Russian Jets Pound Targets in Georgia

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...

The violence in the region is escalating...

Russian jets have carried out strikes on military targets in the central Georgian town of Gori, close to the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Most of the targets seem to have been military bases, but Georgian officials said a number of civilians had been killed in residential buildings.

Russia said it had "liberated" the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

Earlier, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said his country was seeking "to force the Georgian side to peace".

The comments came after Russian commanders announced they were sending more troops into South Ossetia to support peacekeeping operations.

The Russian defence ministry confirmed two of its jets had been shot down over Georgia, although it did not say where.

In a live televised address, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said he would ask parliament to approve the introduction of martial law.

After days of exchanging heavy fire with the Russian-backed separatists, Georgian forces launched a surprise attack on Thursday night to regain control of the region, which has had de facto independence since a war in 1992.

Georgian troops in the city of Gori (NY Times)

A small contingent of US troops is in Georgia, and since Russian forces are attacking Georgian military installations, it is not known if they are in imminent danger:

About 130 U.S. military and civilian personnel are currently located in Georgia, where they are training Georgian troops for deployment to Iraq as part of the multinational force there. U.S. military officials in Baghdad said they had gotten no official word about statements from Tblisi that half of Georgia's 2,000-troop contingent was being called home.

It isn't something that is front and center in the reporting, since attacks on civilians are the real story here. But when you start to think about why the sides are fighting, it really does come down to energy revenues:

The BBC's Richard Galpin in Gori heard loud explosions and saw large plumes of smoke rising into the sky; soldiers and civilians were seen running through the streets.

One missile hit a military base, from which most of the soldiers appeared to have managed to escape beforehand, he says.

The Georgian military said residential buildings had also been struck, leaving a number of civilians dead. Our correspondent says injured civilians were being pulled from the buildings, which were on fire.

The Georgian foreign ministry said the Black Sea port of Poti, which is the site of a major oil shipment facility, had also been "devastated" by a Russian aerial bombardment.

Georgian troops riding to the front (NY Times)

The US and the United Nations seem ineffectual, unable to get past the Russian veto on the Security Council:

International Red Cross (ICRC) spokeswoman Anna Nelson said the ICRC had received reports that hospitals in the city were "overflowing" with casualties.

The BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow says diplomatic initiatives to end the fighting have so far proved fruitless.

On Friday evening, the UN Security Council failed to agree on the wording of a statement calling for a ceasefire.

Russia holds a permanent place on the Council, and has the power of veto over any official statements that it regards as unfair or inaccurate.

Permanent members Britain, the US and France, are pinpointing what they say is Russia's aggression as the key factor in the slide towards war, while Moscow insists Georgia is to blame.

In other developments:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Russia to pull its troops out of Georgia and respect its territorial integrity
Georgia's president said his country was withdrawing its contingent of 2,000 troops from Iraq to help deal with the crisis
The European security organisation, the OSCE, warned that the fighting in South Ossetia could escalate into a full-scale war
The US and the EU were reported to be sending a joint delegation to the region to seek a ceasefire and Nato said it was seriously concerned.

She needs to go to Moscow and/or the region immediately. Not some envoy, not some flunky--she's the expert on Russia, and her area of expertise has so far proven to be an area of foreign policy in which she's about as effective as everywhere else she tries her hand--and that's not very damned much.

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Russia "declares war" on Georgia

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...

Russian Jets Attack Georgia. 'They Have Declared War On Us,' Georgian Official Says

WASHINGTON, August 8 -

Russian jets bombed the Vaziani military airbase outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Friday, a senior Georgian security official told Reuters. "No one was wounded but some buildings have been destroyed," said Kakha Lamaia. The airbase is some 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Tbilisi. "They have declared war against us," said Lamaia.

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Russian Troops Are On the March

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...
UPDATE I / WS

Screenshots from video, courtesy of the BBC:

These would appear to be Russia's main battle tanks, the T-90s:



Russian self-propelled artillery guns (the 2s3 152mm?):



Russian troops in BMP armored personnel carriers:




The Associated Press is reporting that:

Russian television says Russian troops are moving into South Ossetia.

And the region is in turmoil.

Russian authorities said several of its peacekeepers died in a Georgian attack in South Ossetia, which borders Russia and has strong ties to its vast northern neighbor, and they vowed not to leave Russian citizens in the territory unprotected.



"The Georgian leadership has launched a dirty adventure," a statement from Russia's Defense Ministry said on Friday. "We will not leave our peacekeepers and Russian citizens unprotected."

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Georgia started the fighting and warned that Russia would respond to their actions.

"Heavy weapons and artillery have been sent there, and tanks have been added. Deaths and injuries have been reported, including among Russian peacekeepers," Putin said in comments carried Friday by Russia's Interfax news agency.

"It's all very sad and alarming. And, of course, there will be a response."

Earlier Friday, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said in a televised statement that Russian aircraft bombed several Georgian villages and other civilian facilities.

We will watch what happens through the day and the weekend--this could end up being the biggest story of the month, Olympics notwithstanding.


Americans shouldn't worry--Secretary of State Rice was just there last month and straightened everything out:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has arrived in Georgia amid an escalating row between Russia, Georgia and the United States.

Russia accused Georgia of bringing the South Caucasus to the brink of armed conflict - comments which both Ms Rice and Nato condemned as "unhelpful".

See? She said it was "unhelpful." And that took care of the problem.

On August 2nd, Secretary Rice appeared at the Aspen Music Festival. I'm glad she has had the opportunity to take time out of her busy schedule and attend to important things.

Here's yesterday's full mention of the issue in South Ossetia from the US State Department during its daily press briefing:

QUESTION: Gonzo, do you have anything about Ossetia?

MR. [Gonzalo R.] GALLEGOS: South Ossetia?

QUESTION: Yes.

MR. GALLEGOS: I think so.

QUESTION: President Saakashvili -- you know, there were some victims, some fighting last night. And President Saakashvili said that the – he’s – he called several world leaders asking them for their help in maintaining peace. I wanted to know if he called Secretary Rice.

MR. GALLEGOS: Well, we’re – I don’t believe – I don’t have any further information. I don’t have it that he spoke to Secretary Rice. But we’re in close contact with senior Russian and Georgian officials. We’re urging Moscow to press South Ossetia’s de facto leaders to stop firing. We’re urging Tbilisi to maintain restraint. We’re very concerned about the situation. We call for an immediate end to the violence and for direct talks between the parties.

QUESTION: Do you think the South Ossetian people started the fighting, or who do you think is responsible?

MR. GALLEGOS: We think it’s important that both sides stop firing, that they sit down and they discuss this in a peaceful manner.

As you can see, "Gonzo" is on top of it. Your State Department at work, as fighting breaks out in a region where the warning signs were fairly evident earlier this year.

Russian military heavy equipment rolling into the region:

Update/Noon Central/BG

This situation is developing fast and the United States is in danger of getting sucked into it. Over at the most excellent and essential Newshoggers, I learned that the Georgians are recalling all forces in their control, including the combat brigade that is currently serving in Iraq as part of the Coalition forces.

They are asking for rapid response assistance and could ask the U.S. to airlift the brigade back to Georgia in USAF C-17s through the Tallil Airbase. That would put the U.S. on a hostile footing with yet another oil-producing nation - and this one has military prowess and battle-hardened troops, that make up a force that hasn't been decimated in the desert.

The Duck of Minerva has more.

Priorities:

The BBC, Fox News, and CBS news - three screenshots:







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Russia Tests Military Capabilities in the Arctic

We like to keep tabs on what the Russian military does--almost as much as we like squirrels and punk rock. This falls into two categories--harmless posturing or signs that Russia is trying to reassert itself militarily.

Russia's navy conducted test flights near the North Pole on Thursday, boosting its military presence in an area believed to contain vast quantities of oil and natural gas.

Cpl. Vladimir Serga, a naval spokesman, said that Il-38 anti-submarine bombers and Tu-142 long-range strategic bombers of the Northern Fleet took part in the exercise, in which the planes' crews tested radio and weapons systems management equipment.

Serga described the exercise as successful.

The flights come two days after a Russian missile cruiser began patrols in the Arctic.

Russia's military glory days are probably behind it--but what is true is that the aging, irrelevant military of ANY country is probably a dangerous thing. Not enough attention is being paid by what is really the intent or goal of Russian military posturing. Widespread conflict? Highly unlikely. Limited displays of power that intimidate smaller trading partners? More likely. Overall, I would say that the goal is to strike a stronger bargaining position when it comes to negotiating trade deals and energy deals. Russia has to back up any and all threats to its economy--which is roughly the same size as that of France and hovers around 2.7 trillion in GDP--with the threat of limited force. Russia is dwarfed by the combined economies of Europe and has to assert itself any way that it can. In many ways, all it can do is behave like a slightly dangerous version of a mob hit man who still has the ability to take a few people out. No one really thinks he will, but no one wants to find out whether he is crazy enough to try it.

The Bush Administration, of course, remains disengaged and distracted.

--WS

Russia and China thwart the International Community

The inherent weakness and ineffectiveness of Condoleezza Rice as a diplomat has all but guaranteed a rise in the obstructive tendencies of China and Russia. It's obviously not entirely her fault that both countries have decided to thwart the international community with regards to sanctioning Zimbabwe--but it is also true that there is absolutely no way the Russians and Chinese can be persuaded by anything she says or does. Because of that the US has had, in effect, a lame duck foreign policy for years.

Russia on Saturday attacked remarks by U.S. and British officials who criticized Moscow's veto on proposed U.N. sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The Russian Foreign Ministry in a statement Saturday said it was "impermissible" that the criticism called into doubt Russia's worthiness as a Group of Eight partner.

The United States accused Russia and China of standing with Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe against his own people, after the two permanent members of the U.N. Security Council vetoed proposed sanctions against Zimbabwe.

The resolution would have imposed an arms embargo on Zimbabwe, an international travel ban and a freeze on the personal assets of Mugabe and 13 other officials.

It also called for the appointment of a U.N. special envoy for Zimbabwe.

The U.S., along with Britain and France, supported the resolution, arguing that sanctions were needed to respond to the violence and intimidation that opposition leaders and international observers said Mugabe and his supporters used to steal the recent presidential election.

Russia, however, claimed the sanctions would have taken the U.N. beyond its mandate, while China argued Zimbabwe should be allowed to resolve its political crisis on its own.

You don't threaten to throw Russia out of the G8--you either do it or you don't do it. And who realistically thinks that would happen anyway? Russia has Europe over a barrel when it comes to energy supplies anyway.

The fact that the UN can't stop arms from going to Zimbabwe effectively ends the possibility that anything will be done any time soon. And the ineffectiveness of the UN body plays into the hands of the people who think Rice is a capable diplomat because it confirms their bias against the organization.

--WS

Why The Litvinenko Case Still Matters

I don't know whether it is because of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, or our own lawlessness here at home, but the transformation of Russia into a virtually lawless state has escaped real notice in America. Do people realize that there simply is no justice system in Russia? That the Russian government simply kills people who criticize it? Relations between Russia and Great Britain are still strained because of the case of Alexander Litvinenko, who was poisoned with polonium and died in November, 2006.

