Some are offended at the President's use of the word 'ass'. Frankly I don't find it offensive at all. It's one of my own favorite words, as, for example if I were to say something like, "The POTUS is an ass." But never mind that just now.

It's not even offensive to me that he is looking for assess to kick. What is offensive is the general direction he's looking for this ass. This is a man who cannot call terroritists, well, terrorists. He's reluctant to use the word "enemy". He's not looking for any terrorist ass to kick. He's not looking to kick any Taliban ass. He's not looking for any Hamas ass to kick. He's not looking for any Hezbollah ass to kick. And he most certainly is not looking for any illegal immigrant ass to kick -- not that I have a problem with that one. (If anything he's probably more interested in kicking some Arizona governor ass.)

That is what is really offensive.


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The furor over Arizona entails belief that it is a crime to be in the United States, but not in any single state, illegally, as well as that enforcement of immigration laws requires racial profiling when performed by state agents but not federal agents. Right. We all know how ethically up-standing the unfederal government is.

Limbaugh thinks what bothers the Left about Arizona is the left's need of illegal voters. Perhaps. But there is something else for the Left to worry about. For perhaps the first time since the 19th century we have a state taking upon itself to enforce the terms of the U.S. Constitution, in response to federal malfeasance.

If illegal immigrants don't have to obey federal immigration law, why should U.S. citizens obey a federal law requiring the purchase of health care insurance? Oh. Yeah. The unfederal government will actually enforce the latter. That's right. I guess the real question is: Will the unfed object to states passing laws making it a crime for state citizens to disobey the law requiring the purchase of health care insurance, or will the unfed be glad for the help?

Frankly, I think it would be great if we had immigration policies even half as sensible as Mexico's, with all of which I entirely agree and support, by the way.

Yes, I read the bill.

Miguel Guanipa, here, describes "a federally sanctioned procedure that is performed on a daily basis in one of the most vibrant democracies on earth, and which has been in place for almost forty years." The procedure he describes is, in fact, part of the required curriculum at medical schools and executed by highly skilled, and highly compensated, professionals. It is also executed solely upon human beings who have committed no crime, a procedure liberals positively love and demand conservatives to embrace:

[I]magine for a moment that you have been assigned a couple of prisoners whom you have been given complete freedom to torture. Neither prisoner is aware of the fate that awaits them. You enter the room of the first prisoner and begin by tearing off one of his limbs. The prisoner -- who is not privy to the reasons why you have committed such a dastardly act against his person -- writhes in agony. You then proceed to systematically sever other vital organs. The prisoner tries to flee in desperation, but you have blocked the only exit through which he may entertain any hopes of escaping his torturer. What the prisoner doesn't know is that prior to the moment you entered the scene you had already planned for him to die before being eventually removed from this chamber.

After the job is finished, you enter the next room in which your next hapless victim waits. He is also unaware that you are about to inflict intolerable pain upon him. But this time you decide to employ a more effective method. You bind this prisoner, and then dip him in a tank full of a corrosive solution that will gradually eat at his flesh, obstruct his breathing, and bring about a slow but certain demise. Within minutes of being submerged in this tank the prisoner expires. You could argue that his death was somewhat more merciful than that of the first prisoner. Now imagine that you had been asked to torture these men, not because they were withholding actionable intelligence that could potentially save the lives of thousands of innocents threatened with imminent peril. It was not because they were active members of an itinerant terrorist organization responsible for wreaking havoc around the world. In fact, both these men were innocent human beings, physically incapable of defending themselves, who had been placed in these rooms through no choice of their own. To make matters worse, their painful deaths were commissioned by and discharged at the full behest of their closest family member.

Happens every day. Liberal Democrats and Moderate Republicans love it.

