Netanyahu Outmaneuvers Obama?

[C.C.R.]

Maybe we'll get lucky and the Russkis will send all their nukes at Chicago.

The bombs need to drop when the Blackhawks are out of town & everybody else is home, so that they can become America's Team...

[Agelastus]

In fact our Foreign Affairs ministers more often than not belong to the diplomatic service, it's seen as a very demanding and politically 'neutral' field, better left to professionals. That politicians generally suck at speaking foreign languages certainly helps too!

Odd.  Over here, Foreign Affairs is usually the #3 job in the cabinet, sometimes #2 depending on the time period.  No civil service wonk would ever get such a lofty position, and foreign languages are not important to the job, since Canada is an English-speaking country.

Ranking here seems to be

Prime-minister (job: boss)
Chancellor of the Exchequer (job: money)
Home Secretary (job: keep the voters happy)
Everybody else (job: keep quiet, do as your told, do not fuck up publicly.)

We do ensure our foreign secretaries are politicians rather than diplomats though.

[Queequeg]

Since you haven't picked up on it, I'm being facetious.  Didn't think your rant about McCain and Georgia was worthy of a serious response.

Rant? McCain was talking out of his ass.  Every serious report in the aftermath of the conflict has pointed to Georgia for blame as much/more than Russia.  Even The American Spectator recently ridiculed McCain for saying during the conflict that "We are all Georgians". 

[derspiess]

Who's the guy taking a standing up dump in the background?

Looks like Barney Frank.  As such, maybe he's not taking a dump.

[Berkut]

Since you haven't picked up on it, I'm being facetious.  Didn't think your rant about McCain and Georgia was worthy of a serious response.

Rant? McCain was talking out of his ass.  Every serious report in the aftermath of the conflict has pointed to Georgia for blame as much/more than Russia.  Even The American Spectator recently ridiculed McCain for saying during the conflict that "We are all Georgians". 

That would be a compelling point if in fact anyone bought into the idea that Georgia is at fault for being invaded by Russia.

Georgia may have acted foolishly in instigating the Russians and giving them an excuse to invade another nation and forcibly take over a chunk of it (supported by such bastions of free and Western ideals like Venezuela), but that doesn't mean they bear the responsibility for being invaded.

McCain was completely correct.

[Queequeg]

That would be a compelling point if in fact anyone bought into the idea that Georgia is at fault for being invaded by Russia.

South Ossetians and Abkhazians don't particularly like Georgia, and in the first case the Ossetians have always been the majority in the area, and in both cases there is little to no Georgian population there left.

So Georgia
A) Fired the first shot against
B) an area that didn't want to be a part of Georgia and
C) Was occupied by an army of near infinitely greater capability than the Georgian

This would be little different from Serbia invading modern Kosovo or Bosnia.  Actually, the Serbs would have a lot more reason to, as the Kosovo Albanians have been mistreating the indigenous Serbs, while what Georgians were in Abkhazia and Ossetia have long since left.

You can argue (correctly) that the Russian response was disproportionate.  You can't argue that the Georgians were smart for attacking, or even that they deserved our tacit or logistical support, or that "WE ARE ALL GEORGIANS."  That's not just profoundly ignorant, it is dangerous. 

[DGuller]

That would be a compelling point if in fact anyone bought into the idea that Georgia is at fault for being invaded by Russia.

South Ossetians and Abkhazians don't particularly like Georgia, and in the first case the Ossetians have always been the majority in the area, and in both cases there is little to no Georgian population there left.

In the second case, though, Georgians have been the majority, until the genocide carried out with tacit approval and some level of support from Russia.

[Razgovory]

That would be a compelling point if in fact anyone bought into the idea that Georgia is at fault for being invaded by Russia.

Georgia may have acted foolishly in instigating the Russians and giving them an excuse to invade another nation and forcibly take over a chunk of it (supported by such bastions of free and Western ideals like Venezuela), but that doesn't mean they bear the responsibility for being invaded.

McCain was completely correct.

Didn't know you were part of the "proportional response" crowd.

[Berkut]

That would be a compelling point if in fact anyone bought into the idea that Georgia is at fault for being invaded by Russia.