But going public with an accusation like this (and another one that the Russians scouted out another London-based critic, Boris Berezovsky) is another matter and it will raise the diplomatic temperature.

Whether the comments were timed deliberately or whether they just came out in the course of a conversation with the BBC journalist is not clear. Sometimes, these revelations are not the result of a careful decision but just emerge and have all kinds of unexpected repercussions.

It is a reminder that all is certainly not well in the relationship between Russia and Britain and, beyond that, between Russia and the West in general.

It will dash any hopes that the meeting at the G8 in Japan between the two prime ministers, Gordon Brown and Dmitry Medvedev, might have started a new chapter.

The talks were in any case, according to a Russian official, "sharp" at times as Mr Brown raised the various issues clouding the relationship - the outstanding extradition request, the restrictions on the British Council and the Russian manoeuvres against BP [British Petroleum].

Did President Bush raise any substantive questions with Medvedev when they met with one another? Or did they have other things to talk about? Or is he operating under the assumption that Putin is still running Russia?

I think that's the safest assumption of all.

The Tunguska Blast

A hundred years ago this week, a mysterious explosion in Siberia devastated the region. To date, no one knows why. It's enough to make you think...

The first expedition to try to find the "Tunguska meteorite" did not take place until the late 1920s when a crater was drained resulting in the discovery of nothing more cosmic than an old tree stump. After World War II, searches resumed, but again proved fruitless.

And even though the effects of the blast wave that destroyed 80 million trees are still visible today, "meteoreticians," as some theorists are know, have found no point of impact to support their claim,

"Up to this day, not a single fragment of the Tunguska phenomenon, no cosmic substance has been found. That's the main reason why there isn't any even fundamental understanding (of the phenomenon) yet," said Boris Mushailov, a professor at the Sternberg Astronomical Institute in Moscow.

Mushailov was one of the organizers of an international conference last week at the Russian Academy of Sciences, devoted to the Tunguska Event.

He said he leans toward a "comet theory," explaining that an object could have entered Earth's atmosphere and burst into pieces up to 10 kilometers above the Tunguska river -- causing the giant explosion -- but scattering the object into smaller debris most of which burnt up.

So-called "alternativists," however, reject the meteor and comet theories, because of the lack of a major crater or fragments.

Their search for more unlikely explanations has led to the site becoming a Mecca for UFO enthusiasts, spawning a Tunguska meteorite museum and scores of photographs of what are claimed to be parts of extra terrestrial craft discovered in the area.

As the debate rages on, many scientists say the Tunguska event could be a harbinger of a genuine scientific phenomenon that could spell disaster for life on Earth.

Kind of like that Global Warming thing? How about we dedicate some resources to three things--alternative energy, studying Global Warming, and preparing ourselves for the possibility of another Tunguska.

--WS

Meet the new boss...beholden to the old boss...

Russia has a Putin puppet new president today, sort of. Dimitri Medvedev, Vladimir Putin's hand-picked successor, was sworn in a few hours ago in an elaborate and opulent Kremlin ceremony. Putin stood at his shoulder as he took his oath and after the ceremony, they walked out of the Kremlin Palace together to survey the grounds and review the presidential guard.

The Parliament is expected to confirm Mr. Putin as Prime Minister tomorrow, and on Friday the ceremonies will conclude with a Soviet-style military parade in Red Square - bombers will buzz overhead, low and loud and tanks will rumble through, just like the old days.

Russia is emerging as a superpower, no matter what the chucklehead who was chattering on NPR this morning as I was stirring from sleep says. I actually woke up to some jackass from Panorama blathering on about Russia and saying that yes, they have natural resources and hydrocarbons, but really, they are just a third-world country..."Russia's main priority is to stop pretending it's a great power, which it isn't. Russia may have natural resources and a lot of potential, but it's a Third World country," were his exact words.

I have never seen combat, but I woke up screaming.

Let's go over the three prerequisites to be considered a superpower:

Nuclear weapons. Check. Russia has something like ten thousand of them with the capacity to reach anywhere on the globe and they have tested a new MRV and missile in the last year.

Economic clout. Check. Russia has that in spades, and they aren't mortgaged to China for the next three generations.

A Blue-Water Navy. Check. Russia has carriers and subs and a large, seagoing fleet.

Any country that possessed those three elements has the ability to project power around the world. And saying words that indicate otherwise does not change that reality. Russia has all three and China is poised on the edge.

Like it or not, we are not the only game in town any more, and we are not really in a position to get too damned chirpy with either Russia or China right now.

And there is yet another reason why we sure as hell can't have McCain at the helm in this country.

If we are going to avoid another cold war, we have to have a president who looks ahead to the future, not back to an adversarial past.

War Between Georgia and Russia?

[link is now fixed--thanks to jerry]

If we had a functioning State Department, I'm not sure what they could do. Perhaps if we had someone in place who made her reputation as an expert on all things Soviet and/or Russian who could navigate the issues and approach the concerned parties as a real mediator...oh, but what am I saying? There's no way we'd ever find someone qualified, right?

Georgia is "very close" to a war with Russia, a Georgian minister said on Tuesday, citing Moscow's decision to send extra troops to the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.

"We literally have to avert war," Georgian State Minister for Issues of Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili told a news briefing during a trip to Brussels.

Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians very well.

"We know what the signals are when you see propaganda waged against Georgia. We see Russian troops entering our territories on the basis of false information," he said.

Russia has said the troop build-up is needed to counter what it says are Georgian plans for an attack on breakaway Abkhazia and has accused Tbilisi of trying to suck the West into a war -- both of which are allegations that ex-Soviet Georgia rejects.

