The US provoked the Russia-Georgian skirmish - Tilted Forum Project Discussion Community

ASU2003 · 08-28-2008, 09:32 PM

(There was supposed to be a ? in the title)

Putin Accuses U.S. Pushing Georgia Conflict to Influence Elections Back Home
August 28, 2008

FOXNews.com - Putin Accuses U.S. Pushing Georgia Conflict to Influence Elections Back Home - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Growing evidence of CIA involvement in Georgia coup?
May 12, 2003 (5 years ago)

Indymedia UK - Growing evidence of CIA involvement in Georgia coup?

So, do you think a certain administration would be able to start something or change the course of events to make one candidate look better? If the American people fear another cold war, which candidate do you think will win? If the media actually investigates this like the Whitewater event or Clinton's fun time, is even doing something like provoking the Russian military illegal? It definitely isn't smart.

Putin may not be the most reliable source, but I think the media should investigate these claims. Actually Congress and an independent investigator should also look into this as well. You know they would if a politician got a bj form a Georgian (country, not state)...

Willravel · 08-28-2008, 09:33 PM

Yea, the US kinda did. I don't really see this as paranoia, just an objective interpretation based on a good grasp of geopolitics.

ottopilot · 08-29-2008, 04:32 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by Willravel

Yea, the US kinda did. I don't really see this as paranoia, just an objective interpretation based on a good grasp of geopolitics.

Ridiculous... like a kid always blaming someone else for something he did. Putin is a calculating opportunist and he's just getting started.

roachboy · 08-29-2008, 04:38 AM

i moved this thread to politics.

in principle, that the accusation would surface is not surprising...whether it corresponds to anything in empirical reality is another matter. fact is that given the controlled press that we operate with, it is also not terribly surprising that there'd be little information at this end about such actions as there may or may not have been in and around georgia.

the reasons why it's plausible are obvious: the neo-cons are motivated by a nostalgia for a cold war-style arrangement because it served to stabilize nation-states and reactionary political lines within nation-states first, and second because it enabled the diversion of massive resources into military expenditures, which (third) is of a piece with the neo-con understanding of power, of "political realism" as based in military capabilities. in neo-con land, the state is primarily an expression of military power.

the problem with the "war on terror" as a surrogate cold war is simple: it confronts nation-state oriented militaries with horizontally organized "opponents"--which the history of conflict since world war 2 has shown are problematic for vertically organized militaries (algeria, vietnam, etc)--and by extension the "war on terror" creates a host of legal and legitimacy problems around the use of military force because the "adversary" is not localized within another nation-state--which complicates the entire idea of war---which is the ultimate expression of neo-con conceptions of power. within this, other problems have obviously surfaced: manufacturing consent for this type of power is difficult if you cannot locate the Enemy somewhere, and the slippage between the notion of "terrorist" and the idiocy of the huntington thesis has caused more trouble than it's worth.

as a backward oriented bunch, the neocons seem to pine for a regular enemy organized in a regular way, preferably one with hardware adequate to justify cranking huge amounts of money into the patronage network around the military. for example, it's obviously hard to justify spending vast sums on new nuclear weapons if there's no way to assume symmetry at the level of hardware. without that, continuing the develop weapon systems slips into a first-strike doctrine, and that is politically problematic (even if you exclude the systematic incompetence of the bush administration itself, selling first-strike is a problem)....

so in principle, you can see an argument for why the administration would seek a way back into the good old days when nation-state level conflict spilled into symbiotic "standoffs" between blocs---good for reactionary politics and the network of corporate interests for which it stands.

but that doesn't necessarily translate into any particular actions--it just outlines why the accusation is plausible relative to the united states---and putin himself is in a position where this same type of scenario would be good for him--it's already functioning to build consent for his particular mode of authoritarian rule that he has not up to now been able to actually muster--so he has (and there are) internal political interests in the same scenario (same as it ever was, seemingly)

so whether this is just a useful fiction being floated in the context of weak reactionary administrations in the context of fading imperial powers or an actual description of what has happened on the ground is hard to say. it'd be interesting to research this, and to see what can be found--my suspicion is that you'd find this same basic story of stories duplicating at scale after scale...a hall of mirrors.

but that doesn't make it paranoia. it's just politics in the simulacrum. there's often no particular difference.

Baraka_Guru · 08-29-2008, 05:54 AM

Interesting comments.

The U.S. and Russia are fueled by nationalist militarism of a scale beyond just about anyone else I can think of. Well, besides China. It will be interesting to see how this plays out now that China has their own interests and influence.

ottopilot · 09-02-2008, 11:00 AM

World opinion may be turning against Russia and their invasion/occupation of Georgia. The EU is considering sanctions against Russia while US warships are delivering aid to the Black Sea port of Batumi.

NPR: Russia Under Pressure, Has Little World Support

Quote:

Russia Under Pressure, Has Little World Support

by Gregory Feifer
National Public Radio
All Things Considered, August 28, 2008 · Russia is facing international isolation over this month's attacks in Georgia.

The EU is considering possible sanctions against Moscow, and today Russia failed to enlist the support it wanted from China and a group of former Soviet republics in Central Asia.

The summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization took place in Tajikistan, where Russian President Dmitri Medvedev said Georgian aggression was unacceptable and had to be stopped.

"Under these extreme conditions," Medvedev said, "we will continue our predictable and responsible policy in the region."

Russia's international television channel Russia Today reported that Moscow got what it was seeking from fellow summit members, which also include China, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

In fact, Russia's sometime-allies failed to back the Kremlin. No other country has recognized the independent Georgian breakaway regions Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Moscow recognized on Monday. Today's final statement from the Shanghai group expressed grave concern over the conflict and urged all sides to solve the standoff through dialogue.

In Paris on Thursday, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said that EU leaders preparing for an emergency summit on Monday are considering sanctions and "other measures" to put pressure on Moscow to honor its cease-fire agreement with Tbilisi.

There was a sharp response from Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said talk of sanctions was the product of a "sick" and "confused" imagination.

