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TechnoratiUS Role in Georgia Crisis
The international condemnation of Russian aggression against Georgia - and the concomitant assaults by Abkhazians and South Ossetians against ethnic Georgians within their territories - is in large part appropriate. But the self-righteous posturing coming out of Washington should be tempered by a sober recognition of the ways in which the United States has contributed to the crisis.
It has been nearly impossible to even broach this subject of the U.S. role. Much of the mainstream media coverage and statements by American political leaders of both major parties has in many respects resembled the anti-Russian hysterics of the Cold War. It is striking how quickly forgotten is the fact that the U.S.-backed Georgian military started the war when it brutally assaulted the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali in an attempt to regain direct control of the autonomous region. This attack prompted the disproportionate and illegitimate Russian military response, which soon went beyond simply ousting invading Georgian forces from South Ossetia to invading and occupying large segments of Georgia itself.
The South Ossetians themselves did much to provoke Georgia as well by shelling villages populated by ethnic Georgians earlier this month. However, Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili ruled out signing a non-aggression pact and repeatedly refused to rejoin talks of the Joint Control Commission to prevent an escalation of the violence. Furthermore, according to Reuters, a draft UN Security Council statement calling for an immediate cease fire was blocked when the United States objected to "a phrase in the three-sentence draft statement that would have required both sides ‘to renounce the use of force.'"
Borders and Boundaries
In the Caucuses and Central Asia, the Russian empire and its Soviet successors, like the Western European colonialists in Africa, often drew state boundaries arbitrarily and, in some cases, not so arbitrarily as part of a divide-and-rule strategy. The small and ethnically distinct regions of South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Ajaria were incorporated into the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic and - on the breakup of the Soviet Union in 1991 - remained as autonomous regions within the state of Georgia. Not one of the regions was ethnically pure. They all included sizable ethnic Georgian minorities, among others. Despite cultural and linguistic differences, there was not much in the way of ethnic tension during most of the Soviet period and inter-marriage was not uncommon.
As the USSR fell apart in the late 1980s, however, nationalist sentiments increased dramatically throughout the Caucuses region in such ethnic enclaves as Chechnya in Russia, Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan, as well as among those within Georgia. Compounding these nationalist and ethnic tensions was the rise of the ultra-nationalist Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia, who assumed power when the country declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. With the possible exception of the Baltic states, Georgia had maintained the strongest sense of nationalism of any of the former Soviet republics, tracing its national identity as far back as the 4th century BC as one of most advanced states of its time. This resurgent nationalism led the newly re-emerged independent Georgia to attempt to assert its sovereignty over its autonomous regions by force.
A series of civil conflicts raged in Georgia in subsequent years, both between competing political factions within Georgia itself as well as in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, resulting in widespread ethnic cleansing. Backed by Russian forces, these two regions achieved de facto independence while, within Georgia proper, former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze emerged as president and brought some semblance of stability to the country, despite a weak economy and widespread corruption.
Russian troops, nominally in a peacekeeping role but clearly aligned with nationalist elements within the two ethnic enclaves, effectively prevented any subsequent exercise of Georgian government authority over most of these territories. Meanwhile, the United States became the biggest foreign backer of the Shevardnadze regime, pouring in over $1 billion in aid during the decade of his corrupt and semi-authoritarian rule.
The Rose Revolution
Though strongly supported by Washington, Shevardnadze was less well-respected at home. For example, The New York Times reported how "Georgians have a different perspective" than the generous pro-government view from Washington, citing the observation in the Georgian daily newspaper The Messenger that, "Despite the fact that he is adored in the West as an ‘architect of democracy' and credited with ending the Cold War, Georgians cannot bear their president." Though critical of the rampant corruption and rigged elections, the Bush administration stood by the Georgian regime, as they had the post-Communist dictatorships in Azerbaijan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan, and most of the other former Soviet republics.
Georgia enjoyed relatively more political freedom and civil society institutions than most other post-Soviet states. Nevertheless, high unemployment, a breakdown in the allocation of energy for heating and other needs, a deteriorating infrastructure, widespread corruption, and inept governance led to growing dissatisfaction with the government. By 2003, Shevardnadze had lost support from virtually every social class, ethnic group, and geographical region of the country. Heavy losses by his supporters in parliamentary elections early that November were widely anticipated. Still, Shevardnadze continued to receive the strong support of President George W. Bush due to his close personal relationship with high-ranking administration officials. Contributing to this relationship were his pro-Western policies, such as embarking upon ambitious free market reforms under the tutelage of the International Monetary Fund, agreeing to deploy 300 Georgian troops to Iraq following the U.S. invasion, and sending Georgian troops trained by U.S. Special Forces to the Pankisi Gorge on the border of Chechnya to fight Chechen rebels. Opposition leaders Zurab Zhvania and Mikheil Saakashvilli strongly criticized the United States for its continued support of the Georgian president.
