Originally Posted by playwrite

Yea, if I was the Ruskies I'd sit on that highway and port a little longer to see what the Georgians are ready to settle for. I'd figure the big dog is the US and I got some Iranian, N.Korean, #1 oil/gas exporter, and many many more chips to trade with them over the longer term. Also, once this settles down, maybe folks will see who was the adult in the room.

Yeah, that sounds really "adult."

And you think you're being morally neutral in all this, and not just taking Russia's side?

Please.

You're kidding, right?

Do you understand how capitalism works?

If you just sit on natural resources, your economy is going to go to hell. Russia needs to sell resources to other countries. And being apart of the WTO is much more valuable than you think.

Originally Posted by Anthony

And Georgia has oppressed the Abkhazians (and Ossetians) for centuries. What goes around comes around.

Do you have a point here? I'm not taking sides in this ethnic conflict. My point is that Georgia had a right to react harshly to the Abkhazians and Ossetians attacking them, and there's a very good chance that there will be atrocities on both sides.

Moral justice?

Surely you jest! What about moral justice for the Ossetians and Abkhazians?

What does killing Georgians and occupying Georgia proper (as in, not Ossetia or Abkhazia) do for moral justice?

If Georgia wants to be part of "the West," let them act like it; didn't the Czechs have to get their boots of the Slovaks' necks as a condition for being allowed to join that esteemed gentlemen's club? When Georgia starts behaving like Denmark, then and only then do they deserve to be treated like Denmark. Right now the Georgians are carrying on like Rhodesia did - and that's being charitable.

Their options are limited.

Also, aren't you supposed to be a John McCain supporter? You do realize that McCain is a much bigger hardliner for Georgia than I am?

And if I were Vladimir Putin, I'd say to Bush et al: Bleep you. Remember the Warsaw Pact? Well now there's going to be a Tehran Pact, which we're going to sign with Iran, Syria, Sudan etc. Put that in your pipe and smoke it!

If Russia really wants to be the asshole of global politics, then so be it. It is then, of course, our moral duty to stop them, just like we stopped the Nazis.

Originally Posted by Silifi

Do you have a point here? I'm not taking sides in this ethnic conflict. My point is that Georgia had a right to react harshly to the Abkhazians and Ossetians attacking them, and there's a very good chance that there will be atrocities on both sides.

This is just like Ireland, where the British committed atrocity after atrocity for century after century - tons of wheat, barley etc. were being exported from Ireland to England during the very height of the potato famine in the late 1840s, for example; then, when the Irish finally started to fight back, the British whined and moaned about "terrorism."

What does killing Georgians and occupying Georgia proper (as in, not Ossetia or Abkhazia) do for moral justice?

How is what Russia is doing now any different from what India did in East Pakistan/Bangladesh in 1971? How many refugees did India then, and Russia now, have to take in?

Russia is a nation - not a homeless shelter.

Their options are limited.

I'm sure Maurice Bishop's heart bleeds for Georgia - if his heart was still in fact beating, that is.

Also, aren't you supposed to be a John McCain supporter? You do realize that McCain is a much bigger hardliner for Georgia than I am?

No one appreciates how "totally awesome" the '80s were more than I do; but the '80s - and for that matter, the '50s, too - are over.

Is aiding and abetting Georgians in their oppression of Ossetians and Abkhazians worth risking seeing New York or Chicago reduced to a gigantic open-air parking lot over?

Indeed, it is not worth one drop of American blood - which, not for nothing, wouldn't come from the chickenhawks who are doing all the saber-rattling at the Russians - nor one copper-coated zinc cent of American taxpayers' money.

If Russia really wants to be the asshole of global politics, then so be it. It is then, of course, our moral duty to stop them, just like we stopped the Nazis.

These "David and Goliath" analogies make me want to take up bulimia as a hobby! Georgia is more like a wife-beater who suddenly isn't such a tough guy when the cops come to arrest him.

Originally Posted by Silifi

Yeah, that sounds really "adult."

And you think you're being morally neutral in all this, and not just taking Russia's side?

Please.

As I've said repeatedly, for me, much depends on what the Russians do from here. So far, I haven't seen much that is unreasonable or unexpected. If this moves toward a peaceful end after nearly two decades of fighting its hard to fault them, particularly if they don't formally absorb the two breakaway regions. On the otherhand, if they were to absorb all of Georgia, I would take them as not only evil but really, really stupid. Right now, I don't thing they are.

Originally Posted by Silifi

Do you understand how capitalism works?

If you just sit on natural resources, your economy is going to go to hell. Russia needs to sell resources to other countries. And being apart of the WTO is much more valuable than you think.

Sure, but more importantly, so do the Russian, the Chinese, the Indians and Europe; not so sure these days about Americans though. The realists in Europe are already coming around pretty quick -
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/opipelin...aB2AdoHXxbbBAF

Georgia-Russia conflict shows EU's energy vulnerability

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/a9...IeeP0EusmOe8UF
Russia's War With Georgia May Revive U.S.-Europe Rift

Just thankful that the guy who makes Bush even look like an adult hasn't yet been elected -

http://news.yahoo.com/s/usnews/20080...arningtorussia

McCain's New Warning to Russia

Some things to be thankful for, I guess, including that I'm off to a 1-week sail to the islands. Purposefully, out of touch so it will be real interesting to see how the world does without me. Take care.

Originally Posted by playwrite

Sure, but more importantly, so do the Russian, the Chinese, the Indians and Europe; not so sure these days about Americans though. The realists in Europe are already coming around pretty quick -
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/opipelin...aB2AdoHXxbbBAF

Georgia-Russia conflict shows EU's energy vulnerability

http://news.yahoo.com/s/bloomberg/a9...IeeP0EusmOe8UF
Russia's War With Georgia May Revive U.S.-Europe Rift [/quote]

As usual, Europe will be dragged kicking and screaming into the 4T. What else is new?

Fact is that we need to move away from using foreign energy, especially as Russia and other resource-rich tyrants choose to hold it over our heads.

