[Ulysse]

Now the old Europe is looking for peace at any price and before everything want to live confortable even if they give up their freedom....

Good point NO European unity!
Those who praised the “CITIZEN OF THE WORLD” in BERLIN are NOT USA’ allies!

oubssama is fooling himself and the fan crowds

[Truth29]

Old lessons will need to be relearned in blood. Many will decry how it comes about, and many will deny any hand in setting the stage for what is about to happen in Europe. This time, the US may not come to the rescue.

[Rappini]

The next POTUS will need to bring back the draft.

[SBprone]

“President Bush spent the first crucial days of the Georgia crisis as a bewildered observer reluctant to recognize the gravity of the problem”

And if I wuz the President I woulda ......................

Real warriors can turn themselves into armchair warriors with long practice and a certain amount of readership adulation.

[bert]

Meanwhile, in Russia, men, even young men, die of acute alchoholism. The average life span is only 51. Babies are aborted as the general rule.

Russia is in serious decline.

Money, national oil money won’t buy happiness

Putin is trying to return to a state of mind that failed to produce Tylenol but is the best he can come up with.

[Virginia Ridgerunner]

Bush's gravest flaw is that he's a dreadful judge of character, stubbornly trusting undeserving men, from Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi, through the incompetent Alberto Gonzales, to Vladimir Putin, who played Bush for a fool.

Ouch! That's going to leave a mark!

[Psalm 73]

Just give them the Sudatenland - that's all they want.
And, well, might as well let them have the rest of Czechoslovakia - but they promise to stop there.
OK, maybe Austria, too - but that's all.....

[jagusafr]

“While it may be unhelpful to be an alarmist, it’s even less useful to be willfully naïve.”

The money concept of his analysis. We’re willfully naive and it’s going to bite us in the ass and cause many more casualties than if we respond fast and hard - but, as he also notes, that opportunity is past. It will be long and bloody, and classic warfare. Which we’re no longer equipped to participate in.

Colonel, USAFR

[redgolum]

This more of a seismic shift than many here realize.

The assumptions of the ruling class of the West has been that we will all be in some sort of World Government soon, more than likely modeled on what the USSR was supposed to be. Russia acting like Russia against a neighboring country is really outside their scope of thinking. Much like 1 billion muslims who want to conquer or kill us is.

It is not so much a surprise as a break from what they thought was reality. Nationalist and religious motivation for war was supposed to be gone (notice how the US has framed their last few conflicts, and compare that with the 19th century). Russia has defined this war in Georgia as one for the Russian people. Not in any PC speak or UN talk. They are defending their tribe.

And our leaders do not know how to identify with that, much less fight it.

[Billthedrill]

Once again I think that Peters' disdain for Bush is getting in the way of a clear analysis of the situation as it did so many times with respect to Iraq. A quick look at the map will tell volumes. Georgia (1) shares a border with Russia, (2) has organized subversion in place in the form of pro-Russian populations, (3) is covered by Russian air supremacy, (4) offers the Russians the advantage of internal lines of communication, (5) is a non-nuclear country facing one armed with nuclear weapons. Direct military confrontation under those conditions is the stuff of desperate fantasy.

Keeping military trainers in the country is a bold and deliberate move on the part of the U.S., and keeping 18 permanent checkpoints in the country is a foolish and provocative move on the part of the Russians. They might as well paint targets on them.

Everyone seems to want to declare Putin the toughest guy around for knocking over the equivalent of a lemonade stand. I demur. And Peters ought to know better.

[neverdem]

thanks, bfl