The United States and Europe need to be firm with Russia

Posted by Shyam Moondra

The U.S. and EU need to be firm in dealing with Russia in the aftermath of Russian invasion of Georgia. The Russian leaders Medvedev and Putin and the Russian military have behaved in a very irresponsible way without any regard for the well being of innocent civilians. Russian leaders signed a cease-fire agreement but they failed to fully comply with it. They initially insisted that they have no desire to invade any other neighbors, but lately they are talking about maintaining their "sphere of influence." Russian response to the initial military action by Georgia was undoubtedly brutal and disproportional. They ventured way beyond the disputed regions, threatening the democratically elected Georgian government. The unprofessional behavior of the Russian military, such as looting Georgian banks, stealing computers and furniture from the civilians' homes, destroying bridges and railway infrastructure that have no military value, and even hauling away the U.S. humvees that were waiting to be shipped to the U.S., made Russia look not as a great power but as a country of thugs.

It is important that the West take a firm stand against illegal Russian invasion. They need to go beyond just saying that it wouldn't be business as usual; they need to take concrete actions to send a clear message that this kind of behavior will not be tolerated in the 21st century. The EU summit, which is scheduled for September 1, 2008, is the right forum for taking forceful actions to clearly demonstrate that they mean it when they say that it wouldn't be business as usual.

Here is a list of things the EU, the U.S., and NATO could do to punish Russia. These actions will do a serious damage to Russian economy and will force them to change their behavior.

1. Send immediate financial and military aid to Georgians to help them rebuild their country and shore up their defensive capabilities.
2. Move overwhelming naval and other military assets to the Black Sea to prevent any possible action by Russia against other neighbors such as Ukraine.
3. Put the consideration of NATO membership of Ukraine and Georgia on a fast track.
4. Freeze relations with Russia, diplomatically and militarily. Isolate Russia, not just in Europe but world wide.
5. Drop Russia from G-8 (go back to G-7) and the Middle-East peace group.
6. Reduce energy dependence on Russia. Russia needs to sell their energy products just as much as EU needs to buy them. The reduced energy purchases from Russia will hurt their pocket-book and it will tame their aggressive posture.
7. Impose trade sanctions such as ban on business deals and technology transfer to Russia.
8. Deny Russia the entry to GTO.
9. Freeze the bank accounts of Russian officials and business executives in Europe and the U.S. It has been reported that many Russian politicians, including Putin, may have amassed vast hidden fortunes in secret EU and US bank accounts.
10. Arm Russian Federation provinces (e.g., Chechnya) that want to be independent.
11. Stop granting visas to Russians for visiting the EU and the U.S. This will hurt affluent Russians.
12. Limit the number of Russian diplomats and their movements within the host countries, including the U.N. (NYC).

McCain's desperate and risky move

Posted by Shyam Moondra

Sen. John McCain selected Sarah Palin, the young and inexperienced governor of Alaska, as his running mate. The selection partially restored McCain's image as a maverick, but it left many of his supporters scratching their heads. McCain's decision appears to be flawed, risky, and dangerous for the nation's security. Since McCain is not making headway in national polls and he certainly can't run on President Bush's record, he desperately needed to do something to shake things up, and so he did.

Palin has very thin and unremarkable resume. She was a mayor of a small town (population 9,400) and has been the governor of Alaska for less than two years. She has zero experience in foreign affairs and security matters. She does have conservative credentials, being a staunch opponent of abortion rights and a life-time member of NRA. Palin has aggressively worked to stop wasteful spending by the state government and to expose corruption within the Republican party of Alaska. These conservative values will help McCain energize his evangical base.

It's hard to understand what motivated McCain to pick Palin as his running mate. He has been pounding on Obama for being inexperienced and not ready for the presidency. All of sudden, McCain turns around and selects a woman, who has even less experience in national and international issues than Obama. Given McCain's advanced age, it was particularly important that he selected someone who could step-in as president, should that unfortunate need arise. By selecting someone who is utterly unprepared for that eventuality, McCain has unwisely gambled on the nation's security. This gamble may in fact make McCain lose support of many male voters, who would be unwilling to vote for the ticket if they thought it was too risky for the country. The voters would think more in terms of whether Palin has what it takes to be the commander-in-chief and deal with terrorists and such adversaries as Russia, Iran, North Korea, and Venezuela.

It appears that McCain was motivated to pick Palin, a woman, thinking that she might help him pick up the votes of disaffected Sen. Hillary Clinton's women supporters. The problem is that Clinton supporters are not going to vote for an unqualified Palin just because she is a woman, and certainly not for a woman who opposes abortion rights and gun laws. I suspect McCain will lose more votes because of the perception that Palin is not ready to be the commander-in-chief than gain votes because she is a woman.

