COUNTERPOINT
Vladimir Putin – Tuesday, March
4, 2014
– While commenting on crisis in Ukraine and global community’s outrage over
Russian act of militarily controlling Crimea, a small autonomous region of Ukraine with Russians forming almost 58 per cent
of the population of Crimea
“We are often told our actions
are illegitimate,” he said. “But when I ask, ‘Do you think everything you do is
legitimate?’ they say yes. Our partners, especially in the United States, always clearly formulate their
own geopolitical and state interests and follow them with persistence,” he
said, making specific reference to U.S.
actions in Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya. “Then, using the principle
‘You’re either with us or against us,’ they draw the whole world in. And those
who do not join in get beaten until they do.”
– The Washington Post
Putin decries the US worldview of conducting the geopolitics,
blames Uncle Sam for events in Afghanistan,
Libya, and Iraq and elsewhere the US and its associates are involved, and blames
the US
and the affiliates of following and perpetuating the double standards.
True, there can be and there are agreeable
points in these counterpoints of Mr. Putin. But what lacerate Mr. Putin’s
arguments are the facts that none of them, to be blamed by him, are dictators
like him, and none of the world powers, alleged by him, are sham democracies,
like Russia has become under him.
What also punctures Mr. Putin’s
argument here is - he is trying to justify his act of dictatorial aggression of
a sovereign nation’s territory - that like his country Russia, is a member of
the United Nations, the global body supposed to maintain the international
order of peace and stability - by comparing it with the events (or the
interventions led by the US and its associates) aimed at overthrowing dictators
(like and unlike him) and terrorist regimes.
Yes, it has been a matter of
concern that these international interventions couldn’t bring stability in Afghanistan, Iraq
and Libya
but that can never be a pretext for Mr. Putin to justify his expansionist
thoughts.
But, we all know, Mr. Putin
doesn’t care. In fact, no dictator cares.