Excellent post Jagger.
I concur on all counts, particularly this one:
"recent events would indicate that we are certainly on a more effective course of action than the cowboy approach that was employed by the previous administration that did nothing but serve to inflame the situation."
There is so much richness to this saga and evidence of just complete lack of judgement, even competence by the previous administration it would be laughable if it weren't so sad.
I guess a concise version is appropriate (if possible)....GWB moves ahead with a missile defense system slated to deploy in Poland and The Czech Republic which only amounts to nagging the Russians since we have systems in place that skin the same cat and do it better (According to the stated objectives). Russia objects vehemently as we certainly would if they put missiles on our door step after the cold war is supposedly over. Russia naturally ups the ante albeit slightly...
Condi goes over to Yalta to meet with Georgian prez Saakashvili (sp?) and she takes along of all people Kahhhl Rove...Weeks later Georgia agrees to a ceasefire then launches an attack into South Ossetia the next day...where of course Russian peacekeeping forces are. Certainly the Georgians by now are wondering where their Washington back up was (ala the Saddam and April Glaspie affair)...The administration talked tough but in the end the Georgians were on their own....
Now let's stop there for a second...Russia is the one in this argument in favor of sovereignty, independence and statehood and
we're the one's favoring Georgia's consumption of South Ossetia??
I suppose that's what you get in the world of pointy-headed, armchair general, neocon buffoonery....:dunno:
So now, essentially we're ramping up into another episode of the cold war continuing on that approach.
McCain comes along during this whole thing and says he'd put the missile systems in Poland and TCR no matter what Putin has to say. Tough rhetoric but where is that going to get us when everyone assumes the world greatest threats are emerging in the form of radical Islamics???
With respect to the particular missile system in question...not only has it performance been "hit or miss" it was a boondoggle....Mike Cantrell (former head of MISDEFCOM) was taking kickbacks to keep flooding the program with money.
Obama comes along and says not only am not continuing to fund this boondoggle but it's deployment doesn't make sense when we have proven systems that do the job better...and if the byproduct is were not regressing back to the days of the cold war and we have a more vigilant partner against Iran..that's a bonus.
Russia backs off it's threat to put missiles next to Poland and begins to take a tougher stance on Iran.
