Third World Standing Is Completed with a Blowhard at the Helm

With all the moral authority George has earned in the last eight years, he is now lecturing Russia about its treatment of the situation between Georgia and South Ossetia. Russia attacked a sovereign nation! You don't hear much about the fact that it was in response to Georgia attacking South Ossetia. (A little history of the issue.)

And loudmouth McCain has jumped right in.

Perhaps it is fortunate for us that Putin seems to be taking them as seriously as a buzzing gnat.

For now.

We live in a season of risible "3 AM moments", where the breathless commentariat in this country overhear strange countries names--with tales of military action underway--and rush off towards dim-witted debates about what candidate would better handle that red-phone ringing in the middle of the night.

[...]

[I]f 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 w/in these contours. Re: the 3 AM sweepstakes, Obama has taken it by a mile [...] Witness this incredibly poor reasoning by McCain, jaw-dropping even by the standards of the incredible 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]

First, what does it matter in this context that Georgia was "one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion"? If it had been the first to adopt Islam, or Judaism, or Buddhism, would the situation be different?

  Belgravia Dispatch

YES! It certainly would have been. McCain wouldn’t be able to get any campaign traction out of that.

And of course, like others before them, the Georgians thought, having been led to believe so, that when they got themselves into a situation, they could count on the military backing of the U.S. Too bad Saakashvili wasn't a little more alert to our history.

Meantime, a Georgian soldier tells a U.S. reporter in the same piece: "Write exactly what I say. Over the past few years, I lived in a democratic society. I was happy. And now America and the European Union are spitting on us." They are, aren't they? They had no business making the cheap promises and representations that were made. No business on practical policy grounds. No business on strategic grounds (though I guess it got Rummy another flag, near the Salvodereans, say, for the Mesopotamian "coalition of the willing"). And now our promises are unraveling and nakedly revealed for the cheap little lies and crap policy they are, with the emperor revealed to have no clothes, yet again.

But what about the oil? Better fill up on that "cheap" gasoline tonight.