Meanwhile, over in Georgia

I wish I shared your certainty that Sakaashvili is not an idiot

-- Tom D., Tuesday, August 12, 2008 6:56 AM (3 hours ago) Bookmark Link

OTM. A very camera-savvy, media-ready idiot, with strong friendships with American conservatives aside from McCain going back to before he was even elected

How does such rubbish, advocating active US military involvement, get published in the lol "liberal media" ?

http://www.newsweek.com/id/152012

Even the National fucking Review's goddamned slanderous editorial (omitting any of Saaky's provocations) didn't espouse that

Ah I forgot tipsy mothra already linked to that, but still. It's kind of infuriating.

It's a pretty amazing article.

I think Paul Krugman's definition of "know-nothingism" is apt:

know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise

I guess the reports of the death of neo-conservative hawkishness were somewhat premature. Soon "realist" will be as much of a dirty word in foreign policy debate as "liberal" has become in domestic politics.

Obama, naturally, is going the pragmatic route, calling for UN intervention, a review of Russia's global status, and most telling of all, "deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO."

The President-In-Waiting clearly understands what his upcoming gig demands. NATO expansion is but one of many tasks on the docket. The only "change" we can believe in is how Obama will polish the same old bullshit using fresh, uplifting rhetoric. Yet I suspect in the short-run, when shoved and slimed by a desperate McCain, Obama may very well dispense with the niceties that have endeared him to so many hopeful consumers, and show that he too can growl and promise sadistic punishment for our many enemies. Not that his liberal followers will mind all that much....

http://dennisperrin.blogspot.com/2008/08/another-chokehold-routine.html

know-nothingism — the insistence that there are simple, brute-force, instant-gratification answers to every problem, and that there’s something effeminate and weak about anyone who suggests otherwise

that Perrin post is pretty nonsensical. "UN intervention, a review of Russia's global status, and most telling of all, "deepening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO" = "Sadistic punishment of our enemies"? uh yeah, okay buddy.

I don't think I've seen a Perrin post that wasn't nonsensical.

(Granted the only ones I've seen are the ones Morbius posts.)

Obama's working on a McCain-style League of Democracies (ie, a better rubber stamp than the UN) too.

the nerve of that guy, trying to get people to cooperate and talk to each other

no, to agree to sanctify our holy bombings, Mo.

Don't you ever get bored of being the most one-note poster on the political threads?

do you have a link for that? this is all i could find:

[foreign policy advisor Anthony] Lake was sympathetic to aspects of Mr McCain’s idea of a League of Democracies, one of the centrepieces of the Republican’s foreign policy plans.

Stressing that he had not spoken to Mr Obama about it, he backed the general idea of a grouping that was “not an anti-Russian device but an effort to 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”.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/039d5b8a-47b2-11dd-93ca-000077b07658,dwp_uuid=729ab242-9cb1-11db-8ec6-0000779e2340,print=yes.html

I think drawing that conclusion is a bit premature

x-post

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.