Reviving the Cold War.
Looks like about the only winner from the Georgia-Russia duel might be McCain. There are speculations that this whole war was generated by the Republicans and their neo-con friends in the US to shore up support for McCain.
As we know, the Republicans are the party of war (the Democrats like to bomb other people but the Republicans do it more severely). McCain, in addition to being a Republican, is an old school man and is still in the Cold War mentality (like Cheney and his friends). So how do you manage to get some, whose only asset is that he is white running against a black person, get elected?
Revive the Cold War!
I just hope that this thing dies down and gets forgotten in a few weeks. Otherwise, the GOP may whip up more paranoia and we will end up with the same stuff that we have had for the last 8 years.
As we know, the Republicans are the party of war (the Democrats like to bomb other people but the Republicans do it more severely). McCain, in addition to being a Republican, is an old school man and is still in the Cold War mentality (like Cheney and his friends). So how do you manage to get some, whose only asset is that he is white running against a black person, get elected?
Revive the Cold War!
I just hope that this thing dies down and gets forgotten in a few weeks. Otherwise, the GOP may whip up more paranoia and we will end up with the same stuff that we have had for the last 8 years.
15 comments:
Saddest thing was a picture in the New York Times of a wrecked Georgian house with Bush's picture hung on the wall. Is there any other country on earth that actually still believes in that guy??
Like I said before, there were provocations on the Russian-Ossetian side as well, but Saakashvili's "close relationship" with the Washington insiders, along with McCain's Georgian lobbyist-adviser, cannot have been a dovish influence in this mess. Undoubtedy there will be a long investigation as to who's primarily to blame, and nothing will ever be decided.
Let's hope that Russian slinks away--maybe it would rather see Obama as U.S. president than McCain?
I wonder if the GOP, in their attempt to whip up more paranoia, will go back to Iran, or will they have to find a new country...?
This is a new war that the US is going to avoid fighting against a new Russia. It's a hot war that would resemble Vietnam, with Russia in the position that China was in and the US playing itself. I said on my blog that that is what a new Armenian-Azeri war could turn into, and here I am vindicated, at least to a degree. Feels good.
Either Suck-ass-Willy is crazy, or he's stupid, or he thought NATO or the US would help him out, which is itself crazy and stupid: Russia just showed the world that the US is not a position to tell it what to do. All NATO leaning allies are that much weaker, including Azerbaijan.
Globally, it is true.
But the question is the domestic politics of the US and the issue of the next president. McCain has been spending a lot of time in Georgia and his top adviser is a paid lobbyist for Georgia (our taxpayer money converted into foreign aid to Russia funneled back to the pockets of GOP people). McCain has been beating the drums of war for some time. He has also been itching for some time to have Russia kicked out of G8. I don't know his reasoning behind it (besides the imperial ambitions of the US). Maybe he blames the Russians for his captive years, who knows...
Will the American voters get scared enough to vote McCain in and then face even more hostile policies towards Russia than what was during the Clinton and Dubya years?
Russian public favors McCain. Partly it is because Russia is racist against dark people (for no obvious reason except skin color). But I think it is also result of state propaganda. I think Russian administration is actually working in the direction to help McCain win elections. The notion of enemy of my enemy is my friend works here the best. In eight years Bush managed to bring the richest and the most powerful nation in the world to its knees. McCain is expected to finish the job.
The question is:
Is the American public ready to join the posse?
The previous experience shows that this happens only when they are directly hit e.g, cattle theft, train robberies, 911.
Short term, the McCain strategy has sadly worked: http://tinyurl.com/6mewqz
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - In a sharp turnaround, Republican John McCain has opened a 5-point lead on Democrat Barack Obama in the U.S. presidential race and is seen as a stronger manager of the economy, according to a Reuters/Zogby poll released on Wednesday.
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The poll was taken Thursday through Saturday as Obama wrapped up a weeklong vacation in Hawaii that ceded the political spotlight to McCain, who seized on Russia's invasion of Georgia to emphasize his foreign policy views.
........
Anyway, Americans as a whole have short attention spans, so let's hope this war goes away soon. Well, let's hope that's the case for every reason!
As for McCain being a "stronger manager of the economy", all I can say is ?????????????????!!!!!!!
Hmmmmm: http://tinyurl.com/6364el
The Most Dangerous Man in America
by Werther
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In a development little reported in the U.S., Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili "claimed that Georgia's ports and airports would be placed under U.S. military protection, a suggestion quickly denied by the Pentagon." Assuming that the Department of Defense is telling the truth (and granted that it is difficult to determine whether the Pentagon or Saakashvili is more prone to fabrication), then where did the Georgian president get his information that the United States would be militarily intervening? Given that McCain claims to talk to Saakashvili every day, and given a string of grandiose pronouncements by McCain and his handlers regarding Georgia, is it possible that he misled Saakashvili, either deliberately or by implication, to believe that U.S. military intervention would be forthcoming?
It is still unclear whether McCain promised Saakashvili anything, or whether it was simply the Georgian president's own delusion that he was the apple of Washington's eye, but McCain's buttinski tactics would already have been a major scandal if any other American politician who was not the sitting president had made such inflammatory pronouncements on foreign policy. As it is, McCain is already, in his campaign ukases, dramatically downgrading relations with Russia in a manner that suggests he thinks he is president.
It looks like former US policy makers think that the US and Russia are at war already. Yesterday, a former Pentagon adviser under the first Bush was talking about the different fronts of war (apparently, China is the third sector of war, first being Russia). He didn't clarify the second front but my guess is that it's the muslims.
The Holbrooke, the UN ambassador under Clinton, was again talking about being at war with Russia.
These comments were chiefly triggered with the missile agreement with Poland yesterday.
