More ritual dick beating by the Russians

The more the West is proven unable to react, the more aggressive Russia gets: Putin's puppet just released one of Russia's more belligerent comments to date. "President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday the war with Georgia has shown the world that 'Russia is a nation to be reckoned with.'"

This, paired with Medevev's Manifesto, demonstrates that Russia is feeling secure enough with the United States endlessly involved in the Middle East to make threats to the rest of the world. As long as we're involved, Russia feels safe.  Once we become...less involved, things may change.  How they'll change is anybody's guess, but mine is that things won't change for the better.

Especially with Russia's grudge against us for supporting Georgia and training Georgian special forces that it claims we did to help them "invade" the rebel regions.  We didn't train them for that purpose, of course; they'd offered to send the commandos to Afghanistan.  Their troops weren't up to what was demanded of ours by the country and people, so we trained them.  There's no rational way for Russia to claim that we did it to help Georgia pacify their rebel regions.  

There's no rational way for Russia to claim that we instigated the whole thing, either, but they are.  They're also still claiming that we've shipped more armaments to the Georgian military under the guise of rendering aid.  I suppose we have done a few things to support that, but I think that the reasons that the aid was sent on war ships was because we were worried about coming under attack ourselves, especially in Poti.

Kim Holmes, a Heritage Foundation opinion columnist, thinks that those who think that Russia will be willing to help the West settle the Middle East are way off base.  She thinks that Russia doesn't necessarily want the West to cease having problems with terrorism in the region because it keeps the coalition, specifically the United States, busy with something other than dealing with them.  She writes that "one of [Russia's] main purposes was to show the West that they don't much care what Washington, Paris or London thinks," and that that isn't "the attitude of a country that wants to work with others to solve problems."  She further tells us that "Moscow has blocked more than helped efforts to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons and to end the genocide in Darfur.  It opposed Kosovo's independence against the wishes of America and Europe."  

She believes that we are not isolating Russia, that Russia's isolating itself, and that to ignore Russia's current dick-beating is to invite disaster.

I have to say, I agree.  When they pull it out to wave it around, I think we should be prepared to step on it and cut it off.

Update: Chavez is showing his colors: he's invited the Russian Navy to come play in his pond--which just happens to overlap part of ours.  Nice.  We really need to start stepping on that little turd, like we did Quaddafi: drop a few JDAMs and MOABs on the little sonofabitch.

Update: Russia is now refusing to allow humanitarian aid past their checkpoints into parts of Georgia.  Not just ours, either: "The ambassadors of Sweden, Latvia and Estonia said they also had been barred last week from visiting villages beyond Russian checkpoints."  

Definitely a dick that needs stepped on.