We’re publishing a guest post by Adrian Brown, a former Royal Australian Air Force Legal Officer, about whether it’s reasonable to expect Russia to be constrained by moral norms, particularly in light of the failure of Britain and the United States to always observe those norms themselves when the national interest is at stake.
If you’re anything like me, the sooner you forget the sight of Ukraine asking the UN Security Council, chaired by Russia with its power of veto, to vote for a motion demanding that Russia stop its invasion and withdraw its troops, the better. The UN reported that several of its members described Russia’s veto as “inevitable but deplorable”. It’s hard to imagine anything more enervating.
Russia is in clear breach of Article 2(4) of the UN Charter. Although the ICC has opened a war crimes investigation, Russia has withdrawn from the underlying treaty and is not subject to its jurisdiction. Before you rush to judgement, the United States has withdrawn too. Russia’s indifference to international law is best illustrated by its appeal to Article 51 of the UN Charter which deals with the right to self-defence. Token at best, mockery at worst. We all know that, without an independent enforcement mechanism, treaties are not like contracts in a rule-of-law based jurisdiction, and international law more generally contains a strong voluntary element.
We often hear experts say that Russia only understands hard power. But before we give up on international law, norms, and other constraints, it’s worth asking whether there is any basis for believing that a state is constrained by moral standards and, to the extent that the West has breached those standards itself, we can demand that Russia complies with them.
The sceptical analysis of Russia’s invasion restates the doctrine that foreign policy should only be concerned with a state’s interests and not with morality. It often suggests that Russia’s interests include ensuring that Ukraine does not join NATO. The West’s response to the invasion, driven in part by moral outrage, is naïve, misguided and even irresponsible. Instead, Western states should have dispassionately examined whether confronting Russia served their interests. If it did not, they should have looked the other way.
The underlying principle is not, however, quite what it seems. In the academic and policy discussions, the qualifying phrase ‘legitimate interests’ is often used, rather than interests. Morality is smuggled in through the word ‘legitimate’ which requires a value judgement. We hear echoes of this in the so-called Laws of Armed Conflict, codified in the Geneva Convention, with their focus on limiting the use of lethal force to military targets, such as combatants and weapons systems, and proportionality.
More significantly, even if a state wishes to pursue its interests without reference to legitimacy or morality, it is constrained by the animating morality of its people. There are well established philosophical and political theories for this proposition, but it might be simpler to just look at states’ real-world behaviour for evidence of it.
During the two Gulf wars, we saw regular briefings by the United States, including detailed information about target selection accompanied by video footage of smart bombs arrowing into their targets. This was because, from Vietnam onward, the West understood that it was constrained by public opinion driven, at least in part, by moral imperatives. It is not just the West that is vulnerable to public opinion. You might ask yourself why President Putin bothered to create his outlandish narrative about liberating Ukrainians from an oppressive regime controlled by drug-taking Nazis – and why he backed it up with criminal laws intended to prevent the domestic and foreign media, and Russian citizens via social media, presenting evidence that contradicts this narrative. This arch-realist knows that he, too, is constrained by public opinion.
In Britain, people may point to the Stop the War rallies before the second Gulf war, and the continuing and somewhat hysterical fixation on Tony Blair’s alleged misconduct, to demonstrate that there were no moral constraints on the British state. At the time, however, public opinion favoured the war. The eventual backlash in public opinion then drove Ed Miliband’s successful opposition to military intervention in Syria. And regardless, a state may ignore moral constraints in the same way an individual might. In neither case should we conclude that moral constraints don’t exist.
There is, of course, a huge overlap between a state’s legitimate interests and morality. It is the first duty of a state to provide for the protection, health, and prosperity of its people. There will be times when a foreign policy decision ostensibly based on moral imperatives also serves a state’s interests. And any mature moral outlook must afford other peoples the right to choose their own form and style of government – to live and let live.
