The Real Villians

On April 17, 2008, John McCain had a conversation via telephone with the President of Georgia, Mikail Shaakashvili at the request of The McCain Campaign foreign policy advisor, Randy Scheunemann. That was the very day that Scheunemanns lobbying group, Orion Stategies had inked a 200,000 dollar deal with the Georgians to continue promoting their interests regarding United States policy.
I have already questioned the ethical propriety of this relationship. I have already questioned the ability of the McCain Campaign to make decisions in America's best interests when enmeshed in lobbying money and interests that influence those guiding his policies. I believe this alone raises grave issues regarding his judgement in general.

We know the timeline of the development of this conflict and some sort of event was inevitable given the personal animosity that exists between Shaakashvili and Vladimir Putin. The biggesst question here is, What on Earth gave Shaakashvili the idea he could attack South Ossetia without setting in motion the events which would bring disaster on himself and his country?

For me, the red flag went up the day of the invasion, May 8th when a Georgian Official speaking on CNN made the emotional plea for help and personally mentioned John McCain. On Monday, on the French Political News Discussion Program, C'est Dans L'Air, the leader of the Georgian opposition was a guest and mentioned that 2 weeks ago, Condoleeza Rice was in Georgia and had told the Georgians that any provocation to the Russians could be a big card in disfavor of their NATO candidacy.

What made the Georgian Military think they were invincible enough to go ahead and attack the Russian enclaves in South Ossetia? Who knows what their original plan was.
A quick operation, seizing cities? What ever their plan was, it got out of hand and we know now that the soldiers went on a rampage of destruction and violence against a civilian population. The fleeing civilians were shelled on the high way.

A “surprise.” My, oh, my.Except I don’t believe it. As easy as it is to believe that the CIA, etc., blew another huge event, I find it impossible to accept that not one of the 127 Pentagon advisors in Georgia, including Special Forces and intelligence contractors, were clueless about Tblisi’s intent — and preparations — to move into South Ossetia.That just doesn’t pass the laugh test.On July 15, for starters, amid rising tension between Moscow and Tblisi over South Ossetia, some 1,200 U.S. troops launched a three-week long joint military exercise with Georgian troops. Three weeks later, on the night of Aug. 7, “coinciding with the opening ceremony of the Beijing Olympics, Georgian President Saakashvili ordered an all-out military attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia.”It is simply inconceivable that the Pentagon wasn’t wired to the helmets of Georgian troops, despite the denials of U.S. military officials.

The Americans did help, all right, they helped prolong the false hopes of the Georgian Military by assisting in the airlift of the 2000 Georgian soldiers fighting in Iraq back to Georgia, but that was the end of involvement and George Bush sat, bored, toying with an American flag in the stands at the Peking Olympics.

Scheunemann's 'policy' was to get the Georgians ginned up on the idea that we were their close military allies and that we'd come to their rescue if their brinksmanship with the Russians went bad. Well, that didn't work out very well. Any situation where you start the shooting and then find yourself begging for a ceasefire within 48 hours is a major blunder. He's not an 'expert' on Georgia; he's the lead guy on the policy that got us into this situation. And the fact that John McCain would make him his chief policy advisor after he's been the conductor on so many trainwrecks should tell us all we need to know about Sen. McCain's foreign policy judgment.

If the Georgians want to punish the real villians in this debacle, they should look no further than their deluded President and his cabal of American Neo Con advisors who made the mistake of thinking John McCain made American foreign policy. The Georgian People were used and abandoned in a game of brinkmanship that only exposed the impotence of America in Eastern Europe. Now, Russia has made its powerplay and shown its hand. Georgia will probably lose some territory because of this and it will never be a member of NATO. I think they should ask Mr. Scheunemann for their $200,000 back.