[E]xpanding NATO would be the most fateful error of American policy in the entire post-Cold-War era. Such a decision may be expected to inflame the nationalistic, anti-Western and militaristic tendencies in Russian opinion; to have an adverse effect on the development of Russian democracy; to restore the atmosphere of the cold war to East-West relations, and to impel Russian foreign policy in directions decidedly not to our liking.
– George Kennan, New York Times, 1997
Pundits and politicians who routinely deny that Americans have the natural right to keep and bear arms nevertheless are thrilled by the scenes of Ukrainian civilians bearing arms in order to resist the Russian invaders.
I guess only people threatened by Russians have the right to keep and bear arms.
But don’t those same pundits and politicians tell us that we Americans are threatened by Russia? Ergo…
Beneath the widespread stubborn American refusal to understand the Russian government’s motives for its condemnable invasion of Ukraine is the equally widespread stubborn refusal to learn from the U.S. government’s wrong moves with respect to Russia over the last 30 years. But even deeper is the widespread stubborn refusal to even entertain the possibility that the U.S. government might have made any wrong moves at all.
Dale Sprusansky, Walter Hixon, Hanan Ashrawi, Paul Noursi, Jeanne Trabulsi, Edward Ahmed Mitchell, Huwaida Arraf, don Wagner, Gideon Levy, John Kiriakou, Radihika Sainath, Sut Jhally, Roger Waters, Delina Hanley and Grant F. Smith. A heroic effort.
Importantly, we discuss some points I haven’t been able to shoehorn into recent blogs because they were already so massive.
The first thing is the JCPOA negotiations in Vienna. They are pushing rapidly to conclusion now in order to stabilize oil markets by trying to offset voluntary embargoes of Russian oil with newly-released Iranian production.
There are a couple of problems with this calculus, not the least of which is that Iran’s oil sector will not be able to just spin up another 1.5 million bbls/day before Russia responds in ways I discussed in the article linked above, i.e. offering oil for gold well below ‘market price.’
The second big issue is along the same lines, which is the US making diplomatic overtures to Nicolas Maduro in Venezuela to life sanctions on his country. Remember it was Trump’s ill-conceived blockade of Venezuela which prompted US importers to begin buying huge amounts of Russian Urals grade as replacement barrels.
Why would we do that if we hate Russia so much? And it’s not, shitlibs, because Trump loves him some Putin man meat, you congenital morons. It is simply because the Gulf coast refineries are tuned for refining that Venezuelan sludge they mainly produce. It’s known as heavy-sour oil. And Russian Urals grade is the closest competitor to it on the global market.
That’s why US imports of Russian oil surged over the past two years. And it is also why since this conflict has been pushed into reality the prices at the pump in the US have skyrocketed as US imports of Russian oil fell to nearly zero in the days leading up to Putin’s decision to invade Ukraine.
The big question on anyone’s mind here is why would either Iran or Venezuela ever trust the US on any issue related to the weaponization of access to financial markets ever again? In fact, why would they even talk with these people unless they already have cut-outs and work-arounds already in place.
More here
Dear Friends:
“Mr. McAdams, how does it feel to be the most famous man in the world?”
This is not how most of my press appearances begin and it is the concluding chapter of perhaps the strangest 24 hours of my life. But thus began my interview on India’s Times Now Television this morning as a follow up to one of the craziest and – even just 24 hours later – the most-watched moments of television history!
For those who haven’t seen it, I was invited for the first time to be a guest on one of India’s top English language television stations. I figured that since India’s a huge country and there must a good-sized audience, it might be a good opportunity to inform non-American viewers that there are perspectives on foreign policy here that, though widely-held, rarely get an airing on mainstream outlets.
What followed was an incredible comedy of errors that is less funny if it is explained. It can be viewed here.
No comedy writer could have penned a more hilarious madcap back-and-forth, because this was purely authentic.
What followed was completely unexpected. Twitter users across India viewed and retweeted the video at this point almost 13 million times. For many hours “Mr. McAdams” was trending number one on Twitter India. Clever Indians made endless hilarious memes about the craze mix-up. For example:
