The Russians Are Conspiracy Theorists, Too

And they would know a thing or two about conspiracies. Vladimir Putin accused the Bush Administration of provoking the Georgia Conflict to help John McCain win the presidential election:

"The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US President.”

Mr Putin said that his defence officials had told him that Americans were operating in the conflict zone in Georgia during the fighting.

He added: “It should be admitted that they would do so only following direct orders from their leaders. Therefore, they were acting in implementing those orders, doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader.”

A White House flack responded, of course, by calling Putin a Conspiracy Theorist, adding that his intelligence apparatus must be as bad as the CIA:

“To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate – it sounds not rational.

Those claims first and foremost are patently false, but it also sounds like his defence officials who said they believed this to be true are giving him really bad advice.”

Yep, no 21st century political party would ever use an international crisis to try and wag the d-- I mean win an election. Not like they used to do during the olden days. Despite that fact, I had thought of, heard co-workers speculate, and read of that possibility almost every day, so it's good to know we're not the only ones to think of it. At least one world leader is on the same wavelength. Kinda sad when the Enemy of the Month seems more with it than your own.

In For A Penny, In For An Armageddon

As a Russian carrier task force bobbed through the Med on its way to the Levant, Syrian president Bashar Assad (who before the NeoCon Surprise in Georgia and the Polish Missile Crisis had been working on a peace treaty with Israel) was in Russia. Assad assented to hosting a "defensive missile shield" and a Russian base in his country. Let's see now, for Fundies waiting on the Rapture, is it Gog who will play Russia, and was it Magog who'll be China, or was it the other way around? Saddam Hussein, Babylon the Great, the Anti-Christ, numerology, the King of the North et cetera, you just can't tell the players without a program:

The Russian aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov” is heading from Murmansk towards the Mediterranean and the Syrian port of Tartus. The mission comes after Syrian President Bashar Assad said he is open for a Russian base in the area. The “Admiral Kuznetsov”, part of the Northern Fleet and Russia’s only aircraft carrier, will head a Navy mission to the area. The mission will also include the missile cruiser “Moskva” and several submarines, Newsru.com reports.

President Assad in meetings in Moscow this week expressed support to Russia’s intervention in South Ossetia and Georgia. He also expressed interest in the establishment of Russian missile air defense facilities on his land.

The “Admiral Kuznetsov” also last year headed a navy mission to the Mediterranean. Then, on the way from the Kola Peninsula and south, it stopped in the North Sea where it conducted a navy training exercise in the immediate vicinity of Norwegian offshore oil installations.

Alternative energy is lovely stuff, but oil is the hottest source there is, and civilizations have shown a pronounced preference to pursue the #1 option; plus, as Phil of Perils of Caffeine in the Evening once observed, "We're humans. We burn shit." Less sagely, Condi Rice said last week, "The Cold War is over," and I sure hope she's wrong again. Because if she's right, she's too right. Give us a Cold War again, give us Nikita Kruschev in Manhattan banging his shoe on a table at Maxim's demanding service, hell, bring on a caviar embargo. It's better than the same old Bush Administration "who, me?" looks after another botch-n-blot on the escutcheon, wiser than the harsh retaliations of signing a missile deal with Poland, suspending NATO's ties with Moscow, and launching more meetings on Georgia joining NATO.

Living off the tampered hydroponics fed to us in the Media Hothouse, its easy for anyone, Big People included, to miss the primary facts. Modern armies are the most enthusiastic users of oil that ever existed. The Russians have a much-improved army, and do not need to back down. They can beat the US and its proxies on the ground in Poland, Azerbaijan, Georgia and the Ukraine without breaking a sweat, and all are areas they have controlled for most of the past three thousand years. As the Russian President remarked today,

"We're not afraid of anything (including) the prospect of a Cold War..."If they want to preserve good relations with Russia, they will understand the reason for taking such a decision (for parliament to recognize independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia) and the situation will be calm."

Now they are about to have an aircraft carrier parked just off "America's strongest ally," and they have no intention of allowing control of an area's hydrocarbons to pass to Western oligarchies, i.e., Dick and Dubya's friends. On the map above, two little countries separate Russia from Iran, each with a new pipeline running oil out through them to the west. As a demonstration of intentions, Russian forces cut the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline which passes through Georgia carrying 4% of western supply, and then, when Georgia tried to get the oil shipments out by rail, they cut the tracks.

It'ss unclear whether Russia will let either resume, but they can throttle them at will, and this changes the power calculus in the entire region if not the world. The Ukraine must keep Russia happy. Azerbaijan must keep Russia happy. Israel must keep Russia happy. For Georgia, it would be wise for its president, the one who listened to American admonitions to attack Russia, to step down; his own people, the ones who gave him 96% of the vote in a free and fair election, know he's a liability.

As it happens, Dick Cheney has gone on a diplomatic mission to Georgia, the Ukraine, and Azerbaijan. If anyone is disturbed by finding the words "Dick Cheney" and "diplomatic mission" in the same sentence, why yes, you should be. (Welcome to Club Paying Attention, and here is your complimentary Xanax.) Unfortunately, he's back on the stage after an all-too-short internal exile. Cheney's prime directive is to suck oil and gas out from the Caucasus and Caspian Basins in order to slow the long-term growth rates of Russia, India, and China. That's about where the analysis ends in his cost-benefit equation, because the benefits of getting those resources to him easily outweigh the costs of millions of dead, and it's not like higher energy costs are a deterrent.

