbed the land of his politically motivated persecutors, some may believe that Russia deserves the non-stop threats it is now receiving. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth. This sort of global grandstanding, which resembles some sort of mindless virtue-signaling campaign now so popular in liberal capitals, aside from unnecessarily inflaming an already volatile situation, assumes that Russia is totally wrong, period.

Such a reckless approach, which leaves no room for debate, no room for discussion, no room for seeing Russia’s side in this extremely complex situation, only guarantees further standoffs, if not full-blown global war, further down the road. Unless the West is actively seeking the outbreak of World War III, it would be advisable to stop the hideous hypocrisy and double standards against Russia and patiently listen to its opinions and version of events (even ones presented by foreign media). It’s not as unbelievable as some people may wish to believe.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.

Read more:

https://www.rt.com/news/550990-us-nato-sanctions-wars/

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"The USA owns the right to make your life miserable, but hates competition at this level."

                                           Brad Mottor (My Life, 2017)

See also:

https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/11276

wars...

Note : The USA are still robbing Syria...

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Below I quote from the book: 

The Round Table Movement and the Fall of the ‘Second’ British Empire (1909-1919)

In the introduction, the author, Andrea Bosco, points to very pertinent observations which we have alluded to, in our articles (read this website in regard to Ukraine and other stuff if you wish):

On page 12:

...

Milner, the chief architect of the Second Anglo-Boer War, and one of the major figures who bear the moral responsibility — on the British side — for the First World War, created the Round Table in order to gain the Dominions’ support for Great Britain in the event of a new European war. Britain’s controversial entry into the Great War could be seen as a desperate attempt to save Britain from a civil war with a political-religious character — the Anglo-Irish conflict, in which Milner was about to take on a leading role, secretly arming the Ulster Volunteers, a private army loyal to the crown — and from the breaking-up of the Empire, without which Britain would have regressed to the rank of a second-rate power. According to this interpretation, Wilhelmine Germany fell — like the naive Boers, allied with the German colony of South West Africa — into a trap skilfully set by the British imperialists to reaffirm with weapons a global economic and political hegemony by then almost completely lost.

On page 13-14:

... It was Milnerism which ‘invented’, to a large extent, the ‘German threat’ in South Africa and in Continental Europe, in order to foster the closer political union of the Empire, and to maintain Ireland under British rule. Once the external menace disappeared after World War I, the Dominions gained full control of their national sovereignty, Great Britain lost Ireland, and had to acquiesce to the process of Indian independence.

The strategic choice by Milner and his disciples to favour the Tsar, rather than the King’s cousin, in the creation of a Balkan sphere of influence, revealed itself to be disastrous for the Empire and for Europe. In 1910 Germany was a competitor — even though antagonistic and determined to acquire the status of world power — but not yet an enemy. It was transformed into an enemy, in ideological terms, by Milner and his disciples. In order to stand, Empires feed themselves with wars.

That the Great War could have been avoided is a thesis suggested by a part of the historiography, in the evergreen debate about the origins of the conflict. As in South Africa, which was about the strategic issue of eventual German supremacy south of the Zambezi river, so in the Balkans, Great Britain decided to directly intervene in a conflict aiming to contain the rise of Germany to the status of a great power of global dimensions. British support for the hegemonic ambitions of Russia in the Balkans — in exchange for the inviolability of the Straits and of the Asian borders of the Empire — was the fundamental strategic decision that forever deprived Great Britain of the immense advantage of her insular position. The decision to set up the Expeditionary Force, and to put it at the service of France —and not of India, as originally announced — in a possible war between France and Germany, without declaring in advance the determination to defend the neutrality of Belgium, closed permanently the circle around Germany, making war almost inevitable. In these major choices, the influence of Milner behind the scenes runs from beginning to end.25

On page 15:

...

Without the creation of an ‘external threat’, the attempt to bring about the political union of the Empire would have been doomed to failure. In order to survive, the Empire desperately needed the Hun, the opposed, in ideological, political, and economic terms. Without an ‘external threat’ the Empire would possibly have disintegrated before 1914, and the United Kingdom might have been precipitated into a civil war in order to prevent the secession of Ireland. The creation of the ‘external enemy’ was certainly not the only cause which generated World War I, but in Weberian terms it could be considered as the ‘adequate cause’, namely the cause without which the course of events would have been different. The arsenal provided by the joint action of The Times, The Observer, Oxford and London academic institutions, the Rhodes Trust, a number of imperialist organizations, and King Edward’s entourage, gave Milner a tremendous fire-power which — as shown during the July 1914 Irish crisis — made the difference. Milner’s most formidable weapon was however represented by his young men.

Educated at Oxford, and assembled in South Africa after 1904 with the task of rebuilding the social and political fabric wounded by the war, the future members of the Round Table all came, with few exceptions, from the British aristocracy and the Anglican Church.......

On page 16-17:

...

Resolution IX represented in fact a mortal blow to the Kindergarten’s hopes, ruling out forever the federal solution for the Empire, in spite of the fact that during the war the Empire had been in fact transformed—with the creation of the Imperial War Conference and Cabinet—into a quasifederation. It was not just a coincidence that ten days earlier the United States had entered into the European conflict, moving the world’s centre of gravity from the Channel into the Atlantic.

----------------------

One needs to re-read: https://yourdemocracy.net/drupal/node/35884

Now, one could be tempted to believe that the West set up A TRAP to force Russia to invade Ukraine in order to bash Russia beyond belief (The US did this with drawing the Soviets to war into Afghanistan)...

Read this again:

"According to this interpretation, Wilhelmine Germany fell — like the naive Boers, allied with the German colony of South West Africa — into a trap skilfully set by the British imperialists to reaffirm with weapons a global economic and political hegemony by then almost completely lost."

So one could see some strong parallels here. WHAT ONE HAS TO CONSIDER IS THAT THE LIVES OF PEOPLE DON'T MATTER IN THESE GAMES OF EMPIRE. Except here. My strong belief is that Putin is holding back... He wants a negotiated settlement to the crisis that the West has set up as a trap. Why? Well, Putin is not the mad men that Bush, Blair and Howard were. Putin cares about people (I know: some people will be horrified at this statement). AND THIS IS THE CORE OF THE MATTER: Putin does not want to kill Ukrainians. So far very little number of "innocent people" (140+) have been killed as collateral damage by the Russians who have suffered a greater loss (≈500). The Ukraine military/Nazi battalions have suffered far more (3,000+) plus an enormous loss of hardware.

The Russians are holding back.

When you hear westerners saying that the Ukrainians are resisting valiantly, don't be fooled. The might of the Russian army has not been seen yet. We hope it won't be seen anyway and that a "peaceful" settlement is concluded soon... BUT THE US EMPIRE WILL DO EVERYTHING TO STOP THIS... Trust old Gus... he's seen the US deceit for far too long...

See also: a delicate balance...

The Jews might hold back the Empire on this one. One can hope...

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MEANWHILE, FREE JULIAN ASSANGE, YOU DORKS....

Sincere internal criticism of the U.S. — or any country — often sounds a lot like insincere foreign criticism.

I don't know what this article in the intercept raise as issues. But in regard to the top article, it could be relevant. I can't access the Intercept at the moment. My knees like my computer are getting old...

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