Telli Menüü

Opinion: Why blame Russia if the West acts the same way?

apr. 14, 2022 Estonian Life No. 15 2022

It’s an argument that’s favoured by Kremlin apologists in the West. They insist that Russia merely acts like other international powers, that the West has disregarded international law and the standards that it has itself vowed to uphold.

Putin’s sycophants contend that Washington views its leading international position as an entitlement, thus placing itself above international law and behavioural norms. NATO’s military intervention in the Balkans, says the Kremlin, was similar to Russia in Ukraine. They say the Monroe Doctrine (adopted in 1823 opposing any European colonialism in Western Hemisphere), gives Washington a double standard and thus the US has no right to scold Moscow for holding the former USSR in its sphere of influence. The Kremlin’s fellow travellers also parrot a favourite of Europe’s far-right, that the EU is a traditional colonial empire. (Very similar to EKRE’s accusation regarding Estonia, that the EU simply replaced one occupation with another.)

But if the EU is an empire, it’s one that the currently “EU occupied” states of the collapsed Soviet Bloc, were desperate to join. It’s an empire by invitation only, with stringent conditions for membership. (These conditions will be relaxed to accommodate Ukraine’s accession to the EU.)

Neither NATO or the EU expanded to the Russian border. The regimes and populations of these previously captive nations begged to become part of the Western community and under the collective defence umbrella of NATO.

Brexit proves the invalidity of EU being a coercive empire. In fact, Belarus and Armenia, who have opted to be somewhat “integrated” with Russia have been compelled to relinquish substantial independence to Moscow – more than they intended.

The Western media gives free reign to Putin proxies among us who advance his story, especially when he purports to be on the scent of neo-Nazis. Blame the west for Ukrainians being slaughtered. Just look at our record in Afghanistan, Syria, Iraq, Libya, Kosovo.

Very simply, the west didn’t disguise itself for those, didn’t claim self-defence and were the actions were executed under scrutiny of observers who approved or denounced them. And those journalists denouncing Western military interventions were not censured, detained or had mysteriously disappeared. No territorial claims from the West accompanied these conflicts. In fact, Western forces withdrew from them all, including the US which pulled out of Afghanistan and Iraq leaving hostile regimes intact.

(Read more: Estonian Life No. 15 2022 paber- and PDF/digi)

Laas Leivat, Toronto

Jaga

Loe edasi