Criminal insanity of Clinton’s double-think

Criminal insanity of Clinton’s double-think
1 February, 2013 – By Finian Cunningham – PressTV

And yet given the outrageous provocation of continued Western aggression in Syria – and the very real danger of regional conflagration that that entails – Washington has the preposterous audacity to denounce Russia and Iran for not being constructive players and for assisting an ally through legal and justifiable means.”

In her farewell speech, outgoing US secretary of state Hillary Clinton accused Russia and Iran of “stepping up” military support for Syria and thereby adding fuel to possible regional conflict.

Her words displayed breath-taking myopia and double-think, and this from somebody who is being hailed as one of America’s brightest foreign diplomats in decades.

The first thing about Clinton’s remarks is: so what? Both Russia and Iran have long-standing mutual defense pacts with the Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad. If those countries are sharing military equipment and personnel then that is perfectly legal under the terms of defense agreements signed between sovereign states.

Secondly – and how is this for myopia and double-think? – just as Clinton is remonstrating with Russia and Iran, the Western powers are entering their third of sending fighter bombers, helicopter gun-ships, drones, refueling mid-tankers and cargo planes plus thousands of military personnel to the West African county of Mali to crush separatist militants. That full-scale “stepping up of military support” is headed up by France, which claims that it is responding to an ally in need – the dubious regime in Mali’s capital, Bamako.

Unlike the support given to Syria by Russia and Iran, the French and Western intervention in Mali has tenuous, if any, legal foundation. The Francophile regime in Bamako is an administration that was put in power by a military coup last April. The junta’s appointed so-called interim president, Dioucounda Traore, is an unelected French puppet with no legally constituted popular authority.

The Western powers can’t even wave a fig leaf of a United Nations Security Council mandate for their Malian interference. The UNSC vote on the issue of Mali on December 20 only gave qualified authorization for an African-led military mission under the auspices of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS). There was no authorization at the UNSC for a French or Western military offensive.

So, the French and latterly the British and Americans can weigh into Malian internal affairs with bombers and Special Forces – exacerbating violations by the corrupt Malian army – and this illegal military onslaught in Mali is supposedly permissible.

Whereas, Russian and Iran come to the aid of a sovereign state through a long-standing defense pact between sovereign states, and somehow this is an outrage, according to Clinton’s rational.

Speaking in Washington on Thursday, Clinton told the assembled supine press corps, “The Iranians have made it clear for some time that keeping Assad in power is one of their highest priorities. There is a lot of concern that they are increasing the quality of the weapons because Assad is using up his weaponry.”

Yes, Assad is “using up his weaponry” precisely because his country is under attack from Western-backed mercenaries.

As for Russia, Clinton went on, “The Russians are not passive bystanders in their support for Assad. We have reasons to believe that the Russians continue to supply financial and military assistance in the form of equipment to Assad.”

Again, so what? The only basis for Clinton’s condemnation is her own propagandized subjective and totally spurious logic. …more