As we watch Russia’s invasion progress and see clear evidence of women and children being targeted and killed as they try to evacuate charred residential suburbs, we can say with certainty that Russia has far exceeded its legitimate interests and is in breach of international law and generally accepted moral standards. Does this matter? Yes it does. It matters because ultimately the Russian people will decide how long President Putin remains in power and, as he has proven by his own conduct, the Russian people are more likely to act if they are morally outraged. Or to put it more practically, they are less likely to put up with soldiers being killed and economic sanctions when they don’t believe in the cause.
It also matters because, while the moral element in foreign affairs is, for very good reason, primarily a constraining force, it can also be an effective call to action. The moral outrage that Russia’s invasion has provoked has been a galvanising and unifying force among the nations of the world. It is the near universality of the response that provides its practical and moral force. It is also why otherwise cool and clear-eyed analysis of trivial actions, like Disney deciding not to distribute films in Russia, misses the point.
The sceptical analysis of this situation rightly asks whether the West can condemn and, by extension, confront Russia because Western countries have themselves engaged in direct and indirect action to overthrow the governments of sovereign states. This idea is particularly pertinent if you believe that the United States covertly supported, and potentially even helped foment, the Maidan revolution in 2014.
You can see the attraction of this position. It has a veneer of fairness, balance, and impartiality. It is, however, merely splashing about in the shallow end of the political and moral pool.
Firstly, it assumes a moral equivalence between the Russian invasion of Ukraine and, for example, the Gulf wars or the United States’ alleged actions in Ukraine. I’m not sure this bears much analysis, but neither time nor space permit a detailed examination here. Secondly, no matter how squeamish you are about these things, you can still proceed on the basis that the wrongs of the past can be acknowledged while the wrongs of the present are challenged. To suggest otherwise strains credibility.
More importantly, there is a risk that this position could be used, wittingly or unwittingly, to disguise the frightening consequences of a multi-polar world in which, below the surface chop, powerful opposing currents flow. Freedom and self-determination, the rights and dignity of the individual, limits on the use of coercion and state sponsored violence are being contested. Go ahead and criticise the West when you think it justified – that is your right and perhaps even duty. But that is very different to insisting that the West disqualifies itself from the greater struggle and simply concedes these fundamental human principles on behalf of itself and the people of the world.
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Vaccine fatigue?
FOAD
Bring down tax, bring down government spending.
And it turns out that the top rate of income tax (for people earning over one hundred and fifty thousand pounds) was not going to be abolished under the “mini budget”, merely reduced from 45% to 40%, basically fiddling while Rome burns. And by the way, I simply don’t believe that I will become better off by people being punished for success and hard work. You know, someone on quite low wages could scrape over fifty thousand pounds (thus earning a forty per cent tax rate) by working very long hours, or breaking into professional martial arts and taking a few beatings along the way. Imagine it. You are taking a lot of punches to earn your one thousand pounds a week, you do well and increase to two thousand pounds a week, but someone says, “by the way, I’m taking 40% of anything you make over £50,271 a year, even though it’s you taking the punches, risking your health, not me”. How is that right? A 50% tax rate might sound tempting to some, but I don’t buy it. When will they make tax freedom day a bank holiday? Never, because they know they’re wrong.
And no, I’m not rich.
“Bring down tax, bring down government spending.”
And bring down the government.
There are 650 useless, lazy, treasonous grifters siphoning our money while this country collapses around them, to their utter shame.
We need a new system but these people must have no part in it.
Hong Kong: Communists killing the golden goose. How surprising.
Sparrows mark II. (Or 3 or 4 or 5…).
Just maybe they will go the way of the Soviet Union. How many predicted their collapse in 1980? Don’t rule it out.
I just worry about who they might lash out at when they realise they can’t offer their people prosperity any ore.
The truth that our leaders seem to forget, and co-incidentally the core message of the film ‘Bugs Life’ is, ‘There’s a lot more of us, than there are of them.’.
We seem to have forgotten that too.
Brainwashed by the MSM into weak submission.
Who is to blame for the same thing happening in New Zealand and Australia?
Dr. Joseph A. Ladapo: about to be cancelled by the white boys at Twitter.
