Posted April 07, 2017
morolf: I know, the entire US political establishment and a large part of their population believes in this demented doctrine of American exceptionalism...who needs international law?
timppu: I am perplexed that the link to that was offered by a pro-Putin person. Isn't Russia a prime example of a country who doesn't give any shit at all about international laws? It is just a big theater that Putin is now summoning the UN Security Council due to the US attack to Syria, when earlier Russia has ridiculed the same organization over and over again with its vetos and not caring one bit for intarnational laws (also in Syria, but also in Crimea etc.).
morolf: It's certainly a brutal dictatorship though (and it wouldn't surprise me if Assad's troops had indeed been responsible for that gas attack). But I won't condemn Russia's support for it because at least it's a rational policy and the alternatives are arguably worse.
timppu: Yet, at the same time you object US support to Saudi-Arabia. After all, maybe without the current Saudi-Arabia regime, some true islamist terrorists would come into power there? I feel you are having a bit of a double standard there. You give a free pass to Russia for something for which you strongly condemn US.
Anyway, I don't condemn a certain amount of realpolitik...it's the totally hypocritical moralizing about US policy, that sense of manicheaean good vs evil that repells me.