Article

2008-08-11 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

McCain: when I looked at Putin's eyes I saw 3 letters: K G B

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Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 01:12|| || Front Page|| [11126 views ] Top

#1 McCain is better educated now. I was monitoring qoqaz.net back in 1999. That conflict was an Al-Qaeda Caucasus prelude to later Central Asia jihadism. The Chechens can go to hell with the Georgian Stalinists. So can the Clintons for their lousy moral leadership when Islamo-fascists were making their moves in the Balkans and West Asia.

Posted by McZoid 2008-08-11 01:29|| 2008-08-11 01:29|| Front Page Top

#2 McZoid calling Georgians "Stalinists" is beyond stupid. You have proven beyond a doubt that you are an idiotic bigoted racist moron. Stay the hell off my threads with that horseshit of yours if you don't want me beating your ass all day and night.

You'd not last a day in the real world where I've been, you worthless piece of shit. Not with a mind so non-functional and locked into bigoted stereotypes and idiotic blind hatred.

You want to mix it up with me, try me, punk.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 01:39|| 2008-08-11 01:39|| Front Page Top

#3 Keep on him OS. All this Stalinist Georgia ranting is BS. Stalin was the leader of the Soviet Union as I recall and cared as much for his birthplace as a prostitute does her trick. Additionally, looks like Russia is pushing the war beyond Ossetia and into Georgia proper as Gori is currently under assault from artillery and bombers. It appears Russia may be trying to divide the major transit corridors isolating Tbilisi from Western Georgia. Reports now state 9000 Russian soldiers and 350 tanks amassed in Abkhazia.

Posted by jefe101 2008-08-11 02:18|| 2008-08-11 02:18|| Front Page Top

#4 Read Daniel Silva's latest book "Moscow Rules". Albeit it is fiction, it is also an interesting take on the existence of the KGB but under its current name of FSB. Very enjoyable and constructive book.

Posted by Jack is Back!">Jack is Back! 2008-08-11 04:48|| 2008-08-11 04:48|| Front Page Top

#5 This war wasn't a total surprise. What is surprising is how unprepared Georgia was. Which makes me think the Russians suckered the Georgians into this on their timescale.

Posted by phil_b 2008-08-11 06:49|| 2008-08-11 06:49|| Front Page Top

#6 What's most disturbing about this conflict is how McZoid keeps establishing OS's case without making OS do any work. C'mon Zoid, make him break a sweat.

Posted by Nimble Spemble 2008-08-11 08:30|| 2008-08-11 08:30|| Front Page Top

#7 I can see where reading the Chechen jihadi propaganda on qoqaz.net would jaundice a person. But McZoid dear, why such strong dislike of the Georgians? As far as I can tell they are Orthodox Christians trying to have a democratic and capitalist little country tied to the West instead of to the increasingly authoritarian and jingoist Russia.

Posted by trailing wife ">trailing wife 2008-08-11 09:17|| 2008-08-11 09:17|| Front Page Top

#8 I continue to be puzzled how the meme spread that Kosovar Albanians were all Muslims. IIUC a substantial minority were Christians, and were treated the same as the other Albanians.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 09:19|| 2008-08-11 09:19|| Front Page Top

#9 Georgian Stalinists

Obamashvili is hardly a Stalinist, MZ.
Just an ultra nationalist with transi education, promising Greater Georgia to his own people, and free-market/democracy to geniuses at USDS.

p.s. No use talking to OS & co---they just can't forgive Russia for not laying down & dying.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-08-11 09:25|| 2008-08-11 09:25|| Front Page Top

#10 anyone who went to Columbia or GW got a "transi" education? What the hell?

Just shows the idiocy of the whole "tranzi" meme. There is no tranzi.

Also puzzling how being a tranzi leads to being an ultranationalist.

How exactly IS he an ultranationalist? wheres the "ultra"?

No one wants Russia to lay down and die. Just not to expect everyone who used to be in the Soviet empire to lay down and die.

Oh, and he didnt just promise free markets - he delivered them, and economic growth in the face of Putins boycotts.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 09:33|| 2008-08-11 09:33|| Front Page Top

#11 oh and Grom, do you really think Putin is a preferable leader to Obama? MOre of a democrat? More commited to free markets?

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 09:34|| 2008-08-11 09:34|| Front Page Top

#12 I guess a few postcards from Georgia will do, Oldspook:

http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Statue_of_Stalin,_Gori

If anyone wants more examples I would be more than happy to provide it.

