Obama on Georgia — Simply Lost
By Charles Lemos on August 12, 2008 at 9:35 PM in Barack Obama, Foreign Policy, Russia
Let’s see if I got this right, Obama is calling for:
1) United Nations Security Council Resolution condemning Russia. Problem: Russia is a Permanent Member of the United Nations with Security Council and thus has veto power over any resolution. Sure you can have a debate at the Security Council, actually there already have been, but it isn’t going to go anywhere. Obama does not seem to understand how international politics is played. While Obama talks, Russian tanks have severed Georgia in two. Gori has fallen and Russia seems to have set its sights on the capital, Tbilisi.
2) Replacing Russian peace-keeping troops in South Ossetia with a multi-national force. Problem: Russia is a Permanent Member of the United Nations with Security Council and thus has veto power over any UN peace-keeping force. And does Senator Obama really think that Russia is going to allow a United Nations peace-keeping force made up of foreign troops, albiet under UN command, on its southern flank? Proposing non-starters is a waste of time. Try being realistic.
3) Condemning Russian actions in the court of world public opinion. Problem: Does Russia care what the world thinks at this point? Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin met with US President Bush in Beijing the day the crisis erupted. President Bush issued stern warnings to both sides. Putin then flew off to North Ossetia to direct the Russian campaign. French President Nicolas Sarkozy is off to Moscow tomorrow. The Russians have already stated that the French peace proposals are DOA (dead on arrival).
4) Sending an objective and neutral International Mediator to the region. Problem: There’s nothing to mediate at this point. I wrote earlier that Russia will accept a cease-fire when Russia achieved its war aims. I was mistaken to believe those war aims were limited to ousting Georgian forces from South Ossetia but it is now increasingly clear that Russia aims to take control of Georgia. Georgia is an imperfect democracy but it is a democracy. It won’t be one much longer. A puppet government is on its way and I expect right now that President Mikhail Saakashvili will form a government in exile. What is there to mediate? And between whom? Russia will redraw the borders in the Caucusus because it can. We are powerless. I wrote earlier that we lost this round, let’s not lose the next. The next one is the Ukraine and Moldova.
Obama’s assertion that Russia has escalated this war beyond South Ossetia, while factual, misses the whole point. This war is not about South Ossetia. South Ossetia may have been the casus belli but this splendid little war for Russia is a message to the United States, to Europe and to NATO that Russia is a player. Call it a greeting card from a resurgent Russia.
The West made many mistakes. We pushed for Kosovar independence and recognized a state that has no business being a state. When Brazil and India note that they would only recognize Kosovo when Serbia did, that was the right path to take. Furthermore, the Bush Administration pushed for missile defence systems in the Czech Republic and Poland to protect Europe from an Iranian attack. I am not sure how putting such a shield in Poland protects Europe from Iran. No matter the intent, the Russians clearly felt that these were directed at them. With the prospects of Georgia and the Ukraine becoming NATO members, Russia was clearly unhappy at that. Georgia is paying the price of Western mistakes plus its own miscalculations. Much is yet unclear how this war was orchestrated but it does seem that Russia goaded Georgia into an armed intrusion into South Ossetia. It was a trap. The West now faces tough choices.
Obama’s calls seem more of his kumbaya oh lord kumbaya rhetoric that simply shows how out of touch the very junior Senator from Illinois is. The joke is that when Obama found out that Georgia had been attacked, he asked if Atlanta was okay. The corollary is that when McCain found out, he promised to send to General Sherman.
Georgia is lost. Let’s not lose the Ukraine. Putin has run circles around Bush, can you imagine Obama? At least with McCain, he has been sounding the alarm for a decade. Experience does count. So does realism and Obama on Georgia shows a fatal flaw. He is divorced from reality.
From my blog, By The Fault.
Soros fingerprints are all over this conflict:
creepysleepy.com/crane/?p=916
He loves stirring up conflict in the Caucasus. It is fairly well-accepted that the Rose Revolution was of his doing. All the best Islamic terrorists come from Chechnya these days.
