Comments on: Georgia And Russia

By: You Shill Know the Truth, and the Truth Shill Set You Free § Unqualified Offerings

Sun, 10 Aug 2008 15:37:55 +0000

[...] On AOTP, why Barack Obama really is better than John McCain from an anti-interventionist perspective – so much better that it matters. With help from South Ossetia and Daniel Larison. [...]

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 02:21:40 +0000

I stand corrected. The link that I had for it through a Google search didn’t work, and I forgot to check my archives.

By: Badger10

Badger10 — Sun, 10 Aug 2008 01:18:15 +0000

That “scrubbed” weekly standard article is here: http://weeklystandard.com/Content/Protected/Articles/000/000/004/104ygtvi.asp

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 20:00:00 +0000

No word on Ukrainian public opinion yet, but Moscow has accused Ukraine of providing arms to Georgia: "Russia accused Ukraine of encouraging Georgia to carry out "ethnic cleansing" in the separatist region by providing arms, a statement on the Russian Foreign Ministry website said."

By: Daniel Larison

Daniel Larison — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:56:10 +0000

Thanks for your comment. I agree that Washington should have been more forceful discouraging the Georgian government from this response. I have no way of knowing for sure, but with over 100 of our military advisors on the ground I assume that Washington had advance warning of what the Georgians intended to do.

The MSM has been dragged kicking and screaming to cover this story effectively. They had their political sex scandal of the year, and they wouldn’t want to divert resources to something as minor as a war. The attitude of Ukrainians is the last thing they’ll be thinking about. Presumably the reaction in Ukraine is split along political, ethnic and religious divisions. Orange coalition people are going to be inclined to see Russia as the villain and Georgia as the victim, and probably ethnic Russians in the east will probably see it quite differently. It’s an interesting question. I’ll see if I can find anything out about that.

By: James Rogers

James Rogers — Sat, 09 Aug 2008 19:35:23 +0000

Thanks for the very good comment. I doubt that we will do anything more than say “tut-tut” to Russia….I hope we don’t, anyway. But we should have given a red light to Georgia in the first place, rather than teasing them with the absurd hope that we would put them under the NATO umbrella. I already e-mailed Mr. Sullivan to point out the pusillanimous silence on the part of the Mighty Warriors at NRO, so I won’t belabour the point here.

Why are we not hearing any word from the MSM as to the attitude of the Ukrainians? Do we have to wait until the whole region is mobilized?