How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Forget Russia Has the Bomb
In a lot of ways, Sarah Palin’s answer to the question about going to war with Russia wasn’t as bad as ABC News’ teaser made it out to be. And in other ways, her answer did nothing more than reflect a bad policy idea that, unfortunately, is shared by members of both parties. It made you wish that more supporters of NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine — Democrats and Republicans both — would get the question about going to war with Russia. Because watching the exchange between her and Charlie Gibson as they kind of offhandedly mention that war with Russia could be an Article V treaty obligation and then skip ahead to the next issue without dwelling at all on the fact that US-Russia war could mean a full scale nuclear exchange and the death of billions of people was a bit shocking.
The hope, of course, would be that an unconditional US security guarantee to Georgia would deter Russia from doing anything rash. But of course it might not. And based on what we know about the origins of the latest round of fighting, an unconditional US security guarantee to Georgia might well prompt the Georgians to do something rash. Even before the recent fighting, there were Russian military forces stationed inside the sovereign borders of both Georgia (as “peacekeepers” in South Ossetia and Abkhazia) and Ukraine (on a military base near Sebastopol) in a way that leaves some ambiguity as to what would constitute an attack by who on whom. It’s a dangerous situation, and politicians really ought to be asked to contemplate the enormity of a US-Russian military conflict in a serious way.
56 Responses to “How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Forget Russia Has the Bomb”
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September 12th, 2008 at 8:44 am
And once again Matt ignores an extremely important component of this issue, namely the requirements of the Membership Action Plan process, which among other things would undoubtedly have required Georgia to satisfy NATO that Georgia wasn’t going to start border wars with Russia before NATO actually admitted Georgia to membership. So when people say they favor Georgia getting a MAP, that doesn’t necessarily mean they favor “unconditional” admission to NATO for Georgia. Rather, the precise purpose of the MAP will be to lay out the conditions Georgia would need to meet before gaining admission.
And it has seriously become an annoyance to me that people like Matt simply ignore how the NATO admission process actually works.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:46 am
Am I just imagining it, or being nostalgic for the past, when I recall prior national leaders (Presidents, Cabinet officials, the like) always making sure to add some modifier like “it would be too horrible to contemplate” or “let us pray we ever dare let it come to that point” before mentioning the prospects of a war with Russia (and before that the USSR)?
Is that just a minor rhetorical point? Or did leaders casually drop all the time, perfunctorily, that, yeah, this or that agreement might cause us to risk worldwide nuclear devastation, whatsyerpoint?
September 12th, 2008 at 8:48 am
Has Obama openly called for Ukraine to become a member of NATO?
Also, while I realize its a distinction without much difference, my impression is that he supports a process of trying to bring Georgia into NATO. Ostensibly, he knows that it will be a long time, if ever, before conditions are such that it would make sense that Georgia’s a member.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:49 am
RE Matthew’s comment “politicians really ought to be asked to contemplate the enormity of a US-Russian military conflict in a serious way.”
————-
WHY?
Billions have been spent on ensuring the survival of the President, Vice PResident and Members of COngress. Raven Rock, PA. Mount Weather near Bluemont, VA. Deep bunkers tunneled hundreds of feet beneath solid rock. The Congressional bunker buried beneath the 5 star Greenbriar Hotel out in the wilds of West Virginia.
THEY and the rich have ensured their likely survival in a nuclear exchange. It is the rest of us that are fucked.
But do you think the elites in New Orleans are brokenhearted that the lower income population of that city were drowned like rats –and the remainder scattered to the four winds so they would unite and be an embarrassment to George W Bush.
Don’t think of it as a nuclear apocalypse. Think of it as creative urban renewal.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:50 am
CORRECTION: Above should read “scattered to the four winds so they would NOT unite and be an embarrassment to George W Bush.”
