Saturday, August 16, 2008

Pat Buchanan Sticks it to the NeoCons

Pat Buchanan isn't one of my favorite people but his syndicated article today is called "Blowback from Bear-Baiting". It's obviously about the Georgia-Russia conflict, but here is the part I like the best and agree with the most:
Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.
I also like this one:
Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet.

When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?
It is quite disheartening to hear John McCain talk about how there will be a "dramatically different relationship with Russia" if he is elected President. Just what we need, a new cold war.

5 comments:

NorthCountryLiberal said...

We've got to have a Boogy-man somewhere in the world. Osama Bin Laden has become too doscile to NEOCON propaganda purposes.
Russia's invasion of Georgia was timed perfectly for them.

Watson said...

Hey, let's just ignore the Russians and they'll go away - no need to worry about Putin and his plans. If we had only ignored Hitler a little longer he would have gone away eventually. We might be speaking German, but that's better than having to stand up to aggression. Neocon's are morons, so learning a second language, German or Russian, would be difficult, but they'd get used to it.

It's fun being a member of the ASO's: American Society of Ostriches!

Brian said...

I don't subscribe to the Watsonesque view that requires that any bad regime be compared to the Nazis and that anyone who doesn't want to start WWIII against said bad regime must be Neville Chamberlain.

After all, if Reagan hadn't invaded Grenada, we might be speaking Grenadan!

Knowing just a tiny bit of history can be more dangerous than knowing none at all and jingoistic militarism feeds on this fact.

But come on... if Georgia had been in NATO, do you honestly think Russia would've launched this aggression? Of course not.

Russia's screaming at Poland for accepting Bush's star wars program. But are they sending tanks toward Moscow?

And this is EXACTLY why Georgia, Ukraine, the Baltic countries so badly want such protection. They've been conquered by the Russian behemoth in the past and didn't appreciate being Russian colonies. Putin's aggression against Georgia only proves in their own minds that they are right for wanting such protection.

And while I don't accept the hysterical view that makes every unsavory character THE HITLER OF OUR TIME!!!!!!, I think you can make a progressive case that Russia's intervention is a bad thing on its own merits. And I have a few times on my blog.

It's fair enough to oppose sending US troops here. We have no moral credibility for such action after Iraq. But what Russia's trying to do is remarkably similar to what Bush did and is doing in Iraq.

I'm sorry, progressives should condemn all forms of imperialism, not solely the American version.

PCS said...

And, progressives should support those regions in Europe that want separate and belong under the shield of the countries of their choice. Just like the US did with Kosovo. As I understand it, S. Ossetians are primarily Russians that want to be part of Russia. I've also read that Georgians were not treating the Ossetians so well because they wanted to break away. The USA can't say and do one thing and then turn around and moralize against countries that attempt to do the same thing.

Watson said...

"Knowing just a tiny bit of history can be more dangerous than knowing none at all and jingoistic militarism feeds on this fact."

Come on Brian, don't you recognize simplistic sarcasm when you see it? I guess I'm not convincing writing as a liberal.

To be serious for a moment, I do not equate our actions with the Russians - we liberated the people of Iraq from the claws of a butcher. We haven't taken their oil, and we will be leaving. You can ascribe motive as you see it, but for some folks their hatred of Dubya won't allow them to see the good that is being done, regardless of the facts. On the other hand, Russia has resumed bomber flights along the coast of Alaska, threatened Poland with the possibility of a nuclear attack, threatened that the Baltic States and Ukraine will be made to pay for their support of Georgia, and latest reports from S. Ossetia indicate the Russians may have installed short/medium range missiles (yet to be confirmed as far as I could see). Viewed as independent actions, they're not all ominous, but viewed as a whole, they send a stark message. It will be interesting to see the actions the foreign ministers take at the hurriedly called NATO meeting.