b
mostly cheney reads old fifties pornography & his heart charts but their ideologues are barking mad. we are all stingers

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 13 2008 18:33 utc | 4

Heh.
The hilarious thing about all the puff pieces touting how “capable” the Georgian military is, what with all the US and Israeli training and assistance, is that they seem to have performed pretty abysmally in combat against the Russians. So, Georgian military, actually less combat competent than Afghan Mujahideen and Chechen separatists?
Whilst it’s tough to make too many hard and fast judgements based on the fleeting and fragmentary items of news footage, the sight of Georgian troops sitting in the backs of Toyota pick up trucks and the prominence of 70’s/80’s era Soviet kit suggests that their military looks a lot like the hapless new Iraqi army.
Max Boot is hilarious – there was a fun “reality-type” BBC show sometime last year which involved spending a few days on Salisbury plain doing wargames, in which the reporter got to fire a couple of Javelins – I’m pretty sure that the Russians know all about this piece of kit and its capacities ( the MoD grunts in Afghanistan use them against the Taliban as per lots of BBC footage that has been endlessly replayed ).

Posted by: dan | Aug 13 2008 19:13 utc | 6

with iraq collapsing contrarty to imperial mythology, with the taliban an hour out of kabul, with hezbollah’s right of veto, with an incapacity to communicate with iran – you would think the us would want to steer clear of disasters but no, on the contrary – u s imperialism wants to fuck up this world wherever it can

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 13 2008 19:26 utc | 8

Here’s a bit more on the ‘humanitarian mission’ to Georgia from Stars & Stripes. At least they put the blame where it belongs, however weakly.
U.S. begins relief effort in Georgia

Posted by: Ensley | Aug 13 2008 20:01 utc | 10

This clip below of McCain clearly shows that he’s willing to risk getting us into war with Russia just to keep his friends in the military industrial complex fat and happy!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=byn6egvAxkM

Posted by: Cynthia | Aug 13 2008 20:40 utc | 12

that was me

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 13 2008 21:10 utc | 14

I don’t think these guys have learned a whole lot of Russian history. Did they ever hear of Kursk, for example? I rather doubt it. I mean, they were surprised when the Russians crossed the mountains last week!

Posted by: alabama | Aug 13 2008 21:11 utc | 16

alabama
i imagine they think kursk is a russian surfer

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 13 2008 21:16 utc | 18

ensley
really i can’t watch him – he’s so piss-poor at what passes for rhetoric that all is revealed & that is very ugly indeed

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 13 2008 21:18 utc | 20

operation barbarossa was sold to the german people specifically & the west generally as a war in defence of christian civilisation. i think iit is only a paraphrasing of the criminal pope pius. & the citation had pride of place in the office of reinhard heydrich
operation barbarossa was a race war – it is clear that the u s empire sees these people as subhumans – even their ‘allies’ – perhaps especially their ‘allies’
as many books on yeltsin’s russia make clear the plundering of the russsian people was done with the active participation of the u s in every possible way – they did not care one iota for the people’s suffering – indded in a sort of way it became yet another thatcherian model – take care of the elites in the major cities & let the rest starve & fight amongst themselves. it is a model we can see in all europe but especially britain. in fact – this concrete dehumanisation had begun much earlier in american cities of the late 19th century & in a way concretised by the consolidation of all the criminal forces under ‘prohibition’ – when it was finally revoked – the non recognition of the poor effectively became state policy. i wouldnt wish detroit or chicago or atlanta for example on my worst enemy
this model of which saak is a perfect example is a hatred of the people – outlined in cold blood
i am sure that was why i posted the evo morales speech before the u n here last night because he highlights the opposite of this model – of a leader being at the service of his people
i think that service of the people is at the very opposite point to that which the american imperialist project constitutes itself

