Putin: “US Started It!”

A short article in the New York Times describes an accusation levied by the Russian sorta-PM/President that the US manufactured or somehow incited the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia.

I don’t post this because I think this is some groundbreaking admission that validates conspiracy-theorists everywhere, or because I think Putin is making a great point.  I do think this is a great EXAMPLE of an important international phenomenon though:  The total lack of trust in the US government by those outside of the US (and also, within, well-illustrated by the very substantial portion of the population that belives the US government was involved in 9/11) and the political advantages that come with presenting yourself as being in opposition to the US (I certainly believe Hugo Chavez and Vladimir Putin intentionally create that image for domestic consumption, though I’m sure they really don’t like us either.  They just hate us LOUDER than they would otherwise).

I do honestly wonder what involvement the US could have had (beyond their material/training support of the Georgian military in the time before the invasion, which could very well be incidental to the invasion).  I have trouble imagining that Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili would act without consulting or tipping his hand in some way to the US, or without some sort of soft confirmation of support (his 5.7m person nation could certainly make quick work of the 70,000 person ‘nation’/'region’/'whatever’ of South Ossetia, but I find it impossible that he would think Russia would abstain from intervening… though perhaps in a manner more gentle than what turned out to be the case).

Of course, perhaps Saakashvili tipped his hand to whatever mid-level bureaucrats might be responsible for monitoring the Caucasus nations, and the news stopped there or was escalated to some upper-mid-level bureaucrat in the State Department, and it got lost on its way to Condi.  And Saakashvili took a silent reply as implicit wink-wink support (after all, he had 2,000 troops in Iraq.  We owe him).

What I am trying to say is that as logically possible it may be for the Bush administration to slightly shift the balance of the US election by starting a war and humanitarian crisis (37,000, as reported in Russia Today, applied to stay in Russia temporarily… of a ‘nation’ of 70,000… which is one more rarely-mentioned reason why Russia HAD to get involved), it seems much more likely that miscommunication and incompetence abounds, causing misunderstandings between world leaders.  Approaching the three-year anniversary of Hurrican Katrina, do we need a reminder of the government’s impotence? (*though I suppose that could also be an anit-black, anti-poor conspiracy put into play by Bush too……..)

Have you ever tried to execute a conspiracy? It’s damn near impossible…

… and the cow goes moo