Friday, August 15, 2008

And don't forget John McCain!

Here's an article in the UK's Guardian about the war in Georgia.

Here are the opening grafs:

The outcome of six grim days of bloodshed in the Caucasus has triggered an outpouring of the most nauseating hypocrisy from western politicians and their captive media. As talking heads thundered against Russian imperialism and brutal disproportionality, US vice-president Dick Cheney, faithfully echoed by Gordon Brown and David Miliband, declared that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered". George Bush denounced Russia for having "invaded a sovereign neighbouring state" and threatening "a democratic government". Such an action, he insisted, "is unacceptable in the 21st century".

Could these by any chance be the leaders of the same governments that in 2003 invaded and occupied - along with Georgia, as luck would have it - the sovereign state of Iraq on a false pretext at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives? Or even the two governments that blocked a ceasefire in the summer of 2006 as Israel pulverised Lebanon's infrastructure and killed more than a thousand civilians in retaliation for the capture or killing of five soldiers?

The article, written by the Guardian's Seumas Milne, is excellent, and Spot recommends it, beginning to end, boys and girls. Beginning to end; maybe we'll have a quiz.

Writing in the Wall Street yesterday, John McCain added his steamed-up braying, too:

For anyone who thought that stark international aggression was a thing of the past, the last week must have come as a startling wake-up call. After clashes in the Georgian region of South Ossetia, Russia invaded its neighbor, launching attacks that threaten its very existence.

It's just too bad Georgia isn't a NATO member yet, right John? Then the US would have been duty-bound to start WWIII. Or is it IV? Spot can never remember how you guys count.

The events of the last week or so demonstrate that the uni-polar world is over. A resurgent Russia, flush with oil, flexes it muscles, and the US can only shriek impotently. The Chinese host the Olympics and give people in the US a glimpse of a society that's a lot farther advanced than we thought, one that is proud of its centuries of history and what it is accomplishing today. Not to mention putting on an opening show that the US entertainment industry couldn't match, stylistically or technologically. Disagree? Think about any Superbowl half-time show you've ever seen.

A thump of the tail to Empire Burlesque.

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