สงครามสองมาตรฐานทำให้ฉันแทบหยุดหายใจThe double standards of war make me lose my breath

The double standards of war make me lose my breath

Swedish media and politicians act as megaphones for the American hawks

Of:Frida Stranne

PUBLISHED: TODAY 04.00

UPDATED: LESS THAN 20 MIN THEN

This is a cultural article that is part of Aftonbladet's opinion journalism.

Devastation following a Saudi attack on Sanaa in Yemen in 2016. Right now, the Biden regime is giving Saudi Arabia new weapons in the war against Yemen in exchange for the country selling more and cheaper oil to the United States.

Devastation following a Saudi attack on Sanaa in Yemen in 2016. Right now, the Biden regime is giving Saudi Arabia new weapons in the war against Yemen in exchange for the country selling more and cheaper oil to the United States.

Devastation following a Saudi attack on Sanaa in Yemen in 2016. Right now, the Biden regime is giving Saudi Arabia new weapons in the war against Yemen in exchange for the country selling more and cheaper oil to the United States.

Photo: AP TT NEWS AGENCY

CULTURE

Already a week or so into Russia's invasion of Ukraine, I lose my breath.

I'm in Washington DC; watching, reading and listening. Swedish media and politicians seem to have become megaphones for the most influential American hawks, those who rub their hands harder and harder as the worldview in Europe and Sweden submissively narrows and makes the conflict dynamics look simple. It serves American militarism well and is exactly what they have always wanted.

Those who like to see the conflict continue until you get the regime change in place in Moscow that Biden happened to admit he wants to see, but which he officially (of course) had to take back. Those who since the end of the Cold War have pursued a confrontational line against the outside world and in various ways undermined international law. The uncompromising. Those who continuously exploited Russia's weakness after the fall of the wall without meeting Moscow's demands for various security guarantees - something they themselves had obviously demanded in the same situation.

It is their image of the world that now constitutes the overarching narrative and is allowed to stand almost unchallenged. Swedish experts and analysts retell their version without having to answer questions about what more could have been done to prevent Putin's deliberate invasion, what different interests are driving the conflict in Ukraine or how international legal principles have been undermined since the end of the Cold War and authoritarian Leaders argue to do as little as they want.

I am looking for analyzes that can help people understand the complexity of the international system and what is required for us to create better stability, not to escalate conflicts so that they can never end. The only thing I find are one-sided arguments that are not able to problematize the origin of insanity but above all do not look for sustainable ways out.

I hear and see commendable commitment to people in Ukraine and feel that it is probably the double standards we are showing that shake me the most. The double standards we have for how we look at war crimes and military acts in different wars. How we want to understand and explain a war as necessary to protect someone's perceived threat (read USA) but without nuances unconditionally describe the other as pure aggression (read Russia). I am amazed that we do not even seem to believe that the outside world sees and understands this double standard and that we do not see how it has also made us more insecure.

Such as war crimes in all wars except the American ones. Then it is called "indirect damage".

Russia's war against Ukraine is sensible and terrible. Like all wars, it leads us right into a new darkness and paralyzes us as humanity. But if we want to create a more stable world and reduce the areas of conflict, we must both zoom out and see the whole picture and take a deep look in the mirror. Then we will discover how the actors of the world are intertwined in a web where they act and react to each other's actions. In it we are not free from guilt but part of the problem. If we do not see it, we will not win a war and, in particular, no peace.

I've spent my entire career studying the United States' war around the world. Been in archives and dug up documents that certify war crimes after war crimes. Interviewed policy adviser who defends them. Talk to veterans who question the wars they have been a part of as well as the ideals they have been asked to fight for.

I have read and heard about how American soldiers raped women and tortured prisoners of war, how banned weapons were used in wars far away, how hospitals, cultural treasures and infrastructure were destroyed as well as how they "accidentally" attacked weddings and funerals. Such as war crimes in all wars except the American ones. Then it is called "indirect damage".

I have never been able to figure out how these wars could be more moral than others. How we have ever been able to defend them and believe that these have been exercised in the struggle for something better and "cleaner" Or how we justify what price our goals are worth. We hide in goodness and say we are fighting for democracy at the same time as research unequivocally shows that democracy does not allow itself to be bombarded but only leaves chaos and instability behind.

Not to mention how it created more enemies and undermined the legal principles we said we wanted to defend. Violence breeds violence that breeds violence - and double standards leave deep imprints in the system.

The United States dropped a minute-long bomb in the first 30 days of the Gulf War in 1990. Ten years later, sanctions were imposed on Iraq, killing hundreds of thousands of Iraqi children, something then-Foreign Minister Madeleine Albright said was a high but necessary price.

For what? Because a few years later - in 2003 - one could invade Iraq and bomb the country to pieces. This without Iraq having to do with the terrorist attacks on the United States in 2001. As a precaution, Bush said - if Iraq could become a threat at some point in the future. What was it if not barbarism? What if it was not a fabricated threat to try to gain more power? But what sanctions were imposed on Washington?

Instead of thorough discussions about how things are connected and how we should get out of the madness of war, the simplifications are repeated day after day. The same type of experts say basically the same things, albeit in slightly different ways. Journalistic principles are completely put out of play. Unconfirmed information about various acts of war is instead dense.

When did we begin to believe that the truth of a war is simple?

No one is waiting - as usual - for investigations into vague information about what happened in a certain place - or about who is doing what, what forces may be in motion in Ukraine or what interests are driving from different directions. The pictures we get are black and white. Everyone knows the answers to everything - just by following Twitter?

Even if the source is a Russian nationalist and anti-democrat, it is published immediately and quickly becomes a truth. Objectivity must give way to emotional depictions in a way that would be unthinkable in any other war.

As the war progresses, the realization creeps under my skin that all attempts to understand different aspects of the war, or what could have been done to prevent it, are not only silenced but described as going into Putin's ligaments. How did we end up here? When did we begin to perceive critical voices as a problem? When did we begin to believe that the truth of a war is simple?

I am ashamed of all the people who have experienced our (Western) military aggression through decades back. Those who live with the aftermath of the Western war and who have struggled to make us understand what their reality looks like and how we have abandoned our ideals time and time again and contributed to endless spirals of violence. Those who are now amazed also realize that they were absolutely right that we value different lives and military "efforts" very differently depending on who commits them and how we remove important parts of the overall picture.

Rather, we do everything we can to push the realization of our own guilt as far away from us as possible.

Like the Biden administration is currently bargaining with Jeminite life when it - in exchange for Saudi Arabia selling more and cheaper oil to the US - gives the Saudis access to new weapons to use in Yemen, where 400,000 people have already died - in a war like Washington also able to stop yesterday.

The only conclusion I can draw after all the years of research on international conflict dynamics and the role of the United States in this is that we simply do not want to understand how we are linked by our own actions in a logic reminiscent of a dance of death. Rather, we do everything we can to push the realization of our own guilt as far away from us as possible. Instead, we like to put it comfortably in someone else's lap. Evil and goodness are allowed to become clean and clear boundaries between them and us. Evil is always with the other. It is possibly understandable in all its convenience - but nonetheless treacherous.

Frida Stranne is a researcher focusing on American foreign and security policy and will publish the book "The Illusion of American Peace" this autumn together with Trita Parsi (Ordfront).