Batman and Rush: Why McCain Will Win

This election has already been decided. It's over. The winner is John McCain - according to Jeffrey Lord in The American Spectator. Let's go directly to the moneyshot - Lord's brash conclusion;

Does Batman really care what others think of him? Does Rush? Did Reagan or Teddy Roosevelt? Are you kidding? In other words, every time the media thinks they are promoting Obama they are in fact doing him damage. Subtle, yet irreversible damage that will eventually begin to show itself in the polling numbers if it hasn't already.

What will Americans be voting for in 2008? The same thing they have been voting for routinely in every election since the beginning of American presidential elections. They want action. A willingness to risk. They want someone who doesn't give a damn what others think.

They want Batman. They want Rush.

So they will elect McCain.

Interesting. But far more interesting still is the underlying rationale leading Lord to this conclusion;

What is it that makes Americans choose anything the way they do? And specifically what does this mean when it comes to choosing presidents?

First, he explained to me, we should understand that every human has a brain divided into three parts. The cortex is the seat of logic, while the limbic deals with emotions. It is what he calls the "third brain" -- the "reptilian brain" -- that unmistakably dominates the other two. It houses a person's fundamental instinct for two and only two things: survival and reproduction. While every human walking the planet has these two instincts, some people are more "reptilian" than others. Those others could be depending more on their "cortex" -- the part of the brain that is home to logic, that controls intelligence. Or they can seem to run mostly on emotion. Yet without question, the research shows again and again that whether the subject is picking cars, coffee or presidents, people respond with their instincts. When this fact of life is overlaid with culture -- in the case of voters for president of the United States, American culture -- the result is easy to see.

While other cultures put a premium on thinking (the French) or order (the Germans), Americans want our presidents to respond just as we do in our culture -- with their gut. An American presidential candidate, Rapaille says, "doesn't need to be extremely reptilian, only more reptilian than his opponent is." In particular, and he says this in terms of a cultural observation as opposed to a subjective condemnation, Americans are not culturally disposed to thinking. We prefer, as the Nike commercial has long said, to "just do it." We are a culture of action, of rebellion, of instinct. When Europeans or American liberals deride a George W. Bush or a Reagan as a "cowboy," they think they are hurling an insult. Yet most Americans see cowboys as heroes, so the insult effectively backfires. When it comes to choosing between two candidates for president, we gravitate instinctively to the one perceived as more "reptilian." Rapaille puts it this way: "We don't want our presidents to think too much."

And that my friends, is exactly the way it is. Not that I believe the popular mandate and the selected manager of federal executive branch operations is the final arbiter and shot caller, but as a windsock for public opinion - he ABSOLUTELY serves a critical role for TPTB who must guage, assuage, and ultimately co-opt the political will of the masses.

The Misshapen Mind

How the Brain's Haphazard Evolution Left Us with Self-Destructive Instincts;

A kluge, Marcus tells us, is an improvised engineering response to a problem. It is the product of a tinkerer playing around with odds and ends and creating a functional machine. That, he writes, is what the brain and its package of emotional, intellectual, and logical tools is. It is a series of good but imperfect methods for processing and acting on information, developed over hundreds of millions of years.

Evolution, in other words, produces things that work. That, Marcus argues, is the case with the brain, with how we store memories and how we respond to information. Were our memory systems better designed, they'd store and retrieve memories in the same way computers do. Instead, we rely on context to access snapshots from the past. Moving beyond memory, the logical aspect of higher thought is simply the icing on the cake, Marcus explains -- something that has evolved in an evolutionary microsecond and set up residence in the brain's frontal lobes. The older parts of the brain, call them our reptilian legacy, had much longer to mature. As a result, in many situations, especially when quick responses are demanded, they simply overwhelm our rational side, stampeding us into actions that don't really stand up to serious analysis.

Thus, we see an act of violence in the media (whether it be a single person being kidnapped and murdered, as with the 1993 celebrated Polly Klaas case in California, or mass slaughter, as with September 11), and we respond with a potpourri of inchoate fear, panic, and rage. We feel that the certainties governing our lives have been shattered. Rarely do we successfully step back and analyze the likelihood or unlikelihood of such an event impacting us.

For both Marcus and Gardner, the result is the emergence of an increasingly irrational political system, a sort of Truman Show in which reality is continually altered by an omnipresent media superstructure.

and THAT - ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, is precisely what we seek to resolve, not as in "cure", rather, simply to bring into focus so that it becomes first nature for you to spot it and remember it wherever you encounter it. Liminality is as easy as falling out of bed, once you've accustomed yourself to its terms. Always and everywhere, remember yourself.....,

Georgian Endgame

Ramzy Baroud gives a great synopsis in his article The Saakashvili Experiment;

It's rather interesting how a controversial and unpopular plan that has raised the ire of the Polish people -- 70 per cent of the country is against it -- was overcome within days of war and is now embraced as a necessary deterrent. One cannot help but question the relationship between the decision to invade South Ossetia, which was certain to compel some Russian response, and the rush to embrace Bush's military designs in that region. The plan to place missiles in Poland seemed like a resounding failure as late as last month when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice "tried and failed just before leaving for Europe on Monday [7 July] to seal a deal to place missiles in Poland, the State Department said," according to CNN. Now Poland is all for it. It return, Poland would receive US assistance in overhauling its military, reminiscent of the Israeli-US efforts in aiding Georgia's military, which emboldened the latter to pursue war with Russia.

While Russia's decisive response to Saakashvili's war may have temporarily reaffirmed Russia's military readiness, it has already provided the needed justification for greater US-NATO intervention in Georgia, Poland, the Czech Republic and elsewhere. That US presence might be welcomed by the unnerved "democratic" leaders of these states but it will pique the fury of Russia, whose political radars are intercepting the Bush administration's every move in the region with great alarm.

The ceasefire between Russia and Georgia, achieved through French mediation, will hardly be the end of the new Cold War underway in an area too accustomed to cold wars. The fact is that Russia will fight to break away from the pro- US ring of former Soviet states that promise to undermine its influence in a Eurasia, and the US will do its utmost to maintain a level of tension, if not hostilities in the region, for without it neither a missile shield nor the 270 billion barrels of oil in the Caspian basin can be brought within Washington's reach.

I think it's important to understand and carefully reflect on the fact that the U.S. ventured nothing and lost nothing in this experiment. As a matter of fact, it can easily be argued, as Baroud has done, that western oligarchs gained strategic ground in the wake of this little experiment.

