The irony would be worth a good laugh it the truth didn’t hurt so much.
In response to Vladimir “I just don’t give a f**k” Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, Secretary of State John Kerry made the following statement:
”You just don’t in the 21st century behave in 19th century fashion by invading another country on completely trumped up pretext. You just don’t invade another country on phony pretext in order to assert your interests.”
Scathing words coming from a man who not only voted for the 2002 U.S. invasion of Iraq, but actually defended that vote while running for president in 2004.
How quickly he must’ve forgotten those four magic words: Weapons of Mass Destruction!
Don’t get me wrong. The Russian invasion of Ukraine is a clear act of aggression. But I’m not so sure the United States should be delivering a message about inappropriate invasions and asserting interests based on phony pretexts.
Of course, Putin’s ironic side is no less apparent than Kerry’s.
When the U.S. warned of getting involved in Syria, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov responded, noting that the Motherland was committed to “the need to strictly adhere to the norms of international law. . .and not to allow their violation.” China took Russia’s side on that one, too. Which makes this even more worthy of a good mocking.
So while the United States, the EU, China and Russia love international law – as long as it suits their needs – few of them seem to give a damn about those who suffer as a result of their ego and venom.
The #1 International Criminal
Perhaps the worst international criminal on the world stage is Kim Jong Un. In fact, just a couple of weeks ago we had a look at the UN’s human rights report on North Korea, which included the following statement regarding North Korea’s crimes against humanity. . .
“These crimes against humanity entail extermination, murder, enslavement, torture, imprisonment, rape, forced abortions and other sexual violence, persecution on political, religious, racial and gender grounds, the forcible transfer of populations, the enforced disappearance of persons and the inhumane act of knowingly causing prolonged starvation.”
And check this out. . .
Because much of what was discovered came by way of witness statements, I had a chance to review some of these statements. Here are two that really got to me:
This one was from a former prison camp guard, Ahn Myong-Chol, who recalled a dog attack incident in 1994. . .
“There were three dogs and they killed five children. They killed three of the children right away. The two other children were barely breathing and the guards buried them alive. The next day, instead of putting down the murderous dogs, the guards pet them and fed them special food as some kind of reward.”
Then there’s this one who saw a woman smuggle copper wire inside of her dead baby:
“The woman was using a cloth, a wide band to tie the baby on her back, and she took the baby off and laid it on the table, but then I suddenly realized that the baby was probably 18 months old or less than 2 years old; it was a boy. I saw red blood around the stomach, and the police asked what this was all about. The woman was simply crying and the police suddenly ripped the baby’s torso apart and about 2 kilograms of copper wire was found inside the baby’s stomach. This just told me that this is how far you have to go in order to keep living here in North Korea.”
I’m not attempting to compare the actions of chubby North Korean psycho to other power-hungry leaders across the globe. I am, however, pointing out that the outcry over international law violations is typically based on who’s stuck with the short straw. And quite frankly, if Secretary Kerry and the Obama administration were so concerned about international law, they wouldn’t break it themselves, and they would get a lot louder about the atrocities in North Korea compared to their highly-publicized lecturing over the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
As well, the invasion of Ukraine should serve as in important reminder to us all that freedom is never guaranteed, and must always be protected. Something to consider as the NSA has already reviewed this article and identified who wrote it and who’s reading it now.
