Putin Must Think That The World Is Unfair. And He Is right

 Put yourself in Putin's shoes before rightfully condemning his invasion of the Ukraine. If he invades a neighboring nation that is flirting with joining an adversarial nuclear power, almost the whole world unites against him. But let a superpower invade a nation thousands of miles away for questionable reasons, and hardly a word is said and no economic actions are taken against that invading nation. In fact, that hypothetical invading nation looked at the placement of ballistic missiles on its border as provocative while it had already done the same to its arch rival. And had Mexico joined the Warsaw Pact nations during the Cold War, that invading nation would have probably invaded Mexico to take control without a word of protest from the rest of the world.

Yes, compared to how the world treats the US for its interventions and invasions, how it is now responding to Russia's invasion of the Ukraine shows the double standard being followed by the West and most of the rest of the world.

We an also make a similar comparison between Russia and Israel even though more is said in protest against some of Israel's actions. But hardly anything is done about its plethora of violations of UN Resolutions and its invasions of Lebanon and Gaza as well as its confiscation of Palestinian land on the West Bank and past confiscation of land from Syria.

Yes, it has been said that Putin wants to restore Russia to its previous superpower status and be on par  with the US. Though its means of reaching that goal are horribly immoral, its actions in the Ukraine can find parallels in many of American foreign policies since the end of WW II. Only a case can be made that American policies have been even more immoral since it has intervened in or invaded nations thousands of miles from its border.

Much of the world has been unfair to Russia over its invasion of the Ukraine in a certain sense. It isn't in the sense that the world has been wrong in sanctioning Russia for its invasion. Rather, it is because it applies a double standard. The world is lenient toward America's atrocities while harshly condemning and reacting to Russia for its atrocities. And the disparity here isn't because America is wearing the white hat while Russia is wearing the black hat. After all, America has also supported more than its fair share of tyrannical dictators sometimes even replacing democracies with the rule of such dictators.

How can this unfairness be rectified? It cannot be rectified in turning a blind eye to Russia's sins. Rather it can be rectified in responding to America's interventions and invasions in the same way as it is responding to Russia's invasion of the Ukraine. And in that way, perhaps if Russia or some other emerged superpower wants to keep up with the US, it will have to keep up with a different future America than what it was in the past.

American Foreign Policy Karma Is Coming Around

It is becoming more and more difficult to ignore a particular observation made about Donald Trump. That observation, if memory serves, came from James Comey. Comey described Trump as having no external points of reference. And Trump seems all to eager to prove Comey right.

What proof is Trump providing? He ignores what scientists say about both pollution and climate change. For not only has he pulled out of the Paris Accord,  he has appointed industry-friendly people for positions once held by scientists, he has revoked federal clean air and water standards put into place by the Obama Administration, and he has eliminated regulations that protect the environment.

Trump is declaring a National Emergency so he can build his wall despite the fact that funding for his wall was severely limited by Congress. Trump's declaration is despite the fact that the number of illegal crossings are down and that drug smuggling occurs through legal points of entry. At least, that is what experts have been saying. But Trump rejects that input. Here, Trump is setting a dangerous precedent for how future Presidents might react when their proposals are rejected by Congress.

Trump gave a inconsistent description of his intelligence advisors when he disagreed with them about threats in the world. Trump called them passive and naive despite the fact that it is Trump who minimizes the threat North Korea poses, not his advisors.

Finally, Trump is pulling America out of the INF treating by citing violations of the treaty by Russia. Russia countered by saying that because of the range of the new missiles in question, they have not violated the treaty. Trump is ignoring warnings that a new buildup of Intermediate Range Missiles increases the risk of a nuclear exchange.

When Trump consistently ignores the input of others so he can do what he wants, it is a sign that Trump is becoming more and more insular. We should note, however, that Trump does not have a monopoly on insularity. The Democratic Party leadership is rejecting popularly supported parts of the Green New Deal as well as medicare for all. And we should never forget that it was the Party's leaders who picked, through the use of superdelegates,  Hillary Clinton as their nominee well before the popular choice could be made.

