My opinion on the McCain VP pick

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!!!


Face it, folks. you just can't find this kind of high-quality political analysis anywhere else.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Censorship, thy name is Barack Obama

The ad Barack Obama doesn't want you to see.

Strike that: the ad Barack Obama really doesn't want you to see:



This ad highlights Obama's extensive ties to unrepentant Weather Underground terrorist Bill Ayers. And when I say unrepentant, I mean unrepentant:

I mean really unrepentant:

And Barack Obama really does not want you to see this ad, so much so that he is trying to get the Department of Justice to prosecute the Republican group behind the ad campaign.

That's right. Barack Obama won't use the US security apparatus to protect the interests of Americans, but he will use it to persecute Americans who say things he doesn't like.

Under what law he wants them prosecuted is anyone's guess, but that is his only avenue. He can't use the tort of defamation, even under the lower standard for non-public figures, because truth is an absolute defense to defamation. He can't use false light invasion of privacy, because the group is using Obama's and Ayers' own public statements and their work for public entities in this ad.

Protesting and boycotting is one thing -- that's freedom of speech -- but threatening government action is something else. The chilling effect threats like Obama's have on public debate has been the subject of anti-SLAPP laws across the county. "SLAPP" stands for "Strategic Lawsuits Against Public Participation." The logic is that big corporations with money will threaten critics of their activities with expensive but frivolous lawsuits in order to silence their public opposition.

Anti-SLAPP laws are designed to minimize that threat. Depending on the jurisdiction, a SLAPP lawsuit could be stopped in its tracks, before any expensive discovery has occurred, and the offending party can be hit with attorney fees.

Anti-SLAPP laws are of the state variety. There is no federal analogue, which in this case is very unfortunate, because Barack Obama might have had to literally pay a price for his Stalinist tactics.

As for Ayers and his partner in crime (literally) Bernadine Dorhn, what more can be said? The two of them are walking poster children for abortion. No good whatsoever has come of their lives. The world would have been a much better place if Ayers and Dohrn had simply been aborted. They could have been retroactively aborted at least if liberal hero "Deep Throat" had not committed misconduct into the investigation of the Weather Underground.

But because he did, Ayers and Dohrn are, as Ayers said, "Guilty as sin, free as a bird." Not only has their treasonous terror not been punished, it has been rewarded, by the University of Illinois-Chicago, which employs Ayers; and Northwestern Law School(!), which employs Dohrn.

Ayers' and Dorhn's enablers should be held accountable somehow. Those enablers include the the faculty and tenure committees at Illinois-Chicago and Northwestern. And, indeed, Barack Obama, whose political career was birthed in their living room.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

So am I the only one

who thinks that, from the standpoint of whether he could step in and serve as POTUS adequately or better, Joe Biden is not a bad selection as Barack Obama's VPOTUS nominee?

Yes, Biden is a vain, overconfident blowhard who loves to hear himself talk and whose talking gets him into trouble constantly. And, yes, Biden, like most Dems, is insane on federal judges because of this country's intractable war over abortion.

But on defense and foreign policy, which are my primary concerns for a POTUS candidate and which are the primary responsibility for the federal government, Biden is not bad. Not bad at all.

Yes, he has ripped the conduct if US troops here and there, sometimes incorrectly, but he has never given off the pacifist and/or anti-American vibes like the dominant wing of modern liberalism does or, indeed, like Barack Obama.

Most of the Dem POTUS candidates this term would be disasters in the White House, Barack Obama included, from the standpoint of defense and foreign policy. Joseph Biden was never one of these people. And I suspect his performance ion defense and foreign policy issues would be better than some of the GOP candidates, specifically Mike Huckabee and Ron Paul. Like many, many others of the national Dems, such as Diane Feinstein and Charles Schumer, Biden has been the loyal opposition. I will question the patriotism and toughness of Dem politicians such as Obama, John Kerry, or Dennis Kucinich. I would never do so for people like Biden, Schumer or Feinstein.

Whether Joe Biden helps Obama politically in his quest for the White House is a very open question, but you could do far, far worse for a potential POTUS than Joe Biden.

Rack 'em up for McCain

Is Barack Obama trying to set a record for stepping on landmines in one day? How should I put this delicately? Lessee:

1. Obama draws a moral equivalence between Russia invading Georgia and the US invading Iraq.

Democrat Barack Obama scolded Russia again on Wednesday for invading another country’s sovereign territory while adding a new twist: the United States, he said, should set a better example on that front, too.

The Illinois senator’s opposition to the Iraq war, which his comment clearly referenced, is well known. But this was the first time the Democratic presidential candidate has made a comparison between the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Russia’s recent military activity in Georgia.

“We’ve got to send a clear message to Russia and unify our allies,” Obama told a crowd of supporters in Virginia. “They can’t charge into other countries. Of course it helps if we are leading by example on that point.”

