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Georgia War a Neocon Election Ploy?
Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the U.S. presidential election?
Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser.
Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the U.S. invasion of Iraq.
There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, an invasion that clearly was expected to produce a Russian counterreaction? It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain's presidential campaign.
In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia's membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia's Vladimir Putin.
Scheunemann is at the center of the neoconservative cabal that has come to dominate the Republican candidate's foreign policy stance in a replay of the run-up to the war against Iraq. These folks are always looking for a foreign enemy on which to base a new Cold War, and with the collapse of Saddam Hussein's regime it was Putin's Russia that came increasingly to fit the bill.
Yes, it sounds diabolical, but that may be the most accurate way to assess the designs of the McCain campaign in matters of war and peace. There is every indication that the candidate's demonization of Russian leader Putin is an even grander plan than the previous use of Saddam to fuel American militarism with the fearsome enemy that it desperately needs.
McCain gets to look tough with a new Cold War to fight while Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, scrambling to make sense of a more measured foreign policy posture, will seem weak in comparison. Meanwhile, the dire consequences of the Bush legacy that McCain has inherited, from the disaster of Iraq to the economic meltdown, conveniently will be ignored. But the military-industrial complex, which has helped bankroll the neoconservatives, will be provided with an excuse for ramping up a military budget that is already bigger than that of the rest of the world combined.
What is at work here is a neoconservative, self-fulfilling prophecy in which Russia is turned into an enemy that expands its largely reduced military, and Putin is cast as the new Josef Stalin bogeyman, evoking images of the old Soviet Union. McCain has condemned a "revanchist Russia" that should once again be contained. Although Putin has been the enormously popular elected leader of post-Communist Russia, it is assumed that imperialism is always lurking, not only in his DNA but in that of the Russian people.
How convenient to forget that Stalin was a Georgian, and indeed if Russian troops had occupied the threatened Georgian town of Gori they would have found a museum still honoring the local boy, who made good by seizing control of the Russian revolution. Indeed five Russian bombs were allegedly dropped on Gori's Stalin Square on Tuesday.
It should also be mentioned that the post-Communist Georgians have imperial designs on South Ossetia and Abkhazia. What a stark contradiction that the United States, which championed Kosovo's independence from Serbia, now is ignoring Georgia's invasion of its ethnically rebellious provinces.
For McCain to so fervently embrace Scheunemann's neoconservative line of demonizing Russia in the interest of appearing tough during an election campaign is a reminder that a senator can be old and yet wildly irresponsible.
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This sort of Neocon political skulduggery, must make Eisenhower turn in his grave.
Even if this was not an engineered surprise, the invasion is still the outcome of the Bush/Cheney gang ignoring our fizzling relations with Russia. Neocon policies allowed this to happen. Yet another reason to vote against McBush who promises nothing but the same. He is totally unfit to be the CIC.
Remember McSame promises, "there's going to be other wars..."!!!
McCain would rather start a war than lose an election.
'McCain gets to look tough with a new Cold War to fight while Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama, scrambling to make sense of a more measured foreign policy posture, will seem weak in comparison.'
Yes, but this stance could easily backfire and, as we see, already has. Americans are tired of war and war mongering. It's one thing to declare a 'war on terror' and quite another to declare war on Russia. But to declare 'war' on Russia? I don't think our nation has the stomach for that. Fighting a real power? Not some nebulous terrorist threat? Naw. That is not currently our style.
Americans prefer wars on their terms, this one certainly isn't.
How many times do the necons need to totally f*** things up before the public turns on them? I wish I was more optimistic.
Mr. Scheer, you're always a great read, I couldn't agree with you more.
Bob, I was wondering if anyone else was thinking this way... For that matter, why pin the whole thing on Scheunemann? McCain has close enough ties with Saakashvili by himself. In 2003, Saakashvili told the Washington Post that he and McCain were "very close" and that McCain was basically his role model.
Even if they weren't personally close, Saakashvili knows that a bellicose anti-Russian President McCain would suit his purposes better than anyone else in Washington.
The funny thing, though, is that while the McCain camp was going around the country beating the war drums and trying to make political hay out of all this, blasting Obama as being a Russian agent and declaring that with a war crisis on we need a president with "experience" etc. etc., W was sort of messing up the message by partying in Beijing as if nothing was going on.....
CNN should of coveraged Afghanstan and Iraq as much as they are covering Russia v Georgia.
I think Americans are tired of war. We have two wars going on and a shabby economy. Russia v Georgia is not going to rate as a high concern for a lot of people.
Maybe not in the US...
But you can bet that Europe is watching things pretty closely..
There is only one series of pipelines of oil and natural gas into Europe that Russia does not control. Those are in Georgia...
You can bet that Europe is simply petrified of Russia having control of each and every pipeline that feeds Europe...
This isn't over by a long shot... I predict that in a week or so, possibly sooner, you'll see NATO ramping up...
Michale.....
So, once again, it's all about the oil.
Do you think the rhetoric will stay clean on this one or will the American people once again be told that we have to fight them over there in order to save our freedoms here? Or some other line of crap - like we are fighting for Georgia's democratic way of life -
It's about the oil so let's all remember that going forward. Democracy's got nothing to do with it. And we know Russia got WMD. No doubts there.
It is possible. American propaganda has proven to be suerior to Soviet after all.
It's possible, but I'm not sure even I'm that cynical.
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It should also be mentioned that the post-Communist Georgians have imperial designs on South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
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Why would Georgia have "designs" on their own territory???
Regardless of the propaganda fed by Russian, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia.. Russia encouraged those two regions to "break away" and Russia was the ONLY country in the world to recognize their "independence".
Georgia could no more have "designs" on South Ossetia and Abkhazia than the US could have "designs" on Texas and Puerto Rico...
Russia didn't go in to Georgia for any humanitarian or altruistic reasons. Russia went in for 2 reasons and two reasons only.
1. Russia wants to control ALL oil and natural gas pipelines feeding Europe. With their invasion of Georgia, that is accomplished.
2. Russia wanted to send a message to all it's former satellite states.. "We can take you any time we want to."
If NATO lets the Georgia invasion stand, you can bet that Russia will try again in Poland, the Baltic States and elsewhere. Reports already have Russia making aggressive motions towards Ukraine..
I am amazed that there are alleged "freedom loving" people who are actually cheering Russia on...
Michale.....
Where is the EVIDENCE that South Ossetia and Abkhazia CHOSE to be a part of Georgia rather than Russia?
It certainly seems to me that South Ossetia did not want to be a part of Georgia.
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It certainly seems to me that South Ossetia did not want to be a part of Georgia.
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It doesn't MATTER.. Anymore than it matters if Texas decided that it doesn't want to be part of the USA anymore..
If the citizens of South Ossetia want to be Russians, fine.. Up your arses and move to Russia. Too bad, so sad, don't let the door hit you on the arse on the way out..
Countries have the RIGHT to preserve their Union. Even by force of arms if necessary. The Civil War taught the US that..
Michale.....
Wag the Dog?
Yep. I hope we this country is not stoopid enough to fall for this trick yet again.
This reminds me of Bush I's "go-ahead" to the Kurds and the Marsh Arabs (Shia) at the end of the first Gulf war.
How are these psychotic individuals getting so close to those who hold key positions within our government? How is a lowly lobbyist convincing any country that they speak for America? When will the MSM do a series on the failure of neoconservatism to educate the American people about the likes of this guy as well as the others who have weakened our country and put it at great risk?
Money and the willingly ignornat. We have become the later because of the first.
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