In addition to the electoral opposition, a decentralized student-led grass roots movement known as Kmara emerged, calling for an end to corruption and more democratic and accountable government as well as free and fair elections. Though not directly supported by the Bush administration, a number of Western NGOs, including the Open Society Institute (backed by Hungarian-American financier George Soros) and the National Democratic Institute (supported, ironically, by U.S. congressional funding) provided funding for election-monitoring and helped facilitate workshops for both the young Kmara activists and mainstream opposition leaders. This led to some serious tension between these non-governmental organizations and the U.S. embassy in Georgian capital.
For example, when U.S. ambassador to Georgia Richard Miles learned that some leaders from the successful student-led nonviolent civil insurrection in Serbia three years earlier were in Tbilisi to give trainings to Kmara activists there, he tried to discourage them by telling them that "Shevardnadze is the guarantee for the peace and stability of the region." Noting that the United States was providing training and equipment of the Georgian army that anti-government demonstrators would soon be facing down in the streets, he referred to the Kmara as "troublemakers." Similarly, Miles discouraged Kmara leaders from working with the Serb activists, whom he had known from his prior post as chief of mission in Belgrade, insisting that "Georgia is not the same as Serbia." (Despite these efforts, the scheduled trainings in strategic nonviolent action went forward anyway.)
The parliamentary elections that November were marred by a series of irregularities. These included widespread ballot-stuffing, multiple voting by government supporters, late poll openings, missing ballots, and missing voter lists in opposition strongholds. These attempts to steal the election elicited little more than finger-wagging from the Bush administration.
The Georgians themselves did not take the situation so lightly, however. They launched general strikes and massive street protests against what they saw as illegitimate government authority. This effort was soon dubbed the "Rose Revolution." Gaining support from the United States only after the success of the nonviolent civil insurrection appeared inevitable, this popular uprising forced Shevardnadze to resign.
Presidential elections, certified as free and fair by international observers, were held two months later, in which opposition leader Mikheil Saakashvili emerged victorious. Four months later, the authoritarian ruler of the autonomous region of Ajaria, a Shevardnadze ally, was ousted in a similar nonviolent civil insurrection.
Though not responsible for the change of government itself, the Bush administration soon moved to take advantage of the change the Georgian people brought about after the fact.
U.S. Embrace of Saakashvili
Despite its longstanding support for Shevardnadze, the Bush administration quickly embraced Georgia's new president. Taking advantage of Georgia's desperate economic situation, the United States successfully lobbied for a series of additional free market reforms and other neoliberal economic measures on the country, including a flat tax of 14%. Though official corruption declined, tax collection rates improved, and the rate of economic growth increased, high unemployment remained and social inequality grew.
With strong encouragement from Washington, Saakashvili's government reduced domestic spending but dramatically increased military spending, with the armed forces expanding to more than 45,000 personnel over the next four years, more than 12,000 of whom were trained by the United States. Congress approved hundreds of millions of dollars of military assistance to Georgia, a small country of less than five million people. In addition, the United States successfully encouraged Israel to send advisors and trainers to support the rapidly-expanding Georgian armed forces.
Although facing growing security concerns at home, the Bush administration also successfully pushed Saakashvili to send an additional 1,700 troops to Iraq. Thus, Georgia increased its troop strength in Iraq by more than 500% even as other countries in the U.S.-led multinational force were pulling out.
Though Georgia is located in a region well within Russia's historic sphere of influence and is more than 3,000 miles from the Atlantic Ocean, Bush nevertheless launched an ambitious campaign to bring Georgia into the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO). The Russians, who had already seen previous U.S. assurances to Gorbachev that NATO would not extend eastward ignored, found the prospects of NATO expansion to the strategically important and volatile Caucasus region particularly provocative. This inflamed Russian nationalists and Russian military leaders and no doubt strengthened their resolve to maintain their military presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Washington's embrace of Saakashvili, like its earlier embrace of Shevardnadze, appears to have been based in large part on oil. The United States has helped establish Georgia as a major energy transit corridor, building an oil pipeline from the Caspian region known as the BTC (Baku-Tbilisi-Ceylan) and a parallel natural gas pipeline, both designed to avoid the more logical geographical routes through Russia or Iran. The Russians, meanwhile, in an effort to maintain as much control over the westbound oil from the region, have responded by pressuring the governments of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to sign exclusive export agreements and to construct natural gas pipelines through Russia. (See Michael Klare's Russia and Georgia: All About Oil.)
