Secretary of State Rice announced today that the United States would provide $1 billion in aid to help the Republic of Georgia recover from the damage it suffered in its recent war with Russia. It’s bad enough when American taxpayers have to pay for wars in which the United States was a belligerent. But this was a war between two other countries. And one can’t even say that Georgia is an ally of the United States. America has no defense treaty with that country. Even worse, the war began when Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saaskashvili, disregarded U.S. warnings not to fall into the trap of provoking Russia. Instead, he ordered an artillery barrage against the capital of a secessionist region that was under Russia’s protection. Apparently it didn’t occur to him that it was a bad idea to pick a fight with a country whose military forces were ten times larger than his own.
So now American taxpayers, who are already laboring under a $9 trillion national debt and an annual federal budget deficit of $400 billion, should pay for the Georgian government’s folly. Thanks, Condi. It’s not like we had anything better to do with that money.
John McCain blisters Russia for its military intervention in Georgia, saying “in the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations.” Excuse me?? What does the good senator think the United States did in Afghanistan and Iraq? And the last time I looked, both 2001 and 2003 were years in the 21st century. The man has apparently no sense of irony, or he is elevating hypocrisy to a whole new level.
Similarly, President Bush accuses the Russians of “bullying” behavior. Now, I certainly don’t like what the Russians are doing in Georgia–even though the Georgian government is not exactly the poor democratic victim of unprovoked aggression as it it typically portrayed in the Western media. But even if Moscow’s actions do constitute bullying, consider the number of occasions since the end of the Cold War that the United States has initiated military force against small, weak countries. Panama, 1989, Iraq 1991, Somalia, 1992, Haiti, 1994, the Bosnian Serb republic, 1995, Afghanistan 2001, Iraq (again), 2003. Only the invasion of Afghanistan was truly justified on the basis of self-defense.
Before Bush, McCain, and their warhawk allies start lecturing Russia about improper use of military force, they need to acquire one crucial foreign policy tool that they apparently lack. A mirror.