Like the illusion of Wall Street, with its vast and powerful investment banks, now shuttered, China too is an illusion perpetuated by the Globalists that gave us the 15,000 mile Caesar salad, poisoned cat food and lead based paint on babies' pacifiers. Like the illusion that money would come from thin air to always push housing prices higher, China has spent a generation pursuing its illusion. Pursuing an unattainable dream to be like the West, while 6000 years of its carefully shepherded top soil blows into the sea.
The Bush administration appears to have pulled off its latest military fiasco in the Caucasus. What was supposed to have been a swift and painless takeover of rebellious South Ossetia by America’s favorite new ally, Georgia, has turned into a disaster that left Georgia battered, Russia enraged, and NATO badly demoralized. Not bad for two days work.
Equally important, Russia’s Vladimir Putin swiftly and decisively checkmated the Bush administration’s clumsy attempt last week to expand US influence into the Caucasus, and made the Americans and their Georgian satraps look like fools.
We are not facing a return to the Cold War – yet. But the current US-Russian crisis over Georgia, a tiny nation of only 4.6 million, and its linkage to a US anti-ballistic missile system in Eastern Europe, is deeply worrying and increasingly dangerous.
On 7 August, Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, ordered his US and Israeli-advised and equipped army to invade the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which has been struggling for independence from Georgia since 1992. Most of its people were Russian citizens who wanted union with Russian North Ossetia.
If not directly behind Georgia’s invasion of South Ossetia, Washington had to have been at least fully aware of Saakashvili’s plans. The Georgian Army was trained and equipped by US and Israeli military advisors stationed with its troops down to battalion level. CIA and Israel’s Mossad operated important intelligence stations in Tbilisi and coordinated plans with the Saakashvili, whose political opponents have long accused him of being very close to CIA and the Pentagon.
Georgia’s attack on South Ossetia was launched while the world was absorbed by the Beijing Olympics, and Prime Minister Putin was in the Chinese capital. The attack was clearly planned to be a lightening strike that would occupy all of South Ossetia and then Abkhazia before Moscow could react, presenting the Kremlin with a fait accompli.
Who in Bush’s or Cheney’s office approved this stupid adventure? Why did the very smart Israelis get sucked into this imbroglio?
Saakashvili’s stealth "coup de main" quickly turned into a disaster. Russia’s 58th Army responded by routing Georgian forces and delivering a humiliating strategic and psychological blow to the Bush administration. Saakashvili fell right into Moscow’s trap.
Georgia and Russia have been feuding since 1992 over two Georgian ethnic enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, whose people differ in ethnicity and language from Georgians and who wanted to rejoin Russia.
The young, US-educated Saakashvili became Georgia’s president in 2003 after an uprising, believed organized by CIA and financed by US money, overthrew the former leader, Eduard Shevardnadze. I came to know and respect Shevardnadze in Moscow when he was Mikhail Gorbachev’s principal ally and architect of Soviet reform.
Had the able, clever Shevardnadze still been in power, this misadventure would never have happened.
Saakashvili quickly became the golden boy of US rightwing neoconservatives and their Israeli allies, who held him a model of how to turn former Russian-dominated states into "democratic" US allies. Georgian critics claim Saakashvili kept power by intimidation, bribery, and vote rigging. The youthful Georgian leader, his head swelled by promises of US support and NATO membership, launched a war of words against Moscow.
Amazingly, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a supposed Russian expert, even publicly assured Saakashvili that the US would "fight" for Georgia. Washington’s latest fiasco falls squarely into her lap.
US money, military trainers, advisers, and intelligence agents poured into the former Soviet Republic of Georgia. Israeli arms dealers, businessmen and intelligence agents quickly followed, reportedly selling some $200 million or more of military equipment to the Georgian government.
By expanding its influence into Georgia, the Bush administration brazenly flouted agreements with Moscow made by president George H.W. Bush not to expand NATO into the former USSR. President Bill Clinton and George W. Bush both violated this pact. Under the feeble Yeltsin regime, bankrupt Russia could do nothing. But under Putin, newly wealthy Russia finally pushed back after a long series of provocations fromWashington.
Russia’s tough deputy prime minister, Sergei Ivanov, sneeringly observed that Georgia had become a "US satellite." He was absolutely right. And Ivanov, a former KGB colleague of Vlad Putin, knows a satellite when he sees one. Georgia provided the US oil and gas pipeline routes from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan and Kazakhstan that bypassed Russian territory. Russia was furious its Caspian Basin energy export monopoly had been broken, vowing revenge.
Now that the Russians have checkmated the US and client Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia will likely move into Russia’s orbit. The west rightly backed independence of Kosovo from Serbia. The peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, who are ethnically and linguistically different from Georgians, should have as much right to secede from Georgia.
Besides thwarting Bush’s clumsy attempt to further advance US influence into Russia’s Caucasian underbelly, Putin delivered a stark warning to Ukraine and the Central Asian states: don’t get too close to Washington. Putin put the US on the strategic defensive and showed that NATO’s new eastern reaches – the Baltic, Bulgaria, Romania, and the Caucasus – are largely indefensible.
