U.S. Violates X’s Sovereignty

The U.S. is criticizing Russia for sending its truck convoy into the Donbass region, and the U.S. threatens more sanctions on Russia. This comment is not on the controversy between Ukraine and Russia over this convoy until the very end, at which time I give my impression. I focus mainly on the behavior of the U.S. government, the government of my country.

How many times has the U.S. flagrantly violated the sovereignty of other nations? I will not do the research, but I suggest that such research will turn up a great many cases. Anyone interested in this can google on “U.S. violates X’s sovereignty” and substitute a country’s name for X. This probably won’t generate an historical list or instances very far back in time. That would require more searching, but I would not be surprised to find a great many instances.

Let’s try neighbor Mexico. The first article dated Sept. 3, 2013 is a strong complaint by Brazil and Mexico. The second article refers to the Avena case, decided against the U.S. by the International Court of Justice. The third article goes back to the dispute over the annexation of Texas. In passing I note that Texas voted for annexation and joined the U.S., just as Crimea voted for it and joined Russia. This is enough to remind us of the mind-boggling hypocrisy of the current U.S. government concerning Russia.

Let’s try Haiti. Well, this looks a case of either one long violation of Haiti’s sovereignty by the U.S. or a series of repeated instances of this.

Let’s try Cuba. The first article is a complaint by Cuba that the U.S. is currently recruiting and exporting trained dissenters to Cuba. We won’t get into the Bay of Pigs invasion.

How about Pakistan? Well, there we have complaints that the drones launched by Americans are violating Pakistan’s sovereignty. They have also killed numerous civilians.

Between 1969 and 1973, the U.S. bombed Cambodia covertly, information not made public. This obviously violated Cambodia’s sovereignty. This was a massive bombing campaign.

More recently in 1999, the U.S. and NATO bombed Serbia in violation of its sovereignty.

The new Libyan government accused the U.S. of violating its sovereignty in 2012 when a special forces team invaded the country and kidnapped a suspect.

The U.S. and NATO violated Libya’s sovereignty via an extended military campaign in 2011. This violation was done with the approval of the UN Security Council. Does that vote mean that it was not an aggression? If the supposed purpose was “humanitarian”, does that justify the war on Libya?

I stop here by pointing out the obvious. The U.S. has the power to impose sanctions, but it cannot justify them on the grounds that one state has violated the sovereignty of another state, not when so many cases can be found where the U.S. itself has violated the sovereignty of other nations.

The imposition of sanctions by the U.S. has other purposes than upholding international law or borders, because the U.S. itself has violated international law and borders in so many places and so many times, often in large magnitude and with aggression.

Kiev has been invading Donbass (in eastern Ukraine) seriously for several months now, killing many civilians and destroying the country. A serious war is ongoing, and it has produced numerous refugees who cannot live in the zone of war. They need humanitarian assistance. Ukraine has dragged its heels in allowing the Russians to send in a convoy with humanitarian aid. Ukraine has had plenty of time to inspect the trucks. The failure of Ukraine to allow this looks to me like an intentionally cruel and heartless policy. This would be consistent with the way in which Poroshenko has chosen to wage this war. And I believe that this way is with the approval of U.S. officials and the aid of U.S. officers, intelligence operatives and mercenaries.

UPDATE: A previous version of this blog made erroneous statements, now deleted, about Iceland.

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7:10 pm on August 22, 2014