Monday, August 25, 2008

Conservatives and Republicans Need to Be Careful With Obama / Biden on Georgia Situation

I saw this post over at Vox Nova by a poster looking at Biden called Welcome Senator Biden. Let me excerpt this part:

The commonly believed cause behind Biden’s nomination is his foreign policy experience. Regrettably the product of that foreign policy experience has been for the most part belligerence. As Obama has entered the moderation phase of the election, he has been sending mixed signals on foreign policy, including remarks about the recent Georgia and Russian conflict that were slightly less belligerent than McCain’s comments, a less than impressive feat.
As noted in the
Austrailian of all places, McCain and Biden share an interventionist streak in policy. They in fact were co-sponsors of the resolution authorizing the U.S. to enter the Kosovo conflict in 1999. Both also voted in favor of the resolution to invade Iraq. Just this path month, Senator Biden requested that an additional $1B be given to the Georgian government. He stated in regards to that conflict, “The war that began in Georgia is no longer about that country alone. The outcome there will determine whether we realise the grand ambition of a Europe that is whole, free, and at peace.” That Europe apparently stretches now east of Turkey and almost borders Iran.

Now there are some things to quibble with perhaps..

Also I suspect this poster and I would disagree about what we should be doing as to the Georgia Crisis. However he does hit something I have been saying for two weeks. That Obama and McCain are pretty close on Georgia. With Biden in the mix it appears distance appears shorter. That is something to celebrate from my point of view and is very crucial.

Though it tempting to make everything political , I think this situation is too dangerous to do so. We are entering a very vulnerable time. President Bush is in a awkward situation as a President having one foot out the door already. We are involved in a heated race for the White House. The only more vulnerable time will be between when the President- Elect is known in November and Bush leaves in January.

I think it is very much realm in the possibility that the Russians calculated this into their timing. So why continue to be played for fools if that is the case?

So the more united a front the better. Especially since we have now American troops in the area and naval ships bring needed supplies to Georgia that are basically having to go around Russian ships

Conservatives and Republicans have not been great at this lately. For instance it is sort of disturbing to me that there are a million articles, blogs posts, etc on McCain perhaps choosing Joe Lieberman as VP and hardly done on Lieberman being sent to the Georgia and the Caucuses. In fact there were hardly none on Biden's trip there that was just last week!! What happened? What did they Say? Who knows!! Who Cares!! Well this a slightly more than a boardgame of Risk as we all indulge our political funt he rest of the time.

No doubt Obama statements on Georgia and now the adding of Biden to the ticket will give many of his base supporters a big case of the vapors on this issue.. While it is tempting to manipulate that I hope we hold back. There is huge need to come together on this.

So while I shall tear apart Biden and Obama on many issues, I am going to go out of my way to hopefully see the common ground here they have with McCain. There is too much at stake to do otherwise. In the end while we might be in disagreement with each other none of us want to see this escalate or our Eastern European allies in further danger by appearing weak and causing a miscaculation by Russia because of it.

No comments: