Georgia succumbs to neocon bluster

Thrust forward chest, adopt a ‘wide stance’, sneer and bellow, We’re Number One! fourteen times. Pump fist. This will scatter any opposition and convince lesser beings in places with funny names and inferior quality toilet fixtures to become ‘democratic’ and start to ‘love freedom’.

The neocon approach to geopolitics is a wonderful thing, at least in theory. With the U.S. as the ‘world’s sole superpower’, the millenium had been achieved at last even without the descent of Jesus Christ from the firmament. Everyone was to do ‘our’ bidding and quiver with anxiety over the possibility of falling out of favor with the big guys.

Except that put into practice the theory really didn’t describe the world as currently constituted, despite the vast supply of nuclear and conventional weapons and the trillions of dollars whizzing around our Wal-Marts. The brand-new debacle in Georgia is a good example.

For the Boltons and the Cheneys, it was unthinkable to even question the wisdom of harassing the Russians and sticking a finger in their face at every opportunity, encircling them with NATO adversaries, setting missiles in Poland and loudly trumpeting the pro-Western political and military alliances being constructed along their western frontier, whence (it was not permitted to recall) they had been invaded by the Nazis.

All this was consistent with the neocon view that when you got it, you gotta flaunt it, press the advantage and sweep the board. They apply the same principles to the Democratic Party ‘opposition’ and the American worker—why give them anything when we can keep it all for ourselves? They believe in crushing triumph and contempt for the loser wimp.

Their over-confidence seems to have infected Georgian president Saakashvili who mistakenly thought that being an enthusiastic third fiddle in the Iraq conquest meant someone was going to bail his ass out when the time came.

I saw the guy interviewed by the BBC, and with his thoroughly Americanized accent in English, it’s striking how much he sounds like a late-night TV salesman who chatters away annoyingly until the avalanche of words loosens your wallet. But unfortunately for him, the Russians don’t seem to be in need of home exercise equipment.

The neocon knuckleheads got everything they wanted from the unfortunate Georgians, including slavering enthusiasm to join NATO and do the Americans’ bidding. But the Bushites failed to remind Saakashvili of the limits of their own power because they convinced themselves there weren’t any. Now his country pays the price.