NP - Russian Sanctions

[malignd at aol.com]

I think you miss my point which is not about sanctions, rather that Mr. Tracy seems to want to place the US in a club that includes PP.



-----Original Message-----
From: David Morris <fqmorris at gmail.com>
To: MalignD at aol.com <malignd at aol.com>
Cc: P-list <pynchon-l at waste.org>
Sent: Tue, Mar 18, 2014 6:09 pm
Subject: Re: NP - Russian Sanctions


The sanctions against Russia are limited to the individuals at the top, so past sanctions against whole nations are in no way comparable.



On Tue, Mar 18, 2014 at 4:56 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.
> 

-
Pynchon-l / http://www.waste.org/mail/?list=pynchon-l

 




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