Cluster Munition Accusations Continue

Russia continues to deny the use of cluster bomb munition in it's operations in Georgia despite continuing and growing evidence to the contrary.



Human Rights Watch is dogging Russia on this but it isn't getting a whole lot of press coverage outside of the occasional NPR mention. That seems rather odd given our media's general record on human rights. Heck, it would seem to be a great opportunity to grill McCain and Obama about their thoughts on the use of such horrible weapons!

• Georgia: Russian Cluster Bombs Kill Civilians
• Georgia: Civilians Killed by Russian Cluster Bomb ‘Duds’

I think Russia would do well to fess up and help with the cleanup. It might even help to foster some international goodwill. Of course, Russia is not usually amenable towards ideas that I come up with.

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Russia also continues to drag it's feet on withdrawal from Georgian territory but has reportedly finally started to do so, at least from some positions.

As with most conflicts, just about every party here seems to deserve some blame. Georgia for being idiotic enough to use force in South Ossetia. Russia for it over the top reaction and for their own human rights abuses during their 'response.' Even the leaders in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia deserve some blame as they have not helped to defuse anything and seem more intent on fermenting further bad feelings.

The United States seems to deserve some blame here as well. There is some reason that Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili seemed to think he would be backed up with his action against South Ossetia. There is some reason why he thought we would come to his aid, militarily, when Russia moved against Georgia. That reason is not simply that Saakashvili suffers from delusions (which is not beyond the realm of possibility.) He was given some type of assurance from someone. Whether it was someone within the government or someone he had reason to believe knew the intentions of the government is the question.

There is a story here that hasn't been told yet. Perhaps the story has started to be told at TPM and the Washington Post? John McCain better hope that this is not the start of the story that will be told. That would work out badly for him.

Look for it though. The rest of the story is coming. It's out there somewhere and it won't be pretty. It is disgraceful that so many had to die and be injured because of it.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

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Bad Guy?

I made a separate post for this, even though it is from the same Politico interview as the previous post. Reason: It deserves it's own post. Check this out and tell me what caught my eye here:

Asked if he could deal with Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, whom he has consistently excoriated on the stump, McCain flashed a smile and said: “I’ve faced bad guys in my time.”

“I’d be glad to meet with him,” McCain added. “It would be important to have some kind of framework for the meeting. In other words, there would have to be some kind of predetermined, at least outcome about some aspects of the meeting … for example, some progress in some area that was agreed upon earlier – the Nixon in China, Reagan-Gorbachev, et cetera. It would have to be something besides just a, quote, meeting.”

If you put the bad guy title of the post together with the bad guy part of that then I have some hope.

Since when is it okay for a candidate to call the head of government of a, if not friendly, at least not hostile government a "bad guy?" A former head of state of that government, no less.

This is a guy with foreign policy experience? Tell me, Senator McCain, would you meet with a guy running for Russian president who described you as a "bad guy" if you are elected and he wins? I don't think so. I think that would seriously sour your attitude towards that person.

Ronald Reagan did not call Soviet Premier Yuri Andropov "evil." Rather, he called the country or system an "evil empire."

In your discussions of the nuclear freeze proposals, I urge you to beware the temptation of pride, the temptation of blithely declaring yourselves above it all and label both sides equally at fault, to ignore the facts of history and the aggressive impulses of an evil empire, to simply call the arms race a giant misunderstanding and thereby remove yourself from the struggle between right and wrong and good and evil. - President Ronald Reagan, March 8, 1983

You see, John, it isn't about personal politics. It about international diplomacy. George H.W. Bush started this crap with his personal vilification of Saddam Hussein. Perhaps that was the correct course, as it was he, personally, who was responsible for nearly everything that went on in Iraq. He didn't close the deal on that monster, as was probably also correct. I and many of my ilk still think there were other, better, ways to deal with him. George W. Bush and his cronies, have taken personal relations in international politics to an extreme. You seem poised to continue down that dangerous path.

Everything in this administration is about personal relationships. Just because you personally think Vladimir Putin is an a$%&#le, which he is, does not mean it is alright to shout it from the mountaintops if you are aspiring to lead the world's last superpower. Don't buy into this personalization of international relations.

Do personal relationships come into play somewhat, sure. However, our relationship is between the government and people of the United States of America and the government and people of the Russian Federation. You would do well to remember that.

Your comments do absolutely nothing to help that relationship. All that comment does is serve to vent steam, waste a chip, and create another hurdle to someday normalizing our relationship with one of the world's largest countries and economies.

It is only about the person when you are talking about monsters. Hitler, Mussolini, Stalin, Amin, Hussein. These were monsters. It stopped being about the relations between the countries and rather between the monster and various other countries and leaders. Putin is a jerk, but he has not shown that he is a monster.

It is our relations with the country he represents, not him, that matter. You have made a increasingly difficult situation to recover from that much harder, if you become president. That is not a real smart move.

Do you really think Nixon liked Nikita Khrushchev? Or Chou En-Lai? How about Reagan and Saddam Hussein? Or Deng Xiaoping? Did the personal relationship interfere with the relations between countries in those relationships? Sure Reagan and Gorbachev got along. But even that success has been exaggerated. They were united in a common desire not to blow each other and their countries up. They weren't really best buddies.

Regardless, I have never heard of a major presidential candidate say anything akin to "I’ve faced bad guys in my time" when asked about the head of government or head of state of a power that we are not at war or nearly at war with. I am sure Russia isn't happy with that statement. I am not sure why no one else seems to be calling him on it.

Perhaps you shouldn't listen to that former lobbyist for the Georgian government who is now your foreign policy adviser so much;-)

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

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McCain decries lobbyists...again

Senator John McCain said in an interview with Politico:

“I would not allow anyone who worked for my administration to go back to lobbying,” McCain said. “They would have to make that pledge.”

That should make things interesting in recruiting quality public servants into the fold. Just a few weeks ago his campaign manager, Rick Davis (normal profession: a lobbyist, by the way) in an interview with Katie Couric, said:

"We don't make it a litmus test for employment at the McCain campaign."

OK. Well, then. I guess...if these people want to go back to their lucrative lobbying jobs....then they won't be working for the administration if he wins?

Josh Marshall has some great posts on McCain and lobbyists. Like the above interview. Recently, with the Georgia - Russia crisis he has several posts on Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief foreign policy advisor, here, here and here.

I love the whole "you can never be a lobbyist again" idea, but it is rather more idealistic than anything that Barack Obama has said, on any subject. You might even call it naive.

Even if he isn't going beyond cabinet level officials, it is rather ambitious and, possibly, self defeating. That is a lot of money for these people to give up. Forever. Gives a whole new meaning to sacrifice for public service. There are going to be a lot of qualified people who aren't going to be takers in that situation. Prestige or not.

I question, more and more, who the candidate with the sweeping, unrealistic ideas is? Is it really Barack Obama? Are you guys sure this McCain guy is still living in reality? His actions and statements don't always support that he is.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

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McCain's Role in Plane Pact Spotlights Ties to Lobbyists

To show that he's a crusader against wasteful spending and congressional corruption, Sen. John McCain repeatedly brags about his leading role in stopping a scandal-plagued air tanker contract between the Air Force and Boeing in 2004.

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You really have to wonder if this type of hypocritical stuff will or won't get more airplay by the mainstream media as we move to November. Not to defend him, but it is hard to put together any type of significant organization in Washington without having some former lobbyists. Even so, I think this will eventually bite him in the tush.

Comments welcome,

Pat McGovern

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