The stupidity of Obama's statement is obvious and breathtaking. LGF:

This is normal “progressive” thinking, and you find these bizarre assumptions everywhere in leftist circles: if we just achieve some noble ideal of behavior, that alone will be enough to usher in a new era of peace and global good will — and in the meantime, it’s important to let our adversaries know that we’re not perfect and we understand their feelings.

But not even Jimmy Carter was this starry-eyed.

Gateway Pundit:

It means nothing to the most liberal senator that the US is building a democracy in Iraq while Russia is destroying one in Georgia.

UFB.

No response from McCain necessary. Cha-ching!

2. Obama attacks McCain for not remembering the number of houses he owns, which are apparently investment properties. McCain counters by pointing out that Obama's house was purchased with money from Tony Rezko. If you're not familiar with Tony Rezko, just know that he is to be sentenced in late October.

Cha-ching!

3. Obama tries to link John McCain to influence peddler Jack Abramoff. McCain responded by linking Obama to domestic terrorist Bill Ayers.

“Barack Obama’s ad is ridiculous. Because of John McCain, corruption was exposed and people like Jack Abramoff went to jail.

“However, if Barack Obama wants to have a discussion about truly questionable associations, let’s start with his relationship with the unrepentant terrorist William Ayers, at whose home Obama’s political career was reportedly launched. Mr. Ayers was a leader of the Weather Underground, a terrorist group responsible for countless bombings against targets including the U.S. Capitol, the Pentagon and numerous police stations, courthouses and banks. In recent years, Mr. Ayers has stated, ‘I don’t regret setting bombs … I feel we didn’t do enough.’

“The question now is, will Barack Obama immediately call on the University of Illinois to release all of the records they are currently withholding to shed further light on Senator Obama’s relationship with this unrepentant terrorist?” –McCain spokesman Brian Rogers.

And now McCain supporters have put together a brutal new ad on Obama's links to Ayers.

Former Weather Undergrounder Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn are nuclear -- and don't think they would not have gone nuclear themselves during their run bombing government buildings if they had had the chance. They are no different from Usama bin Laden.

CHING!

I must also say that McCain appears to have a very effective media war room. His responses to Obama's charges are quick and well-prepared. Nice job so far, Senator McCain.

A hint for Barack Obama

If you do not want people questioning your patriotism or your love of the United States, maybe you shouldn't surround yourself with people who hate the United States like America-hating racist preacher Jeremiah Wright and unrepentant anti-American terrorist Bill Ayers or adopt positions that are harmful to the United States.

Am I the only one

who has no interest in watching the Beijing Olympics?

A question

The diplomatic pushback from the Russian invasion of Georgia continues. But this question is bugging me, so I gotta ask it:

Was Vladimir Putin really behind the Russian invasion of Georgia? Or was the guilty party someone else, some person or group who has access to and some control over the Russian military?

Light posting for a bit

My day job comes calling.

Flip-flop

I gotta reverse myself here. After trashing George W. Bush's performance over the Georgia issue for two straight blog posts, it now appears that over the past 24 hours he has not only made the best of a bad situation, but possibly even turned the tables.

1. Yesterday, Bush announced he was sending "humanitarian aid" to Georgia, by air, land and sea. To help ensure the aid arrives safely, he is sending troops to help deliver it. This apparently spurred the Soviets to make one last push for Tbilisi, and they came within 15 miles of the city. But by the time they did, C-17 transports were already landing with supplies -- and US troops. To push further, the Soviets would risk firing at the US military.

2. The heads of several Eastern European countries also traveled to Tbilisi to show support for Georgia. Putin apparently managed to infuriate everyone he had hoped to intimidate.

3. Today, it was announced that the US reached a deal to base anti-air and anti-missile missiles in Poland. Russia is furious. Payback is a beeyotch, Vlad.

4. The North Atlantic Council is still said to be meeting to determine the applications for NATO membership from Georgia and Ukraine.

5. There are conflicting reports on whether Ukraine will allow the Russian Black Sea Fleet to continue to use Sevastopol.

6. Speaking of which, the Black Sea Fleet apparently got a black eye from the little Georgian navy.

7. There has been some discussion wondering if Russia's invasion of Georgia was, in fact, a rogue operation, not sanctioned or even expected by Putin and company. The unit in question is the Russian 38th Army (scroll down the post for the comments). This raises some interesting scenarios, about which I will comment later.

Georgia like a fox

A couple o' updates on Georgia.

1. No, Jorja Fox is not returning to CSI. I strongly suspect Gary Dourdan is not, either. But rest assured David Caruso is returning to CSI: Miami.

Oh, right. Like you didn't see that one coming ...

2. Just what is South Ossetia, anyway? John O'Sullivan has some details:

In recent years, the Russian state has been credibly accused of murdering an exile in London; expropriated foreign investments on behalf of an energy company controlled by itself; cut off energy supplies to states as a means of political intimidation; assisted secessionist rebels in neighbouring states in order to keep their newly independent governments off-balance; and in the past few days - no more Mr. Nice Guy - invaded and bombed the sovereign state of Georgia.

