This is the end ..........

........ goes the Doors dirge and the USA, as a world power, is coming to an end, my friend. Canada, ever the USA lapdog will share its inglorious fate, unless we shed some of the 'American' associations.

Canada should be neutral, like Sweden or Switzerland and treat the USA as a real foreign power, just as the USA are doing to us right now.

The Georgian adventure is just the beginning of the end of the USA and we don't need to be dragged down by a now corrupt, industrial/military country that can't change it ways.

There is such a thing as national pride.....

.....that often times trumps mere machinations.

Russia has it, and China has it, and the US used to have it -- except now "national pride" has given way to "what's in it for me".

Jack Kennedy:
"...ask not what your country can do for you - ask what you can do for your country."
http://www.famousquotes.me.uk/speeches/John_F_Kennedy/5.htm
And this present attitude stems directly from the current leadership, both political and corporate (though ther eis precious little difference between them) of that nation.

Blame the victim . . .

The Russian invasion didn't happen overnight it was planned for sometime.

In his haste to blame the US for everythjng Dobbin fails to note the history of Russian imperialism in Georgia. The historical record is very clear on that.

Dobbin also fails to note the rush of East European states to NATO because they experienced Russian( Soviet) imperialism first hand. NATO may be underperforming in some regards these days but it stands for something East Europeans want - freedom from Russian domination

Finally I was not aware of Canadian involvement in this issue beyond the usual diplomatic denouncement. Dobbin is stretching here to advance his shaky Canada the USA's foreign p[policy lapdog thesis.

Antithesis

Putin is the antithesis of Bush. The world would be a safer place without both of them

I always have to laugh when

I always have to laugh when I hear the expression "free market economy".

There's no such thing, except at the very low, localized levels. The major markets are always controlled by a few multinational corporations, exactly the same way as the former Soviet politbureaus.

This is what the fight is about: "Wealth can not be created, only taken."

The different economic theories of the past and present have only served to set up an legalize the crimes of ruling classes, by making others serve and pay.

We now have the ongoing Maple Leaf disaster, growing by the day, showing what damage the concentration of economic powers in the hands of a special interest ruling class can do.

The fraudulent "economy of size and numbers"

When we look at the list of goods recalled, we can also see a long list of other "trade names", showing that their products have also been manufactured in the same plant, as are hundreds of other products all over the world.

The world's food supplies are now controlled by 2-3 corporations, fixing prices, stealing from all. Is this a "free market" economy?

Like the tanker trucks of different oil companies, all owned and controlled by the same owners, lining up to fill up at the same refineries, as in Burnaby, while advertising marvelous benefits.

We live in a world built on fraud and the biggest crime waves in human history, legalized by ideologies and screwball economic theories, benefiting a very small percentage.

The purpose of empires is to colonize and steal, destroying efficient economic systems, and the lives of millions, on their way up and when they collapse. As they always do.

Will humanity ever learn ???????????

Ed Deak.

Right on the mark!

I think the author has accurately opened up the NATO can of worms and U.S. foreign policy foolhardiness in Iraq, Afganistan, and now Georgia.

Also an earlier comment (Tbarnston) that our Nation's leaders have let us down is so true.

What is the vision for Canada? More of the same our leaders seem to be saying.

Lets hope we cut the rope tied to the sinking U.S. 'ship' before its too late!

Can't wait for the comments

This is the first article regarding the mish mash in Georgia that makes any sense to me.
It's kind of scary to think that the only hope for future stability of that region (and the rest of us) depends on the Russian Military and the judgement of their powers that be!
Better that than the "Coalition of the Soon Should be Indicted": Bush, Harper and whoever now runs Israel.

DOBBIN NOT FAR OFF

Unlike most of Murray Dobbin's foreign affairs opinion pieces, this one is not far off. The White House fascination with oil politics has been badly bungled by Washington, with the result that Georgia is now less likely to be the major pipeline route to Europe thanks to the Milosovec-like misconduct of their client Saakashvili.

