That sounds like a workable outcome.

I'll check back later to find out how this is all Bush/America's fault.

Remind me again which presidential candidate had an "anemic" response to Russia's invasion. I think he was the one who was surfing at the time, but I can't be sure. Oh well, best not to think about it too hard.

What would you expect the response to be? Go to DefCon 1?

The president, the guy who the right was calling 'great' and comparing him to Churchill, did almost nothing. So what would you expect a candidate to do?

If he is borderline crazy and desperate to make a name for himself, he blathers all kinds of bellicose bullshit knowing full well that if he were in office he would do exactly what the other Republican Great Warrior President did. Nothing.

Or, maybe he would do what the Original Great Warrior President did when the going got tough: invade Grenada.

Every time a father withholds affection from his son because the son is no good at sports, another war-all-the-time, right-wing Republican is created.

Not too surprising. There are historical alliances between the Ossetians and the Russians, and the Ossetians rejected Georgian rule out of hand as soon as the Soviet Union disintegrated, and resumed cultivating ties with their old buddy the bear.

A pity Moscow was not so ready to accept the will of a majority of Chechnians.

Western reaction to the Russian invasion has been pretty anemic, and they may now feel there's no reason not to simply annex them and be done with it.

Long term, it will probably foster more stability in the area. But, who is next? That is the far more interesting question. The Russian dominated areas of eastern Ukraine may be part of Russia in the near future as well. That might not come about as "clean" and "quick" as the Georgian dust-up. Even Belarus is a bit nervous and they have no interest in NATO. The Baltic States and Poland will likely go unmolested, but that doesn't mean the Russians won't test us with them.

Assuming independence at least, and joining Russia at most, really do represent the overwhelming majority will of the South Ossetians, then what exactly is the rationale for thinking this is something we must non-anemically do something about? Perhaps we should have recognized South Ossetian independence when they actually voted for it, thus saving a lot of people a world of hurt?

Reading the reactions to this crisis of noted blogospheric "liberal internationalists" in the past two weeks, I'd have to say their vaunted philosophical commitments to principles such as "self-determination" and the "responsibility to protect" have been revealed as mere blather, and a hypocritical sham. They defend these principles when it suits them for political purposes. But when there is an opportunity to make political hay by characterizing their opponents as "soft on Russia", they are more than happy to use South Ossetia as a mere political football in American politics, and overlook South Ossetian claims to self-determination, and Georgia's egregious failure to fulfill their responsibility to protect the South Ossetians.

Everyone in South Ossetia regards the Russians as their heroes for rescuing them from Georgian aggression. Deal with it.

What right do we have to protest Russia's "overreaction" to Georgia's incursion into South Ossetia when we cheered on Israel's muscular incursion into Lebanon over the death of two soldiers?

Until we start applying some fairness, common sense and equal treatment in all of our dealings with foreign countries, we are going to continue to fade into irrelevance.

"Western reaction to the Russian invasion has been pretty anemic ...."

Perhaps it's because this dispute, though brutal enough, doesn't affect anyone. Despite all the talk about the Russian bear, Russia is not an impressive nation. Its economy, largely oil-based, is ranked 11th, behind Spain, Canada, and Brazil. France's economy is twic as big, and Germany's is almost three times as big. Russia's population is declining, life expectancy is around 60, and in twenty years the country will be one third Muslim.

Alan, Russia has immense potential. By your argument, you would have written them off in 1992, when things were far worse.

The one third Muslim remark reeks off bigotry.

Well, we'll just have to see them one South Ossetia and raise it an Iran!

Long term there is only one way to declaw the Russian bear. We have to engage them. We have to help them become an consumer driven powerhouse. They need to believe they have nothing to gain by invading their neighbors and lots to lose.

I am afraid that the rewards to his defense contractor buds will encourage a President McCain to return us to the cold war. People the Russians still have thousands of nukes. The nukes never went away.

Anyway what are we supposed to do right now. Our military is either tied down in the occupation of Iraq or is refitting. McCain can talk tough all he wants, but there really isn't anything we an do. The Russians know it.

Remind me again which president had an "anemic" response to Russia's invasion. I think he was the one in Beijing ogling the asses of American beach volleyball players at the time, but I can't be sure. Oh well, best not to think about it too hard.

Thumbs up!

Who Started Cold War II?

by Patrick J. Buchanan

The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO.

Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow's superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis.

If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States into war.

From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when the Bear was at its most beastly.

Truman refused to use force to break Stalin's Berlin blockade. Ike refused to intervene when the Butcher of Budapest drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. LBJ sat impotent as Leonid Brezhnev's tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Jimmy Carter's response to Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics. When Brezhnev ordered his Warsaw satraps to crush Solidarity and shot down a South Korean airliner killing scores of U.S. citizens, including a congressman, Reagan did – nothing.

These presidents were not cowards. They simply would not go to war when no vital U.S. interest was at risk to justify a war. Yet, had George W. Bush prevailed and were Georgia in NATO, U.S. Marines could be fighting Russian troops over whose flag should fly over a province of 70,000 South Ossetians who prefer Russians to Georgians.

The arrogant folly of the architects of U.S. post-Cold War policy is today on display. By bringing three ex-Soviet republics into NATO, we have moved the U.S. red line for war from the Elbe almost to within artillery range of the old Leningrad.

Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.

And can we not understand how a Russian patriot like Vladimir Putin would be incensed by this U.S. encirclement after Russia shed its empire and sought our friendship? How would Andy Jackson have reacted to such crowding by the British Empire?

As of 1991, the oil of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Azerbaijan belonged to Moscow. Can we not understand why Putin would smolder as avaricious Yankees built pipelines to siphon the oil and gas of the Caspian Basin through breakaway Georgia to the West?

For a dozen years, Putin & Co. watched as U.S. agents helped to dump over regimes in Ukraine and Georgia that were friendly to Moscow.

If Cold War II is coming, who started it, if not us?

The swift and decisive action of Putin's army in running the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia in 24 hours after Saakashvili began his barrage and invasion suggests Putin knew exactly what Saakashvili was up to and dropped the hammer on him.

What did we know? Did we know Georgia was about to walk into Putin's trap? Did we not see the Russians lying in wait north of the border? Did we give Saakashvili a green light?

Joe Biden ought to be conducting public hearings on who caused this U.S. humiliation.

The war in Georgia has exposed the dangerous overextension of U.S. power. There is no way America can fight a war with Russia in the Caucasus with our army tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor should we. Hence, it is demented to be offering, as John McCain and Barack Obama are, NATO membership to Tbilisi.

The United States must decide whether it wants a partner in a flawed Russia or a second Cold War. For if we want another Cold War, we are, by cutting Russia out of the oil of the Caspian and pushing NATO into her face, going about it exactly the right way.

Vladimir Putin is no Stalin. He is a nationalist determined, as ruler of a proud and powerful country, to assert his nation's primacy in its own sphere, just as U.S. presidents from James Monroe to Bush have done on our side of the Atlantic.

A resurgent Russia is no threat to any vital interests of the United States. It is a threat to an American Empire that presumes some God-given right to plant U.S. military power in the backyard or on the front porch of Mother Russia.

Who rules Abkhazia and South Ossetia is none of our business. And after this madcap adventure of Saakashvili, why not let the people of these provinces decide their own future in plebiscites conducted by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?

As for Saakashvili, he's probably toast in Tbilisi after this stunt. Let the neocons find him an endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

"Alan, Russia has immense potential. By your argument, you would have written them off in 1992, when things were far worse."

So do a lot of other countries, it doesn't change the fact that Russia is an undemocratic craphole, with lots of problems.

"Everyone in South Ossetia regards the Russians as their heroes for rescuing them from Georgian aggression. Deal with it."

That reeks of Russian propaganda. I could care less about the Georgians, but such a loaded statement hardly sounds unbiased, like those claims of genocide that were thrown about so readily by Russian supporters (so gullible for believing such a thing) that were later proved to be false.

Blue Girl wrote on her blog:

"As the Soviet Union began to slowly implode in the late 1980s, the fiercely nationalistic Georgians attempted to enforce a cultural hegemony that emphasized the Georgian language and history"

Georgia itself was annexed by Russia in the 19th century, and their reactions are perfectly understandable in the light of the fact that Russia had dominated their country for so long.
Its not as if Russia itself hasn't done worse over the years.

If Russia pays Georgia for the breakaway provinces that should make it OK. That is what we did when we took California, New Mexico, Arizona, etc. from Mexico. Although, come to think of it, we did not pay Mexico for Texas where at least some of the inhabitants favored annexation by the US.

