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The Forum > Article Comments > US-backed Georgia pokes the Russian bear > Comments

US-backed Georgia pokes the Russian bear : Comments

By Tony Kevin, published 22/8/2008

The anti-Russian US media reports on Georgia feed public opinion and favour Republican John McCain.

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Haganah Bet

If I had any doubts of the mindless nuclear aggressiveness of US- NATO ambitions in Europe, then your helpful link cleared up any confusion. Sheer TERROR!

‘Now try and tell me that Patriot missiles can take out ICBM/IRBM's, they travel at about 2-4km/s in the only period they are vulnerable to Patriot and it cannot catch them. How do they alter the status quo?’

I can’t answer your question because (a) I don’t know, and (b) I don’t want to know, and (c) what’s the point of knowing crap like this, and (d) I’m not disturbed enough to understand the minds that measure and quantify the geo-political advantage of these grotesque mass-killing facilities and then have the audacity to call them ‘security’.

However, one comment I can make is that those weapons are in Russia's environs, NOT the US. The one time the USSR dared to move nuclear WMD's within coo-ee of the US, the US administration almost went into complete neurotic collapse. However, Russia is expected to live with this threat all the time. And we wonder why they get paranoid.

Paul.L

‘You ask why do they say "Russia invades, we intervene". Well UN resolutions are part of the answer. We had full UN backing to stop the ethnic slaughter in Kosovo including resolutions authorizing force.’

… and Iraq. Oh, that’s right … ooops!
Posted by SJF, Wednesday, 27 August 2008 9:50:48 PM
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By definition a conspiracy is an illegal act. What’s happening with the current US administration may not be technically illegal but it’s a bit of a stretch to say that the relationship between their recent foreign policy initiatives and the business backgrounds of major members of their government is no more than just a happy coincidence.
Consider the incredible increase in profits made by Halliburton and Chevron Corporation/Texaco over the last 8 years and the relationship between oil and all the foreign military incursions made in that period. Then look up the famous “war is a racket” comments made by Smedley D. Butler.
Of course the companies aren’t directly running the government but whose interests are really being represented by these conflicts?

Georgia doesn’t produce oil. They are being supplied with weapons and training by the US and Israel because of their potential relationship with Iran and the fact that the BTC pipeline runs through their country. It’s the strategic importance of the supply and distribution Caspian Oil that’s always been behind this whole thing and the challenge to Russia’s distribution monopoly. Look up who the major pipeline shareholders are.

OK I admit I was premature on the pull-out statement. I had just heard radio reports that as well as the damage from Russian troops, the BTC was out of action because of bombings by Kurdish separatists in Eastern Turkey and that the long-term viability of the project was now in doubt and some investors had announced they may withdraw.

I don’t claim to know what the full story is but I know what it isn’t. To believe that every conflict over the last few decades was based only on spreading warm and cuddly democracy around ignores several very big elephants in the room and that maybe you really can fool some of the people all the time
Posted by wobbles, Thursday, 28 August 2008 1:49:24 AM
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Wobbles,

Its not just Haliburton etc who have had large increases in reported profit over the last 10 years. We are living through an economic boom time in case you hadn't noticed. Many Banks, Mining , communications companies have reported massive profits recently.

I accept your criticism that firms who are close to the US administration have made money from the foreign policy decisions of the Bush presidency. I cannot accept that foreign policy decisions are made with the goal of doing what is best for these companies. The very idea that the war in Iraq was motivated by a desire to make America richer is ridiculous. The war has cost massive amounts of money and has the left the country worse off economically.

SJF,

Your head in the sand approach to the military realities of the missile shield show just how interested you are in getting to the heart of the issue. It marks you out clearly as a novice with little real understanding of security/defence issues. Yet you maintain a strident opinion on these matters. WTF?

Clearly the actual mechanics of the defence issues are of vital importance. Russia's nuclear deterrence is NOT affected by the placement of 10 intercept missiles in Poland. Russia is relying upon the ignorance of the loony left on defence issues, by pretending that the missile shield will degrade the deterrent factor of Russia's nuclear force. It clearly will not.

Your attempt to compare todays strategic environment with the height of cold war tensions is naive and intellectually vacuous. In 1962 confrontation between the West and the USSR was almost daily occurence. The Cuban missile crisis occurred within a year of the failed Bay of Pigs invasion, and the closing of the border and the beginning of the wall in Berlin by the USSR.

Furthermore, the weapons that the US/NATO are placing in Poland are purely defensive in nature. They don't contain nuclear material and cannot be used offensively.

As for Iraq, you will note we had a half dozen UN security council resolutions regarding Iraq before we took action.
Posted by Paul.L, Thursday, 28 August 2008 2:28:28 PM
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Paul.L

'Your head in the sand approach to the military realities of the missile shield show just how interested you are in getting to the heart of the issue.'

Do not confuse non-recognition with non-understanding. It matters not what these weapons are capable/not capable of or how far/fast they can go or who is driving/not driving them. The astronomically profitable world of weapons development, trading and escalation is no more than a means of stoking the hothouse paranoia necessary to the continuance of war as a tool of international intimidation.

The US missile shield in Europe is a shield in name only. In reality, it is a military and geopolitical weapon of intimidation to challenge Russia to a final showdown over who is to control Europe for the next 50 years. The Russians know that. And the US knows that. And the Russians know that the US knows that the Russians know that the US knows. And so do their respective media.

'As for Iraq, you will note we had a half dozen UN security council resolutions regarding Iraq before we took action.'

No previous Security Council resolution on Iraq ever sanctioned the 2003 US invasion. In fact, there was a revolving door of UN weapons inspectors who resigned in the face of the UN's blatant attempts to falsely incriminate Iraq over its non-existent WMD program, in order to justify one of the longest and most inhumane economic sieges in world history. This siege only ended because the this geo-politically critical, oil-rich nation was rendered so utterly defenceless that it was powerless to withstand an invasion by the world's #1 military superpower.

The UN Security Council has operated as little more than an official legitimitiser of heavy-handed US/NATO foreign diplomacy - especially in the Kosovo-Serbia conflict. However, the 2003 Iraq invasion was so outrageously illegitimate, ill-advised and illogical that even the lapdog UN Security Council could not sanction it.
Posted by SJF, Saturday, 30 August 2008 8:16:33 PM
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