Enough about the war. What do I think of the war?

It was inevitable: exit stage left the images of death and destruction from Georgia on American television (especially the ones seen frequently on Russia Today), and enter the war’s implications for the Presidential election.  Specifically, this detailed statement from John McCain (with a brief preview from The Politico), showing his sense at vindication at his long-time anti-Russia stance (recall his repeated mockery of Bush’s claimed insights into Putin’s soul and his proposal to expel Russia from the G8).  His most radical proposal is for a NATO peacekeeping force for Georgia (although the phrasing is a little unclear about who would supply the forces) along with NATO membership for Georgia.  If you were trying to find a way to irritate the Russians even more (and understanding this war surely requires some ability to see things from their side), McCain has hit the jackpot.  Whether he’s showing much of his supposed foreign policy nous is another story entirely.

This entry was posted on Monday, August 11th, 2008 at 4:22 pm and is filed under A Fistful Of Euros, Transition and accession. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

1. ruski Says:
   August 11th, 2008 at 6:12 pm

   McCain, you ignorant @$#*%$^k, you wanna piece of me?

2. rational Says:
   August 11th, 2008 at 6:36 pm

   McCain has a great record with his other neo-con projects such as Iraq. Now I am truly worried. I hope his senility will help him forget his war-with-Russia and bomb-bomb-Iran stance if he manages to get into the white house. It is not like we have a half million troops waiting to be pressed into service at a moment’s notice. We need saner people to cool tensions, not hot heads who will inflame them.

3. Pilgrim Says:
   August 11th, 2008 at 6:46 pm

   RE: rational -

   How many “saner” people helped defeat the Soviet Empire? If memory serves both Reagan and Thatcher were called hot heads and they certainly did inflame the Soviets. They also were almost single handedly responsible from bring down the Soviet system.

   I am thankful that President Bush won’t have much of a say in this discussion because I don’t think he has what it will take to diplomatically work this out. The last thing anyone needs is a full scale conventional war in Eastern Europe…let alone the less conventional possibilities. I’m not going to get into the pros and cons of either of the nitwits running in the US election. I will say this will take someone with a serious spine and they will have to hold true to their word. If they say, “Get out or we are coming in” they better have the troops on standby.

4. fnord Says:
   August 11th, 2008 at 6:57 pm

   Pilgrim: Tatcher and Reagan had a military three times the size we have now, they had no debt to China, they had no European dependency on Russian energy and they were not engaged in a twofront “war on terror”, occupying large areas of the Asian continent. If we want to loose all influence with China and Russia, the way the republicans are going now is the right way. then we will truly be in 1984 land, where OCeania will always be our enemies.

5. Klaus Says:
   August 11th, 2008 at 7:28 pm

   The notion that Thatcher and Reagan brought low the Evil Empire is nothing but a right wing myth. USSR collapsed because communism works poorly in reality. Nothing else. Afghanistan was no more a drain on the USSR than Vietnam was on the US, and the US brushed that off easily, because capitalism works. Same reason China and others are slowly leaving planned economies.

   At best, all Reagan’s hot-headedness - confined to his first term - was risk nuclear war by accident.

6. ruski Says:
   August 11th, 2008 at 8:17 pm

   I would side with Klaus, there were multitude of reasons as to why it happened WHEN it happened, its hard to single out any specific one, but on a broader scale, human greed(or invisible hand of the markets, whatever you call it) overwhelms common good goals, party objectives or any other external uninternalized goals. That means that the Soviet system failed from both internal pressure(primary factor) and external pressure(secondary factor).

7. copydude Says:
   August 11th, 2008 at 9:54 pm

   This kind of rhetoric makes it easier to entertain conspiracy theories, and that the whole looney tunes invasion was a set up.

   What better way ratchet up Russophobia and rekindle Republican support, at a time when house repossessions instil more fear than the phoney War On Terror.

   At least you have to agree that this is good news for repugs, while it’s lose lose for both Russia and Georgia.

8. Brzezinski’s Georgia Puppets Attack Russia - WWIII In Sight · Says:
   August 13th, 2008 at 4:49 pm

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