Food crisis: Indians asked to try rats

PATNA: A state government in eastern India is encouraging people to eat rats in an effort to battle soaring food prices and save grain stocks.

Authorities in Bihar, one of India’s poorest states, are asking rich and poor alike to switch to eating rats in a bid to reduce the dependence on rice. They even plan to offer rats on restaurant menus.

“Eating of rats will serve twin purposes — it will save grains from being eaten away by rats and will simultaneously increase our grain stock,” said Vijay Prakash, an official from the state’s welfare department.

Officials say almost 50 per cent of India’s food grains stocks are eaten away by rodents in fields or warehouses.

Jitan Ram Manjhi, Bihar’s caste and tribe welfare minister, said rat meat was a healthy alternative to expensive rice or grains, and should be eaten by one and all. “We are very serious to implement this project since the food crisis is turning serious day by day,” said Manjhi, who has eaten rats.

In Bihar, rat meat is already eaten by Mushars, a group of lower caste Hindus, as well as poorer sections of society.—Reuters

The next credit crunch

In Fortune/CNN;

Last year, just as the subprime crisis happened, credit card debt took off. The home-equity ATM had been shut down, so people turned to the last source of easy money they had left, the most expensive debt on the menu, credit card borrowing.

Since credit card debt has been growing much faster than the economy - more than 8% in last year's third and fourth quarters and over 7% in May (the most recent month reported)- people are apparently using it as a substitute for income. Thus, for the past year or so we have still maintained the standard-of-living illusion.

So now what? It's hard to see where consumers can turn next. Home prices seem highly unlikely to start rising again soon. Stocks? You never know, but the Great Bull Market looks like a once-in-a-lifetime event. Homes and stocks are households' biggest asset classes by far. There isn't much else to borrow against.

It may be that the standard-of-living bubble finally has to deflate. Sustainable increases in living standards have to be earned, not borrowed, and that means performing ever higher value work that can't be outsourced. We haven't been meeting that challenge very well; doing so will probably require much more and better education for millions of Americans, which takes time and money.

The result may feel like deprivation, but I don't see it that way. Who knows - we might even find that living within our means and saving a little money actually isn't so bad.

The Great Consumer Crash of 2009

How Did I Get Here

And you may find yourself behind the wheel of a large automobile
And you may find yourself in a beautiful house, with a beautiful wife
And you may ask yourself-Well...How did I get here?

And you may ask yourself
Where is that large automobile?
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful house!
And you may tell yourself
This is not my beautiful wife!

- Talking Heads, David Byrne lyrics to Once in a Lifetime

oops, I almost forgot - here's the article

The Mindlessness is Total Are You Ready for Nuclear War?

Paul Craig Roberts (PCR) was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions. Never one to stutter, PCR's been bringing it hotter than cayenne pepper for the past couple months.

Today, Reagan is gone. The Republican Establishment is gone. There are no conservative power centers, only neoconservative power centers closely allied with Israel, which uses the billions of dollars funneled into Israeli coffers by US taxpayers to influence US elections and foreign policy.

The Republican candidate for president is a warmonger. There are no checks remaining in the Republican Party on the neocons’ proclivity for war. What Republican constituencies oppose war? Can anyone name one?

The Democrats are not much better, but they have some constituencies that are not enamored of war in order to establish US world hegemony. The Rapture Evangelicals, who fervently desire Armageddon, are not Democrats; nor are the brainwashed Brownshirts desperate to vent their frustrations by striking at someone, somewhere, anywhere.

I get emails from these Brownshirts and attest that their hate-filled ignorance is extraordinary. They are all Republicans, and yet they think they are conservatives. They have no idea who I am, but since I criticize the Bush Regime and America’s belligerent foreign policy, they think I am a “liberal commie pinko.”

The only literate sentence this legion of fools has ever managed is: “If you hate America so much, why don’t you move to Cuba!”

Such is the current state of a Reagan political appointee in today’s Republican Party. He is a “liberal commie pinko” who should move to Cuba.

The Republicans will get us into more wars. Indeed, they live for war. McCain is preaching war for 100 years. For these warmongers, it is like cheering for your home team. Win at all costs. They get a vicarious pleasure out of war. If the US has to tell lies in order to attack countries, what’s wrong with that? “If we don’t kill them over there, they will kill us over here.”

The mindlessness is total.

By all means, go to Counterpunch and read the whole thing. PCR does a fair amount of recent historical "talking out of class". I always love it when that happens.....,

NATO is Useless...,

NATO is useless. It has failed to bring stability to Afghanistan, as it failed to bring it to Serbia. It just breaks crockery. Nato has proved a rotten fighting force, which in Kabul is on the brink of being sidelined by exasperated Americans. Nor is it any better at diplomacy: witness its hamfisted handling of east Europe. As the custodian of the west's postwar resistance to the Soviet Union's nuclear threat it served a purpose. Now it has become a diplomats' Olympics, irrelevant but with bursts of extravagant self-importance.

Yesterday's Nato ministerial meeting in Brussels was a fig leaf over the latest fiasco, the failure to counter the predictable Russian intervention in Georgia. Ostensibly to save Russian nationals in South Ossetia, the intervention was, in truth, to tell Georgia and Ukraine that they must not play games with the west along Russia's frontier. Nato, which Russia would (and should) have joined after the collapse of the Soviet Union, is now a running provocation along the eastern rim of Europe.

There was no strategic need for Nato to proselytise for members, and consequent security guarantees, among the Baltic republics and border states to the south. Nor is there any strategic need for the US to place missile sites in Poland or the Czech Republic. This was mere Nato self-aggrandisement reinforcing the lobbying of the Pentagon hawks.

These moves were bound to infuriate the hypersensitive Russians, and did. There is no point in western pundits saying that the thrust of Nato close to the Russian border is quite different from the cold war location of Soviet missiles in Cuba. It seems the same to Russian nationalists.

Nor is it any good pundits remarking that Russia's defence of Russian minorities in Georgia is quite different from Nato's intervention to defend the Kurdish minority in Iraq or the Albanian minority in Serbia. Again, that is just how it seems to Russia.

George Bush said earlier this month that "the age of spheres of influence is over". In that case why push that most potent sphere of influence, Nato, to the Russian border? And what of the sphere-of-influence theory that underpinned Bush's neoconservative plan to conquer the Muslim world for democracy?