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 13 2008 21:36 utc | 22

While we’ve been scratching our heads wondering what the hell the Georgians were up to with their insanity perhaps there wasn’t that many Georgians committed to this stupidity.
The neo-cons are passing off the rout of the Georgian forces as the result of a stinger/SAM shortage but their agenda (more of that further on) isn’t the same as a Georgian infantry shit-kickers. As we have seen time and time again in Iraq and Afghanistan, equipment rarely wins the day.
A fighter’s commitment to the job does that. As far as we can tell from the selective subjective reporting we have had on this, apart from the loony special forces types, most of whom were in South Ossettia until a day or so ago committing the rape, murder and ethnic cleansing that such units seem to specialise in now, the ordinary Georgian forces dropped their guns/tanks and any other bulky item which could weigh them down, and ran as fast as they could away from the numerically smaller Russian forces.
The Georgians hearts weren’t in it. Apart from the fact that dividing a community that has co-existed for generations on purely ethnic lines is always fraught cause most ordinary peeps have this tendency to like most other ordinary peeps once they get close enough to em for long enough, the motive for this war wasn’t very compelling.
So the Saakashvili government wants to join the EU and NATO. Those really aren’t the sort of bread and butter issues that get the ordinary 20 year old kids heart pumping. Swapping one bunch of boring old men (the Russians) giving orders for another bunch of old men (english, amerikans since the rest of the Europeans who weren’t keen on the Georgian thing anyhow (maybe anti-Slav racism, maybe antipathy to the already overly large EU getting larger, may be a combination) – whatever the bossfellas motives were, the shit kickers don’t seem to have identified with them.
The Georgian soldiers buggered off quick smart. By the sound of the various vox pops of Georgians most are pretty lukewarm on the whole thing. Of course a few fanatics have been rounded up to spew their poison but Joe average doesn’t appear to maintain that much hatred of Russians now they got their own country. We should remember that Gori the town Russia is meant to have leveled (it hasn’t but why let the facts get in the way of a good story) is the birthplace of Joe Stalin who always made sure Georgia copped a fair share of the pork barrel back in the USSR. That continued after Uncle Joe. The Politburo had many Georgian members. Remember Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze went on to become another crooked Georgian prez. Gori’s main centre still has a statue of Joe dominating it so who knows how complicated the ordinary Georgian’s loyalties are.
So if the average Georgian wasn’t keen on the idea why did the attack happen? Yes Saakashvili wanted to try and unite the population behind him but since blind Freddy could see he was gonna get his ass handed to him that really doesn’t explain how the hell that amerika supported it.
Not just Shrub/Cheney dead men walking, but an impetus right through the amerikan command were committed to this obvious stupidity. The generals, some of whom who haven’t been backwards about coming forwards when shrub has a brain fart on Iran – all seem to have been behind this madness. Why? They must have known it would fail.
Well how about if failure was a better outcome for them than Georgia actually grabbing ahold of South Ossettia?
The old GWOT scam has not been that great for many of amerika’s war-trough guzzlers. Sure the Haliburton crime family picked up some big earners but big chunks of the military have had the bejesus kicked outta their esteem.
Loyal families who have always shown respect for the boss have been living off scraps fallen off the table supports defence budget carve ups.
Even worse GWOT is really small potatoes when it comes to putting troops in the field. So called asymmetrical warfare doesn’t use up quadrillions of taxpayer dough – before you know it that dough could end up being wasted on health or edumacation.
Yeah I know I exaggerate wasting the defense budget on social programs will never happen but hell lets not forget that the arm of amerika’s military that has been practically purposed designed to soak up billions with essentials like $multi thousand toilet seats has been made largely irrelevant by GWOT. The air force. yeah I know transport is still a biggie, but there’s no glory in being a delivery boy. Sure drones have managed to be turned into an ever expanding ‘weapons program’ but a bunch of ‘pilots’ killing peeps from the safety of a Texas bunker reminds too many of their fat assed kids sitting on the xboxes all day.
A return to some version of the good old cold war days must have seemed like a dream come true for that gang.
The usaf has been pretty involved right from the start. Getting Georgian troops outta Iraq and into South Ossettia, once the blue started and sensible third parties should have stayed right out of the mess, the usaf commenced flying ‘supplies’ which they refused to say were humanitarian or military so we can be sure they were military, right into Georgia.
Perhaps shrub’s parting gift to the world he has already wreaked so much havoc upon, is planned to be a re-ignition of Russia – west tension, a new ‘cold war’ where no patriot can question the billions spent on star wars, B1’s or any other gigantic soak for taxes.