In Georgia, tensions are mounting over the presence of American warships delivering aid to the Black Sea port of Batumi. Moscow has accused NATO of "battleship diplomacy" and sent its own warships to the area.

highthief · 09-02-2008, 01:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

World opinion may be turning against Russia and their invasion/occupation of Georgia. The EU is considering sanctions against Russia while US warships are delivering aid to the Black Sea port of Batumi.

NPR: Russia Under Pressure, Has Little World Support

You need to keep up - that article was from 5 days ago! The EU has decided not to impose sanctions, or do anything else for that matter, and correctly so.

ottopilot · 09-02-2008, 06:01 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by highthief

You need to keep up - that article was from 5 days ago! The EU has decided not to impose sanctions, or do anything else for that matter, and correctly so.

I'll check in to it... thanks!

UKking · 09-03-2008, 03:06 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

World opinion may be turning against Russia and their invasion/occupation of Georgia.

Even worse for Russia, they're feeling the economic impact of foreign companies backing off. Getting an economy hit like that is like getting kicked in the nuts.

Iliftrocks · 09-04-2008, 03:57 AM

This reminds me. I need to see if there are some Get Your War On comics that I haven't read yet....

AmericanVirus · 09-04-2008, 12:55 PM

He's starting to sound like Chavez, who keeps saying the US is planning a coup to oust him. Putin figures the "Blame the US" game always works, so he might give it a whirl. However, it only goes so far before it get's old.

roachboy · 09-04-2008, 01:04 PM

meanwhile, back in the world in which, despite its self-serving side, what putin is saying about the americans might be true:

Quote:

September 5, 2008
Cheney Backs NATO Membership for Georgia
By STEVEN LEE MYERS and ALAN COWELL

TBILISI, Georgia — One day after the United States proposed $1 billion in humanitarian and economic assistance to help rebuild Georgia after its war with Russia, Vice President Dick Cheney flew here to reaffirm Washington’s support for this country’s eventual NATO membership and to issue a powerful condemnation of Moscow.

Standing alongside President Mikheil Saakashvili at a joint news conference, Mr. Cheney declared: “After your nation won its freedom in the Rose Revolution, America came to the aid of this courageous young democracy. We are doing so again, as you work to overcome an invasion of your sovereign territory, and an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change your country’s borders by force that has been universally condemned by the free world.”

He said he had assured the Georgian leader that he “can count on continued support and assistance from the United States.”

“I assured the president as well of my country’s strong commitment to Georgia’s territorial integrity. Georgia has that right, just as it has the right to build stronger ties to friends in Europe and across the Atlantic.”

“Russia’s actions have cast grave doubts on Russia’s intentions and on its reliability as an international partner, not just in Georgia, but across this region and indeed throughout the international system,” Mr. Cheney said.

“Georgia will be in our alliance. NATO is a defensive alliance. It is a threat to no one.”

His words of support for Mr. Saakashvili placed him on a direct collision course with Russia’s leaders who have labeled the Georgian president a “political corpse” and who have made clear that they see Georgia’s membership of NATO as intolerable.

Mr. Cheney’s remarks about Georgia’s territorial integrity also contradicted Russia’s recognition of the independence of two areas of the country -_ South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The vice president was speaking on the second leg of a tour of the region which he began in Azerbaijan Wednesday. He planned to fly later Thursday to Ukraine.

After a one-hour meeting — 30 minutes longer than planned — Mr. Cheney and Mr. Saakashvili visited the military section of Tbilisi’s international airport where they met with American airmen unloading a shipment of blankets that arrived earlier in the day from Italy on an American C-130 military transport plane. “Appreciate everything you’re doing for us,” Mr. Cheney said in sight of an aircraft construction factory bombed by the Russians in the first days of the war last month. Earlier, Mr. Cheney described his visit to the region as a demonstration that the United States had “a deep and abiding interest” in keeping Georgia and other neighboring states free from a new era of Russian domination.

The combination of new American aid and Mr. Cheney’s high-profile visit to a region the Russians call “the near abroad” is sure to inflame tensions further. Russia’s leaders have openly accused the United States of having provoked last month’s conflict by providing Georgia with weapons and training for its armed forces, while encouraging its aspirations to join NATO.

The aid package proposed Wednesday in Washington, which requires approval from Congress, significantly expands assistance to a country that has become ardently pro-American in recent years, though at the cost of the worst relations between the United States and Russia since the collapse of communism.

The aid would dwarf the $63 million the United States provided to Georgia last year, roughly a third of it for training its soldiers, police officers and border guards. Excluding Iraq, the infusion would make Georgia one of the largest recipients of American foreign aid after Israel and Egypt. The United States has provided about $1.8 billion over all in the 17 years since Georgia gained independence from the collapsing Soviet Union.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, appearing in Washington, said that $570 million of the aid would be made available this year, while the rest would depend on approval by a new administration and a new Congress. It does not include any military aid, she and other administration officials said.

The initial money, President Bush said in a statement, would be used to feed and shelter tens of thousands of Georgians displaced during the fighting that began on the night of Aug. 7 when Georgia tried to establish control over a breakaway region, South Ossetia, only to be driven back by Russian forces. Mr. Bush also pledged to support its transition to a democratic market economy.

“Georgia has a strong economic foundation and leaders with an impressive record of reform,” Mr. Bush said in his statement. “Our additional economic assistance will help the people of Georgia recover from the assault on their country and continue to build a prosperous and competitive economy.”

President Dmitri A. Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin have already complained that humanitarian supplies delivered by the American Navy and Air Force were a disguise for delivering new weapons, accusations that administration officials have dismissed as baseless.

The American military has so far delivered $30 million in emergency aid, including 1,200 tons of food and relief supplies like tents, delivered by 61 Air Force jets and two Navy ships plying the Black Sea. Mr. Bush also ordered federal agencies to expand trading opportunities between the United States and Georgia and to provide maritime insurance for ships docking in Georgia.

“The free world cannot allow the destiny of a small independent country to be determined by the aggression of a larger neighbor,” Ms. Rice said in Washington.