Strangely, I do not recall any monuments of Herr Adolf Hitler in Austrian Braunau-am-Inn.

Keep going McZoid - prostalinist dogs bark, but the caravan goes on...

Posted by Matt K. 2008-08-11 10:14|| 2008-08-11 10:14|| Front Page Top

#13 Just a reminder: Serbs are Orthodox Christians, too.

Posted by Matt K. 2008-08-11 10:16|| 2008-08-11 10:16|| Front Page Top

#14 Matt K. -- are there still monuments to Stalin and Lenin in Russia? If so, then wouldn't that make them Stalinists?

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2008-08-11 10:29|| 2008-08-11 10:29|| Front Page Top

#15 We still have Confederate statues in the southern states, that doesn't mean they still intend to succeed from the union. It is a part of their history, pulling down the statue doesn't mean it never happened. They can have statues of that pig Stalin without being Stalinists.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-08-11 10:40|| 2008-08-11 10:40|| Front Page Top

#16 An important note about Russian political organization.

During the Soviet years, the government had a three sides balance of power: the communist party, the KGB, and the military. If one of the three ever became too powerful, the other two would gang up against it and chop it down to size.

This matters today, because now that the communist party is gone, the FSB (KGB) has become supreme, with a much weaker military playing a distant second fiddle.

Imagine if the CIA was in charge of directing the government and the Pentagon. Start to see the problem?

Russia has now returned to strategic thinking it hasn't had since the Tsarist era. That is, during the Soviet years, they were more concerned with the philosophy of the nations around them than their national behavior.

In the 1960s, Tito of Yugoslavia irritated the hell of the Russians. He drove them out of his country, he snarled at them, and even betrayed them by selling some of their military technology to the West. Conversely, the Czechs were profoundly loyal to Russia, very friendly with them, helpful and cooperative.

So in 1968, Brezhnev ordered the invasion of Czechoslovakia, much to the amazement of the Soviet army.

The reason was that Yugoslavia was a harshly authoritarian state, but Czechoslovakia was, in the eyes of the Kremlin, dangerously liberal. The Russians could live with dictatorial neighbor, but not a liberal one.

But now Russia has returned to what it used to be, back in the days of the Tsar. Putin's #1 consideration is restoring Russian power, both economically and militarily. But this is a problem.

He equates Russian power with governmental power, but threatens to kill the goose that lays the golden eggs by nationalizing the oligarchs business success.

He also wants profound military might, but not with the military leadership as a part of government, just as a tool of the government. And military men do not function well when led by spies instead of an independent and powerful command and general staff.

He cannot imagine how the US government can have such a powerful Pentagon without its C&GS being part of the ruling class.

He wants a return to a one party state, with a rubber stamp parliament, the President being a modern version of the Tsar. This is not because he wants absolute power, but because he is afraid of the "chaos" of a two party state.

What happens next in Georgia will be critical, because it will finally show if Putin has an effective "end game", for ending a situation he has started. This adventure could have extremely bad long term effects for Russian power if he does not pull off a very tactful conclusion, and Russians are not known for tact.

Officially or unofficially, he has created a situation for "everybody who doesn't like Russia" to band together and form a new NATO-type organization. And it would have a LOT of members.

Already, nations are quietly clamoring to aid the Georgians with equipment and maybe even personnel who would be gleeful at the chance to kill Russians.

Posted by Anonymoose 2008-08-11 10:59|| 2008-08-11 10:59|| Front Page Top

#17 Rob Crawford - as for now there are NO Stalin monuments in Russia, full stop.

Posted by Matt K. 2008-08-11 11:06|| 2008-08-11 11:06|| Front Page Top

#18 This is getting to be an awfully heated topic. That said, someone still has to make a serious case for why we should even consider intervening in this mess.

Anyone who tells me we've got sufficient slack in the U.S. military to take this affair on along with all our other commitments is almost certainly not being realistic. Iran has for some time been looming pretty large as an impending problem we're going to be forced to deal with.

I'm sure we could do Georgia if we HAD to, but there has to be an awfully good reason to get so far into what our critics call "imperial overstretch." Again, right now I don't see the justification.

We've got to be careful and husband our resources. We've got a great military but they're humans, not robots, and we don't have enough of them to fight everybody's battles.

Moreover, warfighting costs money that we really don't want to spend right now given our national financial situation. I know very well what Britain was forced to accept at the end of World War II, and they had no choice but to do so because they were effectively bankrupt. We don't want to be in the same straits as they were. We owe far too much to other countries already.

