More Comedy from the Obama White House

I've previously noted that Obama Administration foreign policy statements sometimes adopt a comedic and hypocritical double-standard. It sometimes seems like a contest among White House speech writers to see which can most often invoke the "do as I say, not as I do" metaphor that boosts American exceptionalism to new heights, an immunity of the U.S. and its allies from the same international law that governs all nations.

We got another such gem three days ago from White House National Security Council spokeswoman Caitlin Hayden:

As we and governments around the world have said all along, Russia has no right to send vehicles, persons, or cargo of any kind into Ukraine, whether under the guise of humanitarian convoys or any other pretext, without the express permission of the government of Ukraine.

Russia was delivering humanitarian aid to the city of Luhansk in eastern Ukraine, a city under siege by the army of the U.S.-instigated coup government of Ukraine that no longer had any potable water. Russia decided that no further delaying tactics by the coup government would stand in its way so 280 truckloads of Russian humanitarian aid were delivered to Luhansk. The Saker has details, including a link to the relevant Statement of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. UPDATE: Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced today that Russia intended to send a second humanitarian aid convoy to Luhansk along the same route in the next few days.

Let's try substituting the names of two other nations for the nations identified in the above quotation and otherwise leave the language untouched:

As we and governments around the world have said all along, the U.S. has no right to send vehicles, persons, or cargo of any kind into Syria, whether under the guise of humanitarian convoys or any other pretext, without the express permission of the government of Syria.

U.S. aid, both defensive and military, to the myriad groups fighting in opposition to the elected Syrian government is now in the hundreds of millions of dollars. The U.S. maintains bases in both Jordan and Turkey for infiltrating the supplies. The U.S. operates a training facility in Jordan where mercenaries are trained and armed for infiltration into Syria. The U.S. has deployed Patriot missile batteries along the Turkish/Syria border preparatory to establishing a no-fly zone over northern Syria. Last September, an overwhelming U.S. missile and bombing attack on Syria was aborted at the last moment by adroit Russian diplomacy. The U.S. has now announced its renewed intent to invade Syria, ostensibly in efforts to defeat the Islamic State, whose mercenaries the U.S. reportedly had previously trained and armed in Jordan and are financed by U.S. ally Saudi Arabia. Any bets on whose forces will actually be attacked by the U.S. in Syria?

All "without the express permission of the government of Syria" and without the required authorization of the U.N. Security Council. And of course the U.S. hesitates not to rain drone missile strikes on still other nations such as Pakistan and Yemen, without those government's permission. Nor did the U.S. shrink from direct invasion of Afghanistan and Iraq in wars of aggression, without permission of those nations' governments or of the Security Council. Nor does the U.S. slow down to obtain permission of the involved nations when it invades with Navy Seals to capture people it wishes to subject to criminal prosecution.

I could continue with more examples for many more paragraphs, but the above is sufficient to show that the U.S. does not practice what its National Security Council preaches and therefore lacks the moral high ground from which to preach. 

Did Russia violate international law by sending in that convoy? That's a hard one to call, since international law contemplates that nations will not deliberately interfere substantially with provision of humanitarian aid within war zones. But from a moral standpoint, innocent civilians were going to die of dehydration if the Russian aid did not reach them immediately and the coup government had delayed the convoy for over a week. In that light, I'd give Russia the benefit of the choice of evils defense. The sin Russia committed --- if that be a sin at all --- was less serious than the coup government's sin of blocking the humanitarian aid; hence, I see the Russian action as justifiable at least on moral grounds. Deliberate killing of civilians by dehydration has been a war crime since the Fourth Geneva Convention was adopted. 

Update: Repaired an erroneous statement to the effect that the U.S. has a base in Syria. The base referred to is in Turkey. My bad.