Putin Speaks Out

In the greatest bit of political hypocrisy since Barry "I-inherited-this-Great-Recession-from-Bush" O'Bama told graduates they should "take responsibility . . .for [their] . . . failures", Vlad Putin treats the world to this little humdinger re. the Gaza blockade incident:

"The loss of peaceful civilians has caused a new exacerbation of the situation [in the Middle East]. . . . We are deeply worried by such a crude violation of the universally recognized norms of international law."

How 'bout this, Vlad? --We'll investigate the Israelis concurrently with an investigation of the Russian invasion of Georgia and annexation of South Ossetia. How many peacful civilians were killed in that little excursion?

Picture found here.

Turkey vs. U.S.

"Turkey's contempt for Israel is also an expression of near total contempt for Washington," writes Mark Steyn in an interesting IBD editorial. Word is that the next "flotilla" to break the Israeli blockade on Gaza will receive an escort by the Turkish navy--an act of war by Turkey.

My question is this. Turkey is a NATO nation. We are obligated to defend NATO members who are attacked militarily. So if the Israelis and Turks get down to shooting at one another over this thing, aren't we obligated by NATO to defend Turkey?

This Turkish turn away from the West complicates the existing Mediterranean mayhem and marks a new era in Middle Eastern politics. The Ivy League brainiacs who now control American foreign policy have tough new Change to deal with.

No to Georgia

I've been going back an forth with a blogger who advocates admitting Georgia into NATO. A political liberal, he argues that Putin would never dare invade a NATO country and so, by entangling ourselves with Tiblisi, we draw a line that the Russian Bear would never cross.

Using the word "never" in this case is naive to the point of being dangerous. The Soviets, of course, would "never" have dared invade Afghanistan. The Germans would "never" have dared to invade Poland. Saddam, I'm sure, thought that because he had done such a good job convincing the world that he had weapons of mass destruction, we "never" were going to invade Iraq. Yeah, and those sub-prime CDOs were "never" a risk to the stability of the American banking system.

Invading Georgia is a gimme for the Russians. It's on their border. It's small and it's weak--the size of South Carolina with approximately the same population. Swallowing Georgia would boost Putin's and Russia's manliness both at home and on the international playground. It would strengthen Moscow's stranglehold on Europe's energy supply. It would even make them rich.

From Putin's perspective, what's the potential downside? We might boycott the winter Olympics? Weak. We'll kick them out of G8? Boo-hoo. We'll put more missiles in Poland? My guess, they can live with that. Yet in the end they'll still have Georgia. And they will have sent a message to Ukraine: play by Moscow's rules or suffer the Georgian fate.

Georgia in NATO would be a big mistake. As I say to my kids, be careful in choosing your friends. George Washington put it differently in his farewell address when advising future generations to steer clear of permanent alliances--avoid entangling alliances.

So, let the European nations kill Georgia's admittance to NATO. Barry and McC, you can say it's important all you want. That shows that you're strong and gets you votes. But . . . are you really willing to go to war over a piss ant country the size of South Carolina?

For the sake of our future, don't commit us to a fight on the far side of the Black Sea. The risk far outweighs the reward.

Surprise, Surprise

Dear M. Sarkozy, U.N., Euroland, and the West in general:
We're never going to leave. Anything you're not willing to fight for, we'll just keep.
Signed,
Russia



Russian foreign minister makes it official. Says he:

"Russian forces are on the territory of South Ossetia and Abkhazia at the request of the presidents and parliaments of those republics and on the instructions of the Russian president," Lavrov told a news conference.

"In the next few days an agreement should be signed which will give a legal basis to the presence of Russian forces. They will be there for a long time, at least for the foreseeable period. That is necessary to not allow a repeat of Georgian aggression," Lavrov said.

I told you so.