Well, Better Late Than Never

The Georgians are reporting that Russia troops have FINALLY completed their pullback, nearly six weeks later.

Russia has completed a troop pullback from buffer zones outside the breakaway region of South Ossetia, the Georgian Interior Ministry said on Wednesday.

"We can confirm that from the so-called buffer zones the withdrawal is complete," said ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili.

A small spot of good news for once.

Diplomacy Is The Art Of Saying "Nice Doggie...

...until you can find the Nameless One to shoot the dog."(h/t Hullabaloo)

In his address to the conference of global political and business leaders, Cheney issued a strong rebuke of Russia. He described Moscow's actions in the conflict with Georgia as an "affront to civilized standards," and called on Western nations to jointly prevent Russia from using its position as a dominant energy supplier to intimidate its neighbors.

He also spoke of Russian arms sales to hostile Mideast nations, saying Moscow "has sold advanced weapons to regimes in Syria and Iran. Some of the Russian weapons sold to Damascus have been channeled to terrorist fighters in Lebanon and Iraq."

According to the Israeli daily Maariv, Cheney touched on the same theme during talks with the Israeli President Shimon Peres, also attending the conference.

With the election seven weeks away, Condi Rice and her State Department realist pussies aren't being allowed anywhere near the Georgia crisis. This is alllllll the Dickster, as Fourthbranch desperately tries to build us a fourth war (in case the attack on Iran by Israel takes longer than expected). Also, if you're wondering what's going on in Georgia in general, here's a good article on the basics.

It is difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack against US wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they were in no position to defy it. This leaves two possibilities. The first is a huge breakdown in intelligence, in which the United States either was unaware of the deployments of Russian forces or knew of them but—along with the Georgians—miscalculated Russia's intentions. The second is that the United States, along with other countries, has viewed Russia through the prism of the 1990s, when its military was in shambles and its government was paralyzed. The United States has not seen Russia make a decisive military move beyond its borders since the Afghan war of the 1970s and 1980s. The Russians had systematically avoided such moves for years. The United States had assumed that they would not risk the consequences of an invasion.

If that was the case, then it points to the central reality of this situation: the Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia, and the United States and Europe could not meaningfully respond. They did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no force to counter them. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well—indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans need the Russians more than the Russians need the Americans. Moscow's calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months, and they struck.

Just like Iraq, "we didn't expect the situation on the ground to go like that, etc." Plausible deniablilty is a wonderful thing 3 months before a Presidential election, yes?

The Devil Came Down To Georgia

...and he was looking to make a deal, as the Charlie Daniels Band tells us. Where the Nameless One goes, death and government waste follow in his wake.

US Vice President Dick Cheney accused Russia of having invaded Georgia on Thursday as he arrived to bolster the pro-Western government following the announcement of a billion dollar US aid package.

After talks with President Mikheil Saakashvili, Cheney said the five day war last month had cast "grave doubt" on Russia's international credibility and accused Moscow of seeking to redraw Georgia's borders.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will seek backing for his country's intervention at a Moscow summit of seven ex-Soviet states on Friday. Nicaragua has become the first country to follow its lead in recognising the independence of Georgian rebel regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Cheney is the highest-level American official to visit the region since Georgia launched its August 7 offensive to regain control of South Ossetia region, sparking the conflict with its giant neighbour.

"Russia's actions have cast grave doubt on Russia's intentions and on its reliability as an international partner, not just in Georgia but across this region and indeed across the international system," he said.

"After your nation won its freedom in the Rose Revolution, America came to the aid of this courageous young democracy," said Cheney, referring to the 2003 uprising that brought Saakashvili to power.

"We are doing so again as you work to overcome an invasion of your sovereign territory and an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change your country's borders by force that has been universally condemned by the free world."

Later Cheney was to visit US aid operations in Georgia and highlight the US one billion-dollar (690 million euro) package.

The United States has taken a lead role supporting Georgia since hostilities erupted over Moscow-backed rebel regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which Russia then recognised as independent.

Washington's relations with Moscow have plummeted as the United States has led angry western criticism of Russia's military action, its recognition of the rebel regions, and the continued presence of its troops in Georgia.

