Russia

Clear aggression

A friend of mine actually said "Isn't it refreshing to have a big nation just blatantly invade another smaller nation. I mean Russia just rolled over Georgia for the money." That is not entirely the case. Russia had a bunch of Russian passport holders being oppressed in that section of Georgia. That section of Georgia was part of Russia proper before the Soviet Union. This dispute has been a long time in the making.

Don't get me wrong. Russia is flexing its might. This Russo-Georgian conflict is about the money.Russia is run by Mob bosses and they are showing their colors.

Old Enemy

Russia is the enemy of our fathers. My grandfather fought in WWII. My father was rebuilding Korea during the Vietnam war. I have friends fighting in the Middle East right now. Something about having Russia piss us off feels comfortable. It feels familiar. My generation was the last to read articles in history class about how Russia stole Eastern Europe after WWII. I did a report on the East Berlin Air Lift.

We had a kid in our history class who was born in West Berlin. I wish now that I had asked him what he thought about that time period. I was in high school. I did not realize the opportunity I was missing.

We have had to fight new fights for so long now that we are weary  of learning new ways to fight. This leads to the next bullet.

Big enough to be a real threat

The reason Briton and France went in to the Middle East in the first place was for the money. Europe wanted to trade for everything from spices, goods, raw materials and trade routs to places East.. Europe noticed how fragmented the entire area was and made the decision to keep the area that way to prevent the entire Middle East from getting organized and charging more.

People think of these countries as over grown tribes and hardly worth worrying about. That will all change when Iran gets nukes. I digress.

Germany made several moves that all but match what Russia is doing right now, just before WWII. Half the conservative bloggers out there start their entries with something like "1938 alert" to bring one's attention to this fact. Many people feel we may be witnessing the beginnings of WW (either III if you believe none of the other wars since WWII were real wars or IV if you count the dozen or so wars we are fighting right now count as WWIII).

Race

There is a grumbling under current that says it s OK to hate Russia because it is full of white people. There are plenty of reasons to be pissed at Russia besides this. Russia is ethnically divers, to a point. I dismiss this argument for now. Maybe a later debate.