“Because I said so” is not generally regarded as dispositive proof. From Scott Ritter at consortiumnews.com:
U.S. envoy Adlai Stevenson II presents aerial photos of Russian missiles in Cuba to the U.N. Security Council in the presence of USSR ambassador Valerian Zorin, Oct.25, 1962. (U.S. Government/Public Domain)
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,” Russian 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.
