As a point of disclosure I voted for this President, Bush, # 43, twice. All things considered, until a week ago, I would do it again considering the alternatives and considering the world situation at each juncture.
No, I have not been comfortable with his performance. He has been over his head, he has been locked into simplistic, ideologically based behavior and though not lacking in brain power he has, by choice and habit, shown lack of intellectual depth or curiosity. Following his effort in Iraq, allowing that he may have thought he had ample reason to cause us to invade when we did, his approach on the international front as well as here at home, highlighted by his braggadocio about using his "political capital" after the 2004 re - election to reform Social Security, coupled with permissive, rampant government spending has left him bereft of positive contribution, much less a positive historical legacy.
All that he has failed to accomplish now takes a back seat to the fiasco he conceived for the Caucasus, culminating in unnecessary provocation of Russia. The Cold War, to our good fortune, ended in a whimper. In a sense the inefficient Communist Soviet model bankrupted itself based upon the challenges of keeping up with capitalism. The Iron Curtain turned out to be made of tissue. The USSR turned into the Kingdom of OZ with no Wizard.
And, as is normal in the course of human events the opportunistic side of human nature, mostly bad or worse, sought advantage. From roadside flea markets to large corporate skullduggery, everyone likes a bargain.
Quickly, egged on by the United States, many Soviet Republics, those on the borders of old Mother Russia, even if they had been part of Russia for over a hundred years before Communism took root, declared their independence. As Russia evolved, from early chaos, as it searched for a democratic format, they had neither the wherewithal or the cohesion to object and act.
That remained the case until Vladimir Putin came to power. He clearly has shaped Russia up. Not in a way that would be called liberal democracy but, in fairness, not in the way of the viscous totalitarian state of the past either. His anger, if you will his controlled rage, at the lack of respect that his nation was receiving from the West was palpable. The expansion of the European Union, the encroaching NATO, what he saw as disdainful treatment, as Kosovo was wrenched from Serbia, a long time Russian ally, more than irked.
The secession of Georgia was a lingering lesion. Strategically it left a way for oil and gas from other past Russian republics could pipe their riches straight through to the Mediterranean without having the product routed through Russian territory and thus being vulnerable to the turning of a valve.
More annoying to Putin was the pecking and constant chirping of Georgian President Mikhail Saaskashvili of Georgia who had cozzied up to President Bush, sent 2,000 troops to support our effort in Iraq and who was spending 15% of his country’s GDP on building a well equipped and outsized military for a country of Georgia’s size.
Saaskashvili was particularly intent on regaining Ossetia and Abkhazia, regions that were part of Georgia when Georgia was part of the USSR. When Georgia declared it’s independence from Russia those two regions declared their independence from Georgia. The West recognized Georgia but the two regions, though self governing, were self governing and aligned with Russia.
President Bush visited Georgia, urged their admission to NATO, called it "a special project" and Saaskahvili crowed that America stood behind him. As Bush and Putin chatted in Beijing Russian armor and troops massed on Ossetia’s doorstep waiting for the Georgians to attack . Noting that Russian intelligence is well wired in Georgia it is easily assumed that they knew exactely what was coming.
Georgia attacked Ossetia, the population fled, not to Georgia but to Russia, Russian armor rolled, the Georgians were crushed and president Bush is sending "humanitarian aid," and demanding that Russia respect Georgia’s as a sovereign nation and it’s geographic integrity.
President Bush who lacked any judgement or foresight as to what his policies were bringing about is talking bellicose but there is no lead in his pencil. All of Eastern Europe has to take notice. The Ukraine another key player of the independence game is also looking to join NATO and President Bush is pushing on with his plans to put a "missile defense" system," against terrorists" in Poland.
While Barack Obama has proposed talking with the Russians and mediating the issue. John McCain submits a shallow piece to the Wall Street Journal stating that, "We are all Georgians now." No Mr. McCain, I do not think so and no, Mr. Obama, Putin has all ready meditated and mediated. The issue is closed!
Let us evaluate where we stand:
1. We have failed to understand that Russia was a great power and by nature of geography, population and natural resources and that it always will be.
2. Our armed forces, at the level we have maintained them, are overstretched. Thank heavans!
3. Our armed forces, being heavily shifted to small war fighting and nation reconstruction, are no longer able to field the force required to handle open warfare on the European model.
4. The population of the United Sates lacks the nationalistic fervor that Russians have in abundance and want no part of a fight for Georgia the Ukraine or any of the other x - Republics of the USSR.
5. Our entire foreign policy establishment suffers from a lack of strong leadership and insight and the idealistic policy foundation of President Bush has gone past benign and ineffective to flat out dangerous.