Cheney is pointedly not visiting Russia on a tour that has already taken him to Georgia's neighbour Azerbaijan, where he stressed that the security of the energy-rich region was a top concern for Washington.

His trip has also been aimed at expanding the transit of oil and gas exports to the West through pipelines across Georgia and Azerbaijan, avoiding Russia which Washington is viewing with increasing distrust.

And of course under a McSame administration, I'm sure our relationship will improve with the Russians.

Just what we need, another war.

You Get The Feeling People Don't Respect America Anymore?

I wonder why that is.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the United States of orchestrating the conflict in Georgia to benefit one of its presidential election candidates.

In an exclusive interview with CNN's Matthew Chance in the Black Sea city of Sochi Thursday, Putin said the U.S. had encouraged Georgia to attack the autonomous region of South Ossetia.

Putin told CNN his defense officials had told him it was done to benefit a presidential candidate -- Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama are competing to succeed George W. Bush -- although he presented no evidence to back it up.

"U.S. citizens were indeed in the area in conflict," Putin said. "They were acting in implementing those orders doing as they were ordered, and the only one who can give such orders is their leader."

The White House is pissed.

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino blasted Putin's statements, saying they were "patently false."

"To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate just sounds not rational," she said.

U.S. State Department deputy spokesman Robert Wood concurred, and labeled Putin's statements as "ludicrous."

Now, here's the wacky part: Putin said this specifically because there are people out there across the world that will completely buy into this, even if it's complete bullshit. Why? Because if you honestly look at what this White House HAS done in the name of purely political gain, this accusation is just crazy enough to be true.

I mean if you told me in 2001 that the Bush White House would out a CIA agent's cover just to get back at the operative's husband politically, I would have said "You're crazy, nobody would do that."

I mean hell, we invaded Iraq for completely crazy ass made up political reasons and then lied about it and covered it up, and killed several hundred thousand people in the process. What's so hard about starting a war between Georgia and Russia by giving Mikhail Saakashvili the secret green light signal and then going "What, WE never told you to attack South Ossetia. You're hearing stuff!" so that John McSame gets to be all war hero and stuff and then we get four more years of no accountability. Plausible deniability for the muthafuggin win.

I mean hell, even if it's crap, given what these douchebags have done that we KNOW ABOUT, this seems totally believeable.

Ten rubles that the wingnuts go batshit and accuse Putin of trying to elect Barack Obama so that the Russians can invade America and take over. WOLVEREEEEEEEENS!

McSame's Navy

Meanwhile, over in Georgia, we're using the Coast Guard to deliver supplies. The Russians are more than happy to say hello to us.

Avoiding a potential confrontation with Moscow, a U.S. Coast Guard cutter ferrying humanitarian aid to Georgia steered away from the Russian-patrolled port of Poti on Wednesday and docked in this quieter southern harbor instead.

The U.S. decision came as Russia sent a naval task force armed with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles into the waters off of Abkhazia on Wednesday on a "peace and stability" mission, the Russian Itar-Tass news agency reported.

The U.S. had intended to send the Coast Guard cutter Dallas to Poti, along with a U.S. destroyer, USS McFaul as its escort. Poti is Georgia's main commercial port on the Black Sea, and it is still under Georgian control, but Russian forces continue to man two checkpoints around the town, which lies 15 miles south of the breakaway Georgian province of Abkhazia.

Russian troops now occupy Abhkazia, whose independence President Dmitry Medvedev recognized a day earlier.

In preparation for the arrival of the Dallas, the U.S. Embassy's disaster assistance team was preparing to dispatch trucks to Poti to receive the cargo.

But late Tuesday night U.S. military officials decided to send the Dallas to Batumi, 50 miles to the south, where the McFaul anchored on Sunday with a small cargo of aid.

A U.S. official in Georgia said that the decision was made "at the highest levels of the Pentagon" but would not elaborate. The official requested anonymity, citing the sensitivity of the subject.

To be fair, somebody probably would have noticed a USN destroyer hanging about in the Caspian Sea, so of course the ship not going to Poti makes news. Hard to fake that.