An extra Russian contingent began arriving in Abkhazia last week. Moscow has not said how many would be added but said the total would remain within the 3,000 limit allowed under a United Nations-brokered ceasefire agreement signed in 1994. Diplomats expect the reinforcement to be of the order of 1,200.

Georgia, a vital energy transit route in the Caucasus, has angered Russia by seeking membership of NATO.

Certain areas of what used to be the Soviet Union were absorbed into that entity to give the Russians breathing space. After invasion after invasion, the Russians decided that these areas on their borders were best held and kept out of the hands of any possible enemy. They're funny about their history--they don't like to see it repeated.

Georgia doesn't need to be in NATO. It should either find a way to accomodate Russia or find a way to be a neutral trader with as many countries as possible. And, unfortunately, "accomodating" the Russians these days doesn't lead to a whole lot of freedom, but we lost an opportunity to bring Russia into the family of nations because we didn't do enough to help them during their economic transformation. Had we spent the money to do so, these regional tensions might be a thing of the past.

Offering "specifics" about unsunbstantiated allegations doesn't make them facts

Americans would do well to keep that in mind as they absorb all of the rhetoric coming off this administration and their enablers in the press. Remember that the New York Times is complicit in the Iraq clusterfuck because Judith Iscariot sold the invasion on their pages.

So are they at it again, this time with Michael Gordon cheerleading for war?

BAGHDAD — Militants from the Lebanese group Hezbollah have been training Iraqi militia fighters at a camp near Tehran, according to American interrogation reports that the United States has supplied to the Iraqi government.

An American official said the account of Hezbollah’s role was provided by four Shiite militia members who were captured in Iraq late last year and questioned separately.

The United States has long charged that the Iranians were training Iraqi militia fighters in Iran, which Iran has consistently denied, and there have been previous reports about Hezbollah operatives in Iraq.

But the Americans say the reports of Hezbollah’s role at the Iranian camp offer important details about Iranian assistance to the militias, including efforts Iran appears to be making to train the fighters in unobtrusive ways.

Maybe Hezbollah is involved, and maybe Iraqi militants are being trained in Iranian camps. But no one is putting their name to it, and so far it is all just unsubstantiated allegations, so Americans would probably be well served by skepticism where these warmongering, soulless neocon fucks are concerned. Especially when Michael Gordon has the byline. He is every bit as bad as Miller, and the war he is trying to whip up support for would probably involve nukes.

They are not offering specifics, they are offering platitudes and dire warnings and unsubstantiated charges. And they have proven themselves untrustworthy.

They need to be offering solid, independently verified proof of the allegations they level. War is serious business. It isn't romantic and it isn't glorious and we have plenty on our plate right now as it is, because we bought the lies and went to war in Iraq because a bunch of people who never fought one or even completed their time in the Boy Scouts have some fucked up ideas about something they know fuck-all about.

We do not need a war with Iran. Especially since that conflict would undoubtedly involve Russia getting in on the fun and games. And they have as much hardware and manpower as we do, and they aren't bogged down in two wars in the Muslim world.

There is your god-damned nightmare scenario: the US bogged down in Iraq, our forces drawn down in the European theater, and our equipment and manpower both depleted from seven years of war in rugged conditions.

I am starting to wonder if we are going to make it to January.

Would McCain reprise the Cold War?

That is a justified fear when he makes pronouncements like he would like to kick Russia out of the G-8. It didn't get much notice when he made his sweeping foreign policy speech in March - perhaps because of the media mancrush that we have been diligently documenting - but this is definitely worth examination. Not because he could actually do it - the United States is only one of eight member nations, as the name indicates, and the other seven would not go for it - but because such a position would further alienate the few allies we have left.

The Group of Eight, or G-8, as it's popularly known, makes decisions by consensus, so no single nation can kick out another. Most experts say the six other countries — Great Britain, France, Italy, Germany, Japan and Canada — would never agree to toss Russia, given their close economic ties to their neighbor. A senior U.S. official who deals with Russia policy said that even Moscow would have to approve of its own ouster, given how the G-8 works.

"It's not even a theoretical discussion. It's an impossible discussion," said the senior official, who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly. "It's just a dumb thing."

Aside from that, many wonder whether McCain's suggestion would be wise policy. They fear that if McCain is elected and follows through on an attempt to toss Russia from the group, it could anger and isolate Russia, which has been increasingly assertive on the world stage, autocratic within its borders and is the second-largest producer of the hydrocarbons that feed the world's energy needs.

"In Europe, there's very little support ... for a policy like that," said Stephen Larrabee, an expert on Europe and Russia at the RAND think tank. "It's too late in the game to try and oust Russia."

The proposal also seemed at odds with the theme of McCain's speech, which promised a less unilateral approach to world affairs than the Bush White House has pursued. That could reflect tension between two Republican foreign-policy camps vying for influence in McCain's campaign: the pragmatic realists and the hard-line neo-conservatives — with the neo-cons ascendant for now in Russia policy.

"There are a lot of important issues that we need Russia's support on. ...What's to be gained by tossing Russia out? We feel more self-righteous about ourselves?" said Andrew Kuchins, the director of the Russia and Eurasia program at the Center for International and Strategic Studies, a center-right think tank.

Let's call this idiocy what it is...the crankery of a backward-thinking cold-war codger, unable to turn around and embrace the future so he cleaves to the comfort of the known, i.e. the past.

And here is all you need to know about just how stupid this idea really is...Heritage wankers think it's a splendid notion....and when was the last time those chuckleheads were right about any damned thing?

I guess common sense means nothing...

