McCain: Nations don't invade other Nations
McCain says, "In the twenty-first century, nations don't invade other nations:"
And imagine him all sweetness and light now about wanting good relations with Moscow after his rants all the past week.
An experienced diplomat pointed out to me that "McCain’s behavior on Georgia is a perfect example of putting personal political advantage over the national interest. Bush is trying to cope with a tricky situation and so far doing it in a responsible fashion. McCain is doing more than giving advice (legitimate). He is conducting his own foreign policy, talking to Saakashvili several times a day and now sending his two poodles, Lieberman and Graham, to Georgia to do what? Make sure Rice does the right thing (she must be furious. If Bush had the balls, he should slap McCain down, and hard."
Back in the real world, Andrew Bacevich writes at Tomdispatch.com about the lessons of the American way of endless war.
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/15/2008 12:30:00 AM
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11 Comments:
The American military elite (not the JINSA clowns) are already more than pissed off with the Iraqi adventure. You can bet that they have told McCain to shut up or else they would go public against him (as the British military did against Blair.) Why else would he reverse his stance against Moscow in a nanosecond?
Dear Professor Cole
Do you suspect the volte face is because someone has explained to Senator McCain that the supply lines to the beleaguered Force in Aghanistan go either through the dodgy territory of Pakistan or the Russian Federation.
His initial reaction to the Georgia episode reminds me both of the Bush rage that led to the massacre at Fallujah, and to Lord Raglan's reputed suspicion that he was being attacked by the French whom he had fought forty yeas previosly in the Crimea.
Er, Foreign Policy Experience??? 3am phone call???
Dear Professor Cole
A small map of West Asia may help the geographically and geopolitically challenged in locating Kyrgizstan and the Manas airbase.
A hostage to fortune
It's obvious what this indicates: McCain is secretly Ethiopian. His birth certificate is clearly forged.
Armed Forces Day at Warsaw (15.IX.2008)
The President declaims: "Today also those who set the interest of the P[olish] C[ommonwealth] above their own ambitions and grievances ought not to play politics. Recents days have shown that independence is not given once for all, that one must care for it. In that struggle the Army plays a gigantic rôle. The Army must be ever stronger year by year! It must be professional! We must count on ourselves, but Power also means [having] allies. The example of Georgia shows that elementary [world] order depends on alliance with the strongest state [around, namely] the U.S.A. Events of the last few hours indicate that this manifest truth has triumphed, [a triumph] at which I rejoice greatly!" (Lech Kaczynski speaking)
The New York Times does not neglect neo-Sarmatian gallantry and chivalry altogether, but they are very short on the fun side of it all, flags and tanks and chauvinism and Ascension Day and the "Vistula Miracle" of 1920 and whatnot. At Manhattan they seem to think mostly of themselves -- of ‘ourselves’ -- and worry:
[T]he United States would be obliged to defend Poland in case of an attack with greater speed than required under NATO (...) an American Patriot battery would be moved from Germany to Poland, where it would be operated by a crew of about 100 American military personnel members. The expenses would be shared by both nations. American troops would join the Polish military, at least temporarily, at the front lines — facing east toward Russia.
That wretched unsporting ‘temporarily’ pretty well cancels out the spirit of Za nasz? wolno?? i wasz? , don’t you know?
Happy days.
At least someone is working with the Georgians to find out what is happening. Sen. Obama seems to have a hands off approach.
While he is still a candidate, he must surely know that in the next few months he may very well have to deal with this issue again. Where are his (Sen. Obama) contacts within Russia/Georgia/Chechnya?
Could this have been a great reward for McCain/repubs to re-shape the debates from Iraq, to the European/Asian ridgeline?
Will the debates in the next few weeks revolve around this proxy war with Russia, or will it hinge on the Iraq experience? Will either candidate say something unique, or has this just placed Russia as our top priority again?
What would we as a nation do, if we started seeing NEW Russian AK's in the streets of Mexico/SW America? Would we try to stop those gangs with all possible force?
Even with a democrat in office, I think we would start to see A-10's roaring through the skies/borders, striking columns of Mexicans walking across our borders, some civilians will be hit, but mostly the "infiltrators/drug dealers" will be headlined.
Would this pit our nation against another? Would this split southern NM/AZ into it's own indiginous statelet supported by various nations for the sake of a 200 year old dispute?
I for one would fight till the end for the sake of our territorial integrity.
Has the issue of Brave Little Georgia struggling with the Russian Bear has been stoked to influence the US Presidential election? It is a fact that the senior foreign policy advisor to John McCain, one Randy Scheunemann, was until last March, a paid Washington lobbyist for the Georgian government. As well as aiding McCain to draft Congressional legislation in support of Georgia's membership of NATO, he accompnaied McCain in 2006 to Georgia to meet with Shaakashvili and support his bellicose attitude to Russia. THe whole farrago seems a risk-free issue for McCain to continue to promote himself as the Security candidate.
W. Bush gave a brief press conference earlier (15 August 05:20 Pacific Time) regarding the situation in Georgia.
He assured the Russians that they have nothing to fear from a democratic state of Georgia on their southern border.
I hope Putin and Medvedev respond by assuring W. Bush that a socialist state to America's immediate south, Cuba, is not a threat either. Furthermore, as a gesture of good will why doesn't the American government lead by example and normalise relations with Cuba?
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Juan,
With a massive defeat at the polls looming, it now should be clear as day that the War Party wants to divert attention from failure in Iraq, Iran, Afghanistan, Lebanon etc (not to mention domestically) by opening a new front.
These people are as dangerous as they are desperate
We're a nation ruled by fools. By November we should know whether we are a nation rightly led
FYI Anonymous: "At least someone is working with the Georgians to find out what is happening. Sen. Obama seems to have a hands off approach". Say what???????
You have no clue about what Senator Obama is doing, so sometimes it is best not to comment. Not only that, what approach would you suggest he take, especially since George W. Bush is the President.
A hard concept to understand: George W. Bush IS, unfortunately, the president, who should not be vacationing in Texas, but instead should be in Washington, dealing with this issue. Think Katrina.
John McCain IS NOT the president and should not be sending his people to Georgia to access the situation.
My question: What were Randy Scheunemann, lobbyist for Georgia and McCain’s primary foreign advisor and Karl Rove, McCain's shadow advisor doing at a conference with Mikheil Saakashvili, Pres of Georgia, Sergey Glaziev, Dir, Institute for New Economy, a member of the Russian State Duma (lower house of parliament) AND Kostyantyn Gryshchenko, Ambassador to the Russian Federation & First Deputy Sect of the national Security & Defense Council of Ukraine, in July, 008??????
I have been wondering if Randy Scheunemann and Karl Rove gave the greenlight from McCain (signed off by Bush) to create a Gulf of Tonkin event to give McCain the chance to act tough. The problem was that they did not expect the Russians to respond after Mikhail Saakashvili overran South Ossetia and killed the Russian peacekeeping troops and the South Ossetian people.
For all of his bluster just what is John McCain going to do about Russia? I just know that the Russians are trembling in their boots.
FYI: Randy Scheunemann, lobbyist for Georgia and McCain’s primary foreign advisor, is a signator to the The Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
FYI: John McCain, long time friend of Saakashvili, is a signator to the The Project for the New American Century (PNAC).
The "long time friend" is still unable to pronounce Saakashvili. Maybe it was a loose denture day.
At least he didn't refer to him as the President of Germany ... cos that's Putin, right!?
The maverick has seen his better days, let's face it.
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