:think2:Pretty funny. The facts are Georgia invaded South ossetia first and than Russia attacked Georgia and kicked their aasssssses. Maybe the US told them that the US would back them if they invaded, just like Bush Sr. told the Iraqis and backed down when the fighting started.
I always thought the US ambassador told Saddam that we didn't care about Middle East matters...which is why he kept telling everyone that would listen that the invasion of Kuwait was nothing but a Middle East matter in August 1990.
The empire of the czars hasn't produced such a frightening genius since Joseph Stalin. Putin knew not only what he was doing but he exactly what others would do! No free-world present day leader can measure up to this guy and the only former president that could have matched him in the positive foreign policy success was Nixon who toyed with Breshnev. No Nixon's in the free world now and none on the horizon.
Saakasvili is the goat of this whole scenario, with friends like him we don't need enemies. Even the US now should throw him under the bus.
Talking about being thrown under the bus can you imagine Obama in a sit down with Putin. After Putin sends him out for coffee, the trifling of US interests will insue, Putin will play him like a drum.
Saakasvili is the goat of this whole scenario, with friends like him we don't need enemies. Even the US now should throw him under the bus.
Talking about being thrown under the bus can you imagine Obama in a sit down with Putin. After Putin sends him out for coffee, the trifling of US interests will insue, Putin will play him like a drum.
Maybe! A very conflicting election in Nov. Obama might be more rational in foreign policy matters than McCain but his socialist agenda internally I can't accept. My hope is McCain is just trumpeting the Bush line in foreign policy to secure the far right wing voting bloc and will when elected become more enlightened. Bush's idea of turning Russia into a cornered rat was a big miscalculation!
Wages have been stagnant for years while the to 10% are so are rolling in dough the fuel price is going to bring an end to the status quo because people will no longer be able to feed their family on what they make.
It has happened before and it is happening now. Socialism seems to be Europe's answer. I hoped it would not come to that here but if it does the greedy rich have themselves to blame.
It has happened before and it is happening now. Socialism seems to be Europe's answer. I hoped it would not come to that here but if it does the greedy rich have themselves to blame.
I'm sorry, but I haven't seen that quick thinking just yet. Unless you're talking about changing his position sometime down the road.
He's more about prepared text. The most overhyped public speaker in the history of hyping public speaking.
I think Putin agrees with you. That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany.
hno:"I don’t know how they are going to isolate us."
That is Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, telegraphing that Russia has no intention of returning to the August 6 borders anytime soon, which was also apparent in the recent comments by President Medvedev.
All of which increases the pressure on the US and its G-8 allies to schedule a meeting for the purpose of ejecting Russia from the organization, one way or another.
Charles Krauthammer offers these additional suggestions:
:aktion033
Remember, appeasement almost always leads to more brutal aggression.
Georgia is pro-western, pro-capitalist, staunch US ally (they have 3,000 troops in Iraq) and we CANNOT abandon them.
The time for ACTION IS NOW!
That is Russia's foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, telegraphing that Russia has no intention of returning to the August 6 borders anytime soon, which was also apparent in the recent comments by President Medvedev.
All of which increases the pressure on the US and its G-8 allies to schedule a meeting for the purpose of ejecting Russia from the organization, one way or another.
Charles Krauthammer offers these additional suggestions:
:aktion033
Remember, appeasement almost always leads to more brutal aggression.
Georgia is pro-western, pro-capitalist, staunch US ally (they have 3,000 troops in Iraq) and we CANNOT abandon them.
The time for ACTION IS NOW!
Nixon was not an 'enlightened' conservative, paftraft.
Nixon's 'pragmatic' policies of appeasement did nothing but strengthen and increase Soviet aggression and military dominance the world over. His visit to Communist China was equally embarrassing for the United States.
For decades, nothing could bridge the gap between East and West. Only Ronald Reagan's comprehensive confrontational approach eventually brought the Evil Empire to his knees.
These Ron Paul "paleocons" live on their own planet, I'll tell ya. No mention in that article of a former head of state in the Ukraine being poisoned by Putin's KGB agents. No mention of Viktor Yuchenko, and many journalists who spoke out against the fascist regime in Russia who suffered a similar fate, courtesy Putin's henchmen.