One thing that Dobbin still doesn't understand though is the oil politics around the Iraq war. The object of that exercise was not to increase physical quantities of oil available, but to reduce them. That way, prices are driven upwards. Those price increases raise the rate of return being received by all owners of oil producing wells, including old wells in Texas and Oklahoma and other Republican bailiwicks that are still pumping forth product at a cost of several dollars per barrell.

With oil trading anywhere over $30 per barrell, let alone over $60 or $100 per barrell, these wells are producing a return for their owners that is beyond belief. That's what Bush, Cheney and Haliburton set out to do, and as far as their base is concerned, it really is Mission Accomplished.

Nato is not ending any time soon

Dobbin has been writing this kind of left wing pseudo peace speech for as long as I can remember. Nato not going to end any time soon. Every empire wants to expand to the extent of its historical boundries. Russia's attack of Georgia is case in point. This attack has really very little to do with Georgia; it is all about telling Ukraine to stay out of NATO. In Russia's eyes, Ukraine is like a province that has left the country. With its huge natural resources, Russia wants it back.

It is probably not possible to save Ukraine but a strong NATO can protect Poland, Hungary and perhaps Romania. The Baltic states are a matter of question. Think NATO should be disbanded? Ask a Pole about that and whether he would rather live under American hegemony or Russian. The reply is pretty obvious. As bad as Bush is, I would much prefer to live in the USA than Russia.

Replace the name "Georgia" with Czechoslovakia. Had the European democracies stood up to Hitler in 1938, there is a good chance the conflagration would not have started. Putin has basically repeated the taking of Sudetenland by occupying South Ossetia. Think this message is lost on Poland the Baltic states? Think again.

Putin is a fascist in the true sense. As long as they are seen to be advancing the national interest, fascist dictators are popular. Russian nationalism has always been and enormous force in Russia. It did not need to resurge. I love the ideologically loaded reference to "free market wild west." The left has always liked to somehow tell us that the Soviet system was somehow a success; it was a complete failure and led led to the downfall of the communist regime. Few people wept on that one. Most of the "wild west" was actually devised by Yeltsin, who sold state assets to carpet baggers in return to bankrolling his election. campaigns. Putin was a Lt Col in the KGB and he was the bag man!

But Murray, this is exactly what you are doing. You are playing the standard left wing tune while advocating appeasement at the same time.

Right On, Budd

Bud, I was going to comment on this but my post was already too long. You are bang on. Bush and his cronies have done everything they can to LIMIT the supply of oil to drive up the price. This is what the Iraq war was all about and this is the reason Bush and his boys are trying to stay in Iraq. As soon as they Americans leave Iraq, the Iraqi government will (in a rather unpleasant way) clean house. They will then pump about 4m bbl a day.

Have a look at the levels of the Strategic Oil Reserve in the USA and the number of oil wells capped since 2001.

Nato membership not like party favours

The Georgia situation points out the disastrous results of handing out NATO memberships like party favours. It's a serious alliance which commits all members to war in the event of an attack on any. For that reason, membership in NATO should be confined to countries whose interests are fundamentally and strategically aligned with our own. Small countries with limited experience in democracy, border disputes with their neighbours, and with their own nationalist agendas, are not good allies. Even more frightening is the sense that the Georgians are positively reckless respecting the risk of a wider conflict. Small countries shouldn't be starting wars with their neighbours and expecting the world alliance to clean up the mess. If Georgia were already in NATO, we'd be at war. I'm not sure any of this was intended when NATO membership was offered.

what happened

There is an interesting report of what actually happened in Georgia posted an hour ago.

Be patient I think the Russians are attacking the site.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/08/
the-truth-about-1.php

Y'all might note the Canada is involved in Black Sea escort of US resupply ships.

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/
us-warships-run.html

Finally note that Canada is trying to assert sovereignty in the Northwest Passage. So are the Russians.

Uqually apropos of the unelected president of the United States

If the Americans had used the peace dividend for something other than a compromised effort to advance the profitability and global reach of American business we wouldn't be in the mess we are today.