Amid accusations of widespread corruption and not adequately addressing the country's growing poverty, Saakashvili himself faced widespread protests in November 2007, to which he responded with severe repression, shutting down independent media, detaining opposition leaders, and sending his security forces to assault largely nonviolent demonstrators with tear gas, truncheons, rubber bullets, water cannons, and sonic equipment. Human Rights Watch criticized the government for using "excessive" force against protesters and the International Crisis Group warned of growing authoritarianism in the country. Despite this, Saakashvili continued to receive strong support from Washington and still appeared to have majority support within Georgia, winning a snap election in January by a solid majority which - despite some irregularities - was generally thought to be free and fair.
Lead-up to the Current Crisis
A number of misguided U.S. policies appear to have played an important role in encouraging Georgia to launch its August 6 assault on South Ossetia.
The first had to do with the U.S.-led militarization of Georgia, which likely emboldened Saakashvili to try to resolve the conflict over South Ossetia by military means. Just last month, the United States held a military exercise in Georgia with more than 1,000 American troops while the Bush administration, according to The New York Times, was "loudly proclaiming its support for Georgia's territorial integrity in the battle with Russia over Georgia's separatist enclaves." As the situation was deteriorating last month, U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice made a high-profile visit to Saakashvili in Tbilisi, where she reiterated the strong strategic relationship between the two countries.
Radio Liberty speculates that Saakashvili "may have felt that his military, after several years of U.S.-sponsored training and rearmament, was now capable of routing the Ossetian separatists ("bandits," in the official parlance) and neutralizing the Russian peacekeepers." Furthermore, Saakashvili apparently hoped that the anticipated Russian reaction would "immediately transform the conflict into a direct confrontation between a democratic David and an autocratic Goliath, making sure the sympathy of the Western world would be mobilized for Georgia."
According to Charles Kupchan of the Council on Foreign Relations, the United States may have caused Saakashvili to "miscalculate" and "overreach" by making him feel that "at the end of the day that the West would come to his assistance if he got into trouble."
Another factor undoubtedly involved the U.S. push for Georgia to join NATO. The efforts by some prominent Kremlin lawmakers for formal recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia coincided with the escalated efforts for NATO's inclusion of Georgia this spring, as well as an awareness that any potential Russian military move against Georgia would need to come sooner rather than later.
And, as a number of us predicted last March, Western support for the unilateral declaration of independence by the autonomous Serbian region of Kosovo emboldened nationalist leaders in the autonomous Georgian regions, along with their Russian supporters, to press for the independence of these nations as well. Despite the pro-American sympathies of many in that country, Georgians were notably alarmed by the quick and precedent-setting U.S. recognition of Kosovo.
No Standing to Challenge Russian Aggression
Russia's massive and brutal military counter-offensive, while immediately provoked by Georgia's attack on South Ossetia, had clearly been planned well in advance. It also went well beyond defending the enclave to illegally sending forces deep into Georgia itself and inflicting widespread civilian casualties. It has had nothing to do with solidarity with an oppressed people struggling for self-determination and everything to do with geopolitics and the assertion of militaristic Russian nationalism.
While the international community has solid grounds to challenge Russian aggression, however, the United States has lost virtually all moral standing to take a principled stance.
For example, the brutally punitive and disproportionate response by the Russian armed forces pales in comparison to that of Israel's 2006 attacks on Lebanon, which were strongly defended not only by the Bush administration, but leading Democrats in Congress, including presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Barack Obama.
Russia's use of large-scale militarily force to defend the autonomy of South Ossetia by massively attacking Georgia has been significantly less destructive than the U.S.-led NATO assault on Serbia to defend Kosovo's autonomy in 1999, an action that received broad bipartisan American support.
And the Russian ground invasion of Georgia, while a clear violation of international legal norms, is far less significant a breach of international law as the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, authorized by a large majority in Congress.
This doesn't mean that the Russia's military offensive should not be rigorously opposed. However, the U.S. contribution to this unfolding tragedy and the absence of any moral authority to challenge it must not be ignored.
Stephen Zunes is a senior analyst for Foreign Policy in Focus and serves as a professor of politics and international studies at the University of San Francisco.