Just a heavy of dose of time-tested "Blame-America imperialism" bullshit.
uke1:
As a general rule, people don't have the stomach to confront evil, so they just deny evil exists, rewrite history and make up the storyline as they go along.
The reason is simple. As soon as you acknowledge the existence of evil, you have to act. And often those actions are ugly (there are rarely any 'good' options), require sacrifice and confrontation. (I can already see the usual anti "Joe C" vultures circling: "Hey Joe, why don't you go sign up and...")
"Pat Buchanan is an enlightened conservative...." :missingte
Pat Buchanan, Andrew Sullivan, Ariana Huffington and other "enlightened conservatives" should sign on to Obama's growing list of 300 foreign policy advisers. They'd fit in well with that moonbat head-in-the-sand defeatist Blame-America crowd.
Bottom line is this:
Putin's a BULLY and there's only one way to deal with a BULLY. Hit'em early and hit'em hard!
Nixon's 'pragmatic' policies of appeasement did nothing but strengthen and increase Soviet aggression and military dominance the world over. His visit to Communist China was equally embarrassing for the United States.
For decades, nothing could bridge the gap between East and West. Only Ronald Reagan's comprehensive confrontational approach eventually brought the Evil Empire to his knees.
These Ron Paul "paleocons" live on their own planet, I'll tell ya. No mention in that article of a former head of state in the Ukraine being poisoned by Putin's KGB agents. No mention of Viktor Yuchenko, and many journalists who spoke out against the fascist regime in Russia who suffered a similar fate, courtesy Putin's henchmen.
Just a heavy of dose of time-tested "Blame-America imperialism" bullshit.
uke1: As a general rule, people don't have the stomach to confront evil, so they just deny evil exists, rewrite history and make up the storyline as they go along.
The reason is simple. As soon as you acknowledge the existence of evil, you have to act. And often those actions are ugly (there are rarely any 'good' options), require sacrifice and confrontation. (I can already see the usual anti "Joe C" vultures circling: "Hey Joe, why don't you go sign up and...")
"Pat Buchanan is an enlightened conservative...." :missingte
Pat Buchanan, Andrew Sullivan, Ariana Huffington and other "enlightened conservatives" should sign on to Obama's growing list of 300 foreign policy advisers. They'd fit in well with that moonbat head-in-the-sand defeatist Blame-America crowd.
Bottom line is this:
Putin's a BULLY and there's only one way to deal with a BULLY. Hit'em early and hit'em hard!
In 1991, the first Pres. Bush promised military support to Iraqi rebels after Saddam’s surrender. But Bush broke the promise and Saddam’s forces masssacred 30,000 rebels and buried them in unmarked graves.
Inmediately after the end of the first Gulf War, Pres. George H.W. Bush promised Iraqi Shiites and Kurds American military support if they would rise up and overthrow the newly defeated Saddam Hussein. In a broadcast to Iraqis via Voice of America on Februrary 15, 1991, then-Pres. Bush said:
There is another way for the bloodshed to stop: And that is, for the Iraqi military and the Iraqi people to take matters into their own hands and force Saddam Hussein, the dictator, to step aside and then comply with the United Nations’ resolutions and rejoin the family of peace-loving nations.
But when the rebellion got underway, Bush and his war council, which included Defense Sec. Dick Cheney and Joint Chiefs Chairman Colin Powell, changed their minds about helping the rebels.
This decision led to the massacre of at least 30,000 rebels who were buried in mass graves. Mr. Bush himself has said that what happened to the Shiites was one of the deepest regrets of his presidency.
The Lights Went Out
Georgia and the world.
