Senator McCain made the following comment last night at the Rick Warren forum regarding Russia's invasion of Georgia:
"It's about energy. There's an oil pipeline that goes across Georgia that up till now had not been controlled by Russia. And energy, the Russians are using as a tremendous lever against the Europeans."h/t Ben Smith
We asked a smart friend of ours what her current take on the situation in Georgia is.
She wrote us:
I don't know if it's a smart take, but the whole thing is a shitfuck. The "mysterious" bombings in Abkhazia and killings in South Ossetia in June and July were eerily reminiscent of the mysterious apartment bombings in Moscow in 1999, which the Russians then used to justify re-invading (and then leveling) Chechnya.
If I were Georgia, I would be panicked. If I were Russia, I would be feeling very, very good about myself right now. If I were us...? It makes us look like a self-absorbed superpower who's happy to use the little guys when it suits us but happy to dump them when they become inconvenient.
Better intelligence and some back-channel diplomacy earlier this summer would have been ideal, but that was then and any given thing in this week's suite of responses is a lot less desirable.
Annoying, too, because our secretary of state is academically a Russianist.
Shitfuck.
Ah, the old ways of doing business in the energy sector!
Ah, the way it drives the West's foreign policy!
What an absolute BITCH!
If you want to understand 9/10ths of Europe's underwhelming response to Russia's invasion and occupation of a sovereign state friendly with the EU and the USA, look no further than this quote on last night's NewsHour by The Heritage Foundation's Ariel Cohen:
Europe is already very dependent on Russian gas. One-third of European oil comes from Russia, 40 percent, in some cases, 99 percent of gas.Noted: The whole NewsHour segment is worth the long listen or read.
