Why didn't W think Russia would pose a threat? Didn't he remember the whole Cold War? Was it just his stupidity? Remember how big bro 43 looked into Putin's eyes? When he did Bush said to his then Secretary of State Colin Powell "Powell, I looked into Putin's eyes and I saw his soul" to which Powell replied "Mr. President, I looked into President Putin's eyes and I saw the KGB". Now look at how trusting Putin and ignoring the threat that Russia had been has jeopardized us.
Putin, speaking on state television, made it clear that he has heard enough of W's propaganda as he said "It is a shame that some of our partners are not helping us but, essentially, are hindering us. I mean, the transfer by the United
States of a Georgian contingent in Iraq with military transport planes practically to the conflict zone. The very scale of this cynicism is astonishing, the attempt to turn white into black, black into white and to adeptly portray victims of aggression as aggressors and place the responsibility for the consequences of the aggression on the victims."
We have innocent Iraqis' lives lost--and many countries will say because of their oil, consequentially we don't have the moral high ground to talk down to Russia over Georgia.
The article "Raids Suggest Russia Targeted Energy Pipelines" states "A neat row of large craters in a field in southern Georgia strongly suggests that Russia dropped bombs near oil and gas pipelines bringing fuel to the West. Fifteen miles from the Azerbaijan border, two craters sit perilously close to an oil pipeline supplying the West. Georgian officials say Russian warplanes dropped bombs in an early Saturday raid close to the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which pumps some 850,000 barrels of crude a day -- or 1% of total global oil demand -- from Azerbaijan to the
Mediterranean."
No one can depend on the US!
The article "Georgia's Recklessness" states "The fates of South Ossetia and Abkhazia are chief among the many issues
that are still unresolved in the war between Georgia and Russia. What's clear, however, is that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered his country's military to assert his authority over South Ossetia by force. American officials
should reflect on the implications of Saakashvili's behavior for U.S. policy toward Georgia, Russia and the region.
Saakashvili ordered the assault last week knowing that South Ossetia would resist, knowing that his forces would have to take on Russian peacekeepers and knowing that Moscow has been spoiling for a fight. In fact, his own government
had claimed for some time that Russia was preparing to attack Georgia's president clearly thought that his troops could quickly occupy South Ossetia and that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin would not dare to intervene because doing so might provoke the West, especially the United States.
Saakashvili has embraced this tried-and-true strategy with gusto, sending a substantial share of the country's small army to Iraq (from which its troops were understandably recalled in recent days) and parroting Bush administration talking points on international issues -- especially on promoting democracy --more than almost any other leader worldwide.
Ultimately, however, it wouldn't matter to Georgia's president whether the United States was a democracy, a theocracy or ruled by Martians so long as he could use Washington to change the dynamics of Georgian-Russian relations.
Saakashvili's recent statements demonstrate how well he has learned to push America's buttons, probably with the help of his government's lobbyists in Washington. In several interviews and articles, including an op-ed in yesterday's Post, he has compared the recent Russian attack on Georgia to the Soviet invasions of Hungary, Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. He has also invoked former president Ronald Reagan and tried to frame the war as a Russian assault on Western values. "We are attacked because we wanted to be free," he said on CNN."
No one can depend on the US-not even us! We've been lied to and weakened by W!
The British media consider us to be propaganda peddlers. The article "Al-Qaida tape says Musharraf lets US run Pakistan" at http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/11/pakistan exhibits this making this indictment against us "The authenticity of the recording, delivered to a Pakistani news channel over the weekend, could not be immediately verified. Zawahiri said he was speaking in English to directly appeal to the people of Pakistan, regretting that he did not know Urdu, the national language. There were suggestions in the Pakistani media that the video had been fabricated
by Musharraf's aides to boost public opinion in his favour, just as an al-Qaida video on the eve of the last US presidential election appeared to help George Bush's standing."
The July 11, 2006 article "Rethinking Embattled Tactics in Terror War--Courts, Hill and Allies Press
Administration" clearly illustrates that W's "GWOT" is a sick scam.
It states "Five years after the attacks on the United States, the Bush administration faces the prospect of reworking key elements of its anti-terrorism effort in light of challenges from the courts, Congress and European allies crucial to counterterrorism operations. The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee and other members of
Congress have complained about not being briefed on classified surveillance programs and huge unprecedented databases used to monitor domestic and international phone calls, faxes, e-mails and bank transfers."
Two years later 43's Defense Secretary sees no light at the end of GWOT's tunnel.
The July 31, 2008 article "Gates Sees Terrorism Remaining Enemy No. 1 New Defense Strategy Shifts Focus From Conventional Warfare" states "that even winning the conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan will not end the "Long War" against violent extremism and that the fight against al-Qaeda and other terrorists should be the nation's top military priority over coming decades, according to a new National Defense Strategy he approved last month. The strategy document, which has not been released, calls for the military to master "irregular" warfare rather than focusing on conventional conflicts
against other nations, though Gates also recommends partnering with China and Russia in order to blunt their rise as potential adversaries. The strategy is a culmination of Gates's work since he took over the Pentagon in late 2006 and
spells out his view that the nation must harness both military assets and "soft power" to defeat a complex, transnational foe. The use of force plays a role, yet military efforts to capture or kill terrorists are likely to be subordinate to measures to promote local participation in government and economic programs to spur development, as well as efforts to understand and address the grievances that often lie at the heart of insurgencies," the document said. "For these reasons, arguably the most important military component of the struggle against violent extremists is not the fighting we do
ourselves, but how well we help prepare our partners to defend and govern themselves."
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