Truth be told that all of the above has been preceded by decades of American foreign policy where America's leaders, both Republicans and Democrats, did what they wanted in many countries regardless of the input they got from the world. In most cases, what has triggered American interventions is earning the disapproval of key American businesses or threatening strategic interests. For example, Iran was in the process of nationalizing their oil reserves. Britain asked the US for help in overthrowing the democratically elected leader there and in exchange, America's oil companies were able to profit off of Iranian oil. In addition, America sold the new Iranian government weapons such as our F-14 Tomcat jet fighters. All of that came in 1953 with the cost of installing a secular dictator in a strongly conservative religious nation.

A similar story but with a different cast of parties of interest occurred in Guatemala in 1954. The American sponsored coup there was because the newly elected President had promised agrarian reform which upset the American owned United Fruit Company.

Another similar story emerged in Chilé in 1972. There, the first 9-11 occurred when on that date, a military coup took place which preceded Chilé's embracing of Neoliberal Capitalism. Just prior to the coup, Chilé's democratically elected leader was planning to nationalize some industries at the dismay of some American companies. Chilé's new military dictator strongly suppressed dissent and was later indicted for committing crimes against humanity.


Then there is the Vietnam War where going against the advice of close allies and an internationally established, democratic protocol that was to determine South Vietnam's fate. America eventually invaded Vietnam and propped up a number of dictatorships all in the name of anti-communism. But while American Presidents justified the war by claiming that the war was essential to stop the march of communism in the region, they never had to be accountable and prove their case before the world. They just went ahead and invaded. And some millions of dead later, after having lost the war, we found out what others knew for decades, that the Vietnam War was all about reunification, not the spread of Communism. 
 
There are many other examples to use, but the most relevant one here is Bush 43's invasion of Iraq. After claiming that Iraq had violated past UN resolutions regarding the development of banned weapons, Bush's Administration started planning for an invasion. Before the invasion, Bush's Administration agreed to let weapons inspectors determine the truth of the charge made against Iraq. But before the inspectors could finish their work, having found no significant violations, the Bush Administration ordered the invasion of Iraq over massive worldwide protests, against the wishes and recommendations of Iraq's neighbors, and without any proof provided by the weapons inspectors.




When America capriciously intervenes militarily in other nations without accountability to others, it is called the rule of force. Here, without using any external points of reference, American Presidents have been deciding the fate of many nations with an uncomfortably growing ease. And now something similar is happening within our borders by our latest Presidents. Note the plural, Trump is not the only President who has ignored outside sources of information to show boundary issues that violate the rights of people. Obama increased secret surveillance of the American people and Bush 43 started it all of with his Patriot Act.

Overreach without accountability has been coming home to roost. And it seems to have reached its most comfortable state under Trump.




 

What Is It That The Republicans Really Want?

The seventh Republican debate took place without Trump, and that was helpful. The Republican candidates could focus more on the issues and less on name calling and thus the audience could learn more about the candidates (click here for the debate and click there for fact checking the debate). And the following is some of what I learned.

First, all of the Republicans in the debate said they want both small government and fiscal responsibility. But at the same time, most, if not all, of the Republican candidates claimed that we need to rebuild the military because of the damage Obama has allegedly visited on it.

We should note that a damaged military was also the complaint of the Republican presidential candidate, Mitt Romney. In his 2012 campaign, Romney compared our then current size of the Navy with its size in 1917. Such comparisons are not as revealing as some would hope since advances in technology have greatly increased the power of each ship compared to their 1917 counterparts. This is true for any non recent year the Republicans would want to use in a comparison.

But there are other problems with the Republican emphasis on rebuilding the military. One of them has to do with the fact that the US under Obama still spends more on its military than the other top 7 to 9 other nations spend combined. In addition, the Navy now has roughly the same number of active ships as it did under President George W. Bush between the years of 2005 to 2008 (273 compared to 278 to 282, click here and there for documentation). In addition, a new generation of surface ships is being tested now as exemplified by the USS Zumwalt. The Navy has reduced the number of Zumwalt type ships from in the 30s to 2 because of the cost of each ship as well as concerns over its stability at sea (click here). In addition, there is a new class of aircraft carriers being currently produced. This is the Gerald R. Ford class carrier with two being constructed at this time and a third one is planned for the near future (click here). 

