Russia behind Twitter-Facebook DDoS attack?

Given that a Georgian blogger/Facebooker/Twitterer was the target, who else is it likely to be?

US hints at rearming Georgia - NATO ties stilll open

Ahh, another Obama Administration foreign policy boner, especially when coupled with still holding the NATO door open.

We will NEVER go to war for Georgia, so why offer it NATO membership? It’s stupd to keep needlessly antagonizing Russia over a paper guarantee, so why do it?

Beyond that, it’s more imperialistic meddling from the bipartisan foreign policy establishment.

Another liberal hawk non-apology 'apology' - TPM on Georgia

Josh Marshall, the Talking Points Memo proprietor, who never did the mea-est of mea culpas over the Iraq War and his support for it, now mumblingly admits (while trying to invoke group guilt at the same time) that "we" were lucky to have avoided hitching our collective wagons to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

No "we" here Josh. I told you so, literally, by e-mail, when Veep nomineem Joe Biden was practically shoulder to shoulder writing blank checks to Saakashvili after he tweaked Russia one too many times. I said the Biden/Obama/Dem mainstream "NATO lite" policy toward Georgia was wrong, and that you were mischaracterizing it.

That said, here's why Marshall is right. As the story notes, European NATO members have had more brains about Georgia in NATO than the U.S. bipartisan foreign policy establishment has had all along. (Or liberal hawk bloggers have had.)

Josh Marshall has free passes for Georgia

Well, actually, they’re for the Obama-Biden campaign on Georgia, as Josh claims it has a significant difference with McCain-Palin.

Here’s Josh:

It's true that Obama and Biden both favor Georgia's accession into NATO -- a very bad policy position, as I've argued before. However, I do not think that their positions and McCain's positions are equal. The best analogy I can point to is the nominal agreement on Iraq policy (embodied in the Iraq Liberation Act) between the Clinton administration and the most radical neocons in the late 1990s. Nominally, they shared a policy. In practice, however, it was one group that was completely nuts and gung-ho in favor of a reckless idea and another that was sort of dabbling in and passively favoring the same policy. Not that that is saying much in the latter's favor. But there's a big difference.

And, here’s my response:

Given the ultimate reason WHY both political campaigns of the “bipartisan foreign policy establishment” want Georgia in NATO — a three-letter word called “oil” — I think your “Clinton ain’t a neocon” analogy doesn’t carry the freight, Josh.

BOTH campaigns favor the same thing — NATO membership. Neither has proposed NATO observer status or some other “NATO lite.”

Both campaigns, in essence, we’re willing to back Georgia in a war against Russia.

(Either that, or they’re lying through their teeth.)

And, that’s another reason I’m voting Green, or planning on it.

As I’ve said before, this is almost a mirror image of Iraq, which Obama criticized.

Update: A Talking Points Memo reader points out that Obama-Biden (like Bush himself), only wants to put Georgia on the “ Membership Action Plan ,” otherwise known as the slow-boat-to-China way of joining NATO.

But, it’s still a plan for Georgia to join NATO. And, the ultimate reasons why the Bipartisan Foreign Policy Establishment want Georgia in NATO still stand. Namely, o-I-l.

Also, the distinction is one, vis-à-vis McCain-Palin, that Obama-Biden aren’t making.

So, I still think it’s a fair critique.

Georgia too much on Obama-Biden mind

Is Obama-Biden willing to risk “oil war” over Georgia in NATO?

Tom Friedman’s snarky riff on our $1 bil aid package for Georgia, and not Georgia, means that this issue isn’t going away.

To riff on B.O. himself, since it’s my space to riff:

I’m not against all decisions of the Bipartisan Foreign Policy Establishment™, just stupid ones.

And, admitting Georgia to NATO would be stupid.

Hugely stupid.

Because it would be offensive, an in-your-face move to Russia.

As offensive to Russia as Bush opting out of the ABM to start our supposed space-based missile defense program, from where I sit.

And, if Sen. Veep nominee MBNA Joe Biden, with his Foreign Relations Committee chairmanship experience certificate from the Council of Foreign Relations on his office wall, doesn’t get that, he’s pretty clueless after all.

