restless natives

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The Russian people are not taking this "recession" very well. There are again rumors of massive protests, but no confirmation from reliable sources on that front. The UK press is even more rabid against them than sources in the US. I made the rounds of all my not pro-Putin translation sources and don't see anything about protests. Grousing, yes; protests, no. The CFR is calling this move by Putin theater for the masses. If you choose to believe that, okay, but, damn, wouldn't it be nice if Obummer were doing a little of this kind of "theater"?

How about if he'd have called, say, Tim Geithner a "cockroach" instead of hiring him?

I'm sorry. Putin is fifty times better in statesmanship.

just amazing how much they can stick under one headline

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Seems to me the Boiling Cold War is simmering down. Russia has extended her hand to all those we've been threatening and together they are all staring us down. We have some other pressing matters right now anyway, and, darn, Russia will have the time to restore her capabilities to the point where maybe these fuckers can never threaten the rest of the world this way again... well... how about at least for the rest of my life? I promise to work hard to forestall the day when this like will come again in any case.

a bright future for south ossetia

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I keep calling it oh-set-tia, but it's oh-say-sha.... Notwithstanding my dumb pronunciation, I'm very glad for this bit of good news. Those people have been through enough shit to last a few centuries already. Congratulations.

wow, this pretty much tears it for me vis-à-vis yushchenko

[click image that says more than a thousand words... (L to R) Yushchenko, Pig Lips, McSenile, Saakashvillian]

... and the McSenile/PigLips ticket.... I was already beginning to wonder why our government was so mystically pro-democratic about the Yushchenko election hassles when they are usually so heavily on the side of rigged elections. Silly me.

as opposed to the load of puke disgorged by saakashvili

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While opposition grows in Georgia.

heh

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How frustrating....

i am profoundly grateful for this

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They may very literally be saving us from ourselves.

cold cold war meets boiling cold war

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seems the propaganda wars are raging

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...and "our side" may be losing... or we could hope, anyway.

now don't get me wrong

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Didn't someone try to poison him to death? Is it wholly a good thing that they failed? Do we have any reason to believe that an active NATO is a good thing? Any at all? I could hang with keeping the shell for future need, but it's really only a bonanza for defense contractors and the generation of the conflicts that sustain them. Is this asshole really so dumb or do these people even have a choice anymore? And if they do now have a choice, with the resurgent Russia, are they making the right one?

BH is right. I need a movie night!

heavy sigh

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watching all day for some follow on the saakashvili damning bit

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...but the brink of economic catastrophe seems to be sucking all the air there might have been out of that. Still, I'm sitting out on my parents' front porch in the full moonlight and I can't quite lose the little stabs of elation from a dateline Paris Reuters piece putting the blame for what's being called the Five-day War on Saakashvili, and especially on the same day I learned that Sarko wants Judo lessons from Putin. How interesting that it seems Saakashvili having overplayed The West's hand [and I think he had help from * and Fudd... it's so totally their speed] may have pulled the rug out from under WWIII.

The sane course, of course, for the European Union is not to side with us. I think only the most paranoid could disagree with that... but... never forget... I'm weird. It just might be that wiser heads have decided that forcing us to fix our financial disasters with innovation instead of war is really the way to go. All our pockets are turned out. The Fed is fed. Europe doesn't want to fight Russia, and I'm no financial genius but I think trading with Russia has got to be a heck of a lot more appealing to them than fighting with them... while we are down the rabbit hole. It's just huge that the lock against coming right out and admitting that Georgia did it and Russia responded was broken by Europe's biggest news wire.

Okruashvili didn't exist until today -- yesterday -- not as far as the fascists were concerned, and it's just amazing that he's suddenly been conjured into existence -- pft -- right before our very eyes, complete with legend and everything... and a rather greasy aspersion has been splashed upon on that tie gnashing "democrat" in Tbilisi for all to see... just on the day it becomes known that a bunch of huge American investment banks are about to go all the way down.

Anyway, I'm going to bed with these vague notions....

This, of course, is when the desperate do seriously appalling things, and even if they don't, it's going to be pretty appalling anyway. I think it isn't too far-fetched to say that a vote for McCain/Palin is a vote for WWIII [with a startling dearth of allies] [oh, yez, NATO-schmato, just you wait and see] [be serious] and Obama/Biden for well-managed bread lines.

Don't pay me any mind. I'm punchy.

[2:15am -- Ahahahahahaha! What did I tell you? But you say I'm crazy....]

[2:20am -- Yes, I am aware some say Sarkozy is a CIA agent and so Putin should have a taster handy when hanging with the French president, but, well, in any case, he's got a rather large population of revolution-happy war-hating French people not to piss off too.]

[2:35am -- Okay, okay, I'm really going to bed now. I don't have my contacts in and the stars are all big blinking and squirming cosmic amoebae again, so, honestly, bed is prudent.]

can't think how this plays out

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...but it's going to hurt very badly, and there isn't anyone in government I trust to do anything intelligent or good about it. I'm still awed by Reuters coming out with that blatantly anti-Georgia-in-NATO piece earlier and I'm even wondering if they dared cross to the other side because we're going to be really busy with an economic crisis that will dwarf everything else we've got going on....

No, seriously. A few weeks ago Sarkozy was huffing and puffing about poor little Georgia being hurt by that big old bully bear, and now he's getting Judo lessons from Putin. Dare I hope that Europeans, including the Brits, have decided to stop playing this evil game? Dare we?

a short guy thing

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it is way so intensely interesting that this has come out now

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By Brian Rohan

PARIS (Reuters) - Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had long planned a military strike to seize back the breakaway region of South Ossetia but executed it poorly, making it easy for Russia to retaliate, Saakashvili's former defence minister said.

