Clipmarks | merrie's 'putin' clips

Diplomatic Breakthru in Georgia: Red-Faced Russian Party Crashers Retreat

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:44:30 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: continued.........but nobody thought it was going to turn into a big ugly scene."

Russia's invasion prompted a quick stern response from GOP presidential candidate John McCain, while Democratic candidate Barack Obama urged Russia and Georgia to "work together to iron out their differences," and "chills, y'all." After learning that Georgia was a US ally, Obama clarified the remarks, demanding that Russia withdraw its troops north to Tennessee and West Virginia.

"Everyone was just sort of staring at Russia, who's in the middle of beating the hell out of Georgia, and Russia's like, 'what? Come on man, you have to admit it's funny,'" said a source with UNSCOM. "So Russia's going around, looking for high fives and is like, 'don't leave me hangin', bro,' but the G8 gives him the total gas face, so he's like, 'whatever, dude, this party sucked anyway.'"

Clip Source: iowahawk.typepad.com

"Look, I don't really know what to say - other than, 'hey, our bad,'" said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov in an awkward, shoe-gazing statement to the United Nations. "Seriously, dude, it just totally wasn't like us to lash out like that. We've been having a couple of bad decades, and I guess we just sort of snapped."

Lavrov and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin left several messages on the voice mail machine of Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili offering apologies and help cleaning up the damage from the weekend invasion. Sources say an angry Saakashvili was in no mood for forgiveness.

Russia's embarrassing geopolitical faux pas began over the weekend, just as the world was celebrating the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing.

"Russia said South Ossetia invited them, to try out some of their pipeline stash," explained a source with the French Foreign Ministry. "I know Russia used to have something going on with Georgia,

Tags: humor, satire, georgia, russia, south ossetia, putin, mccain

UN: Georgians Effectively Blocked from Homes

Sun, 31 Aug 2008 04:04:28 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: On Saturday, Sen. Bob Corker, R-Tenn., a member of the chamber's foreign relations committee, visited Gori to observe the distribution of U.S. food aid.

Asked whether the United States was considering new military aid, Corker said "these subjects are part of a longer and mid-term discussion" when Congress reconvenes in September.

Russia supplies the EU with about a third of its oil and about two-fifths of its natural gas.
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said European nations should adopt a united energy policy to avoid becoming too dependent on Russia.

He said the EU nations should "use our collective bargaining power."

"Without urgent action we risk sleepwalking into an energy dependance on less stable or reliable partners," Brown wrote in The Observer newspaper.

Brown said he spoke with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev by telephone Saturday, and told the Russian leader "to expect a determined European response" to the crisis.

Clip Source: ap.google.com

A woman leads her cow along a ruined street in Tskhinvali, the regional capital of Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, Friday, Aug. 29, 2008.

The zones are near the border with separatist South Ossetia, the disputed province at the heart of the conflict that has ruined Georgia-Russia ties and caused the biggest crisis in Moscow's relations with the West since the 1991 Soviet collapse.

Fighting broke out Aug. 7 after Georgian forces launched a barrage on the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, hoping to retake control of the province. Russian forces poured in, pushed the Georgians out in a matter of days and then drove deep into Georgia proper.

The United States has sent substantial aid to Georgia in the wake of the war, using naval ships and military aircraft. Russian officials raised speculation that the military involvement could indicate the United States was seeking to restore Georgia's armed forces, which had received massive military aid from Washington in recent years.

Tags: georgia, s.ossetia, putin, pm gordon brown, president medvedev

Putin: Bush Tricked Me Into Invading Georgia To Help McCain Beat Obama

Fri, 29 Aug 2008 12:25:39 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Does the US have close ties to Georgia? Yes. Has the US been instrumental in modernizing and backing Georgia’s military? Yes. But did the United States instruct Georgia to use such blunt force against separatists in the areas Russia now wants to be independent? Absolutely not. That was Georgia’s call as a sovereign nation, and Putin’s attempt to lay the blame with President Bush is simply a feint to cover his own country’s aggression in this matter.

A feint that smells suspiciously Soviet. Remember when the Soviets would back rebels and invade countries all over the world and then claim they were just opposing American imperialism? Well we’re back to that again.

Clip Source: sayanythingblog.com

MOSCOW - Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of instigating the fighting in Georgia and said he suspects a connection to the U.S. presidential campaign — a contention the White House dismissed as “patently false.”

[...]

