Editor's note: Bradley Blankenship is a Prague-based American journalist, political analyst and freelance reporter. The article reflects the author's opinions and not necessarily the views of CGTN.

One of the most well-known fables credited to the famed Greek storyteller Aesop is "The Boy Who Cried Wolf." The tale goes that a shepherd boy tricks nearby villagers into thinking a wolf is killing the town's flock, but each time it happens it turns out to be false. One day, a wolf actually does attack the herd – only this time no one believes the boy's cry for help.

The moral of this story is that if you have lied enough then eventually no one will believe you even if you tell the truth. Part of me wonders if America's top diplomats were taught this fable (as I assume most people are), because U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken gave a speech to the UN Security Council on February 17 that could have been a modern film adaption of the Aesop tale.

At the beginning of the speech, Blinken said that he was there to address an issue, the Ukraine crisis, which he said the Security Council was established to deal with. He said that it had to do with international norms,  national sovereignty, and that one country should not dictate another's policies.

But the irony is that the United States is the country that, far more than any other, violates these very same international norms. Whether that be coercing its so-called allies to be hostile toward China or Russia, imposing unilateral sanctions to coerce countries into favorable policies or outright invading and occupying other countries, like Iraq or Afghanistan, the U.S. has made a mockery of the very same norms that it spelled out.

And not only has the U.S. routinely ignored these norms, it has cried wolf before the very same Security Council before, such as when former Secretary of State Colin Powell gave his famous "weapons of mass destruction" (WMD) speech that set up the pretext for the invasion of Iraq. Powell alleged that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction that it could turn on the world and, of course, that was proven false.

This time, the chief American diplomat said that Russia was going to try to "manufacture a pretext for invasion" through a sort of "false-flag" incident. According to him, U.S. intelligence is privy to this scenario though it doesn't know exactly what form it will take. However, U.S. intelligence routinely misses the mark, especially now more than ever as we can see with the example of the U.S.' botched retreat from Afghanistan or its continual drone bombings of civilians based on faulty information.

One line that Blinken speculated Russia could follow is to accuse Ukrainian forces of genocide, which, he said would make a mockery of the entire concept that he and the U.S. government take seriously. Yet, the U.S. government – and, by extension, its media – has continued to levy manufactured genocide allegations against China even though its own lawyers have stated that it doesn't have the evidence to make such an assertion.

What's more blatant is that Blinken presented no evidence and relied only on the credibility that people place in the U.S. government's word. Weeks ago, we saw a spat between U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price and Associated Press reporter Matt Lee demonstrating how low this trust has sunk. Price made the same claims that Blinken did and, when asked for evidence by Lee, refused to show any. The State Department's explanation is, in essence, "Because we said so."

This is not good enough now if it ever was to some. But what we all know has warranted this response is, Russia stationing troops near the Ukrainian border, though, on its own territory and Belarusian territory with Minsk's consent. But if such actions warrant such a panic when Russia does them, the world should feel equally panicked year-round when the U.S. conducts military drills on other countries' borders – like China, Russia and the DPRK.

The real international community – not just a handful of countries in the Global North – is tired of these double standards. They are sick of countries crying wolf over other countries' purported hostility while launching wars of aggression themselves. They loathe the threat to global security and economic stability that ensues when some countries, like the United States, launch information wars that dominate international headlines.

Washington has embarrassed itself over the Ukraine crisis, saying nearly every day that a non-existent Russian invasion is coming. No such thing has occurred and all signs show that Europe is managing the diplomatic situation itself admirably. The U.S. is only destabilizing the situation with unsubstantiated allegations and Antony Blinken must stop crying wolf on Ukraine if he wants to maintain the morsel of credibility he might have left.

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