Irakly Okruashvili, Georgia's leading political exile, said in a weekend interview in Paris that the United States was partly to blame for the war, having failed to check the ambitions of what he called a man with democratic failings.

Saakashvili's days as president were now numbered, he said.

The former defence minister's remarks are significant because Saakashvili has always maintained Russia started the war by invading his country. The Georgian president said he handed EU leaders last week "very strong proof" that Moscow was to blame, though he did not give details.

But Okruashvili, a close Saakashvili ally who served as defence minister from 2004 to 2006, said he and the president worked together on military plans to invade South Ossetia and a second breakaway region on the Black Sea coast, Abkhazia.

"Abkhazia was our strategic priority, but we drew up military plans in 2005 for taking both Abkhazia and South Ossetia as well," Okruashvili said.

There was no immediate reaction from Saakashvili's officials to his remarks.

While in office, Okruashvili was an outspoken hawk, overseeing a military buildup and calling for Georgia to take back South Ossetia -- his birthplace -- by force.

But in the interview he fiercely criticized Saakashvili's handling of the war, which he said was launched in haste, without diplomatic support and failed to take account of a build-up of Russian forces in the region.

TWO-PRONGED OPERATION

"The original plans called for a two-pronged operation entering South Ossetia, taking Tskhinvali, the Roki Tunnel and Java," he said, referring respectively to the regional capital, the main border crossing between Russia and the rebel region, and another key town.

"Saakashvili's offensive only aimed at taking Tskhinvali, because he thought the U.S. would block a Russian reaction through diplomatic channels."

"But when the U.S. reaction turned out to be non-existent, Saakashvili then moved troops toward the Roki tunnel, only to be outmaneuvered by the Russians," he said.

Russia responded to the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali by pouring troops and tanks through the Roki tunnel into South Ossetia, routing the Georgian army. Okruashvili said that outcome was inevitable.

"After 2006 we didn't have the possibility for success by military means... the Russians had repositioned and improved their military infrastructure in the North Caucasus, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia -- and obviously they did it for us."

Okruashvili said the Georgian president could have ordered his army to defend several key towns from the Russians but "let the Russians in to avoid criticism and appear more of a victim".

Washington had always made clear to the Georgian leadership that it would not support an invasion, Okruashvili added.

"When we met President Bush in May 2005, we were told directly: don't involve yourself in a military confrontation. We won't be able to help you militarily."

Okruashvili, 34, fled to Europe in 2007 after imprisonment in Georgia, where he faced corruption charges he denied, saying they were intended to punish him for criticizing the president.

In March, a Georgian court sentenced him to 11 years in prison in absentia, but he was granted asylum in France where last week a court rejected Tbilisi's extradition request.

Okruashvili said Washington was partly to blame for the war because it uncritically supported Saakashvili despite his growing authoritarianism.

"There were no checks and balances. The institutions he created all revolved around him. Lack of criticism from the U.S. allowed him to go too far," he said.

Okruashvili said the Georgian president should now resign or face possible prosecution for ordering the war and for signing a "disgraceful" EU-brokered ceasefire plan which he said gave Russia a much stronger claim on the two rebel regions.

"(Saakashvili) must be held accountable and resign. If he steps down, he shouldn't be prosecuted. But if he doesn't it will lead to criminal charges against him," Okruashvili said.

Propelled to the forefront of the opposition when the charges brought against him helped spark mass demonstrations in Tbilisi, Okruashvili said he hoped the coming anniversary of those protests would rally the president's critics.

"November 7th will be a test. We'll see how much the opposition is able to mobilize," he said.

In the French capital since January, Okruashvili plans to come back to his homeland soon.

"I will return within a year, even if it means risking jail. But in the meantime I will try to create the right conditions. Saakashvili's days are numbered."

To borrow a Big Dan-ism, this is huge. Note: This is Reuters we're talking here, not just us hysterical lefty truth freaks. We gotta think about this.

I especially love how Pig Lips was bragging about having spoken to this psycho, in her imitation of an executive type with that anchor who keeps doing a lame imitation of a journalist the other night....

But, wow. I gotta think about this!

the specs on what they're testing up there

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well, right

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We were just talking the other day about India quickly becoming our only feasible means of ingress, and it very likely enraging the Pakistanis to the breaking point.

What I want to know is how does anyone think it behooves this nation to create this scene?

that's the spirit

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Really. [Though Lavrov denies it.]

as you know, blood started spurting from my eyes when this aired

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It bothers me that some of the premier gasbags of all Left Blogistan are the only ones who seem to catch my drift. If they were doing something about it beyond jockeying for their own popularity, I'd be orgasmic with gratitude. As it is, not so much....

sochi lunch

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CNN pulls a 60 Minutes on Putin... but might not end up as happy about it.

While I deplore how easily the fascists can twist all this into seeming like acts of aggression and imperial conquest to the American public -- whose government has been engaged in nothing else since 2001 -- there is also the element of real justice in all Russia's moves since Saakashvili attacked South Ossetia. Everywhere we have been a lethal threat, Russia is moving to alleviate that terror. They have already given much relief to Iran, Syria and other Middle East nations. Now they are certainly giving Venezuelans reason to rest easier too and using *'s own psychology against him. That is known as speaking to people in terms they understand.

I just really hope that visitors to this blog will always bear in mind that things are not necessarily the way our media paint them... and that even the best among us are subject to grievous mental error from the tainted information we have been getting for so long. Before your knee jerks up and breaks your teeth from slamming into your chin so hard, always try to remember that you have been being conditioned by people who revile the truth like vampires scurrying from daylight for most of, maybe all, your life.