Given enough time Bush could turn this embarassment into a very large disaster.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
Monday, August 11, 2008
HELL IN THE CAUCASUS AND DELUSIONS ALL THE WAY TO WASHINGTON
The complex region know as the Caucasus, a region of relatively small population with a large mixture of ethnic, religious and language differences has been a tinder box of conflict for centuries. A mountainous difficult terrain, where East met West, the pot always bubbled with intrigue. Small kingdoms became nations and at one time or another, going back at least 200 years, all were enveloped by "Mother Russia." When Russia became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, (USSR) in the Communist Revolution, the area lost much of it’s glamour and wore the Soviet yoke in a fairly restrained manner.
Georgia, an early Christian entity, was known for it’s fruits, wine, gangsters and two world class mass murderers, Stalin and his colleague Laventia Beria, who ran the feared KGB under Stalin. Beria was considered so dangerous that when Stalin died it was the quick decision, of other powerful Soviet leaders, to execute him before he made his own move.
The quiet time in the mountain vastness ended abruptly with the implosion of the communist state with most of the outlying captive "republics" declaring independence. New and broken, post Soviet Russia was in no position to halt the disintegration and the world looked at Russia, with it’s failed ideology, as critically wounded, that would not return to it’s former position of power, for a very long time, if ever.
The West and especially the United States were quick to ignore Russia’s traditional hot buttons and showed little interest in seeing things from the Russian perspective. Our handling of the Yugoslavian breakup made no allowance for the traditional Russian support of Serbia, whom of all the Balkan states had stood up against Nazi Germany, while the rest actively supported fascism. Our recent championing the independence of Kosovo rubbed salt in their wounds.
In the Caucasus the quiet time was over. Chechnya, a heavily Muslim enclave that was supplying fighters in the Balkans and to al Queda forces in various locations, exploded and the Russians needed two major efforts to pacify the region. It was a brutal, sloppy and bloody and showed the deterioration of the Russian armed forces. What followed was a series of color coded and largely bloodless national revolutions where friends, even puppets of the new Russia, were replaced by what was advertised as democratically elected leaders. Skull duggery abounded with Russian fingerprints all over it. The West, led by the United States, fanned the flames of every small conflagration and we became particularly supportive of Georgia. In 1991, Georgia declared it’s independence and in 2003 Mikheil Saakashvili, who gained law degrees in the United States, was elected by 96% of the population. He immediately adopted a strong pro western posture and applied for membership in the European Union and NATO. He requested and got hundreds of U.S. military trainers and dispatched 2,000 Georgian troops to become part of the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. That made this tiny country of some 4 . 5 million people the third largest supplier of forces to our Iraq effort.
Vladmir Putin, then President of Russia and still a very powerful, if not all powerful Prime Minister, was not at all pleased. Two breakaway provinces of Georgia, South Ossetia (population about 100,000) and Abkhazia received support from Russia and Russian "peacekeepers" were in place in both regions. Cross border incidents between Georgia and South Ossetia were routine and Georgian forces occupied a key tunnel and it’s approaches through the otherwise impenetrable mountains in Abkhazia. Over the recent past Saakashvili always blamed banditry by South Ossetia for his reasons for sending his troops across the border to eliminate South Ossetian "rebels."
Who knows?
But what we do know is that Mr. Saakashvili, who is described as "headstrong" by even his friends was getting cocky with his now well equipped and trained army. At the end of the first week of August as all of the heavies showed up, at the great theater that is the Olympics in China, Georgian troops, tanks, equipment and aircraft entered into South Ossetia and did a credible job of quickly destroying South Ossetia’s main city, Tskhinvali.
Wrong move!
In fact his whole effort to embrace the west was a wrong move. Delirious in his case and absolutely arrogant on ours. NATO, to open up shop on Russia’s border; a trained western supplied army to tweak the Russian bear; hope for support when Russia controls virtually all the natural gas that Europe require to not freeze to death much less supply their industry; to think that the United sates and it’s virtually impotent president was going to lead a gallop to the rescue?
Nuts!
Hungary made the same mistake in 1956 when, tuned into the encouraging Voice of America, they tried to overthrow their Russian wardens and assumed that then President Eisenhower and U. S. might would make things right.
Wrong!
And when over 500 Russian tanks rolled into South Ossetia and sent the Georgians running and when the tanks and ships and planes went well past the South Ossetian border every one called foul. Our two candidates for President , our existing President and Vice President and all the flunkies of Western Europe who called the Russian response a "disproportional" response. Cheney says the Russian actions must be answered. McCain, states that future relations between Russia and the U.S. will suffer and his tone is hopelessly bellicose. Obama, has called for talks and mediation. All, in one form or another have suggested that every one go back to the way things were on August 6, 2008, before Saakashvilli lost his mind and then we should start talking. Putin, who rushed from Bejing to South Ossetia has literally, in cruder language, said, "Up yours."
Lets get some things straight. We had no business encouraging Georgia. Georgia had no business applying for NATO membership and that will never happen. Spheres of influence of old count. Pundits are claiming that Putin is living in a Cold War mind set. Actually it goes back at least to the Middle Ages it is how mankind thinks.
