NP - Russian Sanctions

[Joseph Tracy]

 I thought of Pol Pot afterward and you have a point. But it is hardly an heroic human rights record to be better than Pol Pot or North Korea.
On Mar 18, 2014, at 5:56 PM, MalignD at aol.com wrote:

> That would include Pol Pot ...
> 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.
> 
> 
> 
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Joseph Tracy <brook7 at sover.net>
> To: P-list List <pynchon-l at waste.org>
> Sent: Mon, Mar 17, 2014 11:49 pm
> Subject: Re: NP - Russian Sanctions
> 
> 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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