Copyright © 2008, Institute for Policy Studies
45 Comments so far
Show AllZunes sez: "Though critical of the rampant corruption and rigged elections, the Bush administration stood by the Georgian regime ..."
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The proverb "Birds of a feather flock together" comes to mind here.
"Common Dreams should consider screening such deliberately falsehoods from these discussions."
If safiyyah had used the magic word 'zionist' or something similar in dissing israel she will automatically be culled from CD. Thats the threshold you cannot cross. You can even threaten to kill the President or make racist comments against arabs or muslims but you cannot criticize israel. Welcome to CD.
I'm not sure why safiyyah keeps trying to misrepresent Professor Zunes.
Zunes was and continues to be an outspoken critic of the US war on Yugoslavia and he explicitly said the war was a violation of international law, yet safiyyah claims he supported the war and denies its illegality.
In addition, the quote saffiyyah uses is taken completely out of context. Professor Zunes' article strongly criticized the U.S. rush to recognition of Kosovo and specifically mentioned the possibility of it worsening the situation regarding Georgia, Russia and South Ossetia. The sentence safiyyah quoted was a qualifier near the end, in which Professor Zunes acknowledged that his pessimistic prediction about the nature of the KLA leadership and the destabilizing ramfications may be wrong, but then the concluding sentence reiterates his opposition to the Clinton and Bush policies on Kosovo.
It appears, then that safiyyah was deliberately trying to portray Professor Zunes as taking the opposite position he actually does. It's fine to disagree with a writer's position, but to deliberately misrepresent that positions is really unfair. Common Dreams should consider screening such deliberately falsehoods from these discussions.
What a marvelously perceptive pair of commentaries on today's transmission: the article by Harung, and now this masterful piece by Zunes! These are the kinds of materials that our population should be digesting instead of the pap we get fed by the lazy (or complicit) MSM who simply rate whatever Cheney/Bush & Co. feed them.
". . .it's unthinkable that Saakashvili would have provoked Russia, without an explicit green light from the US." -RichM
Not unthinkable at all, Rich. History is replete with examples of leaders who have "misunderestimated" their adversarie and "misoverestimated" their allies willingness to rush to their defense. This is true even of modern leaders with access to million dollar intelligence services. (Think Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld here.)
It's entirely possible Rice warned Misha about the dangers of going it alone, but that he went ahead anyway, based, maybe, on a personal conversation he had with god.
You might be interested in reading Barbara Tuchman's March of Folly for a historical survey of boneheadedness. It appears to be the rule rather than the exception.
For Robert Fisk's article on CD I wrote the following comment but I think it equally applies here :
"The Saudi money and global Zionist interests have merged to take the driving seat of America's MIC. Divide and concur, working two ends to the middle they can stimulate conflict through puppet regimes (Ethiopia or Georgia) or clandestine extremists (The fictional and many headed Al Qaeda) as well as using dirty tricks to be blamed on "the other side". The establishment can then counter imposing arbitrary rule by decisive application of massive control through counter terrorism actions and conventional military action or the threat there of and claiming the rational and morality of the "international community". This is very much in line with the application of the global dominance outlined in PNAC.
On this hangs the key to most of the conflicts in the world today as well as the invented War on Terror, with roots deeply in the geopolitical interests of major corporations not least energy companies who, from board rooms in London, NY, Moscow or Beijing seem to be far more powerful than the citizens of the world who's interests have been relegated to the dust bin.
Dig a little and I have no doubt you will also find the real perpetrators of pivotal terrorist acts too."
Weigh this with the statement of Obama's Foreign Policy advisor, and the old cold warrior which I quote below from a must read article : "Using Georgia to Target Russia", by Stephen Lendman, in Global Research, for anyone wanting to understand this scenario fully:
"What's at stake is what former National Security advisor Zbigniew Brzezinski described in his 1997 book "The Grand Chessboard." He called Eurasia the "center of world power extending from Germany and Poland in the East through Russia and China to the Pacific and including the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent." He continued: "The most immediate (US) task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role." Dominating that part of the world and its vast energy and other resources is Washington's goal with NATO and Israel its principal tools to do it…."
See the full article at :
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9816
This article is propaganda at it's worst.Trying to spin it that U.S. was somehow not directly involved in the Rose revolution just an innocent bystander that took advantage is, "bullshit"!
According to Wikipedia, Allen Weinstein, who helped draft the legislation establishing NED,(National Endowment for Democracy) told the Washington Post in 1991 that much of what the NED does "today was done covertly 25 years ago by the CIA."
The NED was also used to dismember the former Yugoslavia with its interventions in Slovakia, Serbia, and Montenegro.