As a Pumphead, Cheney cannot back off from the finite prizes he covets, believes them to be in our civilization's long-term best interests, and doesn't recognize how bad his position, or rather our position, has gotten relative to Russia. He is horribly prone to further over-reach even as Israel, precious Israel wavers. As the pipelines go, so go they, and it was Panglossian hubris, a willful denial of Russia's military capabilities and interests, to install a major new line 70-80 miles away from its southern border.

While an American Maniac plays out his part, we will be very lucky indeed if he doesn't promise a military response to Georgia. They'll ask for one, although Bush would first send troops to Atlanta (h/t to reader Jon for that quip). A good outcome is one in which Ossetia and Abkhazia break away from Georgia in return for the pipeline flowing again. In that case, the bell rings, and we can go back to our corners, take a breather before the next round and try to figure out how to win on points. The bad outcome, which should not, must definitely not happen is for a US Carrier Battle Group to deploy to the Med. That's the signal for when the Pipeline Wars start going very, very bad.

Condi "War Is Not The Answer" Rice

"Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power. That's not the way to deal in the 21st century."

Condi Rice, US Secretary of State & Peace Activist

Violence is, like, so 20th century! Presidential candidate John McCain, with the sagacity of the Prophet Isaiah, may have inspired this meme a few days ago when he observed, "Countries don't invade other countries in the 21st century." By ushering in the Golden Age of Peace to which Condi and John allude, a.k.a. Pax Dubyana, the Bush Administration has steadfastly refrained from resorting to military power, except of course when the United States is directly attacked, such as by Afghanistan, Iraq, Somalia, Lebanon, Iran, Syria, parts of the Phillipines, Indonesia, much of West Africa, and those Costa Ricans who don't want Hilton beach resorts.

Any nation or group refusing to accept the Golden Age of Peace wishes to stay in the Dark Ages and is lending support to the Axis of Exil. We will therefore send our armies of foreign primordial dwarves led by Columbia Law School graduates to destroy you. (And why was Russia left out of the original Axis of Evil, anyway? What expendable minion is responsible for this inexcusable oversight?) For example, here is the kind of violent psychopath Condi has to deal with:

"Russia has long been told to simply accept the facts. Here's the independence of Kosovo for you. Here's the abrogation of the Antiballistic Missile Treaty, and the American decision to place missile defenses in neighboring countries. Here's the unending expansion of NATO. All of these moves have been set against the backdrop of sweet talk about partnership. Why would anyone put up with such a charade?"

Mikhail Gorbachev, former President of the Soviet Union & Nobel Prize Winner for Peace

This aggression will not stand, man! Here is yet another example of unwarranted bellicosity from Russia's version of the Washington Post (state newspaper "Pravda"):

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? In your statement on Monday regarding the legitimate actions of the Russian Federation in Georgia, you failed to mention the war crimes perpetrated by Georgian military forces, which American advisors support, against Russian and Ossetian civilians.

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Your faithful ally, Mikhail Saakashvili, was announcing a ceasefire deal while his troops, with your advisors, were massing on Ossetia’s border, which they crossed under cover of night and destroyed Tskhinvali, targeting civilian structures just like your forces did in Iraq.

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Your American transport aircraft gave a ride home to thousands of Georgian soldiers from Iraq directly into the combat zone.

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? How do you account for the fact that among the Georgian soldiers fleeing the fighting yesterday you could clearly hear officers using American English giving orders to “Get back inside” and how do you account for the fact that there are reports of American soldiers among the Georgian casualties?

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Do you really think anyone gives any importance whatsoever to your words after 8 years of your criminal and murderous regime and policies? Do you really believe you have any moral ground whatsoever and do you really imagine there is a single human being anywhere on this planet who does not stick up his middle finger every time you appear on a TV screen?

Do you really believe you have the right to give any opinion or advice after Abu Ghraib? After Guantanamo? After the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens? After the torture by CIA operatives?

Do you really believe you have any right to make a statement on any point of international law after your trumped-up charges against Iraq and the subsequent criminal invasion?

“President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Suppose Russia for instance declares that Georgia has weapons of mass destruction? And that Russia knows where these WMD are, namely in Tblisi and Poti and north, south, east and west of there? And that it must be true because there is “magnificent foreign intelligence” such as satellite photos of milk powder factories and baby cereals producing chemical weapons and which are currently being “driven around the country in vehicles”? Suppose Russia declares for instance that “Saakashvili stiffed the world” and it is “time for regime change”?

Today, Condi glued the Golden Age of Peace into the pages of history today by signing a mutual security treaty with Poland. A little nervous after having seen what happened to Georgia, or as we call it, "Rosebud," the Poles demanded written guarantees they will be defended against any massively paranoid evil-doing country which happens to maul them to death over the vigorous protests of an impotent NATO for installing US missile arrays 100 miles away.

I'm sure Russian officials were just making a little joke when they talked about nuking Poland, and will come to see the Wisdom of Dubya--especially after we send them more McDonald's franchises. Hello, Mr. Kremlin General, war is not the answer, so put down that vodka bottle and enjoy a delicious Happy Meal! And while we're at it, have a brand-new Chrysler!

(Research credits to Bruce, Brother Tim, MikeVotes, and to The Daily Show, which will surely plagiarize this post in an upcoming episode.)