Rand Paul, foreign policy genius

Rand Paul’s clownishness is apparently bottomless. It seems the events in Ukraine have opened up a new front in the GOP Civil War. On one side are the hawks — epitomized by the always-happy-to-bomb John McCain — who believe that the best response to events in Ukraine are to provoke Russia because… I’m never really clear on the “because” with these guys. Just because, I guess.

On the other are the more Libertarian anti-interventionists like Paul, who want to deal with Russia in a more diplomatic fashion and see if we can resolve things without brinksmanship and provocation. “Some on our side are so stuck in the Cold War era that they want to tweak Russia all the time and I don’t think that is a good idea,” Paul says. So far, so good.

Things get a little stupid as he goes on, however, because that’s what happens when Sen. Poodlehair doesn’t hit the off switch on his mouth. “We still need to be conscious of the fact that Russia has intercontinental ballistic missiles,” he told the Washington Post. “Though the Cold War is largely over, I think we need to have a respectful - sometimes adversarial - but a respectful relationship with Russia.”

We can’t be mean to Putin or Russia will nuke us — and Paul is warning against falling into a cold war mindset. Insert your favorite facepalm photo here.

[photo by Gage Skidmore]

Runner Nick Symmonds tests Russia’s anti-gay resolve

ThinkProgress: A top American distance runner dedicated the silver medal he won at the track and field World Championships in Moscow to his gay and lesbian friends, becoming the first athlete to openly defy Russia’s new anti-gay law that outlaws “homosexual propaganda.” Nick Symmonds won the silver medal in the 800-meters Tuesday, then broke a previous pledge to not speak out against the law while at the championships by telling a Russian news outlet that he had no choice but to say something.

“As much as I can speak out about it, I believe that all humans deserve equality as however God made them,” Symmonds told Russia’s R-Sport. “Whether you’re gay, straight, black, white, we all deserve the same rights. If there’s anything I can do to champion the cause and further it, I will, shy of getting arrested.”

“I respect Russians’ ability to govern their people,” he added. “I disagree with their laws. I do have respect for this nation. I disagree with their rules.”

According to the report, “Other athletes have pledged to speak out against the law during the Winter Olympics, which open in Sochi in February. Openly gay American figure skater Johnny Weir has said he is willing to get arrested during the Games in Russia, while gay speed skater Blake Skjellerup, who is from New Zealand, has pledged to wear a rainbow pin during competition in Sochi. The IOC said this week that it may punish athletes who speak out against the law during the Olympics for violating its rule against political statements.”

I thought that an international incident was inevitable and Symmonds is proving me right. If Russia ignores his “gay propaganda.” then that practically guarantees further high profile protests — i.e., the “gayest Olympics ever.” If they bust him, they’ll endure international condemnation. They really are in a no-win situation here.

No matter what happens, getting the Winter Olympics seems more of a headache than a victory for Russia, since a biggest benefit of being the host country is usually free advertising and boosterism. The image Russia (and any protests) will be broadcasting to the world will not be positive and, in the end, will do them more harm than good. Any company looking to avoid bad PR would be well-advised to have as little to do with Russia as possible,

[photo by JARRIN]

What if Snowden was a Russian whistleblower?

Conor Friedersdorf asks us to consider a very instructive scenario.

Imagine that an employee of a secretive surveillance agency in Russia or China landed at John F. Kennedy Airport in New York, somehow called a press conference, and revealed that the leaders of his country were secretly gathering up the private data of all Russians or Chinese in previously unknown ways, and that they were also spying on many Americans.

What would be the right thing to do in that situation? Should Obama return the leaker to Russia or China to face charges of revealing classified information and likely spend the rest of his life in prison? Or would the demands of justice and morality be better served by granting political asylum?

For all the freaking out about Russia granting Snowden temporary asylum, the fact is that all that freaking out is just ritual. The people doing it (at least those in government) have to do it, but it’s doubtful they ever seriously expected any other outcome. Russia will not do something simply because we demand it, for the same reason we do not automatically bend to Russian demands. Some people may not like the outcome, but thems the breaks.

We shouldn’t punish Russia for taking in Snowden, because it’s likely we would do the same if the situation was reversed. The global issues involved in our relationship with Russia are far more important than punishing someone who’s embarrassed the United States.