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/health/article-11294521/Are-people-suffering-Covid-19-vaccine-fatigue.html
‘will an extra jab save the NHS or are too many people suffering vaccine fatigue?’
-or are too many of the recipients who were previously jabbed and would have ‘offered their arm’ again – willingly or otherwise – either no longer with us RIP, or scared witless…or just don’t give a dram about the corrupt NHS anymore?
The comments made show that the majority of readers have decided enough is enough & have seen through the manipulations.
Thank goodness.
I’m wondering whatever will the poor, destitute GP’s do now there’s less demand for the devil’s serum. They’ll be suffering a tremendous loss of income.
I suppose they could set up some gofundme pages or similar, to support their lack of finances. Smirk.
Or, they could actually get back to doing their real job in primary care instead of chasing kerching.
Well all that jabbing has not saved the NHS which is now clearly in a death spiral.
Agreed….It’s not ‘vaccine fatigue’….it’s the giant con, it’s the mandates, it’s the lies, it’s the deaths and injuries……
As of 28 September 2022, the MHRA has received 464,071 reports of 1,517,640 injuries following injection with a COVID-19 ‘vaccine’, including 2,272 deaths within 7 days of injection, with an unknown number having died outside this arbitrary time limit.
‘Vaccine fatigue’ is used to vilify those who are choosing to assert their bodily autonomy & reject the toxin. Just another in a long line of carefully constructed narratives used to try to herd the sheep.
Isn’t that “vaccine hesitancy”? A hated term which infers somebody is dithering and undecided as to what to do, they’re just looking for some direction because they are so helpless and pathetic. “Vaccine fatigue” is just somebody who’s had 1 or more jabs and finally realised that they don’t need any more because they’ve been lead up the garden path.
I should have edited my comment to say that ‘vaccine fatigue’ is used to vilify already injected who are belatedly asserting their bodily autonomy.
Thanks for highlighting my lack of clarity!
Either term is just vilification of those who disagree with the agenda.
If people are experiencing vaccine fatigue, there won’t be any need for the new Darlington RNA vaccine innovation centre, will there? Shucks.
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/government-injects-funding-boost-for-cutting-edge-vaccine-site-in-darlington
Edit: change link.
Unreliable Wind & Solar Leave Power-Starved Europeans Vulnerable During Big Freeze
https://stopthesethings.com/2022/10/09/unreliable-wind-solar-leave-power-starved-europeans-vulnerable-during-big-freeze/
The northern hemisphere turns on bitter winters – getting wind turbines and solar panels to turn on in the midst of one, is another matter. A cohort of Americans left powerless during the winter storm that struck in February 2021, has already had a taste of their wind and solar ‘powered’ future, and didn’t take kindly to it.
Power-starved Germans, now even more desperate for coal-fired power, are giving their obsession with ‘green’ energy a good hard rethink. And, as Peta Credlin points out below, it’s time we all did.
by stopthesethings
Yellow Boards in the Home Counties.
Some of us are common as muck.
Monday 10th October 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A321 Sandhurst Rd &
B3016 Finchampstead Rd
Wokingham RG40 3JS
Wednesday 12th October 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A327 Observer Way &
Reading Rd Arborfield
Wokingham RG2 9HT
Thursday 13th October 11am to 12pm
Yellow Boards
Junction A3095 Warfield Road &
Harvest Ride Warfield
Bracknell RG42 2QH
Stand in the Park Sundays 10.30am to 11.30am – make friends & keep sane
Wokingham
Howard Palmer Gardens Sturges Rd RG40 2HD
Bracknell
South Hill Park, Rear Lawn, RG12 7PA
Telegram http://t.me/astandintheparkbracknell
An interesting medico-legal point is made by the author of the C&C News that as it is a qualified & certified medic who has done the research into safety, published the details & based State policy on the research, this now is the best medical practice which all medics have to adhere to. He explains it better than I do!
https://www.coffeeandcovid.com/p/c-and-c-news-saturday-october-8-2022?utm_source=email
Thanks BB. The ‘Mass Torts’ lawsuit served to Peter Daszak also feels very significant in that it will result in the truth about the origins of SARS-COV2 and the subsequent cover up being revealed.
