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See "Putin's rules or ours", "Staring down the Russiand" "Dangerous Times In Georgia Demand Serious Leadership" http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2008/08/putins_rules_or_ours_1.html http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1832699,00.html http://townhall.com/Columnists/FredThompson/2008/08/14/dangerous_times_in_georgia_demand_serious_lea dership
That "Old Europe" should take a different view is also hardly surprising. Russia is an increasingly important trading partner and no one wants a return to Cold War politics.
This is about US domestic politics and giving McCain the edge on Obama. The facts of what actually happened are almost irrelevant. It's time I got out of this game....
This is about US domestic politics and giving McCain the edge on Obama.
Everything the US does is about domestic politics. It's just that some of it happens abroad.
So far The New American Century has gotten off to a rocky start. There is something these guys don't seem to understand about Realpolitik. I think it has to do with the Real part.
In the October 14, 2004 NYT Magazine, Ron Suskind wrote of an encounter with an aide of GWB:
"The aide said that guys like me were 'in what we called the reality-based community,' which he defined as people who 'believe that solutions emerge from your judicious study of discernible reality.' I noddwed and murmered something about Enlightenment principles and empiricism. He cut me orr. 'That's not the way the world really works anymore,' he continued. 'We're an empire now, and when we act we create our own reality. And while you're studying that reality--judiciously as you will--we'll act again, creating other new realities, which you can study too, and that's how things will sort out. We're history's actors...and you, all of you, will be left to study what we do.'" (Courtesy of George Lakoff's The Political Mind, p.40.)
For a long time they were right, despite the contemptuous arrogance the aide displayed. From marketing and other consumers of brain science, they were able to run circles around their baffled opponents, i.e. us. What they neglected to note or to remember is that their evil magic only works in the anglo world. It is the most malignant metastasis of "The Anglo Disease."
The Russians could give a fuck about how well their little spells worked on the American and British public. Didn't work on them. The Bush Administration apparently thought that their "new reality creation" techniques were so good that they didn't need to have any available force in order to engage in Realpolitik in Georgia. Putin has shown that they were wrong. We should be glad that so little damage has been done in the process of that revelation. This is not to minimize the suffering of the Georgians, but it could have been and may yet be worse.
The important think is that more people become aware of just what has happened. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
Not only will the U.S. military establishment now re-reverse their thinking back to conventional wars (recently they have tried to move to a capability based on Iraq-style occupation forces), but the entire NATO project will have to be re-thought. For example, will the U.S. really start WW3 if Russia invades Estonia? I suspect not...
That will apply to all who share borders with "The Evil Empire." Neo-con withdrawal from their addiction to cheap posturing in East Europe will be excruciating to watch. Let us pray that they have to go through most of it in exile from "the corridors of power." Much safer that way. "It is not necessary to have hope in order to persevere."
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