"Two can play the game the Russians are playing,"
Warmongering in that part of the world will only create more suffering and it always comes back to bite you. I'm sure Dick Cheney and the neocons are taking any opportunity to stir up the hornets nest.
We might get a little of our own medicine with Russky-Venezuelan oil agreements. How about the Russians supporting a little more chaos in southern Mexico so we can have an even greater refugee population from there.

if Russia is too busy keeping it's own house in order, it will have less time and inclination to cause mischief elsewhere.

_{"While not a Playboy reader, she invites a male acquaintance in for a quiet discussion of Chagall, Nietzsche, jazz, sex." - not a Hugh Hefner quote}

...there. The natives seem to be doing pretty okay by themselves - why look for problematic proxies (and Chechyans would seem to top the list of problematic proxies - boatloads of those guys [both actual and ascribed] on the Pakistan / Afghanistan frontier) when they'll do it themselves for free? More evidence required in my book.

“Politics is the art of looking for trouble, finding it everywhere, diagnosing it incorrectly and applying the wrong remedies.” ~ Sir Ernest Benn

Slightly off-topic

NYT - The tattered Georgian flags, the NATO-style uniforms and the American assault rifles clutter a small corner of the Russian Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow. They are trophies from Russia’s recent war with Georgia, gathered haphazardly but displayed with a clear message.

The Russian Central Armed Forces Museum in Moscow wasted no time in setting up an exhibition on the brief war with Georgia.

“Now people understand who started this,” said Aleksandr K. Nikonov, the museum’s director. And — he did not have to add — who finished it.

Along with the ragtag spoils of war, photographs displayed at the exhibition, titled “The Caucasus: Five Days in August,” portray Russia’s victory over Georgia as absolute. Raw images of mangled and burned soldiers scattered among bombed-out tanks are captioned, “The enemy has been stopped.” Other photos show relieved, war-weary villagers welcoming Russian troops.

This hastily assembled exhibition has a message that goes well beyond rendering a verdict on the Georgian conflict.

Never mind that Russia has suffered a diplomatic bruising after its overpowering incursion into Georgia — which Moscow defends as an emergency response to Georgia’s assault on South Ossetia, the separatist enclave at the heart of the conflict. Or that Russia’s unilateral recognition of independence for South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another breakaway Georgian enclave, has been condemned around the world.

Never mind all that. After decades of embarrassing military defeats, in Afghanistan in the 1980s and in Chechnya in the 1990s, Russia is once again a winner.

“We can thank the Georgians for a small victorious war; it was helpful for our nation, for Russia,” said Oleg Sergienko, a 38-year-old lawyer who was visiting the exhibition. “For the last 20 years Russia’s sense of identity greatly declined,” added Mr. Sergienko, who fought in one of Russia’s wars, but declined to say which one. “Now there is cohesiveness.”

more at link

_{"The mythical John McCain is an affable, straight-talking, moderately conservative war hero who is an expert on foreign policy" - Bob Herbert}

Russia woos Georgian territory with jobs, tourists

CSM - At Psou, a town on the border between Russia and Abkhazia, elderly women wheel trolleys of vegetables and household goods from Russia to sell in Abkhazia. A few Russian tourists – incongruous in their bright clothes and bikinis – bob between the shuttle traders, headed for sunny holidays amid the palm trees on Abkhazia's Black Sea coast.

Officials in Sukhumi, the capital of the breakaway Georgian region that has functioned as an independent state since 1993, are expecting an economic boom over the next few years that will reduce the number of those dependent on shuttle trading to make ends meet and boost the number of tourists exponentially.

After Russia officially recognized Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states last month, in the wake of the war with Georgia, the signs are that Russian capital will flood Abkhazia, raising living standards in the region and pulling it further away from Georgia's orbit and closer to Russia's.

"We're expecting massive economic development over the next few years thanks to this decision," says the Abkhazian foreign minister, Sergei Shamba. Already most of Abkhazia's trade is with Russia, and many of its citizens have Russian passports.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a friendship treaty with Abkhazian President Sergei Bagapsh on Sept. 17 that guarantees Russia will militarily defend Abkhazia in the event of an attack from Georgia. But in addition to security guarantees, the deal also brings economic advantages. The treaty envisages a customs union and privileges for Russian businesses in Abkhazia. A further set of agreements will be drawn up in the coming weeks to finalize the details.

The governors of several Russian regions have journeyed to Abkhazia to talk about investing in the region, and Moscow Mayor Yuri Luzhkov will travel there Tuesday for a victory parade for Russia's war with Georgia in the early-1990s. Russian analysts say that the Kremlin has been signaling that investing in Abkhazia is a "patriotic" thing to do.

In 2014, Russia will host the Winter Olympics in Sochi, just a few miles from the border with Abkhazia. The massive effort required to prepare the city for the Games will be a further factor boosting Abkhazia's economy, with thousands of jobs created just across the border in the construction and service sectors. With the new agreements in place, Abkhazians will have the right to work in Sochi.

Movement in the other direction will also rise. During the Soviet period, hundreds of thousands of tourists relaxed in the sanatoria and hotels of subtropical Abkhazia. Over the past few years, Russian tourists who can't afford trips to Turkey or Egypt – and are willing to sunbathe amid war ruins – have started to return. The hope is that, with regeneration, a higher class of tourist will again be attracted to Abkhazia.

more at link

_{"The mythical John McCain is an affable, straight-talking, moderately conservative war hero who is an expert on foreign policy" - Bob Herbert}