Looks like foreign policy expert McCain has all the answers on Russia-Georgia too

[Wetzelbill]

These pundits, you gotta love 'em. Now the McCain Barbecue Crew seem think McCain has been prescient for wanting to boot Russia out of the G8.

Bush and Putin's relationship went south because Bush is the worst president ever and he can barely chew gum and walk at the same time let alone be a legitimate statesman. Russia may be hardline on certain things, but Putin's domestic crackdowns weren't as egregious as Bush's Constitutional crimes over here. And our Iraq debacle is way worse than Russia's actions in Georgia. Our lost prestige in the world isn't going to come back with John McCain at the helm. He's as maladroit and intellectually lazy as Bush is, and he's probably more dangerous. Even Bush has never been as uncouth and foolish as to sing "Bomb Iran" and think it was funny.

McCain will take a hardline stance against Russia, and further alienate them, while making a bigger diplomatic mess than we already have. And he'd probably sit back and talk tough while Russia represses Georgia and it's other satellites, such as Chechnya. (Georgia Satellites, don't anybody say it... ) If anything, McCain will make it worse, and probably stoke up problems enough where Russia won't help with Iran and since McCain will probably go to war there in the first place, well we'd be screwed even worse than we are now.

This conflict doesn't prove McCain was right on anything, what it does prove is that the Bush approach to foreign policy, something I call Ignorantism, doesn't work on any level and that McCain will do the same thing, except he'll probably do it even worse.

[thepurpose]

1. Teh stoopid. The Russian's are laughing at our asses. McCain can talk all the crap he wants

We don't have the ability, resources or allies to do a damn thing to Russia. They just countered our "Shock and Awe" with a big STFU.

[BlooInBloo]

2. To McOlderThanDirt, it's the USSR having a civil war.

[whistle]

3. GOP adopts the swastika and slogan "the party ist McCain, McCain ist Amerika,Amerika ist McCain"

[MagickMuffin]

4. McCain's Top Foreign Policy Adviser is a LOBBYIST for Georgia

Perhaps this will also explain it.




Scheunemann Helped U.S. Firm Win Georgian Energy Deals While Lobbying For Georgia’s NATO Membership:

Earlier today, Russia sent troops into a breakaway region of Georgia “after Georgian troops sought to enter the capital of the pro-Russian enclave.” As Matt Duss noted at the Wonk Room, the invasion “raises some questions about how a McCain administration might deal with a crisis like this,” particularly because his top foreign policy adviser — Randy Scheunemann — has spent a number of years lobbying on behalf of Georgia and has publicly taken strong pro-Georgia, anti-Russia positions.

Last May, USA Today reported that Scheunemann’s lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, represented Georgia between 2003 and March 2008 and that Scheunemann himself lobbied McCain’s Senate staff on behalf of Georgia while working for McCain’s presidential campaign.

Also, freelance journalist Lindsay Beyerstein reported last month that Scheunemann serves as Worldwide Strategic Energy’s (WSE) point man on Georgia, helping the energy firm score deals with the Georgian government to assist in the development of its “hydrocarbon industry.” From a WSE internal document obtained by Beyerstein:

Randy Scheunemann is a registered representative of the Government of Georgia in the United States. Accordingly, Mr. Scheunemann has developed a very close relationship with President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili and many senior Georgian officials. The WSE team has also begun negotiating possible deals with the Georgian state-run oil company, National Oil Company of Georgia, to assist in the development of Georgia’s hydrocarbon industry.

So what then does Scheunemann do on Georgia’s behalf? He tries to get U.S. politicians on-board with Georgia’s full membership into NATO. In fact, he has had success with at least one Member of Congress, Sen. John McCain:

In 2005, Mr. Scheunemann asked Sen. McCain to introduce a Senate resolution expressing support for peace in the Russia-influenced region of South Ossetia that wants to break away from Georgia, the records show. The Senate approved Sen. McCain’s resolution in December 2005.

Sen. McCain has endorsed Georgia’s goal of entering NATO, a matter for which the country hired Mr. Scheunemann to lobby. In 2006, Sen. McCain gave a speech at the Munich Conference on Security in Germany in which he said Georgia should enter NATO.

According to Beyerstein, WSE’s internal document “was circulated to prospective investors in 2007,” and as USA Today noted, Scheunemann did not stop lobbying on behalf of Georgia until March 2008, but “he remains a principal at his lobbying firm, which still has Georgia as a client.” In fact, Scheunemann “had a phone conversation in November 2007 about Georgia with Richard Fontaine, an aide in McCain’s Senate office.”

Helping a U.S. energy firm secure lucrative contracts with the Georgian government while lobbying American politicians for the former Soviet Republic’s NATO membership? As Duss noted, trying to play an honest broker in the growing Russia-Georgia crisis would prove to be more complicated than meets the eye for a McCain administration.

Indeed, Politico notes today that McCain took a harder line on Russia on its invasion of Georgia than the Bush administration did.

from ThinkProgress

[Wetzelbill]

5. Yeah and Charlie Black lobbied for the pro-Russia side in the

Ukraine election a few years ago. Chuck was anti-Orange Revolution, I guess. McCain running our foreign policy is a frightening thought all around.

[nc4bo]

6. I know how much you guys like concern trolls around here...well, I'm not a troll

but I am very seriously concerned about this Russia/Georgia situation.

In fact, I'm almost terrified just thinking of the huge potential mess this would cause us if were to become involved in any way, shape or form.

[Wetzelbill]

7. It's something of grave concern

I doubt we'd get involved, not militarily, and I doubt we'll do anything worthwhile diplomatically. But Cheney is just crazy enough to convince Bush to do something completely foolish, so I never rule that out.

Two big problems this could cause. In the midst of this one or more of Russia's other satellites might provoke Russia in some way. Probably Chechnya. We'd likely ignore that, because we've really been doing it for decades, but it would cause an even more awful humanitarian situation. Chechen refugee camps are already horrid enough as it is. Russia might crackdown on them just to quell any ideas of anybody else fighting back while they are preoccupied with Georgia.

The one that will effect us, is a President Bush/Cheney or a President McCain alienate Russia even more, and Russia doesn't help at all in the Iranian situation. Then these guys could use the failed weak attempts at diplomacy as an excuse to provoke a war with Iran in some way or preemptively strike. I suspect they'd use it as an excuse the same way they did with Iraq when they kept insisting Saddam wasn't disarming and all diplomatic means were exhausted. Distant relations with Russia directly throw a wrench in the Iran situation.