Georgia War: A Neocon Election Ploy? By Robert Scheer

[Better Believe It]

Georgia War: A Neocon Election Ploy?
By Robert Scheer
The Nation
August 13, 2008

Is it possible that this time the October surprise was tried in August, and that the garbage issue of brave little Georgia struggling for its survival from the grasp of the Russian bear was stoked to influence the US presidential election?

Before you dismiss that possibility, consider the role of one Randy Scheunemann, for four years a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government, ending his official lobbying connection only in March, months after he became Republican presidential candidate Senator John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser.

Previously, Scheunemann was best known as one of the neoconservatives who engineered the war in Iraq when he was a director of the Project for a New American Century. It was Scheunemann who, after working on the McCain 2000 presidential campaign, headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which championed the US Iraq invasion.

There are telltale signs that he played a similar role in the recent Georgia flare-up. How else to explain the folly of his close friend and former employer, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, in ordering an invasion of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, which clearly was expected to produce a Russian counter-reaction. It is inconceivable that Saakashvili would have triggered this dangerous escalation without some assurance from influential Americans he trusted, like Scheunemann, that the United States would have his back. Scheunemann long guided McCain in these matters, even before he was officially running foreign policy for McCain's presidential campaign.


Please read the entire article at:

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/scheer2

[cliffordu]

1. Welcome to 1939.

This time we are on the wrong side.

[C_U_L8R]

2. It's a Bush family trademark

wouldn't surprise me in the least... though it appears they are f*cking it up.

[lapfog_1]

3. yup

doesn't require a vast conspiracy, just one guy making a phone call and a duped leader on the other end of the line ("sure the US will back you up, you must not let these rebels in South Ossetia off the hook... the russians dare not invade!")

Think back to the first Gulf War... Kuwait was slant drilling into Iraq's oil... and we had US Ambassador April Glaspie telling Saddam "go ahead and invade... the US will not take sides..."

[moondust]

4. Maybe partially.

The Russia-Georgia conflict obviously did not just start since McBombs became the Puke nominee. I don't know the full history of it personally but there are Russians posting on the BBC board that say Georgia "lost" South Ossetia and Abkhazia 20 years ago. That would put it around the time of the Soviet disintegration. There's been a lot of friction between the two since. But Saak-li certainly may be using McBombs' (temporary!) prominence in the Presidential campaign to try a few tricks...and vice versa.

Incidentally, posters on the BBC board overwhelmingly support Russia, some making a direct comparison to what happened in Kosovo.

[DailyGrind51]

5. Exactly, which is why Rove was vacationing in the Crimea last month!

[Avalux]

6. Yes. Absolutely. FEAR FEAR FEAR.

Time to make the American people scared shitless so they'll have no choice but to vote for asshat McCain. Ramp up the militarism and institute a draft.

[Supersedeas]

7. Breaking out a new line of Argument for the Fall--Andy Card style

[TNOE]

8. Thought so from the start.

[dkofos]

9. This has the smell of a rovian October suprise.

[Joe Chi Minh]

10. Actually, I was wondering if the Georgian President was a Neocon in disguise.

You now, Feith, Wolfowitz, Rumsfeld... well he's too vertically challenged, but you know, one of them...