280 Comments

1. Scott:

Given the BBC footage of the Russian troops apparently digging in http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/08/021260.php and no indications of them leaving, what are the odds that Russia is looking for more of a regime-change than is presently being offered? One of the basic points of Russian historical foreign policy was the need to control their immediate neighbors — with their present advantageous position, why stop as long as a non-client regime is still in control of Georgia?

After the local government has been sufficiently modified (cowed/replaced/etc.), Russia could withdraw the greater part of its troops and simply leave the remainder in place as ‘advisors’ that have been ‘invited by local authorities’. Which would fulfill the basic demands of the present ‘linkages’, while still accomplishing Russia’s goals.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:46 am 2. Lifeofthemind:

Hellish 12 hours. My macbook died and I’m on my blackberry. Disaster since I am job hunting. Very concerned about Turkey. The amazing thing is the ability of western intellectuals to turn a strong horse into a weak one. For whatV it is the treason of the clerics again. Expect to not hear much of Obama’s weak performance compared to McCain last night.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:54 am 3. Pajamas Media » Russia Cuts Georgia in Half:

[...] Read the entire post here. [...]

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:55 am 4. Lifeofthemind:

Ie this letting me post by Blackberry? My macbook died. Life is hell as I am job hunting. Bad timing.ukraine beeds help,not much around from new Nato.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:08 am 5. Annoy Mouse:

Russia has moved into Georgia reflexively and their invariable intransigence on the matter will potentially give them a bargaining position that goes beyond Georgian sovereignty. Russia’s geography and historical uncertainty of its boundaries has ultimately driven them south into warmer climes and seaports. It is through this area and to Tehran that they have most exerted their reaching influence. Russia has solely propped up Tehran and through them, kept the Middle East in a state of near war. One by one nations will have to decide whom they believe, those who promulgate the enlightened principles of freedom, democracy, and the rule of law, or inveigled paranoiac dreams of Left wing conspiracy mongers who are certain that corporate business has a plan for a global fascist state.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:09 am 6. Hope Muntz:

History suggests that the most foolish possible thing the Russians can do is to continue occupying parts of Georgia. Let me count the ways:

1. It inspires the Georgians to mount a permanent Chechen-style guerrilla campaign against them.

2. It advertises to the world the traditional excesses, laziness, and corruption of Russian garrison troops, who swiftly turn allies into enemies.

3. It militarizes its neighbors.

4. It destroys its moral authority in the region and sanctions US counter-moves.

From the viewpoint of future US foreign policy, nothing could possibly be more helpful than a series of ‘mini-Afghanistans’ for Russia.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:27 am 7. Valerie:

What were the Russian apologists saying last week? Wasn’t it that we have no worry, the invaders would be gone in a couple of days? Meanwhile, Ukraine is more and more nervous, asking for help. http://voanews.com/english/2008-08-16-voa6.cfm

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:38 am 8. programmer:

The Monk Mayo asked this question of the Sixth patriarch: “What is Zen?” the Patriarch replied that, “when your mind is not dwelling on the dualism of good and evil, what is your original face before you were born?”

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:52 am 9. Lifeofthemind:

As I read the map and forces Rumania can offer maybe one division to Ukraine, Bulgaria and Hungary need to keep their eyes on Serbia and Poland would have its hands full. Best we can hope for is anothr couple of divisions from Italy and France. Anyone want to put money on that happenning? The US needs to move on Iran now to restore our flexibility later. A clear indication of neutrality by the Serbs would also be a nice gift.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:01 am 10. Nomenklatura:

This isn’t really about Georgia at all. It’s about the Ukraine, the Crimea Russia’s access to the Black Sea via Sevastopol. Look at the map.

Russia is out to anesthetize European reaction to its upcoming pressure on the Ukraine by demonstrating that the Europeans are too timid to do anything to protect Georgia.

The Russian plan is a good one, and it’s working. This was inevitable once both the Europeans denied NATO membership to the Ukraine and Georgia, and the oil price went up so Russia acquired both cash and political leverage.

The Europeans aren’t talking about the Ukraine because they really, really don’t want to have to think about it.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:02 am 11. Larry:

Why keep mentioning Putin? His army invaded Georgia while he was at the Olympics. He hasn’t been seen or heard from since he left Beijing. Would he have let a Soviet-era general make a crude threat of nuclear attack against Poland, a NATO member? Notice that neither the Russian foreign minister nor the Russian president objected to the general’s threat. Is Putin still in charge, or is it the Russian military?

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:13 am 12. V.B. Bart:

First of all, a thank you to all who have been posting here at R.F.’s wonderful blog — it has been a pleasure and a deep education reading all of your comments (also a lot of fun — you’ve had me laughing out loud quite a bit too with your particular brand of Belmontian tart wit). I’ve been more than content to just read along, but this morning I would like to add a small comment if I may.
It’s about something someone said in one of the older threads (sorry, I can’t remember who it was after reading hundreds of comments here), and I hope Richard will not mind this somewhat tangential comment given the current topic, but it is about linkage of a sort. Someone made a “what if” post: what if Obama were to turn up in Moscow, whisper a few sweet nothings in Putin’s ear, and magically the Russian tanks would pack up and go home. That would surely show that He is The One. It would certainly be a big boost to The Obam’s flagging campaign. Not a bad kick-off for the Demo shindig in Denver either…..
Well, my wee brain must have been turning this idea over as I slept last night, because I awoke this morning thinking about it, and thinking of the golden thread that runs through it. Who was instrumental in supporting the campaign of Saakashvili for President of Georgia ? Who is the primo supporter and financial backer of Obama? Who has admitted to being more than a little messianic himself? Who would do anything to help Obama’s faltering campaign? Who knows Putin well (though I don’t know much about their connection)? Who is also getting on in years, so that The Obam might be his last, best chance to effect the regime change he craves for America? One guy: George Soros.
Is this anything more than my poor old brain being loopy in my sleep? Dunno. But it will be interesting to see whether The Obam turns up for a confab with Volodya, and what might come of it.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:13 am 13. Lifeofthemind:

Nomenklatura,
Bingo.what help does Ukraine need in sealing off Sevastapol? What can be done about Novosiirisk and the rail line South from Sochi?

The people who must be furious about Russia’s new policy of redrawing the colonial borders dhe herself created should be the Africans and the Arabs. Russia could lose backing in the UN General Assembly if US diplomats do their jobs.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:15 am 14. E. Nigma:

It is been logically posited that Ukraine is “next on the list”.
My guess is that sometime next winter, when the ground is frozen, Mother Russia will close the gas valves that supply Ukraine. “Oops, we have a problem here.” There will be gestures and recrimination, loud talk. After a few weeks pass,when the Ukrainians are literally freezing, the Panzers will roll into Ukraine from Russia and the Ukrainians will knuckle under. NATO will do nothing, the US will be between governments, and will be hamstrung.

I am begining to think that the timing of the Georgian adventure is actually meant as a prelude to the more valuable Ukraine. Georgia now, in fair weather. Ukraine next, in the cold of winter, when Russian leverage is greatest.

Welcome to the New World Order.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:15 am 15. El Jefe Maximo:

The Russians appear to be trying to reduce Georgia to Vichy French status, so an occupied zone and a rump state probably fill their bill at the moment. Putin has to have a Georgian state to legitimize whatever terms he finally decides he wants to impose, and Vichy Georgia can serve as a useful example to other recalcitrants. I’m thinking more of the Stans than the Ukraine or the Baltic States.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:20 am 16. Cannoneer No. 4:

Khrushchev was Ukrainian, a fact that Russian Imperialists will make much of in future efforts to undermine Ukraine.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:34 am 17. Cannoneer No. 4:

U.S. C-17 military cargo plane presented on Hungarian base

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:36 am 18. Cannoneer No. 4:

Russian speakers in Ukraine say the lack of state recognition for the biggest linguistic minority in Europe amounts to discrimination

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:56 am 19. Cannoneer No. 4:

no one can have any doubts anymore about what Russia’s true face is

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:08 am 20. Doug:

Kremlin Says Troops Will Begin Georgia Withdrawal
French President Nicolas Sarkozy told Russia that there would be “serious consequences” if Russian compliance with the accord was not rapid and complete.
—–
Good to have “The Kremlin” in the headlines again.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:08 am 21. Lifeofthemind:

Hate even acknowledging a voice from the Lubyanka but I did note the other day that we have a four handed chess game with Bush, China,Putin and Soros. Remembering the Polish joke about two bullets. In this case the Russians are the business priority.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:12 am 22. John Samford:

Actually, we DO have the military means to push the Russians out. We just don’t have politicians with hte spine to use it.
It is called the U.S. Air Force. Cut the Soviet, er…..Russian supply lines and see how tough they are when the fuel and ammo run out. Once that happens, the Georgians can deal with them.
WW3? Bring it on! The Russians are bluffing. And if they are not, then we will win it and get on down the road. This is all happening now because of what Puttie saw when he looked into Bush’s eyes.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:28 am 23. Doug:

We had the means at the outset (B-2′) to avoid the affair.
Instead, DOS implored Georgia to take coninued escalation w/o responding.
Should have closed the tunnel after 10% of the invasion had passed, then been magnanimous by insisting Georgia take good care of the Soviet Troops until Vlad could arrange a return trip by air.
But here we are, latest headline inspires hope.
Which Springs Eternal.
(well, that and spare change)

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:37 am 24. steveaz:

I had dinner last night with a Left-oid acquaintance who mouthed the typical “anti-war” talking points during Bush’s invasion of Iraq.

But, when the topic of Georgia came up, and the only thing he would say on the topic was that this proves that America needs to “get off of Oil.” Then he changed the subject.

I write this to say that his rhetorical dodge mirrors Europe’s exactly. When America intervenes in a region militarily the lesson is that we are unwanted hegemonic invaders killing people for oil. But when Russia intervenes in a region militarily the “deeper lesson” is that Americans are “hooked” on oil and must change our society’s consumption habits.

The net effect of this rhetorical dodge is to rationalize a deep-seated denial that America can ever act in positive ways on the world stage, which is the memetic base for much of the anti-American propaganda spewed in international-ist fora around the globe.

Another twist: right now, the Left distinguishes between Russia’s invasion of Georgia and the U.S.’s interventions: theirs are OK, ours are bad. But, when The Lancet Journal reports the numbers of dead civilians in Georgia next month, I expect the Left will resort to equivocation instead – as in, “So what if they killed civilians, they’re just as bad as we are!”

It seems as if America’s elites want us to disarm all of our defensive faculties unilaterally, the intellectual ones right along with the material ones, such as land-mines and nukes.

Programmer’s onto something: It’s as if the Left was never weaned intellectually. Don’t these guys ever grow up?

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:43 am 25. sirius_sir:

Kruschev was Ukrainian

And Stalin was Georgian, born in Gori. Maybe the Russians simply want to go back to their soviet roots and reclaim the city for national identity purposes.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:43 am 26. Doug:

A Times reporter traveling between Tskhinvali, which is the South Ossetian capital, and Gori saw extensive sections of villages that had been burned. And refugees continued to flee areas through which the Russian military had passed.

Food shortages were also developing.

A railway bridge at Kaspi, east of Gori, was destroyed, apparently after explosives were placed under its spans.

Georgia said the Russians were trying to undermine its economy by destroying civilian infrastructure. General Nogovitsyn said the Russians played no role in the damage.

“We are now in peacetime,” he said. “Why should we be blowing up bridges when our job is to restore?
We are hard at work.”

At least three Mi-24 helicopter gunships, among the most feared weapons in Russia’s conventional arsenal, patrolled the skies to Gori’s east.

Sergey Lavrov, the Russian foreign minister, has said Russian troops would serve a peacekeeping role to restore order in the territories they had occupied.
There were scenes that belied this.

In Abkhazia, a convoy of Russian military trucks was seen towing away Georgian coastal patrol craft confiscated from a Georgian port on the Black Sea…

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:44 am 27. Teresita:

John Samford: WW3? Bring it on! The Russians are bluffing. And if they are not, then we will win it and get on down the road.

World Wars typically have fatalities numbering in the tens of millions of people, mostly civilians, and you would trade all those lives over a breakaway province the size of a postage stamp with the population of Portland, Maine. Besides I thought WWIII was the Cold War, and WWIV was the War Against Terror. That makes your World War WWV. V for Victory, I guess.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:45 am 28. Cannoneer No. 4:

The new cold war hots up

Vadim, a South Ossetian militiaman, raced through the deserted Georgian streets, a Soviet Makarov pistol in one hand and a Kalashnikov in the other. Dishevelled, unshaven and wild-eyed, he was searching for someone to kill.

As heavy artillery rounds exploded on the edge of town, we came across other civilian cars and minivans with Russian numberplates crammed with Vadim’s fellow South Ossetian militiamen. Like Vadim, who was in a tattered camouflage uniform and white trainers, they looked wild and menacing. They wore white armbands to identify them to the Russian army as friendly forces.

Some hid their faces behind black balaclavas.

On Friday, Russia even threatened Poland with nuclear retaliation for agreeing to host US rockets as part of its antimissile shield. Not that Vadim cared about the geo-political picture. He shouted obscenities at a frightened young woman as we drove by in a side street.

“Wouldn’t mind f***ing one of these Georgian girls,” he said.

Most disturbing were reports that in some incidents the paramilitaries had taken young women as sex slaves.

“A car with a family fleeing their village was stopped by the militias,” said Georgy, a Georgian army commander. “They grabbed the man’s two young daughters and dragged them away at gunpoint. Their father could do nothing to stop them. We have no idea what’s happened to them. They have disappeared.”

In South Ossetia itself, vengeful militiamen were moving into deserted ethnic Georgian villages on what they said was a mopping-up operation to “find Georgian saboteurs and looters”.

As they advanced they carried out widespread looting and burnt houses in an apparent ethnic cleansing campaign to ensure locals did not return.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:54 am 29. sirius_sir:

V.B.Bart, the Obama play would make things even more interesting. If he was successful in getting the Russians to play nice and go home, it would cement his role as the messiah. But what if he weren’t? I doubt either the Republicans or the Democrats are confident enough to put any such proposal to the test. But I’ve been wrong before and no doubt will be again.

On the other hand, Sarkozy has already deeply invested himself in this crisis. He’s come back with a piece of paper which now both sides have signed. Peace in our time, right? We shall see soon enough. But unlike some who have already labeled Sark a modern day Chamberlain, I’m not so sure. He seems not one to take kindly to being doublecrossed or lied to. And even Chamberlain, though he still probably wouldn’t have acted, saw the light after the fact.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:59 am 30. M. Simon:

Scott,

Digging in is not a sign of strength. It is a sign of weakness. My guess is that the Russians can’t supply enough fuel to keep its vehicles mobile. At the very least in mobile warfare you park your vehicles and are prepared to roll at a moments notice.

There is also a report of Russians burning one of their own APCs which broke down.

All signs of forces long in tooth short in tail. i.e. just the way it has been for 70 years.

Is it possible the Americans will wind up with a Black Sea port?

I have a few more words along these lines at:

Russians In Georgia Demobilize.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:02 am 31. Lifeofthemind:

I’m back. Dragged the antique HP PC out and got back on the Internet. So far the Ivans have not done things we would expect if this was working for them.
1. They have not killed or captured Saakashvili.
2. They have not paraded prisoners.
3. They have have not held public meetings with staunch fraternal allies. Not even the Byelorussians are onboard.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:14 am 32. Paul:

As it appears that we have been denied use of Incyrlik. We need to find a way to project our air power over Georgia and enforce a no fly zone .

Bush needs to harshly condemn Russia for burning villages, pillaging and stealing, enslaving the local populace, murdering civilians, and destroying Georgian infrastructure. He should say due to the gross atrocities committed by the Russians, that we have not choice but to enforce a no fly zone to help end the violence against the Georgian people.

Then we should stealthly destroy the Roki Tunnel for good.

Then begin stealth spec ops operations against the Russians and severely bleed them.

Then have Saakashvilli go on TV and say that the Georgian Government hasn’t been fully successful in restraining their troops from violating the cease fire when there is widespread news of Russian troops raping Georgian women and killing innocent civilians.

The American Allies must loudly and repeatedly accuse the Russians of vile atrocities.

Use the Russian reign of terror against them.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:16 am 33. Doug:

UKRAINE RAISES HEAT WITH MISSILE OFFER TO USA…

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:17 am 34. Doug:

“Just hours before Mr Medvedev put his signature to the ceasefire deal, Russian forces blew up a Georgian railway bridge on the main line west of the capital, Tbilisi, an act that critics interpreted as a malacious attempt to cripple the country’s infrastructure. Moscow at first issued a denial, but television footage shot by the Reuters news agency clearly showed the bridge’s twisted remains.

Ukraine said it was ready to give both Europe and America access to its missile warning systems after Russia earlier annulled a 1992 cooperation agreement involving two satellite tracking stations. Previously, the stations were part of Russia’s early-warning system for missiles coming from Europe.

Meanwhile, disturbing reports of abuse of ethnic Georgians in captured parts of the disputed region emerged.
A group of captive soldiers were paraded in the streets of the South Ossetian capital, Tskinvali, and the bodies of at least 40 dead troops rotted in the sun.
“

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:23 am 35. Lifeofthemind:

@sirius_sir,
Chamberlain declared war on Hitler. It was his personal call to make and after he stepped down as PM he was the driving force behind setting up the British Special Operations Executive (SOE). Do not underestimate educated gentlemen. There can be steel under the velvet.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:24 am 36. sirius_sir:

It occurs to me that even were the Russians to abide by the terms of the cease-fire and return to territory occupied before this crisis erupted, they would still in effect control S. Ossetia (and perhaps also Abkhazia) and so reap benefit from this aggression. At that time the border between S. Ossetia and Georgia would become the new point of departure–the new normal–for future operations.

It would seem, judging by recent proclaimations, President Bush recognizes this danger and is taking pains to ensure such an eventuality doesn’t materialize. (All the while, ironically, many of his nominally intellectual superiors seem oblivious.) The problem, of course, is that many in the international community will gladly welcome such an outcome as being a peaceful resolution to hostilities. This will be a huge concession to the Russians if allowed to occur.

Better to make the breakaway regions neutral and demilitarized. Make the citizens choose their loyalty. Those wishing to retain their foreign passports and be Russian should be allowed to go to Russia, where they no-doubt will be welcomed. Those wishing to stay in S. Ossetia and partake of the advantages of modern Georgia should be allowed to choose that course as well.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:25 am 37. John Samford:

Teresita, here is some wisdom from the ages;

“There is no avoiding war; it can only be postponed to the advantage of
others.”
- Niccolò Machiavelli

“War is the remedy that our enemies have chosen, and I say let us give them
all they want.”
- General William T. Sherman

Your mistake is thinking that WWV can be avoided. It can but only at a cost greater then war. And I’m thinking that the dead will number in the billions this time.

