They you are either insane, comatose, or ready to vote for the sick old man, John Sidney McCain III, but I repeat my self, because he just said, “In The 21st Century Nations Don’t Invade Other Nations.”
Irony is not only not dead, but it is thriving among the fertile soil (all that bullsh&%, you know) that is the irony impaired Republican party.
I knew that Russia decimated the Georgian army, but I had no clue as to how totally completely they owned them:
It soon became clear that the six-point deal not only failed to slow the Russian advance, but it also allowed Russia to claim that it could push deeper into Georgia as part of so-called additional security measures it was granted in the agreement. Mr. Sarkozy, according to a senior Georgian official who witnessed the negotiations, also failed to persuade the Russians to agree to any time limit on their military action.
So the Georgians have forsworn the use of force to get back the provinces, Russia has the right, for an indeterminate amount of time, to stay in Georgian territory, and take “additional security measures.”
Meanwhile, the Russians are telling George W. Bush and the Georgians to pound sand on the autonomous regions:
Medvedev said he would support the independence aspirations of South Ossetians and Abkhazians in accordance with the United Nations Charter, international conventions of 1966 and the Helsinki Act on Security and Cooperation in European.
“You have been defending your land, and the right is on your side,” Medvedev said at a meeting with leaders of the two breakaway regions.
“Russia’s position is unchanged: we will support any decisions taken by the peoples of South Ossetia and Abkhazia in accordance with the UN Charter,” he said, adding that “not only do we support but we will guarantee them.”
Georgia is going to be smaller in a few years.
First, I think that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili realizes that he’s lost, and that his support is now crumbling. At least that’s my explanation for his increasingly erratic rhetoric, where he went on CNN, and talking about fighting to the “last drop of blood”.
He gambled, and he lost, and at best all he can hope for is that he manages to hold out until the next elections.
This is also explains why he claims that the US will take control of Georgian ports, a claim what was promptly refuted by the Pentagon, “We are not looking to, nor do we need to, take control of any air or sea ports to conduct this mission,” said Geoff Morrell, Pentagon spokesman. (emphasis mine)
It’s also why he said that the humanitarian aid was a part of a greater military involvement:
But while Mr. Bush said the United States “stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that its sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected,” his remarks contained no hint of an American military role in Georgia, other than providing humanitarian assistance.
However, minutes after Mr. Bush’s comments, President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia characterized the import of the American aid as “definitely an American military presence” and called it a “turning point.”
Needless to say, Bush’s statements that he wanted to convey, “unwavering support for Georgia’s democratic government,” are not helping the situation.
Putin is the last person on earth that I would want to bluff if he knew it was a bluff, and he knows that Bush’s bravado is just a bluff.
Needless to say, the only person desperate enough, or stupid enough to believe this is Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.
Woah, this is a full metal pander:
Obama appeared to agree, saying, ‘I have consistently called for deepening relations between Georgia and trans-Atlantic institutions, including a Membership Action Plan for NATO, and we must continue to press for that deeper relationship.’
It was this sort of statement that encouraged Georgia to get its war on and level a city full of women and children.
Additionally, it makes him look weak, because it makes him look like he is triangulating and that McCain is taking the lead on foreign policy.
Back in 1996, Thomas “The Mustache of Pablum” Friedman had a theory:
So I’ve had this thesis for a long time and came here to Hamburger University at McDonald’s headquarters to finally test it out. The thesis is this: No two countries that both have a McDonald’s have ever fought a war against each other.
The McDonald’s folks confirmed it for me. I feared the exception would be the Falklands war, but Argentina didn’t get its first McDonald’s until 1986, four years after that war with Britain. Civil wars don’t count: McDonald’s in Moscow delivered burgers to both sides in the fight between pro-and anti-Yeltsin forces in 1993.
You know, you would do more for the betterment of humanity, if you flipped burgers, as opposed to writing OP/EDs for the Times.
H/T Matthew Yglesias, who gives us this picture of the Tbilisi McDonalds:
First, let’s go meta and explain why no nation on earth should trust Bush and His Evil Minions™ in a diplomatic context:
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has also been noticeably absent on the diplomatic scene, having failed to interrupt her holidays to fly to Tbilisi in support of the Georgian government.
This is actually easily understood. She’s an academic, which means never allow reality to alter your view of the world, and never cut a vacation short.
In any case, the Russians have officially declared an end to military operations, though there is clearly some combat still going on.
Hopefully, it will die down in the next few days.
Of interest is the fact that Georgia must remove its troops from the area and sign a binding renunciation of force against both South Ossetia and Abhkazia.
If they don’t get that, then the Russians are saying, “no deal”, and if they do get that, then Saakashvili is done as a political force in Georgia.
I think that he’s done in any case.
Interestingly enough, I see a pattern of tribalism in this description of Georgian Mikheil Saakashvili’s comeuppance.
Specifically, it appears that much of his credibility in terms of the actions that he has taken, and the west’s view of him, come from the fact that he got his law degree at the George Washington University Law School, and when he purged the civil service and universities, he replaced them with other western trained personnel.