Posted by: Debs is dead | Aug 13 2008 22:19 utc | 24

The people of Georgia must be quite dismayed at the prospect of a clash of titans in their neighborhood. I’m sure they’d rather have humanitarian aid delivered by FedEx than by an armored personnel carrier with a McCain bumper sticker.

Posted by: Browning | Aug 13 2008 23:11 utc | 26

I have no idea what the white house leadership was thinking but they may very well have though they could pull this off. Here is my guess;
1) Timing. With Puty and Med in China or on vacation and with the Olympics starting, perhaps they thought Russia would delay for 2-3 days. I’m sure they figured they would react eventually but not so quickly.
2) During that time the Ossetians would flee the combat zone, the tunnel would collapse and Georgia’s army, highly trained by the U.S. and Israel, would dig in, use their anti tank weapons, and hold off the Russian counter attack for a few weeks. Hey, if Hizbullah can do it why not Georgia? And Russia could not bomb Georgian infrastructure like Israel did in Lebanon.
3) Over those weeks the western media machine would bloody the Russians into submission.
4) Mighty Georgia would be spun into David vs Goliath and would be fast tracked into NATO. Had it worked it would have seemed brilliant.
When it all fell apart Saak was hung out to dry and the French were called in to smooth things over.
I don’t find scenarios like buffing up the McCain campaign as plausible, but now that its done, they might as well make the most of it.

Posted by: Lysander | Aug 13 2008 23:28 utc | 28

if it goes through, it’ll be equivalent of Russian attempt to run Cuban blockade. (almost exact equivalent, in fact.) The problem is, GWB is no Nikita Khrushchev….which is sad.

Posted by: kao_hsien_chih | Aug 13 2008 23:39 utc | 30

most modern theatre is excruciatingly bad it is neither educational nor is it an entertainement – least of all an enlightenment but the theatre of modern mass media is such a moral sewer – a profoundly deep moral sewer
& it seems as each year passes it gets worse – i little bit more demeaning, a little bit more depraved
the height of criminality in th modern mass media is to ignore the vast suffering of the people. the way the picture is framed excludes the people or at best manipulates them. while millions of people in iraq were murdered or sent into exile – all we got was a fifth rate narrative of a heroic surge – against all evil – even when they themselves made such a cruel joke of it all – killing all the seond-in-commands that can possibly exist in this or another world. when you destroy the very basic & ancient elements of civilsation & call that bringing civilisation & democracy – as they have done & are doing in iraq. when they create a jurisprudence that couldn’t have existed in the darkest recesses of j edgar hover or of the brother dulles -as in the ‘process’ against saddam hussein – every aspect of that process so defiled, so degraded – that the video lynching was just like the good ol’ days. forming alliances that are based on corruption so pure & simple – even some of its spokespeople cannot wipe the sordid smile off their faces
all this framed – today in relation to the question of georgia – of complete & utter fabrication even when they are exposing the construction of that fabrication before our eyes. invasions that never come, ghost armies on the march, seas being blockaded – their door-to-door salesmen schtick – ‘we cannot confirm’ – yet quite clearly exposing their prejudice – this prejudice bathed in the blood of people
& it doesn’t matter to them. blood from people anywhere. they sell fear. they sell this horror show of a world they have created & like giggling sophomores think they are in on the joke. their pomposity is pornography in its purest sense
& that becomes clear when you hear an evo morales – that the success of capital – of the imperialist enterprise – of the us imperial enterprise – is the way that western civilisation has become more alienated – in a deeper more disturbing way than ever before under capitalism
the 60’s & 70’s were in their way generations of people trying to understand within their bodies – especially those of women – what exactly it was the underpinned george steiner’s question of how could a people that listened to bach then go out the next day & slaughter their species
then while the slaughter of africa,latin america & south east asia continued in the 80’s – the thatcher reagan project was to destroy society, to destroy civil society & in this they have largely succeeded tranforming people into units – where the marginalised do not even exist except to be used as instruments of fear
some nights i wish for an eternal caliphate, or life under the chinese emporers or under life under a russian bureaucrat or to live under a genghis khan or tamerlan because anything cannot be worse than this – this butchershop they sell as the free world. they world they have given us is everything but free & with each hour it gets less free
so they can sell their sordid stories of the demonic russians & the heroic little georgian president but it is only more blood on the tracks

