[US Mens Oly 100 m freestyle relay gold medal winners, not the team Al Campanis would have bet on]
[President Bush, at his press conference addressing the Georgian invasion]
As the US continues to rack up medals like it’s a superpower again, all the human rights talk about China has turned President Bush into an out-and-out peacenik. First he criticized the Chinese on human rights. Now he’s going after the Russians. Can anyone deny the power of these games? There are those who say it’s utter bullshit the height of irony for Bush to criticize Russia’s invasion of Georgia during the Iraq War. But the situations are completely different. In Russia’s case, they invaded a much smaller country that posed no military threat to them, under dubious circumstances, with lots of talk of liberating the locals who happen to hate the invaders. They have also hugely hurt their standing in the world. As for America’s invasion of Iraq “ we’re a democracy. With irony therefore not an issue, Bush addressed the women’s volleyball team with the following:
“Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century,” the president said in a televised statement from the White House, calling on Moscow to sign on to the outlines of a cease-fire as the Georgian government has done.
“The Russian government must reverse the course it appears to be on and accept this peace agreement as a first step toward solving this conflict,” Bush said, adding that he is deeply concerned that Russia, which Georgian officials say has effectively split their country in two, might bomb the civilian airport in the capital of Tbilisi.
He said Russia’s escalation of the conflict had “raised serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region” and had “substantially damaged Russia’s standing in the world.” “These actions jeopardize Russia’s relations with the United States and Europe,” Bush said. “It’s time for Russia to be true to its word to act to end this crisis.”
A senior U.S. official said the United States and its allies suspected Russia had been planning an invasion for some time and deliberately instigated the conflict through attacks on Georgian villages by pro-Russian forces in South Ossetia despite outwardly appealing for calm and promising to rein in the separatists.
You forgot about the wholesale killing of the population they’re supposedly interested in ‘liberating.’ The military came up with a really inoffensive name for that: collateral damage. Makes it sound less like genocide.
It’s not a minor error to paint the Russians as having initiated the hostilities. On Aug 7, the Georgians hit South Ossetia in force, a little less than one month after Russian studies PhD / keyboardist Condoleeza Rice left their country observing Georgian war games. I don’t have a dog in that hunt (except the general wish to not see another 1917 or 1938) but Putin did not hit first, that much is certain. There are around 100 US Marines in Tblisi, and they have reported this. Their bosses and the rest of the world apparently aren’t interested in that account. Georgia fucked up big-time, and if it happened to be while thinking the US had its back, it wouldn’t be the first time Teddy Roosevelt’s big stick ended up somebody’s ass.
I think I’m going to head over to the Economist.com now and post a comment on the decline of Daniel Negreanu’s cash game, just to spread the wildly-inappropriate around a little bit.
That sounds very similar to the “Saddam gassed his own people” rationale that Pres. Bitch and Cock Cheney used to invade Iraq. Not the same, but similar. The Russians saw an avenue and took advantage. It’s no mistake that Georgia has a very important pipeline in its backyard. Hmm, sound familiar?
Russia has lots of problems living next door to people it had its boot on for 80 years, and vice versa. This has been escalating for a while, and Russia’s reaction is as stupid as our thinking there was ever a military solution to keeping the peace in Iraq (if Bush actually planned for anything over there). It’s reacting to Georgia’s hopes to join NATO like we did when Cuba went communist on our doorstep. The two countries have been at each other’s throats for over a year now, and the escalation to this point is what’s pathetic. Russia’s invasion and destruction of their economy pre-NATO looks like a totally emotional, living in their Soviet past use of of force. Does anyone think Georgia had the military power to challenge Russia?
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/6934354.stm
Ben
To be fair, Rob, while the Georgians did way over-retaliate in Ossetia, they had indeed been having missiles lobbed at them from that territory for some time. And Russia certainly, certainly was stirring the pot over there in a big way for even longer. Georgia fucked up, yes, but Russia is fucked up. Perhaps even more fucked up is Bush’s tuff talk ™ on the subject — he’s spent his whole presidency proving just how poorly and ineffectively American soft and hard power can be used, and the dude still uses the word “must?” The picture with Misty May-Treanor and Carrie Walsh is bad enough, but reading that, again, I cannot believe this guy is president.
Also scary: John McCain talking about how Georgia should be inducted into NATO right motherfucking now, which would essentially put the U.S. (through NATO) at war with Russia. It’s scary if he means it, because dude basically wants to take a stretched-beyond-Met-bullpen-standards military into a shooting war with Russia. It’s scarier — and incredibly, appallingly cynical even by the standards of Straussian neocon ridiculousness — if he’s bluffing. Isn’t there supposed to be some sort of internationally recognized truce during the Olympics, anyway? I’m trying to watch some diving, and that a-hole Putin has to ruin that, too.
Gee, I was just talking about swimming and it got all poltical … The rule should be that world leaders should just stay away from the games, and not gall us with their presence when human beings come together in a great way. The games are supposed to rise above “world leadership,” and perhaps help repair it.
Fuck the cunt Russia.