A truly horrible, worse-than-Bush, performance by the junior senator. He clearly just had this thing faxed and handed to him as he got off the beach and didn’t bother to preread or rehearse it - as if the world couldn’t wait 15 more minutes until he prepared himself to do a good job of reading someone else’s ideas.
And what is up with “you guys” and “thanks guys” before and after the script? It’s childish.
This event is a big deal! Russian tanks invading free countries! It’s history repeating itself and Obama is treating this like some high school girl in civics class. Can’t we all just talk this through and get along?
The fake outrage is uninspiring.
In contrast, look at the video of McCain on this topic. Night and day. President and junior senator (state legislator who got lucky).
Obama is not who he says he is. And it’s becoming more obvious every day what a risk he is to the security of the world.
I concur. He actually needed advisors to write something for him to say since I don’t think he even knows where Georgia is. I don’t think Obama even took any questions since he knows he could not even answer rudimentary questions on this topic.
Yes. The question is: Can three hundred advisors write an email that a green senator can read?
I think you guys have this all wrong.
I think he is quite capable and he doesn’t need that much to look sharp.
You miss his issue.
He has a reputation for being a lazy legislator and it is showing.
He is a spoiled child and he has gotten his way most of his life. Why work so hard?
That is the one thing I liked about Mr. Clinton, he was hard working. I admired that.
“You guys” and “thanks, guys” is what a SENIOR says to a JUNIOR. It is the way someone with the upper hand makes the more menial feel like they’re halfway important.
Noblesse oblige.
The press is “in the tank” and he treats them accordingly.
What happens with high school GIRLS? Any problem? Do you think that girls are less capables? a little bit more incompetent than boyzzz, you-guy? By the way whatever girl is better than Odrama. Or whatever boy.
Can’t he travel with a teleprompter? His need to look down constantly to read a policy paper worked out by his 300 advisors and emailed to him evokes Bush!
If he had a teleprompter, we’d just see his head swinging right and left, not hear him uh-uhing as much as he tries to find his place. His
clipped speech makes me think he is bored and ready to get back to one of
his rap songs on his iPod or watch TV.
I know!!!!
He made it so obvious that he was reading cue cards.
Starts every sentence with “I”. I did this, I propose that, I call this, the precious has no idea the presidency is not about “I”, it is about us.
He ought to sing “Ay, ay, ay, ay….canta y no llores” when he does his Hispanic outreach.
He’s got that AY word down, at any rate!
Obama does not even know where Georgia is. His advisors write a statement and he comes out and reads it then goes back and plays basketball. I bet he did not even take any questions since he would have looked like a fool if he did.
All I can say is GOD HELP US.
Amen. My thought exactly. The man is an idiot.
Oh I hear ya…God Help Us! This speech sounded like something a “mommy” would say to their young children on the playground. I need a Mai Tai!
We need to help ourselves, Obama has not won yet so people need to do more to try and defeat him.
That link didn’t work. Here’s the article:
George Soros & The Georgian Conflict
(Highlights)
Zionist Billionaire Soros installed Shevardnadze’s young protege, Mikhail Saakashvili, as the new and current President of Georgia. During the three months before the coup, Saakashvili, who was schooled & groomed in America, was glorying in lavish treatment from the Zionist led US State Department and the Jewish controlled media. And in the previous summer Soros had flown Saakashvili and his followers to a “revolution training seminar” in Belgrade Serbia.
\
Back in Georgia from his training by Soros in Belgrade, Saakashvili led thousands of demonstrators brandishing fresh red roses in their takeover of the President’s palace. This occurred in the freezing Georgian winter when fresh roses had to be flown in — courtesy George Soros, who had spent $42 million on his new Georgian puppet. No sooner had Saakashvili taken office that he vowed to bring the Russian supported South Ossetia & Abkhazia breakaway provinces back under Georgian control.
Soros and the US State Department, indeed, had publicly committed themselves to propping up the current anti-Russian Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili, considered by many to be an authoritarian thug. A confrontation between Russia and the US was now in the works. And it has come to a head with the recent conflagration in South Ossetia.
Obama is Soros’ puppet.
I would question any article that refers to Soros as a Zionist. He is rabidly anti-Israel, and blames European anti-semitism on Israeli policy. Though Soros may have influence, I would dig deeper.
Agree ….Soros cannot be Prez so he will be the puppet master. Unless we expose this and them.
Can you believe the arrogance? Obama is entirely too full of himself.
“for many months I have warned blah blah blah”. No, he hasn’t. He’s not said a single word about it.
This man is a legend in his own mind. He’s the xeroxed image of george w. bush.
oh, he “re-iterates his call”, I’m sure that’s going to stop them dead in their tracks.
I want McCain or, preferably, Hillary handling this crisis, NOT Obama and certainly not bush.
Bush made this possible with his unprecedented pre-emptive strike and invasion of a sovereign nation. Bush has given Russia permission to take Georgia just as bush invaded Iraq. Now Obama is expecting them to stop merely because HE says they should. Yup, that aughta do it, they’ll think twice before they mess with obama again. He’ll reiterate his call if they don’t watch it!
If this is his 3am test call, he has failed miserably.
Warned about WHAT? All he talks about is sitting down and talking to our enemies without preconditions. I have never heard him make a single strong foreign policy statement with any meat to it.
I’ve watched Putin for years.
He is no idiot and he is a patriot to his country.
To understand him you have to understand that.
He was not going to tolerate for long the British Intelligence/Soros shenanigans going on in Georgia.
He knows that Korea and Vietnam both show that drawn out, back and forth, police action type skirmishes are a recipe for disaster.
The Muslims, from what was southern USSR, have already conducted terrible terrorist attacks against Russia.
So, he acted swiftly and decisively, and, in my observation, has thwarted an intricate and long term threat against his country.
Frankly, I was not surprised that Bush came out against the action. He and his family have always worn Union Jack panties as far as I am concerned.
Of course, Obama, being a puppet of Soros and crowd, same as the Georgia President, would be against Russia’s action.
John surprised me. I figured he would be a little more analytical than he has been. Of course he could have been running cover for our State Department. Ziggy B’s son works there and is doing everything he can to fulfill daddy’s consuming hatred of Russia.
“John surprised me. I figured he would be a little more analytical than he has been. Of course he could have been running cover for our State Department. Ziggy B’s son works there and is doing everything he can to fulfill daddy’s consuming hatred of Russia.”
How could you be surprised by John McCain’s reaction when he has publicly loathed Russia for decades? He’ll make a great cold war president.
Обама troll, перейдите к России и жить с товарищами.
Pink Panther
Какие друзья?
Обама, Кастро, Каддафи, Ким Чен, Хамас и Уго Чавес и другие kool помощи сторонников.
mccain i think is more pragmatic. he is banging the drums right now to show the difference between him and obama.
Here’s a head up Bill Clinton will announce Obama’s VP that means one thing it’s HILLARY….DAMN
Oh God, say it isn’t so…
Your source on this Heads Up?
no its kerry
Tom Dashle.
Bill Clinton?
Daffy Duck
Any silly fool that will not OUTSHINE the ANOINTED ONE.
Someone they think will plug an EXPERIENCE HOLE and who will take orders, shut up, and stand back when His Oneness
speakspontificates.I don’t care if they dig up Pope John Paul the Second, take his DNA and clone it with DNA from JFK, FDR, Mother Theresa, Abraham Lincoln and Sojourner Truth, and create a “Super VP” who will, like Obama, try to be all things to all people, I’m still not voting for Mr. Overstuffed dot com.
I think the man is an IDIOT. And worse, a (lousy) bullshitter.
naw, it’s someone boring and will not help the ticket that is drowing in boredom.
I’m betting on Hagel(R). Don’t ask why because I don’t know, but it’s a feeling.
hagel? hmmmmmmm! i just smiled thinking about how dk would react. not well would be my guess. the cool kid bloggers under the bus. and the bus will run over them several times. hehehe
Source please?