“A single death is a tragedy; a million deaths is a statistic.”
Joseph Stalin
Georgian Soviet politician (1879 – 1953)
Uncle Joe should know.
So tell me, how will surrender lower the death toll? Socialists are famous for killing more of their citizens in peace then in war.
No, if you want to surrender, go ahead. Just don’t expect me and mine to. We will fight to the bitter end and you are the enemy.
What you fail to grasp is that the time to fight is NOW, while the body counts can be kept low. Avoiding war now, just makes it inevitable later, when the blood price will be much greater.
To re-state your question, do you want to fight now in a postage stamp sized country with a fraction of the population of a Major American city, or do you want to fight later, with Europe and it’s 400 million as the battlefield?
Putin has made war inevitable. Anyone who thinks otherwise is as delusional as Chamberlain.

“The quickest way of ending a war is to lose it.”
George Orwell, Polemic, May 1946, “Second Thoughts on James Burnham”
English essayist, novelist, & satirist (1903 – 1950)

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:32 am 38. Lifeofthemind:

@Paul
To a point, Yes. THe Russians blow a bridge? We can provide targeting data and assistance to Georgian special forces blowing bridges.

We can fly from Mosul, dare the Turks to stop us. Hate seeing an elected government fall to a military coup but the Turks are getting close. Worst case for the Turks, which I do not expect or even desire, is the Kurds get a state, the Greeks get Cyprus and the Ukrainians get Constantinople.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:35 am 39. 2x4:

Some important info that ties to Fedya scenario in the previous discussion:

Timeline – How a flat tire started the war

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/2570754/Georgia-conflict-How-a-flat-tyre-took-the-Caucasus-to-war.html

Whether there was really a flat tire or not, the satellite images prove Russian duplicity.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:41 am 40. neolex:

@wretchard

The ultimate Russian revenge on Ukraine would to splitting the country in 2, not merely taking Crimea. Although, there is presently no physical conflict or unrest of any kind in Ukraine, East and West are in a state of constant political war, Eastern party being constantly propped up by Russia. The ultimate danger is that Russia would catalyze a violent resistance from the Eastern half of the country against the Western part, who are not in control, thus bringing about civil war, which Russia will promptly “attempt to quell” by inserting it’s troops. There is no point to settle on Crimea, as they can with slightly more efforts and almost no downsides get the East as well. Most of the Ukrainian industria capacity and natural resources are located in the East. US is afraid to sign a treaty with Ukraine akin to one that it just signed with Poland, because the tripwire does not guarantee Russia not stepping on it, at which point US would not want to confront Russia directly. Hence, it is waiting to get Ukraine into NATO, so that any response can be international, but we can already see how effective NATO is. Given that membership action plan could be presented to Ukraine in December at the earliest, it might take a while for it to happen, even if there is no opposition within NATO. By that time, it might be too late.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:48 am 41. sirius_sir:

Lifeofthemind, thank you for the clarification.

But too bad Chamberlain didn’t have his moment of clarity sooner, no?

I’m just now rereading Shirer’s Rise and Fall of the Third Reich. The part about Czechoslavakia is especially pertinent and interesting.

As to educated gentlemen, you are no doubt correct, but in my estimation Chamberlain was an educated fool and was taken for one by Hitler.

Largely ignored (or completely unknown) in all the current emphasis about meeting and talking with our enemies is the fact that sometimes doing so goes counter to intentions. Some of us know Churchill’s reaction (He called it, “The complete surrender of the Western Democracies”) but most people don’t know that prior to Munich a good many German generals were planning a coup against Hitler, so convinced were they that aggression against the Czechs would lead to Germany’s ruin. They were in the long run right, of course, but in the immediate aftermath of “Peace in our time” they realized a coup attempt would not be propitious. And so Schirer is left wondering if Chamberlain may not have single-handedly guaranteed the onslaught of the Second World War.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:58 am 42. NahnCee:

Seems to me that this is a real good time to introduce the Russians to the concept of IEDs.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:59 am 43. Lifeofthemind:

sirius_sir,
Understand that my loyalties would be with Churchill on this issue, as on others. Nevertheless I believe that Chamberlain would be appaled at the thought of being linked with a low brow like Pat Buchanan. He was an honorable man who made a catastophic error and faced it. Chuchill’s eulogy to Chamberlain in the House is worth reading. Not a fan usually of Free Republic but for having this I thank them.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:18 am 44. sigintel:

The complexity of the US mounting an air strike against the Russian tanks in Georgia is high. A4’s would be ideal for hedge hopping along with high altitude smart bombs dropped from B2’s. If there is any action, it has to be under the NATO flag to get Turkey to allow the use of the Incrylik airbase in southern Turkey. I don’t see the US making any kind of unilateral move without NATO and the response by NATO and the EU to the rape of Georgia by the Russians has been totally lame and the 60 year old NATO looks “toothless”.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:24 am 45. poul:

Nomenklatura:

This isn’t really about Georgia at all. It’s about the Ukraine, the Crimea Russia’s access to the Black Sea via Sevastopol. Look at the map.

bingo.

neolex:

@wretchard

The ultimate Russian revenge on Ukraine would to splitting the country in 2, not merely taking Crimea.

bingo bingo bingo.

this is the “stretch goal” as they say in KGB. the best possoble outcome for putin.

now, ukrainian government is democratic, unlike fascist georgian, and hard to beat or subdue, but it is still a nationalistic government; and about the half of ukrainian population are either ethnic russians or rusified ukrainians, more on the east. they felt uneasy under ukranian nationalists, with mandatory ukranian language and discrimination at government jobs – putin can play at it now that ukraine violated its promises to russia at crimea. quality of life is also much higher in russia – hard to imagine a better propaganda card.

incidentally, most of heavy industries of ukraine are on the east (russian) side.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:24 am 46. poul:

wretchard,

i don’t believe russians are planning to stay where they are. they are positioned so ossetins and abkhazians can finish up eithnic cleansing and mop up all georgians, to create defensible, ethnically homogeneous zones. this is eactly what russians meant when they told russia to forget about it.

when it’s done, they’ll fall back, leaving daily chafing contacts (that no army needs) with georgians to local irregulars (who thrive on this sort of things).

the only way out of this mess is preemptively recognize independence of ossetia and abkhazia, and send UN troops on the borders.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:30 am 47. Peter:

What are the Russkies going to do come winter, when the passes through the Causasus Mountains fill with snow?
What will the Sov, er Russkies going to do when the IEDs start popping?
What will they do when the Russian aircraft mechanis and armor mechanis revert to form and show up with a belly full of Vodka? Russian maintenance men will eventually break a cannonball with a feather duster.
What will the Russians do when the Georgians hire a few thousand US veterans that have become experts in guerilla warfare due to our Iraq/Afghanistan involvement?
Sorry, Russia has never recovered from WW2, nor will they. There is a reason they lost in Afghanistan, there is a reason they have a shrinking population and they die younger than many other third world countries.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:32 am 48. sirius_sir:

I believe that Chamberlain would be appaled at the thought of being linked with a low brow like Pat Buchanan.

Was not my intention.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:42 am 49. cjm:

the honorable thing for chamerlain to have done, would have been to put a bullet in his mush filled head. the man was a disgrace and a monster in his own right. but you toast his name, with your white gloved hands.

it looks like bush is working to put pressure on russia from many points at once. this just may cause the place to implode; maybe faster than anyone could dream of.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:45 am 50. sirius_sir:

the only way out of this mess is preemptively recognize independence of ossetia and abkhazia, and send UN troops on the borders.

Probably exactly what the Russians are hoping.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:45 am 51. buddy larsen:

@VB Bart: Re George Soros, he is said to be anti-Putin, yet his media outlets preach an attitude that Putin would design to weaken USA. He does appear to be megalomaniacal, and he does play just off the center stage occupied by the leaders of world governments (ask Brits whose Pound savings emerged from Soro’s embrace at a fraction of previous purchasing power). I searched [ soros british pound ] and turned up something trustworthy, from Forbes’ Investopedia.com series “the Great Investors”.

I happened to note two different crawlers on FoxBizNews on Friday, that Lehman Bros (NYSE: LEH) says it “may get out of the commercial real estate market” and “George Soros is taking a large position in Lehman Bros”.

Bear in mind Soros’ 1992 Pound attack has a slogan “The Man Who Broke the Bank of England” (which pulled the Pound out of the european exchange system), and his 1997 Thai Baht attack precipitated directly the “Asian Financial Crisis” –which you should search & get a feel for –Soros wins big, citizens & ‘long’ investors lose big, characterize both these crises.

The current USA financial mess is battering currencies (dollar & euro) in sequence as it adds to the oil-price shock to pull first USA and now EU into slowdown/recession.

The whole thing has happened in domino fashion, with ‘confidence’ in the role of the gravity which pulls down the dominos, and is rather incredibly based on a very small relative number of mortgage defaults.

The leverage which is doing this is the reverse of the leverage which, when it was pushed out and pushed out until it had to fail (first failures to hit American awareness was (cough)Lehman Bros “auction rate securities”) and start the de-leveraging which is now loose as a vicious cycle in the housing market, where falling prices sink mortgages under water, which causes credit to dry up, which kills profits, which kills markets themselves.

Center problem, which bank-stock raiders have often exploited, is that banks are set up to be safe but to also create economic growth, meaning the percent of hard reserves which must be kept against deposits is set by law very low. Hence we’re seeing bank failures now, tho the number is small (FDIC has a ”watch” list) and creating inflation as the gov’t pours liquidity into the system.

Soros locates a weakness, and then places huge bets, timed to leverage off mood and temperament, in order to start “runs” on the system order in which he has located or created a chaotic subsystem.

The first failures, in Lehman & Bear Stearns hedge funds, turn out to’ve been mortgage-backed securities in which the original mortgages had been leveraged 30 to 1. Why alarm bells in the US banking system didn’t start flashing at half that, i do not know. Where was FDIC? Where was congress –specifically Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services Committee and the push behind the recent emergency bail-out, the $300 bbl housing bill (which is alluded to elsewhere on this site as including payments to indicted vote-fraud organization ACORN)?

…now, take a look at this email being sent around among investors & gold bugs (i’ve rec/ it several times now, from people i know):

“According to a July 29 Pravda article, an anonymous Russian diplomat revealed that the “Russian administration believes the United States may soon suffer from a serious political crisis.” The sequence begins with a financial crash, advances to political unrest and finally to the dissolution of American military power. As the Russian diplomat warned, “America is standing on the verge of a large-scale crisis of its own existence.”

…and here are the ”publications” listed in the very short & far from comprehensive, but politically untainted Investopedia article:

“The Alchemy Of Finance” by George Soros (1988)
“Soros On Soros: Staying Ahead Of The Curve” by George Soros(1995)
“Open Society: Reforming Global Capitalism” by George Soros(2001)
“The Bubble Of American Supremacy: Correcting The Misuse Of American Power”by George Soros(2003)
“Soros: The Life And Times Of A Messianic Billionaire” by Michael Kaufman(2002)

I have no conclusions to offer –but we may be under a larger attack than we realize. Forewarned is forearmed.

Market volatility has been huge –professionals are shaking their heads in wonder at it. The volatility is chasing many accounts to the sidelines, assuring the low volumes which magnify large trades and enable even sharper volatility swings, which further erode ma & pa citizen’s confidence in the national integrity.

How to fight this attack –even if KGB is not involved, at the minimum large hedge funds on the short side are relentlessy hammering our stocks, which is enriching the bears and clobbering the bulls. “Bears” –heh heh. I’m not selling into the mess, tho i’m way down, maybe 15% from my recent high –in fact I’m buying –latest purch is a domestic drilling rig builder, the biggest, which i won’t name in respect of Wretchard’s site.

One last note, many investors have been heartened to see oil & gold really nose-dive seemingly due to the Dollar gain. This could represent a USA victory over the financial attack which has been ongoing (since about the time of the 2006 election but i won’t go there), or (and this is circulating among the Depends-Wearers) it could a combination of central bank intervention to prop the Dollar, contemporaneous with these same dark funds dumping the two ”fear indicators” oil & gold –in order to ‘’shrink the footprint” of the Rus invasion during its initial stage when world people might’ve otherwise taken the process out of rus control, say in the even of a superspike which would have really caused anger at the rus. Either way we’ll soon know –if they are that smart, and if the dollar is rising on central bank intervention, or that and a Euro confidence collapse, then we will see gold and oil turn up sharply and the dollar down, in the coming week or weeks perhaps, depending a lot now on the news flow next week, esp the NATO meeting on Tuesday.

I personally think this shit is happening, and i think we’ve already broken the frontal attack. The markets have been fighting a war, blindly in a way, where the sheer amount of wealth and the sheer depth of knowledge and the rule of law and power of communications and confidence in our peers, here in the west, brings buyers in whenever prices get low enough that the reward looks like a good risk.

Information helps. Watch the cable financial stations, Fox and even CNBC, for a lift –lots of financial people talking stocks –business as usual, if business as usual during a rough time.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:47 am 52. sirius_sir:

Making Putin Pay:

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121884390619045939.html?mod=opinion_main_review_and_outlooks

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:49 am 53. Konyok:

It was not until I read wretchard’s links did I become aware that the Russian-Ukrainian friendship treaty expires in December of this year.

Have no doubt about it, if a plebiscite were held in the Crimean Autonomous Republic, anschluss with Russia would win overwhelmingly.

The Russian majority in Crimea was a center of support for Yanukovych and the Regions Party (The Blues). The Orange Revolution in Kyiv was viewed with suspicion and alarm. When Yushchenko won the run off election the results were accepted reluctantly, but, with a largely unspoken hope that closer ties with the west would bring greater prosperity.
The economy has only gotten worse in the three years since. Rising energy prices and devaluation of the hrivnya has only reduced people’s buying power even as more stuff is available to buy.
(I have been very critical of Volodya Putin’s failure to reform the Russian economy. Viktor Yushchenko and both Yanukovych and Tymoshenko as PMs have similarly failed to reform Ukraine. Politics in Kyiv mostly seems to be about which tribe of oligarchs benefits from the next round of privatization, or review of previous rounds. Tymoshenko in particular has spent most of her energies on nationalist symbolism without any significant economic reform. The red tape required to start a business, hire employees or earn self employed income is absolutely surreal. Not only has there been no progress, but new requirements that all official business be conducted in the Ukrainian language have made it more of a nuisance and more expensive – Ukrainian, to some extent, is an artificial language derived from literary usage without a long tradition of legal or contract use. This is a wild exagerration, but think about using Ebonics in a legal context, you would need Barbara Billingsley to translate for you, even if you did vaguely understand. Ukraine remains a country without a viable banking system. There still is not an ATM or business where you could use a credit card in all of Crimea. People still carry their cash money around in shopping bags. The Orange Revolution has not delivered substantive reform or progress.)
Crimea’s chief source of income is tourism, and its chief source of tourists is Russia. Over the last three years the Russians of Crimea have watched as their cousins in Russia grow more affluent. It is becoming apparent that Kyiv will not soon deliver the expected bonanza from close ties with the west. Volodya Putin is a rock star in Crimea and I have heard many expressions of confidence that he will find a way to bring Crimea home so that they can share in Russia’s wealth.
Another incendiary issue is the Crimea Tatars. Expelled by Stalin in 1944 because of some collaboration with the Nazis, Tatars were not allowed to return to Crimea until 1989. The returnees are pressing claims for expropriated properties held by ethnic Russians. Because the Crimean Tatar Majlis supported the Orange Revolution, Kyiv has given them support in their claims. The Russians are outraged because they have completely accepted the narrative that the Tatars are *traitors.*
The most notable political event over the last couple of years has been the protests against the participation of US Marines in the Sea Breeze 2006 exercise. An unlikely alliance of the Communist Party and Russian Orthodox clergy protested the arrival of the marines at Simferopol and then prevented them from travelling to Feodosia. Ultimately their participation was cancelled and the Crimean Duma declared Crimea a “Nato Free Zone.”

When the current treaty was negotiated, Russia used Crimea’s autonomous status as a bargaining chip. When the current treaty expires, the kremlin can be expected to increase its pressure and the Crimean Russians may become surprisingly vocal in their support for the kremlin.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:50 am 54. poul:

sirius_sir:
>> the only way out of this mess is preemptively recognize
>> independence of ossetia and abkhazia, and send UN troops
>> on the borders.

>Probably exactly what the Russians are hoping.

no, they are hoping it won’t happen, it would take away a pretext for their presence in the region.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:58 am 55. Cannoneer No. 4:

Georgia: Russian military entrench themselves deeper

. . . reprisals in Gori have been swift and brutal.

Guja Chumburidze, an unemployed 26-year-old resident, was one of those who fell victim to the wrath of rampaging South Ossetian irregulars, who were able to enter the town as their Russian allies advanced into undisputed Georgian territory.

With his two-month-old son and his ageing mother Iamze, Guja cowered in his home on the outskirts of Gori, listening to the sounds of breaking glass and bursts of gunfire as the irregulars embarked on drunken looting sprees.

Then everything went quiet. Refusing to listen to the pleas of his mother, Guja ventured outside to see if it was safe to look for food.

Within seconds, he was stopped by a gang of looters. They had seen him, they said, on the streets of Tskhinvali, the Ossetian capital. He was a war criminal and a looter and there was only one punishment for looters and war criminals.

“They beat him until he fell to the ground,” said Iamze, who had rushed onto the street to plead for her son’s life. “They shot him in the back of the head.”

Most of the Ossetians, as well as the Chechen irregulars who joined them, were more interested in pillaging, as evidenced by smashed in windows of Gori’s shops, restaurants and banks or robbing motorists of their cars at gunpoint. South Ossetia has long doubled as Georgia’s principal stolen car market.

But many, according to witnesses whose accounts have yet to be verified, also went house-to-house in Georgian villages, both in South Ossetia and outside the breakaway province, on raping and murdering sprees.

Last week, until orders came from Moscow to rein them in, the Russian troops occupying Georgian territory either did little to stop the irregulars from looting or committing atrocities or actively encouraged them.

Manning a checkpoint outside the Georgian town of Kaspi, 25 miles southeast of Gori, four young Chechen soldiers admitted that their South Ossetian allies had carried out reprisals against Georgian civilians – but insisted they were justified.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:58 am 56. Whitehall:

If they don’t go peacebly, make them bleed. There are enough Georgian fighters that, well armed by the US, they will make the Russians wish they never invaded. It won’t take long.

The diplomatic arm seems to be doing well under Rice. Poland, Estonia, and Ukraine are all standing up. Even the French participation is worthwhile. I suspect it will avalanche although Germany will be late to the party.

Another high priority task for the US is to strengthen the Eastern European countries electric grids and help make them independent from Gazprom’s natural gas. US and Japanese subsidies of new nuclear power plants in Poland and Bulgaria would help, to prevent sales of Russian reactors.