In Europe, as in Asia, Nato leaves a trail of catastrophe This outdated military alliance is playing with fire in Russia. In Pakistan and Afghanistan it is playing with dynamite. Strong stuff in the UK Guardian.

Cyber-nonsense in the News...,

This is NOT hacking. Some nitwit left controls on a PBX exposed to call in usurpation. There are no skills involved with doing this, just a little basic knowledge of phone systems and it goes back more than 25 years, not the 10-15 mentioned in the article. Something like this merely highlights the dubious competence of folks running things in this agency and this department;

A hacker broke into a Homeland Security Department telephone system over the weekend and racked up about $12,000 in calls to the Middle East and Asia.

The hacker made more than 400 calls on a Federal Emergency Management Agency voicemail system in Emmitsburg, Md., on Saturday and Sunday, according to FEMA spokesman Tom Olshanski.

FEMA is part of Homeland Security, which in 2003 put out a warning about this very vulnerability.

The voicemail system is new and recently was installed. It is a Private Branch Exchange, or PBX, a traditional corporate phone network that is used in thousands of companies and government offices. Many companies are moving to a higher tech version, known as Voice Over Internet Telephony.

This type of hacking is very low-tech and "old school," said John Jackson, a St. Louis-based security consultant. It was popular 10 to 15 years ago. Telecommunications security administrators now know to configure security settings, such as having individual users create unique passwords and not continue to use the password assigned to users in the initial setup.

"In this case it's sort of embarrassing that it happened to FEMA themselves — FEMA being a child of DHS, with calls going to the Middle East," Johnson said.

Afghanistan, Saudi Arabia, India and Yemen are among the countries calls were made to, Olshanski said. Most of the calls were about three minutes long, but some were as long as 10 minutes.

Sprint caught the fraud over the weekend and halted all outgoing long-distance calls from FEMA's National Emergency Training Center in Emmitsburg.

FEMA's chief information officer is investigating who hacked into the system and where exactly the calls were placed to. At this point it appears a "hole" was left open by the contractor when the voicemail system was being upgraded, Olshanski said. Olshanski did not know who the contractor was or what hole specifically was left open, but he assured the hole has since been closed.

In 2003, Homeland Security and the FBI investigated multiple reports about private industry being breached by these types of hackers.

"This illegal activity enables unauthorized individuals anywhere in the world to communicate via compromised U.S. phone systems in a way that is difficult to trace," according to a department information bulletin from June 3, 2003.

Back in the day, poor students used to abuse these misconfigured PBX's all the time using exactly this lack of administrative control to place long distance calls to home.

Politics

Cuba's emerging leverage

When US Congress approved some US$42 million in aid destined to Cuba on 22 July, it was a concrete signal. Relations between the two countries are likely to improve over time despite the staunchly anti-Castro contingent that retains a powerful voting block in southern Florida.

Raul Castro is well aware of this future. And while he is willing to play hard ball with Washington, he knows the potential FDI upshot from the US could be beneficial to his people, Cuba's economy, and ultimately his regime.

Raul is also aware that Russia is keen to improve relations. His three-day visit with Sachin erased any doubt that Moscow is eager to invest in Cuba's energy and medical resources. Havana has long been interested in becoming a refining hub in the region, and is eager to complete the LUKoil deal to have the Russian energy firm refine Venezuelan heavy crude for domestic use and, perhaps, export to the US.

Cuba is in the middle with each hand on two heavy geopolitical levers. By applying the right amount of pressure, the country can certainly benefit from both relationships. Too much pressure on either side, and Cuba risks losing one or both connections. In the end, however, the island nation will stick to its historical roots – maintain sovereignty and some dignity no matter what the cost.

"Cuba's attitude is 'We'll take your money, but that doesn't mean we'll do what you want,'" Erikson said, adding, "Frankly, I don't see Russian power projection in the Caribbean or in the rest of Latin America." International Relations and Security Network.

Drawball

Technological Fundamentalism in Media and Culture

Robert Jensen; While media watchdogs and bloggers probe contemporary news media for signs of bias -- from every angle, on virtually every issue -- perhaps the most important of journalists’ biases is ignored: their routine acceptance of society’s technological fundamentalism. This devotion to the industrial world’s core delusion shows up not just in stories about science and technology but in the assumptions about science and technology that underlie virtually all reporting in the corporate commercial news media in the United States.

Let’s start with definitions: While fundamentalism has a specific meaning in Protestant history (an early 20th century movement to promote “The Fundamentals”), more generally the term can be used to describe any intellectual/political/theological position that asserts certainty in the unquestioned truth and/or righteousness of a belief system. Fundamentalism shows up in history often enough, in enough places, that it seems to be a feature not of a particular culture but of human psychology -- we humans are prone, though one hopes not doomed, to fundamentalist thinking. The attraction of fundamentalism is not hard to understand; in a maddeningly complex world, such a way of thinking can offer comfort, even if illusory. But fundamentalism is better described as a system of non-thought, for as ecologist Wes Jackson puts it, “fundamentalism takes over where thought leaves off.”

Journalists are conscious of religious fundamentalism and treat it as a phenomenon to be covered, even if they don’t always explore it in much depth. But other fundamentalisms -- which likely are even more dangerous than the religious varieties -- are the water in which journalists swim, rarely reported upon and usually taken as an unquestioned state of nature. This includes national fundamentalism (the belief that we owe loyalty to nation-states and that patriotism is a good thing) and market fundamentalism (the belief that market-based corporate capitalism is the only rational way to organize an economy in the contemporary world).

But it may well turn out that the gravest threat to a just and sustainable human presence on the planet is technological fundamentalism -- the notion that the increasing use of increasingly more sophisticated high-energy advanced technology is always a good thing and that any problems caused by the unintended consequences of such technology eventually can be remedied by more technology. According to David Orr, an environmental studies professor at Oberlin College in Ohio, technological fundamentalists are those “unwilling, perhaps unable, to question our basic assumptions about how our tools relate to our larger purposes and prospects.”

BD-Vision

Backchannel, Big Don has hipped me to the apocalyptic blip coloring his interpretation of the national security data currently registering on his far-reaching cognitive event horizon. Once you know what Big Don knows, see, what Big Don sees - I think you'll be slapping your head in consternation for having ever doubted his probity and resolve.

Muslims with intercontinental nuke delivery capability...

