Click on WORD or PDF below for full content
George Friedman of Stratfor explains the Kosovar background to the Georgian crisis.
The Russo-Georgian war was rooted in broad geopolitical processes. In large part it was simply the result of the cyclical reassertion of Russian power. The Russian empire — czarist and Soviet — expanded to its borders in the 17th and 19th centuries. It collapsed in 1992. The Western powers wanted to make the disintegration permanent. It was inevitable that Russia would, in due course, want to reassert its claims. That it happened in Georgia was simply the result of circumstance.
There is, however, another context within which to view this, the context of Russian perceptions of U.S. and European intentions and of U.S. and European perceptions of Russian capabilities. This context shaped the policies that led to the Russo-Georgian war. And those attitudes can only be understood if we trace the question of Kosovo, because the Russo-Georgian war was forged over the last decade over the Kosovo question.
Yugoslavia broke up into its component republics in the early 1990s. The borders of the republics did not cohere to the distribution of nationalities. Many — Serbs, Croats, Bosnians and so on — found themselves citizens of republics where the majorities were not of their ethnicities and disliked the minorities intensely for historical reasons. Wars were fought between Croatia and Serbia (still calling itself Yugoslavia because Montenegro was part of it), Bosnia and Serbia and Bosnia and Croatia. Other countries in the region became involved as well.
One conflict became particularly brutal. Bosnia had a large area dominated by Serbs. This region wanted to secede from Bosnia and rejoin Serbia. The Bosnians objected and an internal war in Bosnia took place, with the Serbian government involved. This war involved the single greatest bloodletting of the bloody Balkan wars, the mass murder by Serbs of Bosnians.
Here we must pause and define some terms that are very casually thrown around. …
David Warren has an update on the Canadian “Human Rights” Commissions (CHRC).
Perhaps I wrote too soon, last Wednesday, in listing the “human rights” prosecutions against various “politically incorrect” journalists that had been dismissed recently by Canada’s “human rights” kangaroo courts. A new round seems to be on the way.
Fresh from having one set of charges, filed against him by Islamists, dismissed by an Alberta kangaroo court, Ezra Levant has now been served with a fresh set through the Canadian Human Rights Commission. Rob Wells, the new complainant, is the same whose charges against Fr Alphonse de Valk and Catholic Insight were dismissed recently, after costing that small magazine a bundle. Nor was that his first use of the CHRC. Details and documents may be found through Ezra Levant’s website. …
… Dean Steacy, a leading apparatchik of the CHRC, was directly asked in an on-record exchange during one kangaroo court hearing, “What value do you give freedom of speech when you investigate one of these complaints?”
He replied: “Freedom of speech is an American concept, so I don’t give it any value.”
Quote this, as it has been frequently quoted, to members of Canada’s political establishment, and you do not get a rise. Like many other “human rights” operators, Mr. Steacy plays on a seedy, knee-jerk anti-Americanism, to obliterate Canada’s own deep tradition of intellectual freedom. …
The humor section starts early because you need to know about The Temple of Obama. First though, Dave Barry reports from the convention floor.
… 7:48 — Through intense effort I manage to surge maybe eight feet, where the path is blocked by a TV network that has set up a platform on the floor so its reporters can report on the convention by talking to each other with their backs to the actual convention. There is huge excitement in the surge as people catch glimpses of both Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer, who are, in this environment, the Beatles. The surgers all stop, whip out cellphones, and take pictures of the backs of the heads of people who are taking pictures of the backs of the heads of people who might actually be getting direct visual shots of Anderson and Wolf. It is a lifetime convention memory.
7:53 — I keep fighting my way forward. As I squeeze past a group of men in suits, I have strong and direct buttular contact, lasting a good seven seconds, with New York Sen. Chuck Schumer. At least it was good for me.
7:58 — I finally reach my destination: the Florida delegates. I was concerned that they might get confused and wind up in, say, New Orleans, but there they were, and as a Floridian I am proud to report that they were wearing pink flamingo sunglasses that expressed the clear message: “Hey, we’re dorks!” …
Here is some background on Obama at the Barackopolis. Power Line has details. They also post on Toga recommendations.
Ed Morrissey is on to the Temple of Obama.
Politico reports that “senior Democratic officials” have had second thoughts about the wisdom of the scope, scale, and setting for tonight’s Barack Obama speech at Invesco Field. The Greek temple set design appears to have been the last straw, and they now worry about the “rock star” impression that this will leave with American voters who increasingly see Obama as a fad and not a serious candidate. Democrats failed to foresee this despite nominating their least qualified and experienced candidate in decades, if not in their entire history:
From the elaborate stagecraft to the teeming crowd of 80,000 cheering partisans, the vagaries of the weather to the unpredictable audience reaction, the optics surrounding the stadium event have heightened worries that the Obama campaign is engaging in a high-risk endeavor in an uncontrollable environment. …
Ed also posts on the the revised GDP figures.
