Not really time to gloat, but.....
Look, I gotta toot my horn a bit here: I called oil, I called gas, I called GM and Ford, I called Russia ... but not specifically Georgia. All of that was kind of easy. Harder was the call on the Euro and the Pound, but I have those in the bag too. Trust me, they are headed South.
But let's look at Georgia a sec ... what is the point here? Georgia has given the Kremlin the finger since 2004 ... actually since Shevardnadze was kicked out, the Russian poodle that he was. Russia replied with an embargo. Georgia thrived. Russia turned off the energy taps. Even better. Georgia stamped out Russian-style corruption: they fired 1/2 of the police force, then doubled the salaries of those remaining. Georgia started to look for NATO membership, even an idea of EU inclusion as a functioning democracy. Georgia sent troops to Iraq. Russia started handing out passports to "ethnic Russians" within Georgian territory ... not so good.
Then when Georgia moves to squash an insurgency orchestrated by Russia, Russia mysteriously produces 30,000 troops, Navy landing ships, squadrons of Sukhois, and armored divisions ... right in time to roll into Georgia during the Olympics. Putin watches the opening ceremony less than 10 feet from Dubbya. That is one cold (not cool) cat. Putin flies home to ramp up the propaganda BS even more: Georgians are doing a tad of ethnic cleansing.
Why are the Russians really there? I guess there are two main considerations: (1) tell all the rest of the satellite states that the line stops here ... no more NATO membership, no more reapproachment to the West/EU (think Ukraine); and (2) Russia is the second largest producer of oil and the largest exported of natural gas -- they need to exercise control over the Azerbaijani / Georgian export link which was constructed precisely to avoid Russian control, and they need to retain control over exports to the EU.
The EU is in a hammer-lock: they have trusted -- very stupidly -- that the poor impoverished Russians needed their money more than they needed the Russian's energy. It didn't work out that way, even though a moron with room temperature IQ could have told you that it wouldn't. But the EU was afflicted with the same sort of short-sightedness that they have always accused the U.S. of ... cheap energy now, and we will develop a "special relationship" with our kind Russian friends -- those dirty Americans have always been wrong about the Russians.
Idiots. History would have shown any interested observer that the Russians have always plotted and intrigued for the long haul, just like their Chinese neighbors. The xenophobic, conservative American has been proved right only too often. We Americans have been bought off by the Chinese because they hold our debt, we mortgage our homes for Arab fuel ... but we could ... just could ... manage without. Europe will freeze to death without the Russians. That is one shit-miserable place to be.
The Russians have had a chip on their shoulders since well before Stalin's time ... their goal has always been empire, communism a hiccough on the long road. Putin is a conniver in the mould of the Czars. So with the eyes of the world on the frou-frou of Beijing, they have started on the long road of military conquest. Again. Small steps to be sure, but the import is massive.
I think that it is very interesting that the current EU president is Sarko l'Americain. He showed himself to be presidential in every sense of the word, with testicular fortitude that would have been absent from every other potential EU country.
ANOTHER interesting facet of this messy little war, is the coordinated cyber-assault by the Russians against Georgia. This is the first time we have seen this attack in support of military movements, but certainly not the last. Russia, of course, denies it. Why bother? If you are killing Georgians with bullets, why not admit to the cyber attack? On July 20, various U.S. internet security organizations noted a denial of service attack against the Georgian government. Then, as tanks rolled, it became an all-out assault. American experts watched as internet traffic was re-routed against Georgia by servers run by Russian telecommunications firms, DDOS software downloadable on Russian language sites, and -- very interestingly -- a huge assault run through the "Russian Business Network" and dummy computers they are known to control. The RBN, based in St. Petersburg, is widely known in the internet world as the base of a criminal gang that phishes, does DDOS for hire, runs online scams, etc. The bad news bears of the internet world. And here the RBN runs an attack for the Russian government, proof absolute that the Russian government is at least a beneficiary of the profits and ill-gotten gains of the RBN, if not the actual boss of the whole operation: remember the blog stating "Kleptocracy?" Experts are saying that this is not necessarily the case, blah, blah. They are probably afraid of a Polonium milkshake.
I particularly like the fact that in the initial attacks, the servers that staged/ran them were based in the U.S. ... but had come online only in the previous few weeks. Clever, that. But in so doing, there are fingerprints all over the preparations, the botnets set up, the ownership of servers, the links, ... and the DNA of future attacks. Even to the extent of an early warning system.
