Economic sanctions are violence and a form of collective punishment and like most violence and collective punishment it disproportionately affects average citiz

Economic sanctions are violence and a form of collective punishment and like most violence and collective punishment it disproportionately affects average citizens. Different countries will serve their core interests by carving out exceptions. For example: - Shell buys discounted oil from Russia [1]; - UK carves out exceptions for certain banks [2]. - Luxury real estate is routinely held by LLCs where the beneficial owner is meant to be declared to Companies House, a rule that isn't enforced allowing oligarchs, despots and criminals to hide and park money in London real estate. - Italy sought exclusions of luxury goods from sanctions [3] - Chinese banks will likely be a bypass to financial sactions [4] Any actions that actually would target Russian oligarchs like seizing their assets (for example, real estate in the West) is nowhere to be seen. There's no weakening Russia's military (this being one of the excuses for Iraqi sanctions) for military action because Russia is still a nuclear power. Russia has its own industry, its own food supply and its own energy.Given there are no military options, I get the desire for some form of punishment for an unprovoked and unjustifiable act of aggression that is the invasion of Ukraine but make no mistake, these sanctions will do nothing. Does anyone find it strange how much lip service politicians and regular people alike pay to keeping prices low at the gas pump while saying they stand with Ukraine? Well, which is it? That's easy: it's the oil. You need no further evidence of this than today's development that given the supply issues in oil due to the war in Ukraine, the US has decided that the arbitrarily imposed, violent sactions imposed on Venezeuela might be eased or removed because now it's expedient to do so [5]. Make no mistake: the US is not standing up for any principles in any of this. It's purely about strategic interests. And if a bunch of children die, as clearly happened in Iraq (although the actual numbers are disputed), look no further than the 1996 comments of then UN Ambassador and later US Secretary of State Madelline Albright answered the question of whether the sanctions were worth it answered [6]: > I think that is a very hard choice, but the price, we think, the price is worth it. Is it really any wonder that most of the world despises the USA? [1]: https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/06/shell-defends-decision-to-buy-discounted-oil-from-russia.html https://www.cnbc.com/2022/03/06/shell-defends-decision-to-bu... [2]: https://inews.co.uk/news/government-accused-of-absurd-sanctions-loophole-after-giving-russian-bank-customers-30-days-to-wind-down-assets-1490017 https://inews.co.uk/news/government-accused-of-absurd-sancti... [3]: https://tfiglobalnews.com/2022/02/28/italy-quietly-removes-its-luxury-items-from-nato-sanction-list-others-to-follow-suit/ https://tfiglobalnews.com/2022/02/28/italy-quietly-removes-i... [4]: https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-russian-firms-rush-open-chinese-bank-accounts-sanctions-bite-sources-2022-03-03/ https://www.reuters.com/business/exclusive-russian-firms-rus... [5]: https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-venezuela-discuss-easing-sanctions-make-little-progress-sources-2022-03-06/ https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/us-venezuela-discuss-... [6]: https://archive.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/170-sanctions/41952.html https://archive.globalpolicy.org/component/content/article/1...