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:09 pm 57. sirius_sir:

Poul, Russians will retain ‘presence’ in the region regardless.

As of now, we may safely assume S. Ossetia and Abkhazia are–or are well on the way to being–ethnically cleansed to reflect a putatively ‘Russian’ population. Give them independence, okay. And then months later accept their petition to be recognized as part of a greater Russia.

Of course, introducing U.N. troops is always a nice touch.

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:27 pm 58. Morton Doodslag:

As inept as the West has proven itself to be in dealing with this crisis, at least I have confidence that the nation states of Europe and America when coupled with the newly motivated nation states of Eastern Europe will eventually stare the Imperial Russian Bear down.

This is a good thing, but it’s too bad that those same nation states seem completely incapable of recognizing the other far more serious menace to our collective societies and security: Islam. The war the Muslims are waging is so alien to the type of war which traditional Western nation states are accustomed to, that its main thrust, widespread Islamic insurrection, goes largely unnoticed.

We’re still stuck worrying about Napoleonic style warfare on European soil. It is clear that, while the Soviet Union eventually toppled, that the widespread subversion of Western society through the steady application of leftist infiltration went largely unchallenged. Today much of our Western Press can be relied on to do the bidding of our still living communist enemies. This entire Georgian affair is energetically being depicted by much of the Western press as a failure of Washington, rather than a brazen demonstration of Russian Imperial intentions.

Just so, the widespread insurrection and subversion by growing armies of Islamic adherents continues while our nations still obsess about missile defense, and tank columns. The 5th column in the form of radical leftists has already taken our media and our academia without a peep, and now the 6th column of Muslim invaders continue to wage war while we dither…

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:30 pm 59. Mike Sylwester:

The current crisis is the end of the spread of NATO into the region of the former Warsaw Pact. Neither Georgia nor Ukraine will join NATO. After NATO accepts that reality, much of this tension will relax.

In retrospect, the USA has been reckless in advocating NATO membership for Georgia, which has these persistent ethnic conflicts and which has Russian armed forces based inside Georgia. What were we thinking?

Ukraine can stir up the pot now, but the USA should back enough that we are not perceived to be instigating and provoking an escalation of tensions. We can maintain our support for Georgia and Ukraine while beginning to repair our relationship with Russia.

Dismissing the Russians’ protection of the Ossetians in Georgia as a bogus issue will not help. While we should support Georgia’s independence and borders, we should not whitewash Georgia discrimination and brutality. The USA should position itself as an honest reporter and broker in relation to the Georgian-Ossetian conflict. With our own good example, should prod Russia to position itself likewise.

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:33 pm 60. sirius_sir:

But perhaps our thinking is not that far apart, as per my previous suggestion:

Better to make the breakaway regions neutral and demilitarized. Make the citizens choose their loyalty. Those wishing to retain their foreign passports and be Russian should be allowed to go to Russia, where they no-doubt will be welcomed. Those wishing to stay in S. Ossetia and partake of the advantages of modern Georgia should be allowed to choose that course as well.

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:35 pm 61. Teresita:

E. Nigma: My guess is that sometime next winter, when the ground is frozen, Mother Russia will close the gas valves that supply Ukraine

Ukraine consumed around 80 billion cubic meters (bcm) of natural gas a year in 2004–2005. 20 bcm of that was of Ukraine’s own production.

However, the bulk of Russia’s oil pipeline network feeds into Ukraine for further transport to Germany and Italy, etc. (Warning to Doug, map is a PDF). Ukraine gets paid 17 bcm per year simply as a fee not to turn off this stream between Russia and Europe.

Since the intent is to stop all gas shipment to Ukraine to scare them, or punish them, this means the Russians will have to cut off all the gas for transshipment in their entire southern network (lest Ukraine divert some of this to freezing homes), leaving only one pipe into Poland operating.

So we will get news stories of the mean Russian bear freezing Ukrainian children as the Ukraine is forced to make do with gas supplies at about 1/4 of normal, (no doubt supplemented by a shift to electric space heaters powered by oil shipped from Georgia to Odessa). But we will also have Putin’s cronies steadily being impoverished as they find themselves unable to move most of their natural gas to markets in Europe (since the one pipe in the north will be at capacity). There’s a rising level of pain on both sides.

My bet is that the robber barons in Russia blink first, since they are upstream and don’t get paid until the downstreamers pass the gas through to the final customers.

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:42 pm 62. Konyok:

Mike Sylwester,

I’m still waiting clarification of your argument that Volodya Putin is a great leader of Russia.

Can you explain the benefits to the Russian people, institutions and political processes when Putin decreed that provincial governors would be appointed by the kremlin rather than elected by the people?

Can you even explain the kremlin’s “national security” explanation for that extraordinary power grab?

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:43 pm 63. Konyok:

Teresita,

That is exactly why Volodya’s buddy Gerhard Schroeder is now working for Gazprom – building a pipeline on the bed of the Baltic Sea directly to Germany.

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:46 pm 64. programmer:

Someone above said digging the tanks in is a sign of weakness. In my opinjion, it is a sign of good tactical discipline and experience. Any time a military unit halts in hostile territory, they should immediately start improving their position in case they have to fight there. It takes combat experience to get that internalized into the rank and file. Most soldiers want to flop and light up, at least until the first time they get hit while taking a break. After that, the survivors dig in first, then smoke and flop.

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:50 pm 65. FreeBirdWil:

THE NEW “CUBAN MISSILE CRISIS”

The emanations of the “heart” of Mr. Putin have exposed themselves. Most long-term observers of this man would agree, and many have been saying so for some time, that the former KGB head and professional killer is psychologically driven to create a vicious empire that surpasses that of the former Soviet Union. Mr. Putin’s grab of South Ossetia, , Abkhazia, and democratic Georgia are nothing more than a “throwing down of the gauntlet”, to the USA, NATO, and “the west”. Putin endured the inner humiliation in his developing years of President Kennedy’s “victory” (negotiated trade), in the “Cuban-Missile Crisis” and naval blockade. The U.S.S..R publically went home with it’s “tail between it’s legs” and the USA “clinked their glasses” in “victory” and bathed in years of historical “brilliance”. Now, Putin’s youthfully developed hunger for revenge may have caused him to begin the new empire before he had all his “ducks” in a row.

How will this crisis end? Will another psychotic would-be emperor head for home in public shame or will the “raging heart” refuse logic and survival to reclaim his heritage as the ‘Prideful Savior of Russia”? Adolph Hitler developed his rage after the reportedly “unfair” shame inflicted on his country after WWI (The Treaty of Versailles). Once in power he destroyed those he blamed for Germany’s “shame”, and took along millions of innocents with them (read correctly, the blame was the treaty, he projected that blame psychotically onto the Jews, but took down millions of others, especially Allied Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, Airmen & women, plus citizens all over the world as innocent victims). It has been said so often that “history has a way of repeating itself” so much so that no one really investigates that truth. Well it is true because history it just the report on human behavior. Human behaviors have never changed and never will. Granted there are many forms of human behavior, many quite commendable, but it’s the horrific one’s that get the most “ink”. Pardon my digression; I wanted to focus the historical development of vengeance and rage as a necessary piece of understanding my point.

Mr. Putin HAS thrown down the gauntlet. He is driven by a vengeance and rage that will not permit him to act logically, sensibly, or survivably. Only those others around him have the slightest chance to stop him before we find ourselves in a do or die confrontation like the ‘Cuban-Missile Crisis”. Those around him include his closest friends and associates who “see” his unfortunate condition, those underlings in his power circle who may want to live and do not share his insanity or have not yet succumbed to it, and finally those brave Russian people who so proudly paraded the throwing off of communist masters and dared to stand ready to face decades of economic sacrifice just to taste and breath the instinctual human craving for freedom and self-determination. Barring any of these moving successfully and quickly against him, (as Putin even now evaluates the loyalty and control over the aforementioned “others” and has begun a program of eliminating or gaining leverage over them years ago), he will wreak havoc in this nuclear age.

NATO and the USA, encumbered with economic instability, militaries spread thin in the case of the USA and of confused “playing the middle ground” loyalties in regards NATO, must make quick, hard, firm decisions and move immediately using every channel and display of forceful determination to show the firmness and unity of their hands. Make no mistake, now that Putin has exposed himself He must go “all in” or do the one thing he can never do, humble himself. History marches on, maybe this time we will get a good surprise.

Color me “freebirdwil”, and unfortunately, I did not spent last night in a Holiday Inn Express!

Aug 17, 2008 - 12:53 pm 66. cjm:

our military isn’t spread thin.

Aug 17, 2008 - 1:17 pm 67. Mr. Frank:

I’ve seen nothing about the current state of the Georgian Army. Have they survived to fight another day in an insurgent mode?

Aug 17, 2008 - 1:26 pm 68. buddy larsen:

Cuba –our “Georgia problem” –which except for that Bay of Pigs fiasco, we have never invaded, nor threatened to. Bay of Pigs, what a stupid move. Akin to trying to kill a king, and failing. Had repurcussions, the main one of which had a certain youngster doing hide-under-the-desk drills in a Louisiana classroom. And here we are again, dammit all to hell. “End of History” = unicorns and little pink and blue furry animals all a-frolic.

Aug 17, 2008 - 1:39 pm 69. starling:

Mike Sylwester wrote:

…In retrospect, the USA has been reckless…
…What were we thinking?
…we are not perceived to be instigating…
…We can maintain our support for Georgia…
…to repair our relationship with Russia.
…we should support Georgia’s independence…
…we should not whitewash Georgia discrimination and brutality.
…With our own good example…

Starling wonders if the use of the first person plural (we) and its possessive form (our) is excessive (8 times in 11 sentences). Clearly Mike S. wants his audience to believe that the USA is the “we” to which he refers. Perhaps he hopes that if we accept that “we” , we will accept the flawed premises to which “we” is joined.
Given the Mike’s other posts on other threads, Starling feels compelled to ask: What do you mean by “WE”, Kimosabe?

Aug 17, 2008 - 1:40 pm 70. cjm:

i suspect this is the last go round for the russians. they won’t be getting up off the mat this time.

Aug 17, 2008 - 1:41 pm 71. 2x4:

cjm, izzat just a hunch, or something more tangible what leads you to that conclusion?

Things may get quite a bit iffy before good trumps evil.

Aug 17, 2008 - 1:50 pm 72. neolex:

@cjm
US forces are spread thin. They cannot handle another significant long-term deployment without significant influx of recruits. Simply because democrats use it a talking point, does not automatically make it wrong.

@2×4
Quite iffy indeed. Coming up after the commercial break: Kurds declaring independence, coup in Turkey, bombing of Iran, fall of Saakashvili from power, major disruptions of American internet infrastructure, civil war in Ukraine, anarchy in Pakistan with Indian participation, and civil war in Ukraine (not necessarily in that order, viewer discretion is advised). Stay tuned.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:00 pm 73. Lifeofthemind:

Sylwester says “we” in a sad attempt to pass himself off as an American. No one is really offended because we understand it is just part of his job.in the old days westerners in Moscow would buy two ice creams so their minder could have one.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:08 pm 74. Cannoneer No. 4:

Don’t look at these pics unless you want to be pissed off.

South Ossetian militia. I’ve seen paint ballers more squared away than these assholes.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:10 pm 75. sirius_sir:

Georgians winning hidden victories? A StrategyPage breakdown of how things stand (via Instapundit):
http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htwin/articles/20080817.aspx

The Russian Army bested the Georgian Army, but “The Georgians did better in the air and at sea, even though they were greatly outnumbered there as well. Georgian warplanes shot up the Russians pretty badly (killing the commander of Russian ground forces, for example) before the Russians were able to shut down the Georgian air force. But in the process Russia lost at least four aircraft destroyed, and a number of others badly damaged.

At sea, Georgian missile boats hit several Russian warships, which had not been equipped with equipment, or crews, that were capable of dealing with this kind of threat. Two Russian warships were damaged sufficiently that they had to withdraw from the area. Within a few days, however, Georgia’s miniscule navy and air force were destroyed, largely by the much larger Russian air force.”

Curious speculation alert: “Some Georgians believe that the Russians are still angry about Josef Stalin, a Georgian who killed more Russians than Adolf Hitler. Stalin is still a hero to Georgians.”

I thought Stalin was held in near universal regard throughout Russia. Is there underway a change in the political thinking? If so, current events might explain it. (Rather than the other way around.)

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:15 pm 76. cjm:

how spread is our navy? how spread is our air force? how spread is our munitions manufacturing capacity? how much fighting have the iraq troops been doing lately?

lots of countries have been rotating troops into afghanistan and iraq to learn to fight like, and with, American troops.

if we get into a conventional war with the russians, their army is gone in two weeks. if they launch icbm’s their country is gone in two hours.

we aren’t going to mimic napoleon or hitler, and march into the interior unequipped. once open warfare breaks out, their food runs out, their grid goes down, etc etc etc

in comparison to our capabilities, russia’s armed forces have bones in their noses and spears in their hands.

bush has a special gift of infuriating opponents into irrational action, and it sure looks like he has put a bug up putin’s ass. “i’m your huckelberry”

maybe the russians will start armageddon; short of that they will be squeezed and squeezed and squeezed. they are far less resilent as a society than the west.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:16 pm 77. buddy larsen:

neolex, don’t forget the half-dozen incidents lately of Rus backfire bombers buzzing US carriers on the high seas. They come across @ 2000′, yes escorted by US combat air patrols, but if they drop something and then get shot down, it’s one bomber for a large chunk of US naval force projection. Then the Rus pilot will, natch, turn out to’ve been a “rogue” angered at “the US’s ___________(fill in the blank)”. At what point does USN shoot first, 80 miles from the carrier? Now? Or after we lose a carrier?

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:17 pm 78. buddy larsen:

cannoneer, dunno if you saw that video of the turkish reporters getting shot up –the shooters, some of those militias –sloppy-looking bums, fat, long-haired, shirtless, wearing 70s bellbottom jeans, slouching around the disbled SUV looking for loot. Yep, Putin and Mother Russia have a lot to be proud of these days.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:27 pm 79. DanM:

Thank you CJM,

It’s pure rot to think we are now spread too thin…. Hell, we are close to in-theater with >100k troops. This presupposes that the IDF can take up slack for a while. Baptism by non-fire, I would hope.

Issue would be Turkey, but those guys need a reality check anyway. I believe it’s time to give them one. Iran’s ally, not ours it seems. Kurdistan state anyone?

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:28 pm 80. dan:

Having recently become acquainted with the theory that Khruschev started the Cuban Missile Crisis in order to secure Cuba’s sovereignty, not to position MRBMs, I wonder whether Russia isn’t trying to secure some benefit other than obvious here, and what that is… and I’m trying to imagine something more concrete and particular than exerting more pressure on the house of cards that appears to be NATO…

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:29 pm 81. DanM:

Buddy,

Did you notice the grouping on the windshield? Didn’t stink for irregulars shooting semi-auto’s.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:30 pm 82. cjm:

kurdistan is all but certain. the turks could have chosen modernity, but didn’t. now they are nothing to no one. once the islamicists take over there, the military will shrivel and that will be that. suits me fine, they were never going to be of any help anyway, so screw them.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:33 pm 83. cjm:

i think putin compares favorably with pablo escobar.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:38 pm 84. poul:

sirius_sir,

“As of now, we may safely assume S. Ossetia and Abkhazia are–or are well on the way to being–ethnically cleansed to reflect a putatively ‘Russian’ population. ”

not exactly – rather ossetian and abkhazian populations, respectively. both are vast majorities in their republics, both are very, very different from russians and from georgians – ethnically and culturally. they are being ethnically cleansed of ethnic georgians now, as georgian tried to ethnically cleanse these republics of the natives. those are the sorry facts of the matter.

i know most americans think that everybody is slav there, but do read something on the subject for jupiter sake!

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:38 pm 85. Nomenklatura:

Today’s Times (London):

Ukraine is investigating claims that Russia has been distributing passports in the port of Sevastopol, raising fears that the Kremlin could be stoking separatist sentiment in the Crimea as a prelude to possible military intervention. The allegation has prompted accusations that Russia is using the same tactics employed in the Georgian breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia in order to create a pretext for a war.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:45 pm 86. poul:

“I thought Stalin was held in near universal regard throughout Russia. Is there underway a change in the political thinking?”

(facepalm). stalin was universally hated since khrushchev times, when part of the truth about repressions came out. this popularity among old people made somewhat of a comeback in 1990s, but it didn’t spread outside of the hungry retirees.

this conflict has absolutely nothing to do with it, thought.

although it is interesting that stalin, ehtnic ossetin, was born in georgian city gori, where he is still revered. what kind of democracy revers such a bloody dictator? can you imagine a revered statue to hilter in braunau am inn, austria?

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:46 pm 87. Cannoneer No. 4:

A commander with any integrity would not allow such people in his battle space. The Russian Army is not ready for prime time and these South Ossetian, Chechen and Cossack brigands with whom they allow themselves to be associated illustrate how far the former Red Army has sunk.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:51 pm 88. poul:

sirius_sir:

“Better to make the breakaway regions neutral and demilitarized. Make the citizens choose their loyalty. Those wishing to retain their foreign passports and be Russian should be allowed to go to Russia, where they no-doubt will be welcomed. Those wishing to stay in S. Ossetia and partake of the advantages of modern Georgia should be allowed to choose that course as well.”

but the ones who don’t want to live under georgian regime are vast majority, why should they be ones to live? it’s more fair and more logical that the vast majority of the population stays where they are, and georgian rulers are sent home.

if you deny this, what’s to stop russians from using the same logic to take away over whole georgia?

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:53 pm 89. poul:

Cannoneer No. 4:

“A commander with any integrity would not allow such people in his battle space. The Russian Army is not ready for prime time and these South Ossetian, Chechen and Cossack brigands with whom they allow themselves to be associated illustrate how far the former Red Army has sunk.”

a whole NATO force sat idly and looked another way while albanians ethnically cleansed away serbs in kosovo. so i wouldn’t pass judgment so fast; or even assume that this is not by design of kremlin.

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:56 pm 90. 2x4:

how far the former Red Army has sunk

Well, former Red Army was capable of doing similar stuff by themselves, now it seems to be outsourced. Is that what you mean?

Aug 17, 2008 - 2:56 pm 91. Richard Moorton:

No one seems to be talking about the capacity of the Ukrainians to defend themselves. Their military capabilities are not inconsiderable. Their total armed forces number 150,000. Their reserves number 1,000,000 men. They have a large tank corp including T72’s and T84’s. They have an air force of ca. 800 planes including modern fighter aircraft (Su 27’s and Mig 29’s among them). The Ukrainians have a homegrown defense industry which has been active in upgrading their equipment and even in export. By some accounts they have one of the most sophisticated air defense systems in the world. They have a small but capable navy, and the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea Fleet is in Sevastapol, a Ukrainian city in the Crimea. An attack on the Ukraine would not be worry free.