Still, there seemed to be little pressure the United States and European countries could exert to persuade Russia to back down in its confrontation with Mr. Saakashvili’s government. Many administration officials worry that overthrowing Mr. Saakashvili’s government is Russia’s unwavering intention.

While the administration has made its political, diplomatic and economic support for Georgia abundantly clear, however, it has yet to settle on what steps, if any, it will take to punish Russia. It has failed to do so even as American and European officials vehemently protest that Russia continues to violate a French-brokered agreement to end the fighting and withdraw Russian troops from Georgian territory.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/05/wo...hp&oref=slogin

so there's a contingent of nato ships floating around the black sea, a bunch of materials arriving from the us and then the administration sends everyone's favorite guy to tell not only georgia but everyone else that georgia should, so far as the administration is concerned, be part of nato.

tell me this is not about the oil.
Georgia's oil pipeline is key to U.S. support

jorgelito · 09-04-2008, 02:16 PM

I don't see it. I still don't buy that we intentionally provoked the war between Russia-Georgia.

roachboy · 09-05-2008, 04:38 AM

i don't think it was Intentional, in the sense of "ooo, that'd be fun. let's do that."
rather in the context of a multiplicity of levels of jockeying for influence--with the goal being geopolitical advantage shaped by oil on the one hand and the inability of the neocons to think beyond a coldwar worldview on the other---a situation was generated. that situation acquired its own momentum. the conflict in georgia/south ossetia is an unintended consequence of it.

it's hard to imagine georgia acting as if the americans were really going to help them. the timing of their move was about as bad as it could be for the bush people (think poland)...but at the same time, i expect that the therapeutic narrative offered by cheney goes something like: if you hadn't been turned down for nato memberhsip by the evil france and germany, this would have played out differently.

and to say the obvious, nothing in the above should lead you to think that therefore putin is pure as the driven snow---quite the contrary, he has his own political issues and his own motivations for playing into this scenario---the conflict in georgia has stregthened his political position in russia significantly, at least in the short run---and the narrative about georgia and the us is serve=serving.

but that doesn't mean that therefore it is false. not entirely.

stop trying to put things into simplistic terms--the question is not whether you or i "like" russia or "like" the bush people--its more what the hell is going on here, trying to work it out. if you make your consumer preferences a priority, all you'll find is your consumer preferences mirrored back to you. and you'll do it to yourself. thinking is better than consuming, a different type of consumption maybe, less locked into the a priori maybe.

jorgelito · 09-05-2008, 04:45 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

i don't think it was Intentional, in the sense of "ooo, that'd be fun. let's do that."
rather in the context of a multiplicity of levels of jockeying for influence--with the goal being geopolitical advantage shaped by oil on the one hand and the inability of the neocons to think beyond a coldwar worldview on the other---a situation was generated. that situation acquired its own momentum. the conflict in georgia/south ossetia is an unintended consequence of it.

it's hard to imagine georgia acting as if the americans were really going to help them. the timing of their move was about as bad as it could be for the bush people (think poland)...but at the same time, i expect that the therapeutic narrative offered by cheney goes something like: if you hadn't been turned down for nato memberhsip by the evil france and germany, this would have played out differently.

and to say the obvious, nothing in the above should lead you to think that therefore putin is pure as the driven snow---quite the contrary, he has his own political issues and his own motivations for playing into this scenario---the conflict in georgia has stregthened his political position in russia significantly, at least in the short run---and the narrative about georgia and the us is serve=serving.

but that doesn't mean that therefore it is false. not entirely.

stop trying to put things into simplistic terms--the question is not whether you or i "like" russia or "like" the bush people--its more what the hell is going on here, trying to work it out. if you make your consumer preferences a priority, all you'll find is your consumer preferences mirrored back to you. and you'll do it to yourself. thinking is better than consuming, a different type of consumption maybe, less locked into the a priori maybe.

Ah ok, that's a much better explanation. I actually believe the Georgian president truly believed the US would help him. He made some bad moves and miscalculations in my opinion. He made a gamble and got beat.

roachboy · 09-05-2008, 05:19 AM

there is no doubt that he threw the dice and lost.
but like i said, he did so in the context of a game that he did not and does not control, which is played according to rules that i'm not sure anyone told him about.

everyone involved comes out looking like an asshole, really, and the result is, as is all too often the case, that alot of civilians--people like you and me---end up dead.

ASU2003 · 09-05-2008, 01:57 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jorgelito

I don't see it. I still don't buy that we intentionally provoked the war between Russia-Georgia.

You don't think this will get at least 20% of the voters to think, you know McCain would be able to handle this situation much better than Obama?

tisonlyi · 09-05-2008, 03:24 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003

You don't think this will get at least 20% of the voters to think, you know McCain would be able to handle this situation much better than Obama?

There's such a pattern of war/conflict and proection of a 'threat' in good neocon/straussian terms to aid one particular side in the run-up to elections - especially during times of economic turbulence - that these kind of conspiratorial thoughts just have to make themselves heard, at least to stop the voices in my head.

For example:

The Falklands:

Britain is aware that the military junta in Argentina are chomping at the bit to take The Falklands/Malvinas, yet mysteriously, in the midst of economic turmoil and record low popularity, Thatcher decides to pull pretty much all of Britain's token force out of the Falklands ('cost savings' - she was warned about what could happen). Signal received by the Junta, invasion, war, victory at high price in lives for Britain, sudden wave of popularity for Thatcher, victory in subsequent elections.

Gulf War I:

Economic problems in the US and the UK, Saddam's men given a nod/wink green light to invade Kuwait over a border dispute that goes back to the ludicrous creation of the Kuwaiti state back in the mists of British Imperial times.

Saddam invades, CRISIS!, war in the run up towards election season, but the rouse doesn't work even though it certainly appeared that Bush I's post-war popularity might carry him through but alas... not this time.

Russia's Chechen 'Terrorism'

Putin looks anything but likely to be elected in the wake of Yeltsin's demise and the chaos of the Russian economy in the late 90's.

Run up to election, bombs go off in Moscow, Chechens blamed, war declared, national security emergency, Putin wins handsomely - with a free hand to start his campaign of media castration.

