August 24, 2008

What amounts to a terrible geo-political defeat for the United States as the direct result of the Russian/Georgian conflict, has caused much sturm und drang here. Cheney, who had no idea that Putin would react so quickly or that the Georgian army would totally collapse, is having a fit. Bush, who expected some kind of a blow to Tehran before he left office, is having one of his sulks and the propaganda organs are gearing up to try to smear Putin and disguise the fact that at the first sign of real trouble, our beloved CIA, the entire U.S. military machine in Georgia and almost all of our diplomats ran like Olympic track stars, leaving the crazy Georgian president to rage at his “betrayal.” It is known (because the Russians made it known through diplomatic and very private channels, that their troops had orders not to fire at the Americans but if the same Americans fired first at the Russian troops, fire would at once be returned. The same orders applied to units of the Russian Black Sea Fleet off the coast of Georgia. So far, everyone has been very correct. But it is becoming more and more evident that the very valuable Ukraine will be the next target of the emerging Russian empire. The Ukrainians initially tried to block the Russian Black Sea Fleet’s use of their rented base at Sebastopol but when informed that Russia would consider this an act of war and Kiev backed down with great speed. Although American military officials have loudly insisted they knew nothing of the fatal Georgian assault on South Ossetia, it is impossible to believe that with such a large American presence in Georgia and its close connections with the Georgian army, lack of American knowledge of the large-scale attacks is not possible to believe.