McCain met Palin only once, so I doubt he really knows her well. The funny thing is that when he made the announcement, which was only a few sentences long, he had to read it from a script just to make sure that he got her name right. If McCain doesn't know Palin that well, how can he expect the American people to trust him? McCain made a snappy decision to choose Palin as his running mate. This raises a serious question about McCain's decision making process and whether he has the right temperament and sound judgment. He tends to make quick decisions without thinking through strategically. His blistering attack on Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin on Georgia, compared with a tough but measured response from Obama which leaves room for Russia to back down, is an example of how McCain could easily get us into another conflict.

McCain took a huge risk by selecting a relatively unknown woman, who is not tested on a national level in a brutal nature of presidential politics. Because of his cowboy style temperament and his legendary short-fuse anger, McCain was risky to begin with, but now with an unqualified woman as his running-mate, the ticket is way too dangerous for the country's security.

Has John McCain lost his bearings?

Posted by Shyam Moondra

In recent weeks, Sen. John McCain, the presumptive Republican nominee for the presidency, seems to have lost it completely. His campaign is so poorly run that one has to wonder how he is going to manage the country! He has not presented any cohesive plan to deal with the pressing substantive issues of economy, energy, etc. Lately, he has resorted to attack ads against Sen. Barack Obama, which is inconsistent with his reputation as being straight shooter and above dirty politics.

Let's look at some facts:

1. McCain made statements that had factual errors and had to be later corrected. And it happened, not just once or twice, but may be as many as half-a-dozen times. Is that because of his advanced age? Is he fit to be near the nuclear button (not to forget his legendary red hot temper)?

2. When McCain ran for the presidency the last time, he proclaimed that he wanted to change the politics of Washington, DC and would run a clean campaign. Well, all that has changed this time. He is now running non-stop attack ads against Sen. Barack Obama. He is back to the old dirty politics, championed by mostly Republicans. This time dirty politics may not work because the people are going through tremendous hardship and they desperately want a leader who would solve problems of economy, oil prices, healthcare, etc. As a result, dirty politics may help McCain solidify his support among hard-core Republicans, but his attack ads will cost him the votes of the Independents and conservative Democrats. To them, McCain, as a straight shooter, was the main attraction, but once he resorts to dirty politics, he loses that attraction. His comparing Obama to Britney Spears and Paris Hilton has backfired; even Spears is reportedly unhappy about her image being used in political commercials.

3. He keeps changing his position on a variety of issues.
a. He first strongly criticized Obama for talking about setting a time-table for the withdrawl of American combat forces from Iraq, But when President Bush started talking about "time-horizon" and Iraqi President al-Maliki's expressed support for Obama's position, McCain switched his position and now he says that he could live with a "time-table." Now that's a big u-turn from his previous plan to stay in Iraq for 100 years.
b. Initially, he gave "no new taxes" pledge, but now he seems to be backing away from it.
c. First, he proclaimed that he would balance the budget by the end of his first term in office, while also making the Bush tax cuts permanent. But when questions were raised about if it's at all possible to do that (the numbers don't add up), he seems to be backing away from such a lofty goal. McCain instantly lost his credibility. This seemed to prove, what he once said himself, that he doesn't really understand economics.
d. First, he said that Iraq was a top priority, but now he seems to be shifting focus to Afghanistan/Pakistan, but only because Obama has been talking about this for a long time and now even Pentagon seems to agree with Obama.

4. The main concern American people have right now is economy, but McCain – 'The Surge Man" – keeps talking about the Iraq war and hammering Obama on this issue. He erroneously thinks that this election is about the war in Iraq. He is just out of touch.

5. McCain's response to the high oil prices was to give the consumers an "oil tax holiday," saving them a whopping $30! The idea was so silly and laughable that, not just most economists, but even President Bush and most Republicans in the Congress wouldn't even go near it.

6. He has been trying to project himself as a tough guy. How is he going to deal with Iran? McCain parodied the Beach Boys' song, saying "Bomb, Bomb, Iran…" Well, the macho strategy in Iraq has cost the U.S. dearly; the American people have no appetite for another war. Again, McCain seems to be out of touch. Recently, President Bush sent a top diplomat to a meeting with Iran on the nuclear issue, which is consistent with what Obama has been saying for some time now.

McCain was not making progress, at least in terms of polls, so someone must have advised him to go on the attack, spending millions of dollars on ads against Obama. These attacks worked in the past when the country was prosperous and there were no major issues. But this time, the people desperately looking for leadership to end the war in Iraq (that has cost thousands of lives and two trillion dollars), to reduce huge budget deficit that Bush has piled up, to create more jobs, to come up with an effective energy policy that combines alternative fuel sources and conservation, to address the healthcare crisis, and do something about the decline in education. McCain, by going on the attack and not offering any strategic vision on important issues that people care about, he is simply making himself as an irrelevant candidate.