I leave it to the experts among us to tell the less informed, like myself, what all this means, but one thing seems clear to me. A Russian assault on the Ukraine could be far, far more costly and even embarrassing for the Russian Bear than their romp in Georgia. The Ukraine has real teeth. They can probably bite back, perhaps painfully.

Best,

Richard Moorton

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:02 pm 92. bobal:

if we get into a conventional war with the russians, their army is gone in two weeks. if they launch icbm’s their country is gone in two hours.

in comparison to our capabilities, russia’s armed forces have bones in their noses and spears in their hands.

Some of this talk is crazy as hell. What you gonna do without NYCity LA Washington D.C. Miami Dallas Seattle Houston Atlanta?

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:03 pm 93. Teresita:

Buddy Larson: if they drop something and then get shot down, it’s one bomber for a large chunk of US naval force projection. Then the Rus pilot will, natch, turn out to’ve been a “rogue” angered at “the US’s ___________(fill in the blank)”. At what point does USN shoot first, 80 miles from the carrier? Now? Or after we lose a carrier?

After they make their attack (which won’t necessarily sink the carrier), but following that, it’s red and free on all Russian aircraft, lest they be manned by more “rogues”.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:15 pm 94. E. Nigma:

The use of ‘irregulars’ to do the dirty work of looting and intimidation gives some political cover to the Russian regular army. “Hey look, it wasn’t us!”
As if any of the human rights NGO’s will have much to say about the whole thing, except to point fingers at both sides.
You can find similar behavior between Kansas and Missouri before and during the US Civil War.

And yes, it is by design. And I would not be surprised (although it could never be proven) that there were Spetznaz officers sprinkled among the irregulars to make sure that they don’t tire of the looting and random killing too soon, before the political objective is reached. That is terrorizing the Georgian people sufficiently so that they ‘vote’ the correct way next time, and choose the Russian political puppets selected to keep Georgia emasculated, and in the Russian orbit for the forseeable future.
“More of this, or do you like your worthless Western friends”

And the Cuban Missile Crisis was designed to be a trade-off; we would get the Russians to pull out of Cuba (eventually), and they would get West Berlin. We just got lucky and caught them before they were ready, which cost Kruschev his job two years later. The Politburo hated surprises and public embarrassments.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:15 pm 95. buddy larsen:

In that case, Bobal, the first item of business would be to learn Mandarin.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:16 pm 96. cjm:

bobal: my comments were predicated on the russians initiating direct war with the u.s.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:19 pm 97. Teresita:

Cjm: in comparison to our capabilities, russia’s armed forces have bones in their noses and spears in their hands.

But there’s about a 50:50 chance we will elect a Commander-in-Chief with the same description.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:21 pm 98. cjm:

why do people (typically in the context of the PRC) assume that some opponent can just sink one of our carriers, and it won’t trigger a war? does Peral Harbor not ring any bells?

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:22 pm 99. cjm:

hahaha, you bad girl (but i like it)

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:23 pm 100. 2x4:

Poul, I do think that the whole Kosovo affair was a mistake. That being said, Balkans region was always a mess, tit-for-tat, going for ages.

It is hard to point a party that is innocent.

Ethnic cleansing is a sweeping term. I would try to separate displacement and outright murder (genocide has also very sliding scale boundary nowadays, and it is often used as an emotional trigger rather than a reflection of reality). Displacements suck, but sometimes have a beneficial side that they separate folks that are at each other throats. A context is paramount and it is not possible to equate occurrences that have nothing in common beside displaced people. It is harder in our culture of predigested sound bites and memes, but that does not mean we have to accept that route.

To make the long story short, applying Kosovo paradigm in Georgian context is a fallacy and lazy thinking. That Russkiye are doing it does not mean it is validated.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:25 pm 101. lc:

Why should Russia leave? And, if Georgians try to force them out, they are “breaking the peace agreement,” to be dealt with by the Russian peacekeepers. We should just call them piecekeepers, or pieceskeepers or something like that….

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:28 pm 102. 2x4:

Lc, how about just keepers?

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:31 pm 103. buddy larsen:

That was my point, cjm –the conventional war might well start with USA one carrier down, unless we keep those critters away from our carriers. We have 13 of them, our island nation, with all the trouble overseas. We hope someone is telling the Rus that in light of the new reality, we’ll have to forbid that friendly buzzing from now on.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:31 pm 104. cjm:

if the russians treat their own people as they do, then anything they say about any other group of people is safely ignored.

we know what russia is, and all the chin music in the world isn’t going to reverse what putin has unleashed. russia is a permanent outcast from civilized humanity and will suffer accordingly.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:33 pm 105. lc:

I’d prefer weepers.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:33 pm 106. bobal:

In that case, Bobal, the first item of business would be to learn Mandarin.

Right you are Buddy, the survivors would have to learn Mandarin and rice paddy planting.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:34 pm 107. poul:

2×4:

>Poul, I do think that the whole Kosovo affair was a mistake.

glad we agree

>That being said, Balkans region was always a mess, tit-for-tat, going for ages.

caucasus was even worse, and for much longer.

> To make the long story short, applying Kosovo paradigm in Georgian context is a fallacy and lazy thinking.

how come? do elaborate. from what i know, it fits perfectly.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:36 pm 108. poul:

cjm, have you ever been in any armed forces, or shot at? you sound like a bombastic adolescent in mom’s basement, a subscriber to “how to be a tough internet guy” magazine.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:39 pm 109. cjm:

buddy, there are reports all over the place (from the last year or so) of American air and naval commanders being forced out for lack of competence.

i suspect we have been preparing for something signifigant for quite awhile. hopefully this has focused the concentration of remaining commanders, so that we don’t lose any carriers.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:42 pm 110. cjm:

you sound like the kind of person that would sign a pact with hitler and then be surprised when you are invaded.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:45 pm 111. buddy larsen:

cjm, thinking about Pearl Harbor would’ve been a good thing to’ve done before “Pearl Harbor”. The carriers that EOJ had expected to catch there just by luck happened to’ve been at sea. These were the carriers that won Midway a half year later. Sans A-bomb, which we didn’t know then we’d ever have, a loss at Midway would’ve added a year or three to a war that would’ve perhaps included having to storm Hawaii in the Tarawa or Iwo Jima manner. Let’s not be overconfident. Overconfidence doubles the shock of a setback. Anyway, we ought to have 20 carriers, for starters. Too few means we have to protect as much as project. Like the German High Seas Fleet after Jutland –it stayed in port, too valuable to lose, and ended up scuttled.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:49 pm 112. buddy larsen:

Good point, cjm –re the commands being shuffled. USAF especially seems to be getting onto this.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:54 pm 113. John Samford:

“Neither Georgia nor Ukraine will join NATO. After NATO accepts that reality, much of this tension will relax.”

Nonsense! That may be the delusion your KGB minders have, but it is not the reality. And while Russia may relax, the USA is just getting started. No G-7 for Russia, no future co-operation on OIL exploration and exploitation. I wouldn’t be surprised to see the US technicians that keep those almost empty wells going brought home in the near future. There goes about about 6% of Russian OIL production. Meanwhile Jordan, Iraq and Turkey are talking about a new pipeline, one that feeds Europe that the Soviets, er….Russians can’t get their hands on. No, the USA produces about 26% of the Worlds GDP. Combined with the EU, we can make it rough on Russia. This is finished when WE say it is, not you.

Aug 17, 2008 - 3:55 pm 114. Teresita:

CJM: hopefully this has focused the concentration of remaining commanders, so that we don’t lose any carriers.

We could have Admiral Spruance himself in charge of a modern battle group, but under the current rules of engagement he’d look like the commander of the Argentine navy.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:00 pm 115. buddy larsen:

Reading Konyok 11:50, it’s a fair bet that we have to show some real teeth pretty quick, or Ukraine is a fond memeory. We have the teeth. NATO has plenty of stuff. This Tuesday meeting needs to announce EU-wide maneuvers. Let the rus have observers as usual to allay their fears, but for crying out loud wipe off that goofy pomo grin and make a war face.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:10 pm 116. 2x4:

Poul, a bit complex and I don’t want to clog the bandwidth. Just read on the histories of these particular areas. Also, there is more commonality between Serbia and Russia than between Serbia and Georgia.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:10 pm 117. poul:

2×4, this is the only answer that *anyone* ever had to this question. i call bullshit, if you don’t mind.

so, Kosovo = Ossetia.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:15 pm 118. Valerie:

Germany has reconsidered Georgia’s entry into Nato. http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5gDNLWfQWKrQc48pITBUg9KT_6oVwD92K2SE80

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:18 pm 119. 2x4:

Poul, it takes time to do the comparison. I don’t have that right now, my daughter is coming to visit and I am making a dinner–which is far more important to me than Your Annoyance. It is also off topic. I’ll do it when I have time and post it on my blog. Don’t worry, I’ll have a link here when ready.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:28 pm 120. Steynian 226 « Free Mark Steyn!:

[...] LIE, DISSEMBLE, PREVARICATE– “Despite the “ceasefire” between Russia and Georgia, Russian forces have cut the [...]

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:37 pm 121. Konyok:

buddy,

Jeez, I hate to have to say it, but Ukraine is a much better candidate for soft power.

Their military is huge, but I wouldn’t have confidence in a large part of their officers or troops. In any conflict with Russia you can expect a lot of traitors and desertions.

Until the recent oil boom, Ukrainian Russians could see that their cousins across the border were just as miserable as them. It just didn’t matter.
We cannot deny that the oil boom has filtered down through Russian society. Everybody has more spending power and Ukrainians see themselves falling further behind everybody – Russians, Poles, Czechs.

Ukraine suffers from a lot of the same economic pathologies as Russia, except they don’t have any oil. Their chief export is also weapons. (If you recall, we shamed Kravchuk into sending troops to Iraq after busting Ukraine selling AA contra sanctions. Yushchenko pulled those troops when he took office, it was one of his premier campaign promises.)

If we could only wave our magic wand and give everybody in Ukraine a stimulus check.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:38 pm 122. Fresh Bilge » Cold War II:

[...] by the invasion of Georgia. At the blog Belmont Club, Richard Fernandez and his numerous commenters place the new development in context. Posted at 7:42 PM | [...]

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:42 pm 123. neolex:

@Konyok

You mean Kuchma sent AA to Iraq.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:48 pm 124. neolex:

By the way, Kuchma, despite being a rare asshole, was apt enough in politics to play both sides, Russia and US. He enjoyed cordial relationships with Russia, while also courting US and EU and implementing some rare anti-Russian language measures to keep the nationalists happy.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:51 pm 125. Konyok:

Mike Sylwester,

On the other thread you facilely explained that Volodya took Russians’ right to elect their provincial governors to fight “corruption.”

That sounds quite odd to me. How does appointing officials from a corrupt center prevent corruption?

Opacity is the natural habitat of corruption. Forcing officials to face competitive elections is like using a mild antibiotic – it doesn’t prevent corruption, but it certainly does require that corrupt officials be more cautious.
The best way to combat corruption is an independent justice system. Oh, yes, another of Volodya’s wonderful legacies – intimidating judges into making politically convenient judgements.

I concentrate on this gem of Volodya’s statecraft because it is so debilitating to the development of democracy in Russia.
Where are democratic leaders to develop their skills and bring themselves to the nation’s attention if not through serving as provincial governors? (They may not have taught you this, but the majority of US presidents were previously governors of states.)
How are these appointed governors expected to honestly govern their areas if there is no responsibility to the residents?
In the US, there is a national agreement to store nuclear waste in a location in the state of Nevada. The governor of Nevada obeys the will of his people who do not want nuclear waste in their state. President Bush cannot order the governor to do anything, his boss is the people of Nevada.
To the Russian mind this may seem crazy or inefficient. It might seem like bardak. We Americans know that this is our greatest strength.

The Russian people have made the stupidest of mistakes. Despairing of the silliness and dishonesty of politicians, they have put themselves into the hand of a politician like a little hypnotized bird.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:55 pm 126. Konyok:

Thanks, neolex.

I was typing hot and furious …

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:56 pm 127. ella:

@ poul

Perhaps for you Kosovo is equal to Osetia because in the first case Russians were allies of Serbia and in the second Russians were allies of Osetians?
For you Russian peacekeeping forces are equal to UN peacekeeping forces.
What’s more, for you attacking independent country is equal to preventing genocide in another country.
Yes, sir, Kosovo and Osetia are equal…………….NOT.

2X4

It is complex, but there is a lot of commonality between Georgia and Russia too. The main commonality is religion.

Aug 17, 2008 - 4:59 pm 128. buddy larsen:

@poul: Kosovo = Ossetia

Poul, USA could’ve waited awhile and let Hitler conquer USSR. Not only not delivered a million free trucks and airplanes, but no 8th AAF campaign or D-Day until Stalin was safely beat past the Urals.

Next, post WWII, USA could’ve used its a-bomb monopoly to dismantle USSR, fairly and properly, on the basis of the million broken Russian promises re the Iron Curtain, the hostile occupation of Eastern Europe.

skipping around the 20th century, USA could’ve screamed over Stalin’s atrocities inside USSR, starting with the deliberate starving to death of 11 million Ukrainians. USA could’ve made war on the basis of USSR’s continual stoking & fomenting of terror wars by its weaponizing of ”liberation movement” criminal murder terror gangs all over the world, most esp in the mideast & central America & Africa.

USA could’ve gone to the source in the Korean War and Vietnam, and made the instigators pay. Vietnam nearly broke America in two and isn’t finished yet with that. Hundreds of thousands of dead and maimed American soldiers & grieving moms & dads & wifes & sons & daughters & sisters & brothers from Korea & Vietnam while the Kremlin paymasters and blackmailers and extorters & brainwashers sat back and laughed.

Central America. Even this Islamic jihad, USSR is stoking if it didn’t invent it.

When USSR finally collapsed –due to its own rotten governance –USA could’ve destroyed the Russian rump state, and could’ve again when Russia repudiated its debts and took bankruptcy a few years later. But in each case, USA loaned and granted and gave billions to help Russia, and to bring it into the world economic system.

Yes, there’s the KGB zombie bizzaro-world interpretation of all these things –but the Occam’s Razor says that first, it is what it is, and what it is, it is.

And now, Kosovo is the ONLY thing that matters?

The only thing that has ever happened in the two nation’s relationship?

And besides, Kosovo was in the interest of fighting the jihad, which presumably is in Russia’s interest, too.

And if Kosovo was the Most Important Thing to Russia, why the hell didn’t Russia get in there and manage those atrocities, or if faked, manage the PR campaign that made the west believe them ?

It was the pictures and the memes that made the west go in –so easy for KGB to’ve countered, no?

Maybe KGB didn’t WANT to counter them?

Maybe Kosovo has been a set-up all along?

But even if not, then, considering the period since the Hitler/Stalin Pact of 1939 and Katyn Forest and Finland was forgiven, and all the WWII help that Russia never thanked nor even acknowledged, and all the other forgivings that Russia has since received –for its wars and terrorisms and cold wars and crimes and evil and the 50 years of stunted ruined lives of 100 million captive east European national populations, Russia can’t forgive Kosovo?

RUSSIA CAN’T FORGIVE KOSOVO ???

i call complete, utter, total, incredible, bullshit.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:15 pm 129. cjm:

and every American knows — knows — who is enemy #1.

delenda.est.rus.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:34 pm 130. Konyok:

buddy,

I really, really wish that I could correct you and say “not Russian, but “Soviet!”

I the light of recent events, I just can’t …

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:41 pm 131. RAH:

Soros is a very smart businessman and he was a refugee from Romania. He has been trying to use soft power to work against Russia. That is the only type of power that a businessman can use. I disagree with his policies and tactics but his aim against Russia I agree with.

I do not really know what Soros wants. His aims have been against conservative policies and methods and he has been effective. But his long-term goals are still a question.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:42 pm 132. buddy larsen:

” I just can’t ” …and that has to hurt, really hurt.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:43 pm 133. buddy larsen:

But, thanks to world’s all-time greatest chess player Kasparov, the world knows there are yet still many many heroic Russian freedom lovers.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:45 pm 134. mika.:

USA could’ve..
==
Why didn’t they?

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:46 pm 135. mika.:

Q: Why didn’t they?
==
A: The imperialists need a foe. That’s the Georgian conflict redacted.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:51 pm 136. buddy larsen:

not ag/ Russia, RAH –against Putin –and that is what he says, for the public. True or just the opposite, no one knows. And Hungarian, i think i’ve read. Oddly, both he & Pope Benedict XVI were as young teenagers used by the Nazi in WWII, Benedict as Hitler Youth and Soros as some sort of auxiliary. Both were very young, I mean no slur to either. Just that history is not so far away.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:53 pm 137. 2x4:

Mika, think.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:54 pm 138. cjm:

soros would steal personal items from dead jews and sell them. that is documented.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:57 pm 139. Konyok:

Y’know, buddy. It does hurt.

I’ve had so many late night vodka fueled conversations with Russians about all of this stuff. Many times I felt like a missionary trying to bring light to the heathens. So many times I’ve heard the same line: we don’t need your “democracy,” we will find our own unique Russian way. Eventually, the one thing that we could always agree on and part as friends was to thank God that Americans and Russians have never fought each other directly.

I sincerely pray that it never comes to that, but, at the end of the day the sheep and the goats will go their seperate ways.

Aug 17, 2008 - 5:59 pm 140. buddy larsen:

if that’s so, Mika, would it establish moral equivalence?

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:00 pm 141. Konyok:

mika,

We imperialists do have a foe: radical jihadist Salafist Islam.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:01 pm 142. buddy larsen:

cjm, important to remember, he was a kid and under the corrupt-all boot.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:03 pm 143. 2x4:

Interesting info re recent visit of Ahmanutjob in Turkey.
http://www.turkishdailynews.com.tr/article.php?enewsid=112788

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:13 pm 144. sirius_sir:

ossetian and abkhazian populations, respectively. both are vast majorities in their republics, both are very, very different from russians and from georgians

Poul, in which case the Russians have no business distributing passports to the population in order to establish a pretext for intervention and invasion.

it’s more fair and more logical that the vast majority of the population stays where they are, and georgian rulers are sent home.

if you deny this, what’s to stop russians from using the same logic to take away over whole georgia?

Then the vast majority of the population should also be fighting the Russians–to claim their autonomy as well as help preserve that of the Georgians. But they don’t seem willing, do they? And so by preemptively giving them their independence Georgia would accomplish what, exactly?

The issue is complicated, and sovereignty is not merely a matter of ethnic population densities. For instance, Mexican nationsal may at some point outnumber U.S. citizens in the southwestern U.S. but even if the Mexican government should issue them passports and lay prior claim to the territory, I doubt the argument would be favorably received by Washington, no matter who is President.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:13 pm 145. buddy larsen:

As to the why didn’t USA do the things it didn’t do, or did the things it did do, in its shared history with Russia, remember Occam.

