America's Other Crisis

The slow death of logic and critical thinking...

It looks like the tin foil hat brigade is starting to form a consensus about the war in Georgia...

Apparently its all a Republican plot orchestrated so that McCain can win the election.

From the Huffington Post

What a Convenient Little War for The Republicans

In classic "Wag The Dog" scenario there is a neat little war brewing between American and Russian proxies, and real Russian troops, in the Caucacus Mountains on the Russian border.
...

What is most interesting is that McCain's chief foreign policy aide, Randy Scheunemann,
has been advising/ lobbying for pro-western Georgia for the last four years.

Can't you just imagine what happened?

Randy lets it be known to the Georgian President that this would be a good time for Georgian troops to invade South Ossetia, which had been an autonomous territory for more than a decade. The Georgians didn't take much persuading, as they had been wanting to crack down with their troops for a long time.

And with American -- Republican -- support, what a better time to act?

Meanwhile Bush is conveniently meeting with Putin at the Olympics in Beijing and lets it be known that if Georgia attacks Ossetia, the US will not "mind" -- Wink Wink -- an aggressive response from Russia.

I recognize the Huff Po for the partisan tool that it is but when your writers start expousing pet conspiracy theories and you happen to be running one of the most heavily trafficked US political blogs on the web its doesn't do crap for your credibility.

I see this as part of a disturbing trend in American culture. Considering that 25% of all Americans believe they have been wiretapped and a double digit portion (lost the link to the poll courtesy of Firefox 2.1) of Americans believe that either the government could have prevented 9/11 and didn't or were behind it in the first place I'm inclined to think that the number of people that are using the basic tools of reasoning is on the decrease. And if Mr. Fleetwood, who used to be a journalist at several reputable publications, is any indicator those same irrational people are actually getting jobs of influence and import which is doubly disturbing.

As for the Huff Po they'd do well to realize that the longer they allow their writers to use their blog as a staging ground for pet conspiracy theories the more they damage their positions and their party.