NP - Russian Sanctions

[Joseph Tracy]

There are many thugs and killers and greedy bastards in the world and the US has as nasty a record as anyone since the death of Stalin. I have never liked Putin for all the reasons you state but the idea of isolating " the pirates", and that they have no contingencies for this situation or that they will " turn on each other" sounds very questionable. Another way to look at Putin is that he may have a realistic sense of the needs of Russia as a state. Russia was far worse off under the drunkard Yeltsin and the  accompanying rise of the criminals and oligarchs according to many analysts, and Putin brought those tendencies significantly under control.  The majority seem to still support him over any other contender. Now majority rule is not IMO all it is cracked up to be but that is sorta what we have here, too,... sorta. 

Sanctions. There was an article in Harpers last year about sanctions, their deadly effects on the weakest members of a society and unforeseen consequences.  It starts with sanctions begun in WW1. Here is one passage:

"Not until five months after the armistice did the Allies allow Germany to import food — not out of concern for the ongoing death and suffering, but out of fear that desperate Germans would follow the Russians into Bolshevism. By the time it was lifted, the peacetime blockade had killed about a quarter of a million people, including many children who either starved or died from diseases associated with malnutrition."

The US effectively starved half a million Iraqis before the second gulf war with sanctions. Sanctions were used in Nicaragua, Cuba, Iran,now Syria.  The wars only proliferate. Saddam before his US sponsored attack on Iran looks like an age of relative prosperity and even tolerance when most Shias and Sunnis intermarried and lived in the same neighborhoods peacefully and Iraq had the best educated country in the region. Do people know that under British rule 50 Iraqis a year went past the equivalent of High school. Our bombs don't bring peace or good government to them or us.  

If you look at the long term these methods have only backfired, hurt the innocent and created huge mistrust. Nations don't behave like compliant children, and the US is not some benign strict father. Will China  agree to sanction Russia while they are desperately looking for new export markets?  What if they don't?  Where will Ukraine's oil come from for the rest of the winter?

Are we really so keen to start a global economic war over the Crimean, with over 90% voting yes to the Russian federation?  I don't think it is a good idea. I think we are already getting more tentative in our pronouncements,  and I think these "punishments" are  largely for show.  


On Mar 17, 2014, at 5:18 PM, David Morris wrote:

> http://www.esquire.com/blogs/politics/russia-sanctions-031714
>  
> The president today took the only action open to him, knowing full well that it's not going to be "enough" because nothing is ever "enough," and what about Benghazi, anyway?
> 
> "We have fashioned these sanctions to impose costs on named individuals who wield influence in the Russian government and those responsible for the deteriorating situation in Ukraine," the White House said in a statement. A senior administration official said that the goal of the sanctions was to target the individual wealth of the seven people targeted by Monday's executive order. But those same officials would not rule out further steps against the Russian government going forward.
> This is something of a shrewd move. If we accept the fact that the Russian government is basically an organized cabal of kleptocrats with delusions of empire and a nuclear first-strike capability, why not bring some economic pain that might make some of the pirates turn on some of the others? Putin's power comes basically from being the first among thieves. That's how he maintains control over, among other things, the military. If some of his cronies hear their bank accounts scream, there's no telling what the consequences will be.
> 

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