Sometimes, these actions have worn a thin disguise of tax law enforcement or "peacekeeping." "Democracy" has been a similar camouflage for an authoritarian system in which power and wealth increasingly gather in the hands of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other siloviki (or former intelligence bureaucrats). But although the siloviki know how to seize property, they have no idea how to create wealth. They generally mismanage what they seize - and so eventually need to seize more.

This parasitic system has been exported profitably to the "secessionist" regions of Georgia, which the Kremlin claims to be protecting. Almost all the senior officials in the South Ossetian "government" are former KGB officials from various Russian provinces. Its "Interior Minister," for instance, previously served in the Interior Ministry of North Ossetia. As Yulia Latynina of Novaya Gazeta dryly points out: "South Ossetia is not a territory, not a country, not a regime. It is a joint venture of siloviki generals and Ossetian bandits for making money in a conflict with Georgia." The result is a squalid depopulated entrepôt for drugs, smuggling, money-laundering and other criminal endeavours.

In addition to making money for the siloviki, South Ossetia exists for the purpose of destabilizing pro-Western Georgia. Its sporadic shelling of nearby Georgian villages provoked Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili into a seemingly catastrophic military response.

But if Georgia had taken no action, Russia would have incorporated the breakaway province by degrees. Mr. Putin had already given South Ossetian residents Russian passports. Both trapdoors led to the same result: Russian expansion; the punishment of Georgia for daring to be an ally of the West; and the annexation of South Ossetia, now occupied by Russian "peacekeepers."

3. Ralph Peters has a brutally honest piece in the New York Post on the Soviet invasion of Georgia and America's limp response. Opening grafs:

IT'S impossible to overstate the importance of what's un folding as we watch. Russia's invasion of Georgia - a calculated, unprovoked aggression - is a crisis that may have more important strategic implications than Iraq and Afghanistan combined.

We're seeing the emergence of a rogue military power with a nuclear arsenal.

The response of our own government has been pathetic - and our media's uncritical acceptance of Moscow's version of events is infuriating.

He details just how bad it is:

Let's be clear: For all that US commentators and diplomats are still chattering about Russia's "response" to Georgia's actions, the Kremlin spent months planning and preparing this operation. Any soldier above the grade of private can tell you that there's absolutely no way Moscow could've launched this huge ground, air and sea offensive in an instantaneous "response" to alleged Georgian actions.

As I pointed out Saturday, even to get one armored brigade over the Caucasus Mountains required extensive preparations. Since then, Russia has sent in the equivalent of almost two divisions - not only in South Ossetia, the scene of the original fighting, but also in separatist Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast.

The Russians also managed to arrange the instant appearance of a squadron of warships to blockade Georgia. And they launched hundreds of air strikes against preplanned targets.

Every one of these things required careful preparations. In the words of one US officer, "Just to line up the airlift sorties would've taken weeks."

Working through their mercenaries in South Ossetia, Russia staged brutal provocations against Georgia from late July onward. Last Thursday, Georgia's president finally had to act to defend his own people.

But when the mouse stirred, the cat pounced.

The Russians know that we know this was a setup. But Moscow's Big Lie propagandists still blame Georgia - even as Russian aircraft bomb Georgian homes and Russian troops seize the vital city of Gori in the country's heart. And Russian troops also grabbed the Georgian city of Zugdidi to the west - invading from Abkhazia on a second axis.

Make no mistake: Moscow intends to dismember Georgia.

This is the most cynical military operation by a "European" power since Moscow invaded Afghanistan in 1979. (Sad to say, President Bush seems as bewildered now as President Jimmy Carter did then.)

This attack's worse, though. Georgia is an independent, functioning democracy tied to the European Union and striving to join NATO. It also has backed our Iraq efforts with 2,000 troops. (We're airlifting them back home.)

This invasion recalls Hitler's march into Czechoslovakia - to protect ethnic Germans, he claimed, just as Putin claims to be protecting Russian citizens - complete BS.

It also resembles Hitler's invasion of Poland - with the difference that, in September '39, European democracies drew the line. (To France's credit, its leaders abandoned their August vacations to call Putin out - only Sen. Barack Obama remains on the beach.)

But there is good news: I just saved a lot on my car insurance by switching to Geico. Just kidding> Peters also gives an assessment of the Soviet military performance:

RUSSIA's military is succeeding in its invasion of Georgia, but only because Moscow has applied overwhelming force.

This campaign was supposed to be the big debut for the Kremlin's revitalized armed forces (funded by the country's new petro-wealth). Well, the new Russian military looks a lot like the old Russian military: slovenly and not ready for prime time.

It can hammer tiny Georgia into submission - but this campaign unintentionally reveals plenty of enduring Russian weaknesses.

The most visible failings are those of the air force. Flying Moscow's latest ground-attack jets armed with the country's newest precision weapons, pilots are missing far more targets than they're hitting.

All those strikes on civilian apartment buildings and other non-military targets? Some may be intentional (the Russians aren't above terror-bombing), but most are just the result of ill-trained pilots flying scared.

