Gaslighting and Gas Prices

 

The above screenshot from Twitter (because I don't think his account is liable to stay up forever as this situation progresses) shows Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov and the following statement: "The goal of Russia's special military operation is to stop any war that could take place on Ukraine territory or that could start from there. "

Great shades of "We had to destroy the village in order to save it." The kids who don't remember the Cold War might not know that one, as well, but they will probably recognize a few bars of what else the Russian narrative is trying to lay down--the potential of a dirty bomb made in Ukraine (if I knew that was coming, I'd have baked you all a yellow cake) and biowarfare labs (but were they dangerously on wheels, I wonder?).  There's even a laptop! (Is it Hunter Biden, secret Burisma NATO undercover spy's laptop? inquiring minds might indeed venture to ask at this idiotic point in time.)

It almost feels like the laziness of the Russian disinfo spree is to throw the US's own war lies back in our face, as if to say, well, why can't we do it as well? To me, it makes no difference. I was as opposed in 2003 to stupid big countries laying waste to smaller countries who didn't deserve it, so they aren't fucking me up, any.  And actually, I kind of did want the Bush Administration to get their feet held to the fire and still do, because of torture and indiscriminate killing of civilians and use of mercs like Blackwater and all that. I still do.

I was a baby during Vietnam and I still feel some kind of way about it. My father's working class neighborhood all went and a lot them had health issues including mental health issues from that. They drank, they got cancer, they lived recklessly sometimes and my dad doesn't have a lot of friends still alive in his early 70's. One of my mom's brothers went and he was a bad alcoholic and died in his 60s and I don't think those things weren't unconnected. I don't like stupid wars. They kill human beings, sometimes for a long time after we are still counting the death toll of them. 

Anyway, it isn't about NATO and it wasn't about WMDs and it isn't about preventing a war because honey, if this isn't a war I don't know what one looks like, and it had nothing to do with denazification because these assholes sent an actual neo-Nazi group into Ukraine. Probably to kill their Jewish president. 

It might make more sense for Putin to activate his deep-rooted sense of imperialism because Ukraine's pipelines exist. I mean, he doesn't have any use for the people. But just like the Iraq/Kuwait issue, there are other equities to consider? 

So with all this disinfo and intentional bullshit in the ether, this obviously one-sided decision to wage actual war by Putin's government and all that, and what are our journalists going to talk about? The gas prices going up like 50 cents over the past week. And isn't that a Biden problem? Let me turn to my bete noir, Sara Carter, for why this is fucking stupid. 

Federal land is already open for drilling, and all the portions of Keystone that bring oil from Canada to the US have already been built (and that oil is low-grade and not even fit for use in fuel anyway.)

Also the U.S. is a net energy exporter.

Learn what you're talking about. https://t.co/YlZvMgDy6R

— Matthew Chapman (@fawfulfan) March 7, 2022

She is literally wrong on every point. US oil companies can drill here, drill now, as conservatives have been saying since the Obama Administration, but they would rather price gouge. They are managing a finite and climate-disruptive resource in its end-stage.  Keystone XL isn't the problem. Whether we sanctioned Nordstream wasn't the Russian problem. Our addiction to fossil fuels on a dying planet and our love of money over human lives is. 

I'm getting sick of the gaslighting. I'm sick of the gaslit foo dogs of war. When you talk about scarcity--talk about renewables and why it didn't have to be this way. When you talk about Putin's invasion and war against Ukraine, talk about how it probably boils down to greed and backfired because Putin and his kleptocrat state never bothered to adapt to the 21st century, but we all have to. 

Every part of this debacle is everything I hate. Lies, greed, death and massive human stupidity. 

North Korea Says they Tested a Small H-Bomb

North Korea says it successfully tested a miniaturized hydrogen nuclear bomb: pic.twitter.com/KHxaLxvq48

— Reuters Top News (@Reuters) January 6, 2016

There is some reason to be skeptical, but they apparently did something to jiggle the old seismograph. This is just the sort of thing that happens when North Korea doesn't feel appreciated for a minute, but it helps to recall that bad nonproliferation policy has its consequences.

The Iran Deal: A New Beginning

The announcement of a deal to curb Iran's nuclear program should be viewed as a pretty epic diplomatic achievement. They're giving up an awful lot, and what the West is doing is not punishing them economically so much. When you look at the details, it probably helps to consider that if there were no deal--we would actually not get any of this. They'd still have the same amount of uranium, keep all their centrifuges, and enrich it to whatever the hell degree they like. The alternatives to negotiation that some people seem to favor, which is war, is conceding billions of dollars and lives, compared to which, giving up some sanctions that can always get slapped back on with a resolution pretty much sounds asinine.