It also as been involved over the years in stirring up much of the termoil in Central America against leftist movements there.It's goal being to replace leftist leaders with pro western, pro liberal capitalist leaders.All in the name of democracy!
We're being spun - again!
http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20523.htm
Cowboy Bush is buckling his gunbelt and is getting his strut going to battle the Russkies.
And just why should Russia's reaction to our installing a missile "defense" system in Poland in 2008 be any different from our reaction to their missiles in Cuba in 1962? Oh, yeah, I forgot, we're the good guys... what hypocritical crap!
good article steven zunes...
georgia is just a taste of the ethnic identity crises that penetrate this region of the world. isn't it a little disingenuous and ironic that israel supported the actions of the proxy US govt in georgia (which was determined to 'reintegrate' the breakaway states back into the georgian fold) while supporting kurdish nationalists in iraq (who undoubtedly are causing havoc in turkey, iran and iraq), the regional players iran, turkey - in a sense even the US have alot to lose if the kurds managed to destabilize the region. and so it is in chechnya, azerbaijan, india, pakistan, china, europe and elsewhere. the ethnic spats are used as opportunities to further nation/state control of resources. as russia just reclaimed lost land.
the author is correct.
"It has had nothing to do with solidarity with an oppressed people struggling for self-determination and everything to do with geopolitics and the assertion of militaristic Russian nationalism."
russia's response was defensive, and i do empathize w/ their security needs/fears and understand why the russians so assertively made their point.
but the actual move geopolitically and the ramifications for the move are very specific.
michael klare (whose article was posted on CD 8/13) on democracy now this morning explained how russias actions effect the western powers.
http://www.democracynow.org/2008/8/15/russia_georgia_conflict_fueled_by_rush
"it is the ambition of the Russian leadership, especially Vladimir Putin, to dominate the flow of oil and natural gas from the Caspian Sea to Europe, so they could maximize the profit and the political advantage of dominating the flow of Caspian energy to Europe. And by building these alternate pipelines, the US is trying to undercut Russia's political and economic power in Europe. That's what this is about. It's a geopolitical contest between the US and Europe for—between the US and Russia for influence in Europe."
until the ICC and the UN develop functional strategies to cope with energy, security and the protection of cultural/ethnic identities everywhere on earth, these crises will continue to unfold - eventually leading to a limited nuclear war, everyone has them these days and both russia and america are willing to use them on the battlefield if they feel like it. our lives rest in the hands of bush/exxon-mobil,BP and Putin/gazprom.
we never had the moral high ground to lose, our global competitors are as determined and as ruthless as we are.
...peace...
Why does Zunes consider the Russian response to a genocidal sneak attack on South Ossetia, spearheaded by mercenaries (i.e. Blackwater), U.S. and Israeli "trainers" "inappropriate"? Notice how quickly these "Georgian" soldiers ran away. Notice how all Israelis in Georgia were airlifted out the next day. I'm quite sure that any of these soldiers for hire who were captured were summarily executed and you won't see the organizations that sent them back in Georgia any time soon. This is a well deserved monumental defeat for the neocons, Tel Aviv, and the man who gave the order to attack, Dick Cheney, via his sock puppet, the chimpster.
"While the international community has solid grounds to challenge Russian aggression, however, the United States has lost virtually all moral standing to take a principled stance."
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WTF? Zunes often employs a prudish, mealy-mouthed style that gets annoying. Russian aggression? Well, obviously in some situations, but not this one. Georgia W Bush tried to grab some real estate/resources that didn't correspond to his sphere of influence and Putin is giving him a lesson in table manners.
The US has lost moral standing to take a principled stance? Huh? What moral standing would that be? As if our torturing Prez ever had any moral standing with anyone outside Amerika. And principled stance? What, opposing Russian retaliation, even though in this case it's patently justified?
Flaccid is the perfect adjective to describe Zunes' writing, although I prefer flaccid or over-cautious to downright reactionary or fascist like the New York Times.
OUR ROLE IS....... NO ROLE. moms in des moines and sacramento and bangor did not birth sons and daughters to be sent to the far reaches of the world to fight the battles of others. NOR WERE THEY BORN TO PAY THE TAB TO DEFEND FREEDOM WORLDWIDE!!!
OUR ROLE IS....... NO ROLE. moms in des moines and sacramento and bangor did not birth sons and daughters to be sent to the far reaches of the world to fight the battles of others. NOR WERE THEY BORN TO PAY THE TAB TO DEFEND FREEDOM WORLDWIDE!!!
