Webloggin » Obama Campaign and Russian Apparatchiks on the Same Page Over Georgia Conflict

As usual, you have to go outside the normal MSM channels to learn that communist media apparatchiks in Russia and the Obama campaign share the same talking points on the conflict in Georgia.

Charles Bremmer of The Times Online reported the following from Moscow in an article titled Kremlin dusts off Cold War lexicon to make US villain in Georgia:

Russians were told over breakfast yesterday what really happened in Georgia: the conflict in South Ossetia was part of a plot by Dick Cheney, the Vice-President, to stop Barack Obama being elected president of the United States.

The line came on the main news of Vesti FM, a state radio station that — like the Government and much of Russia’s media — has reverted to the old habits of Soviet years, in which a sinister American hand was held to lie behind every conflict, especially those embarrassing to Moscow. Modern Russia may be plugged into the internet and the global marketplace but in the battle for world opinion the Kremlin is replaying the old black-and-white movie.

The Obama angle is getting wide play. It was aired on Wednesday by Sergei Markov, a senior political scientist who is close to Vladimir Putin, the Prime Minister and power behind President Medvedev.

“George Bush’s Administration is promoting interests of candidate John McCain,” said Dr Markov. “Defeated by Barak Obama on all fronts, McCain has one last card to play yet – the creation of a virtual Cold War with Russia . . . Bush himself did not want a war in South Ossetia but his Republican Party did not leave him any choice.” The Americans were now engineering an armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia, Dr Markov added.

The Establishment and its media supporters are dusting off favourites from the Cold War shelf. Sergei Lavrov, the Foreign Minister, accused Washington of playing dangerous games. The West was guilty of “adventurism”, supporting aggression against peace-loving Russian forces who are engaged on a humanitarian mission to protect human life.

Compare those statements to how the Obama campaign played the incident as reported by Ed Morrisey of Hot Air

Susan Rice wanders far out of reality in her appearance on Hardball last night. Desperate to salvage Barack Obama’s feckless response to the Russian invasion of Georgia, his senior foreign-policy adviser said that John McCain’s strong response may have “complicated” the situation in the Caucasus. With Russian tanks and airplanes slamming into apartment houses in Gori, that would have taken some kind of wordsmithing:

John McCain shot from the hip, [with a] very aggressive, very belligerent statement …He may or may not have complicated the situation.

I understand that Rice wants to spin this for Obama, but even this is flat-out ridiculous. McCain didn’t “shoot from the hip” — unlike Obama, he actually knew the situation and understood its implications. In fact, one need look no further for confirmation of this than Obama’s later statements, in which he agreed with McCain’s original statement on the subject.

Obama’s campaign seems to agree with this. Richard Holbrooke, another of Obama’s 300 foreign policy advisers, told CNN that Obama and McCain agree on the response to Georgia, and that the Bush administration was “behind the curve”. Actually, the Bush administration heightened its response before the Obama campaign did. Besides, which is it? Did McCain get it right, or did Obama get it wrong later?

Other critics have derided McCain’s supposed “saber rattling” and said calm diplomacy is what was needed. I’d suggest they read McCain’s statements again. Nowhere in them does he hint at retaliatory American military action, but instead suggests strong diplomatic and economic consequences for Russia’s invasion of a sovereign democracy. Guess what? That is diplomacy, and a lot more effective than condemning the victim of the invasion at the same time as the invader himself.

Besides, it seems the definition of obtuseness in accusing McCain of “saber rattling” while Russian tanks rolled all over northern Georgia.

Surprised? No? Me neither. The Obama campaign appears more and more desperate as they seek to provide cover for his lack of experience and his misstatements while the American left continues to align themselves with enemies and detractors of the United States.

This latest alignment of Barack Obama and the Kremlin line that blames the United States is a crystal clear example of where President Barack Obama would stand when it comes to initiating the foreign policy wishes of our adversaries. They share the same world view so why would anyone believe they would differ drastically in policy?

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