Ralph Peters was extraordinarily insightful when he wrote in September:Among the many reasons we misjudge Putin is our insistence on seeing him as “like us.” He’s not. His stage-management of the Georgia invasion was a perfect example: Western intelligence agencies had been monitoring Russian activities in the Caucasus for years and fully expected a confrontation. Even so, our analysts assumed that Russia wouldn’t act during this summer’s Olympics, traditionally an interval of peace.
Once again, as the world paused in universal celebration, Russia saw an opening and moved:
Speaking within hours of Barack Obama’s election as the new US President, Mr Medvedev announced that Russia would base Iskander missiles in its Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad next to the border with Poland.
He did not say whether the short-range missiles would carry nuclear warheads. Mr Medvedev also cancelled earlier plans to withdraw three intercontinental ballistic missile regiments from western Russia.
Also, shirking any accepted standards of statesmanlike conduct, Medvedev did not offer a word of congratulations to Obama. In fact, he did not even mention the U.S. election. In Russia, we now witness ice-cold realism at its most intractable. This is an enemy that advances when we blink.
And we have blinked, make no mistake --and long before last night:
The treatment President Bush has received from this country is nothing less than a disgrace. The attacks launched against him have been cruel and slanderous, proving to the world what little character and resolve we have. The president is not to blame for all these problems. He never lost faith in America or her people, and has tried his hardest to continue leading our nation during a very difficult time.
Our failure to stand by the one person who continued to stand by us has not gone unnoticed by our enemies. It has shown to the world how disloyal we can be when our president needed loyalty -- a shameful display of arrogance and weakness that will haunt this nation long after Mr. Bush has left the White House.
American Digest notes more than a new missile crisis:
It would seem that some people just don't know the difference between November and January:
Stocks fall as investors ponder Obama presidency
Baghdad rocked by fresh bombings
Gaza rockets fired after clashes
Iran army warns US forces to steer clear of borders
Russia to move missiles to Baltic
Perhaps George Bush, as a parting gift to an ungrateful nation, could remind them.