"To me, the U.S. would be foolish to let the Edward Snowden controversy affect its relationship with a nuclear power or to prioritize Snowden when so many more important issues are at stake," Friedersdorf writes.

Asteroid near-miss not so harmless after all

Reuters:

A meteor streaked across the sky and exploded over central Russia on Friday, sending fireballs crashing to earth which shattered windows and damaged buildings, injuring more than 500 people.

People heading to work in Chelyabinsk heard what sounded like an explosion, saw a bright light and then felt a shockwave, according to a Reuters correspondent in the industrial city 950 miles east of Moscow.

The fireball, travelling at a speed of 19 miles per second according to Russia’s space agency Roscosmos, had blazed across the horizon, leaving a long white trail in its wake which could be seen as far as 125 miles away.

Car alarms went off, windows broke and mobile phone networks were interrupted. The Interior Ministry said the meteor explosion had caused a sonic boom.

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Palin as Russia Expert Becomes GOP Talking Point

clipped from blogs.dw-world.de It looks like this is turning into some kind a talking point: On Sunday, in remarks to ABC, Cindy McCain said Sarah Palin had foreign policy experience because the state she governs, Alaska, is near Russia; then, to a fellow CQ reporter, former Bush administration official John Bolton offered the same defense of her, adding proximity to Canada as a qualification. It really is a bemusing strategy. Of all the arguments one could make for John McCain picking Palin, it offers the least. Via Political Animal: "Has Palin ever been to Russia? No. Has she ever demonstrated any expertise on U.S. policy towards Russia? No. Does she have any background in international relations at any level? No. But for Republicans, the fact that she's lived near Russia is somehow a qualification for national office. The mind reels."

It's a measure of how weak the pro-Palin argument is that this becomes a Republican talking point. Cindy McCain could be excused for saying it, but John "former Ambassador to the UN" Bolton? He knows it's total BS.

The Palin part of the team offers a very weak agreement with this argument, revealing that they're aware of just how lame it is; "Alaska’s geographic location certainly contributes to Governor Palin’s experience since she has dealt with trade and economic issues as a result, but it is only one part of her overall experience."

US, Poland Sign Missile Deal

clipped from news.bbc.co.uk The US and Poland have signed a deal to locate part of the US's controversial missile defence system on Polish soil. US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice travelled to Warsaw for the ceremony, after 18 months of negotiations. The deal has angered Russia, which has warned the base could become a target for a nuclear strike. Washington says the system will protect the US and much of Europe against missile attacks from "rogue elements" in the Middle East such as Iran. Speaking during the signing ceremony at the presidential palace in Warsaw, she emphasised that the missile system was "defensive and aimed at no-one". Russia's deputy chief of general staff, Gen Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said last week the plans for a missile base in Poland "could not go unpunished". "It is a cause for regret that at a time when we are already in a difficult situation, the American side further exacerbates the situation in relations between the United States and Russia," he said.

A few points to consider here:

1. This is being put across as a response to the Russo-Georgian crisis, but dumbass moves like this are actually one of the causes.

2. It's a BS system that doesn't work about 99% of the time.

3. Russia's statement that it would be the target of a nuke attack is a statement of fact, not a threat. If Russia ever feels the need to launch an attack on anyone, they'd take out these missile defense systems first, as ineffective as they are. Poland is foolishly painting a big bullseye on their back.

Griper Blade: Keep It Simple, Stupid

I always get some criticism when I look at a conflict someplace in the world, consider the arguments of both sides, and decide that there aren't any good guys in the fight. There's something in American thinking that requires every fight to be a fight of good against evil. We choose sides, cast the conflict in incredibly simplistic terms, and decide that the team we're backing isn't just faultless, but incapable of wrong. For a long-standing example of this, look at the popular conception of Israel vs. the Palestinians. Israel -- despite consistently damning reports by Amnesty International -- is practically angelic in the average American's mind.