If he’s deliberately ignoring that for the sake of political talking points, and B.O. is voluntarily in agreement, well, then, they’re as willing to play politics for a Georgia oil connection as Bush was with Iraq — and to politicize it as part of their campaign.

As I blogged earlier this week, does Obama-Biden still agree with Uncle Fester on Georgia?

Is Obama-Biden going to continue to be Cold Warrior on Georgia?

Is Obama-Biden willing to go to war over Georgia, a war that, given the pipeline issue, would essentially be a “war for oil” that Obama condemned in talking about Iraq?

I WILL keep hammering away at this, you Democrats who are “liberal” in name only and wonder what I’m doing on liberal blog rolls.

Does Obama-Biden still agree with Uncle Fester?

Do you want to go to war over Georgia?

That is, are they still in Cold Warrior mode over Georgia in NATO?

Uncle Fester says we’re still “fully committed” to this clusterfucked idea.

I doubt we’ll hear anything but the Two-Party Duopoly, i.e., Bipartisan Foreign Policy Establishment, party line out of the Obama-Biden campaign on this baby.

My pull quote at the top is the bottom line. Because we want to route an oil pipeline from the Trans-Caspian “Stans” around Russia’s border to the Black Sea, do you want to risk going to war?

Wouldn’t that be, ahem, War for Oil?

Isn’t that what Obama, especially, has criticized Bush about for years?

Answers, of course, are Yes and Yes.

Russia punks EU on Georgia

The European Union has backed off the idea of economic sanctions against Russia over the Georgian provocation.

The economic keystone of the EU, Germany, is still opposed.

And, although the EU and NATO are separate critters, this just underscores further the stupidity of both Obama-Biden and McCain-Palin (for now — does she even know where Georgia is??) of offering Georgia NATO membership.

Albright gets Georgia wrong too

What is it with the growing parade of Democrats stupid enough to want to make Georgia a NATO member?

Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright combines that with illogic. She chides Condoleezza Rice for not traveling to Moscow, and from there goes on to say she would have done that to give Moscow some security assurances, while still pushing for Georgia as a NATO member.

Reason 1,007 to vote Green instead of Democrat: The duopoly’s foreign policy ideas.

How right Ron Paul is about foreign policy

Given that the Obama-Biden ticket has essentially the same foreign policy on things like Georgia and Afghanistan as McCain-Pawlenty, Paul is right that there’s really not much difference between the two candidates.

Georgia is the issue that’s both scary, and from the Democratic side, hypocritical.

Obama, Biden, et al, accuse McCain of being an unreformed Cold Warriors, while Georgia itself, and the idea of blank-check support for it, is a Cold War stance.

Also, per NPR, why are so many American officials (including Biden as well as Dick Cheney and Condi Rice, you Democrats) going to Georgia while nobody’s going to Moscow?

If it’s Tuesday, it must be Obama foreign policy pander day

How else to explain Barack Obama, yesterday, play me-too with John McCain’s call to admit Georgia to NATO?

It’s made worse by Obama explicitly saying, in the statement, that:

The relationship between Russia and the West is long and complicated.

And he wants to offer a “solution” that’s simplistic, as well as wrong, to a complicated issue.

Between his pandering, his campaign style, and other issues, I’m wondering if Dems don’t have the worst candidate since Dukakis?

You know the answer.

Vote Green.

Unlike Democrats, Putin doesn’t spook at Cheney

So, when the Darth Vader vice president says Russia’s actions in Georgia/South Ossetia “must not go unanswered,” I’m sure Russian Prime Minister Vlad the Impaler Putin is soooo not quaking in his boots.

Beyond that, even if nobody’s recognized it, the area’s been de facto independent for more than a decade. Move on.

Blame Georgia, not Russia, for South Ossetia problem

Whether it was an official Georgian government-organized incursion or something unofficial, by mid-level Georgian government or military officials, it’s pretty clear Georgians invaded South Ossetia on the hope Russia would be distracted by the Olympics, or otherwise would not respond quickly for some reason, and have been roundly disabused of their delusions.

As usual, A Fistful of Euros shows it’s worth at least that much as a European news and opinion blog.