Indeed, it's high time someone else did the fighting rather than us. No one really appreciates our help (witness Iraq arguing for a "definite" pullout date), and we catch a hell of a lot of flak for providing it.

Georgia was part of Russia for a long time and it didn't bother us all that much, if at all. Let them conquer Georgia again if they want to. The campaigns in Afghanistan and Chechnya weren't real beneficial to the Russians; I have no qualms with letting them bite off yet another indigestible chunk of territory filled with people who hate them. I suspect they'll come to bitterly regret it before it's over.

Posted by Sleating Big Foot6595 2008-08-11 11:09|| 2008-08-11 11:09|| Front Page Top

#19 sbf -

1. We dont have to send troops to have an impact. Thats a strawman

2. The cold war was NOt a comfie time. Do we want the USSR reformed? Do we NOT consider the states that escaped it to have the right to sovereignty, same as other states? The fact is that Russia recognized their independence - they dotn have the right to take them back now. And in doing so they are thumbing their eyes at us, trying to show we are paper tigers.

3. They arent going to try to annex Georgia, cause it would be so costly. But they are going to try to wear down the Georgians. If they can do so, esp if we DONT come to the help of the Georgians, it will lead to the fall of the Georg govt and the rise of a Russian puppit govt.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 11:13|| 2008-08-11 11:13|| Front Page Top

#20 I enjoy McZ's posts. Don't know what burr he's put under yur saddle OS. Maybe he just meant Stalin was born in Georgia. Both he and his Minister of Death, Beri, were Georgians before they moved on to Moscow.

Posted by Woozle Elmeter 2700 2008-08-11 11:17|| 2008-08-11 11:17|| Front Page Top

#21 McZs posts are no more enjoyable than those of far lefties who are routinely sinktrapped here.

Why does Stalin and beria being BORN In georgia mean Georgians should be blamed for them? Georgia is a free country, and Russia is followign Stalinst precedents - indeed the kind of rhetoric we are seeing here today from apologists for the attack on georgia is VERY redolent of classic Stalinist debating styoles

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 11:22|| 2008-08-11 11:22|| Front Page Top

#22 Today's Georgia is dotted with monuments and museums of Stalin - just for your info.

He is regarded as a national hero there, that's all.

Posted by Matt K. 2008-08-11 11:40|| 2008-08-11 11:40|| Front Page Top

#23 "Rob Crawford - as for now there are NO Stalin monuments in Russia, full stop."

Hows about Lenin? You realize the genocides started under Lenin, right?

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2008-08-11 12:11|| 2008-08-11 12:11|| Front Page Top

#24 I admire your intrasingence, Crawford. What do you want to proove?

Just for a reminder - we are talking about stalinist Georgians and not about "leninist" Russians.

Posted by Matt K. 2008-08-11 12:34|| 2008-08-11 12:34|| Front Page Top

#25 Nah, we're discussing fascist Russkies eager for blood and loot, just like the old days.

Posted by mrp 2008-08-11 12:35|| 2008-08-11 12:35|| Front Page Top

#26 but the georgians arent stalinists. Stalinism is a political persuasion, not a mild pride in a past native son.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 12:51|| 2008-08-11 12:51|| Front Page Top

#27 Some historical facts on Georgia

The Democratic Republic of Georgia (DRG; Georgian: საქართველოს დემოკრატიული რესპუბლიკა, Sakartvelos Demokratiuli Respublika), 19181921, was the first modern establishment of a Republic of Georgia.

The DRG was created after the collapse of the Russian Empire that began with the Russian Revolution of 1917. Its established borders were with Russia, Kuban People's Republic and the Mountainous Republic of the Northern Caucasus in the north, Ottoman Empire, Democratic Republic of Armenia in the south, and Azerbaijan Democratic Republic in the southeast. It had a total land area of roughly 107,600 km² (by comparison, the total area of today's Georgia is 69,700 km²), and a population of 2.5 million.

Georgia's capital was Tbilisi, and its state language was Georgian. Proclaimed on May 26, 1918, on the break-up of the Transcaucasian Federation, it was led by the Social Democratic Menshevik party. Facing permanent internal and external problems, the young state was unable to withstand the invasion by the Russian SFSR Red Armies, and collapsed between February and March 1921 to become a Soviet republic

The Georgian-born communist radical Ioseb Jughashvili, better known by his nom de guerre Stalin (from the Russian word for steel: сталь) was prominent among the Russian Bolsheviks, who came to power in the Russian Empire after the October Revolution in 1917. Stalin was to rise to the highest position of the Soviet state.