And remember that NATO is voluntary, Warsaw Pact was the farthest from it.

Remember why Berlin Wall was built. Of the many walls built thru history, from lowly castle to city to Hadrian’s to the great one of China, how many were built to keep people out, and how many were built to hold people in.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:14 pm 146. mika.:

if that’s so, Mika, would it establish moral equivalence?
==
No, it would not. To understand this, all you need to do is look at the devastated US cities and towns and devastated people that live in these devastated US cities and towns.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:15 pm 147. 2x4:

Mika, you call this thinking?

For crying out loud, are you a meat popsicle?

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:21 pm 148. buddy larsen:

I can’t disagree with that, Mika, except to say that USA has two political parties, and only one of them seeks to keep masses of people poor, ignorant, and dependent. The other one stands for upward mobility, and this is documentable. If the complaint is that at bottom, we are all selfish and cruel, well welcome to the domain of religion and faith.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:24 pm 149. mika.:

Mika, you call this thinking?
==
I call it crying out loud.

Bush & Co are sodomizing America with a barbed wire Johnson rod, and you have the temerity to call me a meat popsicle. The irony is delicious.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:31 pm 150. Lifeofthemind:

The Serbs got chased out of Kosovo long before Nato showed up. Tito was in charge when Kosovo went from majority Serb to majority Albanian. Kosovo is a total non-issue for understanding what is going on with Russia. Russia is pretty hollow with a brittle stick behind the spear head. Ukraine also is not capable of launching an offensive and has limited abilities to defend. Looks to me that the Ukies have maybe two first line division sized elements. With help they may be able to hold onto the Crimea.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:33 pm 151. 2x4:

Bush sodomizing, devastation…

What on earth …? Are you on some kind of meds?

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:39 pm 152. bobal:

If the complaint is that at bottom, we are all selfish and cruel, well welcome to the domain of religion and faith.

Welcome to the world of St. Augustine.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:42 pm 153. 2x4:

Mika, BTW, the meat popsicle was a phrase used in The Fifth Element movie. Proper response would be I am human, but in your case, you sound more like a soviet propaganda regurgitating bot.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:44 pm 154. poul:

buddy larsen,
>Poul, USA could’ve waited awhile and let Hitler conquer USSR. Not only not delivered a million free trucks and airplanes, but no 8th AAF campaign or D-Day until Stalin was safely beat past the Urals.
Dude, where did you study history – in pakistani madrassa? bn D-Day, June 6, 1944, russia ground down half of the 157 german division on eastern front, was advancing on finland before the final march on berlin, and cleaning Belarus during operation bagration, which resulted in the destruction of the german army group center.
if usa waited a little more, they’d come to the europe being entirely red.
>Next, post WWII, USA could’ve used its a-bomb monopoly to dismantle USSR, fairly and properly, on the basis of the million broken Russian promises re the Iron Curtain, the hostile occupation of Eastern Europe.
are you out of your mind? usa had too few bombs , with standing and ready red army, they’d clean up europe before anyone could blink. by the time usa had enough bombs, russians had their own nukes.

>skipping around the 20th century, USA could’ve screamed over Stalin’s atrocities inside USSR, starting with the deliberate starving to death of 11 million Ukrainians. USA could’ve made war on the basis of USSR’s continual stoking & fomenting of terror wars by its weaponizing of ”liberation movement” criminal murder terror gangs all over the world, most esp in the mideast & central America & Africa.

and too bad it fucking didn’t, bunch of spineless cowards.

> And now, Kosovo is the ONLY thing that matters?
where do you get that? iot only your understanding of history is like that of march hare, but you also misconstrue my arguments as if i was defending russia, not trying to inject a dose of reality into this soup of idiocy. i hate communists more than you can even imagine.

kosovo matters as international precedent that untied russian hands, and now they can legally use it in any place it serves their interest. we were stupid when we’ve established this precedent, now we cannot deny others the same right under similar pretext.

> And besides, Kosovo was in the interest of fighting the jihad, which presumably is in Russia’s interest, too.
that is even nuttier. kosovo helped jihadists enormously, establishing for them a safe haven in europe, and free cadre of blond jihadists to infiltrate any possible racial profiling measures at airports. the only reason we went to kosovo is on behalf of saudis, because clinton sucked saudi cock so hard, his ears got red.

the most we can do is to acknowledge the reality and minimize the damage.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:51 pm 155. mika.:

Proper response would be I am human
you sound more like a soviet propaganda regurgitating bot
Are you on some kind of meds?
Mika, you call this thinking?
==
I guess tiz true. People get the government they deserve.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:54 pm 156. 2x4:

Mika, back to the point when I ask you to think… When asked why is it that US did not take Russia apart at the nearest opportunity (WWII help and so on), you went off the rocker and stated with some nonsense about Imperialism. Srange, isn’t it… if Russia (in whatever incarnation) was in the same position, what do you think would happen? A dismembering would ensue without a moment of hesitation. That’s imperialism. I think you project a lot.

The answer to that question:

Decency and charity. It is as simple as that.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:56 pm 157. Michael McNeil:

“The imperialists” in this case are Russian.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:56 pm 158. poul:

sirius_sir:

> Poul, in which case the Russians have no business distributing passports
> to the population in order to establish a pretext for intervention and invasion.

for the millionth time: they have no business to do many things, starting from ethnic cleansing
of georgians.

but russian actions do not deny the right of ossetins and abkhazians for self determination and
for freedom from – very real – georgian discrimination and genocidal attempts.

> The issue is complicated, and sovereignty is not merely a matter of ethnic population densities.

again: ossetinian and abkhazian claims for independence are better than kosovars; if we allow later,
we cannot consciously deny former.

Aug 17, 2008 - 6:58 pm 159. supercargo:

Last November Saakashvili jailed opposition party leaders, declared an election and intimidated voters who tried to register, yet still only claimed 52.8% of the vote. European observers reported people voting up to 3 times. Who were they? The cronies that got to keep their jobs when their patron slashed the civil service into a Soros mime class.

Both FOX and CNN are wrapped in “We are all Georgians; Saakashvili is God” rhetoric. Unfortunately, Russian videos of the results of “god’s” 8 hour artillery and rocket barrage against a populated city, will trickle into the public conscience. The myopic pundits will not sustain the unearned ersatz-resolution that they have gained in the fools-euphoria since August 8.

Since 2006, one oppressed opposition party – Justice – has alligned with the “Anti-Soros” movement. Soros – yah, the anti GWOT jerk – paid Saakashvili to quit as Shevardnadze’s Justice Minister, and he paid for the youth group that pushed out the anti-nationalists, in the yet-another-ad-nauseum-colored-revolution of 2004. This ain’t conspiracy crap:

http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080816.wsaakashvili0816/BNStory/International/?pageRequested=all&print=true

Just ask and I will post the Justice Party and Soros’ “Open Society Georgia” websites.

Wretchard (AKA Richard):

Please look at these freaking maps and tell me how
selective grants of territorial integrality to Soros’ goof states, can solve decades of ethnic cleansing and minority oppression.
http://www.djavakhk.com/cartes.php?l=en

Do you admit that rhetorical baloons are being floated, and that Saint Saak deserves more scrutiny than Condi and the desperate-for-america-to-be-right class, allows?

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:00 pm 160. 2x4:

People get the government they deserve.

Yes. Just imagine how it would be if Gore was the president, or Kerry. Hopefully Obama is done, I think this week was rather revealing and despite that it is August, he already lost.

And as a confirmation, take Putin. A KGB thug.
Yea, I suppose you are right, in this case, people get a government they deserve.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:02 pm 161. Lifeofthemind:

So it is dawn Monday in Georgia. Anyone want to bet on whether Ivan is going home?
/sarc

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:05 pm 162. poul:

> People get the government they deserve.

truer words has not been spoken.

this is why we have to choose between an empty suit and a brainless hothead.

anybody sane to run as libertarian candidate anytime soon?

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:05 pm 163. 2x4:

Of course, as my government goes, I thought I deserved Harper and voila! I got him!

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:07 pm 164. Konyok:

mika,

Isn’t it amazing the way that the words flow from your keyboard? You have the power to line those words up in any manner that you chose.

You can write of “devastated cities and towns” with a revolutionary hymn in your ears. You can speak truth to power with the fantasy that you an instrument of liberation.

But, you can do nothing to change the reality that America, along with Canada and Australia, remains the destination for the migrants of the world. These devastated cities and towns continually fill up with escapees from Europe’s mistakes.

I challenge you to find even one devasted person in one devastated town that would willingly emigrate to Russia.

In America’s devastated cities it is young men that prefer drinking to working who beg in the streets, in Russia it is little old ladies.

Yes, you convinced me, my friend.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:10 pm 165. Lifeofthemind:

Personally I suggest that Emmanuel Kant University be returned to German control and all persons or descendants of persons who were expelled from anyplce under the contol of the Red Army in the last 90 years be invited to exervice their “Right of Return” with full claim to lost property. Of all the cans of worms that a Russian could open the prize goes to them attempting to redraw the borders that they themselves had imposed on the peoples of the old Soviet empire. Maybe we can give Karelia back to Finland.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:13 pm 166. RAH:

The question of divine providence comes into the mind that this conflict happened when it did. Georgia knew that Russia was going to invade and Russia was impatient. America really did not want a distraction of a Russia – Georgia war. Typically America was less concerned about Georgian interest than our own and willing to believe that Russia would not revert back to adventurism. But what we want and what we get are two different items.

Signs of Russia increasing the testing of western nations have been evident for several years. The refusal to react, obviously led Medeyev to the conclusion that Western Europe will not take any significant action against Russian action to secure the BZC pipeline.

Russia probably has been seducing the Islamic leaning government of Erdogan of Turkey to neutralize Turkey’s possible interference

America under Bush is finishing up the Iraq experiment and finally, a couple years later than anticipated, getting to a government that is marginally capable. This came from the military trying a bottom up approach rather than the top down approach that State Dept did originally. The bottom up from tribal political to regional and then to national agreements is slower and messier. The governed having their will and interests respected by society and government will be more stable. If we can keep the Shia from trying to shove out the Sunni it might work out.

However Iraq taking more time and effort than anticipated, screwed up the timing and wore out the domestic will for another adventure in Iran. America cannot afford the same type of rebuilding of Iran if we took them on in an invasion. Iran’s bellicosity demands a response and their drive to become a nuclear power still needs to be stopped. Iran will use that to intimidate the Middle East and probably will shove other nations in a nuclear race for protection.

Europe has wasted the time and Russia has interfered as much as possible. The timing for a strike will be after the elections since political reality in the US is a paramount consideration. So George Bush really did not want to take on the reorganizing a change in mission for NATO, Europe and the US to consider Russia an enemy rather than an economic competitor.

But little Georgia has precipitated this reassessment by the US. Georgia survival depended on this gamble and damaged and broken Georgia will win the gamble.
The bordering Eastern European nations having fewer blinkers on are rapidly reassessing their needs and alliances. More pressure on America to protect these border countries.

Medeyev had a meeting in Russia of it diplomats in July where they were given the new mission of Russia. According to reports Medeyev said that the institutional blocks in Europe are crumbling and have not the core purpose and will to resist or prevent Russia’s resurgence. I would have said that assessment of NATO was correct. But this premature adventure has woken NATO up to its original purpose, to contain Russia.

NATO originally did protect the border invasion route countries from Russia. The border has just been pushed back to Poland. Ukraine, Georgia and Azerbaijan.
The new nations will be the energy and will to drive NATO new policies and future purpose. NATO was never meant to protect the US; it was designed to force European nations to collectively react to a Russian invasion.

The undiplomatic talk of Russian diplomats and ministers are the line they were told to take from Medeyev. However they have prematurely scared the prey. The prey will reassess their true dangers and plan accordingly.

If Russia loses its gambit in the Ukraine and Georgia it will turn to Azerbaijan to secure the oil. It will try seduction and Russian puppet strings on the government with careful eliminations of obstacles of particular politicians who stand in the way. Assassination is a tool the Putin uses to effect profitable change and revenge.

This 21st century will see many hot spots in the drive to secure energy and material sources by Russia and China. The next 50 years will not be as peaceful as the last 50 years.

In order to survive, prosper and maintain our superior position we need to refocus on what are the real dangers from the Muslim colonization of Europe and the conflicts between Russia and China.

We also need to secure our domestic will, the constant damaged to our will from the 5th element in the US will have to be addressed. America is very vulnerable to internal ideological challenges

We allowed Russia to infiltrate the western institutional systems and we need to weed Russia from those. Getting any power and influence of Russia out of NATO is needed. Hopefully they will talk about that on Tuesday. So a new NATO may arise from the ashes of the old with the vigorous new blood of the Eastern European nations.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:14 pm 167. 2x4:

Poul, brainless hothead?

Hillary is no longer in the race as a serious contender, despite that DNC decided there would be a pro-forma vote–it is unlikely that she would beat Obama.

BTW, something tells me that you have nothing to do with US elections.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:14 pm 168. mika.:

A dismembering would ensue without a moment of hesitation. That’s imperialism.
==
Socialize the costs, privatize the profits. The Anglo imperialists may be a little more subtle, but a dismembering it remains.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:15 pm 169. poul:

except voting, you mean?

and of course i meant mccain, for whom i planned to vote until this mess.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:16 pm 170. Lifeofthemind:

Sorry got lazy from using my Mac with built in spell check.

Wretchard, PJM really needs to fix the interface and tools please. Your old site was much more user friendly.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:17 pm 171. Konyok:

Interesting, poul is a Danish spelling, Sylwester is either German or Polish, and mika is a Taiwanese porn star …

All of the Russian handles on this forum are imperialists.

You don’t suppose that the SVR guys are using false names, do you?

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:17 pm 172. mika.:

mika is a Taiwanese porn star
==
I don’t speak Taiwanese. I do speak Hebrew, Yiddish, Russian, Lithuanian, English, and a little Arabic and German.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:24 pm 173. mark_b:

poul:

which one is the brainless hothead,though?

Teresita/Buddy Larsen:

The ready cat’s pilots probably have different orders than they did six months ago.

Carrier Captains are both pilots and nukes and tend to make fast, good decisions under pressure. And thus are permitted a great deal of autonomy in running their ships.

This caused me to spend five months on the other side of the “line of death” with no mail. Got a great story about crunchy chocolate chip cookies ,though.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:25 pm 174. 2x4:

Wretchard can see their IPs, so he’d know whence they are hailing from.

However, I am sure FSB (or whatever is the current moniker for directorate that handles foreign intel and disinfo) has a plenty of resident agents all over. Poul may be in US, as well as mika, but they are still what they are, FSB bots.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:32 pm 175. cedarford:

The West should have thought of that when they were extending NATO to Russia’s borders and lecturing the Russians on the sacred right of peoples like the Muslim invaders of Serbia’s historical territory to seceed…even backed by Western bombing of Serb cities to force capitulation to the Albanian migrants.
That should have been a consideration when people were all for shoving Kosovo down Russia’s throat. I’m sure that looked like the start of another cold war from their side of things.

Want Russia to reconsider acting like we did with Kosovo and launching anti-Russian political movements in their sphere of interest? Or reconsider acting as the West does in directly fighting or giving aid to countries to fight “self-determination” movements we oppose like in Kashmir, Palestine, Mindinao, Catalonia, Basque lands, Peru’s indigenous areas?

We need our own little break from hypocrisy.

John Samford – Actually, we DO have the military means to push the Russians out. We just don’t have politicians with hte spine to use it.
It is called the U.S. Air Force. Cut the Soviet, er…..Russian supply lines and see how tough they are when the fuel and ammo run out. Once that happens, the Georgians can deal with them.

WW3? Bring it on!

Fucking moron. If Samford wasn’t a long-time poster writing earlier about delerious right wingnut fantasies of “vast stockpiles of hidden Iraqi WMD”, I’d consider him a Russian or Lefty plant set up to discredit American conservatives as utterly brainless about Central Asia geostrategy and Russian military capacity.

Samford – Putin has made war inevitable. Anyone who thinks otherwise is as delusional as Chamberlain.

The stupidities of John Samford just keep on coming.
Meanwhile, the markets rise and the price of oil lowers, because people are confident that Russia has aims limited to spanking the West good for it’s Kosovo hypocrisy. And that no Neocons are left in any position of power, and if they were, no way would the reckless saber-wavers ever get NATO basing rights to risk WWIII over Ossetia and Abkhazia again becoming an autonomous Oblast under Russia.
Which the people support, as Russia will no doubt establish with an internationally monitored plebiscite.

LifeoftheMind – We can fly from Mosul, dare the Turks to stop us. Hate seeing an elected government fall to a military coup but the Turks are getting close. Worst case for the Turks, which I do not expect or even desire, is the Kurds get a state, the Greeks get Cyprus and the Ukrainians get Constantinople.

Great, another poster of the remnant Neocon Empire-Builder class adding Turkey onto the long list of countries that they favor the US fighting endless wars to boost Israel or “freedom-loving”.

The List so far?

Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, attacking Hamas in Gaza to help our “special friend”. “Quick, easy” war against Iran. War in Afghanistan until “the Muslims shed the burquas and love Israel.” War to liberate the “freedom-loving Burmese people”. A quick surprise war with both Pakistan and N Korea to “surgically defang them with our mighty American war toys”.
Warnings we may have to “take out” Venezuela.

Add Russia, to the 11 other wars Neocon fans are touting.

Then there is the matter of attacking China to “give them freedom” and liberate the poor oppressed minorities.

On top of those 13 pending wars, Neos also support “noble intervention” wars for humanitarian reasons. Like with Sudan, Congo, Somalia, whatever other African shithole is presently erupting.

Endless war. But of course Neocons oppose the Draft and taxes needed to back up their extensive war list. Tax us? Put children of neocons at risk with a Draft? No way!

CJM – if we get into a conventional war with the russians, their army is gone in two weeks. if they launch icbm’s their country is gone in two hours.

Rattle, rattle that toy saber… boy!

CJM – in comparison to our capabilities, russia’s armed forces have bones in their noses and spears in their hands.

Clearly you were never in the military in a position where you had to plan against demonstrated Soviet/Russian abilities, or in a civilian capacity to assess their high tech components operated by professional and volunteer forces, vs. their conscript elements.
If you had to game against Sunburn missiles, the S-300P or S-400 antiair systems, the MIG-29 or Sukhoi 30, soon the F-22 answer Sukhoi is building – you would know that their stuff is quite good, quite lethal.

Only a fool would equate Russian AF, cyberwar, space, Naval, spec ops, armor&artillery assets and capacities to “bones in noses” inferiority to US people or weapons tech.

