The 2024 Paris Olympic Games have kicked off, but this year without any flags or teams from the Russian Federation or Belarus present. This stems from an IOC announcement last January saying Russian and Belarusian athletes cannot represent their country, but can participate as neutrals.

This has led to only 15 athletes from Russia and 18 from Belarus competing as "Individual Neutral Athletes," or AINs. They had to first demonstrate to an IOC review panel that they have never expressed support for Russia’s military operation in Ukraine. Further they had to show that they don't have any affiliations with sports clubs tied to Russia’s military.

This has led some pundits to point out a glaring double standard: Israel's invasion of Gaza has by any estimate resulted in far more civilian deaths than the Ukraine war, yet the IOC has not considered banning Israeli athletes.

George W. Bush's 2003 invasion of Iraq resulted in - according to various estimates - between 500,000 and one million Iraqi civilian deaths. What's more is that it was only within years later the entire case the Neocons made for the invasion was proven an absolute fraudulent lie. Where were the IOC punitive actions against American athletes? It wasn't even a thought.

Similarly, Washington's bombing and invasion of Afghanistan turned into a more than two-decade long quagmire full of civilian death and destruction for entire towns and villages. And not a peep from the IOC or any Olympic officials.

The clear pattern has been that only those enemies and rivals of the Western allies get banned from the games. 

Al Jazeera has provided a helpful summary of all countries which have been barred from competing in the Olympics in the past some 100 years as follows:

These punitive bans are much like the UN's World Court operates: it remains a common sight to only see an African dictator or Serb Balkan warlord on trail for crimes against humanity. But never will a Dick Cheney or Tony Blair be on trial at the Hague.