The insurrection attempt, $5.99 gas and a war is a fine greeting from the ordeal of the global pandemic! Now we can’t buy Russian oil because they invaded Ukraine. Guess who hasn’t invaded anybody? Venezuela. Why are we no longer buying their oil? The entire Texas refinery system was built just for processing Venezuelan crude, which is heavy and dark, and all those facilities are still there.
Trump imposed sanctions on Venezuela to punish Maduro for not stepping down when he lost his reelection (kind of strange given Trump’s behavior) – and Maduro’s oil was replaced with Russian oil. Never mind that Russian oil was actually worse politically. We should get back on Venezuelan oil. But… restarting Venezuela’s oil industry will take at least six months, should Biden be able to end those sanctions.
With green energy solutions not able to meet our needs as yet, we still need “oil friends.” We thought Putin was that friend – he’s an awful friend, we certainly thought King Muhammad Bin Salmon was a friend – he’s horrible – he’s waging a brutal war in Yemen. Both those two make Maduro of Venezuela look like an angel! And he could actually come to our rescue.
There’s also good old American oil – from hydraulic fracturing. One would think our domestic oil fracking could go into production because the profits in it now. Been a while since our tap water could explode.
We also should be investing heavily in renewable energy – the Senate recently filibustered green energy legislation to defeat, but we could stand Senator Joe Manchin and former Green Party member Senator Kyrsten Sinema to change their minds on green energy so we can speed up the process of ending dependence on fossil fuel.
FRESNO (DPdc) WEDNESDAY, MARCH 9, 2022 — The Joint Chiefs of Staff advising President Biden yesterday put their collective foot down regarding a Polish MiG deal – a scheme to get more fighter planes into the hands of the Ukrainian Airforce as they fight off a full-scale Russian invasion.
Now it becomes a little more clear what the situation is, because, that means the US military can’t keep the US homeland safe in the case of direct war with Russia. The US military’s mission is to protect and defend the United States. Speaking out against making moves that would expose the homeland to explosions is prudent. Ukraine has no mutual protection treaty with the United States, or with any United States ally – allies who are even more squeemish than the USA due to proximity to Russia, and even their reliance on Russian resources.
Based on the pictures getting seen on TV of what Russia is doing to the Ukraine, the squeemishness is understandable. But unlike in the 2nd superwar, World War II, the US homeland stands a good chance of getting the Ukraine treatment as well. As would Russia. There’s a lot of explosives lying around in these countries.
Indeed, while the USA has ended all Russian oil and gas imports over Russia’s special military operation in Ukraine, Europe hasn’t. They face a huge hit to their economies, plus risk further enraging Moscow.
The only way Ukraine could have avoided the situation they are in would have been to allow Russia, that is, Vladimir Putin, to choose their government for them – a government that would ally with Russia and be a lot more corrupt and controllable. That was in fact offered to the Ukrainian government in 2014. A new president, Viktor Yanukovych, got elected and pretended to be pro-West to win. When he got into office, he reversed a previous decision in the Ukrainian parliament (the Verkhova Rada) to align with the west and took a deal from Putin to ally with Russia and the “Eurasian Economic Union” and receive billions in … money… direct payment… that would have been shared among the oligarchs close to the new president and turned Ukraine into another Russia. The people revolted against this new president immediately. Huge revolt. Went on for months, until the government was overthrown. It was called “The Maidan Revolution.”
Russia reacted by annexing Ukrainian territories into Russia, taking bites out of the country. The west responded with sanctions against Putin and his cronies. Russia responded with interference in US and European elections, finding takers for their “help,” including Donald Trump, Wikileaks, and NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden.
Ukraine is one of the former Soviet territories that has been most defiant and resistant towards Russia after getting independence from the Soviet Union in the 1990s. The others are Georgia, Moldova, Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. Other ne’er-do-wells are Chechnya and Armenia. Many have faced the Russian war machine. Finland had been at war with the Soviet Union twice. Getting a peace deal to end the fighting was dodgy. When the Soviet Union collapsed, Finland found itself free of its peace treaties with Moscow. But they still didn’t desire to start poking the Russian Bear like the newly-free former Soviet Republics did.
Until now. Finland simply floating the idea of joining NATO – that’s textbook Russian Bear poking.
For now, the real animosity in Russia is reserved for the likes of Ukraine, Moldova, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. To make things even more interesting, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, the three “Baltic States,” joined NATO after independence from the Soviet Union. Moscow is very pissed off at them, and those three countries are very vulnerable to Russian aggression due to their size. In fact, had their emergency applications for NATO membership not gone through, Russia probably would have overrun them already. They are frequently the victims of menacing Russian cyber attacks on significant anniversary dates, like when each of those countries “joined” the Soviet Union.
To ingratiate themselves to NATO, they have opened up their territories to NATO military bases and host annual war exercises. They are making sure they are members in good standing.
Putin may stop with Ukraine. He might consider that prudent. He may find reason to take more. He has the motives.
Niiice, dave! 