Last American idiot president to make a fool of himself by calling for the destruction of the evil empire was Ronald Reagan.

Sad to say I see a few of the old B-actor's fellow travellers are still around.

Maybe take a little time to read this from the New Yorker:
http://www.newyorker.com/talk/comment/2008/08/25/080825taco_talk_remnick

In the following post I'll quote from the last few paragraphs - not very different from the thoughts of that old inveterate commie, Murray Dobbin.

Give your heads a shake!

From the New Yorker

Taken individually, the West’s actions since the collapse of the Soviet Union—from the inclusion of the Baltic and the Central European states in NATO to the recognition of Kosovo as an independent state—can be rationalized on strategic and moral grounds. But taken together these actions were bound to engender deep-seated feelings of national resentment among Russians, especially as, through the nineteen-nineties, they suffered an unprecedentedly rapid downward spiral. Even ordinary Russians find it mightily trying to be lectured on questions of sovereignty and moral diplomacy by the West, particularly the United States, which, even before Iraq, had a long history of foreign intervention, overt and covert—politics by other means. After the exposure of the Bush Administration’s behavior prior to the invasion of Iraq and its unapologetic use of torture, why would any leader, much less Putin, respond to moral suasion from Washington? That is America’s tragedy, and the world’s.

There is little doubt that the Georgian President, Mikheil Saakashvili, provided Putin with his long-awaited casus belli when he ordered the shelling of South Ossetia, on August 7th. But Putin’s war, of course, is not about the splendors of South Ossetia, a duchy run by the Russian secret service and criminal gangs. It is a war of demonstration. Putin is demonstrating that he is willing to use force; that he is unwilling to let Georgia and Ukraine enter NATO without exacting a severe price; and that he views the United States as hypocritical, overextended, distracted, and reluctant to make good on its protective assurances to the likes of Georgia.

More to follow

conclusion

Inevitably, a number of neoconservative commentators, along with John McCain, have rushed in to analyze this conflict using familiar analogies: the Nazi threat in the late nineteen-thirties; the Soviet invasions of Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. But while Putin’s actions this past week have inspired genuine alarm in Kiev and beyond, such analogies can lead to heedless policy. As the English theologian Bishop Joseph Butler wrote, “Every thing is what it is, and not another thing.” Cartoonish rhetoric only contributes to the dangerous return of what some conservatives seem to crave—the other, the enemy, the us versus them of the Cold War.

Only one with a heart of stone could fail to be moved by the spectacle of the leaders of Ukraine, Poland, and the Baltic states standing by Saakashvili last week at a rally in Tbilisi. But Putin is not Hitler or Stalin; he is not even Leonid Brezhnev. He is what he is, and that is bad enough. In the 2008 election, he made a joke of democratic procedure and, in effect, engineered for himself an anti-constitutional third term. The press, the parliament, the judiciary, the business élite are all in his pocket—and there is no opposition.

But Putin also knows that Russia cannot bear the cost of reconstituting empire or the gulag. It depends on the West as a market. One lesson of the Soviet experience is that isolation ends in poverty. Putin’s is a new and subtler game: he is the autocrat who calls on the widow of Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn. To deal with him will require statecraft of a kind that has proved well beyond the capacities of our current practitioners.

Bolding is mine.

Well written analysis Murray

Dictators

Not yet. Putin is a classic dictator. Dictators almost always buy the support of the ruling elite, the media and of course the security apparatus, which Putin is a part of. Dictators also seize the wealth of rivals and give it to supporters. Putin did just that to Mikhail Khodorkovsky and has also refused to parole him. Thus, in this kind of state, support is rewarded and resistance heavily punished.

Similar arguments were made about Hitler in the 1930s. However, for a fascist like Putin to survive, he needs economic prosperity. He also needs territorial expansion to show his strength. If his economic base falters, he will resort to exactly what Hitler did: plundering his neighbours. This is very possible when oil prices decline because Russia really doesn't produce anything other than raw materials. Name a big Russian company? I can't.

In short, this whole thing

In short, this whole thing is one fascist dictatorship against another, both surviving on theft from others....the reason for the existence of all empires.