But please, don't forget the fact that we are, in fact, heading into a 4T, and that idealistic leaders are going to be well-prepared to cut Russia out of the picture for moralistic reasons.

In any case, you're still not addressing the fact that the bargaining chip of the WTO has not been put on the table: we should bargain with Russia using that. The tensions may be rising right now, but that's only because no one has made any concession to Russia so that they will back off.

This day:

"Mischa" (sp?) present POTROG is a friend as he was educated in the"good schools" of Our Commercial Republic.

"B. Hussein O." potential POTUS is an enemy as he was educated in the selfsame "good schools" of Our Commercial Republic.

Russia's plan is clearly to snare the US into a confrontation before america becomes competent after the election. Russia has been planning to launch a nuclear first strike against america's cities and military assests with the primary objective being population extermination, russians plan genocide against the populations of europe and the americas' in order to secure total domination of eurasia, as well as world domination in conjunction with iran. These plans have been initiated by putin as per the writings of eurasianist ideologists alexander dugin and dimitry rogozin.

Does anyone here even remember the "Islamofascists"?

Instead of trying to say that Barack Obama was some sort of Muslim at the wise old age of seven, maybe Jerome Corsi ought to scour Obama's mother's family tree; maybe Corsi can dig up a Russian ancestor or two.

Jerome Corsi is a paranoid conspiracy theorist.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn...l?hpid=topnews

Perspective on the Ossetian Question.

Originally Posted by Anthony '58 II

Does anyone here even remember the "Islamofascists"?

Considering that Islam is a religion and fascism is a secular political worldview, hence they are mutually exclusive, we're trying not to. It is best to leave some discredited terms where they belong.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Considering that Islam is a religion and fascism is a secular political worldview, hence they are mutually exclusive, we're trying not to. It is best to leave some discredited terms where they belong.

I saw a blog the other day that suggested doing a global search for the terms 'fascist' and 'terrorist' and replace them with 'Dalek'; the terms mean about the same today. They simply mean 'one who I think is destructive to good order'.

We have actual Islamic enemies, to wit, a band of well-organized outlaws now despised by all civilized nations. (The few nations foolish enough to welcome them have learned better by now.) They are the out-of-control outgrowth of a greater challenge to the global civilization: the deliberate worldwide export of intolerance by the Wahabbi-Saudi alliance.

Al-Qaeda is a military organization requiring a military response. We have defeated them decisively in Iraq; the last few months have seen the mopping up of the last cells in Mosul and Diyala. Iraq will have problems in the future, but our primary enemies will not be causing them. Enemy reinforcements are going to Afghanistan and primarily to their new push into Pakistan. This is where our military efforts must shift.

The Wahabbi challenge is a soft-power challenge... in fact, almost exclusively a soft-money challenge. They are using the oil money to promote their ideology. Fair enough, but their beliefs are likely to cause greater conflict worldwide. Soft power must be fought with soft power; and we have more money than they do. In fact, their money is largely our money, paid to them for that oil. The correct response is our "cultural WMD" and specific, targeted responses (such as providing alternate Muslim textbooks, authored by Muslims in the West, that don't test students on how well they hate us).

Repression of women isn't a feature of fascism. Hatred of Jews isn't a feature of fascism (that was peculiar to the Nazis). And much of the fascist program isn't present in the enemy agenda. The only points of comparison are their shared use of police-state tactics... and their enmity towards America.

I could go with Islamotyrants as a proper descriptor, but oops that would also include people we pay off, like Mubarak in Egypt. I like simply naming them outlaws -- "the enemies general of humankind", as one ancient phrase put it. There is no government on Earth they believe legitimate, no people they are unwilling to slaughter.

Originally Posted by catfishncod

I saw a blog the other day that suggested doing a global search for the terms 'fascist' and 'terrorist' and replace them with 'Dalek'; the terms mean about the same today. They simply mean 'one who I think is destructive to good order'.
We have actual Islamic enemies, to wit, a band of well-organized outlaws now despised by all civilized nations. (The few nations foolish enough to welcome them have learned better by now.) They are the out-of-control outgrowth of a greater challenge to the global civilization: the deliberate worldwide export of intolerance by the Wahabbi-Saudi alliance.

Any group, including religious ones, with more than a billion members is bound to have evil people within it. The idea that we can find a new term for radical Islamists that is not loaded with linguistic baggage from the last saeculium is a good one. I did a quick google of the word Dalek after reading your post and as far as I can tell, its past usage is sufficently vague that it may prove to be a fitting term to discribe this current worldwide problem.

The Wahabbi challenge is a soft-power challenge... in fact, almost exclusively a soft-money challenge. They are using the oil money to promote their ideology. Fair enough, but their beliefs are likely to cause greater conflict worldwide. Soft power must be fought with soft power; and we have more money than they do. In fact, their money is largely our money, paid to them for that oil. The correct response is our "cultural WMD" and specific, targeted responses (such as providing alternate Muslim textbooks, authored by Muslims in the West, that don't test students on how well they hate us).

I wouldn't argue with any of that.

Repression of women isn't a feature of fascism. Hatred of Jews isn't a feature of fascism (that was peculiar to the Nazis). And much of the fascist program isn't present in the enemy agenda. The only points of comparison are their shared use of police-state tactics... and their enmity towards America.

Fascists manipulate whatever is the predominant religious norm and form for their ends wherever they take power. They wrap themselves in the local culture and its symbols, be it the flag, the sacred temples ect.

I like simply naming them outlaws -- "the enemies general of humankind", as one ancient phrase put it. There is no government on Earth they believe legitimate, no people they are unwilling to slaughter.

And as you've pointed out, WE fund them through our oil imports.
We hit peak oil in the US in 1970, thus no matter how aggressively we exploit our remaining potential reserves, we can only slow the decline in domestic production, not reverse it as some seem to be promising currently. Two dollar a gallon gas isn't coming back. It's going to be interesting to see if that hard truth is accepted easily or if denial will continue to be the norm as it has been for the past 30 years. The severity of our 4T may well depend on our willingness to see the energy picture as it is. We can't afford to play dumb any longer.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

I did a quick google of the word Dalek after reading your post and as far as I can tell, its past usage is sufficently vague that it may prove to be a fitting term to discribe this current worldwide problem.

