(under whatever pretext, such as to protect ethnic Russians at Sochi, etc.),
remember, you read it here first, on FR.
Posted on 08/12/2008 10:12:05 AM PDT by XR7
...Do you recall the precise details of the Sudeten Crisis that led to Nazi Germany's invasion of Czechoslovakia? Of course not, because that morally ambiguous dispute is rightly remembered as a minor part of a much bigger drama.
The events of the past week will be remembered that way, too. This war did not begin because of a miscalculation by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. It is a war that Moscow has been attempting to provoke for some time. The man who once called the collapse of the Soviet Union "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century" has re-established a virtual czarist rule in Russia and is trying to restore the country to its once-dominant role in Eurasia and the world. Armed with wealth from oil and gas; holding a near-monopoly over the energy supply to Europe; with a million soldiers, thousands of nuclear warheads and the world's third-largest military budget, Vladimir Putin believes that now is the time to make his move...
His war against Georgia is part of this grand strategy. Putin cares no more about a few thousand South Ossetians than he does about Kosovo's Serbs...
Unfortunately, such tactics always seem to work. While Russian bombers attack Georgian ports and bases, Europeans and Americans, including very senior officials in the Bush administration, blame the West...
It is true that many Russians were humiliated by the way the Cold War ended, and Putin has persuaded many to blame Boris Yeltsin and Russian democrats for this surrender to the West. The mood is reminiscent of Germany after World War I, when Germans complained about the "shameful Versailles diktat" imposed on a prostrate Germany by the victorious powers and about the corrupt politicians who stabbed the nation in the back...
(Excerpt) Read more at seattletimes.nwsource.com ...
Yes.
Yes.
This guy nails it.
It is all our fault for being unreasonable.
It is helpful to remember that Hitler used the “abuse of Sudeten Germans” as his reason for taking the Sudeten.
ping.
Yes.
Putin had to act to "protect" the poor, beleaguered Russians in Ossetia who were being "abused" by the evil Georgians.
Notice that the Russians are not calling for an independent Ossetia inclusive of N. Ossetia.
Nope.
The Ruskies just need their liebensraum.
Who said the bear was dead? After regrouping and consolidating, it's alive and well and invading a country near you.
Helps explain the mad scramble (in some quarters) to blame this mess on the Kosovo conflict, George Soros, etc.
"Georgia was dressed provocatively, she deserved it."
Imagine Barak Obama facing Vladimir Putin across a negotiating table...
“Imagine Barak Obama facing Vladimir Putin across a negotiating table...”
Yes it would look like the scene in “Pulp fiction”
Where Marsellus Wallace is down in the basement with a gag ball in his mouth, being carnally invaded by Zed.
Obama is mentally unarmed.
We hurt their wittle feelings? Awwwwww.
Barak should just walk in, strip buck naked, hand over all his clothes and his wallet, and crawl out. Save everyone involved a lot of time and trouble.
“Putin had to act to “protect” the poor, beleaguered Russians in Ossetia who were being “abused” by the evil Georgians.”
Yup, and Putin has “protected” them in about the same way, getting thousands of them killed and turning their homes and city into a wasteland.
He may try to intimidate them again with shutting off gas...but Ukraine is much stronger thanb Georgia, and more easily protected.
I believe we are going to see a new cold war...but this one along the Russian border and one of their own making by such actions. The satellite states, from the Baltics, to Poland, to the Czech Republic, Romania, Ukraine, etc., and certainly Georgia, will all oppose being engrated back into a Russian version of the old Soviet Union...and Russia is not able to fight them all at once.
Humiliated that their 70 year orgy of crimes against humanity came to an end?
Boo flippin hoo.
Will Russia Attack Poland Next?
http://www.time.com/time/world/article/0,8599,1833364,00.html
Man, I hope, I pray, you are right.
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