It’s these seemingly insignificant actions that often have the greatest repercussions.
The Mass Torts is going after the source not pharma, so will be much harder for a judge to throw it out.
Interesting… Didn’t know that the US DoD had designated the covid toxin as weapons….
If that doesn’t change your opinion of what’s in them, then there really is no hope.
https://anamihalceamdphd.substack.com/p/the-reason-it-is-not-allowed-to-analyze/comments#comment-9600452
Article looking at link between aluminium in vaccines exposure in first two years of a child’s life & the risk of asthma.
Lots of comparisons with covid toxic injection papers re discovery of propblems, then discounting any safety signals…
https://www.naturalnews.com/2022-10-06-cdc-aluminum-vaccines-causes-childhood-asthma-autism.html#
My stepdaughter (now 32) got Eczema and Asthma within days of her first shot of the triple vaccine way back.
It appears that the covid sceptics are looking more closely at other vaccines with a similar level of sceptical scrutiny. The verdict isn’t looking good for pharma…
Yay!!!
https://www.redvoicemedia.com/2022/10/traditional-vaccines-now-in-question-dr-harvey-risch-loses-all-trust-in-the-cdc-and-the-fda-videos/ref/8/
I hope the Dr Harvey Risch video appears above the line.
Good. It’s entirely predictable and what any rational person should be thinking. I’ll have a lookie later.
A NASA presentation from 2001 titled Future Strategic Issues/Future Warfare (circa 2025)
More hard evidence that this has long been in the planning. The evil cabal want military war on top of the psychological, bio, resource & techno wars which they have been imposing on the world population.
https://archive.org/details/FutureStrategicIssuesFutureWarfareCirca2025/page/n3/mode/2up
Dr Simon’s take on PayPal & censorship. Interestingly, they’ve backtracked. Question is for how long? Typical playbook of controlling bullies, push hard, recant, then rinse & repeat until capitulation. Best thing is not to engage in the first place.
https://drsimon.substack.com/p/the-cancel-culture-noose-is-tightening
For anyone who is interested in the nitty gritty details of the VAERS data & how it is manipulated to make the bioweapon injections look better than they are, Albert’s Welcome the Eagle 88 videos are well worth a watch. He’s doing all this pro bono. A real Truth Warrior
https://www.bitchute.com/video/fl2xkVeBAMMk/
An historical perspective of US military interventions from the 1970s onwards which is relevant to the current war in Ukraine.
https://www.tikkun.org/ukraine-is-the-latest-neocon-disaster/
Professor Paul Hunter tells the Mail that “vaccine fatigue happens in every jab campaign, but this time around it looks more pronounced”.
That’s because they aren’t vaccines, Mr Professor.
I sure hope the sheeple are becoming more “people” and less “sheep”.
Something to bookmark.
“This book is a product of my own struggle to understand how the idealistic institutions our country built to safeguard both public health and democracy, suddenly turned against our citizens and values.”
Robert F. Kennedy Jr.’s best-selling book, The Real Anthony Fauci, has been turned into a spellbinding documentary film—and it’s being released entirely free to the public on Tuesday, October 18, 2022 https://www.therealanthonyfaucimovie
The latest installment of We Lie To You News from JP, which ironically is more truthful than the BBC. Packed full with stories including the parallels with Iran and the West, Russell Brand and President Brandon identifying a dead congresswoman as alive, and much more.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ar3yhMxdo0
As usual, Brill! I can only agree with a lot of the comments…how come JP tells more truths in a ‘comedy’ sketch, than the actual news does??
He’s doing his job as a satirist unlike others who appear on TV sitting next to a perspex screen for two years.
