Category Archives: Russia

Quick Note On Principle-Bereft Conservative Utilitarianism

Argument, Conservatism, Energy, Political Philosophy, Russia, War

In a segment today, Monday October 3, Fox News personality Tucker Carlson and guest Glenn Greenwald discussed the Evil Empire’s sabotage of Russia’s energy pipelines to Europe . (The best on the subject is FRED REED’s “A Diagnostic Letter To Our Euro-Peon Vassals, Who Are Dumber Than The Better Class Of Nematode.”)

Glenn Greenwald belabored the point as to whether a war with Russia is even advantageous to the United States and its people. This was also as far as Tucker Carlson would venture, the premise of such crass utilitarianism being that the American State has the right to do anything it wishes, provided this benefits the American people. Poppycock.

Contra Tucker Carlson and Glenn Greenwald, even if war with Russia were “advantageous to the American people”—to paraphrase the exclusively utilitarian point the two made—it is an unjust war. Like most conservatives, the two personalities mentioned ignore ethical or moral argument, never mentioning Just War theory. Or, even the constitutionally correct way to take our country to war.

See “JUST WAR FOR DUMMIES” (March 12, 2003)

*Image credit, screen picture of this image.

UPDATED (9/7/022): Being Neocon, Wrong And Immoral Earns America’s Pundits More Plaudits

Conservatism, Foreign Policy, Ilana Mercer, Neoconservatism, Russia, The West, War

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Sorry, Tucker Carlson: We like Victor Davis Hanson (VDH) as a person–but his record, put charitably, is that of playing catch-up. Only recently and slowly has he loosened the grip the neoconservative worldview has had on his thinking. And unconvincingly so.

VDH has been avidly cheering for the Ukrainian project—and seems unable to quiet his rhetoric about American foreign-policy Manifest Destiny. His first instinct was to support the Ukrainian endeavor and he holds the most mundane neoconservative views on Russia.

How predictive is VDH’s analysis in this, our latest, foreign-policy debacle? Not at all. In March of 2022, VDH celebrated “the muscular response of a West supposedly in decline,” when the West is manifestly in decline and Russia is winning by attrition. See “Russia Admits Weaponization Of Gas, Halts NS1 Shipments ‘Until Sanctions Lifted,’ As EU Prepares Response To Energy Crisis.” “[I]n response to the west’s weaponization of currencies and capital flows—Russia has halted gas supplies through Nord Stream 1.”

UPDATE 9/7/022: Putin: “We’ve Lost Nothing” – Putin Warns Western Elites’ “Sanctions Fever” Will See European People “Freeze”

…the blowback from EU and US-led sanctions and attempts at decoupling from Russian fossil fuels is wrecking lives in the West. “Now we are seeing how production and jobs in Europe are closing one after another,” Putin said, stressing that this is happening as “Western elites, who would not, or even cannot acknowledge objective facts.”

While against its war of aggression—those of us who see Russia as a natural ally of traditionalism (expressed in “America’s Radical, Foreign-Policy Alinskyites Destroyed South Africa!“) offered a solid distillation of the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Not VDH. He celebrated the puppet Zelensky, who, early in my analysis (March 24, 2022), betrayed his people for war and western aggrandizement.

When VDH, in March 2022, was getting hot for war (the mildest neocon finds war a turn-on), proclaiming a western revival—which is EXACTLY how neocons see war; a rejuvenator of sorts—aggrandizing its horrors ; I wrote this, March 3, 2022:

Good old realpolitik is what Zelensky should have been practicing with his powerful neighbors and historic brethren, the Russians.

Realpolitik is practical politics, the art of getting along, differences and all, in a real world in which reality, including the differences between people and their political systems, is accepted and dealt with.

VDH absolutely loved the war on Iraq (we railed against it from 2002 onward) and admits to NOT supporting Trump in the primaries. We were Orange from day one. (Trump book was published in June, 2016.)

Here we were for Trump from the get-go; against the Iraq war; hold a realistic position on Russia as friend of conservatives (the rest is the business of Russians, not Americans).

Still, readers have become angry with me, and not with the famous, rich, sinecured fools who led them astray and have proven wrong all the time (including in their current pursuits of the Ukraine production).

That kind of schedule of reinforcement and preference in public intellectuals and politicians explains the quality of cognoscenti Americans get. I’ve always said the government and culture don’t stand apart from us; they are us.

The more you reward those who are frequently and reliably wrong in public life—the more flourishing wrongdoers you’ll get and the more likely you are to keep going wrong.

Those who are right and principled get maligned for having foresight and principles. Those who were wrong are redeemed and forgiven, for they reflect the masses.

“PUNDITS, HEAL THYSELVES!”

* Image credit, screen pic

Lousy Lithuania Blockading Kaliningrad Could Be A Catalyst For World War Three

EU, Europe, Foreign Policy, Russia, The West, War

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Russia will have to intrude into NATO territory to feed its people in Kaliningrad. NATO, doing Uncle Sam’s bidding, could then invoke its Article 5 obligation to, one and all, galvanize against Russia.

On July 28, 1914, Austria-Hungary declared war on Serbia pursuant to the killing of Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria and his wife by a Serbian nationalist in Sarajevo, thus effectively starting the First World War.

Americans, aside some asses who may rot in Russian jails as prisoners of war, have not gotten as worked up about Ukraine as the neoconservative, neoliberal and the ConOink laptop bombardiers have wanted them to.

But Lithuania’s partial blockade of Kaliningrad—“a Russian sovereign territory on the Baltic Sea, sandwiched between Lithuania and Poland,” and thus reliant on these EU neighbors, also NATO members, for overland shipping of essential supplies—might just constitute a provocation like the one that ignited WWI.

This is the case because Russia will have to intrude into NATO territory to feed its people in Kaliningrad. NATO members, doing Uncle Sam’s bidding, could then invoke their Article 5 obligation to, one and all, galvanize against Russia.

Via ZeroHedge:

Ahead of the new Lithuanian transit ban taking effect, the state railways service was reportedly awaiting final word from the European Commission on enforcing it:

The cargo unit of Lithuania’s state railways service set out details of the ban in a letter to clients following “clarification” from the European Commission on the mechanism for applying the sanctions.

Previously, Lithuanian Deputy Foreign Minister Mantas Adomenas said the ministry was waiting for “clarification from the European Commission on applying European sanctions to Kaliningrad cargo transit.”

Brussels then ruled that “sanctioned goods and cargo should still be prohibited even if they travel from one part of Russia to another but through EU territory,” according to Rueters/Rferl.

In Moscow’s eyes, this is tantamount to laying economic siege to part of Russia’s sovereign territory and one million of its citizens. When the EU first proposed the blockage of goods as part of the last major sanctions package in early April, Kremlin officials warned of war given Moscow would have to “break the blockade” for the sake if its citizens.

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NEW COLUMN: Bleeding Russia Dry And Then Next ‘Color Revolution’

America, Culture, Foreign Policy, Just War, Music, Russia, Sex, The West