Until they burn out and collapse, as hundreds before in history.

Ideologies are crap. All are invented and developed to legalize theft and set up ruling classes.

The predator rulers are also the same, under every ideology and flag, depending where they're born. The former communist bosses are now the biggest capitalist villa and yacht owners on the Mediterranean

And I've lived under every one of them and had enough first hand experience with all.

Ed Deak.

Perhaps

Apples and oranges. As bad as Bush is, he is not going to be around for long. There is at least a semblance of rule of law in the USA. Sure, Bush has participated in imperialistic nonsense but so did the British and the Russians for that matter.

Putin is a nasty, nasty, character. The left's (see Leon Blum) love and support of nasty dictators has always amazed me, especially when they are far right fascists like Putin and Hitler.

The real issue

The real issue is the rise of a really nasty fascist tyrant, Vladimir Putin, and how he has started knocking off his neighbours in the name if national pride.

Russia is full of carpetbagger, GWest. Putin held the bag for Yeltsin and thus assured his rise to power. Hitler used carpetbaggers big time, many of them getting their wealth from Jewish businessmen forced to sell out at knockdown prices. These people, like Abramovich, owed their success to the dictator.

Putin is doing the same thing.

Really

And how do you expect to make a moral case against Putin when he's following the precise model bush used to invade a sovereign nation that hadn't attacked the US?

Furthermore, the fact that Georgia brought this on itself by attacking in the first place cannot be ignored. Putin didn’t even have to create a trumped up case for a Russian ‘Colin Powell’ to parade before the United Nations. Perhaps you should look for your parallels a little closer to home.
LOL

Express all the moral indignation you like - none of that stuff does a damn bit of good.

As Remnick said in his New Yorker commentary:

Inevitably, a number of neoconservative commentators, along with John McCain, have rushed in to analyze this conflict using familiar analogies: the Nazi threat in the late nineteen-thirties; the Soviet invasions of Budapest in 1956 and Prague in 1968. But while Putin’s actions this past week have inspired genuine alarm in Kiev and beyond, such analogies can lead to heedless policy. As the English theologian Bishop Joseph Butler wrote, “Every thing is what it is, and not another thing.” Cartoonish rhetoric only contributes to the dangerous return of what some conservatives seem to crave—the other, the enemy, the us versus them of the Cold War.

Did you miss the bolded part the first time through?

It may come as a surprise to you that outrage, worry and feigned moral indignation are not policy, strategy or a plan for the future.

The US and, sadly, Canada, have been thrashing about for years. With the current bunch in power I regret to say that we will undoubtedly burn up a lot more dollars, waste a lot more resources and squander several dozens more lives (if we're lucky) on phony projects to promote Stephen Harper's inadequate ego.

We should follow some other example, or establish a real policy of our own, before we follow the Americans down another 'Mission Accomplished' blind alley.

Appeasement?

It is easy; he has just invaded his neigbour and annexed part of a sovereign country.

Hitler said the same thing when he took the Sudetenland in 1938, that he was protecting the rights of ethic Germans. Then he took over the rest of the country the following spring. I expect the same thing to happen in Georgia.

Hitler also attacked Poland using this lie, claiming that Germany had been attacked first. He took concentration camp inmate, dressed him in a Polish uniform and made it look like the Poles had attacked the Germans first. All a lie, of course. There are sizable Russian minorities in the Baltic States and Ukraine. I have little doubt that Putin will use their "protection" as an excuse to first threaten and very possibly invade them.

The left said exactly the same thing when Hitler came to power and made excuses for him and how "Germany was badly treated at Versailles."

The left has always had a strange relationship with nasty people like Putin and Hitler. For the loony left, capitalism is the hated enemy and that is represented by the USA (and formerly the Jews, I might add), ergo anything that is bad for the USA will bring an end to capitalism and is therefore a good thing.

We live in a society where the views of loonies is allowed. Go oppose Putin in Russia and see that happens.

So there are two bullies!

