There is little dispute that Russia are not the good guys. Russia is a corrupt, authoritarian country. And regardless of what factors led to Putin’s invasion, there can be no justification for firing missiles and artillery shells into civilian areas, racking up thousands of casualties.
Many commentators seem to believe the U.S. must therefore be the good guys. ‘Russia is bad. The U.S. stands up to Russia. Therefore the U.S. must be good.’ But this doesn’t follow. Judging on objective criteria like violations of international law, or number of civilian deaths caused, the U.S. is at least as bad as Russia.
By “the U.S.”, I don’t mean the American people, but rather the foreign policy establishment. And when I refer to “Russia”, I mean the Russian state, not the citizens of that country.
So while it might be in the strategic interests of less powerful countries to ally with the U.S. against Russia, this doesn’t mean they have the moral high ground – far from it. As John Mearsheimer notes, “The U.S. is one of the most ruthless great powers that’s ever walked the planet.”
The latest example of this concerns America’s conduct since the withdrawal from Afghanistan. Recall that the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, occupied it for twenty years, and in the process got about 200,000 people killed. What’s less well known is that, after withdrawing its forces last year, the U.S. froze more than $7 billion of Afghanistan’s central bank assets.
There’s a technical term for this: stealing. As political scientist Daniel Drezner argues, “no matter what legal rationale is being provided, the federal government is stealing Afghanistan’s money”.
Now, there are justifications for stealing: to feed your starving family, perhaps. Only in this case, the starving party is the one being stolen from. Afghanistan is one of the world’s poorest countries, while America is one of the richest. On top of that, the former is teetering on the edge of famine: according to the UN, almost 9 million Afghans face “emergency levels” of food insecurity.
The U.S. government’s supposed reason for freezing the assets was to stop the Taliban getting access to them. Does this make sense? We can all agree the Taliban are ‘bad’, but they’re the closest thing Afghanistan has to a government, and it’s unclear how freezing a huge sum of public money helps ordinary citizens.
Shah Mehrabi, who sits on the Supreme Council of Afghanistan’s central bank, has explicitly asked for the money back. “The choice for the US government is simple,” he wrote in January, “continue down the path that would lead to total economic devastation for millions of people or do what is needed to help the Afghan people.”
More recently, a group of 70 economists (including Nobel Laureate Joseph Stiglitz) signed an open letter to Joe Biden calling for the funds to be released. The signatories correctly note that Afghans are being made “to suffer doubly for a government they did not choose”.
However, reports now suggest the U.S. will not release the money. What’s more, about half the sum – $3.5 billion – may be diverted to a fund for the families of 9/11 victims. This is despite the fact that 9/11 wasn’t carried out by the state of Afghanistan, and none of the people involved were even from Afghanistan (they were mostly Saudis).
To summarise: the U.S. invaded a country, got 200,000 people killed, and then stole $7 billion (after leaving the country in more-or-less the state they found it in).
‘Okay, the U.S. is bad – so what?’ Well, it raises important questions like whether it’s any more ‘moral’ to do business with America than with Russia. Or to put things another way: why is Europe sabotaging its own economy to sanction Russia when it still does business with America (and China and Saudi Arabia)?
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Indeed one should be under no illusions.
However it’s arguable that the USA treats its own citizens better than Russia does its own citizens – rule of law is stronger, and basic freedoms are better protected. The same could be said for other liberal democracies (though any advantage we have is fading fast, accelerated by the covid folly and evil). I’m not arguing however that this justifies actions this alliance takes around the world to protect its interests, just that it could be argued it’s perhaps less immoral to do business with the USA than it is with Russia – but then is it less immoral to do business with China, or Saudi Arabia?
…just that it could be argued it’s perhaps less immoral to do business with the USA than it is with Russia – but then is it less immoral to do business with China, or Saudi Arabia?
Try telling the US not to do business with those three countries and it would laugh in your face. Lots of thing could be argued, but sometimes it’s best not to bother.
Conquest and plunder. Twas ever thus.
Also note that the USA spent about $2T on the war — at least a fair proportion of this money went to all sorts of dubious entities in the USA. The population of the USA will be paying for this for decades (probably via inflation).
The UK is similar (except that the money spent also goes to all sorts of dubious entities in the USA).
Correct. After 20 years of occupation, Afghans are no better off, and Western tax-payers are worse off. The main parties who benefited are Western defence contractors and Afghan warlords.
Do you have any evidence for your assertion that Western defence contractors benefited.
There would have been business in certain consumables but those would have had, in any case, a limited shelf life.