It’s a good thing Georgia was not admitted to NATO, as the White House had reportedly promised Saakashvili. Had Georgia been admitted before this crisis, the US and its NATO allies would have been in a state of war with Russia. Disturbingly, Germany’s conservative prime minister, Angelika Merkel, rushed to Tbilisi to assure Saakashvili that her nation still backed NATO membership for Georgia.
Is the west really ready to be dragged into a potential nuclear war for the sake of South Ossetia? Are American and German troops ready to fight in the Caucasus? Georgia is a bridge too far for NATO.
President George Bush, VP Dick Cheney and Sen. John McCain all resorted to table pounding and Cold War rhetoric against Russia. McCain, whose senior foreign policy advisor is a neoconservative and was a registered lobbyist for Georgia, demanded that the US and NATO "punish" Russia and put it into diplomatic isolation.
Unfortunately, the indignant John McCain’s could not even properly pronounce "Abkhazia."
America’s neocon amen chorus demanded a confrontation with Russia, chanting their usual mantras about Munich, appeasement and the myths of World War II. One certainly wondered if the Caucasian fracas was not staged by the Republicans to provide Sen. McCain with the "three a.m. phone call" he has been longing for and a chance to sound tough. This he did, even though his rhetoric was empty and his solutions vapid. Barack Obama ducked the issue or issued a few tepid bromides about halting "Russian aggression."
Meanwhile, hypocrisy flew thicker than shellfire. Bush, who ordered the invasion of Afghanistan, Iraq and Somalia, and is threatening war against Iran, accused Russia of "bullying" and "aggression." Putin, who crushed the life out of Chechnya’s independence movement, piously claimed his army was saving Ossetians from Georgian ethnic cleansing and protecting their quest for independence.
Bush and McCain demand Russia be punished and isolated. The humiliated Bush is sending some US troops to Georgia to deliver "humanitarian" aid. Equally worrisome, the US rushed to sign a pact with Warsaw to station anti-missile missiles and anti-aircraft batteries, manned by US troops, in Poland. This response is dangerous, highly provocative, and immature. The next president will have to deal with the Bush administrations reckless and foolish acts in the Mideast, Eastern Europe, Afghanistan and now, the Caucasus
The west must accept Russia has vital national interests in the Caucasus and the former USSR. Russia is a great power and must be afforded respect. The days of treating Russia like a banana republic are over. Have we learned nothing from World War I or II, both of which began with flare-ups in obscure Sarajevo and the Danzig Corridor?
The US’s most important foreign policy concern is keeping correct relations with Russia, which has thousands of nuclear warheads pointed at North America. Georgia is a petty sideshow. US missiles in Poland and radars in the Czech Republic are a dangerous, unnecessary provocation that is sowing dragon’s teeth for future confrontation.
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 12:29 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
This is a far bigger story than a possible aerial bombardment of Iran. I think the international community regards it as another Chechnya, which seemed to be Russia reasserting itself within it's own diminished sphere. In Georgia we see Russia reasserting itself internationally. HUGE story.
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:31 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
skyemoor wrote:
A tall tale of disinformation.
Maybe, but one that has escalated out of proportion, on one hand, you have Merkel saying that Georgia will join NATO and Bush asking Russia to step out of Georgia, and on the other, Moscow hints that may recognize breakaway republics link.
This may blow up in our faces very bad IMHO. _________________ Stocking up on popcorn
Joined: Apr 06, 2006 Posts: 3626 Location: 3 miles NW of Champoeg, Republic of Cascadia
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:37 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
Nickel wrote:
Unfortunately, the indignant John McCain’s could not even properly pronounce "Abkhazia."
Sure hope McJohn loses. I don't get worked up what O-Bomb could deliver but at least he doesn't refer to Czechoslovakia in the present tense. Would be nice not to have a jackass at the helm for a change.
Yo, Nickel, you can put a link in your sig easy: I Can Has Cheezburger. Didn't know about lolcats, thought you were quoting some dialog from a Billy Goat Tavern sketch. _________________ Cogito, ergo non satis bibivi
C'mon man, who're you gonna believe?
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 3:43 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
One thing I don't get at all -
Why the hell is Israel sticking its big nose in Georgia? _________________ Massive Human Dieoff must occur as a result of Peak Oil. Many more than half will die. It will occur everywhere, including where you live. If you fail to recognize this, then your odds of living move toward the "going to die" group.
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 5:36 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
Cashmere wrote,
Quote:
One thing I don't get at all -
Why the hell is Israel sticking its big nose in Georgia?
Looks like everyone is showing their hand. Israel wants to divert attention from its (IMO) inevitable attack on Iran. Israel is going to be going all in - it wants everybody else to be going all in too. _________________ www.askaboutenergy.com
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1620 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 6:12 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
Cashmere wrote:
One thing I don't get at all -
Why the hell is Israel sticking its big nose in Georgia?