===========================
OT, Konyok – In the US, there is a national agreement to store nuclear waste in a location in the state of Nevada. The governor of Nevada obeys the will of his people who do not want nuclear waste in their state. President Bush cannot order the governor to do anything, his boss is the people of Nevada.

You overlook that Yucca Mountain is on Federal land outside the Nevada legislature or governor’s or state court authority.
The only “say” they get is about the safety of shipments crossing the state outide Fed land – but even there, the interstate commerce clause has tended to beat the asses of those states or individuals that meddle in, or seek to block Federal Interstate Highway, Army Corps navigable water ways, or rail lines – very, very hard – including criminal sentences that caused significant jailtime…

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:32 pm 176. neolex:

@poul

I, for one, don’t want a libertarian candidate. Ron Paul embodies one perfectly and is relatively successful, most people dont see the shitload of craziness that is packaged together with his honesty. Gold standard? US economy would tank immediately due to lack of liquidity. Non-interventionist foreign policy? Watch US interests abroad get trampled, stocks fall, and stronger countries take over weaker ones at opportune moments. Privatized social-security? Watch millions of people being dumped back at the government, after they either did not save (you could argue they deserve it, but it doesnt change the outcome) or a private fund collapsed.

I would love an INDEPENDENT candidate who would take most of the foreign policy from republicans and most of domestic policy from democrats and libertarians. Specifically, internationally: strong military, war on Muslim extremists, containment of Russian ambition, pro-Israeli position, support of democracy abroad, secure borders and enforcing immigration laws. And domestically, national healthcare with public oversight, import of drugs from Canada and EU, reduced welfare terms, reduced public housing, promotion of nuclear energy, telling Greens to fuck off, strong regulation of monopoly markets, legalization of marijuana and maybe prostitution, support of second ammendment (within reason), pro-choice (within reason), mandatory national standardized testing in sciences. Obviously the culprit here is the American public, as simply being logical and reasonable will lead to being unelectable.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:33 pm 177. 2x4:

neolex, national healthcare with public oversight

Take ours, it’s peachy. Yoopty doo.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:41 pm 178. Lifeofthemind:

I am impressed again at the academic training a good Chekistiy can get. The difference between Russian and American Intelligence officers wasn’t in the basic level of education or competence they had. The Russians were probably ahead on that but the Americans had a broader undergraduate background. Partly this is because American undergraduate education is less specialized that that in other countries inluding that in America’s European allies. Both US and Soviet agents were carefully selected after a long vetting program and were historically associated with the leading elements of their societies. The difference was that American Intelligence officers while hitorically patriotic were also more liberal than the general society that produced them. This goes back to the OSS or even earlier. The recently released list of WW-II OSS members includes a Who’s Who of the post war Democratic establishment and liberal elite. Ever since Vietnam the seperation between the Best and the Brightest and the more conservative society that supports them has become more pronounced. Our CIA has degenerated to an extent as it has fallen into domestic politics and the corruption of bureaucratic politics. The heirs of Felix Dzerzhinsky may still see themselves as a priesthood.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:41 pm 179. poul:

neolex:

> I, for one, don’t want a libertarian candidate. Ron Paul…

i said “sane”

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:47 pm 180. Konyok:

So, mika, you must either be a really, really confused Lithuanian Jew or you’ve had a wide variety of SVR postings …

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:47 pm 181. Konyok:

Cedarford,

They aren’t shipping anything to Yucca Mountain, are they?

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:48 pm 182. Lifeofthemind:

If you are a bright fellow in Russia it must be tempting to take a career that offers posting to Jerusulem, Vilnus (George Kennan was posted there by the US DoS), London and New York.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:48 pm 183. mika.:

SVR?

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:49 pm 184. poul:

2×4, if i am FSB bot, you are chinese emperor. i fought against communism before you knew what it is, anonymous coward.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:50 pm 185. 2x4:

I knew you’d know, mika. Thanks!

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:51 pm 186. neolex:

@Lifeofthemind

The differences between Russian and US agents have to do more with perception than education. It is very peculiar that more Americans have a better understanding of how Russia works than the reverse.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:52 pm 187. cjm:

c4, when putin goes golfing, do you wash his balls?

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:52 pm 188. poul:

i am totally posting too much today, but…

neolex:> And domestically, national healthcare

as a survivor of another national healthcare, i cannot recommend highly enough against it. i mean, it failed everywhere, let insitute it in the last free country in the world! stupid beyond belief…

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:53 pm 189. cedarford:

No, because Democrats in the Federal Congress have inserted some poison pills to freeze O&M and development funding – despite all the nuke utilities paying a storage fee already. That and lawsuits by Nevadans and anti-nuke special interest groups in Federal courts.

Aug 17, 2008 - 7:56 pm 190. Konyok:

Cedarford,

But, the governor and other officials in the State of Nevada have been lobbying the Federal Congress. That’s just the point of the comparison. A federally appointed state government has no motivation to oppose any federal action. Do you approve of Volodya Putin’s power grab?

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:00 pm 191. Konyok:

mika,

Is it GRU then?

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:01 pm 192. 2x4:

Dear poul, I knew communism rather intimately. I grew up in it.

BTW, I don’t let my email public not because In want to be anonymous, but because I extremely dislike spam.

Somehow, I have doubts that you fought against communism. The question may be which one?

My name is Lumir G Janku, and I live in BC, Canada. I was born in Czechoslovakia, not long after WWII. I also have an American wife (separated) and daughter with her. That’s one reason I am in US quite often, beside living there for extensive chunks of time in the past. Satisfied?

What’s your name and where do you live?

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:02 pm 193. poul:

oh, we’re neighbors then – my real name is poul, and i live in seattle, the link to my blog is in my profile.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:04 pm 194. Russian Bear:

The article is both underestimation and exaggeration.
Underestimation, because Georgian military forces are in disarray and Russian Army can do in Georgia whatever they think is needed. So, why in halves? Russia can slice Georgia in as many pieces, as she wants. She does not do that? Than, it is just because there are no such plans from Russia. Exaggeration, because Russians have come up to the highway and sef a few checkpoints there without interrupting the traffic. So anyone and anything, other than military units and equipment may ride back and forth. In military operations the one of the most important things is to secure own troops as much as possible. Until Russian troops are withdrawn they must be secured from any possible attacks, so checkpoints and reconnaissance are not combat operations but normal in such a situation activities.
And Russia is going to start withdrawing on Monday 08. 18. 08. Russians are the winners, so no need for them to do it in a hurried manner, giving impression that they gave in to the pressure from John Samford’s promising WWIII, or Teresita, plannng economical disaster for Russia or Lifeofthemind moving the Polish, Italian and French divisions to the Russia’s borders (all are guys from this forum).
Russians are not breaking the deal. The deal does not set any timetable. So, they are going to withdraw with dignity, and at the time of their choice.
One source of pressure was the Ukraine-is a laughable statement. I think, Ukrainians are laughing at this statement too. You know, Georgian President Saakashvilly and the Ukrainian one, Yushchenko are close friends. On a personal level. They meet each other and talk informally more frequently than officially. So, Yushchenko is trying to do something to save his face as a loyal friend, but he does not have any leverage to deal with Russia. Russia has much more opportunities to bring troubles to Ukraine. And that is not only gas and oil supplies. The two radar stations on the Ukrainian territory are obsolete, and Russians refused to use them any longer and already built replacement for tham on their own territory. So, Ukrane may incorporate it into the Western missle warninig system. It will neither help the West a lot, nor harm Russia. Still something Yushchenko can do to please his beaten buddy.
A joke: After John McCaine said: “We all are Georgians now”, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvilly declared himself the President of the USA.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:06 pm 195. FreeBirdWil:

Did I ay “Cuban Missile Crisis’? I must have meant “Cuban Cigar Crisis”! Seriously as handily as you folks throw around names, incidents,conflicts, and attacks on those your speaking with at this table, where we are all guests, I best keep my thoughts to myself, lest I get hit by “friendly-fire”. I used to be a lurker in Mr. Wretchard’s previous home and was drawn towards his brilliance, such that I dared open my big mouth. For those that may have misread my “Cuban Missile Crisis” words, they were selected for their mass media meanings not the backdoor realities. My point was that history is full of little boys who get offended and stumble into power and then create havoc for the less demented to clean up at great expense in blood, cash, and relations. Putin is just such an animal and I believe he has made a move HE will not back down on (read “S. Ossetia, Abkhazia, Georgia, are already mine!”). “I don’t think the US will do anything besides talk or maybe take away our executive washroom keys to a few clubhouses. I’m still hungry and I ain’t through feeding. If you got anything “scary”, bring it on Mr. Chamberlain, but I’m thinking of having a few old friends for dinner, oh yes and if you do find your kahunas, China will say a big thank you for the gift of Taiwan while we dance.” “Warsaw Pact, I like the sound of that, please pass the jelly. Goodnight, signed, Emperor Putin, you may kiss my ring now.”

FreeBirdWil… you boys don’t stay up too late, you may need your energy when the draft resumes, even us retired vets still have to pass BCT.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:08 pm 196. neolex:

@everyone

Please, stop accusing people left and right of being plants. Russia has totally screwed up in PR in regards to this crisis, so a thought that they would blanket entire web with their operatives is prepostorous. Even if they did do it, they would stick to MSMs with major traffic and open comment sections, not niche blogs, where people tend to be more informed, thus harder to seed with propoganda.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:09 pm 197. bobal:

You overlook that Yucca Mountain is on Federal land outside the Nevada legislature or governor’s or state court authority.

That is right. On the other hand the Nevadans got dirty Harry in the Senate.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:16 pm 198. neolex:

@Russian Bear

How about you ask a couple of “Why?” with regards to your position.

Why did Russia cross the SO border in the first place?
Why has it refused to leave, so far?
Why was non-military infrastructure destroyed?
Why was rampaging by SO thugs allowed?
Why has Russia advanced its troops to 30km from Tbilisi during Rice’s visit?
Why did Medvyedev say “Russia will think twice about using force next time”?

Once you do a minimal attempt to answer those questions, you will see how your post falls apart.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:17 pm 199. Lifeofthemind:

@neolex,

A few possible reasons come to mind:
1. Capitalist culture is by nature outward directed. Dr. Johnson said “A man is never more innocently employed than when he is making money.” That makes honest commerce as such unselfish and moral. A good salesman really gets to know his clients.
2. Americans still hane the predisposition to think of themselves as favored and coming from a protected place. Paranoia is a fringe element in American politics. The fact of the enormous struggles we have faced still does not change the confidence with which we see ourselves.
3. The effects of the Protestant Great Awakening in shaping the national character probably had some impact on how we are willing to understand foreigners. Wesleyanism had a similar if smaller effect in England.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:19 pm 200. mark_b:

poul:

2×4, if i am FSB bot, you are chinese emperor. i fought against communism before you knew what it is, anonymous coward.

Check his livejournal, He’s not a commie, he’s from Seattle.(<=JOKE) . And he has a link to PizzaIDF(my fav charity) as well.

Provided that poul knows he is posting here.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:22 pm 201. 2x4:

neolex, in fact they did blanket a lot. Right on August 8. Not only major sites, but they appeared on blogs as well, although in much smaller count. It ebbed after a week, especially the obvious bots, but the more subtle ones seemed to remain in kind of monitoring mode, with less frequent posting.

So, it is not entirely paranoid to presume that they may be still present, selectively and in small numbers. Some even on their “own dime”, as a form of a challenge.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:25 pm 202. RAH:

People have many different viewpoints and experiences. This does not mean that other posters are Russian plants. We have enough liberals who think differently on foreign policy than conservatives and the libertarians are also different.

So I do not consider the other posters as invalid because their opinions differ from me. If they were Russian nationals that would not matter since I would get the benefit of a different viewpoint.

Rather than argue others are stupid or idiots lets argue and discuss their points. Not whether they are plants or never served, when they believe in the military might of the US.

I am more realist than idealist so I recognize the limitations of practical military might.
The US does not have the capacity to fight a true 2 front war with large armies and navies.

We can gear up for that but we dropped 6 divisions as part of the end of Cold War draw down and base closings.

Bush did not choose to rebuild our military to pre Clinton levels, we may be more efficient with new doctrines and weapons systems and our training is superb, but we are not omnipotent.

I have enjoyed the knowledge of many posters here.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:26 pm 203. Shivermetimbers:

Rah,

I enjoyed your post, but I am not too sure I agree with a couple of the points you make:

“This 21st century will see many hot spots in the drive to secure energy and material sources by Russia and China. The next 50 years will not be as peaceful as the last 50 years.”

First Russia: You cannot eat oil or natural gas. So, energy such as this helps within the framework of the western system. By this I mean that wester countries rely on oil and gas to make their economies run. If you hold these economies hostage and they deteriorate, there goes YOUR revenue.

Second China: China is more exposed to this. They are completely plugged into the Walmart economy – they need cheap energy to produce goods, and ship them to folks who can buy them. Threaten this system at any point, there goes THEIR revenue.

“We also need to secure our domestic will, the constant damaged to our will from the 5th element in the US will have to be addressed. America is very vulnerable to internal ideological challenges

“We allowed Russia to infiltrate the western institutional systems and we need to weed Russia from those.”

This has been happening for almost 70 years – good luck. The US has always flirted with socialism/communism because we have never fully implemented its ideas, and like those who did, we haven’t yet thrown these ideas into the trash bin.

“Getting any power and influence of Russia out of NATO is needed. Hopefully they will talk about that on Tuesday. So a new NATO may arise from the ashes of the old with the vigorous new blood of the Eastern European nations.”

What are the birth rates in these countries (honest question – I don’t know. But the rest of western Europe is in bad shape).

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:29 pm 204. 2x4:

He’s not a commie, he’s from Seattle

LOL! I lived there for a couple of years. And I am not a commie by any stretch. But yea, the joke is that it is no joke.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:34 pm 205. mika.:

Konyok,

Honestly, I really don’t know what you’re talking about.

My family migrated to Israel when I was very young. Later we moved to Canada. My Dad is pro Russia in our geopolitics arguments. I call it as it is. (Which is not very flattering towards the Russians. I know it might be hard for you to believe). The Soviet horrors I got to experience are the ones told me by my parents, uncle, and now dead grandparents. That said, it does not mean I’m blind to what goes on in America. I know my criticism is brutally harsh, but it’s honest and truthful. I wouldn’t say the things I say if I didn’t care, and didn’t honestly believe that Americans are better than this.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:36 pm 206. 2x4:

mika, “than this”?

Than what?

Have you been in States for a longer period then three weeks on vacation, lived there, worked there? If not, you have no idea. You seem to recite some talking points from some uber-leftie source (we have’em plenty up here, no doubt), disconnected from reality. It is as if you were talking about another planet.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:44 pm 207. cjm:

that’s what the rosenberg’s said!

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:45 pm 208. Shivermetimbers:

Cedarford,

Hmm. I quite like CJM’s comments. So, in my poor attempt at defending them, I think the bones in noses comment was referring to the brutal heavy fisted, drunken state of the russian ‘conscript’ that we are now hearing stories on.

How much of the Russian military is made up of these conscripts? How would they rate against our enlisted ranks?

Not suggesting we go to a war, but in the end, who are the real power brokers in Russia and how much would they lose if we did not stand down?

Personally, I think Russia made the biggest mistake. They could not possibly achieved any of their long term goals – like it or not, the kleptocracy IS plugged into the western system (unless they don’t care about there new found ‘bling’ and houses in portugal/spain).

There concerns, long term should be east where their population is crumbling.

Instead, they have given the west, and CHINA, who rely on being plugged into the western economic gird, real cause for concern.

Despite chest-beating, I think it was stupid on their part.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:45 pm 209. neolex:

@mika

This is your first coherent posting, as previously you were only making one-line snipes, that dont expose the situation but rather challenge other people arguments, without providing any factual support for the challenge.

Saying “I call it as it is” if fairly pretentious, as you assume your subjective perception of reality is the reality itself. What’s the point of debating with you if that is the case?

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:48 pm 210. mika.:

mika, “than this”?
Than what?
==
I’ve already made that clear.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:52 pm 211. buddy larsen:

you oughtta tell it, mark_b –nothing like them concrete anecdotes to put a little meat in the soup.

jeez, poul, lessee, red army smashing Germans all by itself, Europe would’ve been all Red except for D-Day, postwar red army cleans up Europe in a blink, f**king spineless coward USA should’ve fired up WWIII at any time, hare-brain me accusing you of being on Rus side, Kosovo helped jihad, Clinton blowing the Sauds –did i miss anything?

ok, first of all, the question was rhetorical, I didn’t expect an answer.

Next, i’d never diss the fighting power of Red Army WWII –hell it liberated my dad from Stalag Luft I, enabling me to be created later –so, thanks Ivan!

I don’t understand why it insults you that Red Army had some help –the material thru Murmansk & Vladivostok, the North African & Italian Campaigns, and most of all the day and night anglo-american strategic bombardment –before the great 1944 red army offensive. Facts is facts.

Nice to know that red army WAS after all on the way to the channel –I guess Patton was right about that. Also, he thought he could take 3rd Army to Moscow, but what did he know, he was only Patton, not poul.

Also, nix on your nuke theory –USA had enough –one was all Truman offered to drop on Uncle Joe unless he backed out of Turkey & Iran, and it worked.

I thought sure you’d say something about my eastern europe comment, maybe, “Those 100 million weren’t under the boot, why, they were getting free medical care, and that trying-to-escape stuff was just happy people acting silly”.

Lastly, and boy am i ready for lastly, the ”fighting jihad” element of the thing called ‘Kosovo’ was the establishing of a show of respect for Islam. Your reducing the concept to “…because clinton sucked saudi cock so hard, his ears got red’ is a nice line –i don’t like Clinton either (and BTW note that Obama has apparently pointedly disinvited Wesley Clark from any place of honor at the convention –that’s a nice touch, anti-Kosovo -wise) –but it seems that you do understand that there was the strategic side to it, too. Question remains, why didn’t the russian side control the thing –that would’ve been the natural way, and then there’d have BEEN no problem.

–BTW note i didn’t call you any names, nor bluster and cuss, nor type any naughty words into my keyboard.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:54 pm 212. Aristide:

@neolex

@@ Russian Bear

Why was non-military infrastructure destroyed?

Good question!

However when you compare what the Russian forces did compared to what the Georgian forces did their is no comparison!

This is the list of Russian bombing attacks put out by The Georgian Ministry of Defense. If you look at it almost all of the targets are military. Some civilian building that were hit were next to military targets. That is usually called collateral damage. Some other attack like the Tbilisi Airport are actually the radar site 8km away. There is a naval base at Poti, ships were sunk there not sure if by aerial bombardment.

Compare that with the grad missile and artillery attack on Tshinvalii. There arer quite a few pictures of damage in Tskhinvali on the first page.

If Russia were to unleash a grad missile attack on Tbilisi then you’d have your comparison.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:55 pm 213. Konyok:

mika,

It helps if you make arguments rather than make statements.

