The Reticulator

News item: “Russian President Dmitry Medvedev named Prime Minister Vladimir Putin to head the commission to investigate the crash…”

That would seem like a big task for a man who, despite having the resources of the FSB at his disposal, couldn’t find the killers of Alexander Litvinenko and Anna Politkovskaya. Maybe Medvedev would have done better to outsource the job to someone else.

People who think Sarah Palin isn’t very bright ought to take a look at Representative Ellen Tauscher of California. From politico.com:

Rep. Ellen O. Tauscher (D-Calif.) dismissed recent comments by Russian President Dmitri Medvedev about redeploying missiles as primarily for his country’s “domestic consumption.”

Of course Medvedev’s remarks were meant for domestic consumption. Remember when the left was complaining (rightfully) that George Bush was taking us to war without having the country behind him? Every head of state throughout history, good or bad, has understood that you need to have the country behind you when you go up against an enemy. Abraham Lincoln understood it. Joseph Stalin understood it. But George Bush thought he knew better.

So of course Putin/Medvedev make their comments for public consumption. That doesn’t mean those comments aren’t a message to us, too.

The election of Barack Obama was recognized around the world as a positive step, said Tauscher, who leads the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee. “The only person who didn’t get the memo was President Medvedev. It was an unfortunate tenor and an unfortunate speech. But it is something we can work with.”

Why does Tauscher think Medvedev isn’t aware that Obama was elected? Why does she think other countries wanted him elected, if it wasn’t for their own self-interest. And what better time than now for Putin/Medvedev to test our administration to see if it can be bullied. We’ve got an outgoing, lame-duck administration, a hostile Congress, and a naive rookie coming in with very little experience of the real world. That’s the perfect time to make a move.

If the leader of the House Armed Services Strategic Forces Subcommittee says she can work with that, that’s valuable information for people like Putin and Medvedev to have.

Mark Ames at The Exiled sets himself up as a target of The Reticulator with his article, “South Ossetia: The War We Don’t Know.”

Five days after Georgia invaded and seized the breakaway separatist region of South Ossetia, sparking a larger-scale Russian invasion to drive Georgian forces back and punish their leaders, Russia surprised its Western detractors by calling a halt to the country’s offensive. After all, the mainstream media, egged on by hawkish neocon pundits and their candidate John McCain, had everyone believing that Russia was hellbent on the full-scale annihilation and annexation of democratic Georgia.

Actually, this is not true. There is nothing surprising at all about this. When Russia has accomplished its objective, why wouldn’t it halt the military offensive? And I suppose you could find some “hawkish neocon” who believed Russia was going for annihlation and annexation, but most of the alarmist articles I read were more nuanced. The word “finlandization” was used a lot.

Up until now, this war was framed as a simple tale of Good Helpless Democratic Guy Georgia versus Bad Savage Fascist Guy Russia. In fact, it is far more complex than this, morally and historically. Then there are two concentric David and Goliath narratives here.

Er, no, this war was not framed as such a simple tale by most people. Most of the people who are alarmed about Russia’s action also realized that Georgia started off with a big mistake.

If Mr. Ames wants people to understand the subtleties and shades of gray with which the historical origins of this war should be understood, he needs to show some understanding of the subtleties and shades of gray with which it has been discussed in the American press, too.