Both sides of the aisle can agree on this important thing — which has achieved a growing, bi-partisan, academic and popular consensus in the United States during the past four years.
It is this: the second biggest threat to peace on earth and to the global rule of law (right behind either Trump or Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, depending on your affiliation) is the 2014 vote by the people of Crimea to re-join Russia.
The Western powers are still deemed imperialist by their critics, due to their history of imperialism and their recent behavior as conquerors and exporters of their supposed “democratic” superiority. On the other hand, they try to accuse their own foreign opponents such as Iran, Russia or even the Palestinian people of having imperialist or similarly coercive goals against them or their allies.
In a statement issued at the conclusion of the NATO Summit in Wales, US President Barack Obama said, “The path for Russia to rejoin the community of nations that respects international law is still there”.
Is there anyone out there who still believes that Barack Obama, when he’s speaking about American foreign policy, is capable of being anything like an honest man? In a March 26 talk in Belgium to “European youth”, the president fed his audience one falsehood, half-truth, blatant omission, or hypocrisy after another. If George W. Bush had made some of these statements, Obama supporters would not hesitate to shake their head, roll their eyes, or smirk. Here’s a sample:
As the US, EU and Britain huff and puff in barrel loads of clichés: “red lines” are “crossed”, “sovereignty and territorial integrity has been violated”, they stand “shoulder to shoulder” with their shoe-horned in fascist government in Ukraine, they are “resolute against Russian aggression”, and will not “stand idly by”, sanity seems in short supply.