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 13 2008 23:49 utc | 32

IHT
How incoherent can they be? How clueless? How delusional? And now they peddle this story to the press?

Posted by: alabama | Aug 14 2008 0:42 utc | 34

Looks like hapless President Saakashvili is hallucinating again. From the Financial Post nonight.
George W. Bush, US president, asked Russia to co­operate in allowing US aid shipments to Georgia, although the Pentagon denied a claim by Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, that the operation would involve US military control of ports and airfields in Georgia.
and
Vyacheslav Nikonov, a Kremlin-linked political analyst, said Russia would allow in peacekeepers from neutral countries such as Finland, but any troops connected to Nato would be seen as a “military incursion”.
So Estonia is out.
http://tinyurl.com/5gloco
Also,
…no other former Soviet country has responded to Mr Saakashvili’s call to rally behind Georgia and “bid a final goodbye to the Soviet Union” by exiting the CIS…Even Ukraine, Georgia’s staunchest ally in the violent conflict with Russia, said it could not leave the CIS because, having never formalised its membership, it was merely a bystander in the organisation
http://tinyurl.com/6ftrdc
Et tu, Ukrainia!

Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Aug 14 2008 0:46 utc | 36

Fox News has been acting a little weirdly this afternoon (CDT): it’s been running clips with voice-overs that speak of Georgian atrocities (briefly, to be sure).

Posted by: alabama | Aug 14 2008 1:34 utc | 38

Pure Vile Poison
Having watched this I need an antidote.

Posted by: YY | Aug 14 2008 2:12 utc | 40

YY,
What do you expect from the maggots who brought the world the Iraq invasion? Neocon central.

Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Aug 14 2008 2:17 utc | 42

#19 : it’s quite an honor to see Helena Cobban in the house; bartender, the next round’s on me, salud!
. . .
Perhaps shrub’s parting gift to the world … is planned to be a … a new ‘cold war’ …
Debs is dead
McCain is way more dangerous than Bush. Believe it.
Thrasyboulos
hard to believe it possible, but mccain could very well be even more stupid — and “compromised” — than shrub
b real
another round, please…

Posted by: rudolf | Aug 14 2008 2:34 utc | 44

A long list of Saakashvili fever shots, and one by Ivanov.
===================
Georgian president’s Russia claims raise eyebrows
By MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI – 2 hours ago
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) — It was a claim that could have provoked a dangerous Kremlin response: The United States is readying to take over airports and ports in the former Soviet republic of Georgia.
The claim, by U.S.-backed Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili on Wednesday was swiftly shot down by officials in Washington, who denied any such designs on Georgian soil.
Yet, it was the latest in a string of overstated pronouncements by the American-educated Georgian leader that are further fueling tensions with Moscow.
http://tinyurl.com/6rmqc9