When I look at coverage he has received, and for that matter the coverage of other leaders of dubious records, it appears that those old school ties make a very big difference as to who the press covers what they do, particularly when it is less than savory.
Not only is he dead nuts on about Georgia, but he’s also written the flat out funniest essay on the South Ossetia conflict to date.
Go Read.
Iraq’s foreign minister is saying that any US-Iraq security deal must contain a, “Very clear timeline,” for US withdrawal.
Sounds like that qualifier laden “time horizon” that Bush and His Evil Minions™ keep talking about is as dead as a proverbial doornail.
First, read Getting Georgia’s War On in The Nation, if just for the revelation that that Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze made an “investment call” to bank managers and analysts.
The original offensive had been planned for some time.
Additionally, it appears that Russia was the first to call a Security Council meeting, but their proposal, which called for both sides to , “renounce the use of force”, was rejected by Georgia, the US, and the UK.
I think that the best historical analogy out there is care of Attaturk:
1836 to 1848
Georgia = Mexico
Russia = The United States
South Ossetia = Texas
It really is clear that the Ossetians hate the Georgians, and that the desire for independence is very real, though the ability is only because of Russian support.
Meanwhile, Russia is rolling east from South Ossetia, and west from Abkhazia, and they are demanding the disarming of troops along both borders.
Again, this is calling on the the Kosovo precedent, and I think is a sign that one of the goals of the Russians is the elimination of the Georgian army as a meaningful force.
Certainly their capture Georgia’s Senaki City and enterry into Zugdidi Town, roughly 40km in Georgia from the Abkhazian border seems to confirm this.
On the bright side, Dmitry Medvedev has stated that the military operation in South Ossetia is nearly over, which should indicate a reduction of optempo shortly.
You can read a summary of official Russian losses, and they seem very light, though the loss of the Tu-22, by which I assume they mean Tu-22M Backfire, not the earlier Blinder, has to to hurt.
Jed Lewison notes that top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, is a paid lobbyist for a foreign government, the Republic of Georgia, he claims not to lobby for them any more, but his firm still gets fees from them, and that much of his lobbying were his highly successful efforts to turn McCain into an unthinking Georgia evangelist, though given McCain’s Russo-phobia, it probably took less than a golf game to do that.
It appears that Georgia has “pulled out” of South Ossetia, though I think that any realistic assessment would say that the Georgian army was expelled from the breakaway province by the Russians.
In the Security council, it’s clear, for now at least, that Russia will not allow any resolution through that calls for a cease fire.
I would also note that Putin has described the Georgian assault on the capitol of South Ossetia as, “Genocide”, and it’s clear that he has his eyes on the precedent set in Kosovo, where crimes against humanity were used to justify the creation of Kosovo as an independent state.
Things are also heating up in the other break away region of Abkhazia, with Russian troops being sent there to reinforce the positions there, moving elements of its Black Sea fleet to the Abkhazian port Ochamchire, and there appears to be an assault on the Kodori Gorge, which was reconquered by Georgia in 2006.
Ukraine is saying that it may bar Russian ships that have participated in this operation from their ports for the duration of hostilities.
There are reports of a Russian Blockade of Georgia, which has been denied by the Russians…sort of:
Russian warships are not planning to block shipments of oil from Georgia’s Black Sea port of Poti, but reserve the right to search ships coming to and from it, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said on Sunday.
Also, it appears that the Russian navy sank a Georgian missile boat.
Honestly, the only sympathy I have for the Georgians is the very real possibility that Mikheil Saakashvili was led on by the US, much in the manner that Saddam Hussein was before the first Gulf War, because it is clear to me, and Thomas de Waal writing in the Guardian agrees, that this was largely the direct result of actions by Saakashvili
Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili seems to care less about these people than about asserting that they live in Georgian territory. Otherwise he would not on the night of 7-8 August have launched a massive artillery assault on the town of Tskhinvali, which has no purely military targets and whose residents, the Georgians say, lest we forget, are their own citizens. This is a blatant breach of international humanitarian law.
Moscow cares as little about the Ossetians as it does the Georgians it is bombing, regarding South Ossetia as a pawn in its bid to bring Georgia and its neighbours back into a Russian sphere of influence. Ordinary South Ossetians have also been cursed by a criminalised leadership which would long ago have lost power had they not been the rallying point for defence against Georgia.
I think that it’s clear that Georgian calls for a cease fire will fall on deaf ears in Russia for a while, and we have a report that Russia is demanding the removal of Saakashvili, the article, in classic WaPo form describes him as having been democratically elected, but ignores the election fraud in the last election, along with brutality against the opposition and the destruction of an opposition TV station.
It also appears that the Russians are advancing past the borders of Ossetia. They appear to be advancing on the Georgian city of Gori.
I’m not sure why Georgia chose this time to start shelling South Ossetian capital of Tskhinval, but this sort of behavior has elicited the expected Russian response, and they have started sending additional “peacekeepers” to the region.
The Guardian has an interesting analysis, if just because it avoids the common wisdom available on a Google News search that somehow the Georgians shelling a city full of women and children is Russian aggression.