By Michael Ledeen
Context is everything, as the actress frequently pointed out to the bishop in her lavish boudoir, and there is some danger that we will think about the Russian invasion of Georgia in excessively narrow terms. The Kremlin’s careful planning and preparation, including weeks of cyberwar against Georgia and carefully designed deception of the West, strongly suggest that the Russians viewed the operation as a serious move with global implications. Full marks, then, to Melik Kaylan, who warns that Russia’s invasion of Georgia is aimed directly at American power, all the way down to Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. “The Kremlin is not about to reignite the Cold War for the love of a few thousand Ossetians... This is calculated strategic maneuvering... it’s about countering U.S. power at its furthest stretch with Moscow’s power very close to home.” That means the Czech Republic, for example, which saw its oil flow from Russia abruptly terminated after Prague agreed to base American radars on its territory, and now sees the steel in the Russian fist. It also means Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the current locus of the war against the terror masters. If the Russians succeed in their broader aim of dominating the region, then the ‘stans will inevitably be “doomed for the foreseeable future to remain (Russian) colonies in all but name....” Worse still, “choking off the bottleneck in the Caucasus gives Iran and Russia much say over our efforts in Afghanistan.”
So it’s a very big deal, as most people now recognize.
But I think Kaylan has the timeline wrong, for he predicts several unpleasant consequences if we do not effectively thwart Russian objectives. But those “consequences” have already taken place. He says, for example, that if Russia succeeds in Georgia, then Putin will be able to support Iran “in any showdown with the West,” and this would encourage the mullahs to “reassert itself in Iraq, Syria and, via Hezbollah, in Lebanon.” He has the tense wrong. Iran is already hyperactive in Iraq, Syria, and Hezbollah, and at least part of their confident aggression derives from the fact that Khamenei et. al. believe they are protected by the Russians. The future support for Iran that Kaylan so rightly fears is already a done deal: The Iranian nuclear program, after all, is in large part a Russian project. The reactor at Bushehr is a Russian facility, and the anti-aircraft missiles recently shipped to Iran in order to protect the nuclear sites and other sensitive targets are Russian missiles, accompanied by Russian experts. And that Syrian nuclear site, the one that was bombed by the Israelis, had Russian anti-aircraft missiles as well. They obviously failed, and it seems that the missiles in Iran are a later generation. In time, we may well see how good they are.
Kaylan warns that if we do not draw the line at Georgia, we will have to draw it in some other place, and “it doesn’t get any easier down the road with any other border or country.” Again, this underestimates the importance of our unwillingness to realize the broader significance of the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan. I think it’s clear that our failure to draw the line at Syria and Iran surely encouraged the Russians to go forward in Georgia. Putin must have reasoned that, if we wouldn’t aggressively punish the Iranians and the Syrians for killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would certainly not risk American lives for Georgian territory. And he was clearly right. The lesson will not be lost on any American friend or ally, from Israel to Egypt, Morocco, and India, from Colombia to Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.
The real context of the Georgian operation is global, just like the true context of the Middle East war. The jihadis, for example, are desperate to convince would-be followers that there is really nothing to fear from America, that when push comes to shove the Americans will not stand and fight. A successful Russian humiliation of America in the Caucasus echoes throughout that world, and helps draw the painful sting of the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The likes of Venezuela’s Chavez will find it easier to convince Latin American leaders that they’d better side with him (and his Cuban, Russian, and Iranian allies) than with the American paper tigers.
Finally, there is the question of method, and the world’s reaction to it. I hope we will not hear too many sermons on the inappropriateness of military action after the Georgian invasion. My unscientific perusal of the Western punditocracy suggests that most of the deep thinkers are full of admiration for Putin’s decisive actions. No big antiwar demonstrations (the Europeans are on vacation and Code Pink, in response to a query, said their resources were limited and they needed to concentrate on Iraq, heh). This should not surprise us. It is not only the hypocrisy of the anti-Bush brigades here and abroad that motivates such open appeasement; it’s human nature seen plain. As Machiavelli says, in his brutal summary of the consequences of victory and defeat, “if you are successful, people will always judge the means you used to have been appropriate.”
— Michael Ledeen is Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOMB IRAN -- NOW!!!!
ope:
Georgia and the world.