I do not know where, or how, the 'left' are supporting Putin.

Two bully states, coercing their 'Robins' ( a la Batman - also how my elementary principal described our bullying behaviour) to posture and bluster while citizens are being bombed, killed, driven out of their homes.

All for various political and industrial reasons (oil pipelines, control of energy markets, blah, blah, return on investments, construction contracts - hmmm sounds like Iragq!).

And Canada's Harper tags along like a good 'Robin'

Meanwhile the people sleep soundly?

200 Years of Russian Imperialism

and still the dictators handbags see it as the USA's fault.

Sure Bush may have given bad or poor faith advice, he is stupid and mendacious. But Putin attacked and it was not in response to anything it was planned and prepared for weeks or months before.

The moral fault lies with Russia simple as that.

Gray

Please, show me a source that supports your claim that Russia attacked anyone until after Saakashvili unleashed a rocket attack and troops upon the South Ossetian city of Tskhinvali on Thursday August 7.

I don't disagree with anything you, or anyone else has to say about Putin, but to imply that black is white and that Russia was not responding to Georgian aggression in disputed territories where Russian troops were stationed flies in the face of reality.

Read some of the links posted above - these are not Russians - they are, for the most part, American observers describing a situation that is very dangerous - but hardly one-sided.

Having lived under all of

Having lived under all of them, sentenced to death by the nazis for "high treason", but saved by the end of the war, sentenced to the gulags by the communists, for "high treason", but they didn't catch me, so they arrested and tortured my mother, etc.........

I still would like to know how these brainwashed ideologues, preaching their memorized slogans, can distinguish between "right" and "left" ?

There ain't no such things. They're the same predators waving different coloured flags.

The political spectrum is not on the horizontal, but on the vertical level, like F and C on thermometers, divided by a thin line, with the craziest on top.

I've spent 45 years of my life fighting communism and will fight the remainder fighting capitalism. The same bloody gang of crooks all over, stealing, destroying and murdering.

Ed Deak.

Good for you Canadians..!!

being the all american kid from detroit, i haven't seen the slightest bit of competance in the American govt. since the end of the cold war.. being 38 years of age, i grew up during the cold war, and could see some justification to america's stance, but all that is being thrown down the shit pot right now, and what took 45 years to achieve, over 75,000 American Lives.. untold millions of civilian deaths as the cold war was fought has been squandered thru sheer stupidity.. on a cop can manage this much congental stupidity and survive, like a cockroach, but mind you, literally survive like a cockroach.. so i don't know, maybe the U.S. is in bad need of an equal night stick in all orifices, to get it to realize that it needs to rethink it's puurpose on the planet..

Gray

So what would you call Israel's "preemptive" strike in 1967? Or the "preemptive" strike against Iran's nuclear research facility in 1981?

Russia could well see what was going to happen (that's what spies are for), and just sat, waiting for the Georgians to do something stupid...........

Like G West says, Putin is a shmuck, but that doesn't make Saakashvili a saint by comparison -- nor Bush, nor Harper for that matter.

Has the US Cripled NATO??? Methinks Not.

After the collapse of the eastern Bloc, post-1990 was I ever surprised to see these former Warsaw Pact countries not only become part of the EU, but more interestingly NATO:

1. Bulgaria;

2. Czech Republic;

3. Estonia;

4. Hungary;

5. Latvia;

6. Lithuania;

7. Poland;

8. Romania;

9. Slovakia;

10. Slovenia;

(And the incorporation of the GDR into the BRD).

Who woulda thunk????

That said, I agree with Russia's opposition to the missile defence shield in eastern Europe.

Why place missile defence shield bases in Poland and south of there to defend against missiles from so-called rogue states such as Iran and North Korea situate wayyyyy far away?

Doesn't make sense to provoke Russia, a free market economy and "budding" liberal democracy.

Eventually, I see Russia becoming more incorporated with NATO, if not in fact a member.

As for the Georgian attempt at military occupation of territories within its pre-1990 boundaries inhabited by Russian "volk" (Ossetians), bad move ... albeit I don't think it was condoned by either NATO or the U.S.