The Bear is awake and he is hungry.
But let's look at Georgia a sec ... what is the point here? Georgia has given the Kremlin the finger since 2004 ... actually since Shevardnadze was kicked out, the Russian poodle that he was. Russia replied with an embargo. Georgia thrived. Russia turned off the energy taps. Even better. Georgia stamped out Russian-style corruption: they fired 1/2 of the police force, then doubled the salaries of those remaining. Georgia started to look for NATO membership, even an idea of EU inclusion as a functioning democracy. Georgia sent troops to Iraq. Russia started handing out passports to "ethnic Russians" within Georgian territory ... not so good.
Then when Georgia moves to squash an insurgency orchestrated by Russia, Russia mysteriously produces 30,000 troops, Navy landing ships, squadrons of Sukhois, and armored divisions ... right in time to roll into Georgia during the Olympics. Putin watches the opening ceremony less than 10 feet from Dubbya. That is one cold (not cool) cat. Putin flies home to ramp up the propaganda BS even more: Georgians are doing a tad of ethnic cleansing.
Why are the Russians really there? I guess there are two main considerations: (1) tell all the rest of the satellite states that the line stops here ... no more NATO membership, no more reapproachment to the West/EU (think Ukraine); and (2) Russia is the second largest producer of oil and the largest exported of natural gas -- they need to exercise control over the Azerbaijani / Georgian export link which was constructed precisely to avoid Russian control, and they need to retain control over exports to the EU.
The EU is in a hammer-lock: they have trusted -- very stupidly -- that the poor impoverished Russians needed their money more than they needed the Russian's energy. It didn't work out that way, even though a moron with room temperature IQ could have told you that it wouldn't. But the EU was afflicted with the same sort of short-sightedness that they have always accused the U.S. of ... cheap energy now, and we will develop a "special relationship" with our kind Russian friends -- those dirty Americans have always been wrong about the Russians.
Idiots. History would have shown any interested observer that the Russians have always plotted and intrigued for the long haul, just like their Chinese neighbors. The xenophobic, conservative American has been proved right only too often. We Americans have been bought off by the Chinese because they hold our debt, we mortgage our homes for Arab fuel ... but we could ... just could ... manage without. Europe will freeze to death without the Russians. That is one shit-miserable place to be.
The Russians have had a chip on their shoulders since well before Stalin's time ... their goal has always been empire, communism a hiccough on the long road. Putin is a conniver in the mould of the Czars. So with the eyes of the world on the frou-frou of Beijing, they have started on the long road of military conquest. Again. Small steps to be sure, but the import is massive.
I think that it is very interesting that the current EU president is Sarko l'Americain. He showed himself to be presidential in every sense of the word, with testicular fortitude that would have been absent from every other potential EU country.
ANOTHER interesting facet of this messy little war, is the coordinated cyber-assault by the Russians against Georgia. This is the first time we have seen this attack in support of military movements, but certainly not the last. Russia, of course, denies it. Why bother? If you are killing Georgians with bullets, why not admit to the cyber attack? On July 20, various U.S. internet security organizations noted a denial of service attack against the Georgian government. Then, as tanks rolled, it became an all-out assault. American experts watched as internet traffic was re-routed against Georgia by servers run by Russian telecommunications firms, DDOS software downloadable on Russian language sites, and -- very interestingly -- a huge assault run through the "Russian Business Network" and dummy computers they are known to control. The RBN, based in St. Petersburg, is widely known in the internet world as the base of a criminal gang that phishes, does DDOS for hire, runs online scams, etc. The bad news bears of the internet world. And here the RBN runs an attack for the Russian government, proof absolute that the Russian government is at least a beneficiary of the profits and ill-gotten gains of the RBN, if not the actual boss of the whole operation: remember the blog stating "Kleptocracy?" Experts are saying that this is not necessarily the case, blah, blah. They are probably afraid of a Polonium milkshake.
I particularly like the fact that in the initial attacks, the servers that staged/ran them were based in the U.S. ... but had come online only in the previous few weeks. Clever, that. But in so doing, there are fingerprints all over the preparations, the botnets set up, the ownership of servers, the links, ... and the DNA of future attacks. Even to the extent of an early warning system.
The Bear is awake and he is hungry.
posted by Zaphod at Tuesday, August 12, 2008
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