Your “devastated cities and towns” statement sounds foreign. If you were familiar with political arguments in the United States you would express yourself with more precision. An American progressive would speak of the devastation of the inner city, for example. I would understand that he was referring to race relations.
“Devastated cities and towns” sounds like you are speaking of a natural disaster or something.
When you speak of Bush with a “Barbed wire Johnson rod” you are again speaking in a foreign tongue. The entire string of words is awkward and weird. A “johnson?” Yeah, Ok, gotcha. A “johnson rod?” If you hadn’t used sodomized as the verb I would not have understood what you were talking about.
When you speak of imperialists needing foes you are merely repeating propaganda slogans. These are words without meaning in the real world.

If you wish to convince, you must make arguments that you are able to defend.

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:58 pm 214. neolex:

@mika

Ma kara? Ain leha ma omer?

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:59 pm 215. Aristide:

Can anyone tell me what this says?

Aug 17, 2008 - 8:59 pm 216. 2x4:

Mika, obviously you are young (relatively) and not sure who said that if you are young and are not liberal, you’ve no heart, the second part is that if you are older and you’re not a conservative, you’ve no brains. In my case, I did not have much chance at being a liberal, because at age 9, I looked around and saw and visceral hatred of communism and leftism was the result.

I wish you a speedy mugging by reality.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:00 pm 217. Aristide:

OK, let me try again…

What does it say in the picture at the link below.

http://s57.radikal.ru/i158/0808/4c/5c244d00aec6.jpg

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:01 pm 218. mika.:

neolex,

yesh li harbe ma lomar. kaha asiti.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:01 pm 219. neolex:

Literally, “If not enough, we’ll add more”

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:02 pm 220. mika.:

Your “devastated cities and towns” statement sounds foreign.
==
You don’t travel much.

Seriously, from my experience, in only two places in the world can you literally breath freedom, and that’s Israel and the US. Believe me, I’m as pro America as they get. Maybe that’s why I sound a bit disenchanted.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:11 pm 221. FreeBirdWil:

Last word… Buddy L. Oh how I wish Patton had disobeyed that one more order! At least he didn’t live to see it or he would have had a tough time living with himself. Someone helped him avoid the pain of seeing how right he would have been to go north, and how disappointed he would have been for not. Old soldiers…fading away. FBW

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:12 pm 222. wGraves:

If you accept the premise that a large number of your citizens living in an adjacent country justifies a military annexation, then you should remember the Anschutz. Hitler used this excuse to take over Austria and the Sudatenland (Parts of Poland and Chech Republic) in 1938. He probably could have been stopped by a vigorous opposition at that time. Once he got rolling, he became a world class problem.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:14 pm 223. 2x4:

wGraves, way before that, militarization of Rhineland, taking over Alsace-Lorraine, then Anschluss to Austria. Everybody was sleeping.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:30 pm 224. buddy larsen:

freebird –yep, he was a renegade after VE Day. Whoever that someone was that helped him, merely helped him not go home and retire to his horses and garden. he wasn’t going to start WWIII. he was just an anti-communist in a time of attempted cooperation.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:35 pm 225. 2x4:

Mika, Seriously, from my experience, in only two places in the world can you literally breath freedom, and that’s Israel and the US

Why do you think it is? (US, that is, never ‘ve been to Israel).

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:46 pm 226. cedarford:

Lets not forget, in the quoting of Solzhenitsyn on the subject of “human rights, democracy, and freedom” that Alexander weighed that against the need for strength, honor that every nation wanted and concluded that the US had kicked Russia when it was down and all but guaranteed that it’s aggression against Russia and it’s slimey backing of the corrupt opportunists that looted Russia would guarantee Revanchist Russian foreign policy.

In 2007, Solzhenitsyn told Der Spiegel how fortunate it was for all Russians, even longtime haters of the KGB, totalitarianism, and Cosmopolitans – like him – that Putin had brought Russia back.

“Putin inherited a country ransacked (by the West and the Oligarchs), with a poor and demoralized people. And he started to do what is possible – a slow and gradual restoration. Those efforts were not noticed, or appreciated, immediately. In any case, one is hard-pressed to find examples in history when steps by one country to restore it’s strength were met favorably by other governments (happy and hoping that another power stays prostrate).

And all the Neocon fans waving their little sabers and poring over Google maps – when they are not opposing any new taxes or a Draft needed to fight the 14 or so new wars they advocate the US get involved in soon, overlook this: (from Mike Goodwin)

But America also needs to get its own act together if we have any hope of rallying the world against the new rise of totalitarian regimes. Russia was clearly emboldened not only by its newfound oil and gas wealth, but also by our obvious weakness.

We are hobbled in the world and divided at home, dependent on others for our energy, much of our food, manufacturing, and even for our financing.

We are going deeper into debt with each passing day, our future mortgaged with commitments we cannot possibly keep. And yet the solutions our leaders offer are no match for the scale of the problems. We don’t even demand that Obama and McCain offer honest ideas that would halt our alarming decline, let alone put us on the path to security and prosperity.

One result is that, if this is the start of a new Cold War, we’re in no position to fight it with even the same commitment and resources we used to win the last one.

=======================
RAH – Rather than argue others are stupid or idiots lets argue and discuss their points. Not whether they are plants or never served, when they believe in the military might of the US.

Its a little hard to avoid that when you have idiots that say we have no choice but to launch our military in strikes against Russia and start WWIII “to avoid another Munich!”.

=========================

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:47 pm 227. buddy larsen:

2×4, ‘’sleeping” or ”remembering” that 20 years earlier –20 years, about the time it takes to get a little rebuilding done –was WWI. i imagine the man in the street was thinking ”no, it can’t possibly happen again, herr schicklegruber must be kidding”.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:48 pm 228. 2x4:

Its a little hard to avoid that when you have idiots that say we have no choice but to launch our military in strikes against Russia and start WWIII “to avoid another Munich!”.

Your interpretation. In actuality, people are saying: “Draw the line in sand”.

As Solzhenitsyn goes, he was wrong about Putin. Under Mussolini trains ran on time and under Hitler, unemployment was almost negligible. Putin is an authoritarian thug. He may have cleaned up the apparent corruption, but replaced it by hidden one–only his cronies now get a cut. He consolidated his power by taking away right to elect governors by people, and now they are getting appointed from top. It is a SU retro, only with a different facade.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:56 pm 229. neolex:

@c4

“in the quoting of Solzhenitsyn”

quoting Solzhenitsyn would not be out of line with your other anti-semitic rants

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:56 pm 230. poul:

buddy larsen,

> jeez, poul, lessee, red army smashing Germans all by itself,
didn’t say that
> Europe would’ve been all Red except for D-Day

any doubt about that?

> I don’t understand why it insults you that Red Army had some help –the material thru Murmansk & Vladivostok, the North African & Italian Campaigns, and most of all the day and night anglo-american strategic bombardment –before the great 1944 red army offensive. Facts is facts.

this is far cry from your initial claim that “USA could’ve waited awhile and let Hitler conquer USSR… no 8th AAF campaign or D-Day until Stalin was safely beat past the Urals”. huge difference, don’t you agree? anyway i am glad you’re taking it back, and yes, of course american supplies helped a lot.

> Also, nix on your nuke theory –USA had enough

citation needed

> I thought sure you’d say something about my eastern europe comment, maybe, “Those 100 million weren’t under the boot, why,

why, they were indeed. you’re pissing on the wrong tree.

> Lastly, and boy am i ready for lastly, the ”fighting jihad” element of the thing called ‘Kosovo’ was the establishing of a show of respect for Islam.

you mean the defeatism fights jihad? oh boy, what an obamian argument…

> Your reducing the concept to “…because clinton sucked saudi cock so hard, his ears got red’ is a nice line

what else there is to it?

> but it seems that you do understand that there was the strategic side to it, too.

such as?

> Question remains, why didn’t the russian side control the thing
they did. ethnic cleansing of georgians from ossetia and abkhazia was deliberate and effective – another lesson they learned from kosovo.

and least you misread me again, no, i don’t approve of that.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:58 pm 231. RAH:

Shivermetimbers,

Thanks for your comment. Russian did not really become a manufacturing society that it could have done since they failed to correctly institute the infrastructure needed. The infrastructure I am talking about is the legal precepts of private property and all that implies and contract law and the punishments for infringing private property rights and contracts. Their culture needed to be changed and that did not really occur. We had hundreds of years to become the capitalistic system that respected the rights of people and had a mechanism to solve conflicts and torts. We had a culture of independence that encouraged us to stand up and argue for equity and a decent culture of honest judges.

Russia instead fell into a more criminal Mafioso style method of capitalism. Using threats and extortion to get the means of production. This probably was a more comfortable fit based on their culture than our common law English based culture.

So Russia will export oil until their sources dry up and buy what it needs for manufactured goods from the world. Food sources should be adequate from internal sources. Political power over Europe will be applied from the criminal concept of extortion. Especially during winter where heat is a necessity. Rarely will they have to perform on the threat. Just a few examples will be needed.

China has lots of coal and they build a coal plant a week. They have decided on having lots of local sources for power rather than long transmission lines. The Chinese have not yet invested in coal scrubbers and their air suffers. As they become wealthier they demand for cleaning production will come and be instituted.

China is buying as much material and natural resources all over the world as they can. They are developing a tremendous manufacturing capacity from their Walmart market. But their buyers are expanding to Africa, Europe Asia, Middle East, and Australia The Chinese bought the Zimbabwe mineral rights and they brought in their own Han people and made an enclave and under sell clothing and consumer foods and destroy the local market and then they have a monopoly on the market. Chinese sell weapons to the government and bring in their own soldiers to protect their own people. This model is happening in Burma, India, Africa and many locations.

China will be world economic and military power if they are not already. Since the US controls the Pacific, the probability of a conflict will inevitable rise in the future. Not now but the Chinese do long range plans. The Chinese have a very large population to leverage into economic power.

Short term damage to China economy can occur if we shut off the American market, but they will just shift the buyers. That is no benefit to America or to China, unless we want to incur the cost of local manufacturing for national security purposes. But our cost differentials are very large.

Aug 17, 2008 - 9:59 pm 232. neolex:

Despite what Solzhenitsyin believed, Putin did not “bring Russia back”. For an average Russian conditions were much more favorable under USSR than under Putin. Putin stole billions of dollars and undermined the Russian economy with his idiotic statements and actions. Russia’s progress can more easily be attributed to the price of oil than Putin’s actions. Corruption and bribery did not decrease and if anything, have become untouchable if they are affiliated with the “party of power” – United Russia.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:03 pm 233. buddy larsen:

@C4: ”Its a little hard to avoid that when you have idiots that say we have no choice but to launch our military in strikes against Russia and start WWIII “to avoid another Munich!”.

Regardless of the proper strategy, C4, you do agree, don’t you, that since “Munich” the term refers to an appeasement that leads to a much worse war a little later on, “Munich” would be a good thing to avoid?

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:04 pm 234. mika.:

Why do you think it is?
==
It’s hard to explain. There’s a particular energy in the air that you just don’t find anywhere else. Inhibitions just melt away.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:08 pm 235. 2x4:

Mika, yes, that is a good description. But where it comes from? What is its cause. Why you can’t find it in France, or can find just a recycled teabag of it in Canada?

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:15 pm 236. RAH:

Cedarrford, I have enjoyed your thoughts though I do not agree with all of them. But you present your viewpoint well.

My personal preference would be a military reaction but there are more considerations that need to be made. We may still have to do that if Russia does not withdraw. But the diplomatic pressure is working if extremely slowly from the Georgian viewpoint.

So reasonable people can be for a position and others can be against. I admit some ideas have been simplistic. I just ignore a lot of those posts.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:17 pm 237. buddy larsen:

Poul, its getting late in the eve for a nitpicking duel, how about if i just say, if i wanted to bother with one, i could cream ya. then you could say, ”no way”, then i could say, ‘way’, and so forth.

Just one, tho: ”and yes, of course american supplies helped a lot”. You erased, even after i went to all the trouble to fill in these details for you, the North Africa and Italian campaigns, and the strategic bombing campaign leveling the German industrial infrastructure.

You didn’t have to erase, because i didn’t say it, but will, that USA was also fighting a huge Pacific War, without which Tojo’s Axis alliance would’ve brought Russia a second front in the far east, a second front that the lack of which helped Russia hugely –most notably (in the action editions of light popular history) at the acknowledged turning point of the Eastern Front, Stalingrad, where the Siberian units that Stalin brought from the far east, units that military historians say he could never have brought west without the American war on Japan beginning to go well, are what turned the tide at Stalingrad, eliminated German Sixth Army, and started Red Army on the road to Berlin.

There’s plenty of credit to go around, i dunno why you keep trying to hog it by erasing some of my words from the answers that you say are the answers to my words.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:29 pm 238. Russian Bear:

@neolex
I do not see how your questions are relevant to my position which is: Cutting Georgia in halves, is almost the same like not cutting it, or cutting it in quarters, or eights. The work by Russians is done. 2-4 checkpoints make no difference. It is just technicalities, not a kind of a mean strategy. But your questions are interesting, so i am going to try…
1.Why did Russia cross the SO border in the first place?One of the goals of the involvement (may be the main one) was to defeat Georgian military and to humiliate Georgia, and her president M. Saakashvilly personally. (Why,-this is a another question, not on your list). Had they stopped on the border, it would not be a 100% defeat.
2.Why has it refused to leave, so far? They start moving tomorrow. It has been just 1 week after the beginning of the conflict. The French Foreign Minister Mr. Kushner said yesterday: “If the sides stick to the agreement and have it implemented, this war is going to be one of the shortest in the history, and the seas-fire- the fastest to have been ever achieved”. So, it is not too late yet. Let the Russian to leave with dignity, as I said.
3.Why was non-military infrastructure destroyed?
This is something they copy from the NATO actions in Yugoslavia in 2003. They learned NATO’s recipe for this kind of situation. And the situation is pretty much alike. Yet they did not use as many infrastructural strikes, as NATO did.
4.Why was rampaging by SO thugs allowed?
They are not allowed. It is hard to control the looting thugs. Russians brought just about 11000 troops there. They are combat troops, not MP. They were not going to occupy the city of Gori or to station garrisons in every Georgian village. There are to many villages. The area has ethnically mixed population with a long history of mutual hatred and hostilities. And the population is impoverished. So, they just go to the abandoned villages and grab the things they want. Had the Georgian Army won their war, and had Ossetians fled to Russia, the Georgian thugs would do the same. How many Serbs were killed in Kosovo when it fell under the NATO control? How many Serbian houses were looted? How many Churches were burned down? How much of looting took place in Iraq? Including weapons warehouses and museums? Why Americans allowed that?
5.Why has Russia advanced its troops to 30km from Tbilisi during Rice’s visit? Well, I do not think they tried to capture Sweet Condi. Georgia is a “short distances country”. They just could not stop because of the momentum.
Why did Medvyedev say “Russia will think twice about using force next time”?
Did he? Never heard about that.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:33 pm 239. buddy larsen:

oh, and by ”control the thing”, please carefully re-read, we were discussing Kosovo, not Georgia.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:35 pm 240. buddy larsen:

russian bear, without going into any particulars of content, may I say that the tone of your presentation is very positive, and especially so if it’s in a second language. Maybe there’s hope yet for talk talk rather than war war.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:44 pm 241. 2x4:

buddy, he is not Putin, nor Medvedev nor Lavrev. He may be more surprised than we would be if RF are still in Georgia in spring.

I remember upbeat Russian soldiers expreessing their pleasure that they could help suppressing the evil contrarevolutionairies. They really meant it, naive dupes.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:55 pm 242. buddy larsen:

2×4, i hear you –but it is nice not to trade insults. trading opposite visions is difficult enough, whew.

Aug 17, 2008 - 10:59 pm 243. bobal:

The Hungarian Revolution of 1956 occurred during his presidency and he has received some criticism for the lack of support from the United States for the revolutionaries during this time. On November 2, 1956, the State Department issued the statement, “The government of the United States does not look with favor upon governments unfriendly to the Soviet Union on the borders of the Soviet Union.” [1] Early in the morning on November 4, 1956 the Soviet Union counterattacked and without outside support the revolution quickly fell.
—
On the other hand I recall reading years ago that there was talk of ‘demilitarizing’ Russia in the early days of Ike’s presidency, and he rejected the idea, as he felt we’d have an obligation to occupy and pacify the country, ala Germany and Japan, and it was beyond our ability to do so.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:08 pm 244. bobal:

The first is from wiki, the second from my less than rat trap memory.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:09 pm 245. buddy larsen:

Richard Holbrooke was in the war zone today –tv broadcast an interview wherein he waxed very emotional on the destruction, and called for an immediate congressional resolution to send a rebuilding aid package. That’s well & good –but Richard Holbrooke –who would’ve been Kerry’s sec of state probably, and is now on the Obama team, gives me the shivers as a USA rep. He’s got a history I’m not sure enough of us understand. Jeez, if Obama wins this election, we’ll all get another lesson, to make up for the one we forgot, which is readily available on search. I’d try something other than google and wikipedia, too.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:33 pm 246. bobal:

Russian Bear assures us they’ll be leaving tomorrow, we can all count on that.

My grandfather and the other farmers used to raise a wheat they called “Red Roosian” which got so tall you could walk into it and disappear. Had an awful bad tendency to fall over and lodge, though.

Aug 17, 2008 - 11:55 pm 247. buddy larsen:

yeh, when that stuff lodges, it’s hard to get it into the thresher.

Aug 18, 2008 - 12:05 am 248. buddy larsen:

time to call your congressman –and hope that russian bear ain’t who picks up the phone.

Aug 18, 2008 - 12:31 am 249. 2x4:

buddy, that’s beyond insane!

Aug 18, 2008 - 1:10 am 250. buddy larsen:

i hope that’s the word. i’ll settle for that word. it’s far better than another word which i won’t say right now.

Aug 18, 2008 - 1:30 am 251. poul:

buddy larsen:

>Poul, its getting late in the eve for a nitpicking duel, how about if i just say, if i wanted to bother with one, i could cream ya.

if i had a dollar for every time i hear that…

Aug 18, 2008 - 1:51 am 252. Doug:

I’ll spot the dollar and raise you 24.5416841 rubles.

Aug 18, 2008 - 2:58 am 253. Doug:

“They just could not stop because of the momentum.”
—
Maybe we can provide Disc Brakes for their Deuce and a Halfs, and save lives on their next mission of Rape and Pillage.

Aug 18, 2008 - 3:10 am 254. mika.:

But where it comes from? What is its cause.
==
I’m not much of a mystic. I just call it as I see it.

Aug 18, 2008 - 5:41 am 255. buddy larsen:

haha –i bet you do indeed hear that often, poul. it’s what people say when they realize you plan to endlessly answer “And?”

