Mojo2
Gold Member
- Oct 28, 2013
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Sanctions are an interventionist policy that only ever harms innocent civilians, and not the governments they target.
They tend to hurt both, but certainly, they hurt the former more than the latter. The idea is to bring pressure on the people of the nation that the people of the nation bring pressure on their rogue government. Throughout history a people's government is what the people have allowed or encouraged it to be. They're not blameless.
On the other hand, what's the point? Sanctions rarely, if ever, achieve the desired results against totalitarian or authoritarian states. They have a much better chance to work against governments like Russia's, though, and the people of Russia.
But the best way to handle these kinds of problems is to understand the history and the imperatives of geopolitics and conduct foreign policy accordingly in the first place.
Obama is a disaster--either out of ignorance or by design.
I'm at a bit of a loss in understanding how pounding foreign civilians with sanctions that impoverish them, or worse, is supposed to empower them to pressure their governments.
The real truth is that we don't give a fuck how it affects the civilians. They're just casualties and nothing more.
In government smaller numbers of people are routinely inconvenienced, made to pay money, hurt or worse to serve the larger numbers of people in the area being governed.
Get used to it.