On the other hand, we certainly seem scared of the Russians. Couldn't be because of the Moskit anti-ship missiles the Russians have, hmm? Oh, and supposedly the Russians have sold the Moskit to the Iranians too.

As I keep saying, we've got no cards to play in Georgia. Not a single one. We're on the sidelines unless we declare war. Think about McSame in the White House, think about the decision to NOT confront the Russians here, and think about what McSame would do in the same situation.

Top Story: Breakaway Breakdown

More on the top StupidiNews story about South Ossetia and Abkhazia today.

Russia on Tuesday formally recognized the independence of the two Georgian regions that its military now occupies, further inflaming relations with the U.S. in a standoff that recalls the Cold War.

The announcement by President Dmitry Medvedev, in disregard of repeated U.S. warnings, confirmed Russia's return to the world stage as a military power willing to use force to recapture former Soviet territories. It raises the prospect that the two breakaway areas, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, eventually will join the Russian Federation or operate as satellites.

"We're not afraid of anything, of the prospect of a Cold War," Medvedev told Russian television in an interview Tuesday. "Of course, we don't want that. In this situation everything depends on the stand of . . . the world community and our partners in the West."

Medvedev said that if Western powers are willing to work with Russia, the situation will "be calm."

"But if they choose a confrontational scenario, we will be responsive," he said.

We're still right back in the same situation we were two weeks ago: there's not a damn thing we can do about it if Russia decides to take those provinces as satellites from Georgia. The Russians realized a while ago they have all the cards on this one, and they're playing everything they can.

There was strong condemnation of Medvedev's announcement from Washington and several European capitals, and no sign that any nation of strategic significance will follow Russia's lead.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called the Kremlin's decision "extremely unfortunate."

"Abkhazia and South Ossetia are a part of the internationally recognized borders of Georgia and it's going to remain so," Rice said.

President Bush urged Russia to "reconsider this irresponsible decision," which he said was inconsistent with U.N. Security Council resolutions that predate the conflict and a French-brokered cease-fire agreement.

Honestly Condi, what are YOU going to do? Short of war there is nothing TO do. Negotiations have obviously failed, and making Georgia a NATO partner is risky in itself. We have no military play, no diplomacy play, no economic play here. Cut our losses. Then ask yourself why we can't win this fight, because what Russia is doing here is what we did to Iraq.

Twice.

We've got nothing.

US Demands Russia Leave Georgia Now

Or so help me, George W. Bush will pull this planet over right now and nobody will get any Frostys.

Washington demanded on Friday that Russia pull its troops out of Georgia "now", but Moscow said it would be another 10 days before the bulk of its force left Georgian soil.

In a sign of growing tension between Moscow and the West over the conflict in Georgia, a Russian news agency reported that Russia had temporarily frozen cooperation with the NATO alliance, though there was no immediate confirmation.

In some of Washington's toughest comments to date, the White House declared Russia in violation of its commitments to leave the territory of Georgia after routing Georgian forces in a war that erupted two weeks ago.

White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said he could not imagine a circumstance in which the United States would engage in military-to-military cooperation with Moscow until the Georgia situation was resolved.

I would so like to see Putin just say "Or what, you jagoffs?"

Putting It All Together

At AmericaBlog, John Aravosis arrives at the crux of McSame's hard-on for small Eastern European countries with oil.

Earlier this week John McCain declared that all Americans are (former Soviet) Georgians, oddly comparing the "crisis" in Georgia, a country most Americans have never heard of, nor do they need to ever hear of it, to the Soviet occupation of Berlin. Then it hit me. No wonder McCain has devoted the entire week to talking about the Georgian cris. As has already been reported, McCain's top foreign policy adviser took hundreds of thousands of dollars to lobby for Georgia. And now, suddenly, John McCain devotes an entire week of his campaign to championing the cause of a government that paid his top foreign policy aide hundreds of thousands of dollars.

But why should Johnny Mac pretend that there's a conflict of interest? He's sooooooo good at ignoring reality and history already.

This Week On Dirty Jobs

Some rather disturbing footage of a TV reporter on the ground in Georgia under fire while on the job and carrying on with her work after getting shot at and grazed.