Putin, the former president and architect of an assertive foreign policy that has stoked East-West tension, suggested in an interview with CNN that there was an American presence amid the combat with a potential domestic U.S. political motive.

“We have serious grounds to think that there were U.S. citizens right in the combat zone” during Russia’s war with the U.S.-allied ex-Soviet republic, he said the interview broadcast on state-run Russian television. “And if that’s so, if that is confirmed, it’s very bad. It’s very dangerous.”

It sounds nutty, sure, but you know this will end up in a DNC press release sooner or later.

I think Putin is the one playing the game here.

Tags: putin, president bush, georgia, ossetia

The Price of Putin

Thu, 28 Aug 2008 10:33:19 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: when Russia defaulted, and the amount of cash leaving the country in the second week of August was the highest on record.

Russia's central bank, which reported the $16.5 billion decline last week, still reckons to have $581 billion in reserves, money being stored away when the oil runs out and the gas flow starts to falter. This may come somewhat sooner than many think.

Finance Minister Alexei Kudrin spoke after the Cabinet approved the draft federal budget for the next three years, which assumes that Russia's main oil blend, Urals, will sell for at least $95 a barrel. (Russian government's own budget estimates, oil is expected to drop to $90 in 2010 and $88 in 2011.)

At current rates of extraction combined with rising national consumption, Russia's known oil reserves will start to run out in the 2020s, and a lack of investment in maintenance and development means the two main gas fields expected to maintain Russia's export income are falling ominously behind schedule.

Clip Source: www.metimes.com

But there are intriguing signs in Russia that those whose jobs and markets and investments are most integrated with Europe and the global economy are starting to count the cost of Vladimir Putin

Russian officials have sought to explain away the $16.4 billion outflow in foreign reserves in the week of the invasion of Georgia and also the 32 percent drop in Moscow's stock market since Putin began expressing his displeasure with the Mechel coal group in May. Mechel shares alone lost $8 billion after Putin's first remarks.

But Russian debt and equity markets also have gone into decline since the conflict with Georgia began Aug. 8, with yields on domestic ruble bonds increasing by up to 150 basis points over the last month. That is the equivalent of a 1.5-point jump in interest rates, the kind of panic measure that few central banks would risk taking except in extreme circumstances.

The pace of capital flight from Russia has been the highest since the 1998 collapse of the ruble,

Tags: putin, georgia, 32% drop in moscow's stock market, decline in debt/equity markets, capital flight

The Obama-Biden Ticket

Mon, 25 Aug 2008 10:33:59 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Or Biden's call to impeach Bush if Bush bombed Iran:

Because, the right approach with Iran would be to address their "emotional needs":

Biden appears to believe that what is happening in the Muslim world is our fault. An incredible position to take by any rational measure. So incredible, in fact, that it makes him the perfect sidekick for an Obama run for the White House.

Consequences of Biden’s Pro-Muslim Lobbying in the Balkans

A man on the record for stating that “all Serbs should be placed in Nazi-style concentration camps” during Senatorial deliberations in 1999 over NATO aggression on Serbia [...]

http://www.byzantinesacredart.com/blog/

Clip Source: atlasshrugs2000.typepad.com

Let's not forget this post 9/11 "solution" from Biden:

At the Tuesday-morning meeting with committee staffers, Biden launches into a stream-of-consciousness monologue about what his committee should be doing, before he finally admits the obvious: "I'm groping here." Then he hits on an idea: America needs to show the Arab world that we're not bent on its destruction. "Seems to me this would be a good time to send, no strings attached, a check for $200 million to Iran," Biden declares. He surveys the table with raised eyebrows, a How do ya like that? look on his face.

The staffers sit in silence. Finally somebody ventures a response: "I think they'd send it back." Then another aide speaks up delicately: "The thing I would worry about is that it would almost look like a publicity stunt." Still another reminds Biden that an Iranian delegation is in Moscow that very day to discuss a $300 million arms deal with Vladimir Putin that the United States has strongly condemned.

Tags: biden, 9/11, muslim world, iran, putin's arms sales to iran

The End of The Fairy Tale by Ralph Peters

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 11:59:58 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Putin went to war and the American president went to a basketball game--reinforcing the Kremlin's conviction that it could do as it pleased and get away with it. (Bush's gravest flaw is that he's a dreadful judge of character, stubbornly trusting undeserving men, from Iraqi schemer Ahmed Chalabi, through the incompetent Alberto Gonzales, to Vladimir Putin, who played Bush for a fool.) French president Nicolas Sarkozy, well-intentioned and inadequate [..]

