How Stupid Do They Think We Are?

[dropcap]C[/dropcap]onsumers of the print or electronic output of the League of Copy Typists and their Instructors are expected to believe many impossible things and believe them, not just before breakfast, but all day too.

• Putin kills his enemies by using spectacular methods that can easily be traced back to Russia and preferably when he’s staging some high-profile event like the Olympics or World Cup.
• Russian submarines only fool around in the waterways of neutral countries whose elites want to get into NATO, never in NATO ones.
• Poison is smeared on the front doorknob. This requires the roof of the house to be replaced.

Come to think it, believing any part of the official Skripal story, from the incredibly lethal nerve agent that didn’t kill them, to the spectacular coincidence of the British Army’s chief nurse being on the scene, to the re-wrapped perfume bottle would tax the White Queen’s ability. Here’s a list. But that’s not to say that we’re finished yet: there always seems to be another absurdity like the dead ducks.

• Assad only uses chemical weapons or nerve agents when he’s winning.
• They bomb hospitals on purpose, we bomb them by accident.
• The USAF bombs with great precision and accuracy. But the cities it bombs are turned into rubble. Its “precision” is indistinguishable from random carpet bombing. Fallujah. Raqqa. Mosul.
• Washington’s enemy-of-the-moment always attacks just when Washington warns it might: vide recent Gulf of Tonkiran episode. Or shoots down innocent drones which are absolutely, positively, in international airspace. Or perhaps they aren’t.
• RT is tremendously effective at influencing people even though nobody you know actually watches it.
• Satellite photos vary between amazingly blurry and sharp as a tack. Obviously some mysterious law of optics is at work here: Russian artillery in Ukraine – blurry; Russian aircraft in Syria – sharp.
• Despite spending billions on intelligence agencies and equipment, NATO depends on Bellingcat and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights for its information. They are credible sources despite being on NATO’s payroll (UK in the case of SOHR and the Atlantic Council in the case of Bellingcat); Russian sources are not credible because they are on Moscow’s payroll.
• Putin is unable to rig elections in Ukraine or Georgia but he does it with ease in the USA and Europe.
• Russia is on the edge of collapse but tremendously powerful (Cleverly termed “Russophrenia” by Bryan MacDonald.)
• Democracies are inherently peaceful but always at war.
• No one knows where refugees come from; they just appear. See above and below. (They were warned.)
• NATO, despite its record in destabilising Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and the Balkans, is a force for stability.
• Sanctions, combined with threats and subversions, are not really an act of war. Even if they kill people in Iraq or Venezuela.
• Brian Hook, the US special representative on Iran, told reporters in Saudi Arabia that Iran “needs to meet diplomacy with diplomacy, not military force.” That statement doesn’t stand up to a millisecond’s consideration – sanctions, reconnaissance aircraft, more fighter planes, troop movements, more troops are not “diplomacy”. But the complaisant media re-prints it with a straight face.
• The US Navy always has the right of way at sea.
• Iran is the principal state sponsor of terrorism; the most deadly terrorist organisation is al Qaida/ISIS. Or so the US State Department has told us for many years. They’re telling us that a Twelver Shiite state is number one but a Sunni Takfiri entity inspired by ibn Taymiyya and Sayyid Qutb, which regards Shiites as even greater enemies, is also number one. Those who say this, over and over again, never quite explain how these two assertions fit together.
• Freedom for same-sex activity is to be encouraged everywhere except in countries where they face the death penalty.
• Russia’s Military Drills Near NATO Border Raise Fears of Aggression. Comment is neither necessary nor possible on that one, is it?
• US declares Venezuela a national security threat, sanctions top officials. Ditto. And that’s from Obama’s time. (“National security threat”? Wow! Little Venezuela?).
• One dollar spent by Russians on Facebook is more effective than 1700 dollars spent by Clinton and Trump. Now that’s PPP!
• An investigation into an airplane crash that gives a suspect veto power and excludes the owner of the aircraft is the gold standard of investigations. Oh, and it’s quite proper to jump to the conclusion before the investigation has even begun. Because, after all, you just knew.
• If you accuse someone of a crime and he doesn’t immediately admit guilt, he’s admitting his guilt. Litvinenko: “Beyond the ‘rogue elements’ theories, pro-Kremlin media outlets in Russia have been pushing a slew of alternative theories“; MH17:The Kremlin’s Many Versions of the MH17 Story or Skripal: “Russia is pushing these 15 mutually contradictory theories to claim they weren’t behind the nerve agent attack“. Why don’t you just ‘fess up and stop wasting our time, Putin?
• AIPAC is not a foreign lobby and therefore is not a matter for FARA.
• Because we are proponents of the Rules-Based International Order we can violate the Vienna Convention whenever we want to and try to force military coups in neighbouring countries. And have as many uninvited soldiers in Syria as we want.

Pseudo psychology explains geopolitics. And pretty idiotically too: a whole country on the couch. “Russia is more insecure and paranoid“, “a kind of neurotic disorder that renders Russia’s sense of insecurity” “The deep sense of humiliation, the dread of arrogant Westerners, the fear of NATO encirclement.” or maybe it’s not the whole country, just Putin: Putin’s insecure because of Russia’s “diminished role in the world“. “Well, Russian President Vladimir Putin is a textbook case of someone with a serious inferiority complex.” Anyway, some gasbag pseudo-psychology explains it: there’s no reality, Russia/Putin is just naturally paranoid. Probably nothing you can do about it.

NATO is just going along, minding its own business when, entirely without provocation, hostile nations try to destabilise the world, interfere with freedom of navigation, assault the Rules-Based International Order, and otherwise force NATO to react. From a current Pentagon study: “Russia is adopting coercive strategies that involve the orchestrated employment of military and nonmilitary means to deter and compel the US, its allies and partners prior to and after the outbreak of hostilities.” “Deter and compel” – poor little NATO, so weak, so bullied! Russia does this because of its “deep-seated sense of geopolitical insecurity” which it has just because it has. (More geopolitical pseudo-psychology.)

And, finally, Putin is interfering in the West’s interference in another country.