Djan makes a good point.
I guess djan, for my part, I understand that Russians are not saints, but nevertheless I believe that humans on Earth can find a better way to live together, and I believe that countries like the US are in a position to move that along because, technically, the people are sovereign and the people want a better world for themselves and their kids.
So we exert pressure where it can do the most good. A wise US foreign policy, not the two track Condi Rice pretend policy/Cheney behind the curtain policy, is something other countries can work with and build on. Why do you think the American revolution/bill of rights etc inspired people around the world? If Americans lived up to what their ancestors gave them on a platter, we would be in a new post cold war golden age of peace and prosperity. But of course they didn't. They used their constitution as a pr gimmick and sank to the depths of the tyrannies they claimed to despise.
'And the Russian ground invasion of Georgia, while a clear violation of international legal norms, is far less significant a breach of international law as the U.S. invasion of Iraq in 2003, authorized by a large majority in Congress.'
And what about the US invasion of Yugoslavia to chop off part of its territory into now becoming a US created nation-let, Professor? Oh! You supported that and still do, do you not? Interesting... Here below is what the Professor had to say way back in February this year.
'It is also quite possible that there will not be any serious negative long-term impact of these recent events and, with its legacy of nonviolent struggle and democratic self-governance, an independent Kosovo could prove itself worthy of universal recognition.'
Apparently the criteria that the Professor uses is that when Democratic Party presidents invade foreign countries it is not a violation of international law, but when Republican presidents do, it is? What a scholar! Thank you, Professor Zunes.
jamadison4: What have you been smoking? You couldn't be more wrong. Putin is NOT trying to rebuild the old soviet empire. He is RESPONDING to US aggression on his borders. You're parroting the empire's propaganda and frankly, I'm sick of hearing it. Those that pursue that line of thinking, with Putin/Hitler comparisons, are going to drag the rest of us into a nuclear war where none survive.
Really, if anyone is behaving like Hitler, it would be Bush/Cheney. That's a more accurate comparison. So if you REALLY believe in restarting the cold war with Russia (that could turn hot, really hot), then you should go hide with Cheney in his secure, undisclosed location, where you can fantasize about nuclear holocaust.
Once again I notice many posters here view the world from a very American perspective, believing the USA is the sole superpower and thus determining all that happens on the planet. This is not true. Russia has its own agenda and enough oil and gas to control European politics, China has its own agenda and enough manpower to control US consumer patterns. Even smaller but still sizeable countries like Brazil and Iran are at least capable of strongly influencing their own region's future. I believe it is important to realise this. Not because it helps to understand world politics, although there's nothing wrong with that, but because it might make one realise that, as much as BushCo are trying to prove the contrary, evildoing is not an American prerogative. In fact, Russia has a long history of dictatorship and repression. Whether they called themselves royalists or communists or capitalists, Russian leaders have never bothered to consent their people when it came to the business of running their immense country. Understand that Vladimir Putin is KGB. And so is his dear young friend Medvedev, currently bestowed with the task of being president. These people employ the same disgusting tricks Bush and Cheney do. They blew up apartment buildings in Moscow to justify an invasion in Chechnya. They readily sacrificed hundreds of hostages to show they won't be pushed around by some lunatic separatist. They probably laugh their heads off seeing Bush and friends messing up every attempt at controlling world affairs through waging war. They know 5% of mankind, how ever rich and mighty they are, cannot control the rest of us. That's just mathematics. They also have rich experience in messing up in Afghanistan. They probably are very thankful for the opportunity to show some muscle in Georgia. And it's the ordinary folks that do the dying. People who never chose their nationality because they happened to be born some place and never left, changing passports in the meantime because some far away idiots redirected their borders; those are the people who do the dying.
A real president, unlike the limited Bush, his minions, and his Siamese Twin McCain,
would explain the complexity of affairs in Tiblisi.
The one-sided ones prefer oversimplification of all things always. Even Vladimir Putin is good at explaining the American occupation of Iraq-- much better than Bush, McCain, Cheney or Rice.
geoff29 August 15th, 2008 2:24 pm
secretarybird August 15th, 2008 1:42 pm:
"Blair, Aznar, Musharraf, to name but three."
Olmert?
Sharon? Saddam?
.
Russia's Military Invasion of Georgia is just the start.
Putin, like Hitler, has planned to reestablish the old Soviet Empire. Today Georgia, then each of the other former nations of the old U.S.S.R....one by one.
In 3 years time, Putin will find an excuse to attach NorthEastern China.