Posted by: Thrasyboulos | Aug 14 2008 2:46 utc | 46

The resource wars Mister Bush has going in Afghanistan and Iraq were always intended to be mere stepping stones to the real prize, which was always the oil and gas resources of the Caspian region. It was always ‘Baku or Bust’ for the neocons behind the Project for a New American Century.
The way led through the capitals of every Arab state not already on board with American Exceptionalism.
The original thinking at the time of the Iraq invasion was to keep right on going with the Shock and Awe, and knock over a total of seven Arab countries in five years, carving a swathe of American-friendly regimes from Lebanon right up to Russia’s southern border.
You know — just get out there and make history while other people sit around trying to understand the glories of the Neoconservative Way.
The rewards for this excellent adventure in the Caucasus was to be a double whammy — getting American access and control over all that gas and oil, as well as planting American missiles and firepower right on Russia’s border. Right over the barbed wire fence. For the purposes of self defense, of course. War on terror, and all that.
What’s happening right now is that same push north into Russia’s belly, that same goal, but it’s happening more like a Three Stooges film festival than a stunning act of international intrigue. The neocons are left with taking every grasp at the Caspian Basin that fate proffers them. ‘Tain’t much.
I suspect that what Russia is doing right now is methodically bulldozing Georgian bases, and destroying Georgian military equipment, so that Georgia will not be a military threat to Russia for a good long while.
Look for America’s hasty humanitarians in tiger striped uniforms to be immediately stationed in the ports and airfields and other places where Georgia is stockpiling its remaining firepower and hardware. The Russians wouldn’t dare come near Genuine Americans.
Would they . . . ?
Jeezus! Can you just imagine three thousand GI’s arrested and deported to the nearest NATO member state?
Look next for some juicy gifts and low-interest loans from America’s Democratic Congress unto Georgia to replenish their military machine by means of no-bid contracts awarded to America’s big war suppliers. Boeing, Northrupp, SAIC, and so on.
Halliburton will come in to do the laundry for $250 per bag, no doubt.
Again, the true purpose of neocons stirring up global unrest is to keep America on a permanent war footing. That’s where the money is, fellas.
It sure as hell ain’t in real estate.

Posted by: Antifa | Aug 14 2008 4:44 utc | 48

(from a friend’s RSS feed in the movie biz)
Rolling Thunder
Videos in Production Notes
August 12th, 2008
Well, the notes on the new McCain screenplay came in this week, working title “Rolling Thunder”, although I think
Air Force operations in Viet Nam had more mundane names like “Water Pump”, these days you have to sex everything up.
I’m happy to say that the shooting schedule is being set, with Chuck Norris rumored as the young McCain, although
they may have to green-screen everything, with Norris’ own production schedule, and rely on the B-unit for location.
(And no one’s said a thing about McCain’s famous swearing, the violence or the now-infamous Goat-Fucking Scene.)
In real terms, this will be a locked script, with no rushes or trailers before it’s shown at the Republican convention.
The video will transition almost immediately from young McCain in dress whites after he was repatriated, to the current
John and Cindy Road Show visuals. The video soundtrack will apparently revolve around an updated “Have Gun Will Travel”.
Sorry, it’s not an indie where terrorists explode as they get whipped, hair set on fire, and Cindy has no clothes on.
For that we’ll have to wait until after McCain gets elected, and hope Saturday Night Live goes over the top with it.

Posted by: Thad Obert | Aug 14 2008 7:08 utc | 50

so that Georgia will not be a military threat to Russia for a good long while

you can’t be serious, this is one of the most pathetic statements I have read in a long time…when was Georgia ever a military threat to Russia? With a standing army of some 28,000 against 1,000,000??? wtf??
The Russians are going in purely to assert their sphere of influence, they couldn’t give a toss about Ossetians or anybody else. Just have a look how they with a hostage situation (Beslan, Moscow theater, numerous buses), ffs, they pump chemicals into the ventilation system, sure they killed the terrorists…along with 129 hostages!! Look at what they are doing in Chechnya (also check out what they did in the 1940s). Life has always been cheap there. Look what they do to journalists who dare to question the government. They’re loaded with petrodollars because the stupid fkng west can’t develop new energy sources, and they want to reassert themselves.
If some of you think that the US is an empire then you need to brush up on your Soviet/Russian history and the untold millions that died.
I thought the morons at rantburg when were bad, it’s the polar opposite here.

