As the governments in most of the rest of the world are incompetent, Washington’s incompetence doesn’t stand out, and this is Washington’s salvation.
He does have a conspiracist streak, though, which does not jibe with his otherwise blinkerless view of the world.
In the latest link sent to me by Claude, Roberts discusses the idiocy of the US response to the Ukraine crisis. Roberts takes for granted that Washington has been on top of the Ukraine situation from the beginning.
The crisis in Ukraine originated with Washington’s overthrow of the elected democratic government and its replacement with Washington’s hand-chosen stooges.
This view is not quite in accord with Roberts’ judgment of Washington being incompetent. It seems clear to me that Washington was taken completely by surprise by the Ukrainian popular uprising or coup (depending on your point of view). I doubt that even the Europeans who, unlike the US, do have a dog in the Ukraine fight, were covertly involved in the overthrow of Yanukovych.
Roberts goes on:
[W]hy is the Obama regime trying to provoke action by the Russian military? A possible answer is that Washington’s plan to evict Russia from its Black Sea naval base having gone awry, Washington’s fallback plan is to sacrifice Ukraine to a Russian invasion so that Washington can demonize Russia and force a large increase in NATO military spending and deployments.
I sent the following to Claude and e-mailed pretty much the same comment to Roberts (after letting him know that I thought he was pretty much right about many things):
Roberts ascribes more intelligence to Washington than it deserves. Washington has no "plans." "Washington" has a life span of 4-8 years. "Washington" simply reacts to events. "Washington's" thought processes are about as sophisticated as those of a domestic pet. The current "Washington" "thinks" and "plans" somewhat like a cat. Bush's "Washington's" thought processes were more like those of a dog. (Over a long period, the tribal memory of Washington -- in its brain lobe called The State Department -- does formulate vague policies, like its Israel policy. But when something unexpected occurs, like Ukraine, Washington's response is 100% reactive.)
Roberts hasn’t replied.
(My cat and dog analogy is pretty weak, I have to admit. I was thinking something along the lines of: Cats react differently to situations depending on their mood. A cat poked in the belly might either snarl and strike out with his claws or cock open one eye and go back to sleep. Dogs tend to react the same way to similar stimuli, even if the situations differ. A dog whose loving owner is a bald Chinese-American who smells of Brut will take to any bald Chinese-American who smells of Brut. On the other hand, if the dog has been beaten by a Chinese-American who smells of Brut, he will growl and bare his teeth at anyone of that ilk he encounters.)
However, whenever I feel that ideology is distorting the truth, I always caution myself: I might be wrong. I have a tendency towards a certain naiveté when it comes to politics, dating from way, way back.
In the early 1950’s, when I was in the 8th grade and then starting High School, the airwaves and the newspapers were full of anti-Soviet propaganda. Most of it dealt with Russia’s designs on the United States, but some of it described the horrors that Stalin was inflicting on his own people. Correctly assessing the non-existence of the Communist threat within our country, I mistakenly assumed that the propaganda about Stalin’s evil deeds was equally preposterous. How wrong I was about that. Stalin’s starvation, exile, murder and imprisonment of whole communities in Russia was worse than the evils conjured up on his behalf in Washington.
Still, from what I know (which, of course, is only what I learn from the media), I just cannot see the guys in Washington taking enough time off from jockeying for power within the beltway to organize a coup in Ukraine.