Cold War 2 Preparations (or Welcome to the Machine)

August 31, 2008 in Ossetian Conflict

It seems like everyone in this country, including the mainstream media, has been beating the war drums in an effort to get us into Cold War Part Deux with Russia, for the sole reason that they’re undemocratic and Putin’s some kind of new Saddam — a dictator. The problem is that, although the media portrays Vladimir Putin as some kind of criminal (and, admittedly, he is ex-KGB and was rightly accused of the poisoning an ex-KGB official in 2006) just because he’s critical of American policy. For sure, our president has done much worse: instigating a “war” against terror (impossible), and further, fabricating a war in Iraq (where are the WMDs?!). Yes, I know, I know, Bush’s favorability ratings are way low, but Putin’s are extremely high after fixing the disaster of the Boris Yeltsin years. All Bush did was drag this country to war, using the weight of 9/11 to drag us into a war on terrorism.

But, alas, whether Putin’s reputation is deserved or not, we are most certainly moving toward a new cold war. Among these moves:

• Making a military base in Bulgaria
• Deploying troops in Turkmenistan
• Establishing military bases in Romania
• NATO’s expansion into ex-Soviet bloc countries like Romania, Estonia, Lithuania, Poland, etc., as well as promised invitations to Georgia and Ukraine, which is perceived as Cold War isolationist policy. 
• Putting our missile defense shield in Poland to protect from Iran, which is a poorly disguised effort to get missiles closer to Russia.  

In addition our president has said that Russia will face consequences for its actions (more war posturing), and War Loser John McCain (though, he IS a POW!) has said that “we are all Georgians” in the wake of Georgia’s brilliant invasion of South Ossetia (where they were crushed by the Russian military shortly thereafter). McCain also said that “nations don’t invade other nations in the 21st century” — forgetting the Iraq War and his megalomaniacal plans to invade Iran. It’s this kind of posturing that makes the evolution of a second Cold War seem so imminent. Russia’s been compliant enough with the West’s orders after the fall of the USSR, but we have not complied with our agreement to stop the eastward expansion of NATO. As has been said — don’t prod the sleeping bear. And, maybe, just maybe, the Bear that is Russia will wake up.