It Feels So Damn Good

The South Ossetian conflict began and ended with some epic examples of badly timed blog posts. First, a couple of "the Russians have sucked it down, they can't do jack now" posts on August 8, a mere hour or two before the surprise (that wasn't). But I'm pleased to say the worst of timing luck has befallen our old friend La Russophobe. You don't want to be the hysterical war-monger when your "dangerous" "enemy" have just shown themselves to be wise and to mean what they say.

Ladies and gentlemen, here's something that doesn't occur every day: an hours-old anachronism.

Special Extra Editorial: Answering Russia

Here are ten steps that NATO countries, which will soon be meeting for an emergency session to respond to Russia’s outrageous aggression in Georgia, should take immediately.

1. Admit Ukraine. Arm it to the teeth.

2. Eject Russia from the G-8.

3. Call for Russia’s ejection from the U.N. Security Council.

4. Recall all national ambassadors from Moscow for 90 days.

5. Invite a conference of Russian opposition leaders to Brussels for a formal meeting with the EU, followed by one in Washington.

6. Begin supplying weapons to the rebels in Russia’s breakaway provinces of Chechnya and Ingushetia. Call openly for Russia to free these regions from bondage.

7. Announce a massive new program of military spending, pushing Russia into a lethal new arms race it can’t afford or consigning it to permanent military impotence.

8. Announce a new program to aggressively seek alternatives to Russian fossil fuels, with fixed reduction targets.

9. Announce a boycott of the Russian winter olympics in Sochi in 2014 as long as Vladimir Putin remains in power.

10. Announce the creation of a new information network, much larger and better funded than Voice of America or Radio Free Europe to deliver Internet, TV and radio broadcasts into neo-Soviet Russia so that Russians can learn the truth about their country.

The hatred and the craziness speak for themselves. Should anyone who agrees with this agenda ever comes to power, we'd be obliged to protect not only ourselves but the entire world from those lunatics and their spawn of Saakashvili-like bullies. If our luck runs out and the likes of La Russophobe do manage to bring about a new Cold War, it seriously seems we'll be the good guys this time. We'll defend not just ourselves, not another wacky ideology with nothing to vouch for it except dead words and live ammunition, but the 21st century and all the good things it should have stood for. The things that are yet to be given fancy names for media to play around with. For the moment, we may just remember what we once imagined this century to be like. Specifically: at long last, a century of grown-ups. Humanity's adulthood beginning.

I'll address #10, though, as it's the most reasonable one except grossly misguided. (No fear of La Russophobe actually knowing or understanding something about Russia.) A "huge truth network" has already been in existence for some years, at no cost to anyone in particular. It's called the Russian blogosphere. It's free-thinking, it's vibrant, it's audacious, it proved more than once it was capable of causing real change... it broadly agrees that the version of "truth" you'd have fed to us is just more rubbish propaganda. Sorry. The problem seems to be on your end. Which in the last couple of days has been proven unto you yet again.

Thank goodness the Russophobes of this world seem to be losing after all. Thank goodness they're not losing in some silly geopolitical sense while keeping everything else. They're losing whatever moral high ground they ever chanced to have. They're losing their own minds. They're losing the 21st century, which their heroes and their causes have managed to mess up in less than a decade.

Could this be the time whose joints we were meant to set right?

Could this be another awfully timed blog post?

We'll see. We're in no rush now. And that's why today – or, to be on the safe side, this hour – it feels so damn good to be Russian. Any idiot can make a comeback as a military power. We've just shown the world there's more to us than that.