Reading The Pictures: Bush Has Georgia's Back

Thinking about the hostilities in Georgia, it's instructive to return to the NATO Summit in Bucharest in April.

If you recall, Bush, along with his Russian-expert Secretary of State, descended on the member heads-of-state driving hard for the alliance to offer membership to both Georgia and Ukraine.  In the top image, you can see Bush yukking it up with pre-conference sidekick, Georgian President Saakashvili.

Thankfully the Europeans, led by Germany and France, pushed back and rebuffed Bush.  Otherwise, we could well be looking at the U.S. being forced to go to war with Russia this week in defense of a NATO ally -- not to mention interjecting ourselves in an ethnic and separatist conflict that is arguably far beyond our scope of interest.

What Bush's Georgian cheerleading and advocacy (not to mention, McCain's even more aggressive, compromised and meddling version) can be credited with, however, is emboldening Mikheil Saakashvili to provoke Russia in the first place, accounting for this contrast, between giggles in Bucharest, and Saakashvili hitting the dirt in Gori during a Russian airstrike.

slide show: Troops, Rubble and Grief in Georgia (NYT)

For more of the visual, visit BAGnewsNotes.com.

(image 1: Gerald Herbert/AP.  April 3, 2008.  Bucharest, Romania. image 2: Joao Silva for The New York Times.  Gori, Georgia)

Follow Michael Shaw on Twitter: www.twitter.com/bagnewsnotes

Comments

[Bluedog12]

The conflict in Georgia demonstrates the inept foreign policy of the GOP. Bush/Cheney Republicans and their heir apparent John McCain encouraged Georgia’s president to press Georgian interests in South Ossetia militarily with the premise that the Russians wouldn’t attack an American ally. Dumb. This Russian offensive is a convenient excuse to alter Eastern European confidence in NATO and the US. The Russians psychological target is Poland and Czechoslovakia. The GOP and its foreign policy has weakened a once strong Eastern Europe and allowed the opening of a Tempered War which contains the double threat of Cold War Nukes and Hot War conventional means. A vote for McCain is a vote for additional foreign policy defeats and a European war.

[demfriend]

Go to reuters if you want the real deal about the war/attack in Georgia. The Bush state department gave the go ahead to Putin to attack Georgia if Georgia went into another area but didn't bother to tell Georgia ahead of time that Bush had given Putin the go ahead to attack them. Our sattlelights were looking toward the middle east and none caught the movement of tanks etc into Georgia from Russia. I do not think the Georgia president now has such a friendly relationship with Bush. Would you if you knew he had sactioned the attack? So the players were: Bush at the Olympics playing, Rice on Vacation playing and of course McCains advisor who lobbies for Georgia. What has happened is just another reason Congress should not let Bush continue as our leader. How much blood should we tolerate on our hands due to him? MSM is not a value to any of us when they have also let Bush/Cheney and their administration get by with so many evil deeds without actually front paging them and now with McCain calling out Putin and getting the situation worse MSM gives him another pass too. Putin never forgets and Mac will create very explosive nastiness with him if he wins.

[PrincessZelda]

Should we nickname him George W. "Busch" now?

[bronceye]

Putin was called out by the media for being in China when this all started as if to make him look innocent. Bush was also in China(looking ignorant) but he wasn't called out as that it made him look innocent. What is weird is that the Islamofascist straw man has lost it's ability to cause fear and in walks the Old Russian Bear to be afraid of. Bush said last winter that he would have the Iraq war to a point where the repub candidate could be comfortable with it. Now, all of us from the duck and cover generation have a more familiar strawman. Bush goaded a pawn, that's all. Pure political genious. Remember, the man never, ever stops campaigning. Sounds crazy, huh? Is it any crazier than lying at the UN, lying in State of The Union speech, forging Italian documents and forging Iraqi documents in order to attack a defenseless nation(siphoning off billions)? The end justifies the means? The neoconman gravy train will not be stopped. Nothing is too extreme to not be ciphered into a conspiracy theory when it comes to these amoral leaders of ours.

[Harod]

Sorry its not Bush's fault Saddam violated the ceasefire agreement and REFUSED to account for his chemical weapon stock pile so now we got chemical weapons shells showing up in IED's..

[Heavy]

Nice talking points, both false. Oh and so is the third one. The chemical weapons, that we sold him, by the way, were found to be inert as they only have a short shelf life. So try again on all counts. Go google what Hans Blix has to say about it all. Here is a link if you like

http://berkeley.edu/news/media/releases/2004/03/18_blix.shtml

[Vinca]

I googled up ,GW BUSH DRUNK AT OLYIMPICS

[dadw5boys]

Bush at NATO. This pic screams columes of his policys and effectiveness!


http://www.nytimes.com/2008/04/04/world/europe/04nato.html?_r=1&oref=slogin

[mnkors]

Till relatively recently, Russians in general were quite trusting and friendly toward the West: The traumatic experience of Soviet oppression vs. the "beacon of democracy.”
The Georgia’s offensive, which led to "burgerized" human beings and the leveled capital city of S. Ossetia and to thousands of refugees in Russia, has been presented by the Western systems of information in such a corrupt way, that today Russians feel moral superiority. And justifiably so. In final analysis, Russia sent troops to harms ways to save a civilian population from the brutal assault.
Now look who is lecturing Russia on the appropriateness of behavior: the UK and USA, Milbank and Cheney, the "liberators” of Iraq, which was before the invasion an independent state posing no real threat to the mighty military complex of the empire of corporations. Some 1.000.000 lives lost and there are millions of displaced Iraqis, each with a tragic story to tell.
This is embarrassing. And here we are, listening to the openly lying Holbrook and McCain. The noise from the purchased talking heads on TV screens. These are the signs of decay, moral and intellectual…

[SKonnery]

Well said!