What I (and all you other SR readers unable to get with the BD program) clearly fail to appreciate is the extent to which our correspondent is presciently channeling Paul Baran (minus the technical skills and inventiveness) but with all the requisite fear, dread, and benefit of 20/20 historical insight.

BD scrys not only the clear and present danger of the Islamic bomb - going beyond this - he's pointing us toward the unthinkable possibility of intercontinental ballistic delivery of the same!!!

Coupled with political subversion from within by a Manchurian candidate like Baraka Hussein - who stands ready to turn over the lion's share of BD's hard earned tax dollars to the internal "golden horde" of OOW overbreeding useless eaters - and you have all the makings of a nightmarish future state unfit for the genetically advantaged spawn of Big Don. Clearly not an acceptable turn of sociopolitical events.

Meet the Economist Who Thinks We're Doomed

For months Roubini has been arguing that the true cost of the housing crisis will not be a mere $300 billion -- the amount allowed for by the housing legislation sponsored by Representative Barney Frank and Senator Christopher Dodd -- but something between a trillion and a trillion and a half dollars. But most important, in Roubini's opinion, is to realize that the problem is deeper than the housing crisis. "Reckless people have deluded themselves that this was a subprime crisis," he told me. "But we have problems with credit-card debt, student-loan debt, auto loans, commercial real estate loans, home-equity loans, corporate debt and loans that financed leveraged buyouts." All of these forms of debt, he argues, suffer from some or all of the same traits that first surfaced in the housing market: shoddy underwriting, securitization, negligence on the part of the credit-rating agencies and lax government oversight. "We have a subprime financial system," he said, "not a subprime mortgage market."

Roubini argues that most of the losses from this bad debt have yet to be written off, and the toll from bad commercial real estate loans alone may help send hundreds of local banks into the arms of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation. "A good third of the regional banks won't make it," he predicted. In turn, these bailouts will add hundreds of billions of dollars to an already gargantuan federal debt, and someone, somewhere, is going to have to finance that debt, along with all the other debt accumulated by consumers and corporations. "Our biggest financiers are China , Russia and the gulf states ," Roubini noted. "These are rivals, not allies."

The United States, Roubini went on, will likely muddle through the crisis but will emerge from it a different nation, with a different place in the world. "Once you run current-account deficits, you depend on the kindness of strangers," he said, pausing to let out a resigned sigh. "This might be the beginning of the end of the American empire." Today in Alternet.

Information Warfare?

Ordinary Americans critical of one-sided media. The conflict may be over, but not the war of words. Moscow claims some Western newspapers have taken a one-sided view of the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict and have been misleading their readers. War moves from battleground to broadcasting studio. The South Ossetian conflict managed to dominate the airwaves at a time when viewers should have been hooked on the Olympic Games rather than horrified by images of war. Georgia's PR campaign throughout the conflict has been directed towards the West, portraying Russia as the aggressor.

Russian English-language television channel Russia Today has acused the U.S. broadcaster CNN of using the wrong pictures in their coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia. A Russian cameraman says footage of wrecked tanks and ruined buildings, which was purported to have been filmed in the town of Gori, in fact showed the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, the RTTV reported on its web site.

Gori was said to be about to fall under the control of the Russian army but the cameraman says the video was actually shot in Tskhinvali, which had been flattened by Georgian shelling.

"When we arrived and news came that Gori was being shelled, I saw my footage. I said: that's not Gori! That's Tskhinvali. I can swear in front of any tribunal. I can point out this location on a map, because I and a cameraman from the channel Rossiya videotaped that," the channel quoted the cameraman as saying. Russian Report: CNN used Fake Video in Coverage of Georgia War

Anybody Else See This?

Fox News cuts American child for thanking Russian troops. A 12-year-old American girl visiting relatives during the conflict in South Ossetia has thanked Russian soldiers for saving her from the Georgian attack. However, America's Fox News attempted to cut her and her aunt off air.

Amanda Kokoeva was in a cafe in Tskhinvali when the firing from Georgian troops began.

She managed to get back to her uncle's basement where she spent the night. In a lull, she then managed to flee across the border to Russia, before boarding a plane bound for San Francisco.

"I want to say that I was running from Georgian troops bombing the city," she told America's Fox News Channel. "I want to say thank you to the Russian troops that were helping us out."

After that her aunt started saying that it was Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili who is to be blamed for the bloodshed, but the presenter tried to cut her off and go to a commercial break. Still, he finally let the woman finish the phrase at least.

Blowback from Bear-baiting

Paleoconservative blowhard, playing to the fringe, blows on tune for a change....,

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight – Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end.

Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush.

True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israeli soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"?

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?

When old hands pulling a paycheck from MSNBC, Fox, and others calls a spade a spade, I think it's clear that the elite establishment Big Lie narrative cannot hold. Perhaps I'm mistaken, but this one has been leakier than an old rusty bucket.

Georgia: A Blow to U.S. Energy

Businessweek was reduced to blowing Russia too..., The Baku-Ceyhan was the Caspian's first western owned pipeline.

The sudden war in the Caucasus brought Georgia to heel, reasserted Russia's claim as the dominant force in the region, and dealt a blow to U.S. prestige. But in this part of the world, diplomacy and war are about oil and gas as much as they are about hegemony and the tragic loss of human life. Victory in Georgia now gives Russia the edge in the struggle over access to the Caspian's 35 billion barrels of oil and trillions of cubic feet of gas. The probable losers: the U.S. and those Western oil companies that have bet heavily on the Caspian as one of the few regions where they could still operate with relative freedom.

At the core of the struggle is a vast network of actual and planned pipelines for shipping Caspian Sea oil to the world market from countries that were once part of the Soviet empire. American policymakers working with a BP-led consortium had already helped build oil and natural gas pipelines across Georgia to the Turkish coast. Next on the drawing board: another pipeline through Georgia to carry natural gas from the eastern shore of the Caspian Sea to Austria—offering an alternate supply to Western Europe, which now depends on Russia for a third of its energy.

But after the mauling Georgia got, "any chance of a new non-Russian pipeline out of Central Asia and into Europe is pretty much dead," says Chris Ruppel, an energy analyst at Execution, a brokerage in Greenwich, Conn. The risk of building a pipeline through countries vulnerable to the wrath of Russia is just too high.

The plans of the U.S. and Western oil companies for expanded pipelines in the Caspian region may well be a casualty of Russia's attack.

