Posted by
Cary Wesberry on Thursday, August 14, 2008 10:27:13 PM
The Kremlin, and their poisonous murdering leader Vlad the Impaler Putin, have been biding their time through the 1990s and early turn of the millennium preparing to regain territory lost after America justly bankrupted and broke apart the Soviet Union.
The first sovereign ally of the United States to go down is the tiny democracy of Georgia, who before the Russian invasion fought and died alongside our own soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. Out of an army totalling only 18,000, Georgia sent between 2,000 and 3,000 soldiers to stand by America in the Middle-East. This constitutes a true ally, unlike so many other countries around the world who are America's allies in name only.
We are into the seventh day of Russia's invasion of Georgia, and even after agreeing to a ceasefire brokered by the European Union and President of France, Russia continues its destruction of a democracy while slaughtering and raping every civilian whose throats the Communists can get their hands around. Before the start of their invasion, Moscow was aggressively encouraging two provinces in Georgia, South Ossetia and Abkhazia to break-away from their country and declare independence. The two rebel provinces did so, and Georgia sent in their army to reclaim the land that was theirs. Russia, already having their military in place within the two break-away provinces, acted upon their orchestration and responded by invading Georgia well outside of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Vlad the Impaler Putin's sights are clearly set upon the Georgian capital of Tiblisi with the intention of toppling their elected government, sending their President fleeing for refuge, or murdering President Saakashvili if they are lucky enough to capture him before he can escape. The Russians had their military in place from the beginning and were ready to strike as soon as the Olympic games opened in Beijing, where the world's media was focused at the time. Typically Russian and hardly the first time Moscow has used such tactics. Regardless of the demands from the United States and the civilized world Russia continues its invasion as I type these words; raping, murdering, looting, and pillaging well into Georgian territory.
In America, our government's response to Russia's atrocity has been woefully inadequate and downright embarrassing. We allowed Germany of all countries to dominate the last NATO summit and halt Georgia's membership thereby preventing a Russian attack. Germany's weak leader, Angela Merkel, convinced many in NATO that Georgia's acceptance would cause Russia to invade the country. As we see today, she had it completely backwards. Coming from Germany that should be no surprise. Knowing that no country was bound to defend Georgia, Russia invaded. As the world's only superpower, the United States should have demanded Georgia's membership in NATO and not given-in to lesser countries. We had the chance to prevent this peacefully and we failed along with the rest of the NATO members.
If Moscow believed for a second that the United States would have come to Georgia's aid, none of this would have happened. Because of our weakness in foreign policy, Russia was sure we would not respond. They were right. One of our strongest allies has been invaded and we are doing nothing but giving Russia a stern talking-to. The outcry has been loud, but that is where support for Georgia has ended. Proving to the Kremlin their intelligence concerning our response was correct, our own Secretary of Defense publicly stated today that there is no prospect of the United States giving a military response in the defense of our ally. Secretary Gates' statement was about as pathetic and disgraceful as it gets.
Now that our enemies know just how weak and incompetent our government really is, what's next? Who will be the next ally to fall under Russia's march across Europe to reclaim the losses of the Soviet Union. Our repeated negotiations with Iran, an ally and friend of Russia, no doubt gave even more credibility to Moscow's belief we would not respond to a Russian invasion. How about our failures with North Korea? Another fine example of our feeble foreign policy. The United States has allowed Iran to repeatedly kill American soldiers in Iraq, gave North Korea nuclear weapons by doing nothing at all to stop them, and has weakened Israel terribly against the Islamist hordes surrounding the Jews. Besides the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, which started years ago, everything we have done told Russia to go right ahead and invade any country within their grasp. Our weakness has cost a true and loyal ally their country and their freedom.
What should we have done when Russia invaded Georgia? Threatened Vlad the Impaler Putin within an inch of his life if Russia did not turn their army around and evacuate Georgia immediately; and that's just for starters. Though delusional with their own history, Russia is not the Soviet Union and is not even close to standing up to the United States Military. Landing our troops in Georgia if Moscow refused to do what they were told would have put the Russian army in retreat. Not only that, it would show the world that we are indeed intent on and capable of defending those who fight and die alongside America in war. The Communist view of the United States being weak would have taken a serious blow, and thug nations around the world would have been given a much needed reminder of just how serious America takes attacks on our allies.