So, it seems that the US indeed is at war with Russia and we don't even know about it. The question now is that how long have we been at war, what is it about and what outcome does the US expect to end it.
One major question that concerns us, the Armenians, is that how can we minimize the negative impact on Armenia and take advantage of the situation. Georgia tried to take advantage of it and so far has failed miserably in achieving their goals.
Don't know the answers, but apparently Armenia has moved up on the BFF list with Russia, overtaking Belarus. There are some pretty interesting developments going on there. Lukashenko is apparently quite nervous about Russia's actions; he delayed publicly backing Russia for several days, until he was severely pressed by the Kremlin.
http://naviny.by/rubrics/inter/
2008/08/21/ic_articles_259_158606
US State Department official to meet with opposition leaders in Minsk this week
David A. Merkel, the United States’ deputy assistant secretary of state for European and Eurasian affairs who arrived in Minsk on August 21 on a two-day visit, will meet with opposition leaders on Friday.
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While in Minsk, Mr. Merkel is also expected to meet with Belarusian government officials. The foreign ministry will draw up a program of meetings by Friday, Maryya Vanshyna, a spokeswoman for the ministry, told BelaPAN. "This will be a working visit," she said.
The visit comes one day after the US State Department welcomed the release of whom it described as “the last two Belarusian political prisoners, Syarhey Parsyukevich and Andrey Kim.”
“The release of these individuals, combined with what we hope will be further positive steps, offers the real possibility of a significant improvement in relations between the United States and Belarus,” said State Department Spokesman Robert Wood.
Messrs. Parsyukevich and Kim were freed from prison on August 20 after being pardoned by Alyaksandr Lukashenka. Former presidential candidate Alyaksandr Kazulin, the highest-profile opposition politician imprisoned in Belarus, was released on August 16.
This is opportunity of lifetime to get Russia to include Khrarabakh in the list of "countries" it is going to recognize. Inevitably after Russia does that, she will press "friendly" governments to do the same in order to give the occasion an international flavor. Armenia does not have many levers to pressure Russia to do anything, but this time it can try to bargain. After severing ties with NATO, Russia needs consolidation of its allies. It seems to me that Azerbaidjan has not done any clear movements towards Russia. So after crashing Georgia, Russia may like the idea of hurting Azeri interests to punish them for stubbornness.
Well, this should cause quite a stir:
http://www.regnum.ru/english/1045152.html
Nagorno Karabakh can be recognized by Armenia simultaneously with Russia recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia
According to a REGNUM European diplomatic information source, the official Yerevan may recognize the independence of the Nagorno Karabakh Republic on August 25. “There is apprehension that Yerevan may recognize Nagorno Karabakh independence simultaneously with Russia recognizing Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” the source said.
As it already was reported, the same day Russia might recognize the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. It will be recalled that people of Abkhazia on August 21 appealed to the president of Russia, the Federal Assembly and the State Duma to recognize the independence of their country. An address on it by the Abkhazian president was supported by the Abkhazian parliament earlier.
On August 20, North Ossetian MPs promulgated another appeal to Russian federal authorities with a request for South Ossetia independence recognition. President of Russia Dmitry Medvedev said before that Russia would support any solution of the Abkhazian and South Ossetian conflicts regulation if it was supported by nations of the unrecognized republics.
When are Armenians going to stop filling with joy whenever Georgia gets in trouble? We hope this is going to help Armenia? Recognition of South Ossetian independence? How exactly? You guys actually think Russia loves us so much they're going to upset Azerbaijan, whose oil and gas they're trying to get to transport to Europe and partly started this war to kill Nabucco gas pipeline project which was going to transport Azeri and Middle-Asian gas through Georgia. Russia now effectively gave these countries no choice but to use its territory and pipelines. Recognizing Karabakh's independence will give Russia nothing at all. Zero. Actually, they will loose their main tool of control over both Armenia and Azerbaijan. When is this blind love for mother Russia going to come to an end? If anything, it's Azerbaijan who is in a winning position out of all this, not Armenia. We are blockaded from all directions, Azerbaijan doesn't have that problem and if they decide to become Putin's great petrogas political plan of control over Europe, then we're fucked. Georgia is like air to Armenia, we should be very careful not to upset our dear neighbours. Do you guys really care for Ossetian independence. If you ask me, then fuck them, don't give a shit about their aspirations, whether they're Russian, Georgian or Chinese controlled. But Georgia has to be stable and democratic for the sake of Armenia's stability. So Georgia is who I support.
Archuk, personally I agree with you. Although at face value, it seems that Russia should equate NKR with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, their reasoning is different and I don't think they will actually support an NKR independence move right now. It's interesting that that REGNUM report came out; I'm wondering if it was an attempt to get Armenia to take that bait. It doesn't seem to have worked, at least today.
Russia's true interest in Abkhazia and South Ossetia is in their adjacency to Russia. They will become de facto (if not de jure) provinces of Russia, and much weaken Georgia--simply looking at the map shows how deeply the South Ossetia border goes into the heart of Georgia. Russia however (I believe at least) would rather see Armenia and Azerbaijan stay weak and at cold war with each other than have a resolution either one way or another of NKR. And the fact that today Medevev reassured Azerbaijan (and Moldova) today on NKR and Transnistria strengthens my point of view. http://tinyurl.com/5h6ud7
The idea of a "Caucasian Union" must be quite frightening to Russia, and precisely what they would want to prevent.
Thank God for small favors:
CHENEY VISIT
"Cheney, who in the past accused Moscow of blackmailing its neighbors, will to go to Georgia in September to show U.S. commitment to the small but vital U.S. ally, the White House said. Cheney will also visit Ukraine, Azerbaijan and Italy during the trip."
Guess Armenia's not on the itinerary!
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