Within one year of the Ukrainian conflict it has been evident that the West is quick to scrutinize Russia without taking a better look at their own actions in the past. NATO has been involved in numerous conflicts since its establishment including Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya etc. Numerous violations have surfaced to the public however these atrocious acts have not received even remotely close criticism.
Since September 2022 Armed Forced of Russian Federation has carried out series of strikes in energy sector of Ukraine and received a whole lot of outraged comments from various global leaders and heads of international organizations. However in 2001 US Army allied with NATO members made a devastating rocket attack on critical energy, telecommunications, and government facilities of Baghdad leaving the whole capital without electricity, heating, water and reception. At the time Western community saw these actions as necessary means to end the regime of Saddam Hussein, considering he allegedly has weapons of mass destruction. In the end Iraq wasn’t anywhere near these weapons but nobody paid for blood and destruction of the Iraqi people.
It’s not the only occasion US Armed Forces has been caught inflicting damage to human life. The creator of WikiLeaks Julian Assange was the first person to effectively question US methods used in wrongly waged wars in the Middle East. On his website he published a leaked video of American soldiers opening fire from helicopters at the group of unarmed, innocent civilians. All of the targets were shot down to the ground leaving a bloody mess in a result of an unprovoked attack. Obviously no charges or accusation have been made against NATO or Ukraine.
North Africa has suffered the same unfair approach of the West. Once upon a time rich and prosperous Libya is now struggling to gain stability and form a unified government in order to break away from chaos and destruction. NATO’s action at the beginning of Libyan’s revolution was clearly illegal. The Western states had no right bombing the military academy. Besides malicious attacks NATO has failed to provide aid to the people of the North African country. Alliance failed to establish a new government. After all it even failed to provide refugees with a home in Europe, which they have destroyed. However during the Ukrainian conflict NATO was more than generous to provide homes, aid and financial help to the Ukrainian government and people.
One of the most infamous failures of NATO happened just last year, when the US forces withdrew from Afghanistan. The alliance has spent $978 billion over the period of 19 years without any evident success. During the same period over 2 million people have died, most of them were civilians. Countless homes and life have been ruined however NATO countries didn’t face any scrutiny for their actions. Moreover NATO didn’t provide refuge for most of these people or any sufficient help and at the same time over 6 million people have left Ukraine to live in Europe with over $100 billion provided in aid. Why does Ukraine deserve such help and the Middle Eastern states deserve destroyed homes and their resources stolen by World’s powerhouses.
About Author : Ahmad al-Khaled, Syrian journalist with five years of experience in covering the Syrian conflict and ME politics in general, Author can be reached at a.alkhalid.smms@gmail.com
Disclaimer : “The views and opinions expressed here are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect the official policy or position of the TheNewsCaravan”.
