Ralph Peters, idiot

When we last checked with Ralph Peters, he was rubbing his hands together with glee, anticipating the drubbing Russia was going to receive at the hands of Georgia’s armed forces:

That said, the Russians may be surprised at how fiercely the Georgians defend their homeland. At least two, and possibly four, Russian jets have been shot down while attacking Georgian bases close to the capital city, Tbilisi.

As of last night, the Georgians had retaken Tskhinvali, South Ossetia’s capital. I’d bet American veterans helped Georgia with contingency planning for just such a situation (it worked in Bosnia)… This fighting is serious. And, unless Moscow pulls out all the stops, its forces just might take a surprise beating.

Shockingly, Peters prediction that the brave Georgian patriots would drub the Rooskie menace didn’t come true — but Peters has an explanation! It seems that Russia may actually have made their move into Ossetia with something resembling a plan, which included provisions for supply and reinforcement, rather than just willy-nilly sending their forces into Ossetia piecemeal to be defeated in detail! Oh, the perfidy:

For all that US commentators and diplomats are still chattering about Russia’s “response” to Georgia’s actions, the Kremlin spent months planning and preparing this operation. Any soldier above the grade of private can tell you that there’s absolutely no way Moscow could’ve launched this huge ground, air and sea offensive in an instantaneous “response” to alleged Georgian actions.

As I pointed out Saturday, even to get one armored brigade over the Caucasus Mountains required extensive preparations. Since then, Russia has sent in the equivalent of almost two divisions - not only in South Ossetia, the scene of the original fighting, but also in separatist Abkhazia on the Black Sea coast.

The Russians also managed to arrange the instant appearance of a squadron of warships to blockade Georgia. And they launched hundreds of air strikes against preplanned targets.

Every one of these things required careful preparations. In the words of one US officer, “Just to line up the airlift sorties would’ve taken weeks.”

You mean Russia actually had a plan to a long anticipated Georgian move into Ossetia?!?!? A move so obvious that Condi Rice supposedly warned the Georgians not to make it, over a month ago? And their plan included logistics, air power, combined forces, and everything?!? Inconceivable!! Peters wasn’t wrong because he grossly underestimated Russia’s putatively “wretched” state of military readiness, it was because the Russians actually had a plan. Peters needs no further proof that the Russians are 100% responsible for Georgia’s ill-considered decision to invade Ossetia and provide Russia with the casus belli it needed.

Of course any soldier above the grade of a private might have predicted that the Russians, given months of the brewing crisis, might actually have planned potential counters to Georgia’s moving troops into Ossetia in advance, even if an arrogant doofus like Peters is shocked by the concept.

Peters chumbles on to fit this debacle into the nutcase’s preferred framework which compares everything to Nazis and Munich:

This invasion recalls Hitler’s march into Czechoslovakia - to protect ethnic Germans, he claimed, just as Putin claims to be protecting Russian citizens - complete BS.

Yeah, it’s just like Munich except that the Czech Army didn’t descend onto the Sudetenland and start shelling its cities prior to the Wehrmacht crossing into Czechoslovakia. In fact, when Hitler’s armies finally did march into Czechoslovakia, there were no longer ethnic Germans within the country to protect, and the pretext was the cause of Slovakian independence (because, you know, Hitler was such a friend to the Slavs). And prior to Munich, the Czechs were extremely careful not to provide Germany with any pretext for war, treating its ethnic Germans with kid gloves.

But if ignorant fools like Peters can’t even get the vaguest outlines of their supposed historical analogies right, why should they be expected to have a clue as to the actual details? Stuff like history and facts are completely peripheral to viewing the world through a lens of moronic neoconservative fucktwittery.