Daily Archives: September 17, 2008

Anatol Lieven’s “Lunch with Putin” deserves much thought and serious discussion.  Here are his impressions from last week’s Valdai Discussion Club:

[T]here was another way in which the world seemed to revolve backward during the Valdai, which was if anything even more disturbing. During two lunches over the course of the conference, the president and prime minister of Russia spoke with us for a total of almost seven hours, answering unscripted questions without the help of aides. The foreign minister, deputy prime minister and deputy chief of the general staff spoke with us for several more hours. The chances of this happening in George Bush’s Washington, or indeed most other Western capitals, are zero.

On the other hand, I was told, several U.S. experts who had been invited refused to come because they were afraid that to be seen to talk with Russian leaders would hurt their chances of being selected for ..read more

The New York Times has published the transcripts of Georgia’s “evidence” that Russia started the war.  You can even get your own .pdf version to share with your friends!  As for the whether this transcript amounts to any evidence at all, I leave that to you.

What these recordings say to me is that this so-called “Russian invasion” was a sorry example for one that was supposedly planned for months. Having a South Ossetian officer say “Who do you want me to shoot? It’s impossible to go outside. I’m standing in the toilet on one leg” during fighting only to get ” Well then fart them out of there. O.K., talk to you later.” in response should go down in the annals of wartime’s greatest outtakes. Clearly, the Ossetians had no clue who was where, what they were doing, and when they were supposed to do it.  Much of it is ..read more