Plumbing new depths of baseness

I’ve been trying to avoid writing about the invasion of Ukraine. I’m still finding it hard to believe that once again we have a land war in Europe, yet another land grab by fascists claiming that it’s their racial or national right to enslave their neighbours.

What’s driven me to write this today are the latest actions from what passes for an American administration: throttling Starlink and buying Russian oil.

Access to Musk’s Starlink satellite network is the key factor that has enabled Ukraine to hang on as long as it has. Throttling this makes it almost impossible for them to predict or intercept the high-speed missiles that Russia is now raining down indiscriminately on their cities, killing civilians daily.

This differs from the bombings of Guernica, Rotterdam, Coventry, Hamburg, Dresden and every city in Japan only in degree and method. When the V2s started falling on London, the British knew they were in serious trouble as they were utterly defenceless against them. This is what Ukraine faces now, but at a far more devastating scale, and with yet another winter of war approaching.

And what’s the justification? To prevent them bombing Russian oil infrastructure in the misguided belief that this is driving up pump prices in the USA just before a mid-term election.

This leads to the second abomination, buying oil from Russia. Far from applying “THE BIGGEST SANCTIONS EVER!!” President Trump is now agreeing to buy 2.2m barrels of oil from the Russians. The motive? Once again to push petrol prices down in America. But America uses about 1.3m barrels of oil per day, so this isn’t even a two-day supply. Can’t see that changing prices much.

The reason oil prices are high of course is because of Mr Trump’s botched aerial assault on Iran. The man is complaining that he’s not being awarded a Nobel Peace Prize, in a year in which he started a totally unnecessary war against an opponent he can’t defeat with no exit strategy or even a definition of victory.

In the process he’s awoken Iran to the joys of abutting the Straits of Hormuz, and sent oil prices sky high, creating a wave of global inflation. By beheading the Iranian regime through targeted aerial assassinations he’s also further radicalised the Iranian regime.

So, top marks to the USA for yet another series of botched interventions to add to their long list of failures. In the meantime, Ukraine suffers and countries in Europe are being forced to face the prospect of once again having Russia right on their border.

Does anyone in the American government read any history books?