Several elements of this plan are: the U.S.A. is a broken and bankrupt superpower, China has always eyed Eastern Russia..so strike first, and Putin has a strong ego, built up by smashing all opposition.
Unfortunately, for Putin, Russia has many socio-economic weaknesses internally. Once he has started this empire building, Russia will begin to crumble from within.
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RichM & riddimboy: The difference between Cheney and Rice is that Rice is a pragmatic imperialist while Cheney is a reckless and psychotic imperialist. But rest assured, both are imperialists and desire US global hegemony.
The crude attempt at Balkanization of the old USSR is a blunder of great danger. The US is powerless to do anything in that region but incite the anger and retaliation of Russia. Between their attempts to re-ignite a cold war (or start a hot one) with Russia and the flotilla of warships heading for Iran, it seems the only way to avoid utter disaster is to swiftly remove this administration from power.
Time is running out.
RichM -- "But if she had really warned Saakashvili "to stay away from the Russian Bear," he would have stayed away."
True enough ... however I think the Bush admin is more divided and factional than we are led to believe. Rice is a Russia expert and has always been aware of the regions' proclivities to erupt. I do think Sakaashvili overplayed his hand (with neo-con prodding) and misjudged American commitment to Georgian compulsions. He had this narrow window of opportunity to establish his designs on Ossetia and Abhkazia and he essentially screwed up cause 'we aint touchin that with a barge pole' !!
No way that Rice warned him to stay away from S.O. - as stated above, if this was true he would not be so foolish as to proceed.
No, this reeks of US influence. It reminds me of my kids...one wants somethign done, but doesn't want to get into trouble so they put the bug in another kids ear...
Does that not sound like traditional US foreign policy?
riddimboy (2:49 pm) - I agree Rice might be a bit more cautious than Cheney (though they're largely on the same page). But if she had really warned Saakashvili "to stay away from the Russian Bear," he would have stayed away. He certainly understood that attacking S.O. was a huge provocation to Russia, & that Georgia is no match for an angered Russia. He never would have dared to do this without assurances that his most important sponsor & supplier -- the US -- was going to back him up on it.
Good discussion, people…much more thought provoking than what I have seen from "experts" on commercial tv.
RichM -- "- Does riddimboy really mean to imply that Rice would directly oppose Cheney, when she spoke to Saakashvili?"
I think she is more cautious than Cheney .. i dont harbor any illusions about motivation though.
nice to read a fair summary of this mess
Let me get this straight. According to Prof. Zunes,
The international condemnation of Russian aggression against Georgia . . . is in large part appropriate. But the self-righteous posturing coming out of Washington should be tempered by a sober recognition of the ways in which the United States has contributed to the crisis.
Unh hunh, unh hunh. Apparently, then the NATO's "condemnation of Russian aggression against Georgia . . . is in large part appropriate," minus the U.S., of course. I see, I see. So-o-o Prof. Zunes considers the NATO states who accompanied the U.S. in an invasions of Afghanistan to NOT be equivalent to "Russian aggression against Georgia?" And why is this, good professor? Additionally, the Russian behavior seems suspiciously like the the behavior of the U.S. in the Mexican War. Feign shock over the claimed ill treatment of your citizens in a foreign country, and use this as a pretext for invasion. Oh, but I guess for the good professor Zunes that was all right because, well, WE DID IT!
ChrisHorton: "Bottom line, we don't have to like Putin or Ahmadinejad, but we who live in live in "the belly of the beast" need to keep our focus on the main threat to humanity and survival - the rulers of the Empire - who are also our special responsibility for so long as we have freedom to speak out and act. And we must always remain aware of the power and determination of the Empire to shape what we hear and know and to shape the very language in which we think. We must never relax in our struggle to keep our minds clear of their traps."
I agree 100%
Zunes claims Russia's response was "illegitimate." How is that true when Russian peacekeepers were assaulted and killed along with many Russian citizens just after Saakashvili in a televised statement vowed to resume talks regarding Ossetia's independent status? How is that any different from what the Japanese are portrayed as doing on the eve of 7 DEC 1941? If anything should be "condemned," it is that behavior. That Zunes leaves this very important fact out of his analysis is telling, and represents another instance of similar, critical ommissions.
Yes, I agree with hazmat (1:07), & disagree with riddimboy (2:13).
