In the fog of war, it’s difficult to tell which claims are true and which aren’t. What are Vladimir Putin’s forces up to in Ukraine? Apart from some high points (real or media-manufactured), it’s often hard to tell.

Even when we think that the US government’s claims are true, they’re difficult to credit as uniquely damning, because they almost always refer to behaviors the US government has no problem with when it’s the one engaging in them.

“[W]e have credible information,” Bathsheba Nell Crocker, US Representative to the Office of the United Nations, wrote in a letter to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet in February, “that indicates Russian forces are creating lists of identified Ukrainians to be killed or sent to camps following a military occupation.”

That sounds pretty bad. In fact, if true, it IS pretty bad. It’s also something the US military and intelligence establishments have done for decades … so much so that these days it doesn’t even really try to hide it.

As the Future of Freedom Foundation’s Jacob Hornberger points out, the CIA made use of “kill lists” at least as early as 1954 in Guatemala. They were secretive about it — they won’t even reveal the names on those lists to this day — but there’s little doubt such “kill lists” were provided by the CIA to paramilitary death squads throughout Central America at least into the 1980s.

Since 9/11, the US government hasn’t even bothered to keep its “kill lists” especially secret. They don’t always share the names, but “targeted killings” are an openly admitted element of US warfare, even if US Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) gets slammed for saying the quiet part a little too loudly (“Is there a Brutus in Russia? Is there a more successful Colonel Stauffenberg in the Russian military? The only way this ends is for somebody in Russia to take this guy out”).

In 2003, the US Defense Intelligence Agency even had playing cards printed and distributed to openly and proudly publicize its Iraq “kill list.” Saddam Hussein (a head of state and thus as a matter of policy supposedly not subject to assassination like mere mortals) was the ace of spades. As of today, 48 of the 52 people on the “kill list” have been killed or captured.

The question isn’t whether Vladimir Putin should be ordering the murder or capture of Volodymyr Zelenskyy and other uses of “kill lists” to “de-Nazify” of Ukraine. Clearly he shouldn’t.

But from “kill lists” to cluster munitions and thermobaric bombs to outright invasions of other countries, the US regime should start meeting the same standards it’s demanding Vladimir Putin’s regime be held to. That seems like a low bar and easily gotten over.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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According to a Reuters/Ipsos poll released on March 4, 80% of Americans support a  US government ban on the importation of Russian oil.

Meanwhile, Americans are also complaining about high gas prices, which reached an average of more than $4 per gallon over the weekend following the poll’s release, in large part due to US and European sanctions on Russia.

While Russian oil constitutes only a tiny portion of US petroleum imports, a complete ban certainly wouldn’t help hold US gas prices down.

It also wouldn’t help with much else.

Believe it or not, Vladimir Putin and his oligarch cronies aren’t missing any meals due to the sanctions.

Yes, ordinary Russians are taking a hit to their per capita income of a whopping US $7,000 or so per year. And most of them probably blame the US, not Putin, for that hit.

Just like Iranians mostly blame the US, not their theocratic regime, for the effects of US sanctions.

And just like Cubans mostly blame the US, not their Communist regime, for the effects of US sanctions.

Sometimes it seems like the only victims of US sanctions who DON’T blame the US government are Americans.

Maybe it’s the differential effect. Abroad, US sanctions can produce real poverty, malnutrition, even starvation or death by preventable disease. Here at home, they’re a minor inconvenience.

Maybe you’re canceling that road trip to Vegas and planning a stay-cation instead, but you’re probably not cutting your meat ration with corn meal to make it go further, looking up the symptoms of rickets, or trying to coax a 68th year out of your 1956 De Soto.

As to who sanctions HELP, well,  cross Ukraine off that list.  Putin’s not going to call his troops back over economic sanctions. Europeans whose livelihoods are hit by being on the sanctioners’ side aren’t going to get any more anti-Russian or pro-Ukrainian. They’re just going to get poorer.

The only people helped by US sanctions on Russian oil are American oil producers. Those sanctions bring them just a little bit closer to monopoly status, allowing them to jack up prices and knock down windfall profits at your expense.

If you want to give up vodka for Lent, or switch from Russian salad dressing to a vinaigrette, in the silly belief that doing so will make a difference for Ukraine, knock yourself out. But don’t demand an increase in the cost of gas and then whine about it.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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As part of the western  response to Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine, several regimes acted on February 26 to exclude certain Russian banks from the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication (SWIFT)  network. As of March 1, Reuters reports, SWIFT says it’s awaiting a list of the sanctioned banks so that it can cut them off.

SWIFT is a messaging service that connects banks worldwide. It’s not a bank itself. It’s not even, strictly speaking, a payment network. It carries instructions for transfers, but the transfers take place via other networks. It’s just one moving part in the world’s complex finance and trade system.

As with most such measures, giving Russian banks the boot from SWIFT  is certain to hurt the sanctioners along with the sanctioned. In this case, the potential victims with the most to lose are  the issuers and holders of US dollars.

Dollars aren’t the only currency that gets moved using SWIFT, but the dollar is the de facto “global reserve currency” and thus the most affected by such moves. Nearly everyone accepts the dollar. Nearly everyone wants to have a fat stack of dollars on hand. In particular, global trade in oil has been powered by the “petrodollar” for nearly 50 years.

If you want to buy a barrel of Brent crude from most sellers, you need to be able to plunk down (as I write this) 105.46 US dollars. Not 395.72 Saudi riyals. Not 7,983.35 Indian rupees. Not 665.78 Chinese yuan. $105.46 or no sale.

What happens when one of the world’s largest oil producers is 1) cut off from SWIFT; 2) doesn’t want US dollars as much as it used to because other sanctions make those dollars  difficult to spend; and 3) has trading partners who are watching these sanctions and fear they could be the next victims? Well, this:

A “rupee-rouble trade arrangement may get a push now that Russia is out of SWIFT,” reports The Times of India.  China will presumably likewise increase its yuan-ruble trade with Russia.

The Times of India article reveals that this isn’t a sudden development: “India had entered into a rupee-rouble trade arrangement with Russia earlier to shield the two nations from unilateral sanctions from the United States.”

What makes the dollar valuable? The same thing that makes anything valuable: People wanting it. Between China and India, more than a quarter of the world’s population are in the process of wanting the dollar less than they used to. That, in turn, makes every dollar in your pocket worth less than it once was.

In the short term, the SWIFT kick and other sanctions may hurt Russia more than they hurt you. But the uncontested reign of the US dollar among global currencies seems to be nearing its end, in part because the US government is driving the world away from it with the constant threat of sanctions.

The smart move for Americans? Hold as few dollars as you can get by on. Trade your dollars for gold, silver, and cryptocurrency while they’re still worth something, to someone, somewhere.

Thomas L. Knapp (Twitter: @thomaslknapp) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

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