Wednesday, August 27, 2008

Georgia

And as if we didn't have enough foreign policy problems... Thanks, Vlad. Let me take this opportunity to thank President Bush, Vice President Cheney and Secretary Rice for their strong support for Georgia. I think we can all pronounce freedom in Russia dead. The place is no longer the fledgling republic it was under Yeltsin. Putin and his goon squad have completely transformed the country over the past 6-7 years. And the bear is hungry.

I'm going to depart from my normal libertarian/paleoconservative foreign policy worldview here. We need to do everything possible to guarantee the sovereignty and integrity of not only Georgia, but Azerbaijan, Ukraine, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Poland and every other former Soviet/Russian satellite. Yes, up to sending troops there. I wonder how Vlad would like a U.S. Air Force base in Georgia, and a U.S. naval base at Kerch?

Two observations... The silliness of Kosovo just came back to bite us. Everything the Russians and Serbs said on that was right on.

And secondly... maybe if we weren't screwing around in Iraq we could really deal with the Georgia crisis.

4 comments:

Carolyn said...

Yes, we do need to support Georgia with all our strength, however, the minute we leave Iraq...anyone remember Cambodia? Great site. I will link to you on my blog!

The Northern Virginia Conservative said...

I agree about Iraq CURRENTLY. Now that we're there, we can't leave, especially considering that we've got them on the run now. My issue was with going in in the first place. But you're right, we cannot cut and run now.

Virginia Conservative said...

With all due respect, I personally do not believe that stretching our overtaxed military further is either wise or viable. Russia is an odd animal to be certain, but as far as I can tell both Georgia and Russia acted improperly, and thus both have blood on their hands. I really think that setting up bases there will only aggravate our security concerns and weaken us diplomatically in the long run.

The Northern Virginia Conservative said...

I would generally agree that we're overstretched, but I think this rates ahead of many of our other deployments worldwide right now.