Just a little perspective. This is real, folks. I may crack jokes about the situation, but let's try not to forget that live bullets are designed to hurt things, and are pretty effective at it.

Epic Unsigned Editorial Fail

WaPo on Georgia:

"If a democratically elected Ukraine chooses not to join NATO -- and Ukrainians are divided on the question -- NATO will not force itself on Ukraine. But if Ukrainians -- or Georgians, Armenians or anyone else -- recoil at Russia's authoritarian model and choose to associate with the West, should the United States refrain from "egging them on"? Since the days of the Soviet Union, when the United States never abandoned the cause of "captive nations," American policy has been that independent nations should be free to rule themselves and shape their future. How, and how effectively, the United States can support those aspirations inevitably will vary from case to case and from time to time, and supporting those aspirations certainly won't always involve military force. But for the United States to counsel a "realistic" acceptance of vassal status to any nation would mark a radical departure from past principles and practices."

IRAQ.

...epic fail.

Fuggetahboudit

Georgian territorial integrity at 73% and falling, Captain.

Explosions were heard near Gori on Thursday as a Russian troop withdrawal from the strategic city seemed to collapse. A fragile cease-fire appeared even more shaky as Russia's foreign minister declared that the world "can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity."

The declaration from Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov came simultaneously with the announcement that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was meeting in the Kremlin with the leaders of Georgia's two separatist provinces.

"One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity because, I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state," Lavrov told reporters.

"Your analysis, Commander?"

At this rate, Georgian territorial integrity will fail in approximately...real damn soon, sir.

Perhaps now would be a good time to send in a research team or two.

One Last Parting Shot...

...on the whole Georgia kerfluffle.

There's a reason I've got McClatchy News over in the links there, they're the best news outfit I've read in a long time. The analysis of the situation by Jonathan Landay is the most complete I've seen, and the questions it raises are shockers (emphasis de Zandar):

Pentagon officials said that despite having 130 trainers assigned to Georgia, they had no advance notice of Georgia’s sudden move last Thursday to send thousands of Georgian troops into South Ossetia to capture that province's capital, Tskhinvali.

Not only did the U.S. troops working alongside their Georgian counterparts not see any signs of an impending invasion, Georgian officials did not notify the U.S. military before the incursion, a senior U.S. defense official told McClatchy.

But the Bush administration had fretted for months over what officials saw as intensifying Russian moves that it feared were aimed at provoking Georgia into a conflict over South Ossetia or Abkhazia, another secessionist province.

Russia has been angry over Georgia's close links with Washington, and has been determined to stop the admission to NATO of its former vassal, which is located on strategic energy and transportation routes to Central Asia.

The Russian actions against Georgia "seemed designed to provoke a Georgian over-reaction," said a senior U.S. official. "We have always counseled restraint to the Georgians."

Some experts, however, wondered whether the administration might have inadvertently sent Saakashvili mixed messages that would have led him to believe he could count on U.S. support if he got into trouble.

Bush lavished praise on the U.S.-educated Georgian leader as a "beacon of democracy." He gave military training and equipment to Georgia, which supplied the third-largest contingent to the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and had promised NATO membership, they said. He visited the country in 2005 and addressed a huge crowd from the same podium as Saakashvili.

"The Russians have clearly overreacted but President Saakashvili . . . for some reason seems to think he has a hall pass from this administration," said former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage.

U.S. officials had been warning of Russian actions designed to provoke Georgia for months.

Nice. Russia got Georgia to lose its cool, they didn't tell the US (or they are totally covering their asses on this) and the rest is history. Can it get worse?

At the same time, U.S. officials said that they believed they had an understanding with Russia that any response to Georgian military action would be limited to South Ossetia.

"We knew they were going to go crack heads. We told them again and again not to do this," the State Department official said. "We thought we had an understanding with the Russians that any response would be South Ossetia-focused. Clearly it's not."

One problem in under-estimating the Russian response, another U.S. official said, was "a dearth of intelligence assets in the region."

U.S. "national technical means," the official name for spy satellites and other technology, are "pretty well consumed by Iraq, Afghanistan and now Pakistan," the official said, and there was only limited monitoring of Russian military movements toward the Georgian border.

...epic fail.

And finally...

Because I'm pretty sure you want me to get off the Georgia thing already, John Cole wraps the whole thing up with the important lessons.

Saakashvili thought he was a player in the game, when really he was just the ball. In fact, because of our possible behind the scenes antics, not only may we have falsely emboldened the foolish leader of Georgia, we may be responsible for a large part of the perception of him in Russia:

Second, if Russia really is entering Georgia in force, it’s about to become a different sort of game altogether. Russia has no reason to do that unless it’s gunning for regime change. Attacking Gori is right at the bleeding edge of plausible self-defense; Gori is near the border, and has been the forward base for Georgian operations in South Ossetia. But going beyond Gori, landing forces on the Georgian coast, or attacking in force out of Abkhazia, would be something else again.

There are undoubtedly plenty of people in Moscow who’d like to try. Russia’s leaders view Saakashvili as obnoxious and dangerous: for American readers, it’s sort of like how conservative Republicans feel about Fidel Castro. You know how, for fifty years now, a certain minority of Americans have entertained fantasies about landing in Havana and slamming that sonofabitch up against the wall? Like that. Except the Russians have the power to actually do it.

Maybe people are just that dumb after all.

Missed It By That Much

The always awesome Digby weighs in on Georgia.

If Bush, Cheney and their oil buddies (they only seem to get really excited these days when there's a bunch of oil or pipelines at stake) have been making promises the US can't keep, it only serves to create a sort of martyr cause for them to use down the road. In fact, it's possible that's the whole point. Push for NATO, push for military involvement, push for permanent presence. That seems to be the neoconservative longterm energy plan ---- rule the world. Same as it ever was.

Oh, and the conservos should probably soft peddle the self-righteous screeching about how the Russians broke the law and invaded for the purpose of "regime change" and occupation. I'm pretty sure we recently trademarked that particular move.

Georgia as bait for the bear in order to push for a permanent containment presence around Russia makes a disturbing amount of sense, so much so given the previous actions of this administration that it's eerily prescient. We left them high and dry just like the Iraqi Kurds in the first Iraq War, and it became the basis of our eventual second Iraq War.

The other theory is that we gave Russia the go-ahead to jack up Georgia, but we get a country to be named later (Iran? Perhaps seems too big of a prize unless you factor in that it would make Russian oil all that more valuable to Europe, but China would certainly want a voice in that mess and it's doubtful a three-way deal like that would be reached, unless China got, say, a green light in Tibet.) Still, the Georgians honestly thought they would win in the long run. Maybe they still will, if the objective was to unite the West (and its cash inflow) against Russia, and that means propping up strongmen like Georgia's lovely example of a tactician President.

It's a good deal if you can get both the US and the EU to back your "democracy".

Either way, the whole situation stinks, and we've got to drastically update our foreign policy next administration.

Even A Broken Grandfather Clock...

...is right twice a day.

Military intervention is out of the question. Economic sanctions, given Russia’s oil and Europe’s need for it, are a pipe dream. Diplomatic ostracism and moral stricture won’t even save face.

Instead, Europe — both western and eastern — along with the United States and the concerned former Soviet Republics need to sit down, conference, and plot exactly how these new democracies are to maintain their independence and autonomy in the next decade. Hopefully, they will reach the Franklinesque conclusion that “We must, indeed, all hang together, or most assuredly we shall all hang separately.”

Between getting his obligatory shots in at Russian "thugs" and the "morally bankrupt American Left" (as opposed to the morally bankrupt American Right that got us into Iraq) even Hanson has to admit we've got zilch in the quiver right now.

That's got to be a scary thing to admit to these guys, but then again, their job is to project that fear all over the American people. I expect we'll see efforts to portray Russia as even more dangerous than all those Islamofascists terrorists out there combined.

Post-Conflict Wrap-Up

I've argued that the Russo-Georgian conflict is clear proof that A) the Bush/Clinton Rent-A-Strongman foreign policy cannot work any longer in a post-"US invasion of Iraq" world, and that B) McSame is a 100% continuation of this failed policy only much more belligerent and short-tempered. I believe Obama mathematically has to be better, that he is mouthing the words but his actions will be different. I have to hope that because our current policy must change.

Other folks whose opinions I respect have come to the same conclusion.

Selective Stupidity

Listening to Robert Kagan bloviate on NPR on the way home from work about how Russia was Germany circa 1935 and about to unleash a whole new war upon the Earth, and how it was unfortunate Russia was revealing itself as a "19th century power" using "military force to achieve geopolitical aims" I couldn't help but notice that he had failed to cite a country and its belligerent leader that had gone halfway around the world to do the same thing to another sovereign nation in 2003.

When will it finally dawn upon the world that the US can do absolutely nothing about Russia?

UPDATE: And if Joe Klein of all people turns out to be a shining beacon of reason and thinks Bob Kagan is full of shit, then your argument is dead on arrival to the Village.

But it is important, yet again, to call out the endless neoconservative search for new enemies, mini-Hitlers. It is the product of an abstract over-intellectualizing of the world, the classic defect of ideologues. It is, as we have seen the last eight years, a dangerous way to behave internationally. And it has severely damaged our moral authority in the world...I mean, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, after Abu Ghraib, after our blithe rubbishing of the Geneva Accords, why should anyone listen to us when we criticize the Russians for their aggression in the Caucasus?

Wait a Minute here...

Here's a question I haven't see anybody ask about Georgia.

What possessed the Georgians to invade South Ossetia in the first place? Having lived in the shadow of Russia for almost 20 years since the fall of the Berlin Wall, after Chechnya and Kosovo, what possible reason would convince Mikhail Saakashvili that this would not be the most idiotic idea in the history of idiotic ideas, and that Russia would be perfectly okay with this when it was painfully clear that Russia was going to take military action, warning of Georgian military buildup on the border with South Ossetia?

Why does the rabbit kick the bear? The rabbit has bigger, meaner friends. Or thinks he does. Did the Georgians think we would ride to their rescue by sending troops from Iraq, through Turkey, and into Georgia against the Red Army? What the hell is this all about? What signal was given that Saakashvilli picked up to invade?

Or maybe this is a setup. Maybe what's going on has been planned for some time now. Maybe this was meant to provoke Russia to do exactly what it is doing right now.

But why? That's still bugging the hell out of me.

The Night The Lights Went Out In Georgia

The Booman is convinced, based on both Bush and Clinton foreign policy, that we'll soon be in a shooting war with Russia over Georgia, that they have called our bluff, realized we're in Iraq and Afghanistan too deep, and now do not have a choice other than to save face by throwing down.

Read the essay, it's a good one. It explains very well why both the left and the right are eager to take a crack at the Russian Bear, and he has a point.

But as Atrios asks, what are we going to do about it? There's not much we can do about it, frankly. The age of American hegemony ended officially ended last week, folks. At this point we either have to prove to the world that we can fight a third war, or we'll prove to the world that we can't. Russia is holding all the cards right now, and unless we want this to go nookular, Russia will continue doing its thing. We're not in control anymore. That era of America was killed by the Bush Doctrine.

UPDATE: The Times of London is reporting that the Russians have taken Gori and are now fortifying Tblisi, cutting Georgia in half. Nothing we can do. Nothing Europe or China will do, because they need Russian oil and gas. Russia is holding all the cards here, folks. Every single one of them. Why should they stop now?

The Public Relations War

...in Georgia is being won hands-down by the Georgians.

"We are in the process of invasion, occupation, and annihilation of an independent, democratic country," Saakashvili said at a news conference Monday.

"The goal of this operation is regime change in Georgia."

Saakashvili then abruptly ended his conference call with reporters, saying, "We have to go to the shelter because there are Russian planes flying over the presidential palace here, sorry."

Video footage showed a chaotic scene outside the palace, with the president being rushed away under heavy security.

Somebody's selling the Big Bad Soviets meme hardcore. Again, cui bono? Who benefits from Russia becoming the next Axis of Evil member? On the surface it appears to be McSame, but why pick a fight with Russia?