[P]retenses that they have "Saved the Country," and "Preserved our Glorious Union," are frauds like all the rest of their pretenses. By them they mean simply that they have subjugated...an unwilling people. This they call "Saving the Country"; as if...any people kept in subjection by the sword (as it is intended that all of us shall be hereafter)...could be said to have any country. This, too, they call "Preserving our Glorious Union"; as if there could be said to be any Union, glorious or inglorious, that was not voluntary. Or as if there could be said to be any union between masters and slaves; between those who conquer, and those who are subjugated. All these cries of having...[established] "a government of consent"... are all gross, shameless, transparent cheats...when uttered as justifications... for now compelling...anybody to support a government that he does not want. ~ Lysander Spooner, "No Treason", No. 6, XIX. (Emphases mine.)

As anyone who listens knows, Rush Limbaugh is quite at ease with the U.S. being a super-power. Consequently he was unhappy with what he called Obama's "World Apology Tour", and with this op-ed piece published in several central and south american papers, because he's helping the rest of the world in take us down a notch, which they desire to do because they object to our being the world's lone super-power. I make no secret of being no great fan of the current occupant of the Oval Office. And I made no secret that I wouldn't be a fan of his opponent's administration. So, in general, I share Limbaugh's antipathy for the present adminstration. But there is an element of Limbaugh's thinking, on the subject of super-powers, that concerns me.

Conservatives' inability (especially -- no surprise -- neo-conservatives) to see the relation between our super-power status and the loss of freedoms they (rightly!) complain of has bothered me for some time; but it has really come to a point in the last several years. I was never a big fan of our "superpower" status, specifically, being one of only two super-powers. I liked NATO because I thought it could be an alliance of super-powers, an alliance of free nations against the communist barbarians; but that was short-lived. What can I say? When you are young and hopeful, you tend to act young and hopeful. I hadn't realized, until I was part of NATO, how comfortable Europeans are with socialism. And once you're comfortable with socialism, buying communism isn't much of a stretch.

But never mind European style, democratic, socialism.

The simple fact is this: a super-power, no matter how benevolent, no matter how "democratic", simply cannot be ruled with a republican form of government, though it will maintain the facade of republicanism -- for a while, anyway. And you cannot believe in the consent of the governed without having the view of states' rights which I have and, as a consequence, you cannot be a fan of your nation's super-power status. Indeed, a confederacy (which is what we confederates believe the Constitution created, consistent with the notion of the consent of the governed) could never have become a super-power. How can that possibly have happened with constituent members (whose taxes will fund the super-power) free to leave the so-called union with impunity?

Put simply, it could not have happened. A super-power, member-states of which can freely leave, is a super-power which is always on the brink of extinction. That is why Alexander Hamilton, the Founding Father of "Crony Capitalism", and his ideological descendants (proponents of the American System), who sincerely desired a mercantilist empire of their own, don't like confederacies. They would be so proud of what this country has become, even including the recent bailouts.

Conservatives like to believe they favor states' rights, just shy of talking secession. And when I converse with them and they discover my heresy, they give the nod to states' rights and invoke "federalism" but quickly point out that the United States would never have become the power we are today had the war for southern independence been successful. Being a super-power is, apparently, an unqualified good, such a good, in fact, as to require a limitation on the right of a state to give its consent to the central government. Anything which would upset that status is an unqualified evil. (Or, they point out, that the United States would be two countries, instead of one, as if unification is, again, an unqualified good. Well, it is for a mercantilist, anyway. Not so hot for freedom lovers, though.) So, for the sake of being a super-power, the rights of states must be limited.

One of my first responses is, "What United States? There are no united states. The word united connotes freedom: the states are freely united. But they are not freely united, not anymore. They are dominated. A little freer, perhaps, but they are united in the same sense as the members of the former Union of Soviet Swallowed Republics were united. They aren't united; they are unified, sort of like a team of horses. A team of horses, hitched to the same wagon, are not united; they are unified. They do not pull together; they are harnessed and then driven together. They are driven by a master, a central, controlling master, who drives the team in pursuit of his own goals, his own vision. The master may graciously, from time to time, inquire of the team as to their own preferences, goals, visions, whatever; but, in the end, if theirs do not cohere with his own, then his own shall prevail. The vision of the master makes the liberties of the horses a relatively minor consideration. The horses must all go in the same direction; some curtailment of freedom is to expected -- for the great good of the whole team. (As if the horses, who didn't ask to be on any team in the first place, should care about the needs of the team, which are not really the needs of the team but the desire and vision of the wagon-master.)