The Georgia Crisis: A Blow to NATO

Blowing in Time

If Russia's brutal response to Georgia's provocation had, in fact, obliged NATO to intervene, the Atlantic Alliance itself might have faced a terminal crisis. Most of its member states have no enthusiasm for confronting a resurgent Russia in the Caucasus, traditionally a Russian sphere of influence. The Alliance, for one thing, is having enough trouble maintaining 71,000 troops in Afghanistan, where they are managing only to tread water against mounting odds. Other arguments against confrontation: much of Western Europe is wholly dependent on Russian energy supplies, and European negotiators believe there is little chance of a diplomatic solution to the Iran nuclear standoff without committed support from Moscow.

So, regardless of the appeals of Senator McCain — and his Democratic opponent, Senator Barack Obama — the events of the past week have more likely placed Georgia's NATO membership in the deep freeze for the foreseeable future, even if the Alliance remains rhetorically committed to the idea in principle. If so, Moscow can count what has transpired as a major victory: it has prevented the advance of a rival military alliance into Russia's backyard.

Since there was nothing else to be done about it, an awful lot of blowing took place in the MSM organs of TPTB this past week. Here's the first of three instances....,

Has Putin Walked into a Trap?

The immediate Russian response indicates that Putin/Medvedev had long anticipated what the Georgians would do under orders. It also suggests they have had time to carefully consider their immediate, short and long term responses. So, if as Mike Whitney contends, Putin has walked into a trap - he has done so with full measure of forethought.

"The Grand Chessboard" it is the 21st century's version of the Great Game. The book begins with this revealing statement:

"Ever since the continents started interacting politically, some five hundred years ago, Eurasia has been the center of world power.....The key to controlling Eurasia, says Brzezinski, is controlling the Central Asian Republics."

This is the heart-and-soul of the war on terror. The real braintrust behind "neverending conflict" was actually focussed on Central Asia. It was the pro-Israeli crowd in the Republican Party that pulled the old switcheroo and refocussed on the Middle East rather than Eurasia. Now, powerful members of the US foreign policy establishment (Brzezinski, Albright, Holbrooke) have regrouped behind the populist "cardboard" presidential candidate Barak Obama and are preparing to redirect America's war efforts to the Asian theater. Obama offers voters a choice of wars not a choice against war.

On Sunday, Brzezinski accused Russia of imperial ambitions comparing Putin to "Stalin and Hitler" in an interview with Nathan Gardels.

Gardels: What is the world to make of Russia's invasion of Georgia?

Zbigniew Brzezinski: Fundamentally at stake is what kind of role Russia will play in the new international system.(aka: New World Order) Unfortunately, Putin is putting Russia on a course that is ominously similar to Stalin's and Hitler's in the late 1930s. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has correctly drawn an analogy between Putin's "justification" for dismembering Georgia -- because of the Russians in South Ossetia -- to Hitler's tactics vis a vis Czechoslovakia to "free" the Sudeten Deutsch. Even more ominous is the analogy of what Putin is doing vis-a-vis Georgia to what Stalin did vis-a-vis Finland: subverting by use of force the sovereignty of a small democratic neighbor. In effect, morally and strategically, Georgia is the Finland of our day.

The current administration is scratching its head and stumbling and fumbling for a coherent response. Bubba McCain is rootin and tootin with a full chaw of wikipedia powering his foreign policy and national security pronouncements. Meanwhile, old Brookings hands like Holbrooke, Albright, and the chessmaster himself are coming up out of the woodwork, making the media rounds, sounding authoritative and clueful establishment pronouncements about the way things are - and the way things are a gonna be.....,

(oh yeah.., if you're wondering - those are pictures of Zbig with his boy Osama in 1981 training with the Pakistani army)

Why Georgia Does Not Belong in NATO

William Pfaff in the IHT; Nowhere in what I have read of the comment on this small but important war has it been explained [ital] why [unital] neither Georgia nor Ukraine should belong to NATO. They carry with them ready-made wars that NATO neither can nor should be expected to deal with. They are both ethnically and culturally divided nations whose histories are of struggle between or among their component parts.

In Georgia it is between the linguistically distinct enclaves that in the past were Russian and wish again to be Russian, and the majority of Georgians who want to be part of the West, but are also determined to dominate their rebellious territories.

If they would peacefully renounce those territories, an ethnically and culturally united Georgia would have every right to demand NATO membership. But as things are now (or were, until the last few days), Mikheil Saakashvili wants his country inside NATO to protect him from the consequences of forcing those dissident territories to remain under Georgian domination. NATO has no business doing such a thing, and as Russia supports the rebel enclaves, NATO membership for Georgia has war with Russia built into it. As we have just seen.

In Ukraine, the problem is between a culturally and historically Orthodox and Russian-speaking Ukraine, and a westernized and Uniate Catholic Ukraine, whose ties are to Poland and Lithuania. Westernized Ukraine is trying to use NATO to help it dominate Russian Ukraine. This again has war built into it, and NATO must stay away from a conflict that is an unresolved and possibly irresolvable internal Ukrainian problem.

NATO is extremely lucky that Germany and France blocked it earlier this year from offering membership to Georgia. Had they not done so, NATO today would either have threatened Russia with war this week, or its Article Five guarantee to come to the military aid of any of its members under attack would have been discredited.

Washington Risked Nuclear War by Miscalculation

As always, Engdahl provided worthy analysis and commentary;

The dramatic military attack by the military of the Republic of Georgia on South Ossetia in the last days has brought the world one major step closer to the ultimate horror of the Cold War era—a thermonuclear war between Russia and the United States—by miscalculation. What is playing out in the Caucasus is being reported in US media in an alarmingly misleading light, making Moscow appear the lone aggressor. The question is whether George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are encouraging the unstable Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili in order to force the next US President to back the NATO military agenda of the Bush Doctrine. This time Washington may have badly misjudged the possibilities, as it did in Iraq, but this time with possible nuclear consequences.

The underlying issue, as I stressed in my July 12 Global Research article entitled Georgia, Washington and Moscow: a Nuclear Geopolitical Poker Game , is the fact that since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991 one after another former member as well as former states of the USSR have been coaxed and in many cases bribed with false promises by Washington into joining the counter organization, NATO.

