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Predator And Prey
Robert Koehler 8/21/2008
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Bad bear!

Within the false outrage coursing through much of mainstream politics and the media, there is a grudging reverence for the brutality of the latest world crisis, if evinced only in the satisfaction that America has found its next enemy. Cold War sentiments stir in their hibernation, the McCain campaign has a bete noir to rail at more ferocious than Paris Hilton, and God's in his heaven once again.

Maybe Russia is the perfect enemy, in that the country is too big and powerful to actually attack directly -- not even the most unhinged neocon has so far suggested that -- and therefore we can sustain rhetorical hatred and huge defense budgets without fear of a new quagmire.

Oh, what a world it would be if humanity and compassion had a collective presence that wasn't fleeting, if a crisis of aggression somewhere in the world was followed by cries from politicians and ordinary citizens alike to beef up the peace budget.

Consider that the Russian invasion and occupation of Georgia, upon even cursory examination, turns into a veritable fractal -- a pattern that replicates itself on an infinite scale -- of ethnic hatred and violence. Thus, Russia invaded Georgia after Georgia shelled the pro-Russian province of South Ossetia, which in turn had shelled villages in Georgia. Is this really the human condition, to
be perpetually buried in grievances that we occasionally attempt to settle in the one way guaranteed not only to perpetuate but also to escalate them?

But of course I'm forgetting about cynical self-interest, to which I offer a toast -- here's to Randy Scheunemann, the top foreign policy adviser for John ("We're all Georgians now") McCain, who was a paid lobbyist for the government of Georgia until a few months ago -- because without it we really might have to conclude that the human race is stuck in its cycle of perpetual, and now, of course, nuclear-armed violence.

I'm not sure how we extract ourselves from the interests of war, and doubt that a presidential election is going to do it no matter what the outcome, because the war economy owns both parties, but I think a place to start is with some clarity.

Russia's brutal squashing of Bush administration darling Mikheil Saakashvili's provocative and thuggish attack on South Ossetia has so far been far less destructive and "disproportionate," as a number of observers have pointed out, than A) NATO's bombing campaign against Serbia in 1999 to defend the autonomy of Kosovo; B) Israel's relentless, U.S.-sanctioned attacks on Lebanon in 2006; and C) uh, the U.S. invasion and occupation of Iraq in 2003, not to mention the ongoing war in Afghanistan that began in 2001.

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Putins Bear COLOR
By Pat Bagley - Salt Lake Tribune * Posted 8/18/2008 12:00:00 AM
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Putins Bear COLOR
© Copyright 2008  Pat Bagley - All Rights Reserved.

Posted By: david7  on Saturday, August 23, 2008

Curioser and curiouser...

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