Iraq 2004

Economic turbulence, leadership in need of anything to distract from their own incompetence, phoney war vs incredibly weak opponents, 'poor' decisions lengthen the crisis, national security/militarism craze/paranoia, slim victory for the forces of war.

Georgia/Russia

US proxy launches an attack versus the old enemy, sparking memories and fears of a return to something like the cold war, just as the incumbent war party is struggling somewhat.

I wonder how this one plays out in the end, I'm pretty sure there are a few more acts to come in this spectacular play.

Oh, and if anyone is wondering about the Strauss reference:

Leo Strauss (he's heavily referenced in The Power Of Nightmares:

The Power Of Nightmares

)

ottopilot · 09-05-2008, 03:36 PM

Eureka! You nailed it... torches and pitchforks to the White House!

tisonlyi · 09-05-2008, 04:06 PM

Torches and pitchforks, now there's Conservatism in action!

(big C!)

jorgelito · 09-06-2008, 01:06 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003

You don't think this will get at least 20% of the voters to think, you know McCain would be able to handle this situation much better than Obama?

I'm sorry, I don't quite follow. What does this have to do with McCain or Obama?

ottopilot · 09-06-2008, 04:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

Torches and pitchforks, now there's Conservatism in action!

(big C!)

Just following the rallying call. "It's America's fault!"

Baraka_Guru · 09-06-2008, 06:05 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Just following the rallying call. "It's America's fault!"

Come, now--this is a misinforming conclusion and isn't very helpful.

tisonlyi · 09-06-2008, 07:08 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ottopilot

Just following the rallying call. "It's America's fault!"

Jingoism, the last refuge of a dead or dying empire and those who slavishly devote themselves to it.

roachboy · 09-06-2008, 07:31 AM

trick is that you have a number of dying geo-political units converging in this, each with it's own particularities, it's own machinery to maintain as moving in order to maintain the political and ideological orders that enable the ruling factions to maintain themselves as ruling factions. putin's usage of this situation is not different in kind from the president of georgia's which is not different in principle from that of the bush administration--the distinction between the bush people and others a simple function of the discursive position alloted to georgia et environs in domestic political workings. from this viewpoint, georgia appears a danse macabre. jingoism is not new, but in the contemporary context of progressive defunctionalization of the nation-state, it is serving a new function, a new set of functions. the bbc documentary starts off with a little snapshot of this. the idea, though, is to make the category nation appear to have an "essence" by generating immediate identifications between it and individuals---a move that is characteristic of fascist ideologies everywhere---set the nation into movement across a collective Mission which is inevitably it seems military and is inevitably it seems colonial in effect, but justified as defensive or restortative.

this would be easy peasy to think about if there was only the one slow-motion implosion sequence tracking across it--but there's nothing but such sequences.

so it makes little sense to be reductive about things, to cast only one system as that which performs the characteristics of its implosion, which is unable as system to acknoweldge its own imploding status, which pretends to itself that it is doing something else.

tisonlyi · 09-06-2008, 08:35 AM

^^^ this.

I put a few paragraphs down talking about the dead and dying influences (USA: Dying Russia: Spasming dead , etc) and the relations to the nascent and extant influences (EU, China, India, etc), but I thought that, even though all of this is related, it's a bit of a threadjack.

Some would probably ask to put it into conspiracy, even with it's historical and economic context. *sigh*

Still, put better - if less accessible - than i'd have have wrote it, Mr Roachboy. o7

ASU2003 · 09-06-2008, 09:07 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by jorgelito

I'm sorry, I don't quite follow. What does this have to do with McCain or Obama?

- The Republicans in the current administration would rather see McCain win over Obama.

- The CIA does what it gets directed to do by the administration.

- CIA provokes Russian forces to invade Georgia. It isn't hard to imitate Georgian troops.

- McCain comes out with a plan for fighting Russia and saying "We are all Georgians!"

- Obama is made to look weak, not have a plan and the idea of negotiating and talking to big countries like Russia is a different ballgame than dealing with Iran, Syria, North Korea.

- 60% of people already know who they are going to vote for (30% split) and their minds are unchangeable.

- It is the remaining 40% of voters that can go either way and take into account different things. And a lot of them don't want to see Russia invade a bunch of former soviet states. And it will be brought up in the news and debates to cast doubt over how effective Obama will be with international threats.

tisonlyi · 09-06-2008, 09:23 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by ASU2003

- CIA provokes Russian forces to invade Georgia. It isn't hard to imitate Georgian troops.

Any sources for that?

AFAIK it was Georgian troops imitating Georgian troops who initiated this chapter of the conflict by launching an unprovoked attack on South Ossetia.

ASU2003 · 09-06-2008, 10:19 AM

It's the CIA's job to make sure there are no sources.

That is the reason I initially put this into Paranoia. You can never tell for sure who is involved anymore. Maybe it was the Georgians. But maybe it wasn't. The media wouldn't be able to report that unless it found proof (which is hard to find). The Georgian military can't say "We had no idea what those troops were doing, we didn't give that command, honest.". Or "those weren't our troops dressed in our camo, carrying our guns and driving our tanks. We don't know what they were doing attacking."

tisonlyi · 09-06-2008, 10:25 AM

Yes they can.

It's exactly what Finland said after the Soviet Union went wild over Finnish artillery shelling a Soviet position.

That wasn't us, they said. We didn't give that command.

And 60 years later the truth was told, it was Soviet agents/troops who crossed the border to fire on their own men and give an excuse for war. (Yeltsin admitted it and apologised for it)

NOW we're well into threadjack territory.

ASU2003 · 09-06-2008, 10:44 AM

But 60 years from now it doesn't matter. The Soviets knew that they attacked themselves back then. And, it would have been possible that someone thought it was the US in Finland attacking the Soviet Union to make the Soviets look bad and mean. This time, someone else attacked them and the Georgian leaders didn't say "It wasn't us". But it's hard to find out if some backroom deal was made. In this case, what matters is if a 3rd party government willingly started a skirmish to further it's political agenda. Or it could have just as easily been Russian troops dressed up like Georgians, so Russia could reclaim the Georgia nation.

tisonlyi · 09-06-2008, 11:02 AM

If it doesn't matter, then do me a favour; Please remove your temporal lobes.

