Comments on: Absurdistan Weekend Update #8: Liberals Heroically Waging the War of Whine

By: Ivan Ivanovich

Ivan Ivanovich — Tue, 19 Aug 2008 01:00:54 +0000

OK Bob. I appreciate your measured response and your logic, but I have a feeling that Russia should be our friend and ally and making them out to be the bad guy is not in our interest. I want to see Georgia stay independent, but if they fool around with the Bear and end up getting swallowed what does it really mean to the USA. I agree that Bush has done the right things so far, but “We” the American people should let him do his job and kept this out of the politics for now.

By: Bob Stapler

Bob Stapler — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 23:24:10 +0000

Ivan,

You are right Saakashvili is an unknown quantity who bears watching. It would be all too easy to mistake him for a sound character in a part of the world unknown for sound characters. My sense of him, though, is he is more of a moderate than Putin, one caught between a rock and the Kremlin and desperate for a way out. If he accepts Ossetian independence, he can pretty much kiss several other regions goodbye as Russia continues to whittle George away. He may buy Georgia a few more years, but he can’t afford it and see his country survive.

Regardless of who Saakashvili is or the relative injustice of his actions, we really can’t afford to see Georgia dismembered. Russia has to be checked, and yielding now will only make it the more difficult later, so Bush has reacted rightly. We can probably work out something to see Ossetia get better treatment under Georgian rule, if that’s really an issue; but first Russia must be discouraged from adventuring.

By: Ivan Ivanovich

Ivan Ivanovich — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 13:17:20 +0000

Thank you Bob.
The question today is how does Saakashvili fit into this equation and, no matter what Bush says in public, I hope he is not putting all of his chips on this long shot.

By: Bob Stapler

Bob Stapler — Mon, 18 Aug 2008 12:31:12 +0000

Prior to the Russian Revolution of 1917, Stalin was a prominent Bolshevik organizer, enforcer, protection racketeer and all-around thug operating in the Caucasus regions of Georgia, Azerbaijan and southern Russia. During the Red Army attack of Georgia in 1921, Stalin operated as part of a fifth-column against his native country to bring it under Bolshevik control. Clearly, Stalin’s sympathies were with Bolshevism and his own rising star rather than fellow Georgians to whom he was a traitor and who he later made a special focus of his animosity. Too many Georgians had knowledge of his crimes and hypocrisies; so he silenced them.

By: Ivan Ivanovich

Ivan Ivanovich — Sun, 17 Aug 2008 14:36:10 +0000

Thanks Bob for your piece on Georgia. I am following it closely because I have relatives in Russia and Lithuania and I know a little about the animosity between Russians and the ethnic groups now in charge of these independent countries that were once part of the USSR. Your links were especially helpful, but also they showed me part of the problem. Several of the pages you reference had comments that amount to BDS, or as I call it Bush-Bashing. Not that Bush does not deserve some criticism, but I think the general weakness in the US position is due to our current political atmosphere that labels every problem in the world as a fault of GWB. I also find it interesting that no one, including you, has mentioned that Stalin (Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili was a Georgian, born in Gori). I’m not sure how that fits in, but the omission is amazing, considering that he was the most prolific murderer in human history and an ally during WWII.

I’ll file the Paris Hilton thing under: I don’t care