September 12th, 2008 at 8:54 am
All that and you simply don’t answer such a question directly if you have half a brain. Everyone and his brother (except, it seems, Palin) knows we would not go to war with Russia over Georgia, irrespective of whether it was a NATO member. We’d lose. The most we could do is an Afghanistan-like feeding of weapons to insurgents, and we all know how that turned out. Palin is clearly ignorant, but I also doubt whether she’s all that smart. Evidence to that point is that she took McCain’s offer.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:56 am
Palin is a typical local politician, a person who has never really been interested in anything outside whatever area she is currently involved in and who has never seriously thought about the larger issues of war and peace. She knows nothing, in particular, of war, even on an intellectual level. She’s clearly done no reading on that topic or on foreign affairs and until the past year has not even traveled outside the U.S.
She’s the most dangerous kind of politician, the kind that could well end up with unimaginable power and yet not have a clue about when or how to use it or what the consequences of use or non-use would be.
I understand the right loves her, but surely there are serious thinkers on that end of the spectrum who must be appalled and frightened at the thought of Sarah Palin anywhere near the levers of the unimaginable power controlled by the President of the United States.
To paraphrase the words of the British politician upon hearing the names of the military morons chosen to fight the Revolution: I don’t know if Palin frightens our enemies, but she sure scares the hell out of me.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:57 am
What was the name that Newt Gingrich’s idol , Joseph Schumpter called it? Ah, yes. “Creative destruction”.
Yeah, that’s the ticket. Takes care of that $40 TRillion in Social Security/Medicare obligations and $10 Trillion federal debt.
Kind of like the old Republican trick of setting the courthouse on fire to burn the land records and destroy the evidence.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:02 am
Jake,
Yes, Obama has supported a Membership Action Plan for both Ukraine and Georgia, with the MAP process being the means by which a country can ultimately be admitted to NATO.
And no, actually, noting that supporting a MAP for a country is not the same as supporting immediate admission to NATO for that country is not a case of offering a distinction without a difference. As I noted in my post above, people like Matt have a very annoying habit of writing as if supporting a MAP for a country is the same thing as supporting admission to NATO without conditions. But the MAP process is all about imposing various conditions on countries before they can gain admission, and among other things the MAP process is specifically designed to address the issue of prospective NATO members potentially starting wars themselves.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:04 am
Re “She knows nothing, in particular, of war, even on an intellectual level.”
——–
So why didn’t Charlie Gibson of ABC point that out –by asking Palin if she know what the effects of nuclear weapons are — and why she would visit that upon the United States.
Answer: Because Charlie is a despicable whore who didn’t become a multi-millionaire by asking embarrassing questions.
Question: So why do you watch this fucking farce and con game? Do you think you will ever get the truth from ABC News?
This show was not about examining Palin’s qualifications. This show was about deceiving the American voters into thinking Palin was competent to be President.
That’s what ABC News does with OUR airwaves. It makes tons of money lying to us.
Has ABC NEws found Saddam’s nukes yet?
Does Charlie Gibson know if Al Qaeda still “hates us for our freedoms”?
September 12th, 2008 at 9:07 am
You, know, I hoped for (didn’t expect) some conservatives to cringe at the interview. But no.
We have two deranged psychopaths at the top of the Republican ticket. The two of them should be insittionalized – failing that, reduced to shouting their insane delusions from street corners. The fact of the Matter is that George Bush is, compared to them, a model of sanity, inelligence, and restraint.
And America might elect them to positions where they control the most powerful weapons the world has ever known. It’s like electing the joker character from the latest batman movie president.
But the really sad thing is that, 7 years after 9/11, I think less of (well, lets be honest, hate with a burning passion) most of my fellow Americans than I do of Bin Laden.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:11 am
And Matthew, I know that you are restricted by law as to what you can say on your blog, and maybe even a little afraid of going against conventional wisdom. But by treating these animals as serious people, rather than the evil lunatics that they are, you are losing credibility on a daily basis.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:16 am
And Matthew, I know that you are restricted by law as to what you can say on your blog, and maybe even a little afraid of going against conventional wisdom. But by treating these animals as serious people, rather than the evil lunatics that they are, you are losing credibility on a daily basis.