The Putin regime was perfectly willing to let Monsieur le President return to Paris with a signed piece of paper. The Russians have drawn the lesson from Western efforts to negotiate with Iran and other rogue states that Europe can be narcotized with empty agreements and nebulous promises and that Europe has become a continent of bureaucrats who much prefer paperwork to reality. And there are no penalties when the agreements prove worthless.

Clip Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

A specter is haunting Europe-the specter of Putinism. Confronted by a masterful Russian leader without living peer in brilliance or ruthlessness, the continent sorely lacks leadership and a sense of common purpose. In their muddled reactions to the Kremlin's invasion of Georgia, European states revealed a gap in perceptions that threatens to deepen: Those who suffered under the Soviet yoke sense the return of an existential threat, while those who thrived under the Pax Americana are merely annoyed at being disturbed. As Russian troops and their mercenary auxiliaries savaged a free, democratic country yearning Westward, the world got another lesson in how ineffectual Europe is in a crisis without American leadership.

The United States performed no better. Scorned for his aggressive behavior in the past, President Bush spent the first crucial days of the Georgia crisis as a bewildered observer reluctant to recognize the gravity of the problem.

Tags: georgia, president bush, president sarkozy, putin

America: Don't Wait For Pelosi, Seize Our Energy Future Now!

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 10:27:34 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Only today, they have energy as a weapon.

One premise of the new Putin Doctrine is that oil prices will stay high and that Russia, with its plentiful reserves, can use oil profits to fund its global ambitions.

This is where Congress comes in. Since President Clinton refused to allow drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge in 1995, Democrats have stood in the way of any rational energy plan. Today, we pump just 25% of our oil; 40 years ago, it was 60%. We send about $900 billion a year overseas to buy oil, money that helps fund Russian and radical Islamic mischief. This is a problem.

Now for the good news: The U.S. is the world's largest potential oil supplier — with as much oil, the Institute for Energy Research says, as has been used by the entire world over the last 150 years.

Just offshore, we have 86 billion barrels of crude. The U.S. Arctic region, including Alaska, holds 30 billion barrels. In the Far West, we have more than 800 billion barrels of shale oil.

Clip Source: townhall.com

Clip Source: theoilpatchplug.blogtownhall.com

Russia's rampage in Georgia was calculated to intimidate the former Soviet slave states of Eastern Europe. But Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin also wants to control Georgia's Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline — the main conduit from the oil-rich Caspian Sea to Europe. That would give him a chokehold on 25% of Europe's energy supply — and veto power over EU diplomacy.

As part of this geopolitical strategy, Putin is also forging new alliances in the Mideast, ranging from this week's deal with Iraq to build power plants, to a military accord for arms, energy and a possible Russian military base for Syria.

In our own hemisphere, Putin is reviving Russia's long-dormant relationship with Cuba and selling advanced planes and weapons to socialist dictator Hugo Chavez of Venezuela, a major oil supplier.

This is a plain attempt to resurrect the old USSR strategy of stirring up trouble around the world, encircling the U.S. and its allies with enemies, then daring us to stop it.

Tags: georgia's baku-tbilisi-ceyhan, putin, cuba, advanced planes/weapons sales, ussr strategy

NATO Has Acquiesced To The Kremlin

Sat, 23 Aug 2008 12:26:21 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Writing in the Times of London, British Foreign Secretary David Miliband even opposes expelling Russia from the G-8 -- a perfectly calibrated and long-overdue measure. And a German diplomat says the Georgia issue should not have been brought to NATO in the first place, but instead to the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, a completely toothless consultative body, and to the United Nations, where inaction is guaranteed by the Russian veto.

To their credit, the French tried to do something. Unfortunately, President Nicolas Sarkozy was snookered by Moscow. Article V of the cease-fire agreement he brokered, allowing Russia the right to "implement additional security measures" within the borders of Georgia, is a blank check for Russian occupation.

Eastern Europe understands the stakes in Georgia. It is the ultimate target. Russia's aims are clear: (1) sever South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia for incorporation into Russia;

Clip Source: www.realclearpolitics.com

Read the first five paragraphs of the NATO statement on the Russian invasion of Georgia and you will find not a hint of who invaded whom. The statement is almost comically evenhanded.

