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Kick off the Olympics with a new war!

Posted by JAZZ SHAW, Assistant Editor in At TMV.
Aug 8th, 2008 | Comments

What better way to note the opening day of the Olympics than with a new war. James Joyner reports that Russi has tanks rolling over the border into the Caucasus region of South Ossetia in Georgia. (For all of you who consider yourself “caucasian” this may be your homeland. Ok… enough snark.) Indeed, news reports have already begun pouring in about military activity in the region, and this morning’s television news is reporting that Georgia has shot down two Russian war planes and the Russians have bombed a Georgian air base near that country’s capitol.

Georgian officials said their military had fired on Russian planes and that their aircraft had bombed a convoy of Russian tanks that moved into South Ossetia, the pro-Russian enclave that has enjoyed de facto autonomy from Georgia since 2004. A local Russian official said the convoy was humanitarian.

Read Joyner’s piece for a good thumbnail description of the history of conflict in this region. This probably won’t come as much of a surprise to anyone who follows the news from that part of the world. There has been bad blood between the Russians and Georgia since before the fall of the Soviet Union. The South Ossetia region has apparently long been more loyal to Russia and the old Soviet empire, but the Georgians see it as part of their turf. It’s actually a quite small parcel of land, and you can see a good map of the region here.

Here’s a question for the readers to bat about on Friday morning… do we have a dog in this fight? If so, why?

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Neocon

Absolutely without a doubt the USA has a dog in this fight.

Running for more than 1,600 kilometers through Azerbaijan, Georgia and Turkey, BTC is one of the most strategically important pieces of energy infrastructure in the world. Strongly backed by the U.S., it was designed to be the first major pipeline to bring Caspian oil to Western markets without going through Russia, and thereby to ease Moscow's tight grip on oil exports from the region.

I rather suspect that the Russians in their muscle flexing would love to get their hands on this pipeline. Do not forget that Russian officials have indicated more then once that they predict that Russia will stop exporting oil in 2010.

The world is at peril from oil. The USA needs to get off her duff and find new oil while we can make the transition to alternatives for our own security.

Silhouette

"What better way to note the opening day of the Olympics than with a new war."

******

I know! It almost seems choreographed..

Now who would stand to gain by pulling a stunt like this? It's a question with a very broad-spectrum answer...

(Hint: think "strange bedfellows" "oil" and "politics"... )

daveinboca

Neocon, you are right on the money. The Russians want to control the pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan which passes through Georgia for about a third of its distance. I was working for Amoco when the pipeline agreement was signed in the mid-nineties & even then the Russians were dead set against the export of Caspian oil to the West without going through Russian territory. [I visited Baku & other parts of the Caucasus a dozen times back then & almost died of food poisoning.

The US planned & helped build this pipeline---it keeps the price of oil far below what it would be if the Russians controlled it. The Russians are still the largest crude exporter in the world [or tied with Saudi Arabia] and want the price as high as possible.

Watch for the pipeline to be disrupted or bombed by Russian planes to jack up the price of oil again---you saw it here first.

And with high oil prices, dissatisfied Americans are more likely to vote in a feckless Obama---the Russians consider this callow youth a Jimmy Carter Redux. The USSR invaded Afghanistan because they knew Jimmy was a toothless tiger cub---he was so busy giving away the Panama Canal & grinning while Iran took US hostages, the USSR thought he was as stupid as he looked.

Obama would just be another EU-nuch.

daveinboca

Neocon, you are right on the money. The Russians want to control the pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan which passes through Georgia for about a third of its distance. I was working for Amoco when the pipeline agreement was signed in the mid-nineties & even then the Russians were dead set against the export of Caspian oil to the West without going through Russian territory. [I visited Baku & other parts of the Caucasus a dozen times back then & almost died of food poisoning.] Even the otherwise unworldly Bill Clinton was 100% behind the Amoco Pipeline [soon to be the BP pipeline] & as Amoco's Strategic Entry guy, I got frequent & instant access to NSC officials husbanding the project inside the USG.

The US planned & helped build this pipeline---it keeps the price of oil far below what it would be if the Russians controlled it. The Russians are still the largest crude exporter in the world [or tied with Saudi Arabia] and want the price as high as possible.

Watch for the pipeline to be disrupted or bombed by Russian planes to jack up the price of oil again---you saw it here first.

And with high oil prices, dissatisfied Americans are more likely to vote in a feckless Obama---the Russians consider this callow youth a Jimmy Carter Redux. The USSR invaded Afghanistan because they knew Jimmy was a toothless tiger cub---he was so busy giving away the Panama Canal & grinning while Iran took US hostages, the USSR thought he was as stupid as he looked.

Obama would just be another EU-nuch.

Putin is behind this & is the "strategerist" striking while the world's media is preoccupied in Beijing----he knows the US MSM doesn't want to cover a war in the faraway Caucasus while the lazy newsies are basking in Beijing smog & a US presidential race, plus he knows the MSM wants to minimize the foreign policy implications as that would make McCain look like the man for the job.

Neocon

Yep. The price of oil is falling rather drastically and if the Russians can interceede they will. Although the BTC only pumps around 700k bbls per day Im not sure if the shut down of this pipeline will cause the price to rise or not in the current declining world demand due to economic slow down.

This is another classic example of why the USA needs to drill and have at its disposal its own oil. Even if it does not allow for total independence it will allow for security given a world rapidly going mad.

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