The reasons WHY Georgia attacked are shrouded in mystery. That Georgia DID attack FIRST is not in question, by anyone outside of the US of A.

No reports of 3rd party involvement, nothing of the sort. Straight up, we want our renegade territory back, reconquista gone awry. End of story.

If you want to fantasize about possible 3rd party involvement on the battlefield, well.. yeah. Go ahead. Paranoia is just over there....

ASU2003 · 09-06-2008, 11:38 AM

It started out in Paranoia. But Putin blamed the US for it's involvement in this and I'm wondering why the US was involved, or was the US involved...
FOXNews.com - Putin Accuses U.S. Pushing Georgia Conflict to Influence Elections Back Home - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

roachboy · 09-06-2008, 01:03 PM

more dick-waving:

Quote:

Cheney Issues Warning to Russia
By STEVEN LEE MYERS

CERNOBBIO, Italy — Vice President Dick Cheney on Saturday denounced Russia’s war against Georgia as evidence of a pattern of “troublesome and unhelpful actions” that threatened peace from Central Asia to the Middle East to Europe.

Mr. Cheney, speaking at an international conference here beside Lake Como, said that Russia now faced a choice between cooperation and isolation, and he urged European nations to join the United States in unambiguously supporting Georgia, Ukraine and other new democracies in Russia’s shadow.

“Does Russia really want to separate itself from the community of values that has fueled so much of its own economic progress?” Mr. Cheney asked an annual gathering of political leaders and business executives organized by the European House-Ambrosetti, a private consultancy. “Does the Russian government really wish to operate in the modern world as an outsider, alienating free countries and trying to rally the world’s dictatorships?”

European leaders have uniformly criticized Russia’s attack in Georgia and its recognition of two separatist regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but no clear agreement over how to respond has emerged.

Mr. Cheney, who visited Azerbaijan, Georgia and Ukraine this week to express American support, offered no new proposals either, but he described the conflict as a new test for NATO that required a unified response.

In Moscow, Russia’s president, Dmitri A. Medvedev, defiantly dismissed criticism like Mr. Cheney’s during remarks to security aides, mocking the inability of the international community to press Russia.

“Russia is a state that from now on must be reckoned with,” Mr. Medvedev said. Then he added a message clearly directed toward critics in the United States and Europe:

“They are trying to put political pressure on us. We, of course, will not simply accept this situation. But they will not be able to do anything. And I would like to state as clearly as possible that this confrontation was not our choice.”

Mr. Cheney has long been the Bush administration’s most vocal hawk, but his remarks on Saturday, originally intended to reflect broadly on Euro-Atlantic security, amounted to a sweeping indictment of Russia’s actions in recent years and a challenge to its leaders to reverse course. The speech, his aides said, was carefully vetted in Washington and reflected the administration’s deep anger over Russia’s incursion into Georgia a month ago.

He called for a continued expansion of the alliance to include Georgia and Ukraine, despite Russian threats, and a diversification of energy supplies, which, he said, Russia has wielded like a weapon to intimidate European nations.

Mr. Cheney noted Russia’s reduction of oil to the Czech Republic after it agreed to build a missile defense radar station and also a Russian suggestion that Poland would be making itself a target if it agreed to deploy missile interceptors. He also cited threats and economic pressure directed against Ukraine and the Baltic states.

“That is no way for a responsible power to conduct itself,” Mr. Cheney said. “And it reflects the discredited notion that any country can claim an exclusion zone of authority, to be held together by muscle and threats.”

Even as he declared the cold war a thing of the past, he warned that Russia’s recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, if not reversed, could lead to new divisions and conflicts on Europe’s eastern borders.

“We know that if one country is allowed to unilaterally redraw the borders of another, it will happen and it will happen again,” he said. “We know that if we permit a new line to be drawn across Europe, that line will be drawn.”

Clifford J. Levy contributed reporting from Moscow.

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/09/07/wo...hp&oref=slogin

so we have cheney chastizing russia for invading a sovereign country (iraq? afghanistan?) which is something that "regular" powers do not do (except when they do).
then cheney chastizes russia for using oil as a weapon to pressure the czech republic because they are considering joining the american brainchild of the missle defense shield which would be aimed of course at...well, someplace else...so obviously the russians are just being snarky for no reason about all this.

meanwhile, the russians tell cheney to fuck himself, effectively, and are revelling at the press-release level in the same kind of manly man nonsense that cheney is on about.

this almost seems to go without saying.

so the georgian situation has gone from georgia, for whatever reason, deciding to launch an attack in south ossetia and the russians responding with arguably disproportionate force (iraq? afghanistan?) to---well what? a truncated story seems to be getting put into place which starts with the russians.

this is surreal business, tracking not only the fragments of infotainment one gets through the us press (mostly) about georgia/russia et al. but also the 1984-style shifting of the Official Narrative of the Moment together.

loquitur · 09-06-2008, 08:41 PM

Can't have other people acting on their own agendas like real people, can we? no, it has to be our fault because the US is omnipotent and other people are mere putty in our hands, taking marching orders from Washington.

Come on guys, this is silly. Have a little respect for these people in other countries. They have their own motives, their own narratives, their own calculations. Yes, we figure as a factor in those narratives and calculations, and sometimes a big factor, but that's really about it. Please stop being so narcissistic - not everything is about us.

roachboy · 09-07-2008, 04:42 AM

geopolitics centered on oil is an area in the context of which narcissism deploys by refusing to see intertwining of multiple actors, multiple interests and the production of outcomes that follow as much from the dynamics of their interactions as from any linear causation. i think that if you actually read the thread, loquitor, you'll see that the main line of interpretation has moved away from the title and op, which were done in response to a claim from putin...

for example, you'd have to ignore the extensive jockeing for advantage undertaken by the bush people---cheney in particular at the helm--concerning access to central asian oil. you'd have to ignore the frame-condition, which is the understanding that has been american policy since the carter administration officially that access to oil is a national security matter and as such is a military question as well as a political question. you'd have to ignore reality, in short, and substitute for it a simplified version of it in which nation-states like billiard balls pursue their own movement/interests and knock into each other, producing new billiard ball configurations. this simplified version of the world is maybe aesthetically appealing--it erases problems---and since it's appeal is aesthetic (it cannot be descriptive, it is way to far short of adequate) and since you would impose it, i would think that you can see that it is in this imposition that narcissism operates.

ottopilot · 09-07-2008, 05:15 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by tisonlyi

Jingoism, the last refuge of a dead or dying empire and those who slavishly devote themselves to it.

