ROBERT SCHEER: Georgia war is a neocon election ploy

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | 8/13/8 | Robert Scheer, Creators Syndicate, Inc.

[SmithL]

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?

Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser.

Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. Iraq invasion.

There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which clearly was expected to produce a Russian counter-reaction. It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain's presidential campaign.

In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia's membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia's Vladimir Putin.

[WOSG]

WOW. This man is way off his medications.

“There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which clearly was expected to produce a Russian counter-reaction. “

There are telltale signs these claims are Russian propaganda. I guess as the USSR reforms the wannabe USSR-bootlickers also return to form and parrot their nonsense.

Georgia did nothing wrong and did not ‘invade’ Ossetia.
The violence was started from the other side. Russia likely planned or set this up from the get-go as a power-play. The ‘breakaway’ South Ossetia is just 70,000 people, and their ‘leaders’ just happen to spend a lot of time in Moscow.

[Deb]

Thursday was always a big day when you got the L.A. Times. That was the one day of the week the paper went totally insane and printed Sheer's "column".

Eventually he lost so much brain matter the Times fired him. Now only Keith Olberman hangs on his every word.

[WOSG]

“Some Dem was test-driving the party line yesterday, and it was Bush’s fault because we were caught by surprise: Massive intelligence failure by this administration.”

Bush fails to predict the future? What a travesty.
What next, his massive failure to part the seas and make the lame walk?

[VaBthang4]

That is a great graphic.

I love witty/condescending graphics.

[Plutarch]

Scheer is giving us the moonbat view, but this will be worked on my those just this side of moonbat (e.g. the NYT). They are going to try to make McCain into a warmongering mad bomber.

[WOSG]

Proof the USSR is coming back together:

The hardcore ‘sheer’ Leftists are starting to actually like Russia again!

[listenhillary]

Could be to boost the price of oil again. Russia is probably a little dismayed after getting such a high price just a month ago.

[Cyber Liberty]

They successfuly played the “faulty intelligence” meme before, and they think they have a winner again.

[romanesq]

The sneering Scheer is no mere liberal. He’s a committed leftist who will lie and distort in order to subvert America.

He’s been pegged for a long time. This ugliness in defense of the Russian bear merely being the latest.

He’s a worm and would love to see the phoenix of communism rise, led by Putin and his KGB henchmen.

[WOSG]

” Scheer seems to believe that Georgia attacked Osettia and the Russians simply counter attacked after this provocation. This operation was planned and forces deployed far in advance of Friday August 8.As Ralph Peters said yesterday, anyone with a grade above private knows you do not plan and deploy an offensive of 2+ armored divisions, supporting air and naval forces, from a standing start in 12 hours. The reality is that Georgian leadership was baited and fell for it. (Assuming the report of a Georgian move into Osettia is true and not simply a maskirova, of which th Russians are long famous.)”

Those reports are false. Russian propaganda. This article includes a link to the Georgian MFA which has the timeline and this gem:

http://travismonitor.blogspot.com/2008/08/putins-mistake.html

” 3 August: South Ossetian separatist government announced evacuation of more than 500 people, including about 400 children. However, Ermak Dzansolov, deputy prime minister of Russia’s North Ossetian Republic, told Interfax news agency that it was not an evacuation. Sending children to North Ossetia was part of a pre-arranged summer-camp programme, as he explained. Russian media outlets started a massive propaganda campaign against Georgia.”

So ONE WEEK BEFORE the ‘provocation’ by Georgia, Russian media was treating kids going to summer camp as a ‘refugees fleeing area’ story!!!

Goebbels would be proud.

[Psalm_2]

this article is communist agitator’s propaganda....

aka agitprop.

robert sheer is defending old style soviet expansionism.

[adorno]

Georgia war is a neocon election ploy

It's actually the complete opposite.

Putin knows that an outgoing president won't get involved in another war. Sorta like Clinton not wanting to ruffle any feathers by taking any action against Saddam or Bin-Laden just before he was scheduled to leave office.

And, Putin knows that if Bush got the U.S. involved, that the democrats would be using the new involvement as proof that Bush is the warmonger that they've been calling him all along.

And, Putin is believing the polls in the U.S. which point to Americans being war-weary and fatigued with the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and, believing the polls, Putin knew that Bush wouldn't risk getting involved in another conflict. I'm pretty sure that Putin has also been reading and believing the news about the U.S. military being spread too thin and not ready to take on another conflict.

[LtKerst]

Robert Scheer is a Moron.

So Russia was tricked into attacking...

and wanting to join Nato is a Ploy???

Scheer is a Crack-pot

[SE Mom]

May I just say how MUCH I DETEST LIBERALS?

Thank you.

I detest liberals.

[ought-six]

Is Robert Scheer still kicking? I guess the SF Testicle picked him up after the LA Slimes got rid of him.

[infowarrior]

This guy must have and advanced case of AIDs from his San Francisco butt buddies and it has affected his brain...

As far as I know, AIDS doesn't affect the brain. Syphilis, on the other hand...

the infowarrior

[Tolerance Sucks Rocks]

It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back.

I thought Saakashvili was reacting to strife stirred up by Russian agents provocateurs.

[BykrBayb]

Three? Who joined?

[BykrBayb]

Oops. Forgot to update.