If the rights of states must be limited for the sake of being a super-power, it stands to reason that individual rights must also be limited, again, for the good of the whole. Your neighbors may believe that your use of your property must be limited so as not to adversely affect your property values. It just goes on and on.

I know: it sounds like confederate sour grapes. But if you're still with me, consider this. The language employed to discuss our super-power status is instructive. Consider the phrases "a super-power" or "the lone super-power", and note the singulars. How does a fifty state union become a or the super-power? They don't, but a fifty member dominion can do so. These are not united states: they are unified states. And there is a difference.

And so long as Rush Limbaugh and his fellow travelers are enamored of the super-power, the simple fact of the matter is that the encroachments upon freedom will continue. They may be halted occasionally, or slowed down, but only temporarily. The reason is quite simple: secession, even if only a last resort, was the only true check upon unlimited federal power. As Woodrow Wilson once wrote, the outcome of the War for Southern Independence established the principle that the federal government is the judge of the limitations of its power. Thank you, Yanks.

Lord Acton understood the relation between state rights and totalitarianism, as he wrote to General Lee (4 November 1866):

Without presuming to decide the purely legal question...I saw in State Rights the only availing check upon the absolutism of the sovereign will, and secession filled me with hope, not as the destruction but as the redemption of Democracy. The institutions of your Republic have not exercised on the old world the salutary and liberating influence which ought to have belonged to them, by reason of those defects and abuses of principle which the Confederate Constitution was expressly and wisely calculated to remedy. I believed that the example of that great Reform would have blessed all the races of mankind by establishing true freedom purged of the native dangers and disorders of Republics. Therefore I deemed that you were fighting the battles of our liberty, our progress, and our civilization; and I mourn for the stake which was lost at Richmond more deeply than I rejoice over that which was saved at Waterloo.

General Lee definitely understood it, as he responded to Lord Acton (15 December 1866):

I yet believe that the maintenanceof the rights and authority reserved to the states and to the people, not only essential to the adjustment and balance of the general system, but the safeguard to the continuance of a free government. I consider it as the chief source of stability to our political system, whereas the consolidation of the states into one vast republic, sure to be aggressive abroad and despotic at home, will be the certain precursor of that ruin which has overwhelmed all those that have preceded it. I need not refer one so well acquainted as you are with American history, to the State papers of Washington and Jefferson, the representatives of the federal and democratic parties, denouncing consolidation and centralization of power, as tending to the subversion of State Governments, and to despotism.

There is no such thing as a super-power with a republican form of government, at least not for long. When the Romans acquired super-power status (albeit by means somewhat different from our own) they lost their republic. To be truly consistent with their profession, freedom lovers should stop being so devoted to the Unified States as a, or the, super-power, in preference of a union, a real union of free and united states.

The long and short of it is this. You can't have a free country and be a super-power, any more than you can have a free country and be a socialist power. My problem with His Beatitude is not that he's harming our super-power status. My problem is that he's not really big on freedom.

I was so glad to hear my Governor not shy away from the possibility of secession, when asked about it by a reporter at the "Tea Party" in Austin, Texas. That Perry -- not too shabby...for an Aggie.

"[P]rophecies of what the courts will do...and nothing more pretentious, are what I mean by the law." ~ Oliver Wendell Holmes
There must be a civil right to trespass. How else to explain a thirty-two million dollar lawsuit, by 16 Mexican nationals, in which the defendant, Roger Barnett, is said to have violated their civil rights?

They trespassed on his land, known by federal and county law enforcement authorities as "the avenue of choice" for immigrants seeking to enter the United States illegally. He stopped them at gunpoint. Now, they sue him for $32 million dollars.