It's not until paragraph six that NATO, a 26-nation alliance with 900 million people and nearly half of world GDP, unsheathes its mighty sword, boldly declaring "Russian military action" -- not aggression, not invasion, not even incursion, but "action" -- to be "inconsistent with its peacekeeping role."

Having launched a fearsome tautology Moscow's way, what further action does the Greatest Alliance Of All Time take? Cancels the next NATO-Russia Council meeting.

That's it. No dissolution of the G-8. No blocking of Russian entry to the World Trade Organization. No suspension of participation in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics (15 miles from the Georgian border). No statement of support for the Saakashvili government.

Russian TV is already trumpeting "a crack in the NATO camp." More like a chasm.

Tags: georgia, nato, putin, osce, un, saakashvili, eastern european leaders

Kremlin Unleashes "Mafia-on-Steroids" Style Chechen Thugs

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 05:44:20 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: ........continued........ to disband the unit.

The generals refused. At the time, their stubborn support for the outlaw Yamadaev Brothers seemed baffling - a quiet Chechnya was a longstanding Russian goal. But last week, it all made sense: Putin's military, which had been planning the invasion of Georgia for many months, intended to unleash the worst criminals in uniform it had on the Georgian people.

Why?

Two reasons: First, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants the Georgians to suffer - to really suffer. And Chechens are the world's subject-matter experts in atrocities.

Second, this gives the Russian army itself a veil of deniability: When Putin's spokesmen insist that the Russian military isn't involved in the worst savagery in Georgia, they're technically telling the truth (if we don't count air attacks and artillery bombardments), since the Chechen thugs on their payroll are on the job.

Clip Source: www.nypost.com

OVER the weekend, photographic proof emerged that the Russians used mur derous Chechen mercenaries to do their dirtiest dirty work in Georgia

Amid photos of the horrors of war, grateful South Ossetians and triumphant Russian troops, one series leapt out at me as a former intel officer: Bearded irregulars riding atop Russian-built armored vehicles (old BMPs, for the military-hardware buffs). The vehicles had been splashed with white lettering.

What did the scrawls announce to the world? These thugs proudly proclaimed that they're Chechens serving in the Vostok ("East") Battalion commanded by Badrudin Yamadaev - who shares a reputation for gangland violence with his brother, Ruslan

Last spring, mercenaries from the Vostok Battalion indulged in a bloody gangland shoot-'em-up in the city of Gudermes, near their home turf. The mafia-on-steroids brutality was too much even for the Chechens (which is quite a standard).

The province's puppet president publicly begged the Kremlin and its generals

Tags: georgians, chechen mercenaries, putin, georgian military training, peacekeeping, anti-terrorism, small-unit tactics, antique us anti-tank weapons/gear

McCain Showed Best How to React to Russian Force

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:02:09 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Obama’s initial reaction was to urge both the rapist and the victim to show restraint, while McCain spoke forcefully to denounce the invasion and to call for specific actions, including withdrawal from “sovereign Georgian territory,” an emergency session of the U.N. Security Council, action by other official bodies and the creation of “a truly independent and neutral peacekeeping force.”

Ten days later, McCain’s first response appears to have been the right one. Obama reflected uncertainty in part because of inexperience and in part, too, because he was responding as events unfolded. He is far more comfortable, as indeed the administration’s critics are, in letting President Bush act and then declaring that he or they would have been smarter, wiser and righter had they been making the decision.

President Bush’s strongest response was to reach agreement with Poland last Thursday to base 10 interceptor missiles to protect Europe from those fired by Iran or Nort

Clip Source: www.ajc.com

The invasion of Georgia is, like 9/11, a defining moment — less consequential, obviously. A military response to the invasion is not an option.

While Georgia is a beacon of aspirational democracy that suffered for generations in Communist bondage, the strategic interests of the United States in the republic of Georgia are circumscribed by its location and by more direct threats to our national security elsewhere.

Still, the entire world — and the Western world in particular — has to assert every noncombat effort possible to enforce a cease-fire and to replace Russian “peacekeepers” in South Ossetia and Abkhazia with an international force. The United States and other nations cannot look away while Russia effectively annexes the two regions — not now and not two years from now.

In the initial U.S. response to the invasion, the clearly decisive leader was McCain, not Obama or President Bush.

