[....]

Let’s not lose sight of the facts:

1) Georgia started the war.

[....]”

No, Georgia did not start the war. You are simply repeating the lies used by the Russians as false propaganda. The Russians and Soviets have trotted out this same old tired lie before each and every one of its previous invasions of its neighbors.

Georgia counterattacked the illegally possessed 122mm heavy artillery batteries very recently supplied by the Russians for the purpose, because the illegal heavy artillery was systematically demolishing Georgian villages and communities one by one to deliberately provoke a response from Georgia. The only practical way to stop the 122mm artillery bombardments that was destroying the Georgian civilian communities was by a ground attack. Georgia did not advance into Tschkinvali to silence the heavy artillery batteries until August 8th. The Russian 58th Army was already passing an invading column of about 150 armored and other vehicles across the border through the Roki Tunnel the night of August 7th and the morning of August 8th.

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

Looks like yet another failed plan cooked up by Neocons, yet another plan that has nothing to do with the American citizen.

This issue is folly for Americans and an utter waste of time.

I wish people would stop saying that this Georgia government was an “ally” or that it was some shining beacon of “democracy”.

Let’s not lose sight of the facts:

1) Georgia started the war.
2) Abkhazia regards itself as independent of Georgia and did not take part in the 2004 elections, while South Ossetia favors union with its northern counterpart in Russia!!

Come on America, get some context and sense of proportion. We have bigger issues that Bush, Obama, Paul, and McCain should be focusing on.

Russian armored colums are now in movement down the road towards the border with Turkey, effectively cutting off a line of communications between Georgia and Turkey. Once the right flank of the Russian forces have blocked communications across the Turkish border, the Russian 76th Guards Airborne Division has reached their assigned assembly areas after resupplying, and the Russian 19th Motorized Rifle Regiment has completed the displacement of its ammunition supply points to the assembly areas within 35km of Tbilisi; the next phase of the campaign will be ready to commence in the next 24 to 72 hours, if approved.

Approval for the next offensive awaits developments at the NATO conference on Tuesday, 18 August 2008. In anticipation that NATO must act to “punish” Russia’s invasion of Georgia, Russia plans to conduct a “punishing” lethal attack upon Georgian police and/or military units in the area along the road to Tbilisi. Russia will then claim the need to punish the “criminal” violators of the ceasefire who took the lives of Russian soldiers and use the manufactured incident as an excuse to resume the offensive to capture and occupy the remainder of Georgia.

The new offensive operations will aim to bring the Vasiani military headquarters, military base, and airbase under heavy air and missile bombardment. A column of Russian heavy armored forces will aim to breakthrough the Georgian mainline of resistance across the main road to Tbilisi under the cover of air attacks using precision guided weapons to deny Georgian forces the ability to maneuver. Elements of the VDV will flank the main spearhead of the Russin attack to the north, threatening Georgian forces with encirclement from the north side of Tbilisi. A brigade size VDV force equipped with armor will then establish an airhead southeast of Vasiani to block the line of communications from Tbilisi and Vasiani to the border of Azerbaijan. They will then maneuver to fix Georgian defenses in Tbilisi and link to other Russian forces maneuvering to encircle Tbilisi and establish a line of communications between the airhead and the main body of Russian forces coming down the road from Gori.

The Russian objective is to occupy Georgia and change its government, while also demonstrating to the other former Soviet Rupublics that NATO cannot and will not defend their independence from Russia. If, however, NATO proves to be too inconveniently uncooperative and reactionary on Tuesday, the offensive operation may be postponed to see if diplomatic efforts can chill EU cooperation long enough for the offensive to resume. If the diplomatic efforts fail to gain enough EU hesitancy to hinder a NATO deployment in the next week to 10 days, the decision will have to be made under the then current NATO order of battle whether to proceed with the offensive or begin a stubborn and repeatedly delayed withdrawal to Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

OR, you could follow the money. It’s no wonder McCain is beating his chest and talking the talk. Hell, you can pay these losers to say anything you want, and shortly after the pundits amplify and spread the toughness around. Trickle down toughness.

What’s really amazing (still following the money here) is how Obama is getting so much more of the corporate cash these days. The big money donors are puking cash onto the Obama campaign like drunken barflies. The same corporations that I used to think were in love with the Right.

Nothing surprises me anymore.

Obama came around to McCain’s position simply because he was advised to (my guess would be that it was Richard Holbrooke) - his first reaction was his most genuine - he thought that Georgia needed to stop the conflict when the Russians were hammering them !

There is never a time that the US did not get blamed in some way or other when an international crisis happens - this country is such an easy whipping boy for leftists all over the world.

and for all those “realists” and “moderates” who think that it is plain silly to even think about barring Russia from the G-8 or WTO, i would like to ask a very simple question - what is your approach to this issue ? Send a little humanitarian aid and then forget Georgia like this war never happened ?

It is always easy to criticize what other people are doing instead of provding some constructive thoughts on US policy should be. Other than suggestions to let Russia have its fiefdom ( also known as “the roll over and play dead” play) and not antagonize it, I have heard nothing else.

I’d also like to know what these “moderates/realists” think about the role US should be playing in Afghanistan - after all, the Pakistan military sees this country as its personal fiefdom and has pretty much treated it as one - so why is the US now trying to build Afghanistan and bring in more troops - should this not antagonize the Pakistanis ?

After all, America is supposed to care for what other countries “feel” even if it is against its own interests - so would you realists support a US withdrawal from Afghanistan - its after all pakistan’s “near abroad”. and they dont really seem to like the US presence a lot there, to put it mildly.

Cannot wait for the “realists” to take over foreign policy.

The main point of my earlier post was not only do Obama and McCain have barely more authority in this as do you and I, but that both of them responded to the situation exactly as anybody could have predicted. That’s all. Both of them were right about being “anti-war” and “pro-surge”, respectively. Their entire campaigns revolve around them being right about those positions. One can debate who is right or wrong, but nobody can say that their replies were unexpected.

At any rate, how can the Georgia crisis count as a “3am moment” when our own president didn’t feel the need to cut short his happy time in Beijing? (Remember, he spent 3 days hanging out at the Olympics after the invasion started.) Does he know things about that we don’t? Can we really question his intelengence on this? Hey, he’s the boss, so he knows what’s right! Or is he on major drugs?