Sloganeering... comfort food for politically fashionable.

roachboy · 09-07-2008, 05:37 AM

so wait---before this reaches a level of tedium that requires the thread be shut down--and it's heading that way, folks---are you saying anything about the content of tisonlyi's argument, otto, or are you simply objecting to the form of some statements about that argument? if you're objecting to the form, then why not just say it?
but what about the argument itself?
do you have anything to say about it?

addendum: an interesting paper on the "missile shield" nonsense can be read here:
http://www.watsoninstitute.org/news_detail.cfm?id=902

loquitur · 09-07-2008, 09:43 AM

well, Roachboy, it seems to me that access to oil is a national security matter - at least until we come up with a non-petroleum based source of energy. As I've said before, if it was up to me we'd raise the gasoline tax to compel a price per gallon of at least $5-6, on national security grounds (others, too, such as environmental grounds, but hardly anyone really takes that seriously if it involves inconvenience). But we're not there, and we won't for a while, so we're stuck with a situation where, yes, we require access to petroleum and it is indeed a national security matter.

That being said, please explain why having Russia invade a country with an oil pipeline is in the US's interests? I don't see it. Or why pissing off Russia, which is a huge oil supplier, is in the US's interests? I don't see that either. So it comes back to what I said before, which is that these people do what is in their own interests - precisely like everyone else. Saakashvili might be a jerk but he's his own self-made jerk.

jorgelito · 09-07-2008, 10:21 AM

Quote:

Originally Posted by roachboy

so wait---before this reaches a level of tedium that requires the thread be shut down--and it's heading that way, folks---are you saying anything about the content of tisonlyi's argument, otto, or are you simply objecting to the form of some statements about that argument? if you're objecting to the form, then why not just say it?
but what about the argument itself?
do you have anything to say about it?

addendum: an interesting paper on the "missile shield" nonsense can be read here:
Missile Defense: A Political and Technical Minefield : The Watson Institute for International Studies

There is no argument. It's just more America bashing.

08-28-2008, 09:32 PM	#1 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	The US provoked the Russia-Georgian skirmish (There was supposed to be a ? in the title) Putin Accuses U.S. Pushing Georgia Conflict to Influence Elections Back Home August 28, 2008 FOXNews.com - Putin Accuses U.S. Pushing Georgia Conflict to Influence Elections Back Home - International News \| News of the World \| Middle East News \| Europe News Growing evidence of CIA involvement in Georgia coup? May 12, 2003 (5 years ago) Indymedia UK - Growing evidence of CIA involvement in Georgia coup? So, do you think a certain administration would be able to start something or change the course of events to make one candidate look better? If the American people fear another cold war, which candidate do you think will win? If the media actually investigates this like the Whitewater event or Clinton's fun time, is even doing something like provoking the Russian military illegal? It definitely isn't smart. Putin may not be the most reliable source, but I think the media should investigate these claims. Actually Congress and an independent investigator should also look into this as well. You know they would if a politician got a bj form a Georgian (country, not state)...

08-29-2008, 04:38 AM	#4 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i moved this thread to politics. in principle, that the accusation would surface is not surprising...whether it corresponds to anything in empirical reality is another matter. fact is that given the controlled press that we operate with, it is also not terribly surprising that there'd be little information at this end about such actions as there may or may not have been in and around georgia. the reasons why it's plausible are obvious: the neo-cons are motivated by a nostalgia for a cold war-style arrangement because it served to stabilize nation-states and reactionary political lines within nation-states first, and second because it enabled the diversion of massive resources into military expenditures, which (third) is of a piece with the neo-con understanding of power, of "political realism" as based in military capabilities. in neo-con land, the state is primarily an expression of military power. the problem with the "war on terror" as a surrogate cold war is simple: it confronts nation-state oriented militaries with horizontally organized "opponents"--which the history of conflict since world war 2 has shown are problematic for vertically organized militaries (algeria, vietnam, etc)--and by extension the "war on terror" creates a host of legal and legitimacy problems around the use of military force because the "adversary" is not localized within another nation-state--which complicates the entire idea of war---which is the ultimate expression of neo-con conceptions of power. within this, other problems have obviously surfaced: manufacturing consent for this type of power is difficult if you cannot locate the Enemy somewhere, and the slippage between the notion of "terrorist" and the idiocy of the huntington thesis has caused more trouble than it's worth. as a backward oriented bunch, the neocons seem to pine for a regular enemy organized in a regular way, preferably one with hardware adequate to justify cranking huge amounts of money into the patronage network around the military. for example, it's obviously hard to justify spending vast sums on new nuclear weapons if there's no way to assume symmetry at the level of hardware. without that, continuing the develop weapon systems slips into a first-strike doctrine, and that is politically problematic (even if you exclude the systematic incompetence of the bush administration itself, selling first-strike is a problem).... so in principle, you can see an argument for why the administration would seek a way back into the good old days when nation-state level conflict spilled into symbiotic "standoffs" between blocs---good for reactionary politics and the network of corporate interests for which it stands. but that doesn't necessarily translate into any particular actions--it just outlines why the accusation is plausible relative to the united states---and putin himself is in a position where this same type of scenario would be good for him--it's already functioning to build consent for his particular mode of authoritarian rule that he has not up to now been able to actually muster--so he has (and there are) internal political interests in the same scenario (same as it ever was, seemingly) so whether this is just a useful fiction being floated in the context of weak reactionary administrations in the context of fading imperial powers or an actual description of what has happened on the ground is hard to say. it'd be interesting to research this, and to see what can be found--my suspicion is that you'd find this same basic story of stories duplicating at scale after scale...a hall of mirrors. but that doesn't make it paranoia. it's just politics in the simulacrum. there's often no particular difference. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