“Electric cars won’t be cheaper to run than petrol motors until 2026”
Or ever, probably. None of the eco-loons seems to understand that the more lithium you need, the more you mine, the price goes up, and it then becomes harder to find (and it isn’t easy to find and extract it..), and then the price goes up again. And the car batteries are hard to recycle and produces only a fraction of the original material for re-use. Like heat pumps, lithium batteries for transportation are a dead-end technology. In five years, you wont be able to give them away.
The latest from Geert Vanden Bossche
Dear friends
It is now FIVE PAST TWELVE!
Because of IMMUNE REFOCUSING, SARS-CoV-2 Omicron variants are now turning vaccine-mediated immune dysregulation in vaccinees into FULL-FLEDGED VACCINE ESCAPE.
Here is the link to my LAST VIDEO MESSAGE explaining how immune refocusing is now accelerating vaccine escape of the obviously never-ending sequence of Omicron variants…: https://www.voiceforscienceandsolidarity.org/videos-and-interviews/it-is-5-past-12
It is now more than time to get prepared for an unprecedented historical low in ‘modern’ civilization.
I’ve been warning for this ever since I heard about the C-19 MASS vaccination program. However, I initially underestimated the versatility of the immune system as I did not fully understand how the vaccinee’s immune response could keep the virus under control despite the lack of neutralizing antibodies and the enhanced susceptibility of vaccinees to re-infection. Eventually I started seeing through the complex immune disturbances caused by the C-19 mass vaccination program and all the pieces of the puzzle have now fallen together.
NATURE (and not technocracy) always has the last word. It will restore the vitally important balance a natural pandemic would already have achieved two years ago. It’s just that in highly vaccinated countries the process of restoring that natural equilibrium between the virus and the host immune system will now take a much higher toll. The more booster doses (especially if using so-called ‘Omicron-adapted’ boosters), the faster the virus will manage to fully escape the last shred of protection conferred by the C-19 vaccines.
In other words, highly vaccinated countries will pay a huge price to Nature for establishing HERD IMMUNIY. Only herd immunity can terminate this pandemic and only immunity acquired upon NATURAL infection .(i.e., trained innate cell-based immunity, possibly complemented with adaptive antibody-based immunity) can contribute to building herd immunity…..
To protect vaccinees from antibody-dependent enhancement of severe disease, we will need to concentrate on chemoprophylaxis using drugs with proven safe and effective antiviral activity. To protect our children from viral immune escape and maintain at least some potential to build herd immunity, we must ensure their unconditional protection against C-19 vaccination.
Geert
If you’re on Telegram, this guy’s channel is well worth joining. He’s hilarious!
Wonderfully funny short videos extracting the urine from the narrative.
https://t.me/DrDrMcHonkHonk
Hmm….
[Forwarded from Dr. Lynn Fynn’s Science Enlightenment Channel & Stuff]
“Surprisingly, only spike protein but no nucleocapsid protein could be detected within the foci of inflammation in both the brain and the heart, particularly in the endothelial cells of small blood vessels. Since no nucleocapsid protein could be detected, the presence of spike protein must be ascribed to vaccination rather than to viral infection.“
Is it surprising? This is how you prove that this is vaccine-derived so they cannot attribute this to infection or virus.
They will undoubtedly stop differentiating the Ab type as to bury this devastating finding.
https://www.mdpi.com/2076-393X/10/10/1651
Electric cars won’t be cheaper to run?
That ain’t the half of it!
‘The problem is electric vehicle batteries contain dangerously reactive chemicals When shorted by floodwater the large electric current causes batteries rapidly corrode and disintegrate, a process which can occur in a matter of minutes.
The fires which occur when the floodwaters subside from the corroded batteries are difficult to extinguish, and can burn hot enough to melt steel and concrete.
If that wasn’t enough, smoke from electric battery fires is toxic. Lithium contamination and poisoning can cause serious short and long term health problems.’
Watts Up With That
Errrr……has the precautionary principle been implemented regarding the introduction of electric vehicles?
Could we perhaps have a look at the cost benefit analysis that has obviously been conducted, mandated, as it is, by the EU precautionary principle guidance notes adopted wholesale by the Blair Government.
Oh! The Blair government! What could possibly go wrong!