[dinsdale]

Indeed, quite well said. Covers all the points I would want to make about this. We're reliving the time of Caligula, I'm pretty certain.

[darthmaul]

Everyone pans Bush for this fiasco, but I'm reminded of that old adage "Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me." Believing anything Bush says, shows a gullibility and lack of judgment. And with the US military stretched so thin, it shows a poor assessment of political reality and the facts on the ground. I would think that a high school history class could have figured out what would happen in this case. The president of Georgia, walked into a bear trap, and he's as much to blame as anyone else. He should have known better.

[darker]

Yes: "The president of Georgia, walked into a bear trap, and he's as much to blame as anyone else. He should have known better."

BUSH doesn't care what comes out of his mouth! Bush is NOT HELD ACCOUNTABLE.
The Bush-Cheney administration is A FREE-FOR-ALL for GREEDY CORPORATIONS.

"Foreign policy" is WHATEVER ENRICHES the Bush-Cheney NANNY STATE FOR CORPORATE WELFARE QUEENS!

Bush is a STOREFRONT for President Cheney's foreign policies that change.
Bush is A FRAT BRAT who hasn't met A LIE that he has not liked!
AT THE WHIMS OF CORPORATE AMERICA.

[nicholasclaxton]

Maybe since this administration has clearly shown it can't even run itself (and its own country) we should just stay the hell out of foreign affairs until after 20 Jan 2009.....

Let the Lame Ducks Fly!

[RENREVARD]

What do Columbia and Geogria have in common? Both country,s have a high priced lobbyist that work for the Mccain campaign. Add to that Bush was informed of Georgia,s plan to take back the disputed area back in April at the same NATO meeting in this story .Bush warned Georgia not to take this action.However Bush did know this was going to happen.Ian Traynor story in yesterdays Guardian UK wrote about that little gem.

[gurukalehuru]

While I respect your choice to focus on Georgia at this time, there are some great, great photos that are not getting the MSM exposure they deserve. Just google "Bush drunk Beijing Olympics."

There is absolutely no doubt about it. He was drinking and drinking heavily.

[Vinca]

gurukalehuru: In my opinion, Bush was drinking, when he tried to give a backrub to Germany"s leader

[Vinca]

gurukalehuru: My favorite video of GW Bush ,on YOUTUBE, was him apearing at a news conference, and saying I-I-I-I and then I DON'T KNOWE and walking out

[Rog49Thomas]

Take a look at that well known leftist newspaper - the Wall Street Journal for an article about how the State Dept has been counselling the President of Georgia to be very very careful not to provoke Russia for the past several months.

Then look at the fulsome support given the President of Georgia by President Pan and Candidate John.

When children play at foreign policy, to paraphrase Art Linkletter they say the dumbest things.

Gives a whole new meaning to "Bring 'em on".

[VANDERGRAAFK]

Suppose you are correct that this is an indictment of the bankruptcy of Bush/Cheney politics vis-a-vis Russia, it still doesn't address the problem at hand, a problem that MagisterLudi cannot grasp either. How can one compare Georgia's attempt to reassert its national sovereignty over South Ossetia, which the last I looked was legally still a part of Georgia. That's not comparable to the Nazi attack on Poland. What is comparable is the use of an ethnic dispute in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to attack a sovereign nation (the fate of Czechoslovakia if Chamberlain hadn't secured "peace" in his time). That the Russians are pissed off about Kosovo and the installation of an anti-missile site in Poland and the Czech Republic does not give them the right to attack Georgia. That the Georgia stupidly stumbled into a trap set by Russia is sad, but Russia is the aggressor here. As a European, I am extremely wary of what we have just allowed Russia to do. Shades of Finland, shades of Sudetenland. Whatever it is: it doesn't belong in 21st century politics.

[Excander]

And what about Kosovo, Bosnia, Montenegro etc. It is okay for the US and NAto to bomb a sovereign nation for 80 straight days, using depleted uranium munitions to aid seperatist states. This is okay. Even though it is not on our US border as Georgia is for Russia. The hypocracy is unbeleivable.
The fact of the matter is that the world maps will be redrawn time and time again where it suits the interests of the strong and powerful. Small countries and citizens of them are nothing more than objects in the way. There is no moral high ground for the US, Europe, Russia, etc. They are all the same.

[Ohg]

John McCain has added religious bigotry to his desire to continue Cowboy Diplomacy..........
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/08/12/mccain-drives-religious-wedge-to-promote-war/

[MagisterLudi]

During the last 4 years Georgian military budget increased by factor of 30! It now constitutes 10 percent of Georgian GDP, with only one reason. American sponsored aggression against their neighbors.

[Michale32086]

Of course, you can PROVE that, right??

Oh that's right.. I forgot.. You were absent the day they taught law in Law School...

Why all the USA-Bashing???

Michale.....

[MagisterLudi]

I ma not bashing U.S. I am protesting against Georgian aggression and its military and ideological sponsor-- U.S.
Deal with it.