freecounterpoint: There we were...

Friday, August 15, 2008

There we were...

...goin' toe to toe with the Russkies. About to start nukular combat... O Zbig, how small we thought you were.

13 comments:

Tecumseh said...: At some point, the West should consider the Olympic option. If the issue of Georgia's territorial integrity is not adequately resolved (by, for example, the deployment in South Ossetia and Abkhazia of a truly independent international security force replacing Russian troops), the U.S. should contemplate withdrawing from the 2014 Winter Games, to be held in the Russian city of Sochi, next to the violated Georgia's frontier. There is a precedent for this. I was part of the Carter Administration when we brandished the Olympic torch as a symbolic weapon in 1980, pulling out of the Summer Games in Moscow after the Russian invasion of Afghanistan.

Back to Jimmah. Oh, joy.; 8/15/2008 6:13 AM
Tecumseh said...: Sarko & Condi: you want them in your corner when the going gets tough. They'll watch your back.; 8/15/2008 7:29 AM
My Frontier Thesis said...: Russia returns to what they know, what feels comfortable. When in Tashkent, Uzbekistan back in August 2002, I caught a bit of that nostalgia, where Russian Uzbeks daydreamed about pre-1989 days, convincing themselves that was a better time back then. Nostalgia is dangerous that way.; 8/15/2008 9:53 AM
Mr roT said...: AI, that first quote is almost a polack joke; 8/15/2008 2:05 PM
Tecumseh said...: The U.S. should contemplate withdrawing from the 2014 Winter Games -- JJ, this is what you talking about, yes? Get ready for 8 years of this if Zbig's protege wins in November.; 8/15/2008 2:14 PM
Tecumseh said...: Counterpoint: John Bolton: Europe’s rejection this spring of President Bush’s proposal to start Ukraine and Georgia towards Nato membership was the real provocation to Russia, because it exposed Western weakness and timidity. [..] Accordingly, we should have a foreign-minister-level meeting of Nato to reverse the spring capitulation at Bucharest, and to decide that Georgia and Ukraine will be Nato’s next members. Yep.

First reactions, before the campaigns’ pollsters and consultants get involved, are always the best indicators of a candidate’s real views. McCain at once grasped the larger, geostrategic significance of Russia’s attack, and the need for a strong response, whereas Obama at first sounded as timorous and tentative as the Bush Administration. Ironically, Obama later moved closer to McCain’s more robust approach, followed only belatedly by Bush. Sighhhh....; 8/15/2008 2:52 PM
Mr roT said...: What's the sighhhh for? There's no way Bush can take the lead on the aggression thing. He will 'discredit' it just by being himself.
In the end (as in Iraq) his moderate approach worked best. The russians may have set a trap that Saakhashvili took, but the whole thing certainly push Poland and Ukraine closer to us.
Similarly, in Iraq, the slow approach irritated you and fellow mad bomber AA, but the Iraqis' irritation at al Qaeda killing them is what will be the teaching moment.; 8/15/2008 4:05 PM
Tecumseh said...: Throwing Georgia to the wolves, in order to scare Poland and Ukraine into getting their act together? Heckuva strategy, JJ Rove. Methinks you're just trying to find some silver lining out of this Anschluss.; 8/15/2008 5:03 PM
Mr roT said...: You see the bear stretch a paw out and you wet your pants with Munich metaphor. Georgia is a bit player out in the middle of the ocean. Georgia is the alpinist that is halfway down the crevasse and has no technique. Poland and Ukraine are two others outside the hole. Save them first any which way and then go after the big reach.

Remember Putin poisoned Yushchenko. That would have been a much more important loss. Don't forget little blonde tresses girl either. And Gel'fand!

Ukraine and Romania and Poland are a good sized plate. Let's put a good foundation under them before going out and saving stragglers.; 8/15/2008 6:38 PM
Tecumseh said...: Amen to that -- but still, I think it's a bad strategy to throw red meat to the bear. Even if it's a relatively small portion, he only can get hungrier. Plus, now that he tasted blood, he'll want more. So, no, JJ -- I don't think we should abandon the Georgians to the tender mercies of the bear. So OK, we can't go to war over South Ossetia -- but still, there are steps one can take besides hand-wringing.; 8/15/2008 7:26 PM
Arelcao Akleos said...: The trouble with JJ's "throw them a country or two and that'll buy another country or two time to defend itself" strategy is that chances are the divisions, in our leaders here in this country, and in the West in general, as to how to respond effectively to such aggression will persist. Those countries C & D, which we were trying to save by sacrificing A&B, are going to be keenly and rightly wondering if we "have their back" in the same way we had the backs of A&B.
This reminds me of JJs "let's sign on with Lebanon being Czechslovakia 1938, so we can save the Kurds" line from a year or so ago. A strategy guaranteed not only to see Lebanon bundadeashed, but the Kurds soon enough getting themselves bundadeashed or, realizing what our "word" means, ceasing to back us and finding other alliances which might lesson the prospect of bundadeash.[never mind putting Israel between Armageddon and Diaspora II]
But, heck, what are small things such as the destruction of any hope for a center for genuine moderation and openness in the Islamic world, or hope for Russia's future being other than a long resurrection of blood and steel as national policy, when we can always conveniently wash our hands of those who came to trust our promises of aid and comfort?

Your right, JJ, about Bush, though. He cannot take the lead on countering this aggression. Not because he would discredit it, but because, as these last four years have shown repeatedly, he doesn't know what the hell leadership is.; 8/15/2008 7:35 PM
My Frontier Thesis said...: This reminds me of JJs "let's sign on with Lebanon being Czechslovakia 1938, so we can save the Kurds" line from a year or so ago.

Also think Istanbul, circa 1453...; 8/16/2008 12:35 AM
Mr roT said...: AA, as usual your head is as full of shit as your pants. Ukraine (though not Poland or Romania as far as I know) has a sizable fraction of the populace that would like to go back to the merry days of carrying big pictures of Lenin and Stalin up and down the Prospekts. This is in some ways analogous to the little jihadists in Iraq carrying pics of Sadr and so on. It's these schmucks that need to be taught a lesson, not the Ukrainian and Iraqi Voltaires turning beastly white in some dungeon.

Both of these idiots that believe in the equal dignities of different cultures need their lessons taught not in the MIT way, but in the way AQI has done in Iraq and the Russians are doing for the rest of the world now in Georgia.; 8/16/2008 4:10 AM