Established on February 25, 1921, as the Georgian SSR. From March 12, 1922 to December 5, 1936 it was part of the Transcaucasian SFSR together with the Armenian SSR and the Azerbaijan SSR. In 1936, the TSFSR was dissolved. Under Stalin's rule, many Georgians were executed. During this period the province was led by Lavrenti Beria, first secretary of the Georgian Central Committee of the Georgian Communist Party[1]

Soviet comments after the 1921 invasion
Leon Trotsky's Between Red and White (1922)
CHAPTER IX
Self-Determination and the Revolution (extract)

The Realpolitik of today necessitates the conformity of the interests of the workers state with the conditions created by the fact of its being surrounded by large and small bourgeois nationalist-democratic states. We were actuated by such considerations based on an accurate valuation of existing facts, when we maintained our attitude of patience and toleration towards Georgia. But when this attitude, after a long period of trial, did not give us even the most elementary guarantees of safety when the principle of self-determination became, in the hands of General Walker and Admiral Dumesnil, a juridical guarantee for counter-revolution which was preparing a new attack upon us we did not and could not see any moral obstacle in introducing, at the call of the revolutionary vanguard of Georgia, our Red Army, in order to help the workers and poorest peasants with the least possible delay and sacrifice to overthrow that pitiful democracy which had destroyed itself by its own policy.

We do not only recognize, but we also give full support to the principle of self-determination, wherever it is directed against feudal, capitalist and imperialist states. But wherever the fiction of self-determination, in the hands of the bourgeoisie, becomes a weapon directed against the proletarian revolution, we have no occasion to treat this fiction differently from the other principles of democracy perverted by capitalism.

Posted by Zenobia Spomoger5270 2008-08-11 13:11|| 2008-08-11 13:11|| Front Page Top

#28 oh and Grom, do you really think Putin is a preferable leader to Obama? MOre of a democrat? More commited to free markets?

He's a lot better for Russia than Obamashvili is for Georgia (look up South Osetia on the map of Georgia). As to the last two: Democracy & Free Markets are not goals in themselves (unless you mean them in the sence of "them doing that is convinient for us"), but a tools for survival of the People.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-08-11 13:15|| 2008-08-11 13:15|| Front Page Top

#29 Let them conquer Georgia again if they want to.

Their primary goal surely isn't Georgian territory, but the independent gas and oil supplies that Georgia was offering, outside of Russian control.

A secondary goal was most likely to take pressure off of Iran as it moves closer and closer to nuclear weapons capability and to a potential strike on Iranian facilities.

And a third goal is no doubt to pressure Eastern European states to withdraw from basing BMD.

Posted by lotp 2008-08-11 13:19|| 2008-08-11 13:19|| Front Page Top

#30 So Grom, you fucking nmoron, you claim that a dictatorship by an militarily imposed russian puppet is preferrable to a freely elected wester-oriented democracy for the people of Georgia?

Run that by me again you fuckwit.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 13:25|| 2008-08-11 13:25|| Front Page Top

#31

I admire your intrasingence, Crawford. What do you want to proove?

Just for a reminder - we are talking about stalinist Georgians and not about "leninist" Russians.

You -- and others -- keep calling the Georgians "Stalinists". For evidence, you gesture vaguely at the presence of statues of Stalin. For myself, I dislike the idea of those statues, but I can buy that they're there for the same reason there are statues of Confederate generals all over the south -- it's part of the history.

The problem is, "Stalinist" has a particular meaning, and it's not "has statues of Stalin". In that were the case, then the US would be Leninist, because somewhere in Washington state there's a statue of Lenin.

It appears to me -- and, apparently, others -- that slinging the "Stalinist" label at the Georgians is an attempt to smear them to make Americans unsympathetic to them during the Russian invasion.

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2008-08-11 13:42|| 2008-08-11 13:42|| Front Page Top

#32 grom, Im not asking about the georgian dude. Im aksing about Barry vs Vlad. You give teh strong impression taht yuo like Vlad a whole lot more, cause hes tough, not "tranzi". whatever.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 13:43|| 2008-08-11 13:43|| Front Page Top

#33 lotp - spot on. Gangsters hate competition, and that BCT gas pipeline would have been competition for the thug Putin and his cronies who run Russia. It would have broken their stranglehold on natural gas for Europe.

So no suprise, that like a thug, Putin simply went in and broke the kneecaps of the people that dared to challenge him.

