Three recent events, each part of a long series of similar events, has led me to establish the Bailey Award for Comparative International Thuggery (BACT).
- President Vladimir Putin of Russia’s statement that in all likelihood the interference in the US presidential election of 2016 was due to “Russian citizens of Ukrainian, Tatar, Jewish or other origin.”
- Revelations concerning the massive interference by China in Australia’s political system and society through the use of cyber-technologies and social media, as well as a network of agents of influence within Australia, some ethnic Chinese, some not.
- The threat on the part of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to invade Aegean islands belonging to his NATO partner Greece.
We all know of failed states, such as Syria, Libya and Yemen, but we should now establish another category of states: thug states, beginning with two huge thugs – China and Russia, equipped with thousands of nuclear weapons, and one medium-sized thug, Turkey, equipped with a president whose mouth is that country’s equivalent of weapons of mass destruction.
For years, Russia, under Putin’s autocratic rule, has engaged in widespread interference in the internal affairs of other countries, in addition to its use of military display in the Baltic, Black and Mediterranean seas and in the airspace of its neighbors, as well as direct and indirect warfare victimizing first Georgia and then Ukraine. In northern Syria, Russian military contractors have attacked US forces.
China, under President Xi Jinping, has engaged in direct military threats to many of its neighbors, including rampaging around the East and South China Seas, confronting Indian troops on the Himalayan borders and establishing naval bases in Gwadar (Pakistan) and Djibouti.
Turkish thuggery has included military incursions into Iraq and Syria as well as constant threats against a long list of European and Middle Eastern countries and the US. Turkish thuggery has become so bold that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman included Turkey in his “triangle of evil,” along with Iran and terrorist groups.
The list could be lengthened, of course, to include Iran and North Korea, but those two countries are widely recognized as thugs by the international community (even the United Nations, notorious for mollycoddling thuggish regimes). Russia, China and Turkey, however, are generally treated as respectable countries and even, in the case of Turkey, an ally.
Which is precisely the point. The failure on the part of the so-called Western World to confront thuggish countries and punish their behavior effectively bodes ill for the future. Aside from a good deal of tut-tutting and a minimum of indirect sanctions in the case of Russia (as well as the stationing of some North Atlantic Treaty Organization units in bordering countries) there has been little in the way of preventive or punitive reaction on the part of the West. Indeed, we have seen a good deal of ignoring and even excusing their thuggish behavior.
Turkey should have been at least suspended, if not expelled, from NATO. It is no longer an ally in any meaningful sense but has openly declared itself an enemy.
China should be called to account for its actions in Australia and in the East and South China Seas. At least in the case of Australia, Chinese interference has become so egregious that a political backlash is developing which may hope will result in significant countermeasures.
Finally, Russia simply cannot be allowed to continue its thuggish behavior (now including Putin’s display of anti-Semitism) without being forced to back down or pay a heavy price, targeting its oil and gas exports. Similar measures were successful in the case of Iran, until they were thrown away in then-US president Barack Obama’s infamous “deal” with the thuggatollahs.
The “West” coddled the Nazi thugs from 1936 when Germany reoccupied the Rhineland with no opposition, through British prime minister Neville Chamberlain’s and French prime minister Édouard Daladier’s “Obama moment” in Munich, the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia and the occupation of Austria, until 1939, when it culminated in one of the most horrific wars and genocides in the history of the world.
Stay tuned for the announcement of the first annual Bailey Award. The judgment will not be an easy one, but I am sure the jury will make the right choice.
Bullshit article. Asia Times is all time low giving space for such kind of article. The author should be sent to lunatic asylum.
