Meanwhile, over in Georgia

Painting Obama as a bloodthirsty war-crazed holy bomber is a little uhhhh

goole, see Prez thread

everything's relative, Shakey. But he does want to be the American President.

"find ways for the democracies to act together on issues of defence of our common values . . . specifically on issues when the UN can’t act won't suck our dick with the precise pressure and speed we demand”.

so you think we should just limit our foreign policy to what the UN approves

this event is a interesting (funny? sad? gross?) test-case of media coverage and diffusion of just basic knowledge of the situation. coverage on center-left blogs and media like slate has been pretty good (and on ilx lol), on the right it has been disgusting, the center-mainstream-cable is been just moronic, what i've been able to watch of it anyway.

it's clear that, if john mccain's ideas about foreign policy were followed, we'd be in a nuclear standoff with russia by now. and even now he still wants to bring georgia into NATO, effectively dragging the rest of the west into georgia. i haven't turned on a tv in about three days, but, you think that would be a problem for him...

http://www.bdonline.co.uk/Pictures/336xAny/p/a/i/Gordon_Brown_4_ready.jpg+http://www.liveyp2008.org/web/images/patrons/david_milliband.jpg=http://www.geotimes.ge/uploads_script/news/8e86bf9d2b38eb6.jpg

Derbyshire, making sense:

Either you believe the U.S.A. ought to commit — in writing — that we shall go to war on behalf of Georgia (Estonia, the Ukraine, etc.), or you believe we ought not.

If you do believe it, as our President does (or else what were all those efforts to get Georgia and Ukraine into NATO about?) then you ought honestly to admit the nonzero probability that Putin, or some future Putin, will call our bluff. Then we shall be at war with Russia. On behalf of Georgia. ("The U.S.A. should commit to go to war against Russia on behalf of Georgia" — anyone care to estimate how that would poll among the U.S. population?)

George Will's line — "If we had succeeded in getting those countries into NATO, then Putin wouldn't have dared, because no NATO country ever had its territory invaded … well, all right, only the one …" — is just wishful thinking. Conservatives are the people who believe in the meaning of words. If we are not willing to go to war with Russia over Georgia, let's not commit ourselves to it. If we are, then of course we should commit … but I'd like to see those poll results first.

At this moment, Putin & his pals are rolling around the Kremlin floor laughing helplessly at our stupidity and gullibility. As a patriotic American, I don't like to contemplate that. What could we do to wipe the smiles off their faces, though? Bomb Moscow? They know we're not going to do that. That's why they're still laughing. Game, set, and match to Putin.

As for the reader who raised my many indignant remarks about Chinese aggression against, and occupation of, Tibet and Eastern Turkesan: unless something happened while I was walking my dog just now, we have not gone to war on behalf of those countries. Nor should we. Nor have I ever advocated doing so, or committing ourselves to do so. Indignant protestations are what free people utter when their sense of justice is outraged. Going to war is what nations do when they believe their interests are gravely threatened. Two different things.

woah, that is frighteningly sane

Are you sure that's the same Derbyshire?

lolz O RLY

"that great little nation"

wtf 90% of the American population probably completely ignorant of Georgia prior to last Friday

Are you sure that's the same Derbyshire?

It's very Derbyshire. He's pretty much been saying Iraq was a stupid blunder for years.

(xp) They knew about the Braves and "Designing Women"...

i hope ethan and curtis are ok

Derbyshire is a classic paleo-con whose distemper is often funny, except when he talks about queers.

Who am I confusing him with, then? Podhoretz?

Podheretz is a total cockfarmer.

so, yeah, probably

Podhoretz is probably writing something right now about how it's a shame we haven't got troops in the Kremlin this very second.

"We should have finished what Patton started."

Meanwhile, the Stratfor elves sum it up this way:

...the United States has a problem — it either must reorient its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for another war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian response in Iran — and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow’s interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).

In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that isn’t all too shabby at the moment. It has also compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its position relative to Moscow. As for Georgia, the Russians appear ready to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Militarily, that is their option. That is all they wanted to demonstrate, and they have demonstrated it.

The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened — it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.

Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.

truthbomb

It's not directly about Russia vis-a-vis Georgia -- though it's a strong part of it -- but I highly recommend everyone read Lesley Blanch's The Sabres of Paradise. (That links to the old edition but there's a new one that came out in 2004.)

hell, Tolstoy's Hadji Murad says everything you need to know about Moscow's attitude towards conquered territories.

My favourite conspiracy theory of the day - this was Russia moving to secure its borders in anticipation of an 'October surprise' US-led invasion of Iran.

Considering that he wanted to kick Russia out of the G-8 A WEEK AND A HALF AGO...a vote for John McCain is an immediate and unambiguous vote now to enmesh the United States into another Cold War, albeit one that's a shade hotter than the previous one, and with the US in one of its lowest economic and militaristic slumps in the past century.

If only the Democratic party could utter this simple truth...but never overestimate the intelligence of the American people, the conservative stranglehold on the media during Bush II, or the amount of spin the Republicans will use now that they have a swiftboatin' chance infinitely better than Paris Hilton.

The rah-rah, "we're a MORAL champion of progressive 'democracies,' like Georgia (like teh one that houses our own Atlanta YEEHAW!) against teh EVIL EMPIRE," canard will be played to no end. Coupled with the "Nobama is an unsafe non-American (Hawaiian! as per Cokie Roberts, which isn't pedestrian enough to be American) Muslim terrorist-fist-jabbing Rusophile who went to Berlin and spoke to citizens of TEH WORLD, he = IMMORAL, WEAK, INCAPABLE OF PROTECTING DEMOCRACY" attacks, and...

...John McCain's chances on November 4th now look even better than Dubya's in August '04. He's probably going to win-steal the election

Or maybe Shakey's latest link is just making me feel pessimistic. This whole thing is depressing.

During the Olympics too, it wasn't "unplanned" at all

I think Derbyshire's point about this being an electoral factor -- ie, that it won't be, in practical terms -- holds.

Podhoretz had the nerve to spit on Ingmar Bergman's grave last year and I hope he gets prostrate cancer and is bound to a bronze-colored catheter for the rest of his days. Even seeing his name in print makes me feel nauseous

>>I think Derbyshire's point about this being an electoral factor -- ie, that it won't be, in practical terms -- holds.

-- Ned Raggett, Tuesday, August 12, 2008 3:20 PM (1 minute ago) Bookmark Link <<

Id like to think so, but I don't think anything within 90 days of the election can be ruled out as an electoral factor, with the spin machines brewing and especially with the 9-11% of "undecideds" in the most recent polls

Also - vocal recordings be damned - the day that Ned Raggett is agreeing with John fucking Derrbyshire on *anything* is enough to color my daily black cloud even darker

Sigh

I think the fact that most Americans have no idea who/what/where Georgia is will mitigate this invasion's role in the election, particularly if the fighting stops after less than a week.

*shrug* I think the appetite for 'going to war' among the general voting populace is rather different now than it was in 2003 -- which I rather think is Derbyshire's point as well, if implicitly. He thinks it won't sell as a voting point if push came to shove, which strikes me as accurate.

John McCain isn't going to run on "going to war," he's going to run on "keeping democracy safe," and "keeping us safe, the way Republicans have successfully, since 2001!" ...the latter which Bush ran and won on in 2004

+ add in all the "do you think this frosh celebrity senator is ready to deal with X, Y, & Z" attacks won't help

wait, you aren't American, are you

lol

he's going to run on "keeping democracy safe," and "keeping us safe, the way Republicans have successfully, since 2001!" ...the latter which Bush ran and won on in 2004

Russia not being al-Qaeda, or being seen as behind 9/11, I don't think this'll fly either. Shakey Mo's next-to-last post OTM, really.

about as American as you. Maybe more self-conscious of being identified as "non-America" due to appearance

How is it OTM ?

+ add all these "the Iraq war has been won, BOOYA, da surge worked!, Go Republicans!" sloganeering

like here, which is published within an admittedly right-leaning editorial board: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB121850093104731719.html?mod=opinion_main_commentaries

And even more irksome in the MSM are stories like this, which completely baffle me http://www.newsweek.com/id/151731 - until I remember that Zakaria supported the Iraq war

Wow. Condi Rice is on ABC World News now, and she actually said, "This is not 1968." Maybe she gets it.

