posted
I don't think there was asingle administration except Jimmy Carters that DIDN't overthrow at least one regime. I'd say consider the NSA and CIA's independence streak in American policy that its not that far fetched even if they're reason for being there was as benign as "training" Georgian troops.
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It's still a hard sell. Even if American DID somehow push Georgia into invading those two regions, I'm not sure that excuses the flattening of a country that Russia laid down on Georgia.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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Putin is practiced in telling people what they want to hear.
Right now there are many people in the world who want to hear that the US is the bad guy.
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Blayne Bradley
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The USA would have done the exact same thing in the reverse.
Its very simply the Georgian leadership are somewhat authoritarian and strongman-like, they were probably informed under the table "nothing bad will happen crush the separatists" and loo and behold it backfired.
Its an extremely simply and very likely probability.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Dan_raven: Putin is practiced in telling people what they want to hear.
Right now there are many people in the world who want to hear that the US is the bad guy.
The chain of events doesn't require Putin's commentary for anyone to determine this.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: The USA would have done the exact same thing in the reverse.
Its very simply the Georgian leadership are somewhat authoritarian and strongman-like, they were probably informed under the table "nothing bad will happen crush the separatists" and loo and behold it backfired.
Its an extremely simply and very likely probability.
The US would have done what in reverse?
And if that IS what happened, which again, I highly, highly doubt, they were pretty stupid to agree. Georgia has more direct experience with Russia than we do, and should have known they wouldn't do nothing, and for that matter, given our track record on promises in that regard (eg. the Kurds), they'd be pretty dumb to believe we'd protect them.
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Blayne Bradley
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Had a country attacked Guam the USA would've done the reverse. There is also plenty of historical evidence to the United States doing vastly dissaprotionate responses to "minor" provocations.
Also there is no telling how much encouragement may or may not have recieved nor do we know to what extent Analysts may have predicted the counter attack or not.
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Whatever your opinion of the exact nature of the relationship between Georgia and South Ossetia, Guam is not a good metaphor.
Indeed, since Guam is a US protectorate, the analogous attacker would be the US, not some third party.
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Blayne Bradley
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And South Ossetia is a Russian protectorate.
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No, South Ossetia was, prior to this action, legally under the sovereignty of Georgia. Even Russia hasn't tried to say that they were legally in control of the territory, just that since (newly minted) Russian citizens were being attacked they had the right to intervene. Try to keep your propaganda straight.
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quote: At the United Nations, U.S. Deputy Ambassador Alejandro Wolff told the Security Council that Russia's claims to be protecting Russian citizens in South Ossetia were a sham.
Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin called Wolff's statement hypocritical. He brought up the U.S.-led 2003 invasion of Iraq, strongly opposed by Moscow but justified by the United States as an effort to root out what it said were caches of nuclear, chemical and biological weapons hidden by then-President Saddam Hussein.
"I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States: weapons of mass destruction. Have you found them yet in Iraq, or are you still looking for them?"
I gotta admit, whatever failings they may have, a cutting sense of humour is not among them Posts: 7593 | Registered: Sep 2006
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Lyrhawn:
quote:There is also plenty of historical evidence to the United States doing vastly dissaprotionate responses to "minor" provocations.
Name 10.
I'm not saying there aren't, I'm just curious to see what you come up with.
It was all written in the book Emperor's and Pirates by Noam Chamsky and the reversed examples of Soviet restraint when for example South African navy ships fired upon Russian merchant vessels. I don't remember the exact circumstances although I do recall the United States (not in the book) completely invading and overthrowing the government in Panama when they killed US citizens.
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quote:Originally posted by Blayne Bradley: I don't think there was asingle administration except Jimmy Carters that DIDN't overthrow at least one regime. I'd say consider the NSA and CIA's independence streak in American policy that its not that far fetched even if they're reason for being there was as benign as "training" Georgian troops.
The NSA doesn't go into foreign nations and instigate wars. It doesn't have any power in that regard. The NSA is subordinate to the DoD. If you think the DoD has an "independence streak in American foreign policy", that might be more realistic.
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As far as Russia's charges of genocide and American encouragement, I'm still waiting for some amount of evidence from Russia or anybody. "Probably" isn't evidence. I can get behind "taking control of the region".
The United States committed to an open, joint exercise with Georgia before the war. At the same time, Russia conducted it's own exercise on the other side of the Caucasus Mountains.