Heh -- it's not very vague to the British, or to science fiction fans worldwide, for whom the Doctor Who villian-species image will dominate. The core principle of a Dalek is that absolutely anything other than themselves does not deserve to exist -- hence the war-cry, "EXTERMINATE!"

This applies to al-Qaeda. Al-Qaeda believes that all civilizations other than its own must be EXTERMINATED, including Muslim ones. Al-Qaeda also fits the Dalek modus operandi, which is to spend time and resources devising technically challenging schemes for universal domination -- and then ruin their own plans by mindlessly and fanatically attacking all targets (even potential allies-of-convienence) once the fit hits the Shan.

Fascists manipulate whatever is the predominant religious norm and form for their ends wherever they take power. They wrap themselves in the local culture and its symbols, be it the flag, the sacred temples ect.

Agreed, but you've missed the point: most of the fascist agenda is unrealized by al-Qaeda. Fascism is nationalist; al-Qaeda is internationalist. Fascism is devoted to central economic planning and co-option of the upper class to that end; al-Qaeda shows little notion of economic theory and sees the upper class primarily as a resource, not an ally.

'Fascist' has passed into English as with the connotation of a shorter synonym of 'extreme authoritarian'. Al-Qaeda is most certainly authoritarian, but it's not fascist.

We hit peak oil in the US in 1970, thus no matter how aggressively we exploit our remaining potential reserves, we can only slow the decline in domestic production, not reverse it as some seem to be promising currently.

'Some' being 'McCain'. To his credit, he doesn't lie about the need for new energy sources, and trumpets building new nuclear reactors.

Not only can we not stop the decline of domestic production -- we can't affect the world price of oil through supply manipulation. Only changing our demand will lower world oil prices. We can't stop buying on the world market unless our demand matches our supply. In addition, we can't stop the Russians, Arabs, etc. from getting rich off their oil. We can, however, stop them getting rich off of us, and this is a worthy goal.

To get back to the main topic: Russia's resurgence is a function of her energy resources. Her real power is not her troops or nukes, but her control of Europe's energy needs. Take that away and Russia resumes her decline and eventual fate as a target of European and Chinese economic colonization.

Europe is beginning to realize this. Only strong pressure from Green groups in Germany and elsewhere prevents the proven, reliable, large-scale French nuclear power system from being replicated across the entire EU; combined with plug-in hybrids (probably plug-in hybrid diesel in Europe) this would totally destroy Russia's economic sledgehammer (not to mention permitting the Kyoto ideal to be realized).

Originally Posted by catfishncod

mindlessly and fanatically attacking all targets (even potential allies-of-convienence) once the fit hits the Shan.

Nice. :

'Some' being 'McCain'. To his credit, he doesn't lie about the need for new energy sources, and trumpets building new nuclear reactors.

Not only can we not stop the decline of domestic production -- we can't affect the world price of oil through supply manipulation. Only changing our demand will lower world oil prices. We can't stop buying on the world market unless our demand matches our supply. In addition, we can't stop the Russians, Arabs, etc. from getting rich off their oil. We can, however, stop them getting rich off of us, and this is a worthy goal.

I wish it was just McCain. There's grandstanding going on everyday of the August Congressional recess over this issue. And given the default choices that I saw made in the early 1980's, I see a real chance that the grandstanding may work well enough to delay real action. I know that the generational allignment has changed one full turning scince the early 1980's, but many of the then young adults who embraced the illusion that Alaskan oil had solved our energy problem in the early 80's are now the middle aged voters who must be convinced to change. Change doesn't come easy for middle aged people, many would willingly make internal peace with the idea of paying four dollars a gallon instead of two now just as they accepted dollar a gallon gas instead of fifty cents a gallon then. People are not going to pay more taxes to encourage energy independence if they can become comfortably numb to the new price. If OPEC can find the right price range to maximize our consumption and discourage alternitive energy again as they did then, the technologies that you mention below won't be devoloped here, we will be left behind as the problem kicked down the road for a few more years, we won't get a 30 year ride again, and we will end up in even worse shape than we are in now.

To get back to the main topic: Russia's resurgence is a function of her energy resources. Her real power is not her troops or nukes, but her control of Europe's energy needs. Take that away and Russia resumes her decline and eventual fate as a target of European and Chinese economic colonization.

Europe is beginning to realize this. Only strong pressure from Green groups in Germany and elsewhere prevents the proven, reliable, large-scale French nuclear power system from being replicated across the entire EU; combined with plug-in hybrids (probably plug-in hybrid diesel in Europe) this would totally destroy Russia's economic sledgehammer (not to mention permitting the Kyoto ideal to be realized).

Oil is giving Russia a second chance and they are not using it wisely. I try to be an optimist about the technologies you've mentioned, but my life experence thus far has been that people do not do the wise thing when there is an easier, short term way that resembles past practice allows them to get around doing so. If I believed that history was strictly linear and without the cyclical influence of the saeculium, I would have no hope.