Their analysis is that this was a well planned offensive, and that they hoped to catch the Russians off balance, with Putin in Beijing for the Olympics, and it now appears that they were wrong:
Observers had little doubt that the operation to take South Ossetia back under Georgian control bore the hallmarks of a planned military offensive.
It was not the result of a ceasefire that had broken down the night before – it was more a fulfilment of the promise the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, had made to recapture lost national territory, and with it a measure of nationalist pride.
((emphasis mine)
It appears that the US has been aggressively supporting and training the Georgian army for some time, and this may have contributed to Saakashvili’s belief that he could get away with it.
I’m wondering if this isn’t a screw up, and that Bush and His Evil Minions™, particularly Cheney, might have been looking for something like this just before the election, for electoral benefit, but their boy in Tbilisi pulled the trigger too early.
His name was Bruce Ivins, and it appears that his arrest was imminent.
More important than the possibility, and no evidence has been presented, that the Anthrax mailer has been identified is the question about who lied to the press about the presence of Bentonite in the spores.
Not only was this completely untrue, there were none in the samples, but it was used to point a finger at Iraq, which, unlike the US, used Bentonite in its bio-weapons program.
Glenn Breenwald has a rundown of how the press, ABC in particular, were used to finger Iraq for the Anthrax by mentioning non-existent Bentonite.
Who were the government sources who were lying to the press? Was Bruce Ivins one of them? Was this a part of a concerted effort to gin up support for the attack on Iraq?
If there is anything to be learned from the disastrous counter-insurgency experiences in Iraq and Afghanistan, it is that the use of air power must be kept to a minimum, because the collateral damage crates more supporters for the insurgents.
Of course, this bit of knowledge appears not to have registered with the USAF, which is looking at an expansion of its role as US troops draw down.
This is why we need to be completely out. Every bomb we drop risks creating anothere Osama bin Laden.
It looks like the status of forces agreement is back in active negotiation, complete with bullsh@% “time horizon”.
The Bush administration’s embrace of a flexible timeline for pulling U.S. troops from Iraq has accelerated negotiations between Washington and Baghdad over a long-term security pact, officials from both sides said.
The optimism marks a turnaround from just a month ago, when big differences seemed to have deadlocked talks over the terms of a continued American military presence in the country. In June, Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki said the talks were at a “dead end,” dimming hopes of reaching a deal by July 31 — a goal the Bush administration has pushed hard to meet.
This month, however, the White House said it had agreed to a “general time horizon” for troop withdrawals, breaking from its long-held public resistance to the notion. The change has helped overcome differences on other issues, such as immunity for U.S. troops, negotiators on both sides said.
…
Great googley moogley.
Item 1: an increasing reliance on air strikes to achieve tactical goals, as is the case in Afghanistan.
Of course, that attack on the forward base indicates that things are not well either.
Because his statement condemning a withdrawal timetable is right out of the Republican spin machine, and is clearly an attempt to influence the election.
Obama needs to make a clear statement that such a role is inappropriate for an active duty officer, particularly a general.
It ain’t just the Department of Justice that will need to be de-Bushified in 2009.
But he says something that I the punditocracy has studiously avoided saying until now:
In private conversations, Clinton has expressed the view that Obama’s emphasis on Iraq — her Senate vote for it, his against it — defeated her.
While this is blinding clear to everyone else in the world, to the pundits, where being wrong on Iraq is a sign of good judgment, acknowledging this fact is the political reality that dare not speak its name.
I will note that he gets one part wrong: Obama wasn’t in the Senate for the vote.
The New York Times reviewed der Speigel’s tape of the Maliki interview, and has pronounced the original statement endorsing Obama’s plan as accurate:
But the interpreter for the interview works for Mr. Maliki’s office, not the magazine. And in an audio recording of Mr. Maliki’s interview that Der Spiegel provided to The New York Times, Mr. Maliki seemed to state a clear affinity for Mr. Obama’s position, bringing it up on his own in an answer to a general question on troop presence.
(emphasis mine)
What’s more, we now have a statement from Ali al-Dabbagh, the Iraqi government spokesman who walked back the statement under pressure from Bush and His Evil Minions™, that having all troops out in 2010 would be a good thing, so they just endorsed Barack Obama’s position again.
Well, it appears that in an interview in der Spiegel, Nouri al Maliki, when asked about Obama’s 16 month time frame, replied, “US presidential candidate Barack Obama talks about 16 months. That, we think, would be the right timeframe for a withdrawal, with the possibility of slight changes.”
As Marc Ambinder noted, “Via e-mail, a prominent Republican strategist who occasionally provides advice to the McCain campaign said, simply, ‘We’re f#@$ed.'”
Seriously, John McCain is more than “Iraq Forever”, it’s “Iraq Forever, with permanent military Super-Bases”, and while Maliki’s government has backed off a bit on the statement, there is no way they want those US bases there, and what’s more domestic politics makes it politically untenable for them to want those bases there.
So, now we have a report that Bush and Maliki have have agreed on a timetable for troop withdwawal.
The devil is in the details*, and I expect the details to include huge military bases in Iraq for a very long time.
*Or maybe he’s at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue until January 20, 2009.