I mean, who brings a box of ammunition on a plane these days?

(AP) A Moscow court on Monday sentenced a U.S. pastor to more than three years in prison for smuggling hunting ammunition into Russia.

Phillip Miles, from Conway, S.C., has been in custody since his arrest on Feb. 3. He was arrested several days after customs agents at a Moscow airport found a box of 20 rifle shells in his luggage.

The court sentenced him to serve three years and two months in prison, with the sentence calculated from his detention date.

Miles has said he brought the .300 caliber cartridges for a friend who had recently bought a Winchester rifle. He said he did not know bringing such ammunition into Russia was illegal.

Judge Olga Drozdova accepted in her 20-minute summation that Miles had brought the ammunition for a friend, "as they are both inveterate hunters."

The cartridges were not initially found as he flew into Moscow. They were detected a day later as airport security put his luggage through an X-ray machine while he was on his way to check in for a flight to Perm, a city in Siberia.

Miles was dressed in a gray jacket and clerical collar for his sentencing.

"I'm very disappointed. It's a strange sentence for one box of hunting bullets," he said as court bailiffs led him in handcuffs from the courtroom cage, where defendants in Russian criminal courts are held during trial.

If what you were doing was that innocent, wouldn't you be smart to just "declare" the items and ask officials how to transport it to the friend BEFORE entering Russia? You know, something you could do by visiting their embassy or consulate?

And given what we know about air travel, how is it that someone still thinks getting on a plane with live ammunition is a good thing? Who is that stupid?

If you're curious, here's the Transportation Safety Administration site with their rules.

Airlines may have their own additional requirements on the carriage of firearms and the amount of ammunition that you may have in your checked baggage. Therefore, travelers should also contact the airline regarding its firearm and ammunition carriage policies.

Also, please note that many other countries have different laws that address transportation and possession of firearms. If you are traveling internationally, please check with the authorities at your destination about their requirements.

Ukraine to Join NATO?

Talk about a bad idea...

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday with Ukraine's president in the country's capital of Kiev, Mr. Bush said he would work as hard as he can to help Ukraine join the NATO alliance, and he declared that Russia will not have a veto over the matter.

Mr. Bush praised democratic and military reforms undertaken to help support Ukraine's bid for NATO membership. He said that the United States "strongly supports" Ukraine's request to get an outline for what it needs to do to join out of this week's NATO summit.

The President spoke after talks with his counterpart, President Viktor Yushchenko. The Ukrainian leader said he is sure his country will "receive a positive signal" during the summit. At the summit, NATO leaders are expected to formally invite Croatia, Albania and perhaps Macedonia to join, expanding the alliance's imprint in the Balkans. Mr. Bush supports that expansion and also wants Ukraine and Georgia to get on track for membership.

Is it the intention of the United States to further provoke Russia into making a move to secure itself? If the natural boundaries that once protected Russia from invasion are removed--and if the great breadbasket that points at the underbelly of Russia becomes a Western NATO power with treaty obligations and economic interests more dependent on the Germans, the Americans and the British and less so on Russia--then, guess what?

Russia is going to act.

I think it's all academic--everyone knows Bush is on his desperate "legacy" tour of the world and no one's betting on neocons to be calling the shots for much longer. But it's an interesting way of looking at desperation. Putting missiles in Poland and enticing Georgia into NATO is like waking up a bear that was already pissed off and awake in the first place. A bear that is sick of being hungry and cold and wants a little fresh meat, perhaps.

On a side note, I think it's ironic that the military has all but purged Russian and Serbo-Croatian linguists from the ranks. The intelligence community has been so Arabic/Persian language focused while trying to expand the number of Chinese and Urdu linguists that it isn't even funny--if anything were to start with Russia or, more likely, with Serbia, we'd be back to square one again in most cases.

Exactly What We Don't Need (Today's edition)

This is why I'd rather just not pay attention to the news some days...

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - President George W. Bush said on Monday he had agreed the United States would help modernize the Polish military as part of a U.S. plan to base components of a global missile defense shield in Poland.

Bush made the announcement after White House talks with Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk, whose government had demanded that Washington boost its military assistance in exchange for allowing the basing of 10 missile interceptors in Poland.

"The United States recognizes the need for Polish forces to be modernized," Bush told reporters. He said "before my watch is over" -- he leaves office in January 2009 -- U.S. experts will have assessed those needs.

HEY! Do you think it would be a good idea to modernize our own military? Do you think it would be a good idea to make sure our own troops have the gear they need and the weapons that will protect this country BEFORE you arm and modernize another nation?

In the wake of the dismissal of the US Ambassador to Belarus--you know, that country that sits immediately to the right of Poland--that is under the control of a tyrant right now, the election of a new leader in Russia, and the need for us to modernize out own goddamned military--why is this being done? Who is stupid enough to modernize the Polish military, in light of the fact that they face no threat whatsoever, except for maybe economic sanction from Russia? Do we really need to give the Russians a reason to squeeze Europe on energy prices? Is that our way of going after the Euro?

This isn't diplomacy--this is malpractice.

Putin Rattles the Saber

As the world financial system goes into freefall, the Russians rattle the saber. As Blue Girl posted earlier, the Russians have a message for Europe: they are still relevant, and they still have a military that can project power into Europe's backyard:

Russia has sent two long-range bombers to the Bay of Biscay, off the French and Spanish Atlantic coasts, to test-fire missiles in what Moscow billed as its biggest naval exercise in the area since the Soviet era.

Firing missiles off the coastline of two NATO members is the latest in a series of Kremlin moves flexing Moscow’s military muscle on the world stage.