It’s very disappointing to witness that America is buisy destroying the world but no one is talking about how long is American people goin to destroy the world with there urgenda no one is questioning its behaviour
Putin actually lists Ukrainians, Tatars and Jews who could possibly be acting as Russians with Russian passports to sabotage US elections. But no the Zionist-controlled US-government, its Zionist-coontrolled media and its Zionist-controlled writers like this one here have chosen to highlight only of the three groups that Putin lists – Jews. Simply because this group is supposed to be divinely untouchable and protected by God, the apple of God’s eyes, God’s Chosen people and is a Biblicla people who cannot be touched, criricized, evena word uttered against them, or even be lumped with oter culprits like Ukrainians and Tatars as Putin did. Say all nasty things you want and be all racist you want about Ukrainians, Tatars, Uighurs, Indian, Turkish, Russian, Chinese,French, Italians, Germans or even God himself. But once one touches Jews, it’s blasphemy and the screams "Anti-Semitic" will be flying everywhere in the US government and its media.
Thug states? Hahaha! I calle Russia and China SAVIOUR STATES, saving small states like Syria etc from real THUG STATES like US, UK, and France that are forever meddling, attacking, threatening to attack, invading, and destroying one little country after another eveywhere on this planet in east, west, south and north, like Iraq, Syria, Libya, Afghanistan, Yemen, Serbia, Iran and North Korea. The US is the MOTHER OF ALL THUGS, aways brandishing its weapons in trying to subjugate other countries by violent wars that kills the inhabitants of the victim countries and their infrastructure. No country on this planet are safe from theis Mother of Thugs and itts thug allies comprising the Zionist Thug called Israel, the European Thugs like UK and France and the Club of Thugs called NATO. Russia and China must prepare to wipe out all these thugs and their civilization should WW3 breaks out.
What a load of nonesense… u can’t have it ur way all the time
US and its junior partner, the UK with tailcoat, Australia, are the biggest thugs in the world. US destroyed countless countries and killed millions through wars, invasions, bombings, chemical weapons, coups, regime changes, protecting the opium crop in Afghanistan, biggest arms trader, arms trafficking from Libya to Syria via Benghazi, NSA cyber attacks on other countries, interfering in elections, false flags attacks, breaking international agreements like the WTO, JCPO with Iran, recognition of Jerusalem, Paris Accords. Unfettered financial gambling by US banks caused the 2008 financial collapse which rippled around the world causing trillions of dollars in economic damages. Etc,..etc.
It is not Russia or china that invaded Iraq and Libya that have caused massive destruction of lives and properties and widespread of insecurity, including terrorism. The same for Syria. America and her allies in the middle east are the mastermind behind the chaos in that country. Look at Yemen
It is funny that Asia Times allows this type of unjustified article to appear in its columns. If the author is right, USA fits nicely into his narrative of thug. The greatest thug affter WWII.
This article is pathetic to say the list. Just waste of space.
Right! Ignor the trolls! All of them russian!
When nations do it for their own benefit and try and build allies they are thugs. When the deep state robs and rapes they are patriotic.
LMAO. That’s all I care to say.
Double standard, isn’t the US interfering in other countries. Isn’t it selects puppet regimes and dictators around the globe. The US had destroyed lot of nations for its economic benefits. The author is either unaware of the US interventions in other countries or he z trying to hide that. He is exaggerating the things about the mentioned states.
and here is one thug writing for the biggest thug…..lol
The level of ignorance is incredible!
The author conveniently did not mention that the US and it’s allies are the main culprits in this game. Unbelievable indeed.
Awwwwwww, this old, proven Zionist propaganda "master" Norman Bailey has now gone full retard. I just don’t know whether this moronic clown act is entirely his own production, or one with inputs from the usual suspects.
You don’t talk about awards of thuggery when the US is operating illegally in so many places around the world.
However, I can be wrong. Perhaps Mr Bailey has a darker agenda — he knows that the US / NATO crime syndicate is the clear winner of his thuggery award, and slandering Russia, Turkey, and China will inflame hostile sentiments on both sides, AND THAT will benefit the MIC in stealing more US taxpayer dollars, as well as help Israel in manipulating the US into continued proxy wars on its behalf in the Middle East, at the great expense of American lives and cash.
STUPID AUTHOR
Where to begin? It is rare to see one person be so wrong about so many issues. This piece of totally unsubstantiated nonsense (no references or links to allegations, which are all taken as proven) takes the cake.
The author is either willfully ignorant or a downright liar. What about the thuggery of the US? If any nation deserves this so called BACT award, it should be the US. Every year.