trying to simmer down about the venal twits in american politics

and i'm moving it back up because i keep getting flak about
why i'm so positive russia didn't invade georgia

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Well-deserved prosperity....

Scott was grilling me on the deal with Russia and Georgia the other night, and tonight I get an email from someone wanting to know if I'm hot for Putin and how can I defend the fucker who invaded Georgia. Probably just yanking my chain for drill, but here you go:

The Soviet Union broke up in 1989. I think Abkhazia and South Ossetia broke off from Georgia in 1991, or thereabouts, but no one recognized them as independent states in all these years, not even the Russians, not wishing to upset the apple cart like we did in Kosovo. However, a lot of the people of both these breakaway regions are ethnic Russians. They were born in Russia, hold Russian citizenship and passports, identify with Russia, not Georgia, a region they were lumped into by the Soviet Stalin, not because they were Georgians. There has been strife over this. Particularly lately, with Saakashvili wanting to settle these wrinkles in his ability to join NATO. Georgia has been aggressive toward these breakaway areas over the years. So the Russians got U.N. approval for peacekeepers to go there and keep the peace, discourage violent action by Georgia. Still, Georgia was violent, lots of sniper attacks, and so Russia moved troops close to the borders of these areas as further deterrence... months before Georgia attacked South Ossetia on the opening day of the 2008 Olympics. So there is no way Saakashvili wasn't fully aware of what was out there strictly to deter him from slaughtering people to reclaim those breakaway regions for Georgia. Now, I have no idea if Russia wanted Saakashvili to do something stupid, but I do know that Saakashvili did something stupid, and murderous, murderous toward Russian citizens and innocent others, bombed them in their beds to be specific, and there is no way in hell he did it without the belief he would be backed up by the United States... probably Israel, too, since they don't want Russia being able to protect Iran through Georgia. Even a grade schooler could tell that a military invasion of either region would be instantly crushed by the Russians if they so desired, but this overgrown grade schooler -- who is no democrat -- did it anyway.

Putin and Medvedev have had it with our filthy aggression and our threats to sovereign nations around the world. Truly, who, objectively, with their exceptionalism set aside for the task, could blame them? They've tried everything else to help pacify this unholy mess we call our government that keeps you and me glum and demoralized 24/7/365. We have been railing against these criminals in the White House since they invaded it. Bubkes has come of all our hand-wringing. SOMEBODY has to do what it would take to deter them from their preëmption of anyone and anything standing in the way of their looting whatever country they want, including their own. Russia has done what it would take. They went in and smacked down all our hopes for a foothold in Georgia. They made friends with Syria and Iran and Venezuela and other countries we are threatening and actively destabilizing with covert ops. They are giving the defenseless-against-us defenses against us.

So. Not only did Putin take Russia from abject chaos back into the first world, he has done it in such a way that they are truly able to help avert World War III... which was fucking well unavoidable until Russia popped up and said, ENOUGH!

Any of you too petty or ungrateful to recognize the enormity of the good in this should just go take a long walk off a short pier. And any of you who agree with me about this, I wish you'd start hollering at these fuckers on the group think blogs to stop feeding the fascist propaganda with their laziness of mind, and kneejerk resort to that fucking baseless assertion of our exceptionalism. We're exceptionally vicious and greedy and lazy and fat and cowardly... and we lap up bald faced lies like mother's milk. Snap out of it! EVERYTHING depends on it.