Taliban begin 'surge' against NATO forces

The New York Times explains how this latest and fiercest offensive by the Taliban is putting 2008 at a pace to be the deadliest year for NATO forces.

Also, "For the third month in a row, more US troops have been killed in Afghanistan than in Iraq."

Wow. I've always thought that Iran would be the next walloped by US military intervention, however these articles tend to suggest that Pakistan might be the next victim. I mean, I guess this IS the center piece of Obama's foreign policy: punitive strikes against guerrillas in Pakistan and a surge in Afghanistan.

Mark Ames on Georgia

Mark Ames, one of my favorite writers, has good piece in the Nation last week on the invasion of South Ossetia. He does a good job of providing some of the crucial context that's missing from the media's ebullient celebrations of Georgian nationalism, such as the long history of South Ossetian oppression. He goes a bit overboard, however, in his attacks on McCain, which, while hilarious, ignore Obama's similar response to the fighting. He has, as the Chicago Sun-Times notes, stepped on board the "Blame Russia"* train along with the rest of the ruling class. Even more disturbing is this interview with Obama's main man on foreign policy,Zbigniew Brzezinski, who, in a daring simile never before attempted by a ruling class politician, compared his enemy to Hitler. Brzezinski is an old hat at Russia-bashing, going back to his days in the Carter administration when he helped engineer the bloodbath in Afghanistan in the eighties. Ultimately, while Obama may be immeasurably more well-spoken than his fossilized opponent, he is no less dangerous when it comes to projecting American power.

*To be sure, Russia has imperialist ambitions for Ossetia and ultimately Georgia, but that hardly means the United States does not.

*UPDATE*
Ames has a newer piece on the Nation that is equally valuable. I particularly like his description of Saakashvili:

While Bush and McCain speak of Saakashvili as if he's a combination of Thomas Jefferson and Nelson Mandela, he's seen by his own people as increasingly authoritarian and unbalanced. Last year, Saakashvili sent in his special forces to violently disperse opposition protesters in the capital city, followed by a declaration of martial law. He sacked the opposition television station (partly owned by Rupert Murdoch), exiled or jailed his political opponents, and stacked the courts with his own judges while removing neutral observers, leaving even onetime neocon cheerleaders like Bruce Jackson and Anne Applebaum feeling queasy. Hardly the image of the "small democratic nation" that everyone today touts.

A good antidote to the know-nothing delusions of that blonde ass-hat on CNN Glenn Beck.

Fallout for NATO in Georgia

As Georgian and Russian military leaders toss recriminations back and forth regarding who first violated the French-brokered ceasefire, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has taken a page from Karzai and Musharraf's book and petulantly blamed his imperial backers for his own misfortune. Saakashvili told CNN that Western leaders had "failed to analyze Russia's intentions" before it invaded Georgia and "are partly to blame" for the current situation. He continued ""The response has not been adequate. Not only those people who are committing all those atrocities are responsible, but those who don't react to that, I think they also share responsibility." This little display of snotty sub imperial whining has made me wonder what the fallout for NATO is going to be here. As StratFor argues, this war did not shift geopolitical relations; rather, it revealed the already established shift of US impotence and Russian ambitions. Given this, I wonder to what degree Saakashvili will try to turn this against his former allies. It seems he is quite interested in using the Americans' current situation to his advantage as much as possible, but how much room does he really have? DEBKAfile is promising an analysis of "Why Saakashvili stirred the Pot" that I'm very much looking forward to, as the future of the conflict in the Caucuses right now seems very unclear (at least to me).

NATO-Israeli involvement in the Georgian conflict

Here's a great article from Global Research that explains the rationale behind Israel, US, and Nato backing of Georgia in this conflict and provides a very helpful discussion of the geopolitics of energy at stake.

NATO Airstrikes Kill Afghan Civilians (Again)

From the New York Times. This on top of the revelation earlier this year that NATO has killed more civilians than the Taliban.