--- In FairfieldLife@yahoogroups.com, Bhairitu <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > > bob_brigante wrote: > > ************** > > > > I did not mean to imply that it is not a disaster for the innocent > > victims of war in Georgia, only that it could not be a "major > > international issue" that you fear because nobody gives a shit what > > happens to Georgians and even if they did, nobody could face down > > Russian power in that locale, not any more than they could after > > years of war in Chechnya, which borders Georgia ( > > http://www.globalissues.org/Geopolitics/Chechnya.asp ). > > > > If you want to contemplate once again the ugly face of war, here's > > some pathetic photos of this current stupid human trick: > > > > http://tinyurl.com/5pz4c6 > > > > from: > > http://www.nytimes.com/slideshow/2008/08/11/world/20080811GEORGIA_2.ht > > ml > Some people in the US think that Russia attacked Georgia for its peaches.
Worse, the warmongers have jumped on the band wagon: McCain calls for U.N. resolution against Russia. Speaking in Erie, PA today, Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) called for the U.N. Security Council to "move ahead with the resolution" calling for a cease-fire and condemning Russia's aggression against Georgia. McCain also said that NATO should begin "discussions on both the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to South Ossetia and the implications for NATO's future relationship with Russia, a Partnership for Peace nation." In the past, McCain has also threatened to kick Russia out of the G-8. http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/11/mccain-calls-for-un-resolution-against-russia/ McCain Bonkers on Georgia For John McCain, the problem isn't coherence, it's bellicosity. McCain has been the strongest global voice behind Georgia since the shooting began. The problem is, when does the McCain tough rhetoric end and World War III begin? The McCain team will argue that the only way to deter Russia, Iran and other global aggressors from taking actions like this is to stand up to them forcefully, with credibility. The problem is the second half of that equation -- with U.S. troops in Iraq and even Georgia unsure how to get their 2,000 Iraqi troops back home in time to make a difference, how exactly would the U.S. help Georgia in this conflict, short of starting an all-out war with the second biggest nuclear power? At this moment, the U.S. has no credible way to threaten Russia. So unless McCain is willing to get the U.S. in the middle of every armed conflict on earth -- giving new definition to his promise of "more wars" -- a McCain Presidency would mean that we're at least going to enter a new age of foreign policy brinkmanship that will demand a military sufficient to fight these battles. That means either getting out of Iraq or reinstating a draft, because the military today is incapable of matching McCain's rhetoric. http://politicalwire.com/archives/2008/08/10/crisis_in_georgia.html Wingnut on Russian attack of Republic of Georgia: What we'll think of is the country of Georgia and we'll realize that August 8 was the date when Russia began reassembling the former Soviet empire in earnest. ~Roger Kimball http://tinyurl.com/6dllgp Response from Daniel Larison at American Conservative Magazine: Yes, just as Iran is poised to revive the Achaemenid Empire! [LOL] It's not just that I find the charges of Russian imperialism a bit tired coming from people who have insisted for years that invading other countries, toppling their governments and setting up puppet states is not imperialism, but I find them very boring. I mean, how unimaginative can one be to say, "They're bringing back the Soviet Union!"? That's the sort of thing an eccentric Bond villain would try to do. There are no more workers' councils, and there is no more USSR. In every sense of the word, the Soviets are gone and their empire is dust. No onenot Putin, not Medvedev, not anyoneis bringing it back as it once existed. Now if Kimball had said that Moscow is trying to reassemble parts of the pre-revolutionary Russian Empire, at least in terms of its territorial dimensions, I would still say that he is grossly exaggerating what's going on, but at least he wouldn't be embarrassing himself by saying completely nonsensical things. http://www.amconmag.com/larison/2008/08/09/do-these-people-even-know-what-soviet-means/ You can see the extremely bellicose statements of Vice President Cheney and Sen. McCain (soul mates on this issue) on the conflict in Georgia. And a number of Democratic-affiliated foreign policy hands are roughly on the same side of this issue, if not quite as utterly nuts and eager to get into a war with Russia as Cheney and McCain. [...] As the standard line goes, my point is not to justify Russian actions. And I should be clear that I have not researched the details of this conflict nearly as deeply as I would now like to. But we should be clear that there are small state actors in the region (Georgia being one of them) interested in making high stakes gambles vis a vis the Russians and they are trying to do it on our dime -- that is, both literally on our dime but more importantly by trying to involve us militarily in their defense. Meanwhile, there are players (largely, though not perfectly, overlapping with the folks who got us into Iraq) in the US who want to use this period of relative (though diminishing) Russian weakness to push American security guarantees (primarily NATO) not just to the borders of the old Soviet Union (which we've largely already done) but actually within the borders of the old Soviet Union. John McCain has been a supporter of inducting Georgia into NATO. And it is worth noting that had we done that we would currently be in effect in a state of war with Russia since we would be obligated to see the treat the attack on Georgia as an attack on us. Indeed, McCain is saying now we should move ahead quickly and bring them into NATO. ~~ Josh Marshall: http://talkingpointsmemo.com/archives/207897.php -NEOCONS Call For U.S. To Launch War With Russia Today the New York Times reports that Russia is escalating its war with Georgia, "moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia" and even bombing parts of Tibilisi, the Georgian capital. Russia's increasing aggression is putting a spark into American neoconservatives. Today on the Times op-ed page, one of their leaders, William Kristol, claims the U.S. must "defend" Georgia's sovereignty as a reward for its participation in Iraq, while the conservative Washington Times is calling for "maximum pressure" on Russia: Bill Kristol: [Georgia] has had the third-largest military presence about 2,000 troops fighting along with U.S. soldiers and marines in Iraq. For this reason alone, we owe Georgia a serious effort to defend its sovereignty. Surely we cannot simply stand by as an autocratic aggressor gobbles up part of and perhaps destabilizes all of a friendly democratic nation. Washington Times: It is in America's interest to exert maximum pressure on Russia to withdraw its troops and halt the interference in Georgian territory. This latest act shows the need for greater resolve in establishing a European security system that can be an effective check on Russian power. Writing in the Washington Post today, Robert Kagan goes even further, suggesting that the Georgia-Russia conflict may be the start of World War III: Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama. [ ] The mood is reminiscent of Germany after World War I, when Germans complained about the "shameful Versailles diktat" imposed on a prostrate Germany by the victorious powers and about the corrupt politicians who stabbed the nation in the back. Like a good neoconservative, Kagan also links the Western response to the conflict and its wider policy towards Russia as "appeasement." Matthew Yglesias asks of Kagan's World War II analogy: "If we launch a war with Russia which would seem to be the point of busting out the analogy then how are we going to find the time to launch wars with Iran and China?" All links here: http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/11/neocon-russia-war/