Also, this is an attempt at setting a precedent he can use to "Finlandize" the former soviet republics, and rebuild the Russian empire. He actually appears to beleive in the "Russian" nationlistic version of empire - and has wipped up ultra-nationlistic fevor the way Hitler did for Germany. The parallels are there, Sudeten, etc.

The question now is what will we in the west do?

Will we be Churchill or will we be Chamberlain?

I vote the former. NATO membership NOW for Ukraine. If Georgia survives, insist on INTERNATIONAL peacekeepers to displace the Russians, insist on the current government remaining in place, and start supplying weapons to nearly any and all rebel groups within Russian occupied territory - anywhere in Russia, not just Georgia. We can create a hundred "little afghanistans" all around Russia and bleed them to death.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 13:43|| 2008-08-11 13:43|| Front Page Top

#34 "Democracy & Free Markets are not goals in themselves (unless you mean them in the sence of "them doing that is convinient for us"), but a tools for survival of the People. "

Life is about more than survival, but survival in freedom. Other than us Jews, not many people have difficulty surviving as slaves.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 13:44|| 2008-08-11 13:44|| Front Page Top

#35 Democracy & Free Markets are not goals in themselves (unless you mean them in the sence of "them doing that is convinient for us"), but a tools for survival of the People.

WTF is "the People"?

Posted by Rob Crawford">Rob Crawford 2008-08-11 13:57|| 2008-08-11 13:57|| Front Page Top

#36 Dear Old Spook, you're obviously very upset. Too upset to maintain your usual pretence that anybody who disagrees with your, a bloke in a pub told me level, opinions is the lowest of the low, the nadir of evil.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-08-11 14:07|| 2008-08-11 14:07|| Front Page Top

#37 WTF is "the People"?

In these case the Russians who's been eating shit for the last 20 years.

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-08-11 14:10|| 2008-08-11 14:10|| Front Page Top

#38 grom, Im not asking about the georgian dude. Im aksing about Barry vs Vlad.

If you think Barak is good for US of A, why don't you vote for him?

Posted by g(r)omgoru 2008-08-11 14:11|| 2008-08-11 14:11|| Front Page Top

#39 If I DONT vote for Obama, it will be because I like McCain better, not because I hold some panslav dictator as better than he is.

You actually seem to think that combining Saals name with Obamas, at a time when Saal is in death struggle with Putin, is an insult to the Georgian. As if you hated Obama more than Putin. I find that very odd.

Perhaps you still think that Putin, despite his support for Iran, despite his alignment against Israel, is still somehow better for Israel than the Euros.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 14:20|| 2008-08-11 14:20|| Front Page Top

#40 Grom, as far as your "pubmates" go you can go swim with your filth. I've personally seen this kind of damage that you totalitarian ethnic enablers produce as results. That's why I am angry - you are a fool, and are on the side of evil if you continue to make excuses for the naked agression and terroristic actions against civilians that Russia is now comitting in Georgia.

FYI, "tranzi" is trans national socialist.

Georgia was none of those things - so you deliberately misttated the case - i.e. you are a liar and you got busted in the lie.

Its people like you that made Dachau possible, that led to the mass grave in the Balkans. I despise you and all your kind - and your inability to think straight and see the end consequences to your actions of supporting nationalistic empires run by thugs that invade their neighbors.

So do you support the military invation and dismalntling by force of a western freely elected demorcacy by an imperialist Russia hell bent on preventing a) economic competition and b) restoring their "Empire"?

Grom - answer the question you pinhead. Or admit you are wrong. You lose.

As for Russia "eatin gshit" for 20years - how so?

Are you one of those nazi-like bastards who beleive Russia is entitled to empire and can use military foce to crush a democracy to bring it back into the sway of the gangster Putin?

Answer the question.

Answer the question and reveal that you are an enabler and follower of empires and an enemy of freedom.

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 14:22|| 2008-08-11 14:22|| Front Page Top

#41 Hey grom - maybe the Iranians shoudl give Iranian passports to all those palestinians, then invade and nuke Israel under that pretense.

You ready to glow under an Iranian nuke?

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 14:24|| 2008-08-11 14:24|| Front Page Top

#42 as info the Israeli MFA has restated its support for the territorial integrity of Georgia.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 14:48|| 2008-08-11 14:48|| Front Page Top

#43 As for Russia "eatin gshit" for 20years - how so?

The elites there spent twenty years looting the economy of the common man and telling them "this is because of the Americans, the Europeans, the Westerners, and the Zionists." And now they want revenge for this, on the Americans, the Europeans, the Westerners, etc... and the Georgians. They're gonna make them _pay_ for everything the apparachics did to them during the 90's.