Rather than initiate discussions after the 1991 dissolution of the Warsaw Pact about a systematic dissolution of NATO, Washington has systematically converted NATO into what can only be called the military vehicle of an American global imperial rule, linked by a network of military bases from Kosovo to Poland to Turkey to Iraq and Afghanistan. In 1999, former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, and Slovakia followed suit in March 2004. Now Washington is putting immense pressure on the EU members of NATO, especially Germany and France, that they vote in December to admit Georgia and Ukraine.

Which brings me full-circle to what I believe the primary takeaway should be for all us armchair observers and pundits of affairs on the world stage. The battle for political hearts and minds between competing narrative and counternarrative is where a WHOLE LOT of this proxy war is currently being fought across all media channels. I wonder for how much longer a robust and unfettered narrative information exchange will be allowed to proceed - particularly as the strength and depth of narratives contrary to the aims of TPTB continue to proliferate?

So?

U.S. says Moscow's membership in global clubs at stake - and how exactly is that unlike being denied entre into an *elite* trailer park?

Russia's integration into international institutions like the World Trade Organization is at risk because of Moscow's military operations in Georgia, a senior U.S. official said on Tuesday.

The United States may also cancel a naval exercise with Russia to indicate its disapproval of Moscow's attacks on its neighbor, American officials said.

"Russia has a lot to lose" if it ignores international pressure to stop its attacks on Georgia, withdraw its forces from the former Soviet republic and enter into serious negotiations on the future of Georgia's breakaway areas, the senior U.S. official said.

One of the things that's always tickled me driving along the interstate highways - is the number of "manors", "estates", and "country clubs" you happen upon in the titles of some of the most brokedown and decrepit looking trailer parks imaginable.

Now that Russia has the largest proven energy reserves, a massive nuclear arsenal, and huge conventional military, trade surpluses with the rest of the world, etc, etc, etc..., what exactly is it that the old boys club has to offer Russia that might deter it from further consolidation of its interests?

impotent weakness update U.S. limited in Georgia crisis;Expulsion of Russia from the G-8 group of industrialized nations was among the few apparent strong actions the US and Europe could take.

Other possible moves include threatening Russia with the loss of the 2014 Winter Olympic games at the Black Sea resort of Sochi.

"The United States, its allies, and other countries need to send a strong signal to Moscow that creating 19th-century-style spheres of influence and redrawing the borders of the former Soviet Union is a danger to world peace," said Ariel Cohen, senior research fellow in Russian and Eurasian studies at the Heritage Foundation, in an analysis of the impact of the crisis.

McCain - Wikipedia Foreign Policy Badass...,

Did McCain Plagiarize His Speech on the Georgia Crisis? which means by extension that all subrealism readers and commentors are absolute foreign policy and national security GAWDS!!!! (good to know and we should all burnish our resumes accordingly) Submariner - you should straight up represent as a senior statesman.



Meanwhile, back at the ranch, Susan Rice told the truth about the wikipedia badass's big talk over the weekend; "John McCain shot from the hip, [with a] very aggressive, very belligerent statement," she said. "He may or may not have complicated the situation."

McCain's first statement was dramatically different from the White House's, Obama's, and the Western Europeans, all of whom were urging calm, and all of whom shifted to condemning Russia only after it emerged that the calmate rhetoric was futile.

Scratch Russia Georgia War and You Find Oil and Gas Pipelines

The war between Russia and Georgia has some nationalist elements, some old grudges but mostly it rubs the wrong way Russia’s newly found power: energy imperialism.

Georgia has refused to play along like other former Soviet states and, if anything, its independent attitude has been a giant irritant for Russia ever since Vladimir Putin used oil and gas to project hegemony over the region and, by extension, into all Europe. At the same time, Georgia, a tiny, 4 million people country has been trying to ward off the giant on its north by seeking membership in NATO or the European Union. In the postCold War era, the United States and Russiadependent Europe are reduced to just pleading for calm.

A look at the map makes the issue at hand quite transparent.

Oil and gas can come from Russia into Europe by tanker through the Black Sea from its massive terminal in Novorossiysk or by pipelines through Belarus, Ukraine and even plans of under water construction in the Baltic. All of these give Russia a huge leverage, almost monopoly, over both the transit and destination countries. More than 25 European countries depend now for more than 75% of their oil and gas from Russia.

But Georgia was eager to act as a spoiler and European countries were even more eager to comply while trying to avoid incurring the wrath of the hand that feeds them. More fair and balanced coverage of talking monkey resource war at Energytribune.

U.S. refuses Israel weapons to attack Iran:

According to Reuters this morning the United States has turned down Israeli requests for military hardware to help it prepare for a possible attack on Iranian nuclear facilities, a frontpage report in Israel's Haaretz newspaper said on Wednesday.

The unsourced report said the Americans had warned Israel against carrying out any such attack and had refused to supply offensive military hardware. Instead they had offered to improve the Jewish state's defenses against surface-to-surface missiles.

Interviewed on Israeli Army Radio, Defense Minister Ehud Barak did not deny the Haaretz story, but refused to discuss it. "It would not be right to talk about these things," Barak said. You would think that after the Georgian misadventure, and given the fact that there are hundreds if not thousands of Russian technicals working with the Iranians on their nuclear program, that the lesson given over the past five days would have been more astutely taken by all those for whom it was intended. Attacking Iran will be the functional equivalent of attacking Russia and very possibly China, as well. There is no more room for unilateral cowboy antics - or as my man Nanakwame put it, "it's very interesting watching the welding of the circumference of the world".

Orlov Breaks Down the Georgia Situation

Thanks to my man RC - we now have the deep backstory behind this weekend's altercation courtesy none other than sage collapse commentator Dmitry Orlov.

You've got to go read the whole thing for yourself, however, the essential breakdown is quoted below for easy assimilation.

It may be difficult for some people to grasp why it is that the Abkhaz or the Ossetians do not much fancy suddenly becoming Georgian, so let me offer you a precise analogy. Suppose Los Angeles, California, were to collapse as the USSR once did, and East L.A. quickly moved to declare its independence. Suppose, further, that the 88% of its population that is Hispanic/Latino voted that the other 12% were free to stay on as "guests," provided they only spoke Spanish. The teaching of English were to be forbidden. After some bloody skirmishes, East L.A. split up into ethnic enclaves. Then some foreign government (say, Russian, or Chinese) stepped in and started shipping in weapons and providing training to the Latino faction, in support of their efforts to restore East L.A.'s "territorial integrity." As a non-Hispanic resident of East L.A., would you then (1) run and hide, (2) stay and fight, or (3) pick up a copy of "Spanish for Dummies" and start cramming?