They're missing pipelines, rail lines and oil-storage facilities - just dumping their bombs as quickly as they can and heading home.

Russia's also losing aircraft. The Kremlin admits two were shot down; the Georgians claimed they'd downed a dozen by Sunday. Split the difference, and you have seven or more Russian aircraft knocked out of the sky by a tiny enemy. Compare that to US Air Force losses - statistically zero - in combat in all of our wars since Desert Storm.

As one US officer observed to me, the Russian pilots are neither professionally nor emotionally toughened for their missions. Their equipment's pretty good (not as good as ours), but their training lags - and their pilots log far fewer flight hours than ours do.

Information Dissemination strongly suggests that Russian casualties are heavy:

Russian military casualties appear to be high, and we note the number is being concealed intentionally. We are reminded of Afghanistan here. Georgian military casualties are very high, but they are spinning the numbers for political purposes. It will be up to international organizations to reveal the real numbers.

4. The magnitude of this disaster can't be understated. Peters' position was noted above. More Information Dissemination:

Based on Bush's actions following his meeting with Putin: staying in China... and Bush's inactions following that meeting: doing almost nothing for Georgia; Russia essentially had the green light to achieve all of its objectives. There will be no partial achievements here.

Russia's objectives from the beginning has been the insurance of Russian interests for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. We can only assume, based on Bush's press conference at the White House, that Bush expected Russia to fill in those regions with Russian troops and stop. We can also assume the administration did not believe Russia's tactical objectives included Senaki, Zugdidi, Gori, and Poti.

With these assumptions, and taking Russia at its word that the objectives are South Ossetia and Abkhazia, why then did Russia move on to these other tactical objectives? Furthermore, while Russia is established near all of the towns mentioned above, why has Russia stopped, set up defensive lines, and not occupied the cities themselves? How can we suggest that some sort of diplomatic effort factored into a cease fire where Russia ends up strategically positioned, dug in, and prepared to let loose its full force on the major cities in Georgia? One might imply instead that Russia positioned its forces exactly where they wanted them to be 'coincidently' before the cease fire was announced.

If Russia's strategic objective is South Ossetia and Abkhazia, then what is the purpose of the other territories Russia currently occupies? These represent Russian political concessions. No one can take them from Russia, and they can destroy the cities if their demands are not met. In other words, Russia can achieve exactly what they want, and if the west complies, Georgia gets to keep its country. If Georgia or the West doesn't comply? Georgia is destroyed further until the west accepts Russia's conditions. One should expect that one condition will be to validate Russian military action as legitimate.

[...]

Where does that leave the US? The US has proven itself not to be factor in this entire affair, and that is not likely to change now. Georgia, a small country that joined the "coalition of the willing, " was left to the tender mercies of Russia thinking their friend the US would come. I'm sure the Chinese and Russians are ready to sell the script to other powers, and that script will sell.

Superpowers pay a high cost for action in the 21st century, but it is also true that superpowers pay a high cost of inaction in the 21st century. When Bush took the military option off the table, even if he never in a million years intended to actually use that option, he doomed Georgia. Russia hasn't given the United States a second thought since. The Bush Administration played poker with Putin, but did so with the cards face up on the table. We should expect results to reflect such a play.

When we say Russia's divide and conquer strategy, surely you didn't think we were talking about Georgia. Russia will use this incident to divide Europe and the US, there is humiliation coming for American inaction. The Russian exit strategy involves Europe throwing the US under the bus so Georgia can survive. It's Russia and France at the diplomatic table, what did you really expect? In that room, US interests finish last.

Austin Bay agrees, to a point:

As I write this post news reports claim Russian troops have halted their main attack just short of Tbilisi, Georgia’s capital. Perhaps Russian memories of the battle for the city of Grozny, Chechnya, play a role. In late 1994 the Russians attempted to drive Chechen rebels from Grozny, and failed miserably. The city fight became a brutal war on the Chechen people instead of a fight with rebels. Georgia lacks Russia’s vast arsenal of tanks and aircraft. However, Georgian infantrymen are experienced, well-armed, and motivated, and the “closed-terrain” of cities gives quality infantry an advantage.

But perhaps not. As I wrote in a previous post, to influence European political, economic or military action, Russia has three convincing tools: (1) nuclear weapons; (2) a veto in the UN Security Council; and (3) abundant natural gas shipped to Europe via pipelines. Russia also controls a chunk of Georgia proper, as well as South Ossetia and (probably) Abkhazia– so it isn’t the ghost of Grozny that stops the tanks, rather, the military has taken what the Kremlin thinks it needs. The territorial gains are diplomatic chips. Ukraine’s strong support for Georgia is a huge plus for Georgia.

The coming days will provide more details about the complicated military situation. In a hot war military halts and initial ceasefires are iffy. The phrase “the situation remains in flux” describes the uncertainty and also covers the scramble by commanders to secure a road junction or a slightly higher ridge. The situations in South Ossetia and Georgia’s other separatist region, Abkhazia, are also highly uncertain and as reports of fighting and maneuvering continue to appear. I just heard that the ceasefire deal will or maybe or could include a pullback by Russia to “pre-war” lines. Hmmm. We’ll see.