You ever read up on the Boxer Rebellion?

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-11 14:52|| 2008-08-11 14:52|| Front Page Top

#44 Back to the video for a moment.
McCain's observation is brilliant in comparison to Obama's 'talk and hold hands' approach.
I am still wondering just why putin found it necessary to play his hand now. Did something happen, or was that just an eclipse, August first ?

Posted by wxjames 2008-08-11 15:12|| 2008-08-11 15:12|| Front Page Top

#45 Commodity prices are plummeting. One wonders how heavily the Russian oligarchs were vested in oil, copper, and other mineral-based futures contracts?

Posted by mrp 2008-08-11 15:18|| 2008-08-11 15:18|| Front Page Top

#46 Re: comment #30, and the overall tone of this thread.

Let's try to watch our language here. Mods are watching. You have been warned.

Posted by Scooter McGruder 2008-08-11 15:19|| 2008-08-11 15:19|| Front Page Top

#47 gromguru: In these case the Russians who's been eating shit for the last 20 years.

What the heck are you talking about? This is Russia, the country with 17m sq km of land - the largest country in the world by far. Russians have actually been eating crap since the Bolshevik Revolution in 1917 ushered in a new era of god emperors who not only had to be obeyed - they had to be worshiped on pain of death or imprisonment - an era that took 72 years to finally end. Only after Communism fell did Russians everywhere stop having to get in line for basic items. I don't get - if you're Israeli - why you're such a rabid supporter of Russia. Russia is the country that almost intervened with troops on the Arab side in the Yom Kippur War in 1973 and certainly provided all of the Arabs' weapons systems in a war that almost saw Israel overrun. Uncle Sam is the country that almost went to war against Russia to prevent their troop intervention.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2008-08-11 15:36|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2008-08-11 15:36|| Front Page Top

#48 zf - some Russian Jews in Israel and the US have A. a real hatred for the EU, etc not unlike the feeling expressed by many on the right. B. a distrust of democracy, again, a far right thing (esp if they see the democratic govt of Israel as traitors) C. Some nostalgia for Russia D. A willingness (like some Russian Orthodox) to seperate Putin from the old Communists.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 15:45|| 2008-08-11 15:45|| Front Page Top

#49 My, my, OS. Seems he struck a nerve. Don't hold anything back now -- tell him how you really feel. ;-)

Posted by JOgershok">JOgershok 2008-08-11 16:15|| 2008-08-11 16:15|| Front Page Top

#50 sg: A willingness (like some Russian Orthodox) to seperate Putin from the old Communists.

Here's what I don't get. Russia is supplying Israel's most likely military adversaries - Syria and Iran - with most of their major weapons systems. He keeps on harping on us supplying Saudi Arabia - whose most probable adversary is either Iraq or Iran - with modern weapons systems.

I think he needs to read a little history. Muslim rulers have have had no compunction about warring against other Muslim nations, perhaps because it's less troublesome to absorb the natives into the empire and conscript them as troops against the infidel. And a big chunk of the Middle East used to be a unitary empire, under the Mesopotamians, the Greeks, the Arabs, the Persians and the Turks. With oil in the Gulf area representing more than half of the world's known reserves, the temptation to put together a unified Muslim empire in the region is far greater than it was in antiquity, when a good chunk of it was wasteland.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2008-08-11 16:16|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2008-08-11 16:16|| Front Page Top

#51 ZF - yeah, thats the weak spot. I guess until recently Russian support to Iran was less overt, and Euro hostility to Iran was barely perceptible. And it could be argued the US presence in Iraq was mainly helping Iran. Id say that much has changed, since the election of Sarkozy and Merkel, since the surge and esp the turn of Maliki at least partly away from Iran, and as Putin has become firmer in support of the Iranians.

Its very hard for positions we've become emotionally attached to to change with changing circumstances. It took me almost a good two years to warm up to the new Ariel Sharon, for example. Equally as long to become fully disillusioned with Olmert.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 16:22|| 2008-08-11 16:22|| Front Page Top

#52 I haven't seen this much angst here since I started posting my opinions on global labor markets on a thread a year ago and had other 'burgers threaten to beat up my family.

Let's not eat our own.

Shouldn't the main things be to determine a) how to limit any generic imperial interests that Russia has and b) to assert some coherent policy for the U.S?

All the other infighting is a distraction.

Posted by no mo uro 2008-08-11 17:11|| 2008-08-11 17:11|| Front Page Top

#53 how can we try to decide how to limit Russian imperial interests, when some folks here think russia went into S Ossetia as the rightful avenger of the Serbian people against the eevil mooselimbs?

