McCain Was Right About Putin

[XDConvert9mm]

McCain Was Right About Putin

Jack Kelly Wed Aug 13, 10:20 AM ET

It was March of 1939, and British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain was shocked that a man he trusted had gone back on his word.

Chamberlain, German dictator Adolf Hitler and French Prime Minister Edouard Daladier had met in Munich the previous September. There the British and French leaders assented to the dismemberment of Czechoslovakia in exchange for Hitler's promise his territorial ambitions would be satisfied with the acquisition of the Sudetenland.

Chamberlain had told his Cabinet Hitler "would not deliberately deceive a man whom he respected and with whom he had been in negotiation." But now Hitler had marched his troops into the rest of Czechoslovakia.

Chamberlain was as mistaken about Hitler's opinion of him as he was of Hitler's geopolitical intentions. "Our enemies are little worms," the German dictator told his aides. "I saw them at Munich."

Turning points in history usually are hard to detect when they are occurring. Most Americans were too absorbed with the Olympics and the John Edwards sex scandal to pay much attention to the Russian invasion of Georgia over the weekend.

"Historians will come to view August 8, 2008 as a turning point no less significant than Nov. 9, 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell," wrote the military historian Robert Kagan in the Washington Post Monday.

Russia (pop 140.7 million) has immediate, intermediate and long term goals for invading its democratic neighbor (pop 4.6 million), all invidious to our interests.

The immediate goal is to prop up high oil prices, without which Russia's faltering economy might implode. A major oil pipeline (featured in a 1999 James Bond film) runs from the oilfields around the Caspian sea through Georgia to the Turkish port of Ceyhan. A major interruption of supplies (about one percent of the world's oil flows through the BTC pipeline) could reverse the recent decline in oil prices. Russia tried to bomb the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, and an adjacent natural gas pipeline, but missed.

The intermediate goal is to force from office Georgia's democratically elected, pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and replace him with a Soviet stooge. This would put the kibosh on the efforts of Georgia and other former Soviet republics to join NATO.

The long term goal of Russian strong man Vladimir Putin, who described the collapse of the Soviet Union as "the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the (20th) century," is to force Georgia and the other former Soviet satellites back into the Russian orbit, and thus to give Russia powerful leverage over the economies of Western Europe. The BTC oil pipeline and the BTE natural gas pipeline are the only pipelines to Western Europe not under Russian control.

Whether Mr. Putin achieves these goals depends, in large part, on the extent to which Western leaders imitate Chamberlain and Daladier.
History never repeats itself exactly, but there are frequent echoes, because greed, stupidity, and cowardice are universal human traits, and our capacity for self delusion seems infinite.

Mr. Putin is using the same excuse for invading Georgia (protecting Russian ethnic minorities) that Hitler used for invading Czechoslovakia and Poland (protecting German minorities). French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has flown to Moscow to head peace negotiations, seems as eager to accept that excuse as Daladier was in 1938.

When Russian tanks rolled into Georgia, President Bush remained in Beijing, swatting the fannies of U.S. Olympic volleyball players, perhaps because, like Neville Chamberlain, he trusted too much in the word of a dictator.
When he met Vladimir Putin in 2001, President Bush said: "I looked the man in the eye. I was able to get a sense of his soul." But in his press statement Monday, Mr. Bush said Moscow's attacks are "inconsistent with assurances we have received from Russia that its objectives were limited to restoring the status quo in South Ossetia that existed before the fighting began on August the 6th."

"Mr. President, did you hold off speaking out and acting because of these assurances?" asked Gordon Chang on Commentary magazine's blog. "Your reliance on Russian promises would explain your inadequate response to a clear act of aggression."

When John McCain looked into Vladimir Putin's eyes, he saw "a K, a G, and a B." He is our Winston Churchill. We will need him soon.

McCain Was Right About Putin - Yahoo! News

This one goes under the "say something positive about McCain" category.

[Frenchy]

I agree. Putin's ideology was well established long before the the Bush administration. However...Our actions have made his job a bit easier.

[XDConvert9mm]

Originally Posted by Frenchy

I agree. Putin's ideology was well established long before the the Bush administration. However...Our actions have made his job a bit easier.

This is true. Other than our sending Aid in by Military transport they're very aware that there's practically nothing else we can do right now except talk loudly and bluster.

[Frenchy]

Originally Posted by XDConvert9mm

This is true. Other than our sending Aid in by Military transport they're very aware that there's practically nothing else we can do right now except talk loudly and bluster.

Indeed...and those former Soviet satellite countries are watching intently. The Euro nations need to be stepping up big time, right now.

[XDConvert9mm]

Originally Posted by Frenchy

Indeed...and those former Soviet satellite countries are watching intently. The Euro nations need to be stepping up big time, right now.

I wish they would but I don't see that happening due to the energy source control Russia now has. I think they're trying to prove a point here for the World to see.

[Frenchy]

Originally Posted by XDConvert9mm

I wish they would but I don't see that happening due to the energy source control Russia now has. I think they're trying to prove a point here for the World to see.

No doubt about it. If it was me, I would convene and emergency meeting of NATO, and grant immediate membership to Georgia.
That would get Russia's pantys in a wad!

[XDConvert9mm]

Originally Posted by Frenchy

No doubt about it. If it was me, I would convene and emergency meeting of NATO, and grant immediate membership to Georgia.
That would get Russia's pantys in a wad!

That truly is a scenario I would like to witness. Should that happen I would then look for Iran to do something provocative to keep tensions up and therefore keep Oil prices up. As the article mentions, and I agree with, that's the ultimate goal of both of these countries with unstable economies (not that ours is exactly sailing along) flexing their muscles.

[afmo]

Mccain may have been right about Putin...but comparing him to Churchill???

[XDConvert9mm]

Originally Posted by afmo

Mccain may have been right about Putin...but comparing him to Churchill???

That may be a little....premature, admittedly.

[tortoise1956]

I got into an argument some months back on this site about Putin and Ukraine. I wrote then that his goal was to bring back the Soviet Union, or something closely resembling that dictatorship.
One good thing may come out of this. The world will finally have it shoved down their throat exactly what Russia is planning to do. Our next steps should be to bring Georgia and Ukraine, and any other former satellites who wish to join, into NATO; formalize a missile defense deal with the Czech Republic and Poland; throw Russia out of the G8; and deny them entry into the WTO. If they want to try to repeat 1968, we need to show them the error of their ways.
There is still time to skin the Russian bear, but only if we get out the carving knife and go to work immediately.