You have to love the way some people attempt to subvert the law to their purposes. One of the counts alleges that the Barnett conspired, in violation of 42 U.S.C. §1985(3), to deprive Plaintiffs of their right to interstate travel. (See Defendant's Motion for Summary Judgment , p. 2.) Note the logic: the right to interstate travel implies the right to trespass on private property. Want to go from Texas to Kentucky? Forget the highways; hop in a four-wheeler and drive in a straight line. And if any property owner objects, just assert your right to interstate travel. Beautiful. Reminds me of that line from Beverly Hills Cop: "What's the charge for getting hit by a car? Jay-walking?"

Barnett's attorney presented a strange argument against this charge:

[I]llegal aliens have no constitutional right to interstate travel. It would seem counterintuitive to maintain that an illegal alien, who is subject to arrest and removal by the government at any time (as indeed Plaintiffs were removed), and whose interstate transportation is a felony, 8 U.S.C. §1324(a)(1)(A)(ii), possesses a constitutional right to travel within the United States; at the very least, this would be a strange species of “constitutional right.” (Defendant's Motion , p. 7, emphasis mine.

No kidding. You don't have a right to be here in the first place. Indeed, your being here (as a consequence of an illegal border-crossing) is a violation of federal law. So, you have no right to interstate travel. That's deep.

In his essay, "The Path of the Law", Justice Holmes wrote, "The primary rights and duties with which jurisprudence busies itself...are nothing but prophecies.... [A] legal duty...is nothing but a prediction that if a man does or omits certain things he will be made to suffer in this or that way by judgment of the court."

In case Justice Holmes's style is a bit difficult to grasp, whenever someone says, "You have a legal duty to perform some act R," what he really means is, "I predict that if you do not perform R the court will make you suffer in some way," (e.g., by throwing your butt into jail). "You have a duty" is, therefore, nothing but a threat of force.

Conversely, a legal right is nothing but a prediction that if a man does or omits certain things he will not be made to suffer in this or that way by judgment of the court. It's getting more and more difficult to know what our rights are, not because we can't read the Constitution (that's easy enough, which is why so many people don't like it), but because we can increasingly not predict those things for which a court may make us suffer.

And that's limiting ourselves to what courts decide. Juries are entirely unpredictable. A woman sues McDonald's because the hot coffee she spilled on herself was, well, hot. And the jury awards her damages. (You can read an interesting 2004 legal discussion of this case, here.)

I suspect Barnett's in trouble and will probably have to sell his ranch to pay the damages.

According to Ron Paul, that's the wrong question.

[I]n light of the election, many are asking: What is the future of the Republican Party?

But that is the wrong question. The proper question should be: Where is our country heading? There's no doubt that a large majority of Americans believe we're on the wrong track. That's why the candidate demanding "change" won the election. It mattered not that the change offered was no change at all, only a change in the engineer of a runaway train.

So, where are we heading?

The march toward a dictatorial powerful state is now in double time.

On his view, the Republicans have lost credibility in the struggle against this outcome by embracing the very ideas that speed it on its way. To have credibility, Republicans should embrace the following:

• Limited government power

• A balanced budget

• Personal liberty

• Strict adherence to the Constitution

• Sound money

• A strong defense while avoiding all undeclared wars

• No nation-building and no policing the world

How can a party that still pretends to be the party of limited government distance itself outright from these views and expect to maintain credibility? Since the credibility of the Republican Party has now been lost, how can it regain credibility without embracing these views, or at least showing respect for them?

Really.

It's been slowly dawning on me for some time, but I finally saw it last night watching yet another Democrat campaign commercial in which the candidate asserted the need to finally capture Osama bin Ladin.

Ostensibly, though they don't come right out and say it, capturing OBL will be the end of the War on Terror.

Hell, if that's all it takes, let capture the SOBs responsible for poverty and drugs. We can have the audacity to hope that there is only one guy ultimately responsible for each of those evils. So, let's go get 'em.