Now a complex and dire diplomatic and political aftermath is upon us.

In From the Cold has more.

5. There was a significant and effective cyber attack on Georgia's communication infrastructure. More Information Dissemination:

The Georgian Army has been disabled in terms of its communications. The military communication systems have been compromised. This has created a lot of confusion among the troops, often described as chaos. The Georgian Army is not trained to operate under conditions of communications disruption.

Belmont Club asks the questions:

What role did information warfare play in the Russia-Georgia war?
Were there any signs of info war preparation?
What were the major disinformation campaigns on each side?
Were attacks on the .ge domains effective? What were the lessons carried over from the previous cyberattack experience in the Baltics?

Popular Mechanics may have some answers here:

Russian troops invaded Georgia's South Ossetia on Friday, but Russian attacks on Georgia’s major Web sites and overall Internet access began a day earlier. That’s according to Jart Armin, editor of RBNexploit—the community blog that has been leading the reporting and analysis efforts on digital security in Eastern Europe this week, even as Russian officials ordered a stand-down today.

Official Georgian domains are currently so unreliable that the country is now using a Google-run Blogspot Web site to host information from the Georgia Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

They go into some detail here, so read the whole thing. Unfortunately, the Soviet military appears to have performed more than capably in this area. Information warfare may have been the edge Russia needed for its poorly trained and equipped troops to defeat the smaller but much more professional Georgian army, even at 10-1 odds. We need to pay serious attention to this new front in warfare and to protect ourselves against it.

6. And the CYA is beginning in Washington. McClatchy:

Bush administration officials, worried by what they saw as a series of provocative Russian actions, repeatedly warned Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to avoid giving the Kremlin an excuse to intervene in his country militarily, U.S. officials said Monday.

But in the end, the warnings failed to stop the Georgian president — a Bush favorite — from launching an attack last week that on Monday seemed likely to end not only in his country’s military humiliation but complete occupation by Russian forces.

The cost of the fighting in lives has yet to be tallied. But President Bush on Monday made it clear that the outcome was sure to mark a turning point in Russia’s relations with the West. It might also prove costly for the West’s relationship with the budding democracies of Eastern Europe, which now must contemplate a world where the United States could do little to protect a close ally in the face of a determined Russian onslaught.

"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people," President Bush proclaimed after returning from China. "Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."

"These actions jeopardize Russia's relations with the United States and Europe," Bush said. "It's time for Russia to be true to its word to act to end this crisis."

Pentagon officials said that despite having 130 trainers assigned to Georgia, they had no advance notice of Georgia’s sudden move last Thursday to send thousands of Georgian troops into South Ossetia to capture that province's capital, Tskhinvali.

Not only did the U.S. troops working alongside their Georgian counterparts not see any signs of an impending invasion, Georgian officials did not notify the U.S. military before the incursion, a senior U.S. defense official told McClatchy.

But the Bush administration had fretted for months over what officials saw as intensifying Russian moves that it feared were aimed at provoking Georgia into a conflict over South Ossetia or Abkhazia, another secessionist province.

Russia has been angry over Georgia's close links with Washington, and has been determined to stop the admission to NATO of its former vassal, which is located on strategic energy and transportation routes to Central Asia.

The Russian actions against Georgia "seemed designed to provoke a Georgian over-reaction," said a senior U.S. official. "We have always counseled restraint to the Georgians."

Some experts, however, wondered whether the administration might have inadvertently sent Saakashvili mixed messages that would have led him to believe he could count on U.S. support if he got into trouble.

And others are noticing the potential intelligence failure I pointed out yesterday.

7. Any more good news in this gloom? In contrast to the sheer incompetence of Bush and the stupid and naive anti-American pacificm of Barack OBama, John McCain looks prescient and presidential:

President Bush’s assurance back in 2001 that he looked into Vladimir Putin’s soul and liked what he saw was the international equivalent of his “heckuva job” boosterism of Federal Emergency Management Agency Director Michael Brown in the immediate wake of Hurricane Katrina in 2005.

The two statements will compete for the dishonor of the most notoriously misbegotten he uttered as president. Bush’s endorsement of Putin was partly a matter of calculation; when he says glowing things about foreign leaders in public, he tells those leaders in private how he expects them to deliver. But with Putin, Bush seemed as if he were playing Ned Flanders to Putin’s Tony Soprano.

John McCain’s assessment stands up much better: When he looked at Putin, “he saw three letters: a K, a G, and a B.” Putin’s neo-Soviet state has launched a nakedly illegal invasion of neighboring Georgia that is reminiscent of the Winter War against Finland at the outset of World War II. The Russian press is pumping out absurd lies about Georgian acts of genocide, even as the Russian military indiscriminately bombs and shells Georgian cities. Edward Gibbon’s description of the Inquisition comes to mind — nonsense defended by cruelty.