Posted by: Igster | Aug 14 2008 7:26 utc | 52

Robert Scheer: Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.
Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century.
…

Posted by: b | Aug 14 2008 8:33 utc | 54

whatever b boy,why don’t you add up the number killed under tsarist russia and then the sovites, the numbers will be alot higher than yours
btw I never said the US wasn’t striving to be an empire

Posted by: Igster | Aug 14 2008 12:19 utc | 56

if it wasn’t for the russians yr pretty white ass would be under a thousand year reich. they were the only guarantors of safety against fascism

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 14 2008 14:32 utc | 58

@ Phoenix Woman
I watch Russia Today on satellite and it is really quite amusing to watch their PR offensive. They spin and play on simple emotions just as well as Fox or CNN or any other western media outlet for that matter. One thing that is curious, for me anyway, is that both Russia and the West claim Tshinvali has been “flattened” with Russia accusing Georgia and Georgia accusing Russia of doing it. Fact is, I have seen one building that has been pretty much demolished and one room that is burned out with broken china on the floor. We saw some pretty thorough destruction in Beirut during the Israel bombardment but nothing here in South Ossetia. wassup with that? Surely there must be more to see. anybody got links?

Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 14 2008 15:23 utc | 60

dan of steele
at least when i watch a russiatoday or iran’s press tv i don’t feel dirty. i’d watch hezbollah’s al amar but it banned in france
if i have to look at that prettyboy pug anderson cooper “keepin’ ’em honest’, i’d puke

Posted by: remembereringgiap | Aug 14 2008 16:28 utc | 62

at least when i watch a russiatoday or iran’s press tv i don’t feel dirty
agree wholeheartedly my friend, just saying that the Russians are quite capable of using the same tricks as US/UK and pretty much everybody else in Europe. It would truly be wonderful to find a serious unbiased news source but it aint gonna happen.
looking around for images of the destruction I find very little, there was much to do about the statue of Stalin being destroyed in Gori but this youtube from August 13 and filmed by CNN shows old Joe in pretty good shape. In fact people are walking around as if it is a normal work day. This is starting to seem a lot like the war in Albania as depicted in the film “Wag the dog”
curious.

Posted by: dan of steele | Aug 14 2008 20:30 utc | 64

And hottin’ things up:
Posted 9 minutes ago on NYT (it’s now 15:22 CET)
Bush, Decrying ‘Bullying,’ Calls for Russia to Leave Georgia

MOSCOW — Condemning as unacceptable what he called Russia’s “bullying and intimidation,” President Bush on Friday said Russia must withdraw its troops from all of Georgian territory and said the United States would stand with Georgia in the conflict.
“Georgia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity must be respected,” he said.
Tensions have risen sharply in the last 24 hours, as the Russian president and foreign minister made it clear they would support separatist efforts by two breakaway Georgian territories and as the specter of a resurgent Russia helped persuade Poland to agree to a long-stalled deal on an American missile defense system.
Mr. Bush spoke as Ms. Rice arrived in the Georgian capital on Friday to hold talks with Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and as Chancellor Angela Merkel met with the Russian president, Dmitri A. Medvedev.
Praising the small nation as a “courageous democracy” that has provided troops to support the American-led wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Mr. Bush said, “The people of Georgia have cost their lot with the free world, and we will not cast them aside.”
In some of his strongest language yet on the war that flared up a week ago, Mr. Bush said in a brief statement at the White House, “Moscow must honor its commitment to withdraw its forces from all Georgian territory.” …
…
“My view [SecDef Gates] is that the Russians — and I would say principally Prime Minister Putin — is interested in reasserting Russia’s, not only Russia’s great power or superpower status, but in reasserting Russia’s traditional spheres of influence,” he said. “My guess is that everyone is going to be looking at Russia through a different set of lenses as we look ahead.”
Mr. Gates’s remarks, while critical of Mr. Putin, also included an implicit rebuke of any effort to base American policy solely on a perceived friendship within the Kremlin. At the Pentagon, Mr. Gates was asked whether he trusted Mr. Putin anymore, and he paused before responding.
“‘Anymore’ is an interesting add,” he said. “I have never believed that one should make national security policy on the basis of trust. I think you make national security policy based on interests and on realities.” (end of article)

Not one mention of the Georgian assault on S. O. last week.

Posted by: Hamburger | Aug 15 2008 13:39 utc | 66