GEORGIA ON HIS MIND

John McCain's bellicose reaction to Russia's dust-up with Georgia gives us another reason to stay home on election night. It seems that he believes the advice of his neocon brain trust and wants a new cold war with Russia. What stake we have in the petty border disputes Russia has with her neighbor's is never clearly defined. Will our economy suffer if South Ossetia's precious goat supply falls forever within the Russian Sphere? Will the American public suffer from lack of Georgia's second rate wine? Regrettable things happen all the time in this world. Russia would like to have the upper hand in the affairs of all the little ruretanian statelets spun off by the collapse of the Soviet Union, much as we like to lay the stick about in the Caribbean when things get out of hand their. It's a natural impulse for big powers to attempt to create buffer zones. Would that we had a buffer state between ourselves and Mexico. When Yugoslavia broke up, Germany and Austria were quick to recognize Croatia and Slovenia precisely because they provided a friendly buffer between themselves and the Serbs, Albanians.

McCain's adoption of the Neocon world view is a dangerous sign. His simpleminded parroting of the Neocon call for a "League of Democracies," is tantamount to a unilateral polarization of the world to no purpose. Why we should ally ourselves with poor, badly run Democracies, while turning our backs on autocratic friends like Brunei and Singapore is simply beyond defense. McCain may be the greater of two evils. Obama is a mere affirmative action opportunist. McCain on the other hand, seems a dangerous simpleton, and we've already had eight years of that.