I second that sentiment.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:16 am
It’s past time for the serious foreign policy grey heads and historians to speak up about this particular march to folly. It maps fairly directly onto the perversely congealing alliance politics that helped lead to World War I. (See Barbara Tuchman, The March to Folly, and Laurence Lafore, The Long Fuse, e.g.)
Or are there any serious foreign policy grey heads and historians left to speak up? Where’s Lugar on this? Kissinger? Albright? Hello, anybody there? Or we all batshit crazy–hot to draw a bright line in the Caucasus that says “nuclear war” on one side, and “standing down to reveal that NATO is a total joke” on the other?
Are we really all eager to do that to ourselves? Do we really not comprehend Russia’s totally traditional (if piggish, and piggishly led) great-power calculation here on its southern border, involving a land that was a Russian dominion ever since the Romanov tsardom “liberated” it from the Ottomans?
September 12th, 2008 at 9:19 am
And in other ways, her answer did nothing more than reflect a bad policy idea that, unfortunately, is shared by members of both parties.
But she went a bit further than that!
That’s far beyond simply bring Georgia into NATO, that’s making Russia oil/gas supplies a target for strategic control by the United States. Apparently that means if the Russians get into a pricing fight with the Germans we gotta go to war with them.
without dwelling at all on the fact that US-Russia war could mean a full scale nuclear exchange and the death of billions of people was a bit shocking.
We got pubs man! And missle defense! The russian missles will land in our cornfields! (No word on what happens to the people that live in the cornfields.)
Apparently in neo-con land, not only does rollback work, rollback succeeded and those pesky Russians apparently don’t understand that they can’t nuke us in self-defense, because well, we rolled them back.
It’s a dangerous situation, and politicians really ought to be asked to contemplate the enormity of a US-Russian military conflict in a serious way.
Matthew, patriotic Americans do not consider the risks involved in going to war, they wipe out tyranny where ever it occurs, such as when the tyrant Putin will not grant an American oil company favorable terms for an oil lease. Clearly, in the face of such vicious repression, the cost of a few billions lives is not a valid consideration.
max
['Tsk. Have you learned nothing from TNR?']
September 12th, 2008 at 9:29 am
I’m probably going to be ashamed of myself for having either never known or forgotten — but just out of curiosity, was there any noted contingent of U.S. commentators frustrated with the mujahedeen war in Afghanistan who preferred a direct U.S. confrontation? I know it’s not a directly related question, it’s just that I’ve now been made curious to ask.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:47 am
I really don’t understand the thinking of what are supposed to be the intellectuals of the right wing. A President Palin would be an absolute horror. This isn’t FDR and Truman: Truman had performed well on the national stage before FDR tapped him. She’s clearly dumber than Quayle and McCain is clearly a much older (read “riskier”) man than GHWB was.
Do right wing intellectuals think that a president is controllable? By whom? There’s no process for a Richelieu-like figure to control things in the background. The power really is in the office-holder. There would be no stint of people offering the fledgling Palin advice, and no matter how comradely the claque, there would be significant differences in advice for the dumbo-in-charge to have to pick among.
Apparently the thinking among the right wing is that the actual decision-making is something a trained seal could do. Who the trained seal might happen to be is functionally irrlevant. All the seal has to do is to bark on cue.
Win or lose, we’re pretty much screwed, because until we’re in ashes, there’s no way the right wing can ever admit to error. Conservatism can only be betrayed, right? Well, guess what, guys: you’re betraying it.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:48 am
The GOP can’t survive without an enemy to fear and to threaten, and not only do they need one, but here there’s one that’s age appropriate to McCain.
