“REVALUE INTERNATIONAL LAW”
Will the crisis around Ukraine be the hinge to return
to respect for international law?
By Danny
Smith
Contrary to what they believe in Washington, the crisis
mounted around Ukraine has served to expose who are the main violators of
international law and the real actors that threaten peace and security.
International relations between sovereign states are based on a set of general
rules and principles arising from custom that tend to a good understanding of
these public actors.
In the eyes of
anyone, this is not something extraordinary to understand, but for thirty years
up to this point, we have witnessed a peculiar and very ancient interpretation
of these relationships. The Anglo-Saxons, especially the United States -and
implicitly- have been applying that odious separation between "civilized
states" and "barbarians" for the application of law, a
conception born of the modern law of a group of Christian states and therefore,
a law imbued with Christian morality. They are the same ones that perceived
themselves and still seem to do so as the only "civilized powers."
From this arbitrary perspective, only this reduced
spectrum of actors make up the so-called “International Community”.
This interpretative dichotomy was exposed (although an
attempt was made to conceal it) since 1990 with the crisis and the Gulf War due
to the invasion of Iraq in Kuwait and would continue to be blatantly replicated
with subsequent crises and wars in which Arab-Islamic states would be involved.
involved. Here the “just war” argument became part of Washington's speech to
explain this aggressiveness towards public opinion. Under this (Westernist)
conception, the Anglo-Saxon powers (USA and Great Britain), arrogating
themselves an authority, disregarded all the treaties and protocols referring
to respect for human rights, which are the basis of modern international law
with a universal character and scope, leaving of being the humanitarian
component, exclusive of any power or morality.
It was not necessary for the treaties and protocols of
The Hague and Geneva to be recognized by each state for the inhabitants of the
entire planet to enjoy the rights and obligations that they contemplate. The
preamble of the Organic Charter of the United Nations of 1945 is foreseen as a
pillar for world peace and stability "Create conditions under which
justice and respect for the obligations arising from treaties and other sources
of international law can be maintained" .
It was assumed that the members of this international
organization sought to avoid the abuses and arbitrariness that had been
committed in the past and that led to the Second World War.
But the bipolarity between East and West that emerged
after the end of the Second World War came to politically disrupt these
principles, adulterating the meaning of these principles and complicating the
understanding between the states depending on whether they belonged to one or
the other bloc. Thus, the principles of the universality of respect for human
rights and justice began to be relativized, intoxicating their application by
ideology and discriminating according to the convenience of the moment.
But since the fall of the USSR in 1991 this
intoxication was far from disappearing. On the contrary, it happened to take a
new form and even a new dimension. Nor does NATO disappear despite the
disappearance of its rival, the WARSAW PACT. It is then that surviving
disguises its activities under the argument of being a provider of
Multidimensional International Security that has obviously responded to its own
interests.
Within the framework of the hegemonism of an emerging
superpower like the US, without limits or rivals to mark them, it began to
promote a distorted conception of international law based on the use and abuse
of the argument of "human rights" and peace missions to finally, end
up violating both concepts.
Within this conception that carried the signature of
George H. Bush and the entire sector of the neoconservatives and their partners
in the pro-Israeli lobby in Congress, the United States made the Jus ad bellum
(right to war) a state policy and a tool on which (and protected by the United
Nations) mount their warmongering adventures. But at the same time, through a
continuous dissemination of propaganda and disinformation of situations to
which this odious understanding was applied, I try to delegitimize the right of
resistance that peoples and nations have against the aggressions that were
perpetuated under this ruse. This is how Washington and its allies, with the
collaboration of the media, mixed the term "terrorism" with
"armed resistance" to try to delegitimize the actions of Iraqis and
Afghans against the occupation.
The tactics to disguise these inconsistencies against
international law have been changing but have not been abandoned. They have
only adjusted to the new strategies that the centers of power have planned.
What we see today around Ukraine is an example of this. While Washington and
London predict an alleged Russian invasion without tangible evidence, they
cannot explain why they themselves have hundreds of thousands of soldiers and
combat vehicles deployed in countries bordering the Russian Federation.
But why so much certainty about a possible invasion,
even risking tentative dates? With no evidence in sight and only mere
statements in the air, the predictions of Biden and his Secretary of State seem
to be taken from a top hat. The trick looks quite simple and does not go
through clairvoyance or "intelligence reports". Groups of foreign
mercenaries and neo-Nazis trained by special forces led by the CIA and MI6
would set out to create the provocations to elicit Russian responses. In this
way, groups belonging to the Nazi-affiliated “Azov” battalion would attack the
point of contact, forcing the Dombas militiamen to respond. Obviously, the
media conglomerate will not expose these details and will only focus on
magnifying the response of the "pro-Russian" separatists.
Precisely in the last hours some provocations have
materialized without the separatists losing control. The exchanges of shell
fire in the city of Stanytsia in Lugansk are undoubtedly part of those
intentions. No doubt the Ukrainian generals and their NATO colleagues expected
this imaginary spill of armored vehicles crossing the border. But unfortunately
for them, Vladimir Putin has once again proved himself smarter and on the day
the invasion was supposed to take place, tank and artillery brigades were
heading back to Moscow.
Clearly, Moscow shows that it respects international
law and far from the accusations that the Anglo-Saxons launch through the media
with this, it decompresses the situation but: Will the American troops, armored
vehicles and missile systems that are deployed not only in Ukraine be
withdrawn? but in the other countries bordering the Russian Federation?
The insistence on continuing with the absurd
accusations answers this question.
Thus we see the desperate attempt to materialize that
prophecy of the "Russian invasion" and the one who is most interested
in it is Joe Biden himself, whose popularity is plummeting and with serious
domestic problems that he does not know how to solve. A war could lift his
image and save his administration from premature shipwreck. So, the solution
emerges predictably…passing international law under the soles of your shoes.