Doug, take a look at that link 2×4 exclaimed on just above –look like you can go ahead & raise in dollars, we dones been in-filter-rated, y’all!

Aug 18, 2008 - 5:52 am 256. buddy larsen:

Mika, that’s great, but y’know, so does a daisy turning toward the sun. if i may suggest a higher goal, ”call it as it is”.

Aug 18, 2008 - 6:55 am 257. John Samford:

Cedarford, I don’t even know where to start, so I will just point out that I have facts and evidence to support MY OPINIONS, which you don’t.
I see no purpose in trading insults, which is all you seem capable of. When you have facts to support your opinions, trot them out and we can debate. Meanwhile, play with your navel and pretend the world isn’t what it is and is what you dream it is.

March, 1936 Germany re-occupies Rhineland
March, 1938 Germany annexes Austria
October, 1938 Germany annexes Sudetenland
March, 1939 Czechoslovakia dismembered
March, 1939 Germany annexes Memel
September, 1939 Germany invades Poland and the European portion of WW2 starts.

CF, that was what they call a “trend line”. There were people of that time who saw the trend and warned what was coming. Others, like you, couldn’t or wouldn’t see the trend. So they kept pretending that if they gave Hitler one more little bit of land, he would be happy and stop. He didn’t and would NOT have.
Putin is the new, 21st century Hitler.
Hitler could have been stopped in 1936 by the simple and low cost (in blood and money) of taking back the Rhineland.
My thesis is that throwing the Russians out of Georgia is not just doable, but desirable because it will have the same affect that throwing Germany out of the Rhineland would have had in 1936. Hitler, Like Putin, was elected. Putin, like Hitler, seized power after being elected. Hitler used his expansionist plans to stay in power. If he had been stopped ANYWHERE before September 1939, he would have lost power. No Hitler, no WW2.
Putin is in the same boat. Stop Russian expansion and Putin will be removed. Georgia is just the most cost effective place and now is the most cost effective time to stop Putin.

“An appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile, hoping it will eat him last.”
- Prime Minister Winston Churchill

I got a better idea. Don’t feed the crocodile, make luggage instead.

Aug 18, 2008 - 7:12 am 258. FreeBirdWil:

Reply to John Samford @ 8/18 6:55 AM

I like the way you see the light,and I agree, but be prepared as, light, attracts bugs!

FBW

Aug 18, 2008 - 7:35 am 259. neolex:

@Russian Bear

see newer thread ab. Russia for a reply

Aug 18, 2008 - 8:19 am 260. buddy larsen:

hell, light just means you can see ‘em –they’re there in the dark, too –just not concentrated in a dense mass.

Aug 18, 2008 - 9:37 am 261. 2x4:

Mika, it has nothing to do with metaphysics. The feeling is a reflection of reality that was created by people and watered by blood of people that did not have a mush for brains. And this freedom of opportunity is maintaned by many millions of generous people whose names we may never know, the decent “regular” people that step up the plate if needs to be to protect not only their fredom, but also ours, without hesitation. It does not come from thin air.

The above may seem to be a string of slogans, but I assure you, that is not the case.

You last few replies show that not only you are disconnected from reality, you seem to be disconnected utterly. Your magical thinking betrays your rather young age, but it only is apprpriate for a kid less than 13 years old, not for someone past teen age. You ARE past teen age, are you?

I am telling you this not to berate you, just the opposite, to point out there seems to be an area you need to take a care of. It’s maturing.

Aug 18, 2008 - 10:31 am 262. John Samford:

Light, dark, masses, in singles, the Military Industrial Complex builds weapons to handle them all.
God didn’t make all men equal, Samuel Colt did.
The Infrared sniper scope makes them all the same color.
Of course, if you don’t have the will to use those weapons you might as well go with the pointy stick, big rock combo. Saves a lot of money, which your enemy will find a good use for after they kill you and take it.

“Our Country won’t go on forever, if we stay soft as we are now. There won’t
be any AMERICA because some foreign soldiery will invade us and take our
women and breed a hardier race!”
-Lt. Gen. Lewis B. “Chesty” Puller, USMC

Chesty had his sh1t together.

Aug 18, 2008 - 10:41 am 263. John Samford:

P.S.
Soviets, er….. Russians leave yet?
How many deadlines will pass before the left figures it out? Maybe they are waiting for Kerry to give up his DD214?

Aug 18, 2008 - 10:44 am 264. 2x4:

John Samford, do you remember their “being temporary stationed” in Czechoslovakia? 18 years. But there was no pressure to leave. Hopefully, we won’t see a repeat of 18 years… it would be painfully slooooooow, though. At the moment, the thuggish bear seems to be shuffling her units from one part of Georgia to another.

Aug 18, 2008 - 10:56 am 265. mika.:

The above may seem to be a string of slogans, but I assure you, that is not the case.
==
I know.

That is why I say what I say. We have a collective duty not to turn America into another Europe. Unfortunately, the imperialists the war profiteers the bankers have also made their way to America. And what you see now is a replay of what has gone on in Europe.

Aug 18, 2008 - 11:07 am 266. mika.:

if i may suggest a higher goal, “call it as it is”.
==
What’s wrong with understanding the world, as higher calling?

Aug 18, 2008 - 11:15 am 267. buddy larsen:

what we think of as an understanding of the world, is almost invariably an understanding not of the world but of our understanding of it. In learning to understand our own thoughts we are often defeated by such clarity, because clarity is a destination which ends the journey of understanding a world in which a life moving through time and space is always on a journey into the unknown.

Aug 18, 2008 - 12:18 pm 268. sirius_sir:

Poul, I go back to your original declaration: the only way out of this mess is preemptively recognize independence of ossetia and abkhazia

To which I answered, in essence, what if we do? I contend if these populations so desire their freedom they “should also be fighting the Russians–to claim their autonomy as well as help preserve that of the Georgians. But they don’t seem willing, do they? And so by preemptively giving them their independence Georgia would accomplish what, exactly?” I notice you choose to ignore the question.

To my dissection of your answer for ‘this mess’ you have no answer at all. The pressures the Georgians bring to bear upon these populations pale in comparison to the pressures the Russians can and, I believe is readily apparent, will bring to bear. You say “for the millionth time: they [Russians] have no business to do many things” which seems a tacit admission of my prior point that your solution (preemptively recognizing the breakaway regions’ independence) is nonsensical.

Suppose, as a test, we just ask the Russians to recognize the independence and sovereignty of North Ossetia and see what happens? After all, they shouldn’t ignore the yearnings of the majority if asked nicely, right?

But as you say, they have no business to do many things, yet ignore the desires of the majority they surely will, as they have proven time and time again and are proving in the formerly free Republic of Georgia even now.

Aug 18, 2008 - 12:41 pm 269. mika2k1:

clarity is a destination which ends the journey of understanding
==
The world constantly evolves. So is my understanding of it.

Aug 18, 2008 - 1:04 pm 270. 2x4:

Mika,

We have a collective duty not to turn America into another Europe

Please define what specific features of Europe do you have on your mind.

Unfortunately, the imperialists the war profiteers the bankers have also made their way to America.

They’ve been always in America. It is a country of opportunity. For everybody. You can’t say the freedom of opportunity is for me, but not for thee. If someone had the power to do that, that moment the freedom of opportunity would be gone one day. Of course, the unwritten golden rule is that if your conduct would limit the freedom of opportunity of someone else, you’d likely be subject to sanction in one form or another. It may take a while, because the freedom of opportunity society is not static and is ever-evolving, but there is more likely than not a comeuppance for transgressions–the self-correction mechanism is built in, albeit sometimes painfully slower that we’d like. And, human beigs do transgress readily.

The thing is that without bankers, there would be not enough capital availble to fund new ventures, create new industries and, fund research and development. Thinking otherwise is nothing but a sheer naivity.

Without military-industrial complex, America would be defenseless aginst anyone willing to use their military-industrial complex. That is reality.

I am not sure about imperialists, though, if you will be so kind a point out one or two for me. But before you do, please read the definition of what imperialism means and no, the marxist definition would not fly with me, it’s a canard. I’ve seen this label thrown about so many times inappropritely that it is meaningless unless its corespondence with reality is not in doubt–the old definition, before it was hijacked for mindfuck purposes by leftotalitarian ideologues.

Aug 18, 2008 - 1:17 pm 271. mika2k1:

2×4,
The military budget is an order of magniture greater than that of anyone next. There’s absolutely no reason for that.

Aug 18, 2008 - 1:25 pm 272. buddy larsen:

“There’s absolutely no reason for that.”

How about, keeping the sea lanes open, the skies open, and as much of the land as possible open, for freedom of movement for people, goods, and services?

From another angle, wave a wand and disappear the US military –how does the world look in 1 year/ 5 years/ 20 years/ ?

And please, give a real answer. it doesn’t have to be long.

Aug 18, 2008 - 1:34 pm 273. buddy larsen:

How much of the world would be like this?

Aug 18, 2008 - 1:57 pm 274. 2x4:

mika2k1,

“There’s absolutely no reason for that.”

One again, you present naivity as an argument.

There is a very good reson for that as noted by buddy larsen.

Nootwithstanding, for instance, Europeans that decided to reduce their military spending deflecting it to welfare, to a degree that theit respective militaries are little more than collection of tin soldiers. They are esentially riding on US taxpayers’ backs.

There is one aspect, though, that is largely disregarded or forgotten. A sizable portion of military spending budget is dedicated to R&D. The results (spinoffs) are bounced back to civil sector. That factor is not negligible either. Just from the top of my head, my SE Linux layer has been developed by those eeeevil spooks at NSA. (The budget for Intel agencies, although separate, is usually lumped with overall military spending figures).

Aug 18, 2008 - 2:31 pm 275. Champions in Hypocrisy:

There are 28 sports in the Beijing Olympics. Hypocrisy isn’t one of them- but if it was- then the US and Britain would surely be battling it out for the gold medal. For when it comes to double standards, these two past-masters make everyone else look like also-rans. In the last few days, they’ve been in particularly sparkling form.

After just one day’s fighting between Georgian and Russian forces, the US and Britain were calling for an “immediate ceasefire”.

Could this be the same US and Britain, who repeatedly rejected the widespread international calls for an immediate ceasefire during the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict?

The US and Britain also say that they support Georgia’s “territorial integrity”.

Could this be the same US and Britain who, by championing Kosovan separatism showed nothing but contempt for the ‘territorial integrity’ of Serbia?

In addition, the US has condemned Russia for what it calls its “dangerous and disproportionate” action against Georgia.

Yes, that’s right, the country which launched ‘Shock and Awe’ against a largely defenceless and impoverished Middle Eastern nation five years ago-on a wholly fabricated pretext– accuses others of taking ‘dangerous and disproportionate action’. Chutzpah really isn‘t the word.

The US has also accused Russia of seeking “regime change” in Georgia. That’s rather like John McEnroe accusing another tennis player of being impolite to the umpire.

When it comes to seeking “regime change” the US are undisputed world champions- they’ve toppled regimes from Belgrade to Baghdad, from Tehran to Tblisi. The US is to regime changing what Casanova is to making love- no one has done it more often.

Of course, what underpins the US and British hypocrisy is a colossal arrogance. It’s an arrogance which seeks to extend NATO to the doorstep of Russia. Imagine if Russia was encouraging Mexico or Canada to join a Russian-led military alliance, and 1,000 Russian troops were engaged in exercises in Mexico as US troops were only last month in Georgia? Or if Russia announced it was to site a missile defence system in Jamaica- as the US has done in the Czech Republic and Poland?

It’s sad to see so many journalists in America and Britain fail to challenge the attitudes which underpin the blatant hypocrisy of their country’s foreign policies. Do they honestly think that different standards should apply to the US and Britain for everyone else?

The US and Britain claim to be keen supporters of democracy, but when the electorate don’t vote the ’right way’ whether it be in elections in Palestine or in Belarus, they call the vote invalid.

Ninety-nine percent of people in South Ossetia voted for independence from Georgia, but as far as US and Britain is concerned, the “territorial integrity of Georgia” should be maintained. In Kosovo though, a majority in favour of independence is enough to gain US and British support for secession. At the same time, the wishes of the Serbs in Republic Srpska to join up with Serbia have been ignored.

It seems that self-determination, like democracy, is a principle to only be selectively applied as far as these Olympic champions are concerned.

McCain has called Russian military action in South Ossetia “deplorable”. But the most “deplorable” thing of all is the breathtaking double standards of the United State and its most loyal poodle-Britain.

Aug 18, 2008 - 2:32 pm 276. 2x4:

We are blessed with agitprop again!

Ninety-nine percent of people in South Ossetia voted for independence from Georgia

Ninety-nine percent… Impresive… does it include the 9% of Georgians that lived there until August 8/2008? Oh sorry, forgotten… They don’t count–as one Russian sargeant noted recently when directing a group of Georgian volunters cleaning Tskhinvali streets: “Labor is good for monkeys!”

Aug 18, 2008 - 3:42 pm 277. mika.:

There is a very good reson for that as noted by buddy larsen.
==
Right.

Socialize the costs, privatize the profits.

Explain why should the American middle class shoulder all the costs. They certainly don’t share in the benefits. 85% of federal income or $1.4 trillion goes towards military related expenditures so as to keep America addicted to oil. As I said before, those that benefit are largely the fat cat military contractors, the fat cat war profiteers, the fat cat subsidized oil mafia, the fat cat Jihadi mofos, the fat cat Wall Street bankers, and the fat cat global imperialist elite. Why should I be ok with that?

Aug 18, 2008 - 3:47 pm 278. Konyok:

I think that there might be another sociological factor enabling the Russians in this adventure and, probably, discouraging domestic dissent: racism.

Russians, and muscovites in particular, have a lot of disdain for the peoples of the Caucasus. The common slur is “chernozhob,” which translates as “black ass.” Although Georgians and Armenians, as christians, occupy a slighter higher social niche than Chechens or Azeris, they are viewed as inferior to Great Russians. Georgians, and other Caucasus peoples, are considered to be prone to criminality, dishonest and dirty. The Moscow authorities routinely round them up and expel them from the Russian capital. Russians do not think of Georgians as “European.”

I think that one reason that Russians support the military operations is Georgia is this disdain for “those people.”

I also think that one reason the Russians are allowing the S. Ossetian militia and various *volunteers* to operate freely in the areas of Georgia that they control is because Russian public opinion has a certain comfort level with the thought of different chernozhopy fighting each other. That is what “those people” do, after all.
The Russian army has plausible deniability, they are not themselves involved in the ethnic cleansing, and it is so hard to control these excitable people.

Aug 18, 2008 - 4:59 pm 279. 2x4:

mika, are you a US tax payer? No? Hmmm.

1. 85% of federal income or $1.4 trillion goes towards military

Where you got that figure?
Utter rubbish. A lie.

Military spending budget 2007 figures:
3.7% of US GDP (which historically is a low figure)
$463 Billon (includes DoE)

Taxation:
Top 2% of earners (>1 Million atxable income) provide 15% of total tax revenue.

Oil:
Military expenditures have nothing to do with keeping people addicted to oil. So far, oil was the cheapest source of energy and the whole economy runs on it. Those US strawberries, peppers and broccoli that you’ve bought yesterday in your neighborhood superstore were available to you through oil.

Democrats blocked oil drilling in CONUSA/ANWR so far, for long time, but it seems that era is ending and US will be able to replace ME sources with their own oil within 5-10 years (financed by fatcat bankers and fatcat oil mafia). US would be still dependent on Canada (16%) and Mexico (15%) to cover total needed, but that is better than funding Soddy financed jihad.

BTW, Exxon paid in taxes in 1007 about 12 billion more than was their profit. That goes for fatcat oil mafia.

Just FYI, the profit margins in oil biz are extremely slim, oil has one of the lowest profit margins of all commodities. If you want to be a fatcat, oranges (and the final product OJ) are about 4 times more profitable and you’d skip astronomical initial outlay expenditures. There are industries/sectors that are about 10 times more profitable than oil. But a smart conman like Soros, I am sure he beats even that figure hands down.

But something tells me that you really aren’t interested in this info. You divide people on fatcats and ahm, leancats(?), without actually considering how they are linked and how society works together.

Your perspective, overall, seems to be colored by envy.

There are scammers and on men/women, of course, coruption follow mankind like an unseparable shadow, but the corruption in Western Democracies is a fraction of corruption anywhere else. A majority of the people that you call fatcats are hardworking people that work 12 or more hours per day. And die often earlier than a welfare bum, because of the stress from responsibility they have to bear.

Aug 18, 2008 - 5:04 pm 280. Champions in Hypocrisy:

2×4: Yeah, and? By same token I could ask you,when U.S. criminally backed Albanian Islamist in Balkans did it ask non-Albanian population whether they want independence from Serbia? Who cared??? I did not see the majority of Westerners protesting. Remained silent and obediant. Well Russia bear just announced it’s pay back time.

Preserving the territorial integrity of Georgia will not be possible without preserving the territorial integrity of Serbia in Kosovo and Metohija province.

It is unacceptable to recognize the unilateral independence of Kosovo province from Serbia and, at the same time, keep repeating the territorial integrity of Georgia must be respected when it comes to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

If we all respect the territorial integrity of Serbia in regards to its Kosovo province, then we are also going to honor the territorial integrity of Georgia. But if someone doesn’t respect Serbia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija, then they better shut up about the territorial integrity of Georgia

What NATO did in Yugoslavia — slaughter of civilians, destruction of the bridges on Danube, razing the Belgrade television and the rest, takes away their right to criticize Russia for any present or future actions, as far as I am concerned. Case CLOSED!

Moving along, then. One has to be either stupid or harbor malicious intent to call the Russian action “aggressive” when it was clearly a response to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia. Russia is a guarantor of the truce that froze the conflict in the early 1990s when Ossetia and Abkhazia seceded from Tbilisi; as such, it certainly had the right and one might even argue duty to intervene when the truce was violated by, say, the Georgian army invading Ossetia wholesale.

Of course, Tbilisi claims that Ossetians attacked first. Just like Poland. Why would the Ossetians provoke the war? They had de facto independence, Russian citizenship, and could wait the Georgians out pretty much indefinitely. One could argue that it would be in Russia’s long-term interest to remove an American client regime from Tbilisi, but why now? And remember, it is Washington, and not Moscow, that’s been going around the world installing puppet governments.

Even if McCain, Bush, Rice and all the West were right on any of his points – and he is not – U.S.was a participant in the dismemberment of Yugoslavia, the Bosnian protectorate, and the occupation of Kosovo. That means U.S. government got no credibility to talk about principles or international law, or peace, or stability. None.

But his sort of “analysis” is the one you’ll find common in the West: Evil Russia manipulates, provokes, attacks, threatens. Yeah, right.

Aug 18, 2008 - 5:10 pm

Sorry, comments for this entry are closed at this time.