Americans are sick of Iraq, and there’s a limit how long McCain can simultaneously boast of the success of “his” surge while insisting we fight indefinitely. Afghanistan is already perceived as an old war, and it’s slippery to confront, especially without confronting Pakhistan. Pakhistan doesn’t scare Americans enough to turn into an enemy; Americans just see it as remote, puzzling, and dysfunctional. The joys of bombing Iran apparently haven’t played well enough to make a main theme, much as some on the left kept insisting an attack was imminent half a dozen times in the last year.
I guess that leaves Russia for now, with the name recognition factor and the appearance of aggression. Perhaps more to the point, the GOP keeps wanting to put Reagan rather than Bush back as its avatar, and in their narrative the Cold War was the locus of Reagan’s greatest triumph. This is an enemy that even a dim bulb like Palin can find. So while we won’t actually have a war with Russia, which not long ago we celebrated as the triumph of capitalism over Communism, it’s the natural talking point de jour.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:49 am
Sigh. I shouldn’t let DTM troll me in this way, but the point is that whilst a MAP could place conditions on Georgia the reality of the insanity of US politics is that it seems no-one in any kind of position of power would propose a MAP that did place actual conditions on Georgia.
In fact, it seems everyone is just salivating for a confrontation with the Ruskies.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:57 am
Re “In fact, it seems everyone is just salivating for a confrontation with the Ruskies.”
———-
Anyone remember when Woodrow Wilson invaded Russia, trying to put the Bolshevik genie back in the bottle?
See
“The American North Russia Expeditionary Force” at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polar_Bear_Expedition and
“American Expeditionary Force Siberia” at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Force_Siberia .
Tell Todd to crank up the snowmobiles.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:57 am
DTM, I’ll freely concede that Matt’s conflation of starting the MAP process with unconditional NATO membership is erroneous and misleading.
Will you, in turn, concede the following?
1) The MAP process is highly unlikely to resolve the sovereignty of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, and is therefore a pointless and symbolic move unlikely to lead to Georgian membership but highly likely to piss off Russia.
2) The Caucusus is more likely by several orders of magnitude than the Baltics to erupt into conflict despite the best efforts of the NATO Membership Action process and the best intentions of all sides.
3) All sides in the Caucusus do not have the best of intentions.
4) McCain is more likely by several orders of magnitude than Obama to strong-arm NATO members into bringing Georgia under our nuclear umbrella despite a failure to fully comply with a NATO Membership Action Plan.
5) The overwhelming majority of people in South Ossetia would clearly prefer living under Russian rule than Georgian rule, and it’s batshit insane for American leaders to pretend that keeping these people under Georgian rule against their will is an important American national security objective and vital to the global promotion of freedom and democracy.
September 12th, 2008 at 9:59 am
Maybe it’s time for another “daisey” ad.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OKs-bTL-pRg
I think a clever youtube amateur could get something like clips of that Palin interview spliced into the old daisey ad to catch on.
(sorry, posted this in wrong thread first)
September 12th, 2008 at 10:04 am
Apropos of this discussion, I’m sure that Mr. Yglesias will want to comment on todays’ column by his favorite columnist.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/09/11/AR2008091102840.html?hpid%3Dopinionsbox1&sub=AR
September 12th, 2008 at 10:05 am
How are you using the word “enormity”? This is a pet peeve of mine.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:07 am
Krauthammer is a war criminal who should be tried as a war criminal, and, after conviction, hanged by the neck until dead.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:09 am
Gee, I’m worried about posting the above Wiki links regarding the American invasion of Russia in 1918.
I can just see McCain with a crazy gleam in his eye confronting Obama during the Televised debate:
“There are American DEAD SOLDIERS lying in Arkhangelsk, Russia. After 90 years, I think it’s about time we went back and GOT them, don’t YOU? Or do YOU just plan to LEAVE them there?”
September 12th, 2008 at 10:11 am
And where the FUCK is Biden? Biden, you reading this? Get off your fat ass and start savaging your “friend” McCain, you fucking douche bag.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:15 am
DTM is right about this. The US doesn’t always get its own way in NATO – after all Bush wanted Georgia and Ukraine to get MAPs out of the recent meeting and it didn’t happen. Just because the president of the US wants something to happen in NATO doesn’t mean it does.