That's a good question. Weapons sales? It's hard to imagine what else. Lots of Israelis ARE Russian, after all. _________________ I can has cheezburger?
Joined: May 10, 2007 Posts: 3359 Location: Resiliency Farm
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
Madpaddy wrote:
Cashmere wrote,
Quote:
One thing I don't get at all -
Why the hell is Israel sticking its big nose in Georgia?
Looks like everyone is showing their hand. Israel wants to divert attention from its (IMO) inevitable attack on Iran. Israel is going to be going all in - it wants everybody else to be going all in too.
And Georgia would have been a way into Iran that would not have required overflight of Iraq. _________________ “It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.”
J.R.R. Tolkien
"The time has come for men to act like men; and for women, well, to act a lot more like men."
-Ma Cur
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1620 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 6:15 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
eXpat wrote:
skyemoor wrote:
A tall tale of disinformation.
Maybe, but one that has escalated out of proportion, on one hand, you have Merkel saying that Georgia will join NATO and Bush asking Russia to step out of Georgia, and on the other, Moscow hints that may recognize breakaway republics link.
This may blow up in our faces very bad IMHO.
Man, if we've gotten stupid enough to let a loose cannon like Georgia, rolling back and forth across Russia's poop deck, into NATO, then that's all she wrote for planet Earth. Anybody remember when the Russians tried putting missiles into Cuba? THAT kind of stupid. We're TOO stupid to be the talking animals running the zoo, cause we're out to burn the joint down. _________________ I can has cheezburger?
The Bush administration appears to have pulled off its latest military fiasco in the Caucasus. What was supposed to have been a swift and painless takeover of rebellious South Ossetia by America’s favorite new ally, Georgia, has turned into a disaster that left Georgia battered, Russia enraged, and NATO badly demoralized. Not bad for two days work.
Equally important, Russia’s Vladimir Putin swiftly and decisively checkmated the Bush administration’s clumsy attempt last week to expand US influence into the Caucasus, and made the Americans and their Georgian satraps look like fools.
A tall tale of disinformation.
The above version of events seems to well-documented from multiple sources.
The Time/CNN version of events seems to simply declare "Russia invaded Georgia..." with no further explanation. CNN never provides an timeline or detailed examination.
Yet, it seems like this view is still believed by a minority out there. What is it? Just allegiance to the Stars and Stripes? My country right or wrong?
Is it just a reflexive bias against the Russians left over from Cold War days?
It doesn't seem to matter how much evidence you provide that it was a huge mobilization of the Georgian military followed by some minor dialogue and skirmishes in the border areas, followed by a sudden Georgian attack upon Tschinvali and its citizens, which lead to a very powerful Russian response and occupation of Georgia proper...
No matter how much evidence exists for the above, some people accept the CNN version on faith. Why is that? _________________ "May you live in interesting times"
Posted: Thu Aug 21, 2008 8:07 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
Why?
Because if they started to look at things in depth they would quickly start seeing things that don't correlate with the reality they like to believe is true.
If the CNN story is fake and the Russians had a motive to do it, what was it? Is this a result of my government's incompetence and corruption? Wait, my government is not perfect? My country sometimes is evil? And down that road it goes, shattering all life long held idealistic beliefs and rationalizations of why things are the way they are. As soon as this starts to happen I am sure some people hit the cognitive dissonance barrier and start lying to themselves to preserve their mental integrity.
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 9:58 am Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
Interesting article on the situation with Russia.
Quote:
The other country that is watching and thinking is Iran. Iran had accepted the idea that it had lost the chance to dominate Iraq. It had also accepted the idea that it would have to bargain away its nuclear capability or lose it. The Iranians are now wondering if this is still true and are undoubtedly pinging the Russians about the situation. Meanwhile, the Russians are waiting for the Americans to calm down and get serious. If the Americans plan to take meaningful action against them, they will respond in Iran. But the Americans have no meaningful actions they can take; they need to get out of Iraq and they need help against Iran. The quid pro quo here is obvious. The United States acquiesces to Russian actions (which it can't do anything about), while the Russians cooperate with the United States against Iran getting nuclear weapons (something Russia does not want to see).
One of the interesting concepts of the New World Order was that all serious countries would want to participate in it and that the only threat would come from rogue states and nonstate actors such as North Korea and al Qaeda. Serious analysts argued that conflict between nation-states would not be important in the 21st century. There will certainly be rogue states and nonstate actors, but the 21st century will be no different than any other century. On Aug. 8, the Russians invited us all to the Real World Order.
Joined: Jun 26, 2007 Posts: 1620 Location: The Canada of America
Posted: Mon Aug 25, 2008 12:50 pm Post subject: Re: Eric Margolis: What Were They Smoking in the White House
mercurygirl wrote:
On Aug. 8, the Russians invited us all to the Real World Order.
Interesting Realpolitik, but I think it's disingenuous to say they Russians invited us back. This is like saying the guy who finally shoves you away after fifteen years of you poking him with a pencil is the one "spoiling for a fight". _________________ I can has cheezburger?
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