The Russian bear response should have been known by Georgia's brash leader... the mouse.

Have to remember that the

Have to remember that the people of those countries have never been asked whether they'd wanted to join either the EU or NATO.

It was all done behind closed doors by their "leaders".

As was the EU Constitution, shot down in flames by the 2 countries where people had a choice, France and the Netherlands. Spain voted for it.

The people of Norway and Switzerland have also shot down any attempts by their governments to join the EU, which is rapidly becoming another corporate dictatorship, with the West colonizing the Eastern parts, buying up everything, putting millions of farmers off their lands, something not even the communists could achieve, as in Poland.

And this is the pattern our governments are now working on in secret, behind closed doors, to set up a North American Soviet under the dictatorial governance of the North American Competitiveness Council.

If Harper gets a majority, there won't be a Canada left in 2 to 4 years.

Ed Deak.

Live in Hope, Die in Despair!

Has the US crippled NATO? We can only hope...

Put reason in gear before demonizing Putin, eh!

Before we all rush to irrationally demonize Russia and President Putin's action in defending the ethnic Russians that live in those break-away regions of Georgia- the facts are clear - as Mr. Dobbin stated;

" Georgian President Saakashvili unleashed a brutal, 12-hour assault with hundreds of rockets and artillery shells on the largely defenceless South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, destroying apartment blocks, hospitals and other civilian infrastructure."

...and who supported Georgia in this endeavor, why the USA and Israel.

...and who controlled the world media spin against Russia...USA and Israel....labelling them the aggressors..and covering up Georgia's aggression, and crime against humantity assault on a civilian population.

If Nato...had been 'smart'...they would have condemned Georgia.

..as for the placement of a 'missile defence shield' by the US in Poland...while I don't often agree with Luke Skywalker...sure as hell..there is no threat in Poland of a missle attack from Iran...and in the same way that the USA would be threatened if Russia placed missiles in Cuba...Russia...which lost in excess of 40 million in WW11 - feels its national security threatened by yet another bush-league foreign policy move.

..so, hit the pause button folks..before being irrationally moved by US/Israel/Georgia media spin to join in the world wide chorus to demonize Russia - when rightly so, Putin, swiftly defended a civilian population of ethnic Russians being brutally attacked in the dead of night by Georgia..crimes against humanity were probably committed by Georgia in this attack against an unarmed civilian population.

..I feel a sense of shock ..of the numbers of folks in this thread ...who did not read that 'Georgia carried out the brutal attack' ...and who did not put there reason in gear ..to examine the rationale for Russia's swift action in defence. ..and by the way I am not of Russian ethnicity..but the facts are clear here.

NATO should of been

NATO should of been disbanded at the end of the cold war. All NATO is now is a US Tool aka Puppet to spread their imperialism with.

E Europe

I was reluctant to post here, but after reading some responses to the article that just infuriated me, I can't abstain from it. Let me first say that I live in Romania, E Europe. My mother and my gradfather were political prisoners for 1 and 5 years under the soviet-stype pre 1989 regime in Romania. I look at how you people across the Atlantic view all this and some of your comments are just out there. Sorry to say it or to offend. I agree that the current so called capitalist states are not the answer and are so wrong in so many ways. I don't need to go into details about Iraq, Afganistan, Panama... etc. You said it well above.
But let me tell you about Russia... Give me any Bush-Mafia-style governament anytime and I will take it if the alternative is Russia. Please don't start saying that Russia is the good guy and Georgia the bad one in this story just because you like to see Bush take a slap one in a while. What if the same happens in the Ukraine? Or in Moldova, a Romanian territory for 600 documented years that only became a state under a Moscow-puppet president? You forgot perhaps that Nazi Germany killed 7+ milion people in death-camps, but the USSR killed close to 30 milion? The US tortured a few hundret people that were untouchable by other menas in a very crime-friendly legal system and tell me what you want but they have sins, even if not that big. What were the sins of 30 milion people? What were the sins of countless milions in the former USSR and satelite states (Romania included) that had 100% of their property nationalized and were thrown in prison JUST because they worked and amassed some wealth. By current standards, both my grandfathers were upper-middle class, but were treated as if they were the devil in person. Did this ever happen on this scale in the western world?
This post might be too long, so I will continue in the next.