Matthew Yglesias has this weird blind spot where Russia is concerned – his biases are far too evident on this topic. Appeasement is Yglesias’ default position with Russia, in great contrast to other countries.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:17 am
“The overwhelming majority of people in South Ossetia would clearly prefer living under Russian rule than Georgian rule, and it’s batshit insane for American leaders to pretend that keeping these people under Georgian rule against their will is an important American national security objective and vital to the global promotion of freedom and democracy.”
This statement is highly debatable. 30% of the population of South Ossetia is Georgian (at least until the ethnic cleansing last month) and many parts of South Ossetia were under the control of the Georgian army before the Russians and Ossetians ethnically cleansed them all.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:29 am
Hector,
Please kill youself, you genocidal lunatic.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:30 am
DTMbait,
I actually don’t think that is true of all American politicians who support a MAP for Georgia, but in any event the NATO admission process requires unanimous consent among current NATO members. And I definitely don’t think it is true that all the other members of NATO are salivating for a war with Russia.
LaFollette Progressive,
Taking your points in turn:
(1) A NATO MAP for Georgia might not actually require Georgia to resolve those issues prior to admission, but it would certainly require Georgia to commit to resolving those issues by non-military means. And I don’t think that would be a pointless commitment at all, as in fact recent events have shown.
(2) Perhaps your comparison of conflict risks with the Baltics is correct, but as noted part of the point of countries like Georgia going through the MAP process would be to try to diminish those risks.
(3) I’m a cynic, so I never think all sides to anything have the best of intentions. But the MAP process is in part designed to make sure NATO members have favorable internal conditions, politically, economically, and militarily.
(4) McCain can try, but there is no way he can force all of the other NATO members to actually admit Georgia to NATO against their better judgment. I suppose you could imagine the U.S. bullying or bribing some of the newer and smaller members, but I don’t see that being possible with the older and larger members.
(5) I agree that the U.S. has no compelling interests at stake with respect to who is sovereign in South Ossetia. But we do have a bit more of a stake in not seeing that issue be resolved through military means. And again, part of any MAP for Georgia would undoubtedly be a commitment from Georgia to that effect.
Generally, though, I don’t want to give the impression that I think reasonable people can’t disagree over whether a MAP for Georgia is appropriate at this point in light of Russian objections. But I do think people tend to overlook that the MAP process is designed to address many of the concerns people are raising, and that the MAP process won’t lead to actual admission unless all of NATO, not just the United States, is convinced these concerns have been adequately addressed.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:31 am
Hektor — I would call 70% an overwhelming majority, wouldn’t you? Additionally, the Georgian occupation does not seem to have been terribly popular with anyone other than the ethnic Georgians. Many people have a curious aversion to being shelled indiscriminately.
I’m no supporter of the current Russian regime and I think it was long overdue for us to stop staring into their souls and playing nice with them. But the entire right-wing reaction to this incident has been built around obfuscating the facts on the ground and pimping neo-Cold War tensions to juice the election. This doesn’t, to put it mildly, inspire much confidence in the judgment of John McCain and the Georgian lobbyists on his campaign staff.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:34 am
Hell, just run the same one. This bellicosity is directly tied into that of the ’60s.
You know, while plenty of liberals and moderates might have been shitting themselves at the prospect of a Huckabee presidency (theocracy?), I don’t think we’d be shitting ourselves to quite the same extent now. And I say that assuming a situation wherein the polls are the same as they are right now.
September 12th, 2008 at 10:43 am
DTM, I’d quibble with you on a few minor points, but that’s a fair assessment. I’ll just clarify that my point #3 was dripping with cynicism, in case that didn’t come across.