Master Plan or Screw Up?
Georgia and U.S. Strategy
By MIKE WHITNEY
The American-armed and trained Georgian army swarmed into South Ossetia last Thursday, killing an estimated 2,000 civilians, sending 40,000 South Ossetians fleeing over the Russian border, and destroying much of the capital, Tskhinvali. The attack was unprovoked and took place a full 24 hours before even ONE Russian soldier set foot in South Ossetia. Nevertheless, the vast majority of Americans still believe that the Russian army invaded Georgian territory first. The BBC, AP, NPR, the New York Times and the rest of the establishment media have consistently and deliberately misled their readers into believing that the violence in South Ossetia was initiated by the Kremlin. Let's be clear, it wasn't. In truth, there is NO dispute about the facts except among the people who rely the western press for their information. Despite its steady loss of credibility, the corporate media continues to operate as the propaganda-arm of the Pentagon.
Former Russian President Mikhail Gorbachev gave a good summary of events in an op-ed in Monday's Washington Post:
For some time, relative calm was maintained in South Ossetia. The peacekeeping force composed of Russians, Georgians and Ossetians fulfilled its mission, and ordinary Ossetians and Georgians, who live close to each other, found at least some common ground....What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas....Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a "blitzkrieg" in South Ossetia...Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenseless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity."
Russia deployed its tanks and troops to South Ossetia to save the lives of civilians and to reestablish the peace. Period. It has no interest in annexing the former-Soviet country or in expanding its present borders. Now that the Georgian army has been routed, Russian president Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin have expressed a willingness to settle the dispute through normal diplomatic channels at the United Nations. Neither leader is under any illusions about Washington's involvement in the hostilities. They know that Georgian President Mikail Saakashvili is an American stooge who came to power in a CIA-backed coup, the so-called "Rose Revolution", and would never order a major military operation without explicit instructions from his White House puppetmasters.
The Georgian army had no chance of winning a war with Russia or any intention of occupying the territory they captured. The real aim was to lure the Russian army into a trap. US planners hope to do what they did so skillfully in Afghanistan; lure their Russian prey into a long and bloody Chechnya-type20fiasco that will pit their Russia troops against guerrilla forces armed and trained by US military and intelligence agencies. The war will be waged in the name of liberating Georgia from Russian imperialism and stopping Putin from achieving his alleged ambition to control critical western-owned pipelines around the Caspian Basin.
In June, former foreign policy adviser to President Jimmy Carter, Zbigniew Brzezinski, presented the basic storyline that would be used against Russia two full months before the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia. The article appeared on the Kavkazcenter web site. Brzezinski said the United States witnessed "cases of possible threats by Russia, directed at Georgia with the intention of taking control over the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline".

Brzezinski: "Russia actively tends to isolate the Central Asian region from direct access to world economy, especially to energy supplies..If Georgia government is destabilized, western access to Baku, Caspian Sea and further will be limited".
Brzezinski's speculation is part of a broader scenario that's been crafted for the western media to provide a rationale for upcoming aggression against Russia. Brzezinski is not only the architect of the mujahadin-led campaign against Russia in Afghanistan in the 1980s, but also, the author of "The Grand Chessboard--American Primacy and its Geostrategic Imperatives", the op erating theory behind “the war on terror” which involves massive US intervention in Central Asia to control vital resources, fragment Russia, and surround manufacturing giant, China.
"The Grand Chessboard" is the 21st century's version of the Great Game. The book begins with this revealing statement:
"Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power.....The key to controlling Eurasia is controlling the Central Asian Republics."
This is the heart-and-soul of the war on terror. The real braintrust behind "never-ending conflict" was actually focussed on Central Asia. It was the pro-Israeli crowd in the Republican Party that pulled the old switcheroo and refocussed on the Middle East rather than Eurasia. Now, powerful members of the US foreign policy establishment (Brzezinski, Albright, Holbrooke) have regrouped behind the populist "cardboard" presidential candidate Barack Obama and are preparing to redirect America's war efforts to the Asian theater. Obama offers voters a choice of wars not a choice against war.
On Sunday, Brzezinski accused Russia of imperial ambitions comparing Putin to "Stalin and Hitler"20in an interview with Nathan Gardels.
Gardels: What is the world to make of Russia's invasion of Georgia?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Fundamentally at stake is what kind of role Russia will play in the new international system.(aka: New World Order) Unfortunately, Putin is putting Russia on a course that is ominously similar to Stalin's and Hitler's in the late 1930s. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has correctly drawn an analogy between Putin's "justification" for dismembering Georgia -- because of the Russians in South Ossetia -- to Hitler's tactics vis a vis Czechoslovakia to "free" the Sudeten Deutsch. Even more ominous is the analogy of what Putin is doing vis-a-vis Georgia to what Stalin did vis-a-vis Finland: subverting by use of force the sovereignty of a small democratic neighbor. In effect, morally and strategically, Georgia is the Finland of our day.
The question the international community now confronts is how to respond to a Russia that engages in the blatant use of force with larger imperial designs in mind: to reintegrate the former Soviet space under the Kremlin's control and to cut Western access to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia by gaining control over the Baku/Ceyhan pipeline that runs through Georgia.
In brief, the stakes are very significant. At stake is access to oil as that resource grows ever more scarce and expensive and how a major power conducts itself in our newly interdependent world, conduct that should be based on accommodation and consensus, not on brute force.
If Georgia is subverted, not only will the West be cut off from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. We can logically anticipate that Putin, if not resisted, will use the same tactics toward the Ukraine. Putin has already made public threats against Ukraine."
Brzezinski, Holbrooke and Albright form the "Imperialist A-Team"; these are not the bungling "Keystone Cops" neocons like Feith and Rumsfeld who trip over themselves getting out of bed in the morning. They know what they are doing and they are good at it. They're not fools. They have aligned themselves with the Obama camp and are preparing for the next big outbreak of global trouble-making. This should serve as a sobering wake-up call for voters who still think Obama represents "Change We Can Believe In".
Richard Holbrooke appeared on Tuesday's Jim Lerher News Hour with resident neocon Margaret Warner. Typical of Warner's "even-handed" approach, both of the interviewees were ultra-conservatives from right-wing think tanks: Richard Holbrooke, from the Council on Foreign Relations and Dmiti Simes from the Nixon Center.
According to Holbrooke, "The Russians deliberately provoked (the fighting in South Ossetia) and timed it for the Olympics. This is a long-standing Russian effort to get rid of President Saakashvili."
Right. Is that why Putin was so shocked when he heard the news (while he was in Beijing) that he quickly boarded a plane and headed for Moscow? (after shaking his finger angrily at Bush!)
Holbrooke: "And I want to stress, I'm not a warmonger, and I don't want a new Cold War any more than Dimitri does....The Russians wish to re-establish a historic area of hegemony that includes Ukraine. And it is no accident that the other former Soviet republics are watching this and extraordinarily upset, as Putin progresses with an attempt to re-create a kind of a hegemonic space."
It is impossible to go over all of Holbrooke's distortions, half-truths and lies but, what is important is to recognize that a story is being constructed to demonize Putin and to justify future hostilities against Russia. Holbrooke's bogus assertions are identical to Brzezinski's, and yet, these same lies are already appearing in the mainstream media. The propaganda "bullet points" have alre ady been determined; "Putin is a menace","Putin wants to rebuild the Soviet empire", "Putin is an autocrat". (Unlike our "freedom loving" allies in Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Egypt!?!) In truth, Putin is simply enjoying Russia's newly acquired energy-wealth and would like to be left alone.
So why are Brzezinski and his backers in the foreign policy establishment demonizing Putin and threatening Russia with "ostracism, isolation and economic penalties?" What is Putin's crime?
Putin's problems can be traced back to a speech he made in Munich nearly two years ago when he declared unequivocally that he rejected the basic tenets of the Bush Doctrine and US global hegemony. His speech amounted to a Russian Declaration of Independence. That's when western elites, particularly at the Council on Foreign Relations and the American Enterprise Institute put Putin on their "enemies list" along with Ahmadinejad, Chavez, Castro, Morales, Mugabe and anyone else who refuses to take orders from the Washington Mafia.
Here's what Putin said in Munich:
The unipolar world refers to a world in which there is one master, one sovereign---- one center of authority, one center of force, one center of decision-making. At the end of the day this is pernicious not only for all those within this system, but also for the sovereign itself because it destroys itself from within.… What is even more important is that the model itself is flawed because at its basis there is and can be no moral foundations for modern civilization.
Unilateral and frequently illegitimate actions have not resolved any problems. Moreover, they have caused new human tragedies and created new centers of tension. Judge for yourselves---wars as well as local and regional conflicts have not diminished. More are dying than before. Significantly more, significantly more!
Today we are witnessing an almost uncontained hyper-use of force – military force – in international relations, force that is plunging the world into an abyss of permanent conflicts.
We are seeing a greater and greater disdain for the basic principles of international law. And independent legal norms are, as a matter of fact, coming increasingly closer to one state’s legal system. One state and, of course, first and foremost the United States, has overstepped its national borders in every way. This is visible in the economic, political, cultural and educational policies it imposes on other nations. Well, who likes this? Who is happy about this?
In international relations we increasingly see the desire to resolve a given question according to so-called issues of political expediency, based on the current political climate. And of course this is extremely dangerous. It results in the fact that no one feels safe. I want to emphasize this – no one feels safe! Because no one can feel that international law is like a stone wall that will protect them. Of course such a policy stimulates an arms race.
I am convinced that we have reached that decisive moment when we must seriously think about the architecture of global security.
Every word Putin spoke was true which is why it was not reprinted in the western media.
“Unilateral and illegitimate military actions”, the “uncontained hyper-use of force”, the “disdain for the basic principles of international law”, and most importantly; “No one feels safe!”
Putin's claims are all indisputable, that is why he has entered the neocons crosshairs. He poses a direct challenge to what Brzezinski calls the "international system", which is shorthand for the corporate/banking cartel that is controlled by the western oligarchy of racketeers.
Was the Goergian attack last Thursday a set-up, organized in Washington? Unfortunately for Bush, the wily Russian prime minister is considerably brighter than anyone in the current administration. Bush's plan will undoubtedly backfire and disrupt the geopolitical balance of power. The world might get that breather from the US after all.
Mike Whitney can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Nice. :