The autonomous provinces are a special case. The population wants to be part of Russia.

That can not be said for many of these other "supposed targets" of Russia like Ukraine or even Georgia proper.

Why would Russia want to pursue more Chechnyas or Afghanistans?

Pat Buchanan is correct on this.

Russia has a free hand here, since the locals (Georgia) aren't strong enough to stop them, and the other global players (us) are too distracted and enervated with middle east military blunders to do anything either, not to mention we haven't any sort of direct interests at play that could justify intervening even if we could. We
are along for the ride, and that's it.

If a country wants to avoid these sorts of situations of humiliating abject impotence, then it has to head them off early, or see to it that when they happen they don't reflect badly (say, by not ostentatiously cozying up to the doomed locals).

Is the Georgia debacle the Bush administration's fault? No, but the fact that the way it went down makes us look feckless is.

If Russia does annex South Ossetia, I hope my fellow progressives realize that this creates a situation where we must go to war. If institutions like the UN and ICC are to mean anything, annexations by force simply cannot be allowed. If anything, an escalation to annexation would offer the USA a great opportunity: it gives the right wing an excuse to evacuate Iraq. The whole notion that it would take the US military a year or more to evacuate because of logistics has always been a flat-out lie used by Bush to stall for even more time. Within three months, we could have all of our troops in Iraq out and fighting in Georgia instead. Unlike in Iraq, the war in Georgia would actually have an exit strategy: since we can leave Georgia's freely-elected government intact, we don't need to hang around and play policeman, but can instead limit our aid to Georgia, Abkhazia, and Ossetia to civilian rebuilding efforts.

Wouldn't it be loverly if one could actually sort out what propaganda was whose? The media reporting on the whole of this entire episode has been dismal (not unexpected) and I feel certain that the sheeple in America are getting just the sound bites of info that they are willing to digest and absorb without any true investigation or critical thinking...more "shoot from the hip" as we see from the "clear/sharp" railings of McShame...it's what impresses people here now and makes them feel SAGE AND PROTECTED...anybody out there think that FOUR MORE YEARS isn't a real possibility?

Pat Buchanan should not be taken seriously on the subject of who starts wars - in a recent column he blamed Poland and Britain for starting WW II.

If Russia does annex South Ossetia, I hope my fellow progressives realize that this creates a situation where we must go to war.

Your fellow progressives realize no such thing. Certainly the "appeasement" canard will be invoked but I can see no reason the United States needs to get involved in this murky situation. Georgia fired the first shots in their attempts to control PEOPLE (aka South Ossetians) who no longer wish to be part of their country. What wisdom do you bring to the table that would compel the United States to

Russia is not of course a beaming light of freedom but this dispute has little to do with the United States. War with Russia may sound noble but exactly which country is on the side of "freedom" in this conflict is completely unclear.

Hey, didn't we help Texicans 160 years ago create a Republic of Texas, just so it could become a State of the Union. Even W knows that. All it took was a little war.

If Russia does annex South Ossetia, I hope my fellow progressives realize that this creates a situation where we must go to war.

Your fellow progressives realize no such thing. Certainly the "appeasement" canard will be invoked but I can see no reason the United States needs to get involved in this murky situation. Georgia fired the first shots in their attempts to control people (aka South Ossetians) who no longer wish to be part of their country. If the situation was reversed and South Ossetia was trying to break away from Russia I'm absolutely certain the war hawks would be singing a far different tune. No doubt they'd still want to attack Russia but they'd come up with exactly opposite reasons to justify it.

Russia is not of course a beaming light of freedom but this dispute has little to do with the United States. War with Russia may sound noble but exactly which country is on the side of "freedom" in this conflict is completely unclear. The wisest course for the United States is to keep our military out of Georgia.

If Russia does annex South Ossetia, I hope my fellow progressives realize that this creates a situation where we must go to war.

1) What's this "we"?
2) You are not a "progressive" fellow.
3) You're insane.

tom veil:

We allow Israel to run roughshod over it's neighbors in the Middle East (bombing Syria, invading Lebanon, etc.) and allow them to proliferate WMDs and don't do a damn thing to stop them. Why would we want to go to war over a pissant region like South Ossetia? Georgia was the aggressor in all this.

