Cascajun

Today the Russian Foreign Minister, Sergei Lavrov, called the democratically elected leaders of Georgia a “special project of the United States”, thereby equating all those Georgian citizens who support their government to a “virtual project.”

“We understand that this current Georgian leadership is a special project of the United States, but one day the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual project or real partnership which requires joint action,” Lavrov told reporters.

Note to the media: Stop covering this VIRTUAL news and go back to the REAL news…like the Olympics or John Edwards’ alleged bastard child.

The Russia-Georgia conflict illustrates how powerless the UN, NATO, and EU are when faced with military force. In clear defiance of the recently negotiated cease fire, Russian military forces continue to operate in Gori and other areas outside South Ossetia. As the reports of ethnic violence continue to appear in the press, the only assistance Georgia will receive from is from the US. So far, their European neighbors have offered nothing but generic, diplo-speak platitudes.

Creepy. Maybe they are waiting for Russia to rename all the cities?

UPDATE 13 Aug 2008:

Miguel Helft writes in the NYT Technology Bits: “Google says it never had enough local data on Georgia to even offer a map.”

Are Russia’s military actions against Georgia merely aimed at aiding the separatists and securing the pro-Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia; or does Russia have expansionist motives?

Russians push past separatist area to assault central Georgia

TBILISI, Georgia — Russia expanded its attacks on Georgia on Sunday, moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia, in its first direct assault on a Georgian city with ground forces during three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said.

Geopolitically, Georgia is in a really interesting neighborhood. Geoargia shares borders with Russia, Turkey, and Iran. As noted by Richard Fernandez, “Tbilisi is 200 miles from the Iranian border and 540 air miles from Balad Air Base, just north of Baghdad — about the distance between Manhattan and Columbus, Ohio. Tbilisi is much closer to Mosul than London is to Berlin.”

The Telegraph writes:

The Russian state was behind the killing of the former secret agent Alexander Litvinenko, a senior official has disclosed in private.

“We very strongly believe the Litvinenko case to have had some state involvement, there are very strong indications that it was a state action,” the senior security official told the BBC.

Marina Litvinenko, the widow of the murdered agent, has been pressing for official recognition that the use of radioactive polonium 210 must have been state-sanctioned.

To date the Government has remained silent on the responsibility for the killing merely requesting the extradition of Andrei Lugovoi, a former KGB bodyguard who is the main suspect in the case.

Referring to a later attempt to assassinate the businessman Boris Berezovsky, who employed Litvinenko, the security source said the “continued willingness” of the domestic security branch the FSB to “consider operations against people in the West” was causing major diplomatic problems.

Here’s an interesting, and plausible, theory on the Litvinenko case. It comes from the comments section of the Belmont Club post titled “Litvinenko Again”.

The big truth being concealed here is that by sheer luck on our part and stupidity on our enemy’s part, a nuclear weapons program was disrupted. Britain cannot publically accuse Russia of allowing the covert transfer of nuclear weapons components into Britain because that would be an act of war that would have to be acknowledged.

Polonium for a nuclear weapons program? That’s right. Polonium is a key ingredient in the neutron trigger, or initiator, for nuclear weapons.

The pendulum continues to swing in Russia. Its back to the old ways with Putin at the helm.

Putin has threatened to withdraw from the arms control treaty that dismantled the Cold War in response to US plans to install missile defense systems in Eastern Europe.

[…]

This amounts to an objective alliance between Moscow and Teheran. A new Cold War has started with a new lineup. Perhaps it had already begun earlier had the West but the wit to sense it. With the mood in Congress being what it is, it is entirely possible that the Democrats will urge the President to abandon the plans for the missile defense of Europe, effectively giving Iran the power of blackmail over an already terrified and cowed Continent.

[…]

Russia was always a player in Southwest Asia, and until recently the dominant patron of the Arab states. Moscow historically used the Arab states as stooges to advance their interests. Russia is not proscribed from creating its own missile defense and besides, Iran probably knows that any use of nuclear weapons against Russia would mean an Iranian holocaust. The Eastern Europeans have neither a nuclear strike capability nor a defense. The reason they joined NATO was to snuggle under its defense shield. If Putin succeeds in entering into a secret arrangement with Iran he would have a powerful weapon with which to intimidate Eastern Europe. If he forces America to leave them in the lurch he would discredit America even more. Not only would the Iraqis realize that the US guarantee was worthless, but so would the Poles.

The new cold war is fueling a very hot war.

Now, with a seemingly successful tactical combination in hand to compel a long war in any given place, radical Islamism’s prospects of a strategic victory have never been brighter. Everything that has happened in Iraq can be replicated in Afghanistan — the sanctuaries, the campaign of terror, the cunning public relations offensive in the Western press — and in any other battlefield which radical Islam wishes to contest.