Badmovies.org Forum

you mess with the bull you get the horns .   if you manage to p**s off a country of a zillion people filled to the brim with oil money and pent up nationalism you get much the same link (http://www.antiwar.com/pat/?articleid=13305)

No doubt in my mind that Saakashvili made a terrible miscalculation and strategic blunder.  Buchanan's sympathies constantly amaze me, though.  He appears to be against US involvement in WWII.  Ossetian's may be ethnically Russian, but Russia agreed to the current borders; it's not like they were taken away from them by conquest.  Buchanan seems not to care whether Russia rebuilds its empire; but then, he wouldn't have been concerned about Germany annexing Austria, either.  None of our affair, and besides, we're being hypocrites, after what we did in the Spanish-American war.

How the hell do you "invade" your own province? If the National Guard is ever called in to deal with rioting in New Orleans, I suppose that means we're "starting" something with France. Buchanan is a throwback to the days before nation-states, he can only think in ethnic terms.

Patrick Buchanan used to make sense about some things.  But more and more, he has just become another fringe isolationist whiner.  It's a shame, by all accounts he is a pretty nice guy in person.  But his political and diplomatic perspective is mired in the 1930's.

 I think  this is more about

1.putins ego vs saakashvilli's ego

2. one nationalism vs  another nationalism

than any resurrected USSR vs "the west".

I don't know why saakashvilli thought that befriending george bush, one of the worlds least popular figures, would help him in any way.  tying yourself to that anchor is...like tying yourself to an anchor!!



also, looks like the georgian opposition (http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/0815/1218747921949.html) is getting it's groove on.

having your opponents locked up for treason can come back to haunt you

Buchanan is no longer a liberal or a conservative.  He's built his own personal political philosophy from the ground up, with dogmatic isolationism as its centerpiece.

Here's what I think is more balanced article (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR2008081401360.html) on the complexities of the situation by Michael Dobbs.  The problem I have with this kind of backward-looking analysis, though, is it doesn't say much about how we should proceed in the immediate future.  For example, it's true that the US shamefully supported and armed Saddam Hussein in the 1980s; does that mean we couldn't take action when he invaded Kuwait becasue we would be hypocrites?

Lester:  It is about one nationalism vs. another nationalism.  But Russian nationalism extends accross the entire region.  Ukraine, Poland, and Russia's other neighbors don't seem to view this as just an isolated Georgian-Russian conflict, but as a very worrisome indicator of "the Bear's" willingness to send tanks across other nation's borders when it doesn't like what's going on inside them. 

(Of course, it's true that the US does the same thing on occasion--but that doesn't mean we shouldn't oppose others when they do it.  Better to be a hypocrite than a fool.)

And lets hope Putin's lcoking up his political enemies coes back to haunt him, but I don't think it will.  He locks them up tight---sometimes in a crypt.

so not being an isolationist means you ALWAYS have to favor intervention?

so any war is justified?

i mean, were people who were against vietnam isolationists?  because i think on ti's merits you could argue it was a bad idea without getting into any sort of philosphy relating to OTHER conflicts.

"For example, it's true that the US shamefully supported and armed Saddam Hussein in the 1980s; does that mean we couldn't take action when he invaded Kuwait becasue we would be hypocrites?"

I think we shouldn't have supported him and we also should not have stopped him from invading kuwait.  look at the can of worms that opened up.  we are still in iraq trying to "finish it" today!!  at the cost of trillions and thousands dead.

Nope, Lester, I think every geopolitical question is different and you can't have a one size fits all approach, neither to intervene every time or to refuse to ever intervene on principle.

We know the can of worms we have today after Kuwait, but we don't know the can of worms we would have if Saddam had kept Kuwait.  My suspicion is things would be much worse. 

If history has taught us anything, I think it's taught us that stomping on expansionist fascists and autocrats early in the game can save you a lot of headaches down the road, whereas appeasing them never makes them go away--it just delays the point at which they cause you trouble. 

But obviously we don't have the resources to take out every world despot, nor should we.  Picking your battles is the tough decision.  Isolationism is tempting because it lets us avoid making those decisions, and if followed we'd avoid some major boondoggles.  But I'd rather that we (and here I mean the international community, not just the US)  accept that we'll make the occasional mistake than let the world's evilest men know that their guns and tanks will be met only with stern words and disapproving looks. 

I'm against the Vietnam War and for WWII, but I have the benefit of hindsight.