"If Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin were president of the United States, would Iran try to build a nuclear bomb?"
An interesting question Spengler poses.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JH13Ag01.html
Putin for president!
Larry with the state of things in the world today all I have to hang onto is humor and irony.
I really enjoyed the Costas intervew the other night during the Oylmpics. Talking about the war, conflict, whatever you want to call it in Georgia and the positvie vibes of the games. Someone should have briefed our beloved president about the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror.
I really enjoyed the Costas intervew the other night during the Oylmpics. Talking about the war, conflict, whatever you want to call it in Georgia and the positvie vibes of the games. Someone should have briefed our beloved president about the war in Iraq, Afghanistan, and the war on terror.
I see they are still lopping off mountains in Eastern Kentucky. Electricity isn't cheap.
That opinion piece is amazingly bizarre. First off is Asia Times Online, itself - based in Hong Kong, sounds like it's playing an interesting game to keep on Beijing's good side (thus, the call for the US to turn its back on the Dali Lama.) Then there is the author "Spengler" - a reference to Oswald Spengler, who was an intellectual grandfather of German National Socialism (yep, they who must not be mentioned in an online discussion.) To the credit of the real Spengler, he did disagree with the Unmentionables on the point of excessive racism. But still - you've got to wonder if the author understands just what sort of a hot potato he's playing with in picking that name.
But the gist of the rest of the piece is "Go head and let Putin keep the territory he's taken. Forget about it and let Russia do what it wants in its neighborhood." Yep, that's right: the column is promoting Appeasement! In the BS that Bush and McCain were spouting over Obama's pro-diplomacy statements, they screamed "Appeasement!" and sent their commands to the Snake Oil media to bring up Chamberlain's meetings with Hitler. "See what happens when you sit down and talk with bad guys!" Well, the problem wasn't that Chamberlain talked with Hitler, the "appeasement" was that Chamberlain offered to allow Hitler to keep control of the territory that he had recently invaded, thinking it would satisfy Hitler. But that's essentially what this goofy column is suggesting!
But it's the rest of the rambling that's just so weird. Along with the anti-Tibet theme, the writer apes Beijing's use of the term "terrorist" to describe the actions taken by ethnic minorities in western China. Just today, several militants attacked and killed several uniformed Chinese security members. Beijing loves to call this "terrorism", but this was not an attack on unsuspecting civilians. The writer also seeks to play down claims by ethnic groups to any degree of autonomy - again, this is exactly what Beijing want to hear. The writer harps on the decision to assist the people in Kosovo - Beijing's message is consistently "Don't interfere in the internal affairs of other countries." In other words, "get out of the way and let us exterminate our minorities." Nice.
I could go on decoding all the layers of goofiness and crazy tangents (why reference Erdogan? Was that just some crazy anti-Muslim spasm?) but why bother. Leave it to Larry to find such highly concentrated goofy, crazy shit.
The big issue is that the current administration's chickens have come home to roost. The got in bed with the neo-cons and now there's deep shit. The neo-cons invaded Iraq "Cuz we can and we want to." While there weren't big G-Bub speeches about it, but everyone knew that the invasion was part of the neo-con regional strategy that the Soviets would have liked. Well, the US has set the precedent that a big country can invade anyone they want for whatever reason they want and Putin is following along. Then G-Dub gave some speech about respecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of another nation. Klunk, klunk. What's that sound? Oh, yeah, that's what "ringing hollow" sounds like.
Well, there's another shitpile that they've created and we progressives will spend the rest of our lives cleaning up.
