That cooperation is not so very different from the actions of the Iranian government after Sept. 11, which turned over al Qaeda and Taliban members in transit, in residence, or in prison. But the U.S. quickly officially spit on those gestures, so nothing further was forthcoming.

The Syrian relationship falls far short of that of Egypt, Morocco, and especially Jordan, whose torture centers have been virtual annexes of the CIA for many years (going back into the Clinton administration at the very least). The security chiefs of Jordan and Morocco work hand in hand with the CIA.

What’s happened has been ugly, on all sides (Ossetian militias are actors in their own right). To paint this as simply evil Russia vs. suffering Georgians is not accurate or helpful.

As to this: There are next to no significant injuries and casualties of Russian troops.

[from Monday Aug. 11] Human Rights Watch visited a field hospital located in Russia’s North Ossetia run by the Russian Ministry of Emergencies. A hospital representative said that 52 wounded people were being treated there, nearly all of them military personnel. The hospital was expecting another 170 wounded to be delivered by ambulance from a mobile military clinic in South Ossetia.

There has yet to be any documentation, by human rights groups or anyone else credible, of the scale of Georgian military and civilian casualties, or of the Ossetian casualties during the Georgian attack and Russian counter-attack.

The assertions of the Georgian government have been literally fantastic (e.g., 80 Russian planes shot down, when all that’s been documented so far is two.)

It’s a little early for confident statements about who has done what.

I will enjoy reading both sides of this issue

I’ll ask again later.

“This is not 1968..”

Russia is quacking and when Rice says jump, they wanna know how high?

Russia has done some very bad things there already. The fact that we can’t do much more than stand and cluck cluck at them is a testamant to how moronic it was for the Neo-Cons to squandar our resources in Iraq. We have made fools of ourselves in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Pakistan and continue to do so.

It took a lot more than NYT and Judy Miller to get us into Iraq. It took a lot of fuckheads like Mary Matlin, the editor of the new swiftboat piece of crap on Obama. And if you review the record, NYT wasn’t pushing Iraq in the vast majority of their reporting–and they got rid of Miller and discredited her. I don’t expect her to have much of a job in journalism.

I’m with these writers of letters to NYT:

To the Editor:

Re “Russia’s War of Ambition” (editorial, Aug. 12):

While militarily a success, Russia’s incursion into Georgia to reassert its sphere of influence in the “near abroad” is political folly.

The Russian-Georgian conflict has likely pushed Georgia out of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine, whose leaders have traveled to Georgia to express solidarity with President Mikheil Saakashvili, will distance themselves further from a domineering, oil-resurgent Russia.

Russian military might has won the day in Georgia, but as a means of extending its influence in the region, political pressure and persuasion would have been far more effective.

Lawrence P. Markowitz

Oberlin, Ohio, Aug. 12, 2008

The writer is a visiting assistant professor of politics at Oberlin College, where he teaches nation- and state-building in post-Soviet politics
_________

To the Editor:

Re “Will Russia Get Away With It?,” by William Kristol (column, Aug. 11):

Those who advocated the invasion of Iraq believed that it would offer an intimidating show of the United States’ power, cementing its status as the world’s dominant, and sole, superpower. The result has been precisely the opposite:

The limits of American power — our Army tied down in Iraq, even as we lose a second war in Afghanistan — have been humiliatingly displayed for the entire world to see.

The effects of this strategic failure are now on display, as Russia invades Georgia, while the United States can do little more than stand by and complain ineffectually, its once intimidating power exposed as so much empty bluster.

In the face of this wholesale disaster, William Kristol, an early and continuing supporter of the Iraq war, responds with precisely the arguments that got us into this mess in the first place, and finds it both regrettable and puzzling that the United States is now “oddly timid and uncertain”: unable, evidently, to recognize his own role in America’s current quandary. François Furstenberg

New York, Aug. 11, 2008

_______________________________

To the Editor:

If Georgians wonder where the United States may be while their country is enslaved by our good friends from Russia, they are really slow learners.

Didn’t they pay attention while the United States turned its back on the Hungarians in 1956? Didn’t they notice that the Cubans we transported to the Bay of Pigs were massacred because we provided no support? Weren’t they watching our Vietnamese allies being kicked out of the fleeing helicopters as we abandoned that country? Have they heard about the Hmong?

William Kristol asks, “Will Russia Get Away With It?” Of course it will. We don’t have a coherent foreign policy — we have sound bites of tough talk followed by abandonment of those dumb enough to believe us.

Arthur O. Armstrong

Manhattan Beach, Calif., Aug. 11, 2008

The same people, ahem the neo-conm amen chorus(not you PP) that are outraged about Russia bullying a tiny nation were the same dildos(like Jonah Goldberg and co.) who were boasting about an American “Ledeen Doctrine”. That doctrine says every few years the US picks up a small nation and knocks it around just to show that it can be done. The Tom Friedman “suck on this” doctrine if you will.

So there were great cheers whenever Israel launches new attacks on Lebanon or Syria and great cheers when the US threatens Syria and Iran.

So now Russia decides, hey, we can do this too. Let’s find a reason. Well, the neo-cons and the Cheneyites gave them a reason in Georgia.

Of course the victims in the global game of one upsmanship is always the people…the Iraqis, the Palestinians, the Israelis, the Kurds, the Afghanis…you name it.

Russia is returning to their old ways and the US gave them the new blueprint.

Heckuva job.

-G

now I haven’t done the research but ian is pretty good at that so go have a read, leave some comments and see if you and he can agree

here’s the link at the lake

http://firedoglake.com/2008/08…..-cold-war/