Over at CQ’s SpyTalk, Jeff Stein says we knew all about the invasion of Georgia, and also about Georgia’s decision to send troops into South Ossetia last Thursday, despite our Casablanca defense (we are “shocked, shocked”) that Rob discusses below.

Stein makes a convincing case: We have so many military “advisers” in Georgia that it would be odd if we didn’t know what was going on. As Stein sees it, we maintain close ties with people — in Georgia or elsewhere — when they are useful and dump them when they became a problem (i.e., the Russians are coming). In other words, it’s business as usual.

–Tara McKelvey

Tara McKelvey, a senior editor at the Prospect, is a research fellow at NYU School of Law’s Center on Law and Security and the author of Monstering: Inside America's Policy on Secret Interrogations and Torture in the Terror War.