Pivotal Moments
Here for you “delusions of grandeur” files, is a little bit of yesterday’s Glenn Beck:
BECK: But doesn’t — isn’t this a pivotal moment for the United States of America? Where NATO and the United States can’t do anything for a democracy-loving republic?
MCFAUL: That’s right, it is. Russia invaded a sovereign country, a Democratic country. Russia’s not a Democratic country. Not only does the Georgian people and the Georgian government consider the United States their closest ally; we have our own military personnel in Georgia training that army as we speak. Hopefully they’re out by now. And we are really quite powerless to stop it as the Russians, from what I understand, they’re marching all the way to Tbilisi today.
BECK: Yes, Allen, let me go to you. I’ve been warning people for a while now that Russia is trying to corner the market. While everybody is saying, oh, they’re just waiting for us to lead the way on global warming. They`re going and they’re buying all of the carbon reserves that they can get their hands on. This is a play for the control of the globe in the long run, don`t you think?
The intensity of the desire to imbue these events in the Caucuses with extraordinary significance keeps running far ahead of any kind of actual logic of reasoning. To Beck, the significance here is that Russia is somehow going to “corner the market” on hydrocarbon energy sources which will, in turn, give them “control of the globe.” But while Georgia is the location of pipeline of some significance, to come anywhere close to cornering the market on oil Russia would need to be able to somehow overrun Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, and Saudi Arabia. Or maybe hop across the ocean and seize control of Mexico or Venezuela. Either way, it’s not going to happen.
40 Responses to “Pivotal Moments”
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August 12th, 2008 at 8:25 pm
Hmmm, the Atlantic’s comment section was slow, but I don’t recall it dumping an article’s comments down the memory hole. Or, was it all just a figment of my browser?
August 12th, 2008 at 8:28 pm
What happened to the post “We are all Georgians”?
August 12th, 2008 at 8:59 pm
I’m guessing that TP’s Wordpress server took a dive.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:07 pm
Glen Beck is, of course, completely deranged so it’s kind of low-hanging fruit to criticize his geopolitical good sense. But it is curious that Beck says this:
If the US really led the way in global warming, which means some combination of reduced consumption and increased use of non-hydrocarbon energy, there would be no market for Russia to corner. Or at least, no market that the US would care about. It is a little surprising that Beck can’t meet the truly deranged person’s threshold of *internal* consistency.
August 12th, 2008 at 9:17 pm
Glenn Beck is a blowhard and a moron. But, like a stopped clock, he’s not entirely wrong here. Russia already has a disproportionate share of Europe’s energy supply under its control. If Russia could get control (indirectly, by deposing Saakaschvili and replacing him with somebody more pliant) of the Baku pipeline, Russia would have a chokehold on energy to Europe.
And in the post-Hubbard’s-Peak era, that would provide Russia with an enormous amount of leverage over the rest of the world. Dominance? Like Dr. Evil, or Kruschchev banging his shoe on the table at the UN? No.
But statesmen would surely think twice before crossing Mr. Putin, or any of his successors.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:06 pm
Is it presumptuous for a candidate who is not yet president (and hoepfully never will be) to speak “for every American”? Huh…
But it is DEFINITELY presumptuous to speak “as a citizen of the US and a citizen of the world” to 200,000 Germans…right???
Seriously though. I’m no fan of Bush, but he is still the President. Yes he was galavanting at the Olympics and shoulda hightailed it home to address this problem, but McCain conducted a press conference before the actual President of the United States did. He was essentially acting as de facto President. Where is the presumptuous meme?
If Obama had done such as thing Fox and the Rethugs would have screamed bloody murder.
August 12th, 2008 at 10:09 pm
The pivotal moment was when W looked into Putin’s eyes and saw his soul. That’s all I need to know. It’s unbelievable that Lib/Socialists like Beck would question Russia’s actions after our Commander in Chief has thoroughly vetted Putin and pronounced him a “spiritual good guy”.
August 12th, 2008 at 11:27 pm
If Russia could get control (indirectly, by deposing Saakaschvili and replacing him with somebody more pliant) of the Baku pipeline, Russia would have a chokehold on energy to Europe.
That pipeline doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Russia, oil, or European dependence of the above. It’s a trickle and if someone blows the thing up tomorrow (and there is someone in every nation it goes through who wants to) and the effect is virtually nothing. I still haven’t figured out if it was ever actually blown up in the last few days or just reported to by everyone from the PKK to the Russians but you’ll notice oil prices didn’t move an iota.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:13 am
Forget oil. The Russians are not and will never be interested in oil. They care about gas As in Gazprom. And about making sure that it controls all the gas going to Europe, whether it originates in Russia or not.
Google ‘Nabucco pipeline’ and the importance of Georgia becomes a lot clearer.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Ed Marshall:
The Kurds blew up part of the pipeline in Turkey. The Ruskies didn’t do a damn thing to it. That didn’t stop the TV gasbags from claiming the Russians did it though.
August 13th, 2008 at 12:45 am
Google ‘Nabucco pipeline’ and the importance of Georgia becomes a lot clearer.
