Is Wired Magazine’s ‘Military Correspondent’ a Kremlin Dupe?
Thank you for setting the record straight Kevin and Ethan. I hope that La Russophobe develops at least some sense of shame about smearing certain individuals for contributing to forums while accepting content from others (such as Prof. Burger) who contribute to the same forums, or attacking others credentials to write about Russia while providing absolutely none of her own.
As far as facts on the ground, I welcome more Americans and Europeans asking questions in depth about U.S., Russian and Georgian actions in Georgia both leading up to and during the war. The presence of American national defense contractors, who may not have been confined to their hotel rooms in Tblisi but actually doing more substantial work with Georgian forces on the front lines, and of Ukrainian and other foreign national mercenaries, are worth investigating.
Whether or not there were paid Russian agents or provocateurs on Saakashvili’s staff is a whole other question. Certainly, the New York Times has already reported that Saakashvili was using his cellphone to direct the battle, and almost ANY intelligence agency worth its salt can tap those things, so Saakashvili’s hapless commanders probably got his orders several minutes after the Russians knew about them. No wonder it turned into a rout!
In the bigger scheme of things, I also welcome a debate about whether American boys should be pledged to fight and die for the Crimea or eastern Ukraine, if those predominantly ethnically Russian regions decide to secede following an unpopular Orange government’s decision to enter NATO. I truly believe that John McCain is more or less pledging the U.S. to not only undo the “captive nations of Eastern Europe” but unwind “centuries of Russian imperialism” in Ukraine – a view that I can only chalk up to McCain’s paid lobbyist advisors and associations with many who have long held Ukrainian ultranationalist views (for those people, like Paula Dobriansky, it was never just about Soviet Communist ideology repressing the peoples of the USSR but about an ancestral fear and loathing of Russia and the Russians as a people!). McCain also gave Saakashvili the delusion that we would ride to his rescue if he risked direct confrontation with Russia.
Like I said, I don’t have a problem with the U.S. making some commitments to other countries. What I have a problem with is Beltway lobbyists for those countries trying to ramrod through such huge commitments when no one is looking, without any serious debate on the topic. Pat Buchanan is no shill for the Kremlin, he’s a rightwing America-First isolationist. And just because he’s unhinged on the subject of World War II or Israel doesn’t mean that he cannot make a valid point about overstretch and individuals in Washington making foreign policy commitments for their own self-serving or ideological reasons.