What I'm saying is: I genuinely think most of the critics haven't looked over the details, and are making no sense. Their complaints are a little like a dog barking at a vacuum cleaner. Something's going on, they don't approve, woof! Dumb, kneejerk "appeasement" rhetoric just doesn't line up what has actually taken place. (It's especially rich when Jeb Bush tries to use it, but frankly, he doesn't seem to understand foreign policy--period. Too many big-syllable words, I guess.)

This achieves what 30 years of hostility hasn't done. It's a big freaking deal. If we had an informed, sane national dialogue, the reaction would not be so partisan.

Jeb Bush is Like a Candidate from 2004

Think about 2004. I know. It was a while ago. But if you were thinking about litigating whether the start of the Iraq War made sense and how it was being managed and really, really, were concerned about whether traditional marriage was being protected--I think 2004 was the year for you. And that is where Jeb Bush is. Stuck in his brother's last election cycle like some kind of iteration of the movie Groundhog Day, except, unlike Bill Murray's character, Jeb Bush has not learned how to move forward. He's learned how to be really good--at being in 2004.

I don't really want to go over the past, very bad week, where Jeb Bush was trying to figure out how to respond to the simple question "Would you have gone into Iraq just as GWB had done?" I think there is some confusion about how people are viewing the responses he has given. The intelligence is besides the point. It was for his brother--why wouldn't it be for him? George Tenet got his medal for the slam-dunk case. (And so did Bremer, and so did Franks for their foul ups.) President George Bush acted on the intelligence he politically needed. He went into Iraq before the UN inspectors at the time wrapped up what they wanted to. I don't know how many people in hindsight don't find that at least dubious--

A Thought Experiment for Senator Cotton

Of course, Senator Tom Cotton thinks that strikes against Iran's nuclear facilities would be over in a matter of days. I'm pretty sure that's what the folks who donated big bucks to his campaign have to say about the matter, and the only thing I wonder is how long it took him to stop nodding his head after they took leave of him.

But I think a bit of a thought experiment is in order. Let's say a nation we weren't on really great terms with decided to take out some of our nuclear capacity, like, well, Arkansas One. (Sure, they'll take out Peach Bottom and Limerick, too, but we're just talking about Russellville right now.)

What would his constituents want him to do if the Bad Guys melted a nuclear power plant right in the vicinity of a town of about 30K?

My bet is, they'd want him to vote to go to war with those people until the land they're sitting on doesn't get printed on any future maps.

So, what in the merry hell does he think Iran would do about 5 or six days of playing shoot'em up with their centrifuges? I don't wonder about that part, myself.

Rick Santorum Misses Every Point About WMD's in Iraq

My former senator, Rick Santorum, followed up a bit on the NYT story recently published regarding the aftermath of US troops exposed to aged chemical weapons in Iraq with a column in The Daily Beast that seems genuinely mystified about why the Bush II Administration didn't tout the existence of these weapons to the rafters.

This mystification is quite odd. The information itself was part of the earlier ISG report. There were news stories; it's not like it was "hushed up"--it just wasn't advertised. When my Rumproast colleague Bette Noir posted regarding the "WMD truthers" following in the wake of the NYT story, most of us jaded commenters were like. "And this is new?"

We don't even really need to point a finger at conveniently Machiavellian figure Karl Rove to figure out why the existence of very old chemical munitions in Iraq isn't actually supportive of claims that included yellowcake uranium, nuclear centrifuge tubes or whatever the hell other "smoking gun/mushroom cloud" rhetoric was being used circa 2002-2003. Because the Defense Department told then-Senator Santorum as much when they responded that these were not the munitions that the case for the Iraq invasion was built on back in 2006 when he hyped these claims at the tail-end of his dramatic losing campaign.

In the long-running war against Iran during the 1980's, Iraq originally used mainly Soviet weapons but eventually acquired some rather good sources of US-make materiel. This build-up was winked at. And then along came GHWB and his need to not be a wimp. From 1991 to 2001--are we really saying Hussein should have known where every bit of munitions were anymore? We set a real high bar--but don't forget--the US pulled weapons inspectors just before invading, interrupting the process that might have found them anyway. But still and all--this is no Jedi mind trick--these are not the WMD's we were looking for.

Now, that Santorum (I can't be arsed that Pete Hoekstra is also on the byline because who else gives a rip?) wants to hype intel that is irrelevant now anyway and was dead-in-the-water for him in 2006 to, I'm thinking, build up foreign policy cred for 2016 as if he were right all along is, so, so like him. But that is the point. It's him. He still thinks this is the info you run with. He's wrong, but sincere. Sincerely wrong. And cannot be told otherwise. And that last bit? That's the disqualifier.