The sheer hypocrisy in the attacks on China and Russia’s Syria veto is mind-boggling
Curiouser and curiouser. The laws of logic and reality are disintegrating before our eyes at the UN. To veto an attack on a client state irrespective of the nastiness of its actions means the vetoer has blood on their hands. The outcry! The outrage! The get-out-of-here-do-I-need-to-read-this-crap-ness! Seriously, after half a century of vetoing anything that interferes with their economic and geopolitical aspirations, suddenly the US and the UK are incandescent that someone else does the same? What say you Mad Hatter? A Wonderland indeed.
Syria kills civilians while bombing terrorists do defined by it itself? Surely no Civilised Nation could do Such A Thing? (If Hilary Clinton is going to give media comment in self-important capitals then I’ll damn well write like that.) After all, killing civilians by mistake is not acceptable.
Eh…
In fact, there really are only two points in all of this which rises above the idiocy. One is the fascinating concept of ‘your own people’. The US bombs across Afghanistan on the basis of often flaky intelligence information and wipes out villages of civilians in the process. The difference is – these aren’t Their People. But is this really a difference? Does it provide any real reason to feel differently? And is anyone debating this question?
Which takes us to point two. Anyone who has ever read a newspaper knows this is silly; how about a bit more awareness by those writing the newspapers? There is a remarkable lack of context-setting in all of the coverage. Where are the questions about when ‘collateral damage’ is acceptable and when not? What about some questions about ‘out vetoes’ and ‘their vetoes’? In media circles people complain about ‘he said/she said’ journalism in which what is reported is simply a balance of what each side says with no context or moderation. Now we’re down to ‘he said’ journalism.
It isn’t good enough. But then we’ve become used to that in our coverage of foreign affairs. Curious indeed.