[Peace-discuss] Is Ukraine invasion equivalent to US/UK invasion of Iraq?

[J.B. Nicholson]

Chris Hedges' interview of Peter Oborne in 
https://therealnews.com/the-chris-hedges-report-ukraine-and-the-worthy-and-unworthy-victims-of-war 
(video at https://youtube.com/watch?v=UFdVgxZddso) talks about the "worthy" and 
"unworthy" victims as described in Hermann & Chomsky's famous book "Manufacturing 
Consent: The Political Economy of the Mass Media". As Hedges put it in his introduction:

> This bifurcation of the world into worthy and unworthy victims, as Edward Herman
> and Noam Chomsky point out in Manufacturing Consent: The Political Economy of the
> Mass Media, is a key component of propaganda, especially in war. The
> Russian-speaking population in Ukraine, to Moscow, are worthy victims. Russia is
> their savior. The millions of refugees and the millions of Ukrainian families
> cowering in basements, car parks, and subway stations are unworthy Nazis. Worthy
> victims allow citizens to see themselves as empathetic, compassionate, and just.
> Worthy victims are an effective tool to demonize the aggressor. They are used to
> obliterate nuance and ambiguity.
> 
> Mention the provocations carried out by the Western Alliance with the expansion of
> NATO beyond the borders of a unified Germany, a violation of promises made to
> Moscow in 1990, the stationing of NATO troops and missile batteries in Eastern
> Europe, the US involvement in the ouster in 2014 of Ukrainian president Viktor
> Yanukovych, which led to the civil war in the East of Ukraine between
> Russian-backed separatists and Ukraine’s army, a conflict that has claimed tens of
> thousands of lives, and you are dismissed as a Putin apologist. It is to taint the
> sainthood of the worthy victims, and by extension ourselves. We are good. They are
> evil.

And to his credit, Hedges brings up some things that don't get covered much in 
establishment media such as what he brings up in the second paragraph of the quote above.

One could also point out that Ukraine signed the Minsk accords in bad faith as Petro 
Poroshenko told news outlets that "Our goal was to, first, stop the threat, or at 
least to delay the war – to secure eight years to restore economic growth and create 
powerful armed forces." -- see 
https://www.rt.com/russia/557307-poroshenko-comments-minsk-agreement/ for more).

One could also point to Boris Johnson's April 2022 visit to Ukraine urging Ukraine to 
break off peace talks with Russia (according to 
https://www.pravda.com.ua/rus/articles/2022/05/5/7344096/ cited by RT in English 
https://www.rt.com/russia/555038-ukraine-peace-talks-johnson/).

But according to Oborne (in a view unchallenged by Hedges), we should see Putin's 
February 2022 invasion of Ukraine as being the equivalent of Tony Blair and G.W. 
Bush's invasion of Iraq -- each of these men are unconvicted war criminals.

It seems to me that attempting peace accords between Ukraine and Russia is 
significant in light of an advancing threat from NATO countries toward the east, 
right up to the border of Russia. I'm unaware of a threat to the US from Iraq that is 
akin to the eastward push up to Russia's border by NATO. But, like in establishment 
media, this view gets no airing in the Hedges interview. Equivalency established, the 
Hedges interview then turns to what will justify prosecuting Putin as a war criminal 
but continuing to not prosecute Bush & Blair as war criminals:

> Chris Hedges: I want to ask about what this means, when you bifurcate the
> world into worthy and unworthy victims, what this does for those who want to hold
> war criminals accountable. If worthy victims are deserving of justice and unworthy
> victims are not, what are the consequences in terms of dealing with war crimes?
> 
> Peter Oborne: Well, it’s a very difficult question, and something which is
> very relevant. You and I both covered, in different ways, the British-American
> invasion of Iraq. There is no question that that was, under international law, a
> war of aggression. And therefore that makes the British prime minister Tony Blair
> and the American president George W. Bush war criminals. I mean, actually, before
> coming on the show, I was preparing for this conversation, and the Nuremberg
> tribunal… This is quoting from the tribunal, the judge. “To initiate a war of
> aggression is not only an international crime. It is a supreme international
> crime, differing only from other war crimes in that it contains within itself the
> accumulated evil of the whole.”
> 
> Now, there is no question that Mr. Putin has done exactly that. He has initiated a
> war of aggression in the Ukraine, and there are voices saying that he should be
> held accountable, but on the other hand, there is no question either that Tony
> Blair and George W. Bush initiated a war of aggression in Iraq. It wasn’t a war of
> defense – Which you can fight under international law – It did not have United
> Nations Security Council justification or agreement, and of course, it was based
> on a fabrication of weapons of mass destruction. So if you are going to call for
> Mr. Putin to be charged with the ultimate war crime, you must be consistent, and
> you must call for Mr. Bush and Mr. Blair also to be called to account in exactly
> the same way.
> 
> Chris Hedges: What are the consequences for, in essence, a world that doesn’t
> abide by the rule of law, that people who commit war crimes when they’re in power
> in Washington or in the UK are not held accountable and Putin is?
> 
> Peter Oborne: Well, do you know, you’re very privileged and I’m very
> privileged. I’m a British citizen. You, I presume, are an American citizen. We
> both belong to great countries which have, over time, built up democracy, rule of
> law, parliament, a free press, all these things which we are taught about at
> school, and I certainly believed it when I was taught about them at school. We
> were taught at my school how amazing America was because it was the bastion of all
> of this against evildoers, in particular at that time when I was a young boy, the
> Soviet Empire.
> 
> It breaks my heart, actually, that Britain and America no longer, or have chosen
> no longer to, abide by those values. Actually, there’s a British phrase: fair
> play. We prided ourselves, we were taught this very strongly. It was what we stood
> for. Free speech, fair play, decency, rule of law, parliamentary democracy,
> representative democracy. Now, if we’re going to say we stand for those things and
> assert that on the international stage, we must be consistent about it. We can’t
> say that whatever we do, when we commit a crime of aggression, that’s fine. That’s
> something which is perfectly reasonable because [inaudible], and when somebody we
> review as an enemy does it, that’s terrible. He needs to be held to account and
> put on trial.
> 
> That doesn’t have any credibility. And it explains, by the way, something which
> has been heavily underreported in this conflict, is the amount of support which
> Russia is getting across the globe, particularly in the Middle East. Because if
> you’re in the Middle East, and you and I have both gone there a lot and talked to
> a lot of people from there, they see us as aggressors. They see NATO as an
> aggressive thing which has no respect for law and has destroyed countries. Now, in
> other words we have betrayed our own values, and it has diminished our ability to
> be taken seriously and with respect on the international stage.