I wish I could take original credit, but that goes to Roger Zelazny. 90% of wittiness is knowing whom to quote.

(That line is original.)

And given the default choices that I saw made in the early 1980's, I see a real chance that the grandstanding may work well enough to delay real action.

I'm not familiar with early '80s energy policy; I only know what was not done - the conservation and alt-energy policies of the '70s were dropped.

If OPEC can find the right price range to maximize our consumption and discourage alternitive energy again...

You assume that's within their power. The equation was much simpler when there was one primary source -- OPEC -- and one primary sink -- the West. But India and China are now major consumers and are not synced to the West's consumption; OPEC no longer controls as much of the world's oil; and OPEC has a much smaller band of excess oil to play around with the price.

Oil is giving Russia a second chance and they are not using it wisely.

Why should they? Marxism and everything that went with it is gone, but the fundamental dynamic of the Kremlin has not changed.

Originally Posted by George Keenan, [i]The Long Telegram[/i]

At bottom of Kremlin's neurotic view of world affairs is traditional and instinctive Russian sense of insecurity. Originally, this was insecurity of a peaceful agricultural people trying to live on vast exposed plain in neighborhood of fierce nomadic peoples. To this was added, as Russia came into contact with economically advanced West, fear of more competent, more powerful, more highly organized societies in that area. But this latter type of insecurity was one which afflicted rather Russian rulers than Russian people; for Russian rulers have invariably sensed that their rule was relatively archaic in form fragile and artificial in its psychological foundation, unable to stand comparison or contact with political systems of Western countries. For this reason they have always feared foreign penetration, feared direct contact between Western world and their own, feared what would happen if Russians learned truth about world without or if foreigners learned truth about world within. And they have learned to seek security only in patient but deadly struggle for total destruction of rival power, never in compacts and compromises with it.

This is why the Russian press is now free to criticize low-level government officials, but cannot question Putin's supremacy and must jingoize foreign news. This is why contact with the West is fine for economic purposes but terrifying for political purposes. And this is why no autonomy is permissible within their sphere.

Putin knows that there is an alternate scenario for Russia, where the oligarchs are not mafiosa looking up to the Kremlin as the house of the Supreme Don, but instead co-opted into supporting rule-of-law in exchange for massively improved economic efficiency and investment. If that system was implemented, it would crush Russia's traditional power structure; so Russia's economic growth must be slowed so that the nobles of the day can maintain control. (Russia has twice had a complete changeover in the nobility, but the nobles act the same no matter the era.)