And more

You sit confortable in front of your computers and comment on geo-politics without taking into account the impact on the population. I described above what happened when the USSR came to Romania after WW2. In 1990 when the US came, we got McDonalds and the Internet. We got fat and sedentary lives. Give me that anytime above malnutrition and overwork in a forced labor camp JUST because I wanted a good life for my family and setup a 40+ employee small company and am making some more then the national average, mind you, working with a US company. Would I have been able to do this 20 years ago? Forget about it.
I see some comments above from well documented people that did the homework by goging over "official history". Some of what you say is totally agains common sense. Look at the Moldova (Transnistria) and compare it to Georgia. I can't tell you the truth about Georgia as I don't live there, but I can tell you a lot about the former. And it makes me sick that you people in the west buy the Russian story so well. I did my homework too, I know all about the insights of the industrial-military complex, or "Corporatocracy" as John Perkins (auth. "Confessions of an Economic hit Man") likes to call it and if that is the alternative to a new, smarter USSR... please, by all means, give it to me. Before praising the Russians and smaking the US, even a Bush ruled US, come live around here for a year of two. Then let's start posting again and let's see what will happen.
Please excuse my grammer, spelling and any personal offences I might have made. I only want to open your eyes to what Russia really is and please, by God, stop deffending them, even if it means you have to deffend a lesser evil.

To Dimitrov

Just a quick comment. You are writing pro-Putin, so this does not apply to you. But in your oppinion, would any of us be able to express our views here, if we were typing right now from Russia? Be truthfull with the answer please.
And to no1important... man, I can't believe what you are saying! Were do you live? Not really important. Let's say you are the leader of your country. Let's say another country is attacking you by covert means. Using militias to bomb across your border and so on. What do you do? You stand by and watch? You give everything up because you don't want blood to be shed? You don't deffend? Sorry if I get personal, but it seems that some people here don't get it at a filosophical level... I go to a housh, smash the door and sit on the couch. The head of the family starts screaming but will not touch me because he does not want any blood to be shed. The kids in the family want to watch cartoons, I start beating them up becasue they bothered me. The head of the family stands by and does nothing as he does not want bloodshed. Don't say he will call the police, there is no police at an international level and when the US is trying to play that role (for good and bad) they get mud in the face (see Somalia or the "bad" Iraq"). After all this, I force the head of the family to donate the house to me, kill him, rape his wife, make his children call me daddy; end of story. "Me" is Russia and I know what I am saying since I have seen this done by Russia again and again in the last ... hmmm a few hundred years? Oh, let me guess, they changed in the last 20 years! Yes, that must be it... damn I did not see that.

I'm forwarding this as a

I'm forwarding this as a matter of interest, without any comment, for, as far I'm concerned, all these politicians are welcome to go to hell.

Ed Deak.
========================================

Why I had to recognise Georgia's breakaway regions

By Dmitry Medvedev

The writer is president of the Russian Federation

"Ignoring Russia’s warnings, western countries rushed to recognise Kosovo’s illegal declaration of independence from Serbia. We argued consistently that it would be impossible, after that, to tell the Abkhazians and Ossetians (and dozens of other groups around the world) that what was good for the Kosovo Albanians was not good for them. In international relations, you cannot have one rule for some and another rule for others."

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/9c7ad792-7395-11dd-8a66-0000779fd18c.html

Thanks Ed

I read that yesterday too. A pox, as you say, on all their houses.

Let's get the hell out of NATO and make a decent life here north of the 49th parallel for anyone who's willing to come here and share it - leaving the foolish histories of the past behind us - but not forgetting the lessons that past experience have taught us.

The curious thing is that the parallels being cited between the current situation are all 1939 ones; I think the better lessons come out of 1914.

