The situation between Georgia and Russia has dominated the media recently.
As McCain gets all the supposed credit. Do we realize, we all watched Barack Obama warn Bush, Journalist and America about the current bloody battle, that 8yrs of GOP rule, negligence has helped foster, with no present ability to combat it?
Below is the story, video and critique.
The situation is certainly grave. Though both sides are pointing at each other, and it's reported 1500 are already dead (mostly Ossetians); the skirmish is supposedly over, but still tenuous (it does seem the Georgian President, instigated this & Putin over-reacted).
But with all the hoopla and fighting taking place between the two countries, our President, and the Presidential candidates. It's easy to forget,that Barack Obama's prescient (though "hawkish")comments, criticism's and warnings of President George Bush's Russian foreign policy, and his assessment of Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, during that Cleveland debate, hosted by NBC's Tim Russert, earlier this year(remember, the "who's the new Russian President"? question).
Now. Some may say Obama was Saber rattling, pandering for votes, etc,. Maybe. But I think Obama knows both sides. Either way, this was never mentioned by the press, who's now parroting the McCain bluster, minus Obama. But I did provide more Bush, US negligence take, further below from Newsweek and The Belgravia Dispatch.
The Politico's Jonathan Martin reminds us, of Obama's answer, about minutes into the video below.
http://www.politico.com/...
Obama's remarks, starting at about the 2:00 mark, began with a complaint about Bush's now-infamous assessment of the Russian leader.
"Just think back to the beginning of President Bush's administration when he said — you know, he met with Putin, looked into his eyes and saw his soul, and figured he could do business with him," Obama lamented.
"He then proceeded to neglect our relationship with Russia at a time when Putin was strangling any opposition in the country when he was consolidating power, rattling sabers against his European neighbors, as well as satellites of the former Soviet Union. And so we did not send a signal to Mr. Putin that, in fact, we were going to be serious about issues like human rights, issues like international cooperation that were critical to us. That is something that we have to change."
Regardless of who started it. Barack was dead on, regarding Putin, Russia and Bush.
It can certainly be argued that Georgia (and it's Western supporting President, Saakashvili) started this (while the right and left, argue, on who who originated it, & showed more agression). But Putin certainly lived up to Barack's agrressive assessment, as our President acts like a scared coward while it's his policies, that has made this possible.
Who is this Barack Obama, predictor man?
Barack was right on the sub-prime crisis over a year ago. Barack was right on Afghanistan. Barack was right on Iraq from the start. And now we're reminded Barack was right (or at least aware) of George Bush's malevolence of not seeing Putin, for the ex KGB, still powerful, formidable adversary he is.
This agression, could not be stopped by our government, even if we wanted to, because both we and Nato are bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, and Putin knows it. Our military is too stretched. So right now, all McCain's bellicose boasting, and threats to Russia (including kicking them out of NATO), instead of working with them, are hollow in deed. Barack's just smarter than McCain, and not a Neo-Con!
Michael Hirsch of Newsweek Opines on this very subject:
Still, we ought to try to understand what is motivating Putin and his fellow Russian revanchists. And, as the West confronts its own weakness in response—Putin well knows that NATO is bogged down in Afghanistan, America is stretched thin in Iraq and Europe depends on his energy lifeline—we should acknowledge that at least some of the blame lies, as it does so often, with our own hubris. Since the cold war ended, the United States has been pushing the buttons of Russian frustration and paranoia by moving ever further into Moscow's former sphere of influence
http://www.newsweek.com/...
Writer Gregory Djerejian, of the Belgravia Dispatch, wrote a article on McCain's lame demands, bluster, insinuations, and Georgian, Russian complicity:
Other diplomats worried that both Mr. Saakashvili’s persona and his platforms presented an implicit challenge to the Kremlin, and that Mr. Saakashvili made himself a symbol of something else: Russia’s suspicion about American intentions in the Kremlin’s old empire. They worried that he would draw the United States and Russia into arguments that the United States did not want.
This feeling was especially true among Russian specialists, who said that, whatever the merits of Mr. Saakashvili’s positions, his impulsiveness and nationalism sometimes outstripped his common sense.
The risks were intensified by the fact that the United States did not merely encourage Georgia’s young democracy, it helped militarize the weak Georgian state. [my emphasis]
http://www.belgraviadispatch.com/...
He continues to hammer McCain on one of his reasons for support of Georgia (while evaluating Obama), regarding a not so well known declaration by the country:
This being said, if the horrors inflicted on varied Abkhazians, Ossetians and Georgians this past week (by both sides) must be seen from these provincial, grossly self-interested shores merely through the lens of the U.S. Presidential election, let me chime in very briefly within these contours. Regarding the 3 AM sweepstakes, Obama has taken it by a mile (if his Pavlovian movements to 'sound tougher' after his initial statement were a bit underwhelming, and sadly predictable). Witness this incredibly poor reasoning by McCain, jaw-dropping even by the standards of the mammoth policy ineptitude we've become accustomed to during the reign of Bush 43 and his motley crew of national security miscreants. Here is McCain:
Mr. McCain urged NATO to begin discussions on "the deployment of an international peacekeeping force to South Ossetia,’’ called on the United Nations to condemn "Russian aggression,’’ and said that the secretary of state should travel to Europe "to establish a common Euro-Atlantic position aimed at ending the war and supporting the independence of Georgia.’’
And he said the NATO should reconsider its previous decision and set Georgia – which he called "one of the world’s first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion’’ — on the path to becoming a member. "NATO’s decision to withhold a membership action plan for Georgia might have been viewed as a green light by Russia for its attacks on Georgia, and I urge the NATO allies to revisit the decision,’’ he said. [my emphasis]
Mmmmh?
It's no surprise, that Israeli based, Jerusalem Post writer, David Horovitz, clearly indicated that Obama was clearly the most informed and prepared interviewee (out of the three he conducted with Bush, McCain and Obama)after interviewing Obama on his recent international trip.
http://www.jpost.com/...
I think the Obama campaign needs to trumpet this aspect (if they haven't already),of Obama's intelligence and we on the blogs/internet. We, on the web, take his intelligence, for granted and need to spread this aspect of Obama around.
We all know the economy is most important, and right now McCain is in Pennsylvania, trying to make the situation in Georgia seem, like it's most important to us. But at least at moments like this (conflict). Obama can once again, lay down the hammer of competence, intelligence and foresight, that he has and McCain lacks, in moments of Crisis.