Russian bombers joined aircraft carriers, battleships and submarine hunters from the Northern and Black Sea fleets for the Atlantic exercises, which come as the country enters an election campaign to choose a successor to President Putin.

“The air force is taking a very active part in the exercises of the navy’s strike force in the Atlantic,” the Russian air force said in a statement reported by Reuters. “Today, two strategic Tu-160 bombers departed for exercises in the Bay of Biscay, which ... will carry out a number of missions and will conduct tactical missile launches."

It sure would be nice to have a State Department right now, wouldn't it? I mean, diplomacy wouldn't necessarily stop this kind of thing, but it would go a long ways towards forcing their next moves to be a little less belligerent, perhaps.

Russia last month said it would begin major navy sorties into the Mediterranean, with 11 ships backed up by 47 aircraft, that would then travel to the Atlantic for exercises.

The navy’s flagship aircraft carrier, the Soviet-made Admiral Kuznetsov, was leading the fleet in the Atlantic where Nato were trying to keep a close eye on Russian movements, Russian media reported.



“This is the biggest exercise of its kind in the area since Soviet times,” a spokesman for Russia’s navy said, adding that more details would be released later. There was no further information about where in the Bay of Biscay, which lies off the west coast of France and the northern coast of Spain, the missile tests were due to take place.

Russia’s air force said turbo-prop Tupolev Tu-95 strategic bombers, codenamed “Bear” by Nato, would join ATO, would join the exercise on Wednesday “From January 23, the aviation component in the zone where the exercises are going on will be widened and the following planes will take part: Tu-160, Tu-95, Tu-22 M3, Il-78, A-50,”, the air force said.

Do you think the fact that our forces are tied up in the Persian Gulf has any relevance here?

I wonder if George saw a hint of this when he looked into Pootie-Poot's soul?

The Bush administration lost a big one on Monday when Russia announced that it had delivered a shipment of nuclear fuel rods to Iran to be used in a reactor that is to be used for power generation. Russia stressed that the fuel rods are in Iran, but will be under the control of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) , the United Nations agency that monitors nuclear material across the globe.

Back in Washington, aWol nearly strained something as he struggled mightily to construct a sentence and make a comment that wouldn't do any further damage to the fragile relationship the United States currently has with Russia. He managed to not only tamp down his urge to criticize, but also to offer something along the lines of praise...“If the Russians are willing to do that, which I support, then the Iranians do not need to learn how to enrich,” President Bush said Monday. “If the Iranians accept that uranium for a civilian nuclear power plant, then there’s no need for them to learn how to enrich.”

The timing could not have been worse. Just two weeks ago, the intelligence shops released their NIE that revealed that the Iranians stopped their weapons program in 2003. That NIE cut the legs from under aWol and Cheney, and has dampened the call for war with Iran.

Even thought the administration has moved to keep the pressure on the Iranian government, the release of the NIE has served to embolden Iran, and it has made it highly unlikely that China and Russia will be on board for the next round of sanctions by the United Nations Security Council.

The delivery of the fuel rods to the Iranian facility will certainly embolden them further.

As for Bush administration officials, their public comments were one thing, and their private comments were another thing entirely. “There is no doubt that Russia and the rest of the world want to keep Iran from getting a nuclear weapon,” was the public comment made by White House spokesman, Gordon D. Johndroe. “And today’s announcement provides one more avenue for the Iranians to make a strategic choice to suspend enrichment.”

In private, however, they lamented the fact that the Russians didn't stall on the delivery, and project an image of a united front that was hanging together and toeing a hard line. “We for many years tried to stop it, and for the last year we’ve known there was no way to stop it, and that it was coming, and we held our breath on the timing,” a senior administration official said.

All that breath-holding was for naught.

Two weeks ago, Russia alerted the Bush administration that the details had been worked out, including the placement of safeguards that would allow for greater international inspections at Bushehr, and that the shipment would proceed.

The U.S. had already agreed, in principle, that Russia could provide the fuel rods, so long as safeguards were in place to handle the spent fuel. With that position clarified, there was no choice for the U.S. to make - the Bush administration had to accept that they had no grounds to keep pressuring Russia to delay the shipment.

So the shipment went forward. Now the question remains - was it purely economics? Or was there a subtle, hidden message? Is this muscle flexing by Russia routine, or something that we should be concerned about?

I'm gonna hazard a guess, and say it's probably the latter.

Heckuva job, there, George. Heckuva job.

Kasparov Speaks...

Garry Kasparov speaks out:

"There are no illusions that what is being called elections was the most unfair and dirtiest in the whole history of modern Russia," Kasparov said at a news conference, pointing at reports of massive vote violations.

"We fully realize that it's useless to seek the truth in Russian courts," he added.

Kasparov, who heads the Other Russia coalition of opposition groups, was arrested and jailed for five days for leading a protest rally in Moscow on Nov. 24. His group was not allowed to run for parliament.

That's a pretty effective way of ensuring there is little or no dissent--just keep people from running for office. As our own State Department remains disengaged and completely irrelevant when it comes to dealing with the rise of Putin, it's comforting to note that modern Russia is moving towards another "cult of personality" phase.

TVER, Russia (AP) — Hundreds of grim citizens jammed a theater here Thursday, vowing to hold parliament accountable for executing President Vladimir Putin's policies even after he steps down next year.

The gathering was one of the most visible in a series of recent demonstrations, testimonials and appeals across Russia's 11 time zones, urging Putin to remain in power somehow after his second term ends this spring. He is barred by law from seeking another term as president.