If so, then Hillary is a fool!
not neccessarily.
I am beginning to believe that Obama doesn’t actually want to be President, he just wants to be the first elected Black President.
It all fits with his pattern.
Just like in his first US senate term where he anounced after 144 days his intention to run for American Idol, i mean president…Within the first 144 days of his first term he is planning ton announcing he is running for Miss World and will hand over the office to his vice president while he goes off to get fitted for a Bob Mackie evening gown, and learns to toss a batton.
Why would anyone think he is in any way prepared to deal with this? We’ve been saying the same thing for months: based on what? Foreign policy is incredibly intricate and complex–you cannot make it up as you go along based on abstractions like “peace” & “hope.” I hope this aggression wakes people up to the consequences of electing a Prom King.
Maybe Obama will introduce himself as VP,Hell he probable thinks he could do both jobs. lol
Maybe I am speculating to much
I thought he was sending out notice of the VP choice via text message. Won’t it be announced before the Convention?
Just because Bill is playing a Convention role doesn’t mean it’s necessarily Hillary.
Who knows Fred, If Obama was smart he would pick Hillary. Thank god he has shown no evidence of being smart. Also the “theme” for the day the VP speaks is “National Security”. Which makes me think Chuck Hagel. Fox news is speculating it may be John Kerry.
Yea, that’s a good idea–a competition to see who can be more elitist. Didn’t work so well for the Dems the last time did it?
Kerry would be too much of a gift! Please, please, please, let it be Kerry.
I don’t think he’d have a Clinton announcing a Clinton. They are, after all, trying to take over and push them out. He’d be more likely to have Bill announce someone else entirely. I don’t think Bill will be announcing the VP at all. Fortunately, I don’t think either Clinton will be doing much after the convention except thinking toward 2012. At least I hope so.
Would Hillary be dumb enough to accept an Obama VP? If she would then her career goes down with his.
Well, with all the crap blowing around Obama if Hillary was VP she could then step right into the POTUS spot and clean up this friggin’ mess.
Obama will go down one way or another but we better HOPE that its before Novemeber cause we know there will be NO impeachment no matter what he does in the WH.
Has a VP nominee ever been moved into the POTUS slot before a General election? Any historians in the house?
Agree about Hagel. My question is why DNC would take a chance on a socially Conservative Republican incumbent, which Hagel would be after 4 or (godforbid)8years. Or what if Obama died in office or was removed for some reason?
He owns a company that makes ELECTRONIC VOTING MACHINES, that’s why.
Those machines made by HIS COMPANY are in a lot of battleground states, too.
It would take the wind out of Obamas sails, how can Obama continue to bash McCain for voting with Bush 95% of the time and then pick Hagel who voted with Bush 97% of the time? Like I said before intelligence is not Obamas strong suit, so who knows.
LOOOOOL OMG John Kerry as the VP….THAT WOULD BE HILARIOUS!!!
Didn’t they lean the last time they ran him? Windsurfers never win the general.
think about michelle,she will be pissed!
Obama wants to be President. He does not actually care about doing the job right or having any knowledge about the world. He is the Democrats Bush.
Obama/Kerry would be the Dem version of Bush/Cheney. Who’s really running the country?
If he does pick Kerry, I bet it was Uncle Teddy’s idea…
and then we’d have two people who could be accused of “being against the war before they were for it”, or the “flip flop twins”. ONe is wind surfing, the other body surfing.
that is a disaster, but, well go for it, Barky!
LOL, oh dear, I’d happily forgotten all about Kerry.
Kerry as a potential VP is something I hadn’t considered.
Where are those pictures of Kerry and those young girls drinking?
“For many months, I’ve warned….”
Scuse me? I never heard him say any of that stuff. Furthermore he can’t even pronounce the countries.
I see he has flip flopped over his first comments between body surfs. Naturally he waited, as always, for his opponent to come up with an intelligent answer and now he has decided Russia is wrong.
“I reiterate my call for Russia to stop…..”
Didn’t he say some “can’t we all get along” thing? What’s he reiterating?