I’ll also point out that your response to point #4 clearly suggests a key role for “Old Europe” in keeping American military ambitions in check. I agree. But the Bush Doctrine, which McCain seems to fully support and Sarah Palin has never heard of, entails that a failure to achieve full NATO membership would not deter the President from building a coalition of the willing (or willfully ignorant) to make unwise security guarantees to Georgia. I think your trust in institutions is a bit naive where Republicans are concerned.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Palin apparently rallied the conservative base, but to me she seems like a disasters. I would attack her conservatism, say she’ll be like Bush – promising “compassionate conservatism” during the campaign, but governing like your usual callous conservative.
“LaFollette Progressive”:
I’m no supporter of the current Russian regime and I think it was long overdue for us to stop staring into their souls and playing nice with them.
Just like you were no supporter of Saddam? Well in pracital purposes you are spinning the narrative Putin’s way. Putin is running his country like many Republicans would like to run the US. Why provide him rhetorical support? To prevent some war that is supposedly coming?
I want Obama to win and think Russia should be allowed to stay in the G8 and would hold off in NATO membership for Ukraine and Georgia until their disputed territories are sorted out. However I would give those two countries (who are members of the UN) tons of support and would hope Obama would visit them. Maybe it’s wishful thinking. Maybe he’ll use them as bargaining chips.
5) The overwhelming majority of people in South Ossetia would clearly prefer living under Russian rule than Georgian rule, and it’s batshit insane for American leaders to pretend that keeping these people under Georgian rule against their will is an important American national security objective and vital to the global promotion of freedom and democracy.
What does the UN think? You don’t care? Even China refused to recognize South Ossetia. You’re worse than China?
I think Russia screwed itself. As Fareed Zakaria says:
“Vladimir Putin has done more for transatlantic unity than a President Barack Obama ever could. The United States and Europe are now in greater strategic agreement than at any point in the last two decades. Even the autocracies in the Caucasus have reacted negatively to the attack, refusing to endorse Russia’s actions and legitimize the new facts on the ground. China has refused its support. And what did Russia get for all this? Seventy thousand South Ossetians.”
http://www.fareedzakaria.com/articles/articles.html
September 12th, 2008 at 11:17 am
LaFollette Progressive,
I’m not sure I understand your claim that my “trust in institutions is a bit naive where Republicans are concerned.” Of course a hypothetical President McCain would be willing to act militarily outside of NATO in pursuit of his neo-con policies with respect to countries like Georgia, just as President Bush did in Iraq. But that isn’t a point against a NATO MAP for Georgia, and indeed implies there would actually be less marginal risk to a MAP for Georgia to the extent Georgia not being in NATO would not be a check on a hypothetical President McCain anyway. In that sense, Georgia successfully completing the MAP process to the satisfaction of all of NATO could reduce the risk of military conflict in the region, but if Georgia fails to complete the MAP process and hypothetical President McCain does something stupid anyway, NATO wouldn’t really be worse off for trying since hypothetical President McCain would likely have done that stupid thing anyway.
Generally, I hope it was clear I wasn’t trying to defend McCain or Palin specifically. My only point was that Matt was misconstruing the issue of possible NATO admission for Georgia and Ukraine through his failure to acknowledge the nature of the NATO admission process. Frankly, that is more relevant to discussing something like Obama’s support for MAPs for Ukraine and Georgia than Palin’s comments on NATO expansion, since I doubt she understands any of this either.
September 12th, 2008 at 11:55 am
Matt,
Even scarier is this fact: If Georgia was a NATO member when Russia (counter?) attacked, wasn’t the main fighting done before the West could meet, formulate a response and carry it out?
Isn’t this the joke about outrunning an angry bear: you don’t have to be fast, but just faster than someone else? They attack Georgia again, get in and out within 72 hours and the best we can do is send some bombers.
September 12th, 2008 at 12:07 pm
To paraphrase Bismark, “The whole of the Russian near abroad is not worth the bones of a single United States soldier.”
September 12th, 2008 at 12:48 pm
But would the NATO shield prevent Georgia from doing anything rash?