Critics have called the outpouring of support for Putin evidence that a personality cult has sprung up around the 55-year-old former KGB lieutenant colonel. But hundreds of members of the "All Russia Council of Initiative Groups to Support Putin," who gathered Thursday, listened to a parade of speakers describe Putin's leadership as crucial to Russia's future.

"The existence of our group is needed until Putin's plan is implemented and until we make sure that Putin remains an active leader of our country," said Irina Nosachevskaya, from Russia's Baltic enclave of Kaliningrad.

Even though Putin is not allowed to run for a third term, this group is trying to find a way to keep him in power. After all, Putin is only 55 and in excellent health. There's no reason to believe that he couldn't run Russia for another 30 years.

Supporters of George W Bush, the 27% dead-enders club, had no comment.

Sure Would Be Nice to Have a State Department Right Now

If you lived through the time when we faced the Soviet bear--and it seems like a lifetime ago, I know--then when you see stories like this, it should make your blood boil:

MOSCOW - Former chess champion Garry Kasparov was convicted of leading an opposition protest and sentenced to five days in jail by a Moscow court Saturday.

Kasparov and dozens of other demonstrators were detained hours earlier after riot police clashed with Kremlin opponents following a protest rally that drew several thousand people.

The former chess champion was forced to the ground and beaten, his assistant Marina Litvinovich said in a telephone interview from outside the police station where Kasparov was held."What you've heard is all lies," Kasparov said after the sentence was read. "The testimony is contradictory. There was not a single word of truth."

Two riot police testified in court that they had been given direct orders before the rally to arrest Kasparov, one of President Vladimir Putin's harshest critics. One of the policemen acknowledged that the two reports he had filed were contradictory.

Kasparov was charged with organizing an unsanctioned procession "of at least 1,500 people directed against President Vladimir Putin," of chanting anti-government slogans and of resisting arrest.

It sure would be nice to have a goddamned State Department right now, wouldn't it? Because we need a tough legion of diplomats to start going after the Putin regime on all fronts, in all areas, and in every way possible. We need to start squeezing them and engaging them and putting them in check, pun intended.

Unfortunately, we have a "Soviet" expert who has never gotten one thing right about Russia. We have Secretary Rice, shoe-shopping expert and blame shifting expert. Besides shoes and ducking responsibility for her inept management of the State Department, what is she good at? Piano? Sycophantic statements?

We have a serious problem brewing in Russia--who will succeed Putin? What will Russia continue to morph into?

Kasparov warned the world about Russia earlier this year when he told CBS News:

"We're facing a very dangerous regime that is threatening not only the future of my country but the stability of the whole world," Kasparov says.

And:

"I would probably say that Putin doesn't run the country, he runs a corporation. Call it KGB Incorporated," Kasparov says. "He is working on behalf of the ruling elite that wants to benefit from looting the country."

So--again. What the fuck? Why do we continue to see nothing but incompetence from our State Department? Why are they not seriously engaged on this issue? Why have we not recalled our ambassador or done something-anything-to respond to this type of incident?

People say that if a Democrat is elected next year, that Ambassador Holbrooke will be the next Secretary of State, and that, somehow, that's a bad thing. Well, Holbrooke's worst day as Secretary of State will be better by a mile than Rice's best day.

This is getting too cozy for comfort...

Let me point out my prejudices right up front.

I am the ultimate cold-war brat. When a teacher asked if anyone knew what the Great Plains were, my hand shot up and I answered "The F-14's!" I was still my Dad's dependent when I married my husband on a Saturday afternoon, and by the end of the following week, we were living atop 18 10-megaton Titan II ICBMs, and would live with those massive killing machines until the last one was pulled out of the ground. The first decade of our marriage, we both did our part to complete the SAC mission and win the Cold War.

The thing is, I never really thought it was "won" in the traditional sense, because George H.W. didn't get together with the top commie and sign a treaty ending it all. Hell, I have always thought the end of the Cold War was less of a sure thing than the Korean armistice. The Soviet Union simply collapsed, but the same people were still running things, they just weren't encumbered by the party any longer, and criminal enterprises - never in danger of extinction in Russia - has flourished. I have never trusted our former adversaries, and thought the administration was beyond stupid to underestimate Putin and the Russian inclination to empire.

So this stuff disturbs me...

Remember that two weeks ago, Putin made a "Nixon goes to China" trip to Tehran, the first Kremlin leader to visit Iran since 1943. That trip took place just days after he snubbed and mocked Condi Rice and Bob Gates when they went to Moscow.

Well, as I type another Russian potentate is in Tehran. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, while in the neighborhood on a visit to Kazakhstan in Central Asia, popped in on Ahmadinejad for tea. A spokesman said the impromptu visit was to discuss Iran's nuclear activities as well as bilateral ties between the two nations.

After the visit by Putin, Iran's former chief nuclear negotiator Ali Laranjani (who resigned last week over differences with Ahmadinejad) said that the Russian leader had delivered a proposal to Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei that represented a new approach to the current nuclear standoff with the Bush administration. Neither the Russians not the Iranians were willing to divulge details of the proposal, but the Iranian side was said to be studying it.

State-run television and news agencies quoted Ayatollah Khamenei at the time as telling Putin, "We will think about what you said and about your proposal," even as he added that Iran was "determined to provide our country's need for nuclear energy."

In the ever-escalating one-upsmanship that the aWol bush maladministration mistakes for foreign policy, unilateral sanctions against Iran were imposed last week in a feeble attempt to punish Iran for their nuclear program, and accusing the Revolutionary Guard of illegally spreading WMDs. Iran seemed to brush off the administrations latest hissy-fit.

Putin reportedly mocked the move, and news agencies quoted him as saying "Why worsen the situation by threatening sanctions and bring it to a dead end?"

