We should condemn the Russian invasion, but also recognize that the United States has been violating other nations’ sovereignty for years.
By Stephen Zunes, The Progressive
Though U.S. and NATO policy in recent years has contributed to the current tragedy unfolding in Ukraine, responsibility rests unequivocally with the Kremlin. It is an illegal war of aggression which has quite deservedly resulted in worldwide condemnation.
Media coverage has been sympathetic to the civilian victims of the invasion and the Ukrainian resistance. Again, while it raises questions about why there hasn’t been a comparable response when the victims weren’t white, Christian Europeans, or when the aggressor was the United States or a U.S. ally, it is refreshing to see this acknowledgement of the horrors of war.
There’s no excusing the invasion, but the double standards and hypocrisy coming out of Washington, D.C., are quite striking.
For example, President Joe Biden has correctly asserted that “nations have a right to sovereignty and territorial integrity.” The United States, however, has been the only government in the world to formally recognize Israel’s illegal annexation of Syria’s Golan Heights and Morocco’s annexation of the entire nation of Western Sahara, both seized by force in defiance of the United Nations.
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