I guess I'm a tender-hearted liberal and not tough-minded enough, but war really does bother me a lot even when it's justified, and this war was manifestly neither justified nor carried out in a just manner. International Law does not provide for war to make a point, but only in self defense; probably it's childish of my to even point this out. In any event the point had already been made. Putin was just taking advantage of US weakness to commit his own lawless acts.
The lawless acts was the aggressive war. I take no position on whether S. Ossetia ought or ought not to be part of Georgia or Russia or Ossetia or Tennessee for that matter. The way that sort of thing is settled in a civilized world in an alternate universe is that you hold a fair referendum under UN auspices. If after a fair vote the S. Ossetians wanted to leave Georgia and the Georgians wouldn't let them under force, then it's time for lots of negotiations, maybe ultimately a careful and discriminate UN-sponsored military force to get the Georgians to go.
I'm tired.
--- On Sun, 8/17/08, Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com> wrote:
> From: Jim Farmelant <farmelantj at juno.com>
> Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] Sad Leninism.
> To: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Cc: lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org
> Date: Sunday, August 17, 2008, 11:21 AM
> On Sun, 17 Aug 2008 08:59:01 -0700 "boddi satva"
> <lbo.boddi at gmail.com>
> writes:
> > Lenin is dead, folks.
> >
> > The old world of black hats and white hats is gone.
>
> Who in the hell here is talking that way? I think that
> what most people here believe is that Putin had
> delivered Uncle Sam a much needed bodyblow.
> I suspect that few people here have illususions that
> Putin somehow represents a resurrection of the
> old dreams concerning Soviet socialism or anything
> of that sort. Most people here, I don't think
> would approve of Putin's actions in Chechnya for
> instance. What he has done is make clear that
> the US dream of a unipolar world, in which
> the US is free to invade countries and overthrow
> the governments of other sovereign countries
> whenever it sees fit, using any pretext no matter
> how flimsy, is now coming to an end. I think
> most people here see this as a good thing.
> The resurgence of Russia combined with the
> rise of China as a major economic power and
> the development of a loose alliance between
> those two countries plus other smaller countries
> like Iran, Cuba, Venezuela etc. means that
> Uncle Sam now to has to be much more
> circumspect in the way it pursues its
> interests in the world. The recent changes
> in tone of the Bush Administration concerning
> Iran for instance is indicative then even they
> realize that the world has changed, no matter
> how much they may dislike it.
>
> >
> > If you want to believe that the U.S., Western Europe
> and Barack
> > Obama
> > are the "Great Satan" and that Vladimir
> Putin will save the world,
> > you
> > have completely faded into irrelevance.
> > ___________________________________
> > http://mailman.lbo-talk.org/mailman/listinfo/lbo-talk
> >
> >
>
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