The complex region know as the Caucasus, a region of relatively small population with a large mixture of ethnic, religious and language differences has been a tinder box of conflict for centuries. A mountainous difficult terrain, where East met West, the pot always bubbled with intrigue. Small kingdoms became nations and at one time or another, going back at least 200 years, all were enveloped by "Mother Russia." When Russia became the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, (USSR) in the Communist Revolution, the area lost much of it’s glamour and wore the Soviet yoke in a fairly restrained manner.
Georgia, an early Christian entity, was known for it’s fruits, wine, gangsters and two world class mass murderers, Stalin and his colleague Laventia Beria, who ran the feared KGB under Stalin. Beria was considered so dangerous that when Stalin died it was the quick decision, of other powerful Soviet leaders, to execute him before he made his own move.
The quiet time in the mountain vastness ended abruptly with the implosion of the communist state with most of the outlying captive "republics" declaring independence. New and broken, post Soviet Russia was in no position to halt the disintegration and the world looked at Russia, with it’s failed ideology, as critically wounded, that would not return to it’s former position of power, for a very long time, if ever.
The West and especially the United States were quick to ignore Russia’s traditional hot buttons and showed little interest in seeing things from the Russian perspective. Our handling of the Yugoslavian breakup made no allowance for the traditional Russian support of Serbia, whom of all the Balkan states had stood up against Nazi Germany, while the rest actively supported fascism. Our recent championing the independence of Kosovo rubbed salt in their wounds.
In the Caucasus the quiet time was over. Chechnya, a heavily Muslim enclave that was supplying fighters in the Balkans and to al Queda forces in various locations, exploded and the Russians needed two major efforts to pacify the region. It was a brutal, sloppy and bloody and showed the deterioration of the Russian armed forces. What followed was a series of color coded and largely bloodless national revolutions where friends, even puppets of the new Russia, were replaced by what was advertised as democratically elected leaders. Skull duggery abounded with Russian fingerprints all over it. The West, led by the United States, fanned the flames of every small conflagration and we became particularly supportive of Georgia. In 1991, Georgia declared it’s independence and in 2003 Mikheil Saakashvili, who gained law degrees in the United States, was elected by 96% of the population. He immediately adopted a strong pro western posture and applied for membership in the European Union and NATO. He requested and got hundreds of U.S. military trainers and dispatched 2,000 Georgian troops to become part of the "coalition of the willing" in Iraq. That made this tiny country of some 4 . 5 million people the third largest supplier of forces to our Iraq effort.
Vladmir Putin, then President of Russia and still a very powerful, if not all powerful Prime Minister, was not at all pleased. Two breakaway provinces of Georgia, South Ossetia (population about 100,000) and Abkhazia received support from Russia and Russian "peacekeepers" were in place in both regions. Cross border incidents between Georgia and South Ossetia were routine and Georgian forces occupied a key tunnel and it’s approaches through the otherwise impenetrable mountains in Abkhazia. Over the recent past Saakashvili always blamed banditry by South Ossetia for his reasons for sending his troops across the border to eliminate South Ossetian "rebels."
Who knows?
But what we do know is that Mr. Saakashvili, who is described as "headstrong" by even his friends was getting cocky with his now well equipped and trained army. At the end of the first week of August as all of the heavies showed up, at the great theater that is the Olympics in China, Georgian troops, tanks, equipment and aircraft entered into South Ossetia and did a credible job of quickly destroying South Ossetia’s main city, Tskhinvali.
Wrong move!
In fact his whole effort to embrace the west was a wrong move. Delirious in his case and absolutely arrogant on ours. NATO, to open up shop on Russia’s border; a trained western supplied army to tweak the Russian bear; hope for support when Russia controls virtually all the natural gas that Europe require to not freeze to death much less supply their industry; to think that the United sates and it’s virtually impotent president was going to lead a gallop to the rescue?
Nuts!
Hungary made the same mistake in 1956 when, tuned into the encouraging Voice of America, they tried to overthrow their Russian wardens and assumed that then President Eisenhower and U. S. might would make things right.
Wrong!
And when over 500 Russian tanks rolled into South Ossetia and sent the Georgians running and when the tanks and ships and planes went well past the South Ossetian border every one called foul. Our two candidates for President , our existing President and Vice President and all the flunkies of Western Europe who called the Russian response a "disproportional" response. Cheney says the Russian actions must be answered. McCain, states that future relations between Russia and the U.S. will suffer and his tone is hopelessly bellicose. Obama, has called for talks and mediation. All, in one form or another have suggested that every one go back to the way things were on August 6, 2008, before Saakashvilli lost his mind and then we should start talking. Putin, who rushed from Bejing to South Ossetia has literally, in cruder language, said, "Up yours."
Lets get some things straight. We had no business encouraging Georgia. Georgia had no business applying for NATO membership and that will never happen. Spheres of influence of old count. Pundits are claiming that Putin is living in a Cold War mind set. Actually it goes back at least to the Middle Ages it is how mankind thinks.
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