No, it really doesn’t. Georgia turns the thing off in the middle?
August 13th, 2008 at 1:02 am
But doesn’t — isn’t this a pivotal moment for the United States of America? Where NATO and the United States can’t do anything for a democracy-loving republic?
seriously? in the past, the quasi fascist “new state” era portugual was a member of NATO, as were greece and turkey when those countries were under military dictactorships. and NATO famously had no effective response to the soviet invasions of hungary in 1956 and czechoslovakia in 1968.
August 13th, 2008 at 3:16 am
So the US invades Iraq, a major oil-producer, and wants to create permanent military bases there, right next to some other major oil producing countries.
But Russia invades Georgia, site of a pipeline but no major energy reserves, and Russia is the one trying to corner the market.
Project much?
August 13th, 2008 at 5:55 am
First of all, Georgia is NOT a “democracy” – unless you think “George Bush times 10″ is some kind of “democracy”. Saakashvili has been beating up his political opponents, canceling elections, and generally stirring up nationalism in order to avoid being kicked out for corruption and various other bad acts.
Russia did not invade a “sovereign country”. Russia acted to protect people who mostly had Russian passports up until recently. It was Georgia who unilaterally attacked an autonomous region that had been so for the last 17 years, killing thousands of pro-Russian civilians and driving thousands more north. It was ethnic cleansing on a considerable scale.
You’ll notice none of the US media is covering this fact at all. It’s all about “Russia invades Georgia”.
Certainly Russia would like Saakashvili to go. And they might have tried to depose him, had not the Western propaganda machine revved up and tarred the Russians as “imperialist aggressors.” So the Russians settled for less. There is no evidence that Russia intended to absorb Georgia, let alone the Ukraine or anything else.
If the state of Texas seceded from the US, and then Mexico invaded it and tried to drive all the Texans north into the US, the US would have done exactly what Russia did.
Russia attempted rapprochement with Georgia prior to Saakashvili’s efforts to increase the Georgian military by a factor of 30. Even when the conflict started, Russia tried to get the UN Security Council to issue a resolution for a cease fire. The US wasn’t interested.
These aren’t the acts of a “Hitler” bent on aggressive expansion of territory. These are the acts of a country seeing its national security threatened by an encroaching NATO and by extension the US – a US who has a Presidential candidate talking about restarting the Cold War.
August 13th, 2008 at 7:58 am
One would think that if a person holds the position that Russia is trying to corner the oil market through conquest that they would be in favor of working toward oil independence.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:28 am
Re Ed Marshall’s comment “That pipeline doesn’t have a damn thing to do with Russia, oil, or European dependence of the above. It’s a trickle and if someone blows the thing up tomorrow (and there is someone in every nation it goes through who wants to) and the effect is virtually nothing.”
————
1) Chevron didn’t commit 20 BILLION dollars to exploiting a “trickle”. Dick Cheney didn’t spend all that time over in Kazakhstan in the 1990s for a “trickle”. The plan isn’t just for ONE pipeline — the plan is for lots more. All through a small corridor between Russia and Iran called ..Georgia.
What other way is there to get the oil out?
2) For more info on the size of the Caspian deposits and the difficulty US oil companies have in export routes, look at this report by the US Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration , dated 1996:
http://www.eia.doe.gov/emeu/pgem/ch4b.html
3) You guys really shouldn’t depend on the Washington Post and Judith Miller’s New York Times for info.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:51 am
The above report Mentioned that the Russians, over Chevron’s strong objections, tried to run their own pipeline out of the Caspian in the 1990s. But some ..er.. “sinister force” (hee hee) convinced the Chechnyans to blow it up. So how did that work out?
I myself got the impression from the New York Times during that period that the Russians were killing the Chechnyans because that’s what the beastly Russians do. They’re like the Huns you know. Didn’t hear nuthin’ about no oil deposits, Chevron explorations, or pipeline sabotage.
August 13th, 2008 at 8:55 am
Chevron didn’t commit 20 BILLION dollars to exploiting a “trickle”.
Yeah, it’s a lot of money. My point would be that if Russia wants to turn off oil and gas to Europe it doesn’t matter if Georgia is in the middle or not.
August 13th, 2008 at 9:12 am
Our current Secretary of State had a Chevron oil tanker named after her in reward for services rendered while she was on Chevron’s Board. See http://www.aztlan.net/oiltanker.htm
But to suggest “It’s about the oil” is a “conspiracy theory”. At least according to the FOX pundits.
August 13th, 2008 at 6:46 pm
Marshall doesn’t get it. It’s not about “Russia turning off oil and gas to Europe” – it’s about who gets the money shipping it. Like Iran, Russia will sell to anybody – as long as NATO isn’t on its direct borders. The US is pushing NATO to Russia’s borders in order to be the one controlling the area, just like it built scores of large bases in Iraq to be on Iran’s border.
Get a clue, Marshall. The US and Israel don’t do anything for “humanitarian” reasons. It IS all about oil and money and power.
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