Russia Today:New kids on the block better listen – EU

“My message to Poland and Lithuania is that it’s better for you to be with all of the member-states in expressing a single view rather than having different views towards Russia,” Barroso said.

The situation seems to have changed drastically over the past two weeks, as the UK had abandoned the earlier demand to freeze EU-Russia relations and voiced the readiness for a new page in that relationship. The Czech Republic, Sweden, Estonia and Latvia sided with the UK.

Only Lithuania and Poland adhered to the position voiced upon the beginning of August hostilities in Georgia. However, the UK refused to sign that document. In fact, the EU does not need authorisation from other EU agencies for resuming negotiations on a new strategic partnership agreement with Russia, as French representative Christine Roget told a Friday press briefing before the EU informal summit.

Pockets of anti-Russian sentiments after the conflict in Georgia

Britain retreats from its hardline position against Russia, the Czech republic and the Baltic states follow suit leaving Lithuania and Poland. According to the same webpage the missile defence has become an issue of debate among British MPs.

Russia Today:British MPs call for debate on U.S. missile shield

The British government has already given permission for two bases on British territory, but now more than 70 senior Labour Party figures, including over 50 MPs, are questioning the wisdom of the move.

They took action after a new poll showed almost two thirds of people asked about the system said it would make the country less secure.

About time, the missile defence, becoming operative 2012, threatens survival on the planet. Near term regional consequences for a strategic partnership doesn’t look bright either.

Poland and the Missile Shield – an interview with Radek Sikorski

As Radek Sikorski, Poland’s FM who signed the deal with Condi Rice, told me last week, it’s all about US “boots on the ground”.

Wikipedia:Ancient Olympic Games

During the Olympic Games a truce or ekecheiria was observed. Three runners known as spondophoroi were sent from Elis to the various participant cities at each set of games to announce the beginning of the truce. During this period armies were forbidden from entering Olympia, wars were suspended and legal disputes and the use of the death penalty were forbidden.

Mark Almond:Plucky little Georgia? No, the cold war reading won’t wash

Although Mikheil Saakashvili has done little for the refugees since he came to power early in 2004 – apart from move them out of their hostels in central Tbilisi to make way for property development – he has spent 70% of the Georgian budget on his military. At the start of the week he decided to flex his muscles.

Ynet news:War in Georgia: The Israeli connection

The Israelis should be proud of themselves for the Israeli training and education received by the Georgian soldiers,” Georgian Minister Temur Yakobashvili said Saturday.

Yakobashvili is a Jew and is fluent in Hebrew. “We are now in a fight against the great Russia,” he said, “and our hope is to receive assistance from the White House, because Georgia cannot survive on its own.

Michel Chossudovsky:War in the Caucasus: Towards a Broader Russia-US Military Confrontation?

US-NATO military and intelligence planners invariably examine various “scenarios” of a proposed military operation– i.e. in this case, a limited Georgian attack largely directed against civilian targets, with a view to inflicting civilian casualties.

The examination of scenarios is a routine practice. With limited military capabilities, a Georgian victory and occupation of Tskhinvali, was an impossibility from the outset. And this was known and understood to US-NATO military planners.

A humanitarian disaster rather than a military victory was an integral part of the scenario. The objective was to destroy the provincial capital, while also inflicting a significant loss of human life.

If the objective were to restore Georgian political control over the provincial government, the operation would have been undertaken in a very different fashion, with Special Forces occupying key public buildings, communications networks and provincial institutions, rather than waging an all out bombing raid on residential areas, hospitals, not to mention Tskhinvali’s University.

The announcement by the Georgian Ministry of Defense on July 12 stated that they US and Georgian troops were to “train for three weeks at the Vaziani military base” near the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. (AP, July 15, 2008). These exercises, which were completed barely a week before the August 7 attacks, were an obvious dress rehearsal of a military operation, which, in all likelihood, had been planned in close cooperation with the Pentagon.

The war on Southern Ossetia was not meant to be won, leading to the restoration of Georgian sovereignty over South Ossetia. It was intended to destabilize the region while also triggering a US-NATO confrontation with Russia.

Asia Times:The end of the post-Cold War era

The United States is carefully cultivating an opinion in Western capitals that Russia is “bullying” Georgia. This will strengthen Washington’s case for inducting Georgia into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, which will in turn facilitate the deployment of the US missile defense system onto Russia’s border. If Moscow remains passive, the Caucasus could become its “bleeding wound”.

Timeline and international reactions (wikipedia).

Now Russia offers “help” in Afghanistan and cooperation with NATO in the military encirclement of itself. A clever idea to challenge the stated rationale of war, is it really a ‘war on terrorism’ or is it about something else? The islamists were old allies in Afghanistan and the Balkans and Tim Osman after all an old CIA ‘asset’.

Asia Times:Russia throws a wrench in NATO’s works

The million-dollar question is whether there is political will on the part of the Bush administration to reach a “strategic consensus” over Afghanistan with Russia at the forthcoming NATO summit. Clearly, Moscow is willing. NATO old-timers such as France and Germany, too, are conscious that the alliance may suffer a defeat in Afghanistan, which would be a catastrophic blow to its standing, and that NATO and Russia after all share the same goals in Afghanistan.

But cooperation with Russia involves NATO embarking on cooperation with CSTO and possibly with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization as well.

What worries the US is that any such link up between NATO and CSTO and SCO would undermine its “containment” policy toward Russia (and China), apart from jeopardizing the US global strategy of projecting NATO as a political organization on the world arena.

The most damaging part is that Russia-NATO cooperation will inevitably strengthen Russia’s ties with European countries and that, in turn, would weaken the US’s trans-Atlantic leadership role in the 21st century.

By putting forth a bold blueprint of cooperation with NATO over Afghanistan, Russia has effectively challenged the US to make a choice. It is by no means an easy choice for Washington. How do you deal in the world of tomorrow with a country whose energy exports are close to reaching a milestone of US$1 billion per day?

Will Washington bite? Putin, with his trademark fighting spirit of a black belt in karate, could well be counting that his presidency still has five or six weeks to go and that is a lot of time for making Russia NATO’s number one partner globally and ensuring a durable place for Russia within the common European home.

On the other side of the Atlantic, CENTCOM chief Admiral William Fallon has resigned.

Asia Times:Fallon falls: Iran should worry

Fallon’s greatest concern appears to have been preventing war with Iran. He was one a group of senior military officers, apparently including most of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, who were alarmed in late 2006 and early 2007 by indications that Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney were contemplating a possible attack on Iran.

Asia Times:Israel raises the ante against Iran

Coinciding with the ominous news that US CENTCOM chief Admiral William Fallon has resigned – or been sacked – for his opposition to a war with Iran, [Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi] Livni hopes to harvest a blowing wind of war against another Middle Eastern country that dares to challenge Israel’s regional hegemony.

… the waning months of the George W Bush administration represent a golden opportunity for Israel to ignite another Middle East conflict that, in essence, is rooted in Israel’s structural inability to make peace with the Arab and Muslim world.

At the same time several subsea communication cables has been cut in February. New preparations for Armageddon?

Rense:Connecting The Many Undersea Cut Cable Dots – 9 Or More?

all of them, save one, have occurred in waters near predominantly Muslim nations, causing disruption in those countries;all but two of the cut/damaged cables are in Middle Eastern waters; so many like incidents in such a short period of time suggests that they are not accidents, but are in fact deliberate acts, i.e., sabotage.