So where does all this lead. Weekly Standard posts to Intrade the online gambling site.
Karl Rove writes on the next session of Congress and the opportunities it will provide for McCain.
Democrats and Republicans have scripted their conventions as tightly as possible. But after delegates return home with buttons, badges and banners, the curtain will rise on a more unruly drama: the fall session of Congress. And it could affect the November election more than the conventions.
The House and Senate return to Washington Monday, Sept. 8. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid hope it will be a short session, ending on Sept. 26. That will allow members to go home and campaign, not to return until after Election Day. Good luck. …
… Democrats control Congress, so they are accountable. Mr. Reid and Mrs. Pelosi are two of the worst advertisements for Congress imaginable. And Mr. McCain has an impressive record of political reform he can invoke, whereas Mr. Obama, who has yet to complete his first term in the Senate, has no accomplishments to point to that demonstrate that he is an agent of change.
The 110th Congress is an excellent target for Mr. McCain. He ought to take careful aim at it and commence firing.
David Harsanyi says the Dem convention heralds the end of free markets.
Well, it’s no wonder Democrats didn’t want former President Bill Clinton to speak on the economy. Some delegates might have had the temerity to wonder: Hey, why did we experience all that prosperity in the ’90s?
It certainly wasn’t due to populism, or isolationism, or more government dependency, or any of the hard-left economic policies being preached nightly by speakers at the Democratic National Convention.
No, it was capitalism — more of it, not less of it.
Naturally, every political convention features its share of demagoguery. But buried beneath all the idealistic talk in Denver are some ugly details.
Those who had the inner fortitude to remain conscious through speeches by Bob Casey and Mark Warner were surely entertained by the theatrics of populist Montana Gov. Brian Schweitzer (a man who represents the possibility of America — a place where even a former cast member of “Hee Haw!” can become governor of Montana).
When Schweitzer claims “we must invest” in projects he likes, he means government will take it and invest it for you.
You see, you must. …
Yesterday, Washington Post goes page 1 with story about William Ayers and Obama, and a GOP inspired ad.
… “Why would Barack Obama be friends with somebody who bombed the Capitol and is proud of it?” intones a voice on the ad, which is running in conservative areas of Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania and Virginia. “Do you know enough to elect Barack Obama?”
The ad is no video stunt, said Evan Tracey of the Campaign Media Analysis Group, which tracks political advertising. It began running last Thursday, and as of Tuesday, $360,000 had been spent on 264 showings, 52 of them in the Grand Rapids, Mich., media market, just under 40 around Cincinnati, 18 in Norfolk, and half a dozen around Pittsburgh, a corner of Pennsylvania that Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton dominated in the spring Democratic primary battle.
“Certainly it connects with base voters,” Tracey said. “If you can’t get excited about voting for McCain, these are the kinds of ads that get them excited about voting against Obama.” …
If you’re like Pickerhead, you need a Mark Steyn fix. Here’s a column from April 27 this year.
Last week, Time magazine featured on its cover the iconic photograph of U.S. Marines raising the flag on Iwo Jima. But with one difference: The flag has been replaced by a tree. The managing editor of Time, Rick Stengel, was very pleased with the lads in graphics for cooking up this cute image and was all over the TV sofas, talking up this ingenious visual shorthand for what he regards as the greatest challenge facing mankind: “How To Win The War On Global Warming.”
Where to begin? For the past 10 years, we all have, in fact, been not warming but slightly cooling, which is why the ecowarriors have adopted the all-purpose bogeyman of “climate change.” But let’s take it that the editors of Time are referring not to the century we live in but the previous one, when there was a measurable rise of temperature of approximately 1 degree. That’s the “war”: 1 degree.
If the tree-raising is Iwo Jima, a 1-degree increase isn’t exactly Pearl Harbor. But Gen. Stengel wants us to engage in pre-emptive war. The editors of Time would be the first to deplore such saber-rattling applied to, say, Iran’s nuclear program, but it has become the habit of progressive opinion to appropriate the language of war for everything but actual war.
So let’s cut to the tree. In my corner of New Hampshire, we have more trees than we did 100 or 200 years ago. My town is over 90 percent forested. Any more trees, and I’d have to hack my way through the undergrowth to get to my copy of Time magazine on the coffee table. Likewise Vermont, where not so long ago in St. Albans I found myself stuck behind a Hillary supporter driving a Granolamobile bearing the bumper sticker “TO SAVE A TREE REMOVE A BUSH.” Very funny. And even funnier when you consider that on that stretch of Route 7 there’s nothing to see, north, south, east or west, but maple, hemlock, birch, pine, you name it. It’s on every measure other than tree cover that Vermont’s kaput. …