By Michael Ledeen
Context is everything, as the actress frequently pointed out to the bishop in her lavish boudoir, and there is some danger that we will think about the Russian invasion of Georgia in excessively narrow terms. The Kremlin’s careful planning and preparation, including weeks of cyberwar against Georgia and carefully designed deception of the West, strongly suggest that the Russians viewed the operation as a serious move with global implications. Full marks, then, to Melik Kaylan, who warns that Russia’s invasion of Georgia is aimed directly at American power, all the way down to Iran, Iraq, and Afghanistan. “The Kremlin is not about to reignite the Cold War for the love of a few thousand Ossetians... This is calculated strategic maneuvering... it’s about countering U.S. power at its furthest stretch with Moscow’s power very close to home.” That means the Czech Republic, for example, which saw its oil flow from Russia abruptly terminated after Prague agreed to base American radars on its territory, and now sees the steel in the Russian fist. It also means Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan, the current locus of the war against the terror masters. If the Russians succeed in their broader aim of dominating the region, then the ‘stans will inevitably be “doomed for the foreseeable future to remain (Russian) colonies in all but name....” Worse still, “choking off the bottleneck in the Caucasus gives Iran and Russia much say over our efforts in Afghanistan.”
So it’s a very big deal, as most people now recognize.
But I think Kaylan has the timeline wrong, for he predicts several unpleasant consequences if we do not effectively thwart Russian objectives. But those “consequences” have already taken place. He says, for example, that if Russia succeeds in Georgia, then Putin will be able to support Iran “in any showdown with the West,” and this would encourage the mullahs to “reassert itself in Iraq, Syria and, via Hezbollah, in Lebanon.” He has the tense wrong. Iran is already hyperactive in Iraq, Syria, and Hezbollah, and at least part of their confident aggression derives from the fact that Khamenei et. al. believe they are protected by the Russians. The future support for Iran that Kaylan so rightly fears is already a done deal: The Iranian nuclear program, after all, is in large part a Russian project. The reactor at Bushehr is a Russian facility, and the anti-aircraft missiles recently shipped to Iran in order to protect the nuclear sites and other sensitive targets are Russian missiles, accompanied by Russian experts. And that Syrian nuclear site, the one that was bombed by the Israelis, had Russian anti-aircraft missiles as well. They obviously failed, and it seems that the missiles in Iran are a later generation. In time, we may well see how good they are.
Kaylan warns that if we do not draw the line at Georgia, we will have to draw it in some other place, and “it doesn’t get any easier down the road with any other border or country.” Again, this underestimates the importance of our unwillingness to realize the broader significance of the liberation of Iraq and Afghanistan. I think it’s clear that our failure to draw the line at Syria and Iran surely encouraged the Russians to go forward in Georgia. Putin must have reasoned that, if we wouldn’t aggressively punish the Iranians and the Syrians for killing Americans in Iraq and Afghanistan, we would certainly not risk American lives for Georgian territory. And he was clearly right. The lesson will not be lost on any American friend or ally, from Israel to Egypt, Morocco, and India, from Colombia to Taiwan, Thailand, and Indonesia.
The real context of the Georgian operation is global, just like the true context of the Middle East war. The jihadis, for example, are desperate to convince would-be followers that there is really nothing to fear from America, that when push comes to shove the Americans will not stand and fight. A successful Russian humiliation of America in the Caucasus echoes throughout that world, and helps draw the painful sting of the defeat of al-Qaeda in Iraq. The likes of Venezuela’s Chavez will find it easier to convince Latin American leaders that they’d better side with him (and his Cuban, Russian, and Iranian allies) than with the American paper tigers.
Finally, there is the question of method, and the world’s reaction to it. I hope we will not hear too many sermons on the inappropriateness of military action after the Georgian invasion. My unscientific perusal of the Western punditocracy suggests that most of the deep thinkers are full of admiration for Putin’s decisive actions. No big antiwar demonstrations (the Europeans are on vacation and Code Pink, in response to a query, said their resources were limited and they needed to concentrate on Iraq, heh). This should not surprise us. It is not only the hypocrisy of the anti-Bush brigades here and abroad that motivates such open appeasement; it’s human nature seen plain. As Machiavelli says, in his brutal summary of the consequences of victory and defeat, “if you are successful, people will always judge the means you used to have been appropriate.”
— Michael Ledeen is Freedom Scholar at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
BOMB IRAN -- NOW!!!!
ope:
