Wag the Dog in Georgia

The Swiftboating of Obama will be built around the Georgia crisis. This is why the attack on South Ossetia by the Georgians and the prompt response by the Russians had to happen in August. Saakashvili may have been assured by Scheunemann that the US would have his back in his surprise attempt to take back his wayward province. But whatever, the whole incident provided some nice propaganda about the fierceness of the Russian Bear toward our allies who were providing troops in Iraq and provided a perfect opportunity for John McCain to continue his saber waving at Russia.
The whole point is to provide an opportunity to go back to cold war posturing against Russia. Russia has good income right now from oil and gas and has had an opportunity to rebuild its infrastructure--read military. The Russian people are behind Medvedev and Putin and are fierce in defense of their homeland.
This strategy has been set up by the McCain organization with the call for Russia to be out of the G8 in order to have a separate organization made up of cooperating democracies to oppose non-democratic regimes.
Bush was not in on the scam which is why his first response was mild. He could always be counted on also to stay on vacation. Bush has since toughened up his response, but has also been clear that there would be no US military response.
Saakashvili has however referred to the humanitarian medical response that the US is sending to Georgia as military help. Stating that the he was pleased that the airport would be secured!
John McCain will be painted as our savior against the Russian Bear which would destroy our allies. Obama will be painted as a weak appeaser who would not protect us. Lots of lies about Russian atrocities will be promoted and the fact of the initial Georgian aggression will be conveniently eliminated.
Robert Scheer in Truthdig gives some background on how this was engineered. Lots of patsies to provide a new larger war posture for McCain.

In 2005, while registered as a paid lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a congressional resolution pushing for Georgia’s membership in NATO. A year later, while still on the Georgian payroll, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to that country, where they met with Saakashvili and supported his bellicose views toward Russia’s Vladimir Putin.

Scheunemann is at the center of the neoconservative cabal that has come to dominate the Republican candidate’s foreign policy stance in a replay of the run-up to the war against Iraq. These folks are always looking for a foreign enemy on which to base a new Cold War, and with the collapse of Saddam Hussein’s regime, it was Putin’s Russia that came increasingly to fit the bill.