Sergey Naryshkin, the Chairman of the Russian Parliament says that the growing tensions in international relations result from Washington’s lack of morals and violations of international law:
“The increasing crisis in international relations is rooted in Western nations’ lack of morals and their reluctance to observe basic norms of international law”, the State Duma chairman Sergey Naryshkin has said. “The tensions in the international situation have seriously increased over the past few years and this happens primarily because a group of Western nations, first of all, the United States of America, are neglecting the major principles of international law or interpret them freely,” Interfax quoted the Russian parliamentary leader as saying at a meeting with law students on Monday.
“I would be more direct – it happens due to the lack of morals”, Naryshkin added. He emphasized that the argument of “American exceptionalism” often used by many US politicians was against not only the legal principle of equality of all nations and peoples, but also contradicted basic human morality.
The Duma speaker also said that at the moment he considered Russia as the key protector of the basic foundations of international law. He noted that as one of the victor nations in World War II, Russia played a decisive role in introducing international law and that it had paid a great price for this achievement.
In May 2015, Naryshkin published an article in the Rossiyskaya Gazeta daily in which he urged European politicians to stop heeding advice from the United States and to start working on common Eurasian economic interests with Russia. If this doesn’t happen, Washington will eventually destroy the EU’s economic sovereignty by skilful manipulation of WTO mechanisms, Naryshkin wrote.
Naryshkin has also backed the idea of a future merger between the Russian Federation and the European Union, and suggested immediately starting consultations. The idea of the possibility of such a merger originally came from Czech President Milos Zeman, who confessed to having a dream that one day Russia would join the EU.
Naryshkin has a good point. Until the advent of the “war on terror”, torture was a rarely used tool of post-WW II governments in Europe and the US. But in the 21st century illegal torture became so commonplace that a magazine, Torture, was created to expose and combat torture. The magazine’s editorial board consists of Nilantha Ilangamuwa, Lauren Glenmere, and Eric Bailey.
In the current issue, Marjorie Cohn explains that “Torture Is Just Plain Wrong”. Morton Koch Andersen and Erik Wendt explain “Law As Repression”. Ron Jacobs explains “The Murderer As Hero”, as epitomized by American Sniper and the TV series NCIS. Noam Chomsky explains the disappearance of the US Constitution:
“The constitutional lawyer in the White House has introduced further modifications. His Justice Department explained that “due process of law” – at least where “terrorism offences” are concerned – is satisfied by internal deliberations within the executive branch. King John would have nodded in approval. The term “guilty” has also been given a refined interpretation: it now means “targeted for assassination by the White House.” Furthermore, the burden of proof has been shifted to those already assassinated by executive whim. As the New York Times reported, ‘Mr. Obama embraced a disputed method for counting civilian casualties that in effect counts all military-age males in a strike zone as combatants… unless there is explicit intelligence posthumously proving them innocent.’ The guiding principles are clear: force reigns supreme; “law” and “justice” and other frivolities can be left to sentimentalists.”
Government in America reeks of lawlessness and violence, whether it is the police shooting down citizens on their streets and in their homes or the military killing and displacing millions of Muslims in Washington’s attacks on seven countries. I explain the enormous threat that Washington presents to the world in my latest book, The Neoconservative Threat To World Order.
paulcraigroberts.org