None of those things happened of course, and the Communist goons in the Kremlin are stronger for our inability to act. Read below for a more appropriately measured response to the Russian invasion of Georgia by Frank Gaffney at the Center for Securit Policy:
Back to the U.S.S.R.
We can and must sanction Soviet-style aggression.
By Frank J. Gaffney Jr.
As Russia continues to exhibit behavior reminiscent of the old Soviet Union — most immediately by apparently lying about its adherence to a European Union-brokered ceasefire in the state it has most recently invaded, democratic Georgia — Americans must formulate and implement appropriate responses. The object should be both to demonstrate solidarity with the victims of Russian aggression and to ensure that there are real costs to Moscow for reverting to form.
The following are among the steps that should be taken to add teeth to the symbolic gestures of humanitarian assistance and Secretary of State Rice’s visit to Tbilisi:
Reestablish the G-7: John McCain has long called for the removal of Russia from the so-called Group of Eight leading industrial nations. He’s long been right, but never more so than now when it is indisputably the case that Russia is neither a leading industrial nation nor a member in good standing of the world’s most powerful democracies. The Kremlin’s attack on freedom-loving Georgia is just the latest reminder that the Putin-Medvedev regime does not qualify for, and should no longer enjoy, the benefits of that elite group.
Georgia in NATO, Russia out. Germany’s past objections to Georgia’s entry into NATO — assuredly a product of the dangerous dependence on Russian energy flows cultivated in recent years by that country (among others in Europe) — must no longer stand. The West should sponsor under NATO’s patronage an alliance of freedom-loving nations from the Baltic to the Black Sea, shoring up its eastern flank and discouraging further Soviet-style aggression in the region.
While NATO is at it, the Kremlin should lose its privileged place at the table in Brussels. To do otherwise under present circumstances would be to mutate beyond recognition history’s most successful bulwark against totalitarian predations.
Forget about the WTO: Too many countries that do not play by the free trade rules of the World Trade Organization — including, notably mercantilist China and monopolist Saudi Arabia — have been allowed in, to the detriment of both the WTO and the liberal trading environment it is supposed to sponsor. Russia, with its thoroughly corrupt, oligarchic, and politicized business sector is a lousy candidate and should not have been considered eligible even before Moscow’s violence against Georgia. It should be out of the question now.
Keep Gazprom out of Alaska: Russia’s flagship energy-related state-owned enterprise (SOE), Gazprom, reportedly has designs on deposits in our 49th state. The company and its owners in the Kremlin should be told, “Thanks, but no thanks.”
Divest from Russian SOEs: There are things that the private sector can do to help as well — like punishing Russia’s publicly traded state-owned enterprises in our markets. American investors need to be able to identify and liquidate their holdings in all Russian entities listed on the New York Stock Exchange and Nasdaq. Ditto Kremlin-controlled enterprises and companies with access to U.S. exchanges via American depository receipts (ADRs) — devices that allow companies that list elsewhere to trade on our capital markets. Running down the value of stocks of SOEs like Gazprom and Lukoil, that amount to corporate power-projection instruments for the Kremlin, would significantly increase the costs to Moscow of its efforts to snuff democratic governments allied with the United States.
To this end, the SEC’s Office of Global Security Risk should ensure that investors understand that there are material risks associated with doing business with Russian state-owned enterprises. While Russia is not on the official U.S. list of state-sponsors of terrorism, its stocks should be regarded like those of countries who are, given the Kremlin’s conduct under Vladimir Putin. Lest we forget: such conduct includes, besides Russia’s rape of Georgia: equipping Iran with nuclear weapons-relevant reactors and advanced weapons to protect them from our airstrikes; arming our hemisphere’s most rabid anti-American, Hugo Chavez; helping prop up nuclear proliferator North Korea; and making simulated bombing runs on U.S. territory and naval groups.
The American people, if given a choice, will surely decline to invest hard-earned retirement funds and other savings in totalitarian systems dedicated to undermining their values and destroying their democratic way of life — a dedication Russia vividly displays in Georgia today. Should our government exhibit a similar determination to oppose such behavior in the aforementioned ways, the effect may not only be to prevent the snuffing of Georgian democracy. It could prevent similar Soviet-style behavior now in the offing in Ukraine and elsewhere in the formerly enslaved regions the Kremlin calls its “near-abroad.” A measure of Western determination now may even serve to discourage what seems otherwise certain to eventuate: a far more serious future threat elsewhere in the world from what remains Vladimir Putin’s Russia.