Beware! Partisan political rant starting at this point:

An observation, after reading Robert Scheer in The Chronicle this morning, Scheer being a local syndicated columnist who appears on Wednesdays and is notable to me for his early staunch opposition to the Iraq war. Scheer speculates that Randy Scheunermann, a paid lobbyist for the Georgian government who ended that connection last March and joined McCain as his senior foreign policy adviser, one of the core group of Neocons who promoted the Iraq war, may be playing a parallel role in Georgia, encouraging the Georgians to make this recent military move into their “breakaway” South Ossetia province at a time when it would be useful to the McCain campaign by making him look good talking tough to the Russians just before the election.

Normally I'd give such speculation little credence. Sure, all that's true about Scheunermann, Neocon, Georgian lobbyist, but McCain himself was a big promoter of the Iraq war and you'd expect him to hang with associates with similar objectives and opinions. And he sure does like lobbyists. I'm not much into conspiracy theories, though.

I do, however, wonder why the Georgian leader Saakashvili would make what seems such a stupid military move without discussion with the American government. Former Secretary of State Madeleine Albright said this evening on public television this could have been headed off months ago, should have received American attention months ago when it started. Did people like McCain's man Scheunermann as well as others in the administration urge Saakashvili on, make him think he was covered making this military move, telling him he had the full faith and credit etc. of the United States government at his back, the question of the timing (before a Presidential election) aside?

Why would anyone in the U.S. government encourage such a move knowing the Russians would probably react as they have? Did Saakashvili move on his own, was he encouraged by members of our government, was there any connection with the McCain campaign or the administration in an effort to gain political traction before the coming election?

It's easy to wander off the reservation with something like this (and a lot of fun), but there's been too much information released recently indicating the administration has made international moves in the past damaging to the security of the United States in order to gain party political traction. Perhaps my current thoughts are just in the timing of recently (as in yesterday) reading Ron Suskind's book The Way of the World where he describes an operation initiated by Cheney's office before the 2006 mid-term elections where his DIA group (the guys who ginned up the “intelligence” on WMD before going into Iraq) sent one of their intelligence agents to Pakistan on a mission to blow up an ongoing British investigation of a terrorist group forming up in England. This just before the election, this reported at the time as a plot to send commercial airplanes loaded with explosives out of England to detonate over the United States, used by Bush to say just before an election: “see how we are working with our allies to protect the American people!”

The problem was the British had pleaded with the United States to let their investigation run. They'd had these people under close observation for over a year, some thousand or so British agents involved, and they needed more time to let the plot, then in its early stages, develop in order to identify and arrest additional as yet unknown members of the operation and generate the proof they needed to put them in jail. The CIA, cooperating with the British, agreed. But Bush needed a “terrorist” event to pull his chestnuts out the upcoming 2006 election fire and Cheney's agent was therefor sent, unbeknownst to the British (and the CIA) to rat it out by asking the Pakistanis to arrest a major participant in the plot. Although the administration had put together a media program to take advantage of the event, they'd not informed the British who then had to scramble to catch the plotters before they were able to escape once they discovered their operations had been discovered.

That's pretty evil. Evil in they'd decided without regret to gamble with the nation's safety to maintain their party in power. Maybe this is a problem with our school system. They teach us in some circumstances as a citizen you're just supposed to say no, in some circumstances you're supposed to blow the whistle, in some circumstances as an American you're supposed to rat these people out - Republicans or Democrats - and, if not throw their collective asses in the slammer, then tattoo a big red letter “T” for traitor on their foreheads.

Naïve little man. This happens all the time. It's called politics.

I guess you expect this in local politics. Think Chicago. Think New Orleans. Back door dealings and double crosses at the local court house, but back door dealing and double crosses that involve money; the public money, true, but only money and not something that might lead us to war. I guess it's gambling with public safety if you cheat on the quality of the iron and cement you use in putting up a public building thereby killing people when it falls down, but shorting the country on terrorism and war you'd think would give them pause. This idea is the sign of the naïve, I suppose, when I want to see special prosecutors appointed to find out what's been going on. Not Republican or Democratic special prosecutors, but real law enforcement prosecutors who still retain ethical values that are supposed to make this country different.

You're asking for Superman when you'll get Karl Rove, you know.

Well, maybe that's a sign I'm growing up. About time for someone my age. Move to Canada, maybe? Who've they invaded recently?