08-29-2008, 05:54 AM	#5 (permalink)
Baraka_Guru warrior bodhisattva Super Moderator Location: East-central Canada	Interesting comments. The U.S. and Russia are fueled by nationalist militarism of a scale beyond just about anyone else I can think of. Well, besides China. It will be interesting to see how this plays out now that China has their own interests and influence. __________________ Knowing that death is certain and that the time of death is uncertain, what's the most important thing? —Bhikkhuni Pema Chödrön Humankind cannot bear very much reality. —From "Burnt Norton," Four Quartets (1936), T. S. Eliot

09-04-2008, 03:57 AM	#10 (permalink)
Iliftrocks Junkie Location: Near Raleigh, NC	This reminds me. I need to see if there are some Get Your War On comics that I haven't read yet.... __________________ bill hicks - "I don't mean to sound bitter, cold, or cruel, but I am, so that's how it comes out."

09-04-2008, 02:16 PM	#13 (permalink)
jorgelito All important elusive independent swing voter... Location: People's Republic of KKKalifornia	I don't see it. I still don't buy that we intentionally provoked the war between Russia-Georgia. __________________ "The race is not always to the swift, nor battle to the strong, but to the one that endures to the end." "Demand more from yourself, more than anyone else could ever ask!" - My recruiter

08-28-2008, 09:33 PM	#2 (permalink)
Willravel ... a sort of licensed troubleshooter.	Yea, the US kinda did. I don't really see this as paranoia, just an objective interpretation based on a good grasp of geopolitics.

09-04-2008, 12:55 PM	#11 (permalink)
AmericanVirus Upright Location: Illinois	He's starting to sound like Chavez, who keeps saying the US is planning a coup to oust him. Putin figures the "Blame the US" game always works, so he might give it a whirl. However, it only goes so far before it get's old.

09-05-2008, 04:38 AM	#14 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	i don't think it was Intentional, in the sense of "ooo, that'd be fun. let's do that." rather in the context of a multiplicity of levels of jockeying for influence--with the goal being geopolitical advantage shaped by oil on the one hand and the inability of the neocons to think beyond a coldwar worldview on the other---a situation was generated. that situation acquired its own momentum. the conflict in georgia/south ossetia is an unintended consequence of it. it's hard to imagine georgia acting as if the americans were really going to help them. the timing of their move was about as bad as it could be for the bush people (think poland)...but at the same time, i expect that the therapeutic narrative offered by cheney goes something like: if you hadn't been turned down for nato memberhsip by the evil france and germany, this would have played out differently. and to say the obvious, nothing in the above should lead you to think that therefore putin is pure as the driven snow---quite the contrary, he has his own political issues and his own motivations for playing into this scenario---the conflict in georgia has stregthened his political position in russia significantly, at least in the short run---and the narrative about georgia and the us is serve=serving. but that doesn't mean that therefore it is false. not entirely. stop trying to put things into simplistic terms--the question is not whether you or i "like" russia or "like" the bush people--its more what the hell is going on here, trying to work it out. if you make your consumer preferences a priority, all you'll find is your consumer preferences mirrored back to you. and you'll do it to yourself. thinking is better than consuming, a different type of consumption maybe, less locked into the a priori maybe. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-05-2008, 05:19 AM	#16 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	there is no doubt that he threw the dice and lost. but like i said, he did so in the context of a game that he did not and does not control, which is played according to rules that i'm not sure anyone told him about. everyone involved comes out looking like an asshole, really, and the result is, as is all too often the case, that alot of civilians--people like you and me---end up dead. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-05-2008, 03:36 PM	#19 (permalink)
ottopilot let me be clear Location: Waddy Peytona	Eureka! You nailed it... torches and pitchforks to the White House! __________________ "It rubs the lotion on Buffy, Jodi and Mr. French's skin" - Uncle Bill from Buffalo

09-05-2008, 04:06 PM	#20 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	Torches and pitchforks, now there's Conservatism in action! (big C!) __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--

09-06-2008, 07:31 AM	#25 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	trick is that you have a number of dying geo-political units converging in this, each with it's own particularities, it's own machinery to maintain as moving in order to maintain the political and ideological orders that enable the ruling factions to maintain themselves as ruling factions. putin's usage of this situation is not different in kind from the president of georgia's which is not different in principle from that of the bush administration--the distinction between the bush people and others a simple function of the discursive position alloted to georgia et environs in domestic political workings. from this viewpoint, georgia appears a danse macabre. jingoism is not new, but in the contemporary context of progressive defunctionalization of the nation-state, it is serving a new function, a new set of functions. the bbc documentary starts off with a little snapshot of this. the idea, though, is to make the category nation appear to have an "essence" by generating immediate identifications between it and individuals---a move that is characteristic of fascist ideologies everywhere---set the nation into movement across a collective Mission which is inevitably it seems military and is inevitably it seems colonial in effect, but justified as defensive or restortative. this would be easy peasy to think about if there was only the one slow-motion implosion sequence tracking across it--but there's nothing but such sequences. so it makes little sense to be reductive about things, to cast only one system as that which performs the characteristics of its implosion, which is unable as system to acknoweldge its own imploding status, which pretends to itself that it is doing something else. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-06-2008, 08:35 AM	#26 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	^^^ this. I put a few paragraphs down talking about the dead and dying influences (USA: Dying Russia: Spasming dead , etc) and the relations to the nascent and extant influences (EU, China, India, etc), but I thought that, even though all of this is related, it's a bit of a threadjack. Some would probably ask to put it into conspiracy, even with it's historical and economic context. sigh Still, put better - if less accessible - than i'd have have wrote it, Mr Roachboy. o7 __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--

09-06-2008, 10:19 AM	#29 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	It's the CIA's job to make sure there are no sources. That is the reason I initially put this into Paranoia. You can never tell for sure who is involved anymore. Maybe it was the Georgians. But maybe it wasn't. The media wouldn't be able to report that unless it found proof (which is hard to find). The Georgian military can't say "We had no idea what those troops were doing, we didn't give that command, honest.". Or "those weren't our troops dressed in our camo, carrying our guns and driving our tanks. We don't know what they were doing attacking." Last edited by ASU2003; 09-06-2008 at 10:22 AM..

09-06-2008, 10:25 AM	#30 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	Yes they can. It's exactly what Finland said after the Soviet Union went wild over Finnish artillery shelling a Soviet position. That wasn't us, they said. We didn't give that command. And 60 years later the truth was told, it was Soviet agents/troops who crossed the border to fire on their own men and give an excuse for war. (Yeltsin admitted it and apologised for it) NOW we're well into threadjack territory. __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--

09-06-2008, 10:44 AM	#31 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	But 60 years from now it doesn't matter. The Soviets knew that they attacked themselves back then. And, it would have been possible that someone thought it was the US in Finland attacking the Soviet Union to make the Soviets look bad and mean. This time, someone else attacked them and the Georgian leaders didn't say "It wasn't us". But it's hard to find out if some backroom deal was made. In this case, what matters is if a 3rd party government willingly started a skirmish to further it's political agenda. Or it could have just as easily been Russian troops dressed up like Georgians, so Russia could reclaim the Georgia nation.

09-06-2008, 11:02 AM	#32 (permalink)
tisonlyi Nothing	If it doesn't matter, then do me a favour; Please remove your temporal lobes. The reasons WHY Georgia attacked are shrouded in mystery. That Georgia DID attack FIRST is not in question, by anyone outside of the US of A. No reports of 3rd party involvement, nothing of the sort. Straight up, we want our renegade territory back, reconquista gone awry. End of story. If you want to fantasize about possible 3rd party involvement on the battlefield, well.. yeah. Go ahead. Paranoia is just over there.... __________________ "I do not agree that the dog in a manger has the final right to the manger even though he may have lain there for a very long time. I do not admit that right. I do not admit for instance, that a great wrong has been done to the Red Indians of America or the black people of Australia. I do not admit that a wrong has been done to these people by the fact that a stronger race, a higher-grade race, a more worldly wise race to put it that way, has come in and taken their place." - Winston Churchill, 1937 --{ORLY?}--

09-06-2008, 11:38 AM	#33 (permalink)
ASU2003 immoral minority Location: Back in Ohio	It started out in Paranoia. But Putin blamed the US for it's involvement in this and I'm wondering why the US was involved, or was the US involved... FOXNews.com - Putin Accuses U.S. Pushing Georgia Conflict to Influence Elections Back Home - International News \| News of the World \| Middle East News \| Europe News

09-06-2008, 08:41 PM	#35 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	Can't have other people acting on their own agendas like real people, can we? no, it has to be our fault because the US is omnipotent and other people are mere putty in our hands, taking marching orders from Washington. Come on guys, this is silly. Have a little respect for these people in other countries. They have their own motives, their own narratives, their own calculations. Yes, we figure as a factor in those narratives and calculations, and sometimes a big factor, but that's really about it. Please stop being so narcissistic - not everything is about us.

09-07-2008, 04:42 AM	#36 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	geopolitics centered on oil is an area in the context of which narcissism deploys by refusing to see intertwining of multiple actors, multiple interests and the production of outcomes that follow as much from the dynamics of their interactions as from any linear causation. i think that if you actually read the thread, loquitor, you'll see that the main line of interpretation has moved away from the title and op, which were done in response to a claim from putin... for example, you'd have to ignore the extensive jockeing for advantage undertaken by the bush people---cheney in particular at the helm--concerning access to central asian oil. you'd have to ignore the frame-condition, which is the understanding that has been american policy since the carter administration officially that access to oil is a national security matter and as such is a military question as well as a political question. you'd have to ignore reality, in short, and substitute for it a simplified version of it in which nation-states like billiard balls pursue their own movement/interests and knock into each other, producing new billiard ball configurations. this simplified version of the world is maybe aesthetically appealing--it erases problems---and since it's appeal is aesthetic (it cannot be descriptive, it is way to far short of adequate) and since you would impose it, i would think that you can see that it is in this imposition that narcissism operates. __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite

09-07-2008, 05:37 AM	#38 (permalink)
roachboy Super Moderator Location: essex ma	so wait---before this reaches a level of tedium that requires the thread be shut down--and it's heading that way, folks---are you saying anything about the content of tisonlyi's argument, otto, or are you simply objecting to the form of some statements about that argument? if you're objecting to the form, then why not just say it? but what about the argument itself? do you have anything to say about it? addendum: an interesting paper on the "missile shield" nonsense can be read here: http://www.watsoninstitute.org/news_detail.cfm?id=902 __________________ a gramophone its corrugated trumpet silver handle spinning dog. such faithfulness it hear it make you sick. -kamau brathwaite Last edited by roachboy; 09-07-2008 at 05:52 AM..

09-07-2008, 09:43 AM	#39 (permalink)
loquitur Junkie Location: NYC	well, Roachboy, it seems to me that access to oil is a national security matter - at least until we come up with a non-petroleum based source of energy. As I've said before, if it was up to me we'd raise the gasoline tax to compel a price per gallon of at least $5-6, on national security grounds (others, too, such as environmental grounds, but hardly anyone really takes that seriously if it involves inconvenience). But we're not there, and we won't for a while, so we're stuck with a situation where, yes, we require access to petroleum and it is indeed a national security matter. That being said, please explain why having Russia invade a country with an oil pipeline is in the US's interests? I don't see it. Or why pissing off Russia, which is a huge oil supplier, is in the US's interests? I don't see that either. So it comes back to what I said before, which is that these people do what is in their own interests - precisely like everyone else. Saakashvili might be a jerk but he's his own self-made jerk.