Tags: putin, the invasion of georgia, south ossetia, abkhazia, international force, mccain, president bush, poland, interceptor missiles, obama

Invading Georgia Was Easy, Mr. Putin Will Pay A Political Price

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 11:11:30 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: The Russians said their General Prosecutor's Office would undertake a "genocide probe" in South Ossetia, and they called for putting President Saakashvili on trial at the Hague for "war crimes." As it happens, Chapter 1, Article II of the U.N. Charter, signed amid the smashed borders of World War II, forbids Members from the "use of force against the territorial integrity or political independence of any state." The U.S. and France should force Mr. Putin's U.N. ambassador to veto a Security Council resolution describing his week-long mockery of those words.

Additionally, a genuinely independent prosecutor investigating war crimes might examine the Russian bombing runs over Georgia and the looting of Georgian villages by Ossetian militias. An intriguing article by Pavel Felgengauer in Novaya Gazeta, the Russian newspaper, argues that an examination of the movement of the ground equipment and ships used in the strike against Georgia required planning that predated August

Clip Source: online.wsj.com

In Washington yesterday, President Bush issued a statement of precisely the sort the world expects from American leadership in such circumstances.

"The United States and our allies stand with the people of Georgia and their democratically elected government," Mr. Bush said. In other words, the Russians have made no pretense that their purpose in Georgia is to remove President Mikheil Saakashvili from the office to which he was elected in 2004.

Mr. Bush also noted pointedly that "The days of satellite states and spheres of influence are behind us." It has become clear through this week that Mr. Putin's rationale for the invasion extends beyond Georgia's violated borders. His intent is to convince independent nations on Russia's periphery -- Ukraine, the Baltic states -- that persisting as Poland has to deepen formal ties to the West, particularly NATO, will cost them dearly. In crudest terms, it will be fatal.

This would be a reversion to the vassal-state relationship of the Cold War

Tags: georgia, president saakashvili, president bush, sec-def robert gates, secretary of state rice, putin

The Russians Have Always Favored Overkill

Sun, 17 Aug 2008 03:00:47 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: Vladimir Putin had ordered the assassination of Russian journalists and capitalists before Litvinenko, of course. But the Litvinenko murder defined him for the world -- or at least the sane and sensible fraction of the world --- just as Don Corleone in the Godfather ordered the decapitated horse's head to be placed in Jack Woltz' bedroom. Like the bloody horse head, Polonium poisoning signaled a public but deniable threat to Putin's enemies: Defy me, and I can use the rarest poison in the world to kill you anywhere I choose. And I will get away with it, because everybody else is cowed.

Which is exactly what happened. Putin never paid a price, and in the manner of bullies everywhere, he was emboldened when the Brits failed to respond to Litvinenko's assassination in the middle of London. That is why Putin's invasion of the small, free, and democratic Republic of Georgia was predictable. Today the Russian threat to the Ukraine is just as obvious.

Clip Source: www.americanthinker.com

Leaders were once named after their most (in)famous acts. In the 10^th century Ethelred, king of England, was called "the Unready" after he panicked at the prospect of Viking pirates coming to raid his shores; he was forever after known as "Ethelred the Redeless" --- the king who was bereft of counsel in the face of barbarian attack.

Well, here we are a thousand years later, and our vaunted leader-to-be Barry O is about as ready as Ethelred was in the year 1000 CE. Because we are still threatened by barbarians today. Check the headlines if you don't believe it.

Vladimir Putin should be known throughout the world as "Putin the Poisoner." His signature act -- the action that defined Putin's character for all the world to see -- was the radioactive poisoning of KGB turncoat Alexander Litvinenko in London, using polonium-210.

Putin's assassins left their traces all over London. Chemically, Po-210 is 250,000 times more toxic than hydrogen cyanide.

Tags: alexander litvinenko, polonium 210 assassination, russia, georgia, ukraine, the baltics, eastern europe, middle east

Poland Signs On! Glorious News!

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 07:57:37 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: So much for the idea that Russia could intimidate and cower Eastern Europe with this show of criminal violance. The bravery of the proud and mighty people of Poland shines through. Bravo Poles! You will not regret your decision.

Clip Source: larussophobe.wordpress.com

Thanks to Vladimir Putin’s insane adventure in Georgia, Poland has just signed on to the U.S. missile defense plan for Europe. It’s obvious, of course, that Poland has only taken this step (until now it had been ambivalent) out of terror at seeing Russian tanks rolling into Georgia and fear that it will be next. The Putin regime obviously failed, utterly, to give Poland any reassurances, and has obviously poisoned its relations with its neighbor beyond hope of repair.