But there is another issue as Republican candidates promise to both reduce the size of the government while rebuilding our military. Since the military is part of the government, to increase the size of the military is to increase the size of the government. In addition, to increase the size of the military also increases government spending unless compensatory cuts are made elsewhere. 

The only proposed cuts made during the debate was Governor Christies guarantee that he would cut federal funding to Planned Parenthood if elected. Now it seems unlikely that cutting funding to Planned Parenthood's could make up for the increased military spending promised by the candidates. So one key and unanswered question becomes this, where will the Republicans cut the budget in order to keep their promise to be fiscally responsible? Will it be in Social Security which is not only self-funded, it is the largest holder of federal debt? Will it be in Medicare? Will it be in the EPA and, if so, how can the EPA plan to protect our environment from those corporations that pollute its surroundings? Will the EPA become impotent like the SEC was during the housing bubble days of George W. Bush?

In addition, to increase spending in order to rebuild the military, these Republican also want to hire more federal agents to patrol the border. And unrelated to spending, most of the Republican candidates want to incease the surveillance capabilities of the NSA as well as to take the handcuffs off of the military as it attacks our enemies overseas. The problem with this last proposal is that some of those handcuffs are made by International Law. So not only do these Republican candidates complain about the deficit and debt while proposing to rebuild the military, they promise a less intrusive government than Obama's government while most of them want to both maintain or expand NSA surveillance and remove the restraints that Obama has placed on the military--note that this is Obama the drone President.

While promising a smaller, less intrusive government at home, most of these Republican candidates seem trigger happy to increase or reassert Amerian power abroad to combat terrorism. And they do so with the same short-sightedness as they have in their approach to controlling illegal immigration. For in the immigration part of the debate, the problem starts with too many immigrants illegally entering our nation. Not once during the debate, did the Republican candidates even speculate why so many immigrants have been stealing their way across our borders for around 30 years. 

Here we should note that, as measured in 2012, the top 4 nations from which illegal immigrants come are nations where either American trade agreements or foreign policies have had a significant detrimental effect on the country. These top 4 nations consist of Mexico, El Salvador, Guatemala, and Honduras with the latter replacing the Philippines ranking in 2012 (click here). And whereas the effects of NAFTA  and Mexico along with past American interventions in El Salvador (1980s) and Guatemala (1954) are well documented, US participation in the 2009 coup  in Honduras and/or its aftermath has been speculative. However,  US participation in at least the aftermath, if not the coup itself, has been confirmed by Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton's own testimony (click here).

Of course, the Republican candidates tie their harsh immigration rhetoric to terrorist threats and ISIS. However, just as with the immigration problem, their genesis account of our battle against terrorism starts with what is done to us and excludes what we may have done to precipitate the attacks.  This practice goes back to George Bush and his claim that the 9-11 terrorists attacked us because of our freedoms, not because of our foreign policies. This is despite the fact that those policies included overthrowing democratically elected governments, supporting tyrants, supporting terrorists, and maintaining an unbalanced support for Israel against the Palestinians.

So without recognizing any accountability for what has caused our problems with immigration and the new terrorist threats posed by groups like ISIS, the GOP candidates are looking for more money and power to solve these problems. In the meantime, any discussion on new regulations needed to prevent the illegal actions of our financial sector which crashed the world economy in 2008 was never placed on the table in this or other debates. 

All of this is quite disturbing. While dressing in the sheepskin of small, less intrusive government, a majority of Republican candidates claim that a larger military and less rules for those with wealth and power are what the doctor is prescribing for a healthy future. And the only reason why their claim can seem credible to those remaining Americans who vote is the conjunction of  our two-party system and the formidable failures of the Democratic Party.