PJB: Blowback from Bear Baiting

[L.P. Farnsworth]

For what it's worth, Pat Buchanan's take on the Georgia invasion ...

Mikheil Saakashvili’s decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia’s invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.

Nasser’s blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili’s blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili’s army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.

Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.

Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America’s lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.

Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight — Russia finished it. People who start wars don’t get to decide how and when they end.

PJB: Blowback from Bear Baiting ::: Patrick J. Buchanan - Official Website

I'm pretty sure the bolded part is accurate, at least the part about Saakashvilli being an acquisitive moron and being the instigator of the Russian response, even if I don't agree with a lot of his interpretations in his historical anecdotes; Pat is notorious for being easily influenced by antisemites, holocaust deniers, neo-nazis, and other miscelleaneous crackpots.

I see no point in the U.S. supporting Saakashvilli's follies. A pissant rattling sabres at giant aardvarks is pretty much a psycho that is going to get eaten.

[saltwn]

Well first I thought you misspelled the abbreviation for peanut butter and jelly sandwich.
But yeah there are two sides to this story. One is that it's a civil war and Russia has no business being as aggressive as they were taking the fight to places they want to re conquer.
All in all I think it was a blessing in disguise to put us in mind of what Russia's goals really are and how far she will go to back them up.

[cnredd]

Buchanan's full of crap...

After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili’s army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.

This sentence here is contradictory...

First, Ossetia being part of Georgia is only a "claim" in the first part of the sentence, yet in the second part, there is no mention of "claim" and considers the Ossetian citizens as "his own" which is stating a fact...

As mentioned in a previous thread, Russia's accusations of genocide went past exaggeration and straight to an outright lie...

Saakashvilli is guilty of no follies...Russia created an Ossetia uprising outside their own geography, and when the local leaders tried to squelch it, Russia came barging in pretending they were defenders...