The Bush administration made twin mistakes with Russia. It overpersonalized relations, with Bush hoping to coax out Putin’s better side, and tiptoed around Moscow in the hopes that gentle treatment would encourage it to act responsibly. The irony is that Barack Obama — with his commitment to personal diplomacy and a gentler U.S. footprint around the world — wants to make those two tendencies centerpieces of his foreign policy.

The Bush and Obama statements in the immediate wake of the crisis could have been issued by a joint campaign. Bush’s spokeswoman urged “all parties,” both Georgians and Russians, “to de-escalate the tension and avoid conflict.” Obama declared that “now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint.” In their implied moral equivalence, these reactions were a little like urging the Kuwaitis to de-escalate with Saddam’s Iraq in August 1990.

[...]

McCain’s proposal from a few months ago to boot Russia from the G-8 has gone from seeming needlessly provocative to practically prescient. Together with the surge in Iraq, the Georgian crisis is the second strategic matter on which everyone else has followed the senator’s lead.

McCain warned of Russian designs on its “near-abroad” when Boris Yeltsin was still in power, and advocated the enlargement of NATO into Eastern Europe — as a way to cement those countries into the West and check Russian adventurism — years before the Clinton administration adopted it as policy.

McCain’s judgment benefits from years of marinating in national-security issues and traveling and getting to know the key players; from a hatred of tinpot dictators and bloody thugs that guides his moral compass; and from a flinty realism (verging at times on fatalism) that is resistant to illusions about personalities, or the inevitable direction of History, or the nature of the world.

McCain ahs really been the only one standing up for Georgia, to the delight of the beleagured Georgians and the increased confidence of the American people.

The Dems in their current incarnation and Obama simply are not capable of protecting America's interests in a time like this. While one can argue that Bush is not, either, the Dems aren't even interested in protecting America's interests, preferring to think of the people whom they are supposed to protect as the bad guy in any international dispute. This is where John mcCain, for all his drawbacks, shines. he will protect America and Amwerica's friends, as he is showing right now with Georgia.

Mid-day tanks in Georgia

The Soviet ... er, Russian invasion of Georgia is not getting much attention in the American media. But it should. It represents (yet) a(nother) catastrophic failure for the US intelligence establishment, and a potential unmitigated strategic disaster.

Belmont Club gives the background to this particular affair (here and here). For the geographically challenged, here is a map of the region from Belmont Club:

Basically, Georgia is a former Soviet republic set in the Caucasus Mountains between the Black and Caspian Seas, on the southern border of Russia. They have struggled a bit, but they have made strides toward a Western style democracy, with a president in Mikheil Saakashvili who was actually duly elected in a real, actual election and not one of those Hugo Chavez or Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, Jimmy Carter-endorsed things. Saakashvili has been a friend to the United States, even sending 2,000 troops to help in Iraq. And Georgia, which by some definitions is in Europe, has been angling unsuccessfully for membership in NATO. Marc Champion goes into some of Saakashvili's history.

The Russian Federation has not been happy when the former Soviet republics or Warsaw Pact members look to the west. The inclusion of the Baltic republics, Poland, Czechia, Hungary and Romania in the Western alliance in some form or another has been a sore point in Russo-US relations. What seems to have been lost on the Russians has been that those countries have looked to the West out of fear of a resurgent (at least militarily) Russia. Georgia was looking to NATO likely for the same reason.

That is the strategic background; now for the local background. The Soviets had a habit of dividing up individual nationalities so they would have trouble organizing opposition to the government. That is what happened to Ossetia. There is a North Ossetia, which is in Russia, and a South Ossetia, which is in Georgia. Whether the Ossetians like the Russians or not is anybody's guess, but they sure don't like the Georgians. The South Ossetians, probably at the behest of the Russians, have been pushing for independence from Georgia and possibly reunification with North Ossetia within Russia. The dispute got so bad that the Russians "had" to send "peacekeepers" into South Ossetia.

The story goes that these Russian "peacekeepers" fired at Georgian troops, prompting Saakashvili to deploy his US-trained military to retake the renegade province once and for all. Except this was apparently a Russian trap. The Russians had massed forces on the Georgian border, evidently without notice by our stellar intelligence agencies. They used the actions by Georgian troops as a pretext for an invasion, of not just South Ossetia but of Georgia proper.

Belmont Club:

Moscow’s support for South Ossetian separatism, in part a reaction to Georgia’s efforts to get closer to the West potentially puts Russia and NATO on a collision course. After taking power, Georgian President Mikaheil Saakashvili sought NATO membership and other ties with the West. Russia, already humiliated by the loss of many of its former satellites, decided to strike back at Georgia after Kosovo declared independence from Serbia. The IHT reported that

Tensions escalated when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia in February and was subsequently recognized by several Western countries. Russia, an ally of Serbia, had vowed to increase its support for Abkhazia and South Ossetia — a poor, mountainous territory between Georgia and Russia’s southern border — in retaliation.

