What an ass

Gateway Pundit caught Obama being a typical left-wing jerk:

Democrat Barack Obama scolded Russia again on Wednesday for invading another country’s sovereign territory while adding a new twist: the United States, he said, should set a better example on that front, too.

The Illinois senator’s opposition to the Iraq war, which his comment clearly referenced, is well known. But this was the first time the Democratic presidential candidate has made a comparison between the U.S. invasion of Iraq and Russia’s recent military activity in Georgia.

“We’ve got to send a clear message to Russia and unify our allies,” Obama told a crowd of supporters in Virginia. “They can’t charge into other countries. Of course it helps if we are leading by example on that point.”

Gosh, yes, there’s no difference between deposing a murderous dictator, and invading a democratic country because you want to destroy it.

Russia

Over on Austin Bay’s blog, I tried to leave the following comment, but his system decided it was spam.  So I’ll post it here, instead:

“a”:

Russia “gave up” things it shouldn’t have had in the first place.  They no more deserved to get anything for it than does a thief for returning stolen property.

But they <b>did</b> get things for it.  They got Western investment.  You know, like in Yukos Oil.  Where teh Western Investors all got robbed by Putin when he decided to destroy the company in order to advance his dictatorship.

Russia does not have the right to engage in military threats against its neighbors.  Russia does not have the right to run its neighbors affairs.

You want to be an important country?  Great.  End the political and economic corruption, and become an economic powerhouse.  Of course, you’re run by people who aren’t competent to get rich without corruption, and who therefore won’t allow real competition to take place.  Which is why you’re going to remain a sad joke, a Third World Country with nuclear weapons.  Nothing more.

You want respect?  Earn it.  You don’t earn respect by bullying democracies that refuse to give you what you want.

The US “Threat” to Russia

The same kind of bed wetters who were “convinced” that every problem during the Cold War was the fault of the US are at it again.  So, let’s consider their complaints about US behavior.

Russia’s turn toward an aggressive nationalism was triggered at all by American moves to expand NATO, abrogate the anti-missile treaty, build a pipeline through Georgia bypassing Russia, and a new anti-missile system in Eastern Europe.

What have we done wrong this time?  Let’s consider these whines one at a time:

• Expand NATO: Let’s see, how many countries has NATO invaded?  0?  What does “expanding NATO” do to Russia?  At most, it keeps Russia from being able to invade some of its neighbors.
• Abrogate the anti-missile treaty / [build] a new anti-missile system in Eastern Europe: Yep, that’s right, the US is trying to make it so that Russia cannot nuke its neighbors, or the US.
• Build a pipeline through Georgia bypassing Russia: The US is trying to make it so that Russia can’t block oil deliveries to countries it’s trying to bully.

So the US “aggressions” against Russia are we’re making it harder for the Russian government to threaten or attack its neighbors.

And this is supposed to be a bad thing?  What planet are these people from?

Damn Putin

I do not like John McCain.  I do not want to vote for him.  But of McCain, Bush, and Obama, only McCain has been good on the Russian invasion of Georgia.

Thanks to Putin, I may have to become a McCain supporter.

Jerry Pournelle is wrong

Jerry Pournelle, a man whose opinions I often respect, wrote the following on Sunday:

A New and Needless Cold War

We are clearly playing with fire. We have overseas adventures, entangling alliances, and total involvement in the territorial disputes of Europe. We sided with the Albanians against Russia’s Serbian allies. We are shouting at Russia about the war in Georgia.

Thank God that Georgia is not a member of NATO. Nonetheless we are in a new cold war.

Yet the United States has more common interests with the Soviet Union than we have with most of NATO. We have expanded NATO to ring Russia with bases and allies — to what purpose? This is no policy for a Republic; it’s not even a policy for a competent empire. If we are going to play balance of power games, the new Russian empire is definitely a major part of that game. Working at restarting the Cold War is not in our interest in any way, and there is no outcome to this that is favorable to us.

Has everyone at State and in the Pentagon lost their minds?

No, they haven’t.  But on this subject, Dr. Pournelle, I believe you have.

1. Russia is a corrupt dictatorship.  Given a choice between a Communist / other totalitarian dictatorship, and a non-totalitarian dictatorship, I’ll take the non-totalitarian one.  But dictatorships are our enemies.  Because dictatorships, especially corrupt ones, give their people lower standards of living, and fewer opportunities to succeed.  I’ve discussed this before: less freedom strongly correlates with more support for terrorism.
2. Russia is our enemy.  Who is supporting Iran in their attempts to get away with nuclear proliferation?  Russia.  Who is supporting other State sponsors of terrorism in their disputes with the US?  Russia.  Why are they doing it?  “National Pride”?  Desire to show they’re “relevant”?  I don’t know, and I don’t care.  They have chosen to put themselves on the side of evil, they have decided to support terrorists.  They are our enemies.
3. Georgia has supported us in Iraq (to the tune that we transported 2,000 of their troops from Iraq back to Georgia to help them fight against the Russian invaders).  Worthwhile countries are worthwhile allies.  If we wish to be (justifiably) considered a worthwhile country, then it’s time for us to be a worthwhile ally.
4. It is not in our best interests for Russia to be able to threaten those countries around it.  Economic competitors make us better (consider the quality of US built cars today, compared to the quality of cars built in the US in the 1970s).  Military competitors do not.  The more Russia is able to throw its weight around militarily, the more dangerous the world gets.  To the extent that we can humiliate the Russians, and the Chinese, every time they try to be military bullies, we should.  Because that makes the world a better place for all decent people, including us.

The goal is not to “play balance of power”, the goal is to be number 1, in a world where no one competes with us militarily.

It’s like the choice between MAD, and “Assured Survival”.  Dr. Pournelle once understood that Assured Survival (for us) was better.  Why he thinks having a Russian Empire that can threaten us is a good thing, I don’t know.  Because it’s not.  A Russian “Empire” that cannot expand militarily, that is surrounded by an SDI system that means they can’t threaten to nuke anybody, is the only kind of “Russian Empire” that isn’t a threat to us.

Now, if Putin had spent his years in power stopping the Serbs from using their military might to massacre Bosnians, encouraging Russian minorities in formerly conquered and now freed countries to be good citizens of the countries they were part of, and working the the US to shut down Saddam, and keep the North Koreans, Iranians, Libyans, etc. from getting nuclear weapons, IOW, if Russia had acted like a civilized country that wanted the world to be a better place, rather than acting like murderous thugs, my opinion of them would be different.

But if the Russian government wasn’t a group of murderous thugs, the situation in Georgia wouldn’t have arisen in the first place.

Screw Russia.  Until they stop choosing to be thugs, we should choose to diminish them in any and every way we can.  If that means another Cold War, so be it.  If they want respect, they’re going to have to stop being thugs.  Because if they only way they can be “important” is to be thugs, they are undeserving of respect.