Ghost of a flea: Serebro: Opium

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August 18, 2008

Serebro: Opium

Updating this post throughout the day as time permits.

There is something to be said for Russian gangster capitalism; I expect Chicago was quite glamorous in the 1930s. Now is the time at the Flea when we dance.

***

IMINT & Analysis discusses Russia, Georgia and disinformation.

There is an absurd amount of inaccurate information being propagated throughout the media regarding the current conflict between Russia and Georgia. Supposedly professional and well-respected media outlets have been severely lacking with respect to fact checking and corroborating the news they have been reporting.

A peculiar effect of the blogosphere has been to turn - a very few - Canadians not only into samizdat readers and publishers but to teach them to treat the CBC, the Toronto Star and 99% of the rest of the MSM as if they were reading cold war Pravda without the clever editorials.

* Flea-readers will be shocked to learn the USA and UK favour a tough stance toward Russia while the French and Germans prefer to do next to nothing. Given that "tough" means suspending security cooperation and sending monitors to Georgia I cannot say the Continentals are alone in advocating weakness and prevarication.

* Nicolas Sarkozy is cool, no doubt. But he is still waving a piece of paper. Too bad for the Sudeten Georgians.

Mr Sarkozy's high-visibility diplomacy has only confirmed Europe's cowardly attitude when faced with a violent adversary, just as in Afghanistan, where Germany and France are unwilling to fight on the front lines. In the real world, hard power matters and only the United States has the power to defend freedom.

And in the real world, the Russians have reportedly deployed SS-21 missile launchers and installed surface-to-air missiles at occupation HQ at Tskhinvali, South Ossetia. Also being considered: Nuclear warheads for its Baltic fleet. Underway: Ethnic cleansing at the orders of Vladimir Putin and black humour from the Russian Einsatzgruppen.

“They said, ‘Putin has given us an order that everyone must be either shot or forced to leave'. They told us we should ask the Americans for help now because they would kill us if we stayed.”

Or they could ask Canadians for help.
/blacker humour

* So much for the American space program. One small step for wishful thinking. One giant leap forward for fascist China.

Given how crucial the Russians are to supporting it, particularly after the planned Shuttle retirement in 2010, we may have to decide how much the International Space Station (ISS) is really worth to us.

* Janet Daley on the sort of political leaders we need.

* The Armorer writes that at least a part of the Russian Army has its groove back. And Popular Mechanics describes Georgia's fierce defense against a military twenty times its size.

* President Dimitry Medvedev: Cross us and we will crush you. Paging Stephen Harper to the soft power phone.

* Diana West on our frank discussion of Russian imperialism and our prevarication on Islamic imperialism.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband said the invasion was “a reversion to not just Cold War politics, it is a 19 century way of doing politics.” At home, John McCain explained the Russian strike against Georgia as a part of the same historical continuum: “I think it's very clear that Russian ambitions are to restore the old Russian empire. Not the Soviet Union, but the Russian empire.” And why is this important? When I started seeing these stories and statements even making some of them myself I realized there was something free-wheeling about the style of expression that made it different from what has been the norm. I first wondered if there were a somewhat perverse trace of nostalgia in dealing again with the Russians. And then it hit me. In the nearly seven years since Islam has wholly dominated current events, neither our media nor our leaders have ever, not even once, looked at similarly characteristic behavior from the Islamic world and labeled it accordingly.

* Putin's code-name for this operation is "Scorched Earth"; hence the Chechen mercenaries (severe blood pressure warning on the following).

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? ... Prime Minister Vladimir Putin wants the Georgians to suffer - to really suffer. And Chechens are the world's subject-matter experts in atrocities.
...
And there's plenty else to be outraged about - not all of it Russia's fault. Images of dead and disfigured Georgian soldiers show them wearing US-surplus canteens, boots and helmets, or equipped with antique US anti-tank weapons. After the Georgians did all their tiny country could to support us in Iraq, all we gave them was cast-off junk - thanks to Congress and the State Department.

Our military was only allowed to train the Georgians for peacekeeping, anti-terrorism and small-unit tactics. The Georgians gave us all they had, and we gave them crap. The Bush administration should hang its wobbly head in shame.

Meanwhile, Chechen rapists and butchers are celebrating - and picking over the US gear the Russians captured and didn't even want.

And that, shameful as it is, was worlds more than the people of Canada chose to give them.

Posted by Ghost of a flea at August 18, 2008 06:44 AM

Comments

Serebro is quite the fitting soundtrack for this Georgia madness. ;)

Posted by: agent bedhead at August 19, 2008 04:51 AM

Ghost of a flea

August 18, 2008

Serebro: Opium

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