Or, employing another Democrat strategy, we could, after decades of failure in the wars on drugs and poverty (versus only five years of failure in Iraq) just summarily declare an end and bring the troops home.

One can imagine a crowd once hearing a little speech like that, once upon a time.

Biden wants a pass where none has been granted the current President.

"There are gonna be a lot of you who want to go, 'Whoa, wait a minute, yo, whoa, whoa, I don't know about that decision'," Biden continued. "Because if you think the decision is sound when they're made, which I believe you will when they're made, they're not likely to be as popular as they are sound. Because if they're popular, they're probably not sound."

Now that’s rich. Unpopular decisions, therefore sound decisions.

You’re going to think what we do in response to a certain crisis is wrong, but go along with us anyway. This, supposedly, is precisely what John McCain has been doing the last eight years.

I wonder what this test will be. The suspense is killing me.

Maybe they’ll pass laws, or just issue executive orders, similar to the Alien and Sedition Acts, (see and cf, the Kentucky and Virginia Resolutions) or take some of the same actions towards dissenters as Woodrow Wilson during WWI. Perhaps they’ll issue an executive order limiting salaries to $300,000.00 net after taxes (that’s 25,000.00 in 1943 dollars, adjusted for inflation). In other words, the marginal tax rate on salaries after $300K would be 100% -- by executive order. I’m sure they won’t confiscate any gold which any citizens may own.

Gosh, whatever they do, I sure hope it’s not something which would be called unconstitutional if done by a Republican administration.

No. They would never do anything like that.

Okay. And we also cannot allow Iran to get nuclear weapons. And we won't take military actions off the table, nor give the U. N. a veto over us.

But if we can work diplomatically with Iran, and reduce our oil consumption, and reduce the amount of refined fuel they import then we can demand Iran change her behavior.

Now there's a good question: Would we commit troops in defense of Israel unilaterally or await a decision of the U. N. Security Council?

I don't think referring once again to the "without pre-conditions" meme is the best strategy here.

We can't allow another holocaust to occur.

The simple fact of the matter is that Russia has an objective. I doubt anything short of her accomplishing those objectives will satisfy her. At some point, interference in her attempts to accomplish her goals will spark war, cold or otherwise.

There we go with rush to war in Iraq and forgetting about bin Ladin.

Oh, yes, Obama, if we just cut down our oil consumption that'll weaken Russia because she won't be getting our petrol dollars.

Because we're the only oil customers in the world.

How can we avoid another Cold War?

Why not ask how we can avoid any war, cold or otherwise?

Some people think it was Plato, but I think it was Santayana who said only the dead have seen the end of war.

Sad, but I believe it's true.

Yes, Senator Obama, we'll just make the Iraqis take more responsibility.

Wait a minute. Obama says that if Pakistan is either unable or unwilling to take out bin Ladin then we should. He also says that he did not say we should invade Pakistan.

Wow. There must be some logic here that I just can't understand.

But in all fairness, Senator McCain, Obama did not say he would attack Pakistan.

Yet one more swipe at the taking-of-the-eye-off-the-ball-in-Afghanistan business.

Senator Obama, pulling the troops out of Iraq does not end the war in Iraq. It just makes a cease-fire.

Wait a minute! We dare not have gone into Iraq, but if al Qaeda is in Pakistan and Pakistan won't act, then we will go in and act. And that, apparently, will not constitute taking our eye off the ball in Afghanistan, which is where he keeps telling us we are supposed to be.

Beautiful.

I've been thinking: McCain just said that Russia was the unqualified aggressor in this. But Pat Buchanan thought otherwise.

Well, that’s what some of us might want to do in response to a poll reported by Alexander Burns at Politico.com.

Forty-seven percent of Europeans believe an Obama victory in November would lead to a better relationship between the United States and Europe, versus just 5 percent who think Obama would weaken the trans-Atlantic relationship.