Russia celebrates Peter the Great and Catherine the Great... from a distance. Because in truth, they were nightmares to the Russian power structure. They brought alien modes of thought and disrupted the "rights" of the nobles to steal anything not nailed down. Peter and Catherine haunt the Kremlin, and it is the primary goal of the Kremlin to keep any new Peter or Catherine far from the gates. They could make Russia great again, but Russia would have to change to do so. Russia has never known peaceful change. The average Russian does not believe in peaceful change. Change is brought by invaders and by massacres. Thus the nobles and the king can convince the people that anything other than their current (oppressed) state is a plot to screw them over further. And why not? Doesn't everyone in power screw others over?

We tried to help Russia in 1990's. But Russia is like a paranoid psychiatric patient: it's incapable of simply receiving help the way most nations can. An advisor is an enemy agent whether they are an actual spy or not, because their ideas are poison merely by being different.

This dynamic crumbled in the face of advancing rule-of-law and constitutionalism in Germany in the 19th century, in Austria-Hungary in the early 20th, in Spain in the late 20th. The advancing wave has reached Ukraine and Georgia; the Kremlin knows it is coming for them, and they know it is their doom. They will fight it until the day the next Peter or Catherine crosses Red Square and claims the (figurative) throne... the day the division of the Roman Empire (whose western capital is now Brussels) ends at long last.

In one of Arthur C. Clarke's last novels (Sunstorm, a book with a frank disaster-movie plot which I don't recommend except as light reading) Earth in 2040 has three Great Powers: the United States, the People's Republic of China... and the Eurasian Union, stretching from Santiago de Compostela to Vladivostok and from Eilat to the Isle of Svalbard. This is Brussels' greatest dream - and the Kremlin's worst nightmare. And until the Russians learn that federalism does in fact work, it's completely impossible.

Originally Posted by Silifi

Sounds like living space to me.

Umm, the correct term is "lebensraum". But since we are talking about Russian, maybe it is actually "жизненное пространство". Yeah, I looked it up in the Babelfish Yahoo translation site.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

This is the place that this is really all about.

I remember this being a debate topic when I was in debate club back in HS in 1996, the idea that Eastern European nations joining NATO could cause World War III.

Originally Posted by herbal tee

Considering that Islam is a religion and fascism is a secular political worldview, hence they are mutually exclusive, we're trying not to. It is best to leave some discredited terms where they belong.

It's not like they can seriously harm the US. To do that, you need a massive invasion army, with millions of ground troops. Only large, organized nations such as Russia can partake in such a struggle.

...when you try to relegate something to the *dustbin of history* others attempt to persuade you not to. : ::
Or something like that.


With the lights out, contagious.

Originally Posted by catfishncod

...

We tried to help Russia in 1990's. ...

Heckuva job, Hacky Sachs!
It was succor such as the Big Easy received after Katrina.

Originally Posted by Virgil K. Saari

Heckuva job, Hacky Sachs!
It was succor such as the Big Easy received after Katrina.

I didn't say we did a good job. I didn't say it was a good idea. I merely said we tried, and that the Russians are prone to misinterpret gestures of good faith. Your somewhat humble correspondent begs to point out that you have a bad habit of making faulty assumptions.

Creating Your Own Romantic Imperial Realities in Eurasia

Gary Brecher has the most elegant, if undeniably sociopathic, explanation:

Originally Posted by the WarNerd

1. The Georgians started it.
2. They lost.
3. What a beautiful little war!

Except, there was more than one war; and which one you were following depended on where you lived.

The US media covered the Russian invasion of Georgia and its airstrikes on Gori, while the Russian media covered the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and its attacks on Tskhinvali, its capital. And there was no overlap.

The twain shall never meet.

Constitution Party Candidate Says Empire: America’s Greatest Threat
By Chuck Baldwin

Every time violence erupts somewhere in the world, our national leaders and news media make it sound like that particular outbreak is America’s greatest threat. The conflict between Russia and Georgia is no exception. Almost as soon as news of the conflict broke, the presumptive Republican Presidential nominee, John McCain, was suggesting that the United States (or the United Nations) should send troops to the scene. I guess two wars are not enough for McCain; he now wants to start a third. (And with all his talk about bombing Iran, make that four.) And talk all over Washington, D.C., was mostly about what kind of military response the United States should take.

Have people lost their minds? Or do people really believe that the United States is the world’s—or should we say the United Nations’—policeman? Apparently, that is what our national leaders from both major parties believe.

Let’s face it: most of America’s foreign policy over the last several decades has been more about fulfilling the U.N.’s global desires than protecting the people and property of the United States. And, yes, that includes America’s invasion of Iraq.

Do readers not remember that soon after launching the invasion of Iraq, President Bush appeared before the United Nations and plainly told that sinister organization that the reason he had ordered the invasion of Iraq was to “defend . . . the credibility of the United Nations”? Frankly, I did not know the United Nations had any credibility worth defending. Nevertheless, G.W. Bush was willing to sacrifice over 4,000 American lives for the express purpose of defending the U.N.’s “credibility.” Now, John McCain appears willing to send troops to Georgia.

I will not use this column to analyze the specific events leading up to Russia’s attack against Georgia, except to say that one can count on the fact that there is much more to the story than what NBC, CBS, ABC, and CNN are telling us.

In addition, one of the major fallacies being perpetrated by most in Washington, D.C., is the notion that America is somehow strengthened and protected by aggressive meddling in the affairs of foreign countries. Such a philosophy was considered anathema to America’s Founding Fathers. They rightly understood that such reasoning created more problems than it solved and that it made America more vulnerable, not more secure.

Regardless of what the underlying and overriding reasons for Russia’s attack might have been, I will say here and now that the Russian-Georgian conflict is not America’s greatest threat. I will also be so bold as to say that Iran or North Korea is not America’s greatest threat, either. In fact, I will categorically state that no foreign nation (although, of all foreign nations, Red China should undoubtedly be our biggest concern—and none of our national leaders seem the least bit concerned about it) is America’s greatest threat. America’s greatest threat comes from within. And I am not alone in that opinion.