Look, the U.S. missed a huge opportunity in the 1989 to 1994 timeframe, after the Soviet Union collapsed. We could and should have reached out a hand of peace to Russia and the former Soviet satellites in the Caucuses region and offered them a Marshall Plan-type aid and guidance in setting up a capitalistis or at least, a socialist-lite form of government. That would have given us more ready access to their oil and other vast natural resources and a strong ally against the radical Islamists like the Saudis and Pakistanis. Instead, we puffed out our chest and felt all proud about "defeating communism" (despite the fact China still had 1.2 billion people living under communist rule) and became obsessed with who gave Bill Clinton a blowjob and a bad real estate deal he made in Arkansas 14 years before he became president. As a result, the criminal fascist element in Russia, like Pooty-Poot, took root in Russia and we find ourselves fiddly-fucked once again. This was a monumental failure of leadership on behalf of both the Democrats and the Republicans.

TCD

WHY would "we" want to go to war? Were you HERE in 2003? Because we'll be funneled right down the tunnel to "no other choice but to" by our media and our current (and, sadly, perhaps, future government)...it's all about being "SAFE and PROTECTED" (not SAGE as previously misspelled)...watch and see if this whole Russian debacle doesn't transfer into PAPPY McSHAME can keep us SAFE from the BIG OLD BEAR!!! Obama will just talk us to death...YEGODS, I saw this coming back when all the stupidty in our media was focused on "WHEN WILL SHE DROP OUT?" And, I have to spend the winter in Floriduh! Cripey...

Georgia should've let S. Ossettia go a while back, and let the Russians deal with S. Ossettia independence...I'm sure the Russians would love the tour of S. Ossettia...just anothe guerilla campaign looking for a place to happen.

As for Georgia...boy howdy did them boys make a bad call...oh well, the bear has you in its jaws and it looks like you ain't going to get away from them anytime soon.

Welcome back to the USSR, baby!

S. Ossetia should become part of Russia just as its people overwhelmingly desire. Same for Abkhazia. The precedent is Yugoslavia and there can be zero argument there from the West. Anything WE do is also OK for ANYONE else to do. No exceptions, no argument.

If I were advising Putin, I would advise him to leave Georgia very slowly and stop the withdrawal immediately inside the borders of S. Ossetia and Abkhazia, then stand firm. I would then advise that he plan military movements to take place after the US election (so he wont sway the idiots in the US into voting for McInsane, the uber warmonger). As soon as the election is a done deal, move troops up close to Poland, including a host of nuclear tactical ballistic missiles. I would advise him to move more such missiles and troops closer to the Czech Republic as well and inform GERMANY (because of warmonger Bush puppet Merkel) and NATO that the missiles are targeted at them to counter the expansionist desires of NATO and to counter the anti-Russian "missile defense" system in Poland and the Czech Republic. We'll see how the peoples of those nations like being slapped directly into nuclear sites again after following neocon leads from DC.

I would also advise Putin to cut oil and gas to Western Europe by 50% for the winter.

NATO should be dissolved, not expanded. There is no valid purpose to NATO any longer (and hasn't been a valid purpose to it since the fall of the Soviet Union.

Putin should also start forming a new pact with various S. American countries, including Cuba, to see how the US likes that shit.

Western reaction to the Russian invasion has been pretty anemic

From what I have been able to determine, the primary Western response has been to threaten to blackball Russia from various organizations such as the G-8 and the WTO.

In other words, Putin is a bounder; so we won't have him in our club.

Speaking as someone who has never been invited to tea with Queen Elizabeth, I can feel the force of that threat.

The problem is that Putin, Chavez, various Muslim states, and others, seem to be setting up another club of their own. Sort of a diplomatic Salon dez Refuzes.

So it seems like their plan is to build their own clubhouse and throw their own parties.

And maybe we won't get invited to those.

Russia’s move, in my opinion, is about establishing a land bridge between the West and the energy resources in the Middle East that we are dependent on. Putin is an oil man.

With Georgia secured, all that remains is the Strait of Hormuz and two Saudi pipelines.

Remind me again which presidential candidate had an "anemic" response to Russia's invasion. I think he was the one who was surfing at the time

What has the Republican war president's response been to Russia's protection of the Ossetians?

W. Bush was enjoying the Olympics and then went on retreat to his home in Texas.

For the record, Abkhazia is only about 20-25% Abkhazian in ethnic makeup (unlike the very Ossetian S. Ossetia), so the Russkies don't have so good a case for what "the people of _____ want".