Journalist Ben Norton fact-checks US President Joe Biden’s hypocritical speech at the United Nations General Assembly.
He accused Russia of “imperial ambitions” and said the UN must prosecute countries that invade others and commit war crimes.
US President Joe Biden spoke at the United Nations General Assembly on September 21. He used the platform to try to portray the United States, the world’s leading violator of international law, as its protector.
Biden called “to hold Russia accountable for the atrocities and war crimes” it allegedly committed in Ukraine.
Biden himself strongly supported the 2003 invasion of Iraq. As vice president under Barack Obama and now president, he personally oversaw the US wars against Libya, Syria, Yemen, and Afghanistan, as well as the drone bombing of Somalia and Pakistan.
But Biden declared from the UN podium: “If nations can pursue their imperial ambitions without consequences, then we put at risk everything this very institution stands for, everything.”
In the following analysis, journalist Ben Norton fact-checked the deeply misleading claims Biden made in his UN speech.
Sources
Recording of phone call of US diplomat Victoria Nuland orchestrating the coup in Ukraine in 2014:
Ukraine reported at the United Nations in 2019 that approximately 13,000 Ukrainians had been killed and more than 28,000 wounded in the foreign-fueled proxy war that began in 2014.
The UN Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights reported in January 2022 that, between 2018 and 2021, 81.4% of all civilian casualties caused by active hostilities were in Donetsk and Luhansk.
In the confidential 2008 State Department cable “Nyet Means Nyet: Russia’s NATO Enlargement Redlines,” US Ambassador to Russia William Burns (current CIA director) warned that Ukraine joining NATO “could potentially split the country in two, leading to violence or even, some claim, civil war, which would force Russia to decide whether to intervene.”
“Iraq war was illegal and breached UN charter, says Annan,” The Guardian, September 16, 2004
“Russia Is Right: The U.S. Is Waging a Proxy War in Ukraine,” Hal Brands, Washington Post / Bloomberg, May 10, 2022
“Biden says Putin ‘cannot remain in power’ in sweeping speech on Russian invasion of Ukraine,” CNBC, March 26, 2022
“Study: US is an oligarchy, not a democracy,” BBC, April 17, 2014
“U.S.: ‘Hague Invasion Act’ Becomes Law,” Human Rights Watch, August 3, 2002
“The Flaws in the ‘Assessment’ Report of the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights on China,” Alfred de Zayas, CounterPunch, September 6, 2022