The geopolitical shadows lengthened after President Saakashvili accused Russia of bombing several Georgian villages while Moscow claimed Georgian forces had killed at least 3 Russian peacekeepers who were earlier stationed in the area to supervise a ceasefire. [...]

Large scale ground clashes between the two countries will be impeded by the towering Caucasus mountains, which form a barrier between southern Russia and Georgia. The Caucasian region is among the most volatile areas on earth, populated by Abkhaz, Circassians, Dagestanis, Chechens, Ingushetians — and Russians among others.

Though Saakashvili hoped for a repeat of the Winter War of 1940, when Joseph Stalin's Red Army invaded Finland and were fought to an embarrasing stalemate, The Georgian army is getting crushed by the far more numerous Russians, which leads me to suspect that this was basically a trap set up by Vladimir Putin.

Power Line published a map from StratFor showing the relative deployments of Russian forces:


If you look at the StratFor map as well as the one above from Belmont Club, you will see that Georgia is largely a valley, with the Black Sea at the west end and the capital of Tblisi at the east end. Gori is smack dab in the middle. Gori has also, unfortunately, just been captured by the Russians, cutting Georgia in two.

You'll not that Gori is nowhere near South Ossetia, nor are the Black Sea ports that have also fallen under Russian attack. This suggest that Russia is now attacking Georgia proper with the goal of removing the duly-elected Saakashvili from power, to be replaced by a pro-Russian puppet. Alongside is speculation that Russia is going for the outright destruction of the Georgian military.

So, why is this a bad thing? Oh, where to begin:

1. We have a strongly pro-US government falling to an outright Russian invasion not seen since Poland in 1939. But the US response will apparently be more akin to Czechoslovakia in 1938 -- that is, nothing. At least nothing militarily, which is about all that might work at this point. Since Russia decided to attack just after we pulled out about 1,000 American military advisors, I'm guessing that any US military presence would be a deterrent. We're kicking around the idea of kicking the Russians out of the G-8 but the Europeans might not be on bard with that because ...

2. Russia controls almost all of Western Europe's supplies of oil and natural gas. They also control most of the oil and natural gas supplies of the former Soviet republics. Much to Putin's chagrin, the Georgians helped build the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline to take Caspian Sea oil across Georgian territory for transit to a Turkish Mediterranean port. Power Line discusses the background of the pipeline and shows its location:


None of it goes anywhere near South Ossetia:


But that hasn't stopped the Russians from attacking the pipeline with missiles. If Russia gains control of Georgia, it gains a chokehold over supplies of oil and natural gas from central Asia. That means another spike in oil prices.

3. And if we don't support an ally here, one who has helped support us during unpopular causes, what does that say to our allies in Poland, Ukraine, the Baltics? Supposedly, Russia has already threatened them to keep their mouths shut about Georgia.

4. The timing on this could not be worse from the US standpoint. Georgia had deployed 2,000 troops to Iraq, but they had to be airlifted out to deal with this crisis. Meanwhile, Georgia is an alternate transit point for US troops and supplies going to Afghanistan. Remember, Afghanistan is landlocked. We need the help of allies in the region to rotate and supply our troops there. Right now, we use the Georgian route and Pakistan. However, Pakistan may not be viable much linger, as Pervez Musharraf is facing impeachment and the rogue Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) which helped create the Taliban, is making noise about installing an Islamist/pro-al Qaida regime.

5. Furthermore, we are getting closer and closer to a denouement with Iran over its nuclear program. Georgia is close to Iran and could serve as a staging area for US forces. It may need to serve as one anyway; if Saakasvili survives he may need a US presence to keep the Russians out. Conversely, a pro-Russian Georgia makes it easier for Russia to transport supplies into Iran. Allegedly, Iran is worried about the Georgian crisis, but their concern is that Russia either won't win or will have to give up so much to do so that they will no longer be able to protect Iran at the UN.

The timing is so bad for the US vis-a-vis Islamists in Pakistan and Iran that I wonder if there was some coordination involved, or simply Russia exploiting an opportunity to devastating effect for the US.

In the meantime, we seem to be calling the Russian aggression for what it is, but in the action department George W. Bush, as he has been doing of late, is looking like Jimmy Carter.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Big Barack and Obsoc

So now the Cult of Obama come to this:

[I]f a Los Angeles creative agency gets its way, Sen. Barack Obama will see fans meet him with his own salute like the one above. "Our goal is to see a crowd of 75,000 people at Obama's nomination speech holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country, a renewed hope, and acceptance of responsibility for our future," says Rick Husong, owner of The Loyalty Inc.

"Holding their hands above their heads, fingers laced together in support of a new direction for this country," huh? Looks and sounds disturbingly similar to this:


So it's not enough to have Obama's mug plastered everywhere like Big Brother. We also get the Ingsoc salute.

What next? "War is Peace"? Oh, that's right. Big Barack said that about Iran. "Freedom is slavery"? They got that, too, in the form of Michelle Obama's statements about the US. "Ignorance is strength"? That would be Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and Bernadine Dohrn.