- Does riddimboy really mean to imply that Rice would directly oppose Cheney, when she spoke to Saakashvili? And besides that -- it's unthinkable that Saakashvili would have provoked Russia, without an explicit green light from the US. After all, Saakashvili only came to power in the first place because of the US; and the US has supplied Georgia with all their armas & advisers.
canuckchuck (1:52 pm):
I was astounded to see the passage you just quoted about repression appear just above this:
Saakashvili continued to receive strong support from Washington and still appeared to have majority support within Georgia, winning a snap election in January by a solid majority which - despite some irregularities - was generally thought to be free and fair.
How on earth was the election of January "free and fair" after the repression of November, just two months earlier? WTF? Zunes appears to be bending over backwards to give credence to US claims that Saakashvili was a legitimate leader of a democratic country. I do not see how these contortions help Zunes make his point.
ChrisHorton (2:32 pm):
Very well said.
South Ossetia effectively declared its independence of Georgia in 1990, and Georgia abolished its autonomy later that same year. Over the next few years they fought a war over South Ossetia's independence, which the Ossetians largely won. People who want to frame this latest war in terms of Russian aggression should bear that in mind, and put it in the context of US moves to isolate, threaten and demonize Russia.
The Bush cabal has been systematically and deliberately creating an increasingly volatile and dangerous situation around Russia's borders in an effort, I assume, to get control of their oil and to displace them from oil-rich Central Asia. If Georgia had already been admitted to NATO membership, or if the Russian defense of South Ossetia had not been massive, swift and decisive and had left room for Bush to airlift troops into Georgia, we might now be teetering on the brink of world thermonuclear war. Or perhaps at this moment any readers of this article who remained alive would be cowering in basements and shelters, wondering where our next meal might come from.
Bottom line, we don't have to like Putin or Ahmadinejad, but we who live in live in "the belly of the beast" need to keep our focus on the main threat to humanity and survival, the rulers of the Empire. Trying to put them in check is our duty and our special responsibility, for so long as we have freedom to speak out and act. And we must always remain aware of the power and determination of the Empire to shape what we hear and know and to shape the very language in which we think. We must never relax in our struggle to keep our minds clear of their traps.
I think hazmat has hit the nail on the head.
secretarybird August 15th, 2008 1:42 pm:
"Blair, Aznar, Musharraf, to name but three."
Olmert?
"sec't'y rice's visit to saakashvili in july may have been of a similar nature to ambassador april glaspie's 1991 meeting with saddam hussein: to give tacit u.s. approval for armed aggresion."
Not true. If anything Rice was warning him to stay away from the Russian Bear but Cheney and his warmongerers and the various Georgian lobbyists would not have it any other way.
Saakashvili himself faced widespread protests in November 2007, to which he responded with severe repression, shutting down independent media, detaining opposition leaders, and sending his security forces to assault largely nonviolent demonstrators with tear gas, truncheons, rubber bullets, water cannons, and sonic equipment.
Sack-o-shitli is just a wannabe Bushie, and is obviously a deranged lunatic
Till I read this article, I hadn't appreciated the extent of the US's meddling in Russia's "backyard". I expect Shaakashvili will go the way of the other leaders who've teamed up with Dubya and are now toast - Blair, Aznar, Musharraf, to name but three.
I've seen reports of us and israeli soldiers being killed or captured by russian troops or strikes. Could get interesting if true.
sec't'y rice's visit to saakashvili in july may have been of a similar nature to ambassador april glaspie's 1991 meeting with saddam hussein: to give tacit u.s. approval for armed aggresion.
in the latter case, saddam, thinking himself justified by kuwait's cross-border oil poaching, snapped at the bait; in the former, saakashvili serves u.s. corporate interests in a slightly different way.
in neither case should it be forgotten that resources---mainly oil, natural gas and the means to deliver them to markets---are the objectives, and no amount of bloviating about "freedom" or "self-determination" should be allowed to obscure this fact.
"politics (n.): a clash of interests masquerading as a contest of principles."
---ambrose bierce
The "Georgia" news focus just got shifted to Bigfoot.
George Wanker Bush, Dick Fat Death Cheney and the Joseph Stalins, Pol Pots and Julius Caesars of the Neocon movement want to begin a new Cold War with Russia. The preliminary moves they have made to accomplish this have been well chronicled on sites like CD and denounced even by some right wingers like Pat Buchanan and Paul Craig Roberts. Russia's moves against Georgia may now be seen as the real starting point of Cold War II, as President Kennedy's assassination can now be seen as the beginning of America's decline into global imperial homicide and blazing domestic greed that will, in the end, reduce us to second or even third world status. Nikita Khruschev once famously banged his shoe on the table at the U.N. and told the United States, "We will bury you." You Russkies don't have to bother; we're digging the grave ourselves and doing just fine.