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Einstein mused that stupidity was the most plentiful thing in the universe, but I’d suggest that hypocrisy is not far behind. Case in point: the tub-thumping, chest-beating outrage at Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. Judging by the cacophony of outraged screeching that greeted Russian ambassador Alexey Pavlovsky’s first major interview since the invasion, there’s a whole lot of triggering to go ‘round.
Russia has declared Australia is in no position to “judge and condemn” the invasion of Ukraine and support “baseless allegations of war crimes” because of the invasion of Iraq and possible Australian Defence Force war crimes in Afghanistan.
Well, he’s not wrong.
As writer Caitlyn Johnstone has pointed out: If we don’t hold our own leaders to account, we can’t hold other leaders to account. If the law is not applied consistently, it is not the law. It is simply an excuse we use to target our enemies.
Russian ambassador Alexey Pavlovsky has also accused Australia of “classic hypocrisy” over trade embargoes on Russia and not understanding the “existential threat” posed by having NATO on its border with missiles “with a flight time of three to five minutes to Moscow”.
Sure, you can argue that the West would never do that, but put yourself in the Russians’ shoes: would you be willing to take that bet? Because you’d have to ignore half a millennium of history to buy it. The US nearly went to full-scale nuclear war over the issue of its enemies expanding their sphere of influence right to America’s doorstep. Right now, Australia and New Zealand are reacting with outrage to China expanding its sphere of influence to the Solomon Islands.
You might also argue, as many spittle-flecked commenters did, that Pavlovsky is “just a Putin mouthpiece”. Well, duh. That’s what a diplomat does: represent their nation’s official policies overseas.
At his residence in Canberra, Mr Pavlovsky said he believed a diplomatic solution in Ukraine, even after a month of fighting and destruction, was “very much possible” but the conflict was a result of the West using Ukrainians as a proxy and a tool to threaten Russia, then throwing them “under the bus”.
“It is my view that it is the case that the aid and weapons sent by Australia and other countries to Ukraine contributes to protracting this conflict, contributes to more people being killed,” he said.
“It is clear that the West is set to fight Russia to the last Ukrainian.
Again, he’s not wrong: the West is fighting a proxy war. Which is an old Cold War tradition and, as I’ve written before, quite likely a cold-blooded geopolitical strategy on the behalf of the US. So, let’s at least not be hypocrites and pretend our motives are pure and noble. We know Russia’s aren’t, but how different are our leaders? As Johnstone points out, “Neither George W Bush nor Tony Blair are in prison cells at The Hague where international law says they ought to be”.
“There is a narrative promoted by the Australian mainstream media and politicians and Western politicians that allegedly an aggressive Russia, out of the blue, attacked a small democratic nation and is now committing atrocities and war crimes just because it is led by an irrational autocrat,” he said.
“I think this narrative deliberately dismisses the true roots of the situation and these true reasons why we are now where we are.”
A self-serving argument from Russia? Of course — but that doesn’t mean it’s far wrong, either. For 20 years, analysts and diplomats have been warning the US and NATO about expanding into former Soviet territories. Especially Ukraine.
Mr Pavlovsky specifically responded to Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s “concerns” about alleged Russian war crimes for targeting civilians and civilian buildings, and his call to bar Russian President Vladimir Putin from the G20 leaders’ summit in Indonesia in November, as well as Foreign Affairs Minister Marise Payne’s statement that expelling Russian diplomats was a live option.
And here’s where Pavlovsky really triggered the keyboard warriors.
“I say it’s not up to Australia to condemn us because some time ago Australia was involved in (an) absolutely unprovoked, illegal and unjust war in Iraq which we all know now was undertaken under false pretexts and destroyed a sovereign country, and one of the results was at least 10,000 civilian lives lost in just the first years and no costs were imposed on the perpetrators.”
The Australian
One might quibble about “unprovoked” and “unjust”, for sure — but the Russians, for their part, will argue about provocation. But can anyone truthfully say he’s wrong about the Iraq war’s illegality? Kofi Annan bluntly said it was, in 2004. Which, given the UN’s role in the destruction of Libya, carries more than its own whiff of hypocrisy.
Of course, just because the West are hypocrites doesn’t justify Russia’s invasion. It just makes it much harder to condemn.
Maybe the solution is to stop being such damned hypocrites and start living up to our own ideals.