Now that has to make you stop and think. I know it has me. And what I’m thinking is this. First, it’s at least possible that the 5 percent who think Obama would weaken the trans-Atlantic relationship are the smart ones. Second, if an Obama presidency is the solution to U.S.-Europe relations, then the problem may be over-stated. (In other words, if Senator Obama is the answer, then it may be an insignificant problem.)

In all seriousness, a great deal of commonality exists between Europeans and Democrats. I noticed during my army days that Europeans and Americans looked upon the soviet bloc differently. It seemed to me that most of our European allies took a purely defensive posture against the soviets. There was very little interest in bring down the soviet empire.

Until Reagan, the U.S. were inclined to take a similar approach, peaceful co-existence, détente. Under Reagan, the policy changed. Peaceful co-existence, according to Reagan and his ilk, was not only not possible, the soviets were not really interested in it, despite their friendly talk. Communism is not a provincial attitude; it’s a world-wide mandate. The soviets had to be defeated somehow. Europeans, comfortable with détente, balked at Reagan’s aggressive moves (such as the placement of Pershing II missiles in West Germany in January 1984). The end of détente was an unwarranted and aggressive path to open war, a war of which Europe would bear the brunt. Who could blame them for opposing such moves.

And some Democrats in the U.S. balked right along with Europeans, caricaturing Reagan as having one hand in his jelly bean bowl while his other hovered over “the button.” (That was when they were not caricaturing him as stealing food from the homeless, sneaking back into the White House and eating it himself.) There was nothing wrong with peaceful co-existence, enforced by mutually assured destruction. Reagan was going to screw it all up, bring the entire world to the edge of existence.

Opponents of Reagan’s aggression had an understandable point. If you make clear to a nation, any nation, that you intend to take it down you must acknowledge that the nation in question will not just take it sitting down. Israel doesn’t. It was to be expected therefore that the soviets would respond with counter-aggression. War was inevitable; Reagan would be responsible.

That was then. Now, U.S. – Europe relations suffer because of what they think an “uncalled for” war in Iraq. It is a war based on baseless accusations, supposition, and desire for revenge.

Certainly, an Obama administration, if it keeps its promise to unceremoniously jerk troops out of Iraq, will certainly improve those relations. Too, Obama’s politics are much like most of Eurpope’s. They believe in material rights; so do Democrats. Most Americans believe in formal rights. So Obama and Europeans have a lot in common.

Anytime you do what someone wants you to do, you will improve your relations with that person. Pull troops out of Iraq, and relations will probably improve. (We’ll also probably have to stop dominating NATO.)

It would be nice to get along better with Europe. Right now, I’m inclined to think the price a bit steep. Also, Europeans’ attitudes, as expressed in the poll, assume that Europeans are correct in their view of the issues and that the U.S. are wrong. It could be that Europeans are wrong, in which case the current state of U.S. – Europe relations is their fault, not ours. (It is at least a possibility.)

Charles Krauthammer:

Read the first five paragraphs of the NATO statement on the Russian invasion of Georgia and you will find not a hint of who invaded whom. The statement is almost comically evenhanded. "We deplore all loss of life," it declared, as if deploring a bus accident. And, it "expressed its grave concern over the situation in Georgia." Situation, mind you.
It's not until paragraph six that NATO, a 26-nation alliance with 900 million people and nearly half of world GDP, unsheathes its mighty sword, boldly declaring "Russian military action" — not aggression, not invasion, not even incursion, but "action" — to be "inconsistent with its peacekeeping role."
Having launched a fearsome tautology Moscow's way, what further action does the Greatest Alliance of All Time take? Cancels the next NATO-Russia Council meeting.
That's it. No dissolution of the G-8 (group of industrial democracies). No blocking of Russian entry to the World Trade Organization. No suspension of participation in the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics (15 miles from the Georgian border). No statement of support for the Saakashvili government.
Remember: At issue is not military action, only measures — painless for the West — that would significantly affect Russia. In Soviet days, Russia didn't care because it was at the center of a self-enclosed autarkic system that included 15 Soviet republics, all of Eastern Europe and a collection of overseas colonies. With these all gone, post-Soviet Russia is infinitely more dependent on the international system. It has political/economic pressure points. Yet with Georgia occupied, its infrastructure stripped and its capital under siege, NATO pushed not one of them.

