And within a capitalist system, that polling is conducted in the marketplace: "supply & demand".
Is that a problem?
Seems to me willing business partners that adhere to the rules established for their trade group is entitled to the benefits of such commerce.
Violating those rules subjects eligibility for such trade to sanction.
That was during the Biden administration, right?
It doesn't seem like something Biden would be inclined to do.
Biden may not have been the sharpest knife in the drawer, but he knew Russia fed this fuel to our allies in Western Europe.
And anyone with the authority to order the U.S. military to do this would have known:
- even laymen like us know that, so
- they're not going to evade being identified as the perpetrator for long
What did it accomplish?
If Russia had thoroughly collapsed, raising a thick, choking cloud of dust, resulting in the immediate total withdrawal of all Russian military troops from Ukraine we might understand.
That didn't happen.
Nothing similar happened.
So, why? Ignorance? Unrealistic expectation?
That's an economic benefit.
Is it persuasive evidence it was a decisive element in the decision to conduct the operation?
Supply & demand does not work in the US market place dominated by monopolies.
Like with health care where you prepay insurance as they say or be denied any access at all.
Back in the 1960s you could buy cars getting 50 mpg for $1.5k that were easy to work on compared to the electronic nightmares they now start at $30k.
The cars they sell are not what people really want, but the makers have used EPA rules to greatly increase their emissions and make cars much bigger than they should be.
They do not test total emissions, but parts per million, greatly selecting for larger cars that pollute much more.
Cars now last 10 years instead of 35 like they used to.
The rules of the trade groups are illegal, based on extortion.
For example, sanctioning Venezuela for daring to claim ownership of their own oil, instead of letting US companies steal it.
Economic sanctions are just totally criminal, violating every principle of the Bill of Rights.
Biden was an awful president because he was the most willing to take bribes in exchange for illegal acts like blowing up the Nord Stream Pipeline.
Remember it was Hunter Biden who likely was the bag man for cash bribes for the Maidan Coup in the Ukraine in 2014.
Looking back at speeches when he supported racism and illegal wars, it is pretty clear he was on the take all along.
You keep mentioning how Russia was fueling out allies, but that is the last thing the US would want, since it would increase cooperation and profits between Russia our allies.
The US would want to blow that up, to extort our allies into following only whatever we say.
We then could charge whatever we wanted for our shipped LNG, and for our "allies" to cheer whatever we wanted then to.
Things like placing explosives on the Nord Stream pipeline would be totally secret.
We have lots of secret operatives, like SEAL teams, that do whatever they are told, and the public is never knows.
For example, the Gulf of Tonkin incident was actually caused by SEAL teams illegally murdering local politicians in North Vietnam.
Which is a war crime that no one ever cared or wrote about.