The increase in defence spending by the U.S. over the last twenty years has resulted, predominantly, from renewed tensions with Russia and China. Defence Companies were required to produce enhanced capability systems, the effectiveness of which are now being seen in the drubbing dished out every day to Russian forces in Ukraine
The war in Iraq also played a role, much more so than the war in Afghanistan, but the big five contractors didn’t make a lot of money from the fighting—most of which was conducted with drones, helicopters, armoured vehicles, and rifles.
Most of the money spent on the Iraq and Afghanistan wars were for personnel, training, and health care.
Also note that the U.S. voters were right behind their government in making the intervention in Afghanistan.
And British voters were right behind their government in assisting the U.S.
Pretty much everything which is said about Russia can be said about Ukraine. It was corrupt and authoritarian, firing missiles and artillery shells into civilian areas in the East of the country prior to Feb 2022. The scale and destruction is bigger now, but Ukraine is far from being innocent if you take into account their tactics confirmed by Amnesty Int. There is also plenty of evidence of civilians saying that Ukrainian troops apart from positioning their military equipment in the residential areas also prevented evacuation and even firing directly at and killing people. So this quoted report by UN shouldn’t be taken uncritically. Especially that opinions of the majority of international organizations are far from unbiased and skewed heavily to the US/West point of view bar some rare exceptions, like said AI report. If Russia are not the good guys, end of story, then you can’t explain why people cross the border to the Russian controlled territory as recent CNN video unwillingly revealed.
This is not to dispute that civilians are dying from Russian shelling which is of course a tragedy. It just gives a bit more colors to the black and white picture which is being painted by every MSM outlet and even DS, apart from odd articles of Noah Carl (kudos for that).
‘US standing up to Russia’ idea is seriously flawed. US is not fighting Russia risking destruction and deaths of its own citizens. What it does rather is selling weapons to Ukraine and NATO members on an unimaginable scale. It also got European LPG market all for itself now.
But it’s a lot harder to control the masses if you don’t prevent them from seeing things in anything other than black and white…
The problem I see is in the use of typical phrases like “the US is good”, “Russia are rhe bad guys” and “the US is the richest country in the world”.
The actions of the US government or the US military are actions decided by a small group.of people. Same goes for Russia.
These wars and conflicts are fights between the ruling elites of countries into which the populations are dragged in to be played like chips on a casino table.
Leaders rile us up and drag us in. Biut in the end all the spoils go to the elites and the cost paid by the suckered population.
That is how it has always been.
Regarding the US being the richest nation in the world, I don’t even know what that means. Iit’s governemnt certainly has the biggest debt in the world. Are the people the richest? I don’t know.
This bundling of millions of people into simple catch all phrases for the purpose of making things more readable and understandable perpetuate a sense that nations are.monolothic in their actions and responsibilities. And they just aren’t.
https://www.france24.com/en/live-news/20220810-economists-urge-us-to-return-afghanistan-s-frozen-assets
“We are deeply concerned by the compounding economic and humanitarian catastrophes unfolding in Afghanistan, and, in particular, by the role of US policy in driving them,” 71 economists and development experts said in a letter to US President Joe Biden and US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen.
“Without access to its foreign reserves, the central bank of Afghanistan cannot carry out its normal, essential functions,” they wrote.
we should not forget Syria where US occupies oil rich parts of the country.
https://mronline.org/2022/08/16/u-s-troops-loot-84-oil-tankers-from-syria-smuggle-them-into-iraq/
Yes there is a lot of evidence from various sources. The USA invade, occupy and plunder…..but apparently they are the good guys?. I think less and less people are buying it…..
I’d hope that people did their own research, but you can’t underestimate propaganda
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=trpiChRRnZE
Irish MEP Clare Daly: Multilateralism Means Like-Minded Partners Forming A Club…
Let us not forget that the United States Armed Forces, in alliance with this country, participated in the defeat of Germany in both World Wars and that of Japan in the second of those wars.
The people of Kuwait have also not forgotten their liberation by a coalition led by the USA in 1991.
Kosovo would not exist without the USAF.
Nation States, national governments, have no principles as we have seen over the last two years.
Democracy: the least worst form of government.
As cynical as it may sound, there really are NO good guys, just varying shades of evil it seems.
Did the Taleban really expect to get all that top-class, 21st century weapony for nothing?
‘there can be no justification for firing missiles and artillery shells into civilian areas, racking up thousands of casualties’
Noah, you should watch UK Column news. There you would hear, from the many independent sources they access, that Ukraine has purposely been using civilian buildings (eg schools, hospitals) and areas so that Russia has been forced to aim at them. And the figures about civilians being killed are not what they seem. I am sure you can’t be believing the MSM figures and reporting. You need to watch UK Column’s news on a regular basis to get an objective and true picture. I am by no means saying that Putin is an angel of light, but things aren’t what they seem. And Ukraine has committed just the atrocities you mention against the Donbas region for many years (since 2014 at least). As well as other stuff.