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 17:13|| 2008-08-11 17:13|| Front Page Top

#54 Its very hard for positions we've become emotionally attached to to change with changing circumstances. It took me almost a good two years to warm up to the new Ariel Sharon, for example. Equally as long to become fully disillusioned with Olmert.

I'm scared to ask, but you know Sharon's in a coma, right?

(I'm hoping you meant something else).

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-11 17:14|| 2008-08-11 17:14|| Front Page Top

#55 i meant I considered Sharon an extremist in 2000, and by mid 2002 or so, I warmed up to the idea he was pragmatic. Well before his coma, in fact even before he broke with Likud.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-11 17:15|| 2008-08-11 17:15|| Front Page Top

#56 So it's not some sort of "I'm voting for Zombie Reagan" thing then.

Posted by Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-11 17:23|| 2008-08-11 17:23|| Front Page Top

#57 Guys, I asked earlier why we should get involved. The closest thing I got for an answer was SG's comment that we really don't have to send troops and that I've raised a strawman with that issue.

I don't see this coming out well for the Russians no matter how it ends. They're going against the flow of history here and doing so in a way that's going to cost them a ton militarily and economically.

The old axiom is "never interrupt your enemy when he's making a mistake." That's what is happening now. We should beat the UN drum for all it's worth, chastise the Russian invasion as being contrary to the rule of law, and try to get other countries to do so too.

That is as much as we should do. OS is a bit overwrought on this issue, I think; we need to think of our own position first. This can't help but make a lot of otherwise critical countries start reassessing their anti-American attitudes a bit.

One last thing; Russia's demographics and relative military weakness are still the same big problems they were a month ago. This isn't going to make them any better; if anything, it will exacerbate them. That's good for all concerned.

Posted by Sleating Big Foot6595 2008-08-11 18:45|| 2008-08-11 18:45|| Front Page Top

#58 Beating the UN drum (and far more) didn't do much to keep Saddam from getting filthy rich. The Russians wouldn't care and the Europeans would start dealing with them legally or not before long.

Posted by rjschwarz 2008-08-11 20:09|| 2008-08-11 20:09|| Front Page Top

#59 De Oppresso Liber. Either you do things or its meaningless.

Now as wo why I was so angry...

The amount of ignorance, bigotry and stupidity on the part of those who were apologists for the Putin regime and their attacks was so huge as to be astounding. And the wrongheaded idiotic and completely lie filled responses from some posters were even worse.

Unlike you, I know this evil. I made a career of fighting in in the Army and in other US agencies.

I could see that the Russians had set this up, and they had. We needed to respond quickly and strongly, moving humanitarian aid, with our military forces, to help our ally. We did not, and now Georgia is under the jackboot of a Russian thug. I could see that they would not stop at the borders, and they did not. I could see they would indisciminately bomb and shell civilians, and they have. I could see what they were up to - and I pretty much see that they may yet roll up ALL of Georgia in their push to destroy the freely elected democratic western government there - a staunch ally of ours in the GWOT, in Iraq.

Yet NONE of the apologists here could see past his own prejudices, and were actually defending the barbaric illegal and offensive acts of the Russian thugs. They still do not admit they are on the side of oppression, they are the supporters of jackbooted thuggery of a free people. They are dishonest, lying to themsleves and us. The sorts of supportsers here are the types I have fought -- they are dominated by hate, race and bigotry.

You are my enemies. You suppoort dictators, thugs and others of that ilk. You threaten freedom, and therefore deserve nothing from me other than my efforts to defeat you.

Look at what you support:

When Russian airplanes dropped bombs on Gori, Georgia, Monday morning, 26-year-old Nikri (who was afraid to give his last name) rushed home to check on his family. The carnage that awaited him was almost too much to bear. A womans severed hand lay by the entrance to his shattered apartment building. Upstairs, he found his wounded wife and one of his daughters alive. But his 2-year-old daughter was dead, the victim of a piece of shrapnel that hit the wall above her bed.

Russians bombing a medical clinic in Gori:

Lali Nikoshvili, 45, was at work Sunday at a medical clinic in Gori when she heard an unbearably loud boom. As a thick cloud engulfed the room, Nikoshvili, a nurse, felt sharp pains in her breast and face. When the dust settled, she saw that the walls and windows were gone and she felt blood running down her right cheek. Lying on a stretcher at the hospital, Nikoshvili was one of about 200 patients with shrapnel and other wounds.