Ah scratch that, you said Shakey's next to last post, not his last.

His last post is assuming I'm, what..Hawaiian ?

Condi's speciality was Russia, wasn't it ?

Anyhoo, I hope Ned is correct. If he is in November I will FAP with him again, after may a day (years now) of not-FAPing

yeah I just don't see conflating American interests with Georgia as working - we aren't afraid of Russia anymore, after all they LOST the cold war, remember? (lolz I am over-simplifying America's incapacity for grasping geopolitical nuance but you get my drift)

I think America is tired of being paranoid and being at war, and Obama's optimism is gonna resonate more strongly than whatever slapdash "I R A HARDMAN" crap McCain can come up with, which, so far has been pathetically grasping at any single-issue headline-grabbing position that pops up in the rightwing blogosphere and trying to attach himself to it. otherwise his foreign and economic policies are alternately incoherent and ridiculously out-of-step with what most Americans actually say they want, so unless he can align himself to a really powerful narrative that the majority of the country can get behind (preferably something a little stronger than "("old white man is old and white, unlike his opponent"), I think he's totally screwed.

sorry I genuinely thought you were British Vichitraya, my mistake.

x-post

I hope Ned is correct

I predict nothing about this election, though I have my hopes, and they're not hopes for McCain. But I do not think a McCain victory goes through hundreds of dead in Georgia.

I think this major blunder by Georgia (perhaps with U.S. assurances) will make a lot of people think twice. It's one thing to back a democracy against the evil ruskies, but when it's a batshit insane democracy that picks bad fights with its bigger neighbor, do you really want them in NATO? It's typical McCain brgadaccio parading as principle but it would pretty easy for a skilled rhetoritician to skewer him on that poit in a way the average American would get.

No worries Shakey, I'll actually take that as a compliment!

I just feel pessimistic since I also read some crazy article today about the ex-Hilaryites group the Puma - http://news.aol.com/political-machine/2008/08/09/puma-gets-scary/ - which is perhaps partially explaining why Obama's #s aren't higher. I don't know. It made me wonder just how many angry people were left over from the primary. Note that I'm not advocating here that O pick H as VP, I'm just...taken aback by the *depth* of anger

The election just shouldn't be as close as it is. I'm looking forward to the televised debates, when McCain will start stuttering

MW: the amount of headlines stating that "Russia invades Georgia," while omitting Saaky's blunderous miscalculations haven't been helpful so far. When this news cycle passes, I hope it's not just remembered as "When Russia attacked that other place called Georgia during the Olympics"

I think this articulates my anxiety:

http://www.time.com/time/politics/article/0,8599,1831761,00.html

The crisis has played mostly to McCain's advantage. McCain and his advisers have long pushed for the U.S. to respond more aggressively to Putin's threats against pro-Western neighbors like Georgia and Ukraine by kicking it out of the G-8 and limiting its contact with NATO. The campaign wasted no time calling this position "prescient," and it called for a more thorough application of diplomatic pressure than did either the Administration or the Obama campaign — including an emergency session of the NATO council to consider a peacekeeping force, to reassess relations with Russia and to reconsider offering a membership plan to Georgia.

Obama's campaign made two early missteps. First, in its initial statement, it called for restraint from both Russia and Georgia. "Generally, when a country is being invaded, you don't call on it to show restraint," a senior McCain foreign policy adviser responded. (The adviser declined to be identified, aware that the criticism could also apply to the Administration, which called for restraint as well.) Then Obama's campaign released a statement questioning McCain's objectivity in the crisis, since a top McCain aide, Randy Scheunemann, had lobbied for the Georgians. When the Kremlin's own lobbyists made the same point, McCain's campaign fired back. "The reaction of the Obama campaign to this crisis, so at odds with our democratic allies and yet so bizarrely in sync with Moscow, doesn't merely raise questions about Senator Obama's judgment — it answers them," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said in a statement Saturday.

the crisis only plays to mccain's advantage only because time articles exist saying it does!

only!