(As for the Costas interview - that was just typically lame. Gotta give "sports guys" like Costas and Olbermann credit for being the only commercial media folks who actually push Bush on anything. I loved how G-Dub is pathetically playing to the one group in America who aren't quite bright enough to realize what a fuck up he is - the religious right. All those references to "goin' to church" and "tellin' Hu Jintao to rekinize the underground churches" - Bush sending the message back home that he's fighting for the Protestant missionaries. (and certainly totally ignorant of all the problems that western missionaries caused in the history of China))
But the gist of the rest of the piece is "Go head and let Putin keep the territory he's taken. Forget about it and let Russia do what it wants in its neighborhood." Yep, that's right: the column is promoting Appeasement! In the BS that Bush and McCain were spouting over Obama's pro-diplomacy statements, they screamed "Appeasement!" and sent their commands to the Snake Oil media to bring up Chamberlain's meetings with Hitler. "See what happens when you sit down and talk with bad guys!" Well, the problem wasn't that Chamberlain talked with Hitler, the "appeasement" was that Chamberlain offered to allow Hitler to keep control of the territory that he had recently invaded, thinking it would satisfy Hitler. But that's essentially what this goofy column is suggesting!
But it's the rest of the rambling that's just so weird. Along with the anti-Tibet theme, the writer apes Beijing's use of the term "terrorist" to describe the actions taken by ethnic minorities in western China. Just today, several militants attacked and killed several uniformed Chinese security members. Beijing loves to call this "terrorism", but this was not an attack on unsuspecting civilians. The writer also seeks to play down claims by ethnic groups to any degree of autonomy - again, this is exactly what Beijing want to hear. The writer harps on the decision to assist the people in Kosovo - Beijing's message is consistently "Don't interfere in the internal affairs of other countries." In other words, "get out of the way and let us exterminate our minorities." Nice.
I could go on decoding all the layers of goofiness and crazy tangents (why reference Erdogan? Was that just some crazy anti-Muslim spasm?) but why bother. Leave it to Larry to find such highly concentrated goofy, crazy shit.
The big issue is that the current administration's chickens have come home to roost. The got in bed with the neo-cons and now there's deep shit. The neo-cons invaded Iraq "Cuz we can and we want to." While there weren't big G-Bub speeches about it, but everyone knew that the invasion was part of the neo-con regional strategy that the Soviets would have liked. Well, the US has set the precedent that a big country can invade anyone they want for whatever reason they want and Putin is following along. Then G-Dub gave some speech about respecting the territorial integrity and sovereignty of another nation. Klunk, klunk. What's that sound? Oh, yeah, that's what "ringing hollow" sounds like.
Well, there's another shitpile that they've created and we progressives will spend the rest of our lives cleaning up.
(As for the Costas interview - that was just typically lame. Gotta give "sports guys" like Costas and Olbermann credit for being the only commercial media folks who actually push Bush on anything. I loved how G-Dub is pathetically playing to the one group in America who aren't quite bright enough to realize what a fuck up he is - the religious right. All those references to "goin' to church" and "tellin' Hu Jintao to rekinize the underground churches" - Bush sending the message back home that he's fighting for the Protestant missionaries. (and certainly totally ignorant of all the problems that western missionaries caused in the history of China))
Bacon is meat candy.
I felt like the article was primarly using the Georgian situation to parallel and somehow justify/validate the Tibetan situation. This works because there are many similarities between the two situations (but important differences). Even though nothing will likely be done militarily about it, Americans feel like Georgia has rights to the boundaries. It is telling us that China has rights to its boundaries.tomdarch wrote:
But the gist of the rest of the piece is "Go head and let Putin keep the territory he's taken. Forget about it and let Russia do what it wants in its neighborhood."
...
But it's the rest of the rambling that's just so weird. Along with the anti-Tibet theme, the writer apes Beijing's use of the term "terrorist" to describe the actions taken by ethnic minorities in western China.
Crap Tom, talk about layers of goofiness and crazy tangents, your post serves them up in spades.
I think "Spengler", whoever the fuck he is, is musing about the power of nations, and the different ways in which the great nations exercise power. It ain't all about G-Dub you know. While Spengler may be right or wrong in his observations (probably both), he's certainly interesting.
I think "Spengler", whoever the fuck he is, is musing about the power of nations, and the different ways in which the great nations exercise power. It ain't all about G-Dub you know. While Spengler may be right or wrong in his observations (probably both), he's certainly interesting.
