Georgia on my mind

The mainstream media is spinning the Russia/Georgia conflict as showing the strength of John McCain and the weakness of Barack Obama. Let’s look at why. First of all, it’s quite obvious that we do not have all the facts as to what is going on in Georgia. It’s a complex scenario not dissimilar to Kosovo - they wanted to break away from Serbia, Serbia suppressed breakaway notions with military force, and NATO came to Kosovo’s aid with overwhelming military force. Here, South Ossetia has allegiance to Russia, Georgia suppressed breakaway notions with military force, and Russia came to South Ossetia’s aid with overwhelming military force.

So, while it appears that Russia is the aggressor, there are two sides to the story, and it is not a simple good vs. evil situation. Barack Obama recognizes this, and would not be forced into making a “Georgia good, Russia bad” statement. For taking a realistic approach, he’s being branded as weak.

John McCain, however, came out immediately as unconditionally backing Georgia, very eager to summarize the whole situation as “Georgia good, Russia bad”. Why would he make such statements before the facts are in, go along with Bush’s plan of antagonizing Russia, and foolishly miscategorizing a complex scenario as good-vs-evil? For the same reason he makes a great deal of his political decisions – for lobbyist money. Randy Scheunemann, McCain’s top foreign policy adviser, is part owner of Orion Strategies - a lobbying firm hired by the Georgian government on how to get their way in Washington DC politics. Big money is flowing from the Georgian government to the McCain machine, so of course McCain will unconditionally support any action they take. Typical old DC politics.

www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/12/AR2008081202932.html

Follow-up on who started S. Ossetia:
www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/14/gorbachev/index.html