The West is claiming the morale high ground because Russia has been caught murdering civilians in its war in Ukraine. That the Russians have done this seems incontrovertible. See here...
https://www.nytimes.com/2022/04/03/world/dead-civilians-bucha-ukraine.html
One wonders when Fox News will start claiming that the Ukrainian Government did this as part of a false flag initiative, but that is another story.
To make an allegation of one state having committed war crimes, one would think that the accuser should come to the conversation with clean hands.
Consider this...
The USA launched lots and lots of missiles at civilians via drone strikes, especially under President Obama...
https://theweek.com/articles/458341/are-drone-strikes-really-war-crimes
The USA claims that it is not involved in any wars in the countries where it killed people and that it was defending its interests, a.k.a. killing terrorists. Regardless of this, the basic rule in international law is rather simple...states can't just kill people in other countries because they think they have an interest in doing so. When you pare down their arguments in favour of this death by drone program, the idea that the USA can kill anyone, anywhere is basically what the USA claimed when it killed at least hundreds of civilians in countries where there were no declared wars afoot.
If anyone can show me any law that states that countries have the right to kill civilians with no judicial process whatsoever - based only on what the state says was a threat - and that so called "collateral damage" from these strikes is similarly acceptable, I'd love to see it. Such a law does not exist.
Consider this...
Regardless of how interested a state may be in obtaining information from people like terrorists, no state is allowed to torture people.
https://www.worldcantwait.net/index.php/home-mainmenu-289/6775-what-is-waterboarding-its-a-war-crime-former-president-bush'
Waterboarding is torture, plain and simple. The USA engaged in an entire program of waterboarding at Gitmo under President Bush. There is no question that this is illegal, and in the context of a war on terror, it is a war crime. Consider as well that these "illegal combatants" have been held in prison for years now without due process. They are declared to not be soldiers, so the laws of war protecting soldiers do not apply. While some of these people have been subjected to some legal process through military tribunals, they are also declared to be combatants, so criminal law protections available to civilians are also declared to mostly not apply. The USA has defined these people into a Kafkaesque legal limbo that allows them to flout all known legal protections to that they can continue to hold them, essentially forever.
Consider this...
Vive la France! But like the Russians bombing civilians in Ukraine, the French also cannot drop bombs on civilians whenever it sees an interest in doing so, as doing this is a war crime.
https://www.passblue.com/2021/02/08/un-probe-details-atrocities-in-mali-and-civilian-deaths-from-french-airstrikes/
The war on terror is difficult as the terrorists often mix with general populations, so killing them is hard. That is not an excuse for massacring civilians, but a challenge to the West to find a way to take these people out without undo civilian casualties. Too often, the West misses the mark. Killing civilians, even as collateral damage, undercuts whatever moral authority the West would claim vis a vis Russia.
Consider this...
https://dissidentvoice.org/2014/01/us-nato-war-crimes-against-libya/
The West got rid of Kaddafi. In doing so, they committed a range of different war crimes. From bombing civilians to mistreating prisoners, the intervention in Libya was a war-crimes ridden mess. The mess continues today.
Finally, consider this...
https://crackdownchronicles.com/war-crimes/canadas-arms-exports-to-saudi-arabia-violate-intl-law-report/#:~:text=War%20Crimes%20Canada%E2%80%99s%20arms%20sales%20to%20Saudi%20Arabia,Amnesty%20International%20Canada%20and%20Project%20Ploughshares%2C%20said%20Wednesday.
Making money off arms sales, with sales to countries that the seller knows is committing war crimes, its a time-honoured Western tradition. There is no question that Saudi Arabia's war in Yemen is replete with extensive war crimes on both sides. No country adding fuel to that fire by way of arms exports to the combatants has clean hands. When Canada complains about Russian war crimes in Ukraine, will it apologize for the use of its weapons against civilians in Yemen, and then stop supplying those weapons? Likely not.
The West is right to point out Russian war crimes. And to be fair, the aspect of Russian soldiers purposely targeting civilians does have a characteristic that is arguably worse than the crimes committed by the West, which may be summed up as killing innocents who happen to be in the wrong place at the wrong time.
But the West pointing out Russia's crimes while having committed a litany of such crimes in the past twenty years reduces the impact of its condemnation, and arms its opponents to highlight the West's hypocrisy on this issue. This is potential manna from heaven for Russian propagandists and Fox News Fodder...over to you, Mr. Carlson.
In the end, countries either believe that committing war crimes is wrong, or they don't; they either do it, or they don't. The West seemingly thinks that committing such crimes is regrettable, but optional - an unfortunate necessity in pursuit of a higher national self-defence based purpose, entirely dependent on the West's interests and the particular circumstances of each anti-terrorist/national security operation.
Would the Russians say the same thing?