Historical truth

Ed, and G West, I agree with you on this points:
Kosovo was a mistake. I am sure the genocide really happened there (some 100km from were I live) but the solution of having an independent state was wrong for so many reasons.
The lesons of 1914 are teh ones to follow, not 1936-39, I agree 100%.
The so legendary carnage made by the Romanian army in Hungary must be legendary either in some SF novel or some alternate history novel, as I did not hear a single eywitness in Transilvania or in Hungary talk about that.
And last but not least, "Romania" is the name of this country since it was founded. I don't care how the name changed in French, German or English over time. Since I don't call Canada "the independent territory of the united states of america", pleaes don't call my country names, or try to teach me history. My guess is I know a bit more about it then you do. Just a guess.

reply to Zulu

Zulu - your remarks deserve a reply. You ask would people be able to write ..if they were writing from Russian. Honestly I don't know...and that is not the issue in this article, neither is at issue the terrible atrocities carried out by Russia in Eastern Europe, from which my family comes, and they too were persecuted, indeed imprisoned, tortured and murdered killed by J Stalin, and family lands and businessess confiscated. I have no love affair with Russia past leaders nor the present. But in this specific instance, when, in a premediated manner Georgia attacked an unarmed, sleeping civilin population in the middle of the night with a heavy bombardment of rockets & attillerty, knowing full well that Putin was in Beijing at the Olympics, that was a crime against humanity..and since Nato did not condemn or rush to stop the slaughter of innocent people, Russia did..and did so correctly. I am writing only about this specific instance...that is all...not going on, as you to discuss other matters. Very on focus.

Zulu, I have no problem with

Zulu, I have no problem with any nationality, as long as they don't beat their chests and declare themselves better than others, or want to conquer. I've had many good friends of all nationalities and intend to have more.

My wife was born in Zilau, Transylvania in 1928. Her father was a railwayman, being transferred all over the country, every few months, and she was getting beaten up by bullies and even by teachers, for being a Hungarian. At the end of the war they were in Austria, not intending to go back. Of course, they also had some good friends.

Read some of the stories what happened around Budapest. The stories are typical of armies in history, changing sides on battlefields. The Romanian army started the war on the nazi side, suffering great casualties around Stalingrad, and changed sides, on the order of another pimp government, finishing the war on the Soviet side, taking revenge for Ribbentrop and Ciano having given back some areas of Transylvania, with about 2-3 millions of Hungarians, to Hungary.

Not because they were Romanians, but because this is one of the many examples of the military/political mind, though history.

This is why I hate the military,ideologues and politicians regardless of nationality, with a passion.

In short, I record happenings, regardless who, or what, without any nationalistic, ideologic, or religious hangups.

Crooks are crooks, regardless who, or what they are.

Ed Deak.

Stop beting the dead horse, folks

Inasmuch as this thread is revisiting the polemics of the Cold War - consistent with the polemics of Newt Gingrich et al, I think a couple of relevant observations are in order.

1/ The US "won" that Cold War because of its superior economic strength.

2/ That economic strength was NOT the direct result of its "Free Enterprise" business ethic, but rather because the US was able to download the costs of fighting that war, and other "hot" wars onto other nations through the issuance of constantly devaluing Treasury Bonds.

3/ When the USSR collapsed, many Russians hoped that the instituting of "Free Enterprise" would salvage its economic system, and so invited in Western economists - primarily American - to set about "privatising" Russian industry.

Very soon the corruption this process engendered, with low level bureaucrats, political appointees and numerous outright criminals being gifted with operations worth millions, prompted outcries in the world's press.

I have never forgotten an interview I heard with Jeffrey Sachs, an American economist brought in to effect damage control. Here is my recollection of the gist of that interview :

"The capitalist system demands large blocks of private capital to function. It doesn't matter if some of those blocks are in the hands of criminals, since they will be eventually absorbed into the system, as has happened in the US"

So if you think that the capitalist will of his / her own accord ever accede to a system of ethical guidelines, dream on. Their only objective is to make money, and to them how that is done is largely immaterial.