Georgia may have acted foolishly in instigating the Russians and giving them an excuse to invade another nation and forcibly take over a chunk of it (supported by such bastions of free and Western ideals like Venezuela), but that doesn't mean they bear the responsibility for being invaded.

McCain was completely correct.

Didn't know you were part of the "proportional response" crowd.

I am part of the "Don't invade other countries under the pretense of saving your supposedly beleugered ethnic minority" crowd, actually.

Russia had not business making *any* response, proportional or otherwise.

Funny to see the lengths the faithful will go to defend their Chosen One, even to the extent of taking sides with Russia and Putin if necessary, just to validate his anemic response to naked aggression.

[Neil]

Spellus is a traitor.

[Razgovory]

That would be a compelling point if in fact anyone bought into the idea that Georgia is at fault for being invaded by Russia.

Georgia may have acted foolishly in instigating the Russians and giving them an excuse to invade another nation and forcibly take over a chunk of it (supported by such bastions of free and Western ideals like Venezuela), but that doesn't mean they bear the responsibility for being invaded.

McCain was completely correct.

Didn't know you were part of the "proportional response" crowd.

I am part of the "Don't invade other countries under the pretense of saving your supposedly beleugered ethnic minority" crowd, actually.

Russia had not business making *any* response, proportional or otherwise.

Funny to see the lengths the faithful will go to defend their Chosen One, even to the extent of taking sides with Russia and Putin if necessary, just to validate his anemic response to naked aggression.

What are you talking about?

[Admiral Yi]

Rant? McCain was talking out of his ass.  Every serious report in the aftermath of the conflict has pointed to Georgia for blame as much/more than Russia.  Even The American Spectator recently ridiculed McCain for saying during the conflict that "We are all Georgians".

I'm unable to get your BBC link to work so I'm unable to confirm that "every serious report" has blamed Georgia as much/more than Russia.  I do know that virtually every claim Georgia made during the incident has been discredited, but that's not the same as bearing the blame for instigating.  I also know that the long sequence of Russian provocations is documented and not subject to challenge.

But I'm still happy describing your comment about McCain sending us to war as a rant.  Very similar to the rants one heard all the time here and in the press about the inevitability of Bush sending us to war with Iran and North Korea.  Of course now that Bush is out of office and those 100% certain outcomes didn't come true no one is going to own up to those predictions.  Neither can we test the assertion that McCain would keep us in Iraq for 100 years.  Although we do know with certainty that if Bush had not vetoed the Senate bill Obama voted for our troops would have been pulled out before the surge, before the Sunnis of Anbar switched sides.

Calling McCain a half-crazed warmonger was effective election spin, but the election is over Squeelus.

[Queequeg]

But I'm still happy describing your comment about McCain sending us to war as a rant.

Hyperbole, but I don't think I was being any more hyperbolic than him.  It was an utterly unjustified gut reaction that totally warped his view on the conflict, and if he had been president our relations with Russia would have been more severely strained than at any time since Perestroika, and all for the sake of the Manic-Depressive president of a country of minimal strategic importance to us that is deep in Russia's sphere of influence. 

Very similar to the rants one heard all the time here and in the press about the inevitability of Bush sending us to war with Iran and North Korea.  Of course now that Bush is out of office and those 100% certain outcomes didn't come true no one is going to own up to those predictions.  Neither can we test the assertion that McCain would keep us in Iraq for 100 years.  Although we do know with certainty that if Bush had not vetoed the Senate bill Obama voted for our troops would have been pulled out before the surge, before the Sunnis of Anbar switched sides.

I supported the surge then, and I support having troops in Iraq now.  I don't think we should pull out of Afghanistan until it is reasonably function and has entered a phase of sustained stable development.  I didn't think that Bush was going to launch a war with Iran after 2006.

I'm not a dove.  I'm not Fireblade. 

[Admiral Yi]

I supported the surge then, and I support having troops in Iraq now.

Did you oppose Obama's vote in the Senate to withdraw all troops before the surge?

[Queequeg]

I supported the surge then, and I support having troops in Iraq now.

Did you oppose Obama's vote in the Senate to withdraw all troops before the surge?

Yes.  This was before Palin came on the scene, and I was still considering voting for McCain.  I wasn't as far to the left back then, and on foreign policy I'm still just about where I was. 

If the old board was here, I'm sure we could dig up some thread.  Pity, though.