[Response to Felgenhauer's "Putin Confirms the Invasion of Georgia Was Preplanned"]
I'm afraid I can't let this one pass unremarked. In Pavel Felgenhauer's interpretation, "Putin and Medvedev have revealed a great deal: that the invasion of Georgia in August 2008 was indeed a preplanned aggression." Anyone who is familiar with, for example, how the US Pentagon functions knows that all sorts of planning and training goes on for conflicts that don't occur. And for some that do. The notion of "preplanned aggression" is a really bold and careless extrapolation from what Putin and Medvedev have recently said. In 2008 Felgenhauer played a major role in putting out one-sided reporting on the conflict between Russia and Georgia. His work was enthusiastically picked up and echoed by friends in Washington think-tanks. Long-time readers of JRL know that we tried to present diverse news and views of the conflict and, hopefully, succeeded in balancing the polemical blasts that soon, for the most part, subsided. This is a beautiful example of JRL's motto: "We don't see things as they are, but as we are."
