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REGIME CHANGE IN GEORGIA (SOUND FAMILIAR?)
Here's the much ballyhooed (by me at least) rant, which I've decided to present in an unvarnished First Draft style format as an hommage to Athenae, Scout and Jude. Be scared:
I'm, of course, NOT talking about the Peach State, birthplace of Johnny Mercer and home to Soph Mom but Josef Stalin's Georgia, which is under attack by Russian arms as I type this. The Lame Duck In Chief's initial reaction was to dawdle and lollygag since he was on vacation watchin' the swimmin' with his Dad and the openin' cermonies with his pal, Vlad Putin in Beijing. President Beavis hates having his August holiday interrupted by a pesky crisis. Sound familiar?
After putzing around, the response of the Bush administration and its elderly heir has been typical: saber rattling. Of course, the scabbard is empty and the emperor is buck nekkid having squandered blood and treasure in the Mesopotamian folly and its adjunct, the dubious and nebulous "war on terror." How the hell do you fight an emotion, anyway? Oh, that's right by scaring the beejesus out of everyone. Sound familiar?
The neo-cons are back; licking their chops and drooling over the prospect of reviving the Cold War. It was good for the Republican Party back in the day, wasn't it? That means it's good for America. Senator Walnuts preened and postured yesterday; confirming that his approach is an extension of the bellicose Bush approach, which has been a bigger flop than Howard The Duck. The war drums are beating but there's no one to fight because our forces are spread thinner than an anoxeric's waistline. Also, the Bushies and their neo-con allies whipped the Georgians into a frenzy and at the very least winked at their moving into the disputed area of South Ossetia. This rash move by the Georgians gave Tovarich Putin an excuse for going to war with the goal of regime change. Sound familiar?
I was watching MSNBC last night and some nimrod from the WaPo whose name eludes me actually expressed surprise that Putin was still in charge instead of the stiff he installed as his successor as President. Putin is a Stalinist in better clothes paid for with oil money. Neither Stalin nor Mao (called Mousey Tongue by George Wallace) were chiefs of state but they *were* strongmen. And here in what Borat and I like to call the US and A, we have Dick Cheney as our strongman until January 20, 2009. Cheney is, as always, beating his chest and peeing on everything in sight to warn the Russkies to back down. (A mixed animal metaphor but a decent one.) I don't think Tovarich Putin gives a shit what you think, Dick. He knows what a crappy shot you are, after all...
It's a huge mess and there are no easy answers but the McCainiacs and the neo-cons will tell us that we must "act" to pull Georgia's chesnuts out of this partially self created fire. After all, McCain's top foreign policy aide Randy Scheunemann, was a lobbyist for the government of Georgia until recently. Sound familar? Hey, unlike his boss, at least Scheunemann knows how to use the internets; especially Wikipedia.
The nutty reaction to this crisis is the best reason yet that I've seen for regime change in the United States. Do we really want trigger happy creeps like McCain and his buddy Holy Joe Lieberman to continue the "shoot first and ask questions later" foreign policy of the Beavis-Duce administration. If we do it's going to be a long bloody 4 years. Sound familiar?
Remember, those Russkies love chess. I used to work in foreign policy, and
Vlad is pulling a classic. He knows we're all pussies and won't do anything
because it will escalate to a world war. He also has precedent now - GW
barged into Iraq without permission, so why can't he barge into Georgia?
Also, his setup is perfect. Georgia is looking to us to help them because
they had troops in Iraq, but now we have to cut them loose because if we
engage then we're at war with Russia.
Now you've insulted Howard the Duck. Seriously, I made jokes on Twitter
Friday, but there's nothing funny about this. I wonder what Dubya is seeing
in Putin's soul these days. :/
I think you're right on the Russkies W set them up perfectly to get away
with this. I'm more skeptical that the neo-cons who matter are all that
chastened.
I read an interesting bit by Robert Baer of Time, who's of the opinion that
the US Gov has been deluding itself about the degree of independence of the
southern "breakoff" republics in the first place.