These good guy/bad guy narratives have seemed to spring up overnight in recent history. Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait supposedly came out of nowhere. But the truth is that Kuwaitis had been stealing Iraqi oil through "slant drilling" at the Iraqi border. While no one would argue that Hussein's actions weren't excessive, only those who don't know the facts would say they were unprovoked -- which, given the sorry state of our media, would be pretty much everyone. The invasion of Kuwait was never presented as a dictator vs. thieves. For the home audience, it was bad guy vs. good guys.

And we're seeing the same thing in the Russo-Georgian crisis. There aren't any good guys there, no one we should root for on merely moral grounds. In the conflict, there's no real case to make for the legality of Russia's invasion -- it's pretty much unquestionably a crime. But another question is whether Georgia deserves to be seen as heroic. Not every victim of a crime is a solid citizen; criminal on criminal violence is awfully commonplace...

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Griper Blade: The [Your Name Here] Candidate

The big foreign policy expert in the 2008 presidential race is John McCain... Right? Of course, the problem with putting yourself across as an expert means that people are going to expect you to know what you're talking about. So, when the going gets tough, the tough get going -- to Wikipedia.

Taegan Goddard reports that Mr. Big Fancy Foreign Policy Expert seems to have turned to the open source encyclopedia to get the skinny on Georgia in the Russo-Georgian crisis. "A Wikipedia editor emailed Political Wire to point out some similarities between Sen. John McCain's speech today [August 11] on the crisis in Georgia and the Wikipedia article on the country Georgia," Goddard writes at his Congressional Quarterly blog. "Given the closeness of the words and sentence structure, most would consider parts of McCain's speech to be derived directly from Wikipedia."

Of course, Team McCain denies any Wiki-plagiarism. They claimed it was entirely coincidental. "Nonetheless, at least two political science professors have weighed in saying the similarities are more than coincidental and wouldn't be tolerated from their own students," writes Goddard.

It may be Matthew Yglesias who had the best reaction to the McCain copy-and-paste job; "Given that McCain, by his own admission, can't use the internet it's a bit of an ironic situation though perhaps it counts as progress of some sort."

Isn't that nice? McCain's learning to use the google...

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McCain: 'Nations don’t Invade other Nations'

clipped from thinkprogress.org In recent days, Sen. John McCain’s (R-AZ) rhetoric toward Russia has mostly been overblown bluster, including an accusation that the country wanted to restore its old empire. However, since a cease-fire was announced and his predictions were proven wrong, McCain has backtracked, saying there won’t be a Cold War. To justify his new position, he told reporters in a press conference today: In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations. Watch it:

Let me check my calendar here...

Yup, just as I thought; March 20, 2003 was the 21st Century.

Russia, Georgia Headed for 'All Out War'

clipped from www.afp.com Russian tanks and troops entered Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia province on Friday to repel a Georgian military offensive to reclaim the region amid fighting said to have left hundreds dead. Moscow vowed retaliation to defend Russians in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali hit by the Georgian artillery and air assault -- the worst fighting since the 1992-94 separatist war in the region. Amid spiralling tensions that the main European security watchdog warned were heading for "all out war", the Georgian government acknowledged it was already losing newly won areas of Tskhinvali that were bombarded by Russian forces. "If this is not war, then I wonder what is," Georgia's ambassador to the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) was quoted as telling a special meeting of the organisation's permanent council in Vienna.

Not the best news I've heard all day...

Griper Blade: Fighting Russia Over a Missile System That Doesn't Work

Condoleezza Rice is in Moscow today, trying to ease relations between Russia and the US.

Associated Press:

"I don't throw around terms like 'new Cold War,'" Rice said on her way to Moscow for a visit amid growing tensions underlined by President Vladimir Putin's increasing criticism of the United States. "It is a big, complicated relationship, but it is not one that is anything like the implacable hostility" that clouded ties between the United States and the Soviet Union.

"It is not an easy time in the relationship, but it is also not, I think, a time in which cataclysmic things are affecting the relationship or catastrophic things are happening in the relationship," Rice told reporters aboard her plane. "But it is critically important to use this time to enhance those things that are going well and to work on those things that are not going well."

Last week, in a speech commemorating the defeat of the nazis, Putin alluded to the US while denouncing it for "disrespect for human life, claims to global exclusiveness and dictate, just as it was in the time of the Third Reich." When someone thinks you're like the freakin' nazis, things aren't really going very well...

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