September 12th, 2008 at 2:36 pm
“Just like you were no supporter of Saddam? Well in pracital purposes you are spinning the narrative Putin’s way.”
Bullshit. It’s an undisputed fact that Russia’s attack was precipitated by Georgian shelling of South Ossetia. By focusing on “spinning the narrative” Saakashvili’s way, instead of describing the situation accurately, you are for all practical purposes telling lies in the service of a Republican talking point. Just as the people who called Iraq War opponents “objectively pro-Saddam” cared more about dishonestly dragging this country into war and electing Republicans than about whether the war was a good idea.
So don’t lecture me about “rhetorical support”, pal.
“What does the UN think? You don’t care? Even China refused to recognize South Ossetia. You’re worse than China?”
Who said anything about recognizing their unilateral declaration of independence? I know I sure didn’t. I said that forcing them to remain under Georgian rule against their wishes was not a vital national security interest for the United States of America.
I do recognize that the South Ossetians ought to have some say in their own future, and one might think this would be more important to people who care about promoting democracy than “spinning the narrative” to make Saakashvili look like less of an idiot.
September 12th, 2008 at 5:42 pm
While enormity should not be used to denote great magnitude, it is acceptable for incomprehensible magnitude. That makes it a perfect word for this occasion. An unnecessary nuclear war has an incomprehensible limit on the damage done, a horror to which we are not accustomed and the surreal quality of starting over something utterly unwarranted. It’s a trifecta.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:41 pm
“It’s an undisputed fact that Russia’s attack was precipitated by Georgian shelling of South Ossetia.” Sort of. Georgia claims that their shelling was a response to South Ossetian/Russian shelling of Georgian-populated villages in South Ossetia. We just don’t know exactly how things happened, and we may never know.
There are several issues here. One is whether South Ossetia should be forced to come back under Georgian administration. No one is seriously suggesting this at this point. Another is whether Russia has the right to unilateraly invade its neighbors whenever it feels like they are mistreating people it happens to have given passports to. Still another is whether Russia is justified in using disaffected populations in neighboring countries to dismember and annex parts of those countries. Still another issue is what the US should do about it.
Matthew Yglesias pretty clearly thinks the answer to the last one should be “very little”. In fact, he doesn’t seem so keen on fulfilling treaty obligations to countries like the Baltics either.
Also, I wouldn’t call 70% an overwhelming majority. 90%+ is an overwhelming majority (see Kosovo). It’s relatively easy to arbitrarily draw borders in most countries to get a majority of a disaffected ethnic group. There are six or seven countries on Russia’s borders where they could easily do the same thing again.
September 12th, 2008 at 8:43 pm
Sorry, 42 should be under this name.
September 13th, 2008 at 11:29 am
Re Hektor’s comment “Still another is whether Russia is justified in using disaffected populations in neighboring countries to dismember and annex parts of those countries ”
————
Oh, you mean like the US has been doing on Russia’s border? Via a massive, heavily funded campaign of subversion done via NGO and fronts –e.g., the Orwellian “National Endowment for Democracy”.
Look at Florida in 2000. Do you seriously think Bush/Cheney and Big Oil are interested in elections if they can’t rig them , buy off the candidates, and grab the spoils?
It ain’t Democracy. It’s “Democracy for a PROFIT”. If not for the Caspian Sea Oil, Bush/Cheney wouldn’t give a shit about Georgia. Ask Africa.
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April 16th, 2009 at 10:06 pm
Hi guys. Nothing in the world can take the place of Persistence. Talent will not; nothing is more common than unsuccessful men with talent. Genius will not; unrewarded genius is almost a proverb. Education will not; the world is full of educated derelicts. Persistence and determination alone are omnipotent. The slogan ‘Press On’ has solved and always will solve the problems of the human race.
I am from Central and learning to write in English, please tell me right I wrote the following sentence: “We offer cheap flight tickets on flights to and from europe with our.”
Thank you very much
. Melody.
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