Let me ask you, just listening to this man, do you think that any of what he is saying is coming from his own head….or heart? This is another written speech.
As for picking Hillary, I hope not because I will have to vote against her. And I will.
I’m with you Uppity Woman …there is no way I can vote for him.
Same here. Barky doesn’t get my vote ever.
God I truly intensely dislike Obama!
I’ll have to vote against her, too! She would stand zero chance of ever becoming POTUS if she made a stupid move like that. Not to mention I would begin to question if she and Bill are really all that I have thought they are!
agreed. even if he was shown to be ineligible and HRC would run in his place, the dems would have destroyed any trust they had with the voters by pushing a fraud.
I also surely do not hope that Hillary would even consider being the vp at this point. I would be really pissed about that. I do not want to see her attach herself to this loser. I think I would lose a lot of respect for her judgement if she were to agree to be VP. There would be nothing in it for her and could only help him. He doesn’t deserve the job, Barry Soto is inelligible to be POTUS, and he is just plain stupid, stupid, stupid!
Furthermore, to digress here a bit, I am holding out until the convention, but if Hillary is not the nominee, I will change my party affiliation the very next day and urge my friends and family to the same.
Charles Lemos:
What do you make of the US Naval build up on the Persian Gulf?
http://www.debka.com/headline.php?hid=5499
China and Russia seem to be blocking stiffer sanctions for Iran… Something is up but I am not sure what…
Might Georgia be Russian’s price for its vote for stronger sanctions against Iran?
Yep, Israel is getting ready to take on Iran and of course we will be entangled in that strategy. 2 fleets increased to 5 in recent weeks. Something is definitely up.
The world community sat around with its thumb up its collective ass hoping Israel would do out of necessity that international community has no will to do. For Israel’s sake I hope there’s some back up when Hezbollah rockets begin falling on Rosh Hanikra, Tiberius…
that will insure defeat of obama. world problems make people run from democrats.
Hilary as VP sounds better every day.
Obama’s statement on Georgia was weak and measured.
http://joeclaygoesaway.blogspot.com
Hillary as VP only if Obama is indicted before the general and has to step off the ticket and into sing sing.
I have not been following events in the Middle East as closely as I should. It’s not one of my areas of expertise. I focus on Europe, Africa, Latin America, and South East Asia. I try to cover South Asia as well. My weaknesses are the Middle East, Cenral Asia, Oceania and East Asia.
Thanks for the link and I will look into it.
I have received some questions from my friends on where I get my information from to know that Sen. Obama is no good. A source? Ha ha….The guy alone is my source. His inconsistencies, arrogance, and inexperience are enough for me to know he is not made for POTUS.
That said, I think we, PUMAs, are all on board with why Obama should not become president. In fact, we probably know more than other people who are fine with the MSM’s gracious coverage of Obama’s campaign. However, when trying to convince our friends, coworkers, and maybe even family members on why Obama is no good, a book that has exhaustively documented Obama’s inadequacies is nice to recommend to these people. The point of this update is to inform all of you on a new book that was brought to my attention. The book has been recently published and documents what makes Obama wrong for the Oval Office. It is composed by a couple of guys from the younger generation, which is pretty interesting considering a lot of the Obambi hype seems to reside with the younger generation. I think I have said enough; here is the site for the book: http://whoistherealbarackobama.com
NOBAMBA
I agree, we need to do more than just vote for McCain — we need to convince others to do the same since we are up against a media that is actually campaigning for Obama.
If PUMA wants to save Hillary from campaigning for a nut like Obama then they should show up with 100 - 200 people protesting Obama at every location she campaigns for him. This would be such a negative distraction that the Obama campaign will release her from the Obama bandwagon.
People need to do more than talk about upending Obama they need to take serious action and come up with effective ideas.
When Obama says, “I have consistantly called for…” that really means “I haven’t given this issue one moment’s thought.” If anyone can find an instance, besides this bullfest, where Obama called for strengthening relations between Georgia and transatlantic institutions I will build an altar and sacrifice a he bullock in your name.