In the meantime, I am viewing this new "BFF" status that the Iranians and Russians seem to be with a wary eye. We have been down this path before with the proxy wars between the two superpowers. They facilitated the deaths of 58,000 Americans in Vietnam, and the United States backed the Mujihideen fighters in Afghanistan, who killed approximately 15,000 Red Army soldiers.

I do not believe that the recent muscle-flexing by Russia is just that. I think the messages are quite clear. The world is realigning along an energy axis. Iran and Russia have it, and we need it. But so does China, and they can pay for it with the intrest we pay them on the debt accumulated to finance aWol Bush's vanity war!

Thanks to the arrogance, ignorance, jingoism and hubris of this administration, American influence has been drastically undermined and American interests have been compromised. Perhaps to a point they can't be repaired.

Losing the Cold War after the fact

Image courtesy McClatchy - click to enlarge

Not content with mismanaging a war and an occupation to the point that America stands to end up with not just one, but two hash-marks in the "L" column, the chump in charge has reached back into the recesses of time and managed to give it a go at reversing the outcome of the freakin’ Cold War, too.

Seriously – didn't anyone else cringe when the Connecticut cowboy was selected by the Supremes to parry with Putin? I sure as hell did. Panic at the prospect of the little idiot in negotiations with Russia was one of my first reactions.

C’mon – on the one hand you have a moronic, coke-addled, intellectually incurious, sociopathic, amoral, inept and hapless doofus who failed upwards his whole life…and on the other a former KGB case officer – decisive, derisive, stridently nationalistic, cold, calculating and competent. There was simply no way in hell this was going to work out well for United States interests, but not enough of us “got it” and of those of us who did, not enough were speaking up; so those of us who did voice our concerns were viewed askance, like we needed a shiny jacket to go with our pretty tinfoil hats.

When the affable moron met the spy in Slovenia in the summer of 2001, and claimed he had “looked into his soul” and saw a good guy, I guffawed, and the mockery in my household was overt and palpable. The entire family got weeks of mileage out of “looking into souls.” Our oldest was leaving for college that summer, and we looked into the soul of the laptop salesman, the residence hall coordinator, the university bookstore clerk, the financial aid officer that administered his scholarship…pretty much everyone we came in contact with for weeks got a good soul-peering.

We aren’t laughing any more, though, because the fallout of aWol’s inept foreign policy is no laughing matter.

Bush and his circle of bubble-supporting yes-men, lackeys and corporate good-ole-boy cronies grossly misjudged the Russian leader, just blithely assuming he was “a good guy” and “one of us.” (In their jingoistic worldview, it is just assumed that everyone wants to be “like us” or they simply aren’t worth bothering with). The ethnocentric, swaggering, bloviating asshats just couldn’t see it coming, but our emic was bound to crash into theirs.

It did, and the results of this prolonged foreign policy train wreck have been painful to watch, especially for those with an awareness and understanding of the historical relationship between the two superpowers. In the wake of the terror attacks of September 11, 2001, there was unprecedented cooperation between the two nations. The Russians shared intelligence, and the U.S. government turned a blind eye to the dirty war raging in Chechnya.

Now, there is not even a pretext of cooperation and common goals.

Secretary of State Rice and Secretary of Defense Gates (two so-called “experts” on the former Soviet Union, both of whom failed to read the handwriting on that crumbling wall) went to Moscow to meet with the Russian president last week.

First Putin kept them waiting for over a half hour. Then he openly mocked their mission in front of the press and the T.V. cameras.

On Saturday, Defense Secretary Gates said that he isn’t sure Russia is even interested in cooperating with the United States to defend Europe against Iranian missiles or whether Moscow “simply wants to stop the U.S. from building missile defenses in Eastern Europe.” (emphasis mine).

Gates, speaking with reporters on his trip home, showed us some of that prescience he is famous for (remember, he was the CIA’s expert who insisted the Soviet Union was reemerging as it was crumbling) saying he believes Russia is reasserting it’s presence on the world stage. "I think President Putin is coming back and saying you know you have to take us into account on all these things. In essence: 'We are back. We've got a lot of money. And we are a key player.' " Then he quickly added "I'm putting words into his mouth. He didn't say these things. This is my interpretation of perhaps his thinking: 'And you will need our help to solve problems. And if you won't seek our help, we can prevent problems from being solved,' " Gates said.

Of course Russia is reasserting dominance and flexing muscles, and has been for some time! I dunno about the SecDef, but I have been paying attention. In April, it went largely unnoticed when it became official Russian policy to refer to the United States in an adversarial manner in official reports and press releases. In May, they tested a new MRV-ICBM. In July, they laid claim to the North Pole, an International Zone. In August, their pilots started buzzing Guam for the first time since the cold war. In October, the Russian President mocked and humiliated two cabinet secretaries.

And I haven’t even brought up the energy issue. Not directly, anyway. But that is what it all boils down too. Russia has Energy, the west needs that energy, and Russia is not a country we can just invade, commence “kickin’ ass” and take it away from.

This administration has destroyed American credibility, negotiating power and economic stature. A solid victory in the Cold War, after a half-century of ideological brinksmanship and reams of hard-fought treaties, has been cast aside.

If there is one person on the face of the earth who is more pleased than Osama bin Laden to see the United States mired down in Iraq, bleeding away blood and treasure, and destroying the finest Army the world has even seen, it is Vladimir Putin.

What scares me even more than the damage that will be done to this country by another year of fighting in Iraq is the long-range damage being done to our foreign policy by another year of Bush incompetence. The destruction of the relationship with Russia is arguably the greatest threat to long-range security that the United States will face for the next 50-100 years.