Have You Clean Hands?

For the past two weeks and more, our newspapers and television screens have been dominated by the developments in the Ukraine. I have lost count of the times I have heard about “the flagrant breach of international law.” Effectively, the Crimea has been annexed to the Russia Federation and a referendum of the Crimean population last Sunday is looked upon by the self-designated international community as bogus. But there is some evidence that the vast majority of the Crimean population, who are Russian speaking, wanted to break away from a country they considered hostile. The response this far: the United Kingdom and the USA are imposing sanctions on twenty one Russian officials, making travel more difficult for them and freezing their assets. Hardly gun-boat diplomacy.

I consider the actions by Putin and his colleagues wrong but what justifies our involvement? Does the West have a strategic interest in the Ukraine? Is there likely to be ethnic cleansing in the country? What action can be taken by the West, save for starting a vast military operation? No statesman has suggested the latter, nor has the Ukraine government – the present one – asked for this. So what we have is a load of hot air generated by the Western statesmen as the Russians do what they want. Yes, it is a form of appeasement and yes, the Russians may seek further territory. But I prefer a cold war to a hot one.

I am writing about this topic because I consider the West to be using double standards. Neither the States nor Great Britain have clean hands. In 2001, what legal right did the Americans, supported by the British, have to invade Iraq and Afghanistan? Where were the United Nations resolutions approving the actions? What we and the Yanks sought was regime change, a principle that has no foundation in international law. Add to this, the outrage of Guantanamo Bay where some men have been held prisoner for more than thirteen years without charge or trial. Had the Russians done this, the outcry would have been deafening.

In his Sunday Times column this week, Andrew Sullivan has detailed “the CIA’s vault of horrors.” His theme is that the USA threw Geneva conventions out of the window. When a Senate committee investigated the torture programme at Guantanamo and in Iraq, CIA head John Brennan protested innocence for his agency. However, at the same time, the agency was spying on the Senate committee staff. What did the Senate enquiry uncover? “Hanging prisoners by their wrists and ankles from shackles in walls, beating prisoners to a pulp, waterboarding hundreds of times, cramming prisoners into tiny boxes and God knows what else.” The accusations of undermining have been made by no less a figure than Diane Feinstein, senior US Senator for California and a respected defender of the intelligence services. Sullivan believes her, not Brennan. I think Sullivan’s right.

Poor President Obama. He is forced to hush up incidents arising under the administration of his predecessor. Without doubt, Dick Cheney was a prime mover in black ops and black site torture, as well as forms of barbarism that most Americans would find loathsome at any level. Arguably, Obama seeks to keep quiet the authorised torture under Bush as he justifies the authorised drone attacks of the current administration. It reminds me of the Pentagon Papers disclosures when President Nixon sought to hush up the actions of the Johnson administration. That came back to bite Tricky Dicky.

Nor does the United Kingdom have a clean record. Let’s not forget the 1980s “shoot to kill” policy, operated by the British Army and the Royal Ulster Constabulary and approved by H M Government. Not a week ago, a secret term of the Good Friday agreement, giving amnesty to IRA killers, was made public. Why was this not disclosed at the time?

Henry Kissinger coined the expression, “realpolitik,” as an expression to describe the way statesman acted in the real world. We have to face the fact that when a strong power exercises its might against a weaker, adjacent power, there is little that the international community can do to prevent it. Having statesmen like our Foreign Secretary, William Hague, huff and puff about Russia’s action in Crimea is no help and no use. And why talk openly about kicking Russia out of the G8 when it supplies vast amounts of energy to the west? Bring Putin to G8 and warn him then, behind closed doors.

So, pardon me if I don’t wring my hands about the Ukranian people. That country has had a potential revolution within its own borders for decades. History tells us not to get involved in another country’s civil war. Thus far, the West is listening to the past. Maybe it is washing its hands too.