Do you now still offer excuses for Ruissia's massive invasion of Georgia proper, the indiscrimanate bombing and shelling of civilians cites and towns, the destruction of port facilities, the occupation of territory, the "liquidation" (their exact words) of police and government facilities inside Georgia outside of the disputed areas, the naval blockade of even humanitarian supplies (an overt act of war)

Need I go on? Russia is CLEARLY in the wrong.

So yes, I was spitting mad, and had every right to be. I knew what was coming, and knew just how wroing you were. Were you to try to say those things in person, you'd be verbally berated in the same way - I gave you no repect because you deserved none, behaving as a lickspittle for an oppressive thugs.

I know history. I've seen the mass graves of recent failures to oppose dictators bent on power. And I have seen the past price paid for appeasment and failure to act as well, at the US Military cemetaries in France and Belgium, and at Dachau.

You want to see the end product of this? Here is part of it, in the very words of a Russian gangster-state representative in Latvia:

Russias ambassador to Latvia Monday warned the Baltic states and Poland that they would pay for their criticism of the Kremlin over the conflict in Georgia, the Baltic news agency BNS reported.

"One must not hurry on such serious issues, as serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards," Alexander Veshnyakov was quoted as saying by BNS.

Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Riga confirmed the ambassadors comments but declined to elaborate.

There you have it - naked agressive threats.

The world once before failed to oppose an Ultranationalist charismatic leader who used bullying and force of arms. Putin and the stupid population of Russia are repeating the Hitler's playbook from the Ruhr and in Sudetenland.

Our only hope is a strong and quick response, to force a price, a hard price, onto Russia's imperialistc agression in Georgia. And to assemble and back allies such as the Ukraine, as well as to promote, and, if neccesary, clandestinely arm freedom fighters around the periphery of Russia.

Remember the apocryphal maxim of Burke:

All that is necessary for the triumph of evil, is for good men to do nothing

Posted by OldSpook 2008-08-11 20:45|| 2008-08-11 20:45|| Front Page Top

#60 Attacking Stalin - other than his pan-nationalist side - will get you murdered in Georgia. Georgians are not pro-West; they are anti-Russia. Georgians want to use NATO, just as they used Islamofascists to diminish the capacity of the Russians to crush Chechen al-Qaeda.

What would Bush do if the Mexican government began to murder the 10,000 Americans who live in Guadelajara? Or...what did Reagan do when internal Grenadan politics was taken to be a threat to US medical students?

I am an imperialist. I want the Persian Gulf turned into an Anglo-American pond. I respect the territorial integrality of demographic cess pools like Iran and Georgia, in exact measure of their support for same.

Old Spook:

Don't use language that you wouldn't use in front of your children. lotp is at her wit's end with your vulgarity and knee jerk Carterism. Post a nominal "intelligence" report to which you contributed your learned whatever. Why do I suspect same would be a dog's breakfast of non sequitors?

Come on, some of this post is like the worst of Yahoo.

Posted by McZoid 2008-08-11 21:03|| 2008-08-11 21:03|| Front Page Top

#61 McZoi, you are an IDIOT. What is the metnally retarded fixation you have on Stalin?

Stop lying - its NOT that way in Georgia. I challenge you to prove such wild accusations. You are making extraordianry claims, you need to supply extraordianry proof.

Calling Georgia a "cesspool" comparable to Iran - PROVE IT. Or admit you are lying (which is obviously the casse - or else you are so demented as to beleive your own lies).

"knee jerk Carterism"

ROFL! You are really so metnally deficient as to call me that? WHere was I being Carter? Hmm chum? Care to back your words with facts?

Its called REALITY, and unlike Carter (and Bush)I advocate a very strong military backed response to the Russian agression in Georgia.

"Post a nominal "intelligence" report to which you contributed your learned whatever."

Show my your clearance, and I can tell you where to find many of them.

"I am an imperialist."

I know now you are an enemy - someont that woudl impose imperial rule as opposed to liberation. The jackboot does fit you rahter nicely you little Hitler wannabe.

You are an idiot - thanks for the proof.

Now answer the questions. If you dare.

Posted by OldSPook 2008-08-11 21:26|| 2008-08-11 21:26|| Front Page Top

#62 The key point I got from the Belmont Club post was this: The 130+ US advisers in Georgia are staying put and are actively engaged in support of the Georgian Army. That is a significant sign of US resolve.

Posted by mrp 2008-08-11 22:29|| 2008-08-11 22:29|| Front Page Top

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