The Abkhaz and the South Ossetians have made their preference very clear by applying for and being issued with a Russian passport. That's right, the majority of the present native population of these two "separatist enclaves" are bona fide citizens of the Russian Federation with all the privileges appertaining thereto. Lacking any other options, they are happy to accept protection from Russia, use Russian as their lingua franca, and fight for their right to be rid of Georgians once and for all. One of the privileges of being a Russian citizen at this stage, when Russia has recovered from its political and economic woes following the Soviet collapse, is that if some foreign entity comes and shells a settlement full of Russian citizens, you can be sure that Russia will open one amazingly huge can of whoop-ass on whoever it feels is responsible. Add to that the atrocities allegedly perpetrated by the Georgian forces, such as finishing off wounded Russian peacekeepers, and you can see why the normally shy and reticent Russian army might get behind the idea of making sure Georgia no longer poses a military threat to anyone. The Georgians have really done it to themselves this time, and we should all feel very sorry for them. They are not evil people, just incredibly misguided by their horrible national politicians. The West, and the US in particular, bear responsibility for enabling this bloodbath by providing them with arms, training, and encouraging them to fight for their "territorial integrity."

Now that you've seen the composition of that Georgian national flag, you'll understand fully why the base is whipped into an unthinking frenzy in support of Georgia (GOOD) and Russia (EVIL) in the politico-moral shorthand that passes for rational thought in fin d'siecle America....,

Implementing the Doctrine

Yesterday Amy Goodman interviewed retired air force colonel Sam Gardiner. Well worth a listen or a read. Here is a very interesting excerpt from that discussion;

AMY GOODMAN: Can you talk about significance of this, in terms of nuclear warfare in Russia? Do we have anything to fear along those lines?

COL. SAM GARDINER: Absolutely. Let me just say that if you were to rate how serious the strategic situations have been in the past few years, this would be above Iraq, this would be above Afghanistan, and this would be above Iran.

On little notice to Americans, the Russians learned at the end of the first Gulf War that they couldn’t—they didn’t think they could deal with the United States, given the value and the quality of American precision conventional weapons. The Russians put into their doctrine a statement, and have broadcast it very loudly, that if the United States were to use precision conventional weapons against Russian troops, the Russians would be forced to respond with tactical nuclear weapons. They continue to state this. They practice this in their exercise. They’ve even had exercises that very closely paralleled what went on in Ossetia, where there was an independence movement, they intervene conventionally to put down the independence movement, the United States and NATO responds with conventional air strikes, they then respond with tactical nuclear weapons.

It appears to me as if the Russians were preparing themselves to do that in this case. First of all, I think they believe the United States was going to intervene. At a news conference on Sunday, the deputy national security adviser said we have noted that the Russians have introduced two SS-21 medium-range ballistic missile launchers into South Ossetia. Now, let me say a little footnote about those. They’re both conventional and nuclear. They have a relatively small conventional warhead, however. So, the military significance, if they were to be conventional, was almost trivial compared to what the Russians could deliver with the aircraft that they were using to strike the Georgians.

I think this was a signal. I think this was an implementation on their part of their doctrine. It clearly appears as if they expected the United States to do what they had practiced in their exercises. In fact, this morning, the Russians had an air defense exercise in the southern part of Russia that borders Georgia in which they—it was practicing shooting down incursion aircraft that were incursion into Russia. They were prepared for the United States to intervene, and I think they were prepared—or at least they were wanting to show the United States that their doctrine of the use of tactical nuclear weapons, if the US attacks, was serious, and they needed to take—the United States needs to take Russia very seriously.

It's 3:00AM and You Are On Your Own....

3:00 has come and gone in Georgia. In a country whose entire way of life has become predicated on a delusional pattern and praxis of warsocialist supremacy - have the candidates' responses to this ill-considered and badly botched imbroglio impressed upon you how totally and completely the American experiment in warsocialism has failed? Not only has righteous force projection and national defense capability been usurped, it has also been hollowed out and rendered largely impotent. The Caucasus incident - what went into it and its ignominious aftermath - underscores the need for the U.S. to immediately cease and desist all further foreign adventurism, reinstitute the draft, and ensure representative U.S. armed services composition.

Putin's Options: Flyswatter or Blunderbuss?

Mike Whitney in Global Research;

Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told news agencies in an interview how the hostilities began:

Russian peacekeepers "were killed by their own [Georgian] partners in the peacekeeping forces. There is a Russian battalion, an Ossetian battalion, and a Georgian battalion... and all of a sudden the Georgians, Georgian peacekeepers, begin shooting their Russian colleagues. This is of course a war crime. I do not rule out that the Hague and Strasbourg courts and institutions in other cities will be involved in investigating these crimes, and this inhuman drama that has been played out."

According to South Ossetia's president, Eduard Kokoyti, Georgian troops had been taking part in NATO exercises in the region since the beginning of August. Kokoyti claims that there is a connection between the NATO's activities and the current violence.

Clearly, no one was expecting Russia to react as quickly or as forcefully as they did. In a matter of hours Russian tanks and armored vehicles were streaming over the border while warplanes bombed targets throughout the south. The Bush-Saakashvili strategy unraveled in a matter of hours. The Georgia president is already calling for a cease-fire. He's had enough.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has promised to spend $400 million to rebuild parts of South Ossetia. Large shipments of food and medical supplies are already on the way.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on Sunday:

"The actions of Georgia have led to deaths - among them are Russian peacekeepers. The situation reached the point that Georgian peacekeepers have been shooting at Russian peacekeepers. Now women, children and old people are dying in South Ossetia - most of them are citizens of the Russian Federation. As the President of the Russian Federation, I am obligated to protect lives and the dignity of Russian citizens wherever they are. Those responsible for the deaths of our citizens will be punished."

Indeed, but how will Medvedev bring the responsible people to justice; with tanks and fighter pilots or is there another way?

PUTIN'S OPTIONS: Flyswatter or Blunderbuss?

Sometimes wars provide clarity. That's certainly true in this case. After this weekends fighting, everyone in the Russian political establishment knows that Washington is willing to sacrifice thousands of innocent civilians and plunge the entire region into chaos to achieve its geopolitical objectives. Bush could call the whole thing off right now; Putin and Medvedev know that. But that's not the game-plan. So, the two Russian leaders have to make some tough decisions that will end up costing lives. What other choice do they have?