The balloon over his head at this press conference read, “I wish I had convened the subcommittee on European Affairs. Then maybe I might be able to do a better job pretending I know what the hell I’m doing here.”
McCain is looking better and better every day. I can’t believe I just said that. I loathe you Pampers.
“I have consistantly called for…” that really means “I haven’t given this issue one moment’s thought.”
That is an Obambi tell, to let you now he is going to spew bullshit.
Anothe Obambi tell is “Somehow the notion that blah blah blah…”
If you hear any Obambi sentence with “Notion” in it, be prepared to shovel the bull slop.
And, yes, that is why the Obots have “Brown” shirts. What color could they be with that stuff spit at them 24/7?
“As I have consistently said”
“As I have said”
they’re all big signals that a huge Obama lie is about to follow.
Obama is consistently inconsistent on what he says.
It’s really scary to think of Obama handling foreign affairs. He’s so full of hubris, he has this attitude that he has all the answers and everybody else is just stupid.
This is an odd comparison, but when Al Sharpton was protesting the Bell verdict, Obama completely fouled up that “diplomacy.” The people, the event, the emotions involved, completely sailed over his head. He blew it, he alienated people, he irritated Sharpton, and he accomplished nothing. If that had been a conflict between countries with armies and weapons, we’d be in real trouble.
If Obama irritated Sharpton then I will actually have to give him credit. I’ve been wanting to irritate Sharpton all my life.
Georgia was the aggressor and is nondeserving of NATO protection. Of course Cold War McSame came out strong against Russia. He is an old man with obsolete, barely coherent ideas about foreign policy.
“Much is yet unclear how this war was orchestrated but it does seem that Russia goaded Georgia into an armed intrusion into South Ossetia. It was a trap. The West now faces tough choices.”
Proof, please.
Wow, innocent women and children are underserving of protection? You sound exactly like a Bushbot talking about Iraq and how it deserved to be bombed back to the Stone Age. Please go choke on your tongue.
Obumba flip flops on Russian Aggression.
FROM MILK TOAST INTERNATIONALIST TO BRAVE McCAIN-LIKE WARRIOR
…In under 24 hours.
8-8-08-OBUMBA: “I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis.”
After John McCain’s excellent Statement, Obbumba came out with a new statement:
“I condemn Russia’s aggressive actions and reiterate my call for an immediate ceasefire… Russia must stop its bombing campaign, cease flights of Russian aircraft in Georgian airspace, and withdraw its ground forces from Georgia.”
On another thread, I wondered what Ohdumdum would have said if he’d been alive in December 1941:
“I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Hawaii, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for the United States and Japan to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. America’s territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Hawaii, and we need to form a happy little Kumbayah Circle with members of the international community to fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis.”
That would have gone over real well on the homefront, I’m sure….
He may have have followed up with:
Georgia did make a mistake in the invasion of S. Ossetia yet Nato was also at fault for not admitting Georgia until they pacified these two rebellious states (S. Ossetia and Abkhazia). The Russians supplied arms, troops and other support to Ossetia and Abkhazia since the early 90s. McCain is RIGHT to set FiRM boundries with the Russians. The Russians are brutal and show no mercy with any perceived threat to their national interests. Ossetia and Abkhazia are seen as part of their sphere of influence. McCain is WISE not OBSOLETE.
Remember the murdered Russian journalist whose death Alexander Litvinenko had been investigating believed Putin’s regim was “killing” democracy in Russia?
The November 26, 2006 Herald Sun said the following:
“In one of her final interviews, Anna Politkovskaya said President Putin was to blame for fuelling terrorism and returning Russia to Stalinism.
Speaking to the BBC, she painted a picture of a country where terrorism would remain a threat for at least 20 years and gave a chilling portrait of the man at its helm.”
go get it yourself, troll.
It behooves you to read or at least click the links that have been provided. And though not reflected in this post, Russia has been increasing the pressure in the Caucusus since April. Read the international press or at least my blog where I cover these issues more in depth.
And I do not excuse the