From 1st March this year :
With Russian troops poised to sever Crimea from Ukraine, tough-talking conservatives are claiming they were right about the threat from Vladimir Putin all along. The Wall Street Journal interviewed former Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who offered the West his lessons learned from losing the 2008 clash with the Russians. Meanwhile to the delight of the right-wing blogosphere, Sarah Palin boasted "I told ya so" about her October 2008 prediction that Ukraine would be next.
Of course, there's only one small problem with the crowing from conservatives now enjoying some schadenfreude at President Obama's expense. As we now know, Saakashvili himself bears much of the responsibility for starting the war with Russia.
>
Sadly for Palin, In the fall of 2009, a report commissioned by the Council of the European Union instead found that Georgia "started unjustified war." While the EU analysis placed blame on both Tbilisi and Moscow for what transpired, it rejected the Georgian government's explanation that the attack was defensive. As the BBC reported (below):
>
As Wikileaks revealed in December 2010, the U.S. position was made worse by the fact that the Bush administration--and its allies like John McCain--gullibly believed everything Saakashvili told them. The leaked cables from Tblisi, the New York Times explained, "display some of the perils of a close relationship":
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2014/03/01/1281384/-Sarah-Palin-Wall-Street-Journal-rewrite-history-of-Russia-Georgia-war#
In the same way in which the US believed everything Saakashvili told them , without seeking alternative sources , the same is now happening with respect to Kiev - without alternative sources. Jen Psaki confirmed that in answer to a question from a reporter during a news conference.
= new reply since forum marked as read