Putin needs to carefully weigh his options. Then, on Monday, he should announce that Russia will sell all $50 billion of its Fannie Mae mortgage-backed bonds, all of it US dollar-backed assets, and will accept only rubles and euros in the future sale of Russian oil and natural gas. Just watch as the dollar crashes and the Dow Jones goes into a death-spiral. Why use a blunderbuss when a flyswatter will do just fine.

From Stupid to Moronic to Evil

"Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative." John Stuart Mill

Paul Craig Roberts brought the hardline and summed up the emerging backstory about the Georgian Incident well in advance of its conclusion.

The Endowment for Democracy purchased Georgia as a US colony. The affront to Russia was extreme, but at the time Russia was weak. Oligarchs with outside money had grabbed control over Russian resources, and Russia was in dire straits and could not resist American imperialism.

Putin corrected the situation for Russia.

Now using American weapons, Georgia, for reasons yet to be revealed has violated its own agreement with Russia and attacked South Ossetia, killing in the process Russian peacekeepers. Vladimir Vasilyev, chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for Security told the press:

"The things that were happening in Kosovo, the things that were happening in Iraq – we are now following the same path. The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America."

Yes, without America there would be no war in Ossetia and no war between Russia and its former constituent part.

Without America there would be no war in Afghanistan. No war in Iraq.

Without America there would not be 1.2 million dead Iraqis and 4 million displaced Iraqis. We have no idea of the toll on Afghan civilians, although women and children appear to be the prime targets of the US/NATO forces that are "bringing peace and freedom to Afghanistan."

Recently, US Secretary of State Condi Rice said that the US government could not prevent an Israeli attack on Iran. Israel is an independent country, said the American Secretary of State. What an extraordinary lie.

Israel cannot exist without American weapons and money. Israel cannot attack Iran without overflying Iraq, which the US air force can easily prevent. It is clear as day that the Bush Regime has given the green light to Israel to attack Iran so the Bush Regime can rush to "Israel's defense."

Meanwhile the "liberal" media is urging the US to get involved in a war between Russia and Georgia. The insanity will lead to the unloosening of nuclear weapons.

PCR wrote the above well in advance of the conclusion of this fiasco. Though most of it is a scathing condemnation of Bushco and the base that he exemplifies - it also contained a prescient hardline synopsis of what has gone down in the Caucasus. Here now is the real hardline, President Medvedev has instructed Russian military judicial and forensics professionals to document these war crimes against the people of South Ossetia. Russia intends to press charges for war crimes against the perpetrators. Should be interesting to see whether the Georgian sockpuppet gets perp-walked into the Hague and prosecuted for war crimes.

Russia Bids To Rid Georgia of Its Folly

Evidently, commenter Alex was correct yesterday with the following assessment;

Its dishonest lie that georgian president said. Georgian troops make genocide, Saakashvili must be inprisoned like Karadjic.

In tomorrow's Asia Times we get the following assessment;

One word explains why the United States, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and the European Union have obliged themselves to sit on their hands, while Russia's defends its citizens, and national interests, in the Caucasus, and liberates Georgians from the folly of their unpopular president, Mikheil Saakashvili. That word is Kosovo.

For all Russians, not only those with relatives in Ossetia, the near-total destruction by Georgian guns of Tskhinvali is a war crime. The deaths of about 2,000 civilians in the Georgian attack, and the forced flight of about 35,000 survivors from the town - the last census of Tskhinvali's population reported 30,000 - has been described by Russian leaders, and is understood by Russian public opinion, as a form of genocide. Ninety percent of the town's population are Russian citizens.

To Russians, the Georgian attack of August 8 looks like the very same "ethnic cleansing", which the US and European powers have treated as a crime against humanity, when committed on the former territory of federal Yugoslavia.

But Russians view the international war that broke up Yugoslavia as a practice run for breaking up the Russian Caucasus, first by arming the Chechen secessionist Dzhokar Dudayev; then by financing anti-Russian terrorism in the Russian provinces of Chechnya and Ingushetia; and now by the Georgian military thrust against South Ossetia.

Since the US and the European Union have so recently compelled Serbia to accept the Albanian takeover of Serbia's Kosovo province, the overwhelming Russian view is that this will not be allowed to happen again. "Ossetia is not Kosovo" is a widespread refrain in Moscow today.

"If [former Yugoslav president] Slobodan Milosevic should be put on trial, the opinion here is - so too should Saakashvili," says a leading Moscow analyst.

But is it now a Russian war aim to drive Saakashvili from power? Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov reportedly told US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice over the weekend that Saakashvili "must go". Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, on a mediation mission on Monday between the Georgian and Russian capitals, will hear the same view in Moscow.

The Russian argument is that, since coming to power in 2003, Saakashvili has militarized his country with US, NATO and Israeli arms, military training and money, for no purpose except to threaten Russia, and the minority nationalities of the region, who seek the protection of Moscow - the Abkhazians and the Ossetians.

Saakashvili, the Russian argument runs, has initiated military escalation over the past year because his political base has cracked and his domestic support is dwindling. The Georgian political opposition at home, and in exile abroad, agrees. They charge the president and his family, including the powerful Timur Alasaniya, Saakashvili's uncle, of growing corruptly rich off the arms trade and of seizing the country's resource, port and trading concessions for themselves and their supporters. Alasaniya, brother to Saakashvili's mother, holds the official position of Georgian representative to a United Nations Commission on Disarmament in New York (no relation to Irakly Alasaniya, Georgia's ambassador to the United Nations).

There is so little finesse in these bloody shenanigans. It's almost as it the current administration has learned absolutely NOTHING from the operational blunders by which it's international adventurism has been plagued here-to-date. Now the old wrinkly white-haired dood is running his senile mouth too;

"Russian President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin must understand the severe, long-term negative consequences that their government’s actions will have for Russia’s relationship with the U.S. and Europe," McCain said.

And, describing the Russian assaults that have gone beyond the disputed territory and into sovereign Georgia as "Moscow's path of violent aggression," the GOP nominee suggested that Putin's aim may be to overthrow the pro-U.S. government in Georgia.

"This should be unacceptable to all the democratic countries of the world, and should draw us together in universal condemnation of Russian aggression," McCain said.

Will incompetent busterism never cease???