Russia has buttons which could be pushed to advantage. NATO, formed – among others – for the purpose of “keeping the Russians out”, according to its first Secretary-General, Lord Ismay, doesn’t bother brushing the dust off the buttons, much less pressing the buttons. An aspiring NATO member (and U.S. ally) is invaded and the an-attack-on-one-is-an-attack-on-all alliance does nothing. Well, that makes a little bit of sense when you take into account France and Germany’s opposition to Georgian membership on the grounds (naturally!) that it might anger Russia. Good heavens, we certainly don't want that.

As I observed in the previous posting, the end game of war is the submission of your enemy to your will, by defeating him physically, by destroying his military forces or by defeating him morally, by destroying his will to fight. Usually, one has to do both. Occasionally one has really to do neither; for occasionally one’s enemy, regardless how well-armed, simply has no will to fight. That’s NATO a “26-nation alliance with 900 million people and nearly half of world GDP”: heavily armed, but no will to fight.

No will to fight, even non-militarily; submission to the enemy’s will; and all without a shot fired – looks like a defeat to me. A bloody, bloody defeat.

Russian forces blocked access to the city’s naval and commercial ports… and towed the missile boat Dioskuria, seen as the flagship of the Georgian navy, out of sight of observers. A loud explosion was heard minutes later. (Entire article here.)

Actions like this have kept people wondering if and when Russia will leave Georgia. Speculation continues that this is an aggressive move to annex Georgia to Russia. It may be.

But this is war; and war is prosecuted for political objectives. War is prosecuted to make one’s adversary submit to one’s will, normally by destroying either his means of conducting war or by destroying his will to conduct war – if not both. Russia may very well have set for itself the limited objective of ensuring Georgia’s inability to conduct war, by destroying her military and her will to fight.

I doubt we’ll see Russia leave Georgia, if ever, before they satisfy themselves that Georgia will be conducting no further military engagements against her. More than likely, Russia's ultimate goal is to keep Georgia and others out of NATO.

While people still seek and clamor for a "political" resolution they should bear this in mind. The Russians know something that many would do well to consider: War is not something distinguished from politics, but something pursued for political ends; like diplomacy war is part of politics. It is, as von Clausewitz observed, a continuation of “political intercourse” by different means. War is about making the enemy submit to your will. The continuing violence in Iraq, for example, suggests that we have not yet destroyed terrorists means or will to conduct their operations. For you see, it has been their goal to us to submit to their will, not by destroying our means of conducting warfare against them, but rather by destroying our will to fight, mostly by tiring us out. And Democrats have ever been their closest ally.

You don’t stop a war by ceasing to shoot at those who are shooting at you; you lose a war by ceasing to shoot at those who are shooting at you. Remember: war, even when it is defensive, is conducted to make the enemy submit to your will, especially (in defense) by frustrating his intentions.

Unlike some us, the Russians seem to have no intention of going anywhere until they are satisfied that Georgia will be unable, unwilling (or both) to prosecute combat operations. They will not leave until Georgia submits to Russia's will.

Well that’s what some people say, anyway.

Gerard Baker, of the U.K. Times Online, explains the difference:

It ought not to be necessary to point out the differences between Saddam Hussein's Iraq and Mr Saakashvili's Georgia, but for those blinded by moral relativism, here goes - Georgia did not invade its neighbours or use chemical weapons on their people. Georgia did not torture and murder hundreds of thousands of its own citizens. Georgia did not defy international demands for a decade and ignore 18 UN Security Council resolutions to come clean about its weapons programmes. And unlike Iraq under Saddam, Georgia is led by a democratically elected president who has pushed this once dank backwater of the Soviet Union, birthplace of Stalin and Beria, towards liberal democracy and international engagement.