Daniel Webster warned, “There is no nation on earth powerful enough to accomplish our overthrow. Our destruction, should it come at all, will be from another quarter. From the inattention of the people to the concerns of their government, from their carelessness and negligence. I must confess that I do apprehend some danger. I fear that they may place too implicit a confidence in their public servants and fail properly to scrutinize their conduct; that in this way they may be made the dupes of designing men, and become the instruments of their own undoing.”

While the national media focuses on Russia, Georgia, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Iran, our own leaders are quietly molding the clay of our own demise right here at home. Both political parties, and the standard-bearers they select, are facilitating the surrender of our national sovereignty and independence. They are working in darkness to build an international community where the laws and principles of individual nation-states (including America’s) are made subservient to the laws and principles of international entities. This is America’s greatest threat.

For example, John McCain supports the International Criminal Court. Can you believe this? Can you imagine U.S. citizens being hauled off before an international court to be tried for crimes? Imagine an international court whose rulings and opinions overrule U.S. rulings and opinions. Imagine a court setting where the constitutional protections of the Bill of Rights are null and void. Imagine a court setting where international law trumps U.S. or state laws. If that is not a surrender of U.S. sovereignty, nothing is! And John McCain is all for it.

Furthermore, both John McCain and Barack Obama support NAFTA, the WTO, GATT, and the FTAA. Both major party candidates support the NAFTA superhighway, the creation of a North American Community (which is the precursor to a North American Union), the SPP, and the United Nations.

Ladies and Gentlemen, America is on the verge of losing its independence and its national sovereignty. And both major political parties (along with a compliant national media) are equally culpable. And mark this down: when America loses its independence and national sovereignty, we also lose our freedoms and liberties. Please remember that before a Constitution and Bill of Rights could be drafted, there was first drafted a Declaration of Independence. It is the Declaration of Independence that lays the cornerstone and builds the wall of protection around the Constitution and Bill of Rights. Lose the Declaration and we lose the Constitution and Bill of Rights.

No, the greatest threat to America does not come from Russia, Iraq, Iran, or any other foreign country. America’s greatest threat comes from a complacent populace who would sit back and do nothing while our own civil magistrates surrender our nation’s sovereignty and independence to international interests.

Think about it: 232 years after Thomas Jefferson drafted the Declaration of Independence, and after our Founding Fathers pledged their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor to defend that document, our nation’s leaders from both major parties are in the process of ceding America back to the kind of global empire from which we fought to break free. This is America’s greatest threat!


__._,_.___

The Humbling of the Hyperpower
Russia's Georgia Campaign and the Expansion of NATO
By GARY LEUPP

Many are drawing analogies between the U.S.-led attack on Yugoslavia in 1999 and the Russian attack on Georgia earlier this month. Most, including Russian officials, do so to highlight the hypocrisy of Washington’s criticism of Russia’s action. Russia’s ambassador to NATO, Dmitri Rogozin, went so far as to state last week, “If we had the territorial integrity of Serbia in the case of Kosovo, then we would have the territorial integrity of Georgia . . . with regard to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.” He added that NATO’s war in 1999 “takes away the right to criticise Russia for any present or future action.”

Surely one can ask: What right has the U.S., which led the assault on Yugoslavia ostensibly to protect the beleaguered Albanians of Kosovo, to condemn the Russians for advancing into Georgia to protect the South Ossetians who’d just been subjected (as AP acknowledges) to “a massive assault”? What right does the U.S., which led the bombardment of Belgrade, have to criticize Russia’s bombardment of Gori (sparing the Georgian capital of Tbilisi)? What right does the U.S., which this year recognized Kosovo as an independent country, have to challenge the Russian foreign minister’s pronouncement that Tbilisi can “forget about” retaining South Ossetia and Abkhazia whose citizens plainly want out of the Georgian state?

There are many parallels between these two situations, the first and second wars in Europe since 1945.

In 1989 Yugoslav leader Slobodan Milosevic exploiting Serbian nationalism revoked Kosovo’s autonomous status. In that same year the Soviet Republic of Georgia’s parliament abolished South Ossetian autonomy, soon imposing Georgian as the only official language throughout the country. In both cases the withdrawal of autonomy was met with resistance, and ethnic violence and repression produced tens of thousands of refugees. In both cases a major power intervened, ostensibly to help the victims, with overwhelming military force.

But without justifying either attack it’s important to recognize some important differences. Kosovo is thousands of miles away from the U.S., whereas South Ossetia borders Russia. Kosovo has little relationship to U.S. national security, while the situation in South Ossetia impacts the security of the whole Caucasus region including southern Russia. Milosevic sent federal troops into Kosovo in 1998 to back up police in suppressing the separatist movement; Georgia’s President Mikheil Saakashvili bombed the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali in an effort to destroy the autonomous government and occupy the city with tanks.

When the U.S.-led NATO forces attacked Yugoslavia, Kosovo was under Belgrade’s control. NATO had to bomb Kosovo and Sarajevo to force the Serbian troops out. When Russia attacked Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia had acquired de facto independence and South Ossetia’s legislature had requested integration into the Russian Federation. Milosevic and Saakashvili both felt justified in attacking secessionist movements in their countries. But the former attacked a disordered province lacking effective leadership while the latter attacked what was in essence a country effectively divorced from Georgia since 1992.

Bill Clinton acted in 1999 to show the world what happens when a third-rate power defies U.S. demands. (These had included a demand for Belgrade to allow NATO forces access to the roads and airspace not only of Kosovo but the entire country of Yugoslavia in order to avoid a U.S. attack.) He acted to expand NATO’s reach as global policeman; one of the largest U.S. bases in the world has since been established in Kosovo and 15,000 NATO-led forces remain there. Ostensibly the U.S. moved to protect the Kosovars from “ethnic cleansing” at the hands of the Serbs, but it was clear within a year that the pre-war allegations of hundreds of thousands of victims of Serbian violence, disseminated by the likes of U.S. Defense Secretary William Cohen, were pure disinformation. Only about 2000 persons in Kosovo (including Serbs and Roma) had been killed before the bombing started. The real ethnic bloodletting began with the war.

In part., the Russian leadership acted on August 7 to show what happens when the leader of a neighboring country hostile to itself launches missile attacks against Russia’s friends (and in the South Ossetian case, for the most part Russian passport-bearers). It acted to assure its friends that Moscow has the will and might to protect them. On the face of it, the Russian action against Georgia seems more justifiable and understandable than the U.S. action against Yugoslavia. But that of course is not saying much. Both the U.S. and Russia are imperialist powers whose rulers go to war for reasons of profit and geopolitical strategizing that have little to do with the stated casus belli.

In the background of the Georgia conflict loom the issues of U.S.-Russian competition for control of the flow of Caspian oil and gas and the expansion of NATO. During the Soviet period, the resources under and around the Caspian Sea were Soviet state property and a major source of foreign exchange. Now most belong to Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, and Turkmenistan, all courted by the U.S. bloc to cooperate in the construction of pipelines bypassing Russia (and Iran). In May 2005 a new pipeline built by a British Petroleum-led consortium began delivering oil from Turkmenistan to the Turkish seaport of Ceyhan, running through Georgia. Intended to reduce western dependence on Middle East and Russian oil, it inaugurates a new period of struggle for control that recalls the “Great Game” between Britain and Russia in Central Asia in the nineteenth century. It’s classical inter-imperialist contention.

The expansion of NATO is, from the Russian perspective, even more provocative. In July 1991, as the Soviet bloc and USSR itself were falling apart, the Warsaw Pact was officially dissolved. Conceived of as a defensive pact, NATO lost its raison d’être. Then-Soviet head of state Mikhail Gorbachev claims the U.S. administration promised him at the time that NATO would not expand to include former Soviet allies. Instead it has expanded inexorably. On March 12, 1999---two weeks before the commencement of the NATO bombing of Yugoslavia---Poland, Hungary, and the Czech Republic joined the alliance. In 2004, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Slovenia, Slovakia, Romania and Bulgaria joined. The first two of these countries border Russia. It is like having a global alliance designed to contain U.S. power expanding to include Mexico.

Now Washington advocates the inclusion of Georgia and Ukraine into NATO; George Bush promised it at the last alliance meeting (in Bucharest, Romania). They border Russia to the west and south and their inclusion would mean NATO encirclement of Russia. Since 2002 NATO has led the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) in Afghanistan and the Russian leadership has to be nervous about permanent U.S. bases in that Central Asian country. All of these nations are a long ways from the North Atlantic.

U.S. officials tell Moscow not to worry; NATO’s not directed at them. But this is obviously disingenuous. Washington has been pressing Poland and the Czech Republic to accept the installation of a ballistic missile defense system which the Russians have argued weakens their own deterrent capacity. The missiles, the U.S. replies, aren’t directed against Russia but against “rogue states” like Iran and North Korea---as though either of those countries is likely to attack Europe. On August 16, Poland signed a memorandum of understanding with the U.S. to establish the system bitterly opposed by Moscow. Surely the timing was no coincidence, following the Polish foreign minister’s visit to Tbilisi to support Saakashvili after the Russian attack and Polish President Lech Kaczynski’s allegation that the EU shows “submissiveness” in its policy towards Russia.

In this context, Washington gave its good friend Saakashvili the green light to attack South Ossetia. It’s quite likely that most conspiratorial of warmongers Vice President Dick Cheney was deeply involved; he called Saakashvili on August 10 to inform him that “Russian aggression must not go unanswered.” Asked for clarification, Cheney’s office replied, “This must not stand.” That is precisely the phrase the first President Bush used after Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait in 1990, before the U.S. attacked Iraq the first time.

Russia under Putin never urged Milosevic to crack down on Kosovo; the Serb was nobody’s puppet. Moscow did not use the Kosovo crisis to provoke the U.S. but cooperated in the Rambouillet discussions until the U.S. made demands on Belgrade no sovereign nation could possibly accept. (The French foreign minister Hubert Védrine at the time suggested the U.S. had evolved beyond superpower status to become an hyperpuissance or “hyper-power”).

The U.S. in contrast has apparently used South Ossetia’s aspirations for secession to provoke Russia in its own “near abroad.” It’s hard to know who that might help. John McCain, who’s personally close to Saakashvili (and whose chief foreign policy advisor, neocon Randy Schuememann, has made $ 800,000 lobbying for the Georgian regime)? Even though the mainstream media has been predictably perverse in its depiction of recent events, placing the onus on Russia, I doubt that the defense of Georgia against Russia will become a major campaign issue.

The 1999 war was designed to expand NATO; the Russian attack on Georgia was designed in part to thwart its further growth. Russia has been on a defensive posture for sixteen years, accepting humiliation after humiliation. But with a real GDP now exceeding that of France and equal that of the U.K., Russia is back.

The U.S. has taken a hit in the Caucasus, and seems powerless to respond meaningfully. Its actions in response to Russia are constrained by dissent within NATO ranks, especially from Germany 40% dependent on Russian natural gas. Abdullah Gül, the president of NATO-member Turkey told British journalists over the weekend, “I don't think you can control all the world from one center ... What we have to do is, instead of unilateral actions, act all together, make common decisions and have consultations with the world. A new world order, if I can say it, should emerge.”

The hyperpower is humbled, as an old superpower revives. One shouldn’t side with one imperialist against another, as though selecting a lesser evil, but wish a plague on both their houses. Still, any blow to the ballooning NATO alliance is probably a good thing.

Gary Leupp is Professor of History at Tufts University, and Adjunct Professor of Religion. He is the author of Servants, Shophands and Laborers in in the Cities of Tokugawa Japan; Male Colors: The Construction of Homosexuality in Tokugawa Japan; and Interracial Intimacy in Japan: Western Men and Japanese Women, 1543-1900. He is also a contributor to CounterPunch's merciless chronicle of the wars on Iraq, Afghanistan and Yugoslavia, Imperial Crusades.