So who was "preparing" for what? Who knows, but I'm not just going to start accepting anybody's media rhetoric as fact.
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I couldn't find an online article (plus I didn't really look) but it's looking like even without sanctions the big hit to Russia thus far as been financial. Gazpom, their energy giant, has lost $16 billion (with a B) in value since the start of this thing. The ruble has fallen 5% against the dollar, and their version of the stock market is down %15 percent as well. All this before official sanctions are even being discussed.
Foreign investment is also way down from the EU and the US. I've read that Putin and Medvedev are considering turning down the spigot of gas and oil supplies to the EU, but even if they do, they can't do it for long or else the loss in revenue will kill them pretty quickly.
Posts: 21898 | Registered: Nov 2004
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The stock value of Gazprom is irrelevant when the underlying value of Gazprom's control over Russian reserves is vastly greater. And a decrease in oil&gas stock prices is to be expected with the current bounce in the value of the dollar against other currencies and the subsequent decrease in the price of oil&gas futures.
Besides, Russia is buying unneeded garbage from the EU and the US with oil&gas in the same manner that US consumers are buying unneeded garbage from China with paper and electronic bits representing credit. I'd rather be sitting on Russia's fossil fuel reserves than on the US's mountain of debt.
Posts: 8501 | Registered: Jul 2001
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Well sure if that was the choice, I'd choose that too. Sadly you don't just get the mountain of oil, you get all the crap that comes with it. I'd still rather be in the US.
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quote:There is also plenty of historical evidence to the United States doing vastly dissaprotionate responses to "minor" provocations.
Name 10.
I'm not saying there aren't, I'm just curious to see what you come up with.
Well, let's see:
Invading Morocco rather than pay a very reasonable tribute for safe passage through the Med. Irascible!
Attacking Britain in the War of 1812 over American citizens being pressed into the Royal Navy.
Attacking Mexico in 1848 over - gee, what were the causes of that war? I don't remember.
Attacking Spain in 1898 over the explosion of the battleship Maine (probably caused by bad maintenance) and, to be more realistic, the deadly provocation of Spain owning Cuba (and some other bits of empire) and the US wanting it.
The attack on Korea in 1871, to open trade; I quote from Wiki: "After being ordered to leave by Korean officials, the American crewmen killed four Korean inhabitants, kidnapped a military officer and engaged in sporadic fighting that continued for four days. After two efforts to destroy the ship failed, the USS General Sherman was finally set afire by Korean fireships laden with primitive explosives." The punitive expedition for that killed a few hundred Koreans - making a point, I think.
Attacking Germany in 1916 over the sinking of the Lusitania and the deaths of American citizens aboard. (Besides, it was carrying valuable war supplies; somebody must have lost a bunch of money on that.)
Attacking Japan in 1941 over some trifles of lost battleships and dead sailors. Talk about your over-reaction!
Bay of Pigs.
Iraq 2.
Hum. I was actually intending to refute Blayne's point, but I'm not sure if I did or not.
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Blayne Bradley
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Would be more suitable to list the Embargo of Japan as being disproportionate as frankly the US didn't nearly do anything as drastic to Germany. But I would also add about an additional half dozen to a dozen events that happened in South and Central America.
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Kinda curious what you come up with, off the top of my head the only things that seem to fulfil the two conditions (in addition to some on KoM's list) are the Gulf of Tonkin and the Boxer Rebellion. (then again, my central and south American history is pretty hazy)
Probably most empires have at least one or two essentially manufactured incidents, the British being a notoriously bad example, but 10 is a tricky one.
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Blayne Bradley
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Kinda curious what you come up with, off the top of my head the only things that seem to fulfil the two conditions (in addition to some on KoM's list) are the Gulf of Tonkin and the Boxer Rebellion. (then again, my central and south American history is pretty hazy)
Probably most empires have at least one or two essentially manufactured incidents, the British being a notoriously bad example, but 10 is a tricky one.
I forgot about these but then again the Boxer Rebellion... eeeeeh, everyone else was doing it.
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quote:Originally posted by Mucus: Probably most empires have at least one or two essentially manufactured incidents, the British being a notoriously bad example, but 10 is a tricky one.
Eh. Ten was made up ad-hoc by Lyrhawn. I don't see any particular value to the number.
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