America's Solipsistic Foreign Policy

I read an article, found here, detailing Putin's defense for the Crimea situation. Also, Putin takes this chance to attack the west and more specifically the U.S. for themselves not obeying international law.

I will use this post to perhaps clarify my position, as I have posted on alot of blogs on this topic.

First off, for me, things are right or wrong, just or unjust, only if you consciously decide by what norms you are going to judge them by. For justice to exist at all, it may only exist ad hoc for a particular norm which one has installed, which one has synthesized. Essentially, there is no justice incarnate, to quote Michel Foucault, "in a classless society, there would be no just or unjust."

On to the actual topic.

Russia declares that Russia is perfectly right in its acquisition of Crimea. Furthermore, it says that this was done so democratically and peacefully. For the most part, so far, this is true. "Democrat" means domination of the people and so the vote that took place in Crimea, in which an overwhelming majority voted to join Russia (even if a large portion of the vote was faked, as it likely was, most Crimeans still want to join Russia), was indeed democratic. As for peaceful, only one soldier died in the take-over, so it was relatively peaceful as far as take-overs go.

Russia also accuses the U.S. of disregarding, or perhaps not even being aware of international law. Russia uses a couple of examples, such as Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, and Serbia, to make its point.

There is much more truth to this.

The Age of Imperialism supposedly ended after World War II ended, with the last European colonies gaining independence in the 70's. However, now has dawned a new age of Imperialism; it is now the time of uncontested American Imperialism. While we make no permanent land gains, as the value that once made that profitable is now obsolete, nevertheless the U.S. continues to flex its imperial muscles throughout the globe.

Iraq was fought for the oil that the country possesses. We invaded a sovereign country (albeit, it was lead by a tyrant) for our own benefit. This sounds quite a bit like an Empire.

In Iran, when the Prime minister attempted to nationalize the oil industry in the fifties and thus he endangered American business interests, we supported a coup and installed a corrupt, overly-opulent Shah in his place. Thus, the people in Iran were incredibly angry and overthrew him a decade-and-a-half later. Though this particular time backfired, we acted only in our own self-interest.

In Afghanistan in the 1980's, in an attempt to halt the Soviet advance, we armed what would eventually become the Taliban with everything from rifles to Stinger missiles.

The only major reason the west got involved in Libya was because of oil.

In the 1980's, the U.S. supported the regime in Cambodia that eventually killed a third of its own people. The sole reason for our support was because Cambodia was not friendly with China and Russia.

The U.S. is the country which most often vetoes resolutions on the UN Security Council.

It seems the U.S. is by-far the most solipsistic, spurious, and specious country on the international stage. It is only we who declare to be a staunch defender of human rights everywhere and then support a ruthless dictator; only we fiercely defend the idea of sovereignty, yet have almost continuously been involved in the destruction another nation's sovereignty; only we have the balls to be the same nation that piously propagated the Monroe Doctrine of anti-Imperialism that also remains the last and strongest imperial power to date.

Hence, Russia sees the supposed leader of the free and democratic world behave in a manner as such and thinks it wants to behave as such as well. It is only behaving by the norms that we ourselves have set, synthesized, and forced upon the world. The U.S. can invade other countries at-a-whim, so why can Russia not?