Russia is fuming. It does not seem to have realized that there are dire consequences to suffer in antagonizing the world’s most powerful nation, one supported by a wide array of allies united by a common belief in democratic government.

Vladimir Putin, just like Stalin before him, has sold his nation down the river. This is only the beginning of a tidal wave of repercussions Russia will bear because of its insane imperialistic greed for territory and its egomania to restore the Soviet regime.

Tags: poland, u.s.missile defense plan, putin's invasion, kremlin, georgia

After Russia's Invasion Of Georgia, What's Next?

Sat, 16 Aug 2008 00:37:54 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: – and in precarious regions such as the Middle East – will remain.

Obviously, not all former Soviet states are as critical to Nato as Ukraine, because of its size and strategic location, or Georgia, because of its importance to our access to the Caspian Basin’s oil and natural gas reserves.

By its actions in Georgia, Russia has made clear that its long-range objective is to fill that “gap” if we do not. Accordingly, we should have a foreign-minister-level meeting of Nato to reverse the spring capitulation at Bucharest, and to decide that Georgia and Ukraine will be Nato’s next members.

Second, the United States needs some straight talk with our friends in Europe, which ideally should have taken place long before the assault on Georgia. To be sure, American inaction gave French President Sarkozy and the EU the chance to seize the diplomatic initiative. However, Russia did not invade Georgia with diplomats or roubles, but with tanks.

Clip Source: atlasshrugs.bustablog.com

Clip Source: www.telegraph.co.uk

So, as an earlier Vladimir liked to say, “What is to be done?” There are three key focal points for restoring our credibility here in America: drawing a clear line for Russia; getting Europe’s attention; and checking our own intestinal fortitude.

First, Russia has made it clear that it will not accept a vacuum between its borders and the boundary line of Nato membership. Since the Warsaw Pact and the Soviet Union collapsed, this has been a central question affecting successive Nato membership decisions, with the fear that nations in the “gap” between Nato and Russia would actually be more at risk of Russian aggression than if they joined Nato. The potential for instability and confrontation was evident.

Europe’s rejection this spring of President Bush’s proposal to start Ukraine and Georgia towards Nato membership was the real provocation to Russia, because it exposed Western weakness and timidity. As long as that perception exists in Moscow, the risk to other former Soviet territories

Tags: president saakashvili, putin, nato membership, georgia/ukraine/turkey, baku-tbilisi-ceyhan pipeline, caspian sea region

How To Stop Putin

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 13:36:47 GMT

clipped by: merrie
clipper's remarks: What we can do is alter Putin's cost-benefit calculations.

We are not without resources. There are a range of measures to be deployed if Russia does not live up to its cease-fire commitments:

1. Suspend the NATO-Russia Council established in 2002

2. Bar Russian entry to the World Trade Organization.

3. Dissolve the G-8. Putin's dictatorship long made Russia's presence in this group of industrial democracies a farce, but no one wanted to upset the bear by expelling it. No need to. The seven democracies simply withdraw. (And if Italy's Silvio Berlusconi, who has been sympathetic to Putin's Georgia adventure, wants to stay, he can have an annual G-2 dinner with Putin.) Then immediately announce the reconstitution of the original G-7.

4. Announce a U.S.-European boycott of the 2014 Winter Olympics at Sochi.

The most crucial and unconditional measure, however, is this: Reaffirm support for the Saakashvili government:

Clip Source: www.washingtonpost.com

His objectives are clear. They go beyond detaching South Ossetia and Abkhazia from Georgia and absorbing them into Russia. They go beyond destroying the Georgian army, leaving the country at Russia's mercy.

The real objective is the Finlandization of Georgia through the removal of President Mikheil Saakashvili and his replacement by a Russian puppet.

The Finlandization of Georgia would give Russia control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which is the only significant westbound route for Caspian Sea oil and gas that does not go through Russia. Pipelines are the economic lifelines of such former Soviet republics as Kazakhstan and Azerbaijan that live off energy exports. Moscow would become master of the Caspian basin.

Subduing Georgia has an additional effect. It warns Russia's former Baltic and East European satellites what happens if you get too close to the West. It is the first step to reestablishing Russian hegemony in the region.

Let's be real. There's nothing to be done militarily

Tags: putin, president saakashvili, georgia, baku-tbilisi-ceyhan pipeline, kazakhstan, azerbaijan, caspian basin