Power Line on the Obama salute:

I doubt that it will catch on. If we do get to the point, though, that Obamamaniacs are walking down the street flashing the "O," we non-cultists should think of a responsive gesture. Maybe something that only requires one hand.

Michelle Malkin and her readers have some other ideas for Obama gestures, but for my taste, Ace has the best use for the new Obama salute:


(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Midnight tanks to Georgia

This could be very, very bad.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Rule of Thumb

When Paris Hilton has a better, more effective and more coherent energy policy than you, you shouldn't be POTUS.

And, that's right, I'm looking at you, Barack Obama.



Give Hilton credit for this, though. All my contempt for her and my jokes about her being stupid might have been misplaced. It takes some intelligence to be able to laugh at yourself, as she clearly does here. More power to her.

(crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Another proud moment

for your judiciary:

Lynn Moses will be locked up in federal prison next Wednesday. His crime? Protecting the city of Driggs, Idaho from flooding. [...]

Presiding federal judge Lynn Winmill, who has a well-deserved reputation for judicial activism, refused to allow Teton County commissioners to testify to the original agreement, nor would he allow the aggressive Corps staffer to testify about the refusal of the U.S. Attorney to prosecute in the mid-90s.

Before the jury was dismissed to enter into deliberations at the conclusion of his trial, Judge Lynn Winmill instructed the jury, believe it or not, to disregard every bit of information from 1980 to 2002, including the Corps’ denial of jurisdiction and the mandate from local government for Mr. Moses to maintain the flood channel.

Instructed by this notoriously activist judge to ignore facts, reason and legal history, the jury returned with a guilty verdict, finding Mr. Moses guilty of “discharging” “pollutants” into one of the “waters of the United States.”

His conviction ignores the fact that no evidence was ever presented in court that Mr. Moses “discharged” anything into the stream bed at all. He only removed sand and gravel bars that were already there and which he was contractually obligated to remove. He was extracting material from the channel, not discharging material into it.

Protein Wisdom describes the decision thusly decision, "Law? We don’t need no stinkin’ law!"

This judge deserves impeachment, to be sure, but the Bush EPA bears a lot of the blame here as well.

(h/t: Michelle Malkin; crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

That's not a bug, that's a feature

Addition by subtraction in this case comes with some side benefits of more than mere entertainment value:

Next Tuesday could be a big day in the world of international law. That’s the day the state of Texas is scheduled to execute José Medellín (pictured), a Mexican national who in 1994 was convicted of participating in the rape and murder of two teenagers in Houston. But a host of constituencies — including members of Congress, the Mexican government, the International Court of Justice and the Bush Administration — hopes Texas holds off. (Here’s a story by our very own Ashby Jones. Here’s a blog post on the case from last month.)

In 2003, years after Medellín’s crime, Mexico filed a suit with the ICJ on behalf of Medellín and 53 other Mexican nationals on death row in the U.S. Mexico argued the U.S. had failed to notify the nationals that they were allowed to reach out to a Mexican consulate, a right guaranteed them by a multinational treaty called the Vienna Convention. The following year, the ICJ ordered the U.S. to hold a judicial hearing for nearly all of the nationals over whether the violations had compromised their trials.

The Bush administration backed the ruling and ordered the states to hold hearings. Why, you might ask? The administration cited the need to ensure that the Vienna Convention’s safeguards, like “consular notification,” would continue to apply reciprocally to U.S. citizens abroad.

But Texas courts were defiant, shooting down Bush’s order, ruling that the administration was powerless to force the state to follow an ICJ ruling. In March of this year, the Supreme Court sided with Texas.

Killing a criminal is always a good thing. You murder, rape or steal, your life should be forfeit to protect the rest of us, which is indeed the purpose of government under the social contract.

So where is the icing on this particular cake? Keep reading. I'll even highlight it for you:

Texas has the power to end the flap, at least in the short term, by postponing the execution and providing Medellín “review and reconsideration,” as ordered by the ICJ. But it seems unlikely. “Mr. Medellín gang-raped and murdered two teenagers,” said Allison Castle, a spokeswoman for Texas Governor Rick Perry. “We welcome foreign visitors, but for those who come here with the intent to do harm, there are going to be consequences.”

To Ed Swaine, a law professor at George Washington University in Washington, an execution Tuesday would reverberate throughout the international-law community. “It will diminish the ICJ’s credibility and lessen the incentive for countries to bring cases to the ICJ in the first place,” he says. “This will be a very big deal.”

Prof. Swaine talks as if this would be, well, a bad thing.

For the non-constitutional law scholars out there, which includes the vast majority of those who actually give legitimacy to "international law," such as it is, the legal effect of the United States Constitution trumps that of any international treaty. Period. No matter if the treaty is ratified by the unanimous Senate, if every country on earth wants us to honor it, if the treaty runs foul of the US Constitution, the Constitution controls.

(h/t: The Corner; crossposted at Pro Cynic and Circle City Pundit)

Where have I been?

Here:

Suffice it to say I have been somewhat in communicado the past week, so I have gotten almost no news, with one very notable exception.