Conference of Russian Federation ambassadors and permanent representatives
(Image by / MFA Russia from flickr) Details DMCA
While U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken tried to distance himself from the ghosts of U.N. Security Council meetings past - namely the disastrous Feb. 5, 2003, performance of his predecessor Colin Powell peddling manufactured intelligence to justify the invasion of Iraq - the world once again bore witness last week to a U.S. secretary of state presenting a supposedly intelligence-based case about a looming armed conflict.
"I am here today," Blinken said, trying to remove himself from Powell, "not to start a war, but to prevent one."
But like Powell, Blinken produced no evidence at all to the U.N. to back up his assertion that Russia is "preparing to launch an attack against Ukraine in the coming days" even though he could have. Rather than produce fake evidence as Powell had, he just produced nothing at all.
Blinken only had words, blithely accusing Russia of seeking "to manufacture a pretext" for an invasion of Ukraine, whether by fabricating a terrorist bombing inside Russia (a jab at Russian President Vladimir Putin who has been accused of false-flag attacks of Moscow apartment buildings to generate support for the Second Chechen War in 1999), the discovery of a mass grave; staging a drone strike against civilians, or the use of chemical weapons.
After such a "false flag," Russia would call for a military response "to defend Russian citizens, or ethnic Russians in Ukraine", and would then invade Ukraine, Blinken said.
In the past, when the U.S. took to the floor of the U.N. Security Council to hurl accusations of malfeasance at Russia, American diplomats would present incontrovertible intelligence to back up its claims.
This was done in October 1962, when Adlai Stevenson showed the world U-2 photographs proving the Russians had deployed missiles in Cuba. Again, in September 1983, Jeane Kirkpatrick played audio tapes of intercepted communications which proved Russian military aircraft shot down Korean Airlines flight 007.
Blinken brought no such proof. His was just a verbal assurance that this was not a repeat of Colin Powell's performance. This time the U.S. should just be trusted to tell the truth.
What the US Can Produce
Blinken is likely telling the truth, that unlike Powell, the U.S. this time does have evidence. There's little doubt U.S. reconnaissance has accurately recorded the Russian military buildup in question, down to the last tank and truck. There may also be a plethora of "chatter" (a colloquialism for intercepted conversations) which could be interpreted to mean anything an analyst wants it to mean.
But the bottom line is the bulk of Blinken's intelligence is likely drawn from speculation about how the Russians could proceed from the positions their military currently occupies if they were, in fact, to invade.
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