Bush on the Russia-Georgia Conflict

August 13, 2008 - President George W. Bush on the Russia-Georgia Conflict

False hope for Georgians? This is an excerpt from the New York Times article on US involvement in Georgia:

In Georgia, President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has sharply criticized what he called a failure of the West to support his country, declared the [US] relief operation a “turning point” in the conflict, which began on Thursday when Georgian forces tried to establish control in the breakaway region of South Ossetia, only to be routed by the Russians.

“We were unhappy with the initial actions of the American officials, because they were perceived by the Russians as green lines, basically, but this one was very strong,” he said in a telephone interview after Mr. Bush’s statement in Washington.

Mr. Saakashvili interpreted the aid operation as a decision to defend Georgia’s ports and airports, though Bush administration and Pentagon officials quickly made it clear that would not be the case. A senior administration official said, “We won’t be protecting the airport or seaport, but we’ll certainly protect our assets if we need to.”

Mr. Bush spoke in the Rose Garden of the White House, flanked by his secretaries of state and defense, Condoleezza Rice and Robert M. Gates. He said that Ms. Rice would fly to France to support its mediation efforts and then to Georgia “to continue our efforts to rally the free world in the defense of a free Georgia.”

State Department officials said there were no plans for Ms. Rice to go to Moscow.

Read the CNN.com accounts of developments surrounding the Bush speech on the Russia-Georgia conflict here and here.

Read the New York Times account of developments surrounding the Russia-Georgia conflict here.

Read an interesting New York Times Q&A on Soviet Georgia here.

plez sez: so george w. bush DEMANDS that russia leaves georgia. or else...

or else, the US will send even MORE humanitarian aid to georgia!

we have neither the will nor the might to tangle with the russians. in bush's speech (and subsequently in responses from administration & pentagon officials), he made it abundantly clear that our troops are not going to georgia to fight, our troops are there to hand out blankets and hot cocoa.

thanks to george bush's failed foreign policy and his illegal war in iraq, we don't have a military capable of backing up bush's hollow demands. at this point, without the threat of military intervention, bush's words are nothing more than a sternly worded suggestion! and i'm afraid that sending the gap-toothed secretary of state of the lamest of lame duck presidents over there won't change much either.

Quote of the Day - May 21, 2008

“Why shouldn't we have the same courage and confidence to talk to our enemies? That's what strong countries do. That's what strong presidents do."
- Senator Barack Obama (D-IL) in response to Senator John McCain's (R-AZ) assertion that Obama's judgement is "reckless" and he lacks the experience to be president for wanting to meet with our enemies.

Read the entire CNN article about their flap here.


plez sez: for the past fifty years, the US has looked with disdain at the small tropical island that sits a mere 90 miles off the coast of florida, cuba. fidel castro has grown old and feeble, while the us has gone through nine presidents, the vietnam war, the cold war with the soviet union, the thaw of relations with china, the reconstruction of europe, landing on the moon, and global warming. yet they continue to sit there off the coast of florida, as benign as the day that the island bubbled up in the caribbean.

all those presidents, all those nuclear weapons, all that high priced intelligence, all those billion dollar warships and stealth fighters, all of our money, and the collapse of the soviet union... and they still sit there without a word from the us! fidel is still drawing breath, long after the assassinations of the Kennedy's and Martin Luther King, Jr. he's still there after the death of anwar sadat in egypt, the overthrow of the shah of iran, the fall of the berlin wall, the war in bosnia, the opening of vietnam, the capture of manuel noriega in panama, the loss of the panama canal, the crack epidemic, the death of benazir butto in pakistan, and the hanging of saddam hussein in iraq. the only world leader who has been in power since fidel castro's unlikely ascension in cuba is the queen of england!

mccain says that Obama is naive for suggesting that we talk with fidel's little brother (raul), since he has taken the reins of the country. plezWorld is thinking, "what harm can it do?" cuba is an island, literally and figuratively. the cuban missle crisis was handled with diplomacy over 45 years ago! what can be gained by NOT speaking with them now? what benefit is derived for the large cuban community in south florida that cannot communicate with their relatives?

mccain (as an extension of george w. bush) represents an old, dysfunctional, and failed foreign policy. mccain would do well to highlight areas where he differs from bush, not reinforce what most americans already assume: a mccain presidency will be a continuation of the bush foreign policy debacle. a foreign policy that brought al qaeda and the suicide bombers to the us on september 11, 2001, the foreign policy that cannot find osama bin laden, and the foreign policy that launched an illegal war against the sovereign state of iraq (i still don't understand why he has not been impeached)!

it's time to have a president with the stones to chart a new path, try new strategies, and change our global image. it is time to have a president with a strength of conviction to do what is right, rather than what has always been done. change is difficult and i expect mistakes will be made. but after eight years of blunders by some of the most experienced washington insiders (cheney, powell, rice, rumsfeld, et. al.), i plan to cast my lot with the new guy: Barack Obama.