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Georgia/Russia Conflict Forced Into Cold War Frame
U.S. corporate media frequently evoked the Cold War as a key to understanding the conflict between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia. This was certainly true of the media themselves, which generally placed black hats or white hats on the actors involved depending on whether they were allied with Moscow or Washington.
On August 11, NBC Nightly News anchor Brian Williams referred to "what's being called the Russian blitz of the nation of Georgia, former Soviet republic that split away and is now threatening to split apart from within." NBC reporter Jim Maceda followed up: "The powerful Russian war machine is moving ever deeper into Georgia, and teaching all of us really a lesson about what makes Russia tick." Maceda then gave what has become the standard media template for describing the conflict:
It started as a gamble by Georgia, the former Soviet republic and darling of the West: Move quickly into the breakaway pro-Russian enclave called South Ossetia and take back what is legally Georgia's. But the plan failed. Instead, Russian forces invaded Georgia last week and crushed Georgian resistance. According to U.S. military officials, Russia is out to decimate the U.S.-trained Georgian armed forces.
Maceda concluded: "But after hundreds, perhaps thousands killed and tens of thousands displaced, tonight Georgians are asking, 'When will the Russian bear stop?'"
But buried within this U.S. media narrative is an entirely different way to understand the conflict. In this reading, South Ossetia (like the similar enclave of Abkhazia) is an area that has been largely independent of Georgia ever since the breakup of the Soviet Union. Russian forces have been present in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia since the early 1990s, defending the separatist regions against Georgian attempts to forcibly incorporate the territories. The situation has repeatedly broken out into open combat, most recently early this month, when fighting between Georgian and separatist forces escalated into full-scale efforts by Georgia to reclaim both breakaway territories.
Georgia's military efforts--which involved, according to reports from Human Rights Watch (8/10/08, 8/14//08) and Western reporters on the scene (Washington Post, 8/12/08), intensive shelling of civilian areas--reportedly caused many noncombatant deaths and prompted a large proportion of the South Ossetian population to seek safety in Russia. It was this humanitarian crisis, coupled with Georgian attacks on Russian forces in the separatist areas, that Moscow cited as its justification for its military intervention. This does not suggest that Russian tactics are beyond criticism, or that a military response of this magnitude is justified.
Georgia's contribution to the escalation of tensions in the region were not completely ignored by U.S. media, but its aggressive actions were often euphemized, as in AP's reference to "a crackdown by Georgia last week" (8/11/08), and were rarely allowed to interfere with the preferred narrative of Georgia as victim of an expansionist Russia.
On CBS Evening News (8/11/08), Katie Couric asked correspondent Wyatt Andrews, "So how did this fighting start and what is it really all about?" Andrews' response avoided the issue almost entirely, declaring: "What's troubling about this war fought in a relatively unknown region is that none of the suffering here is about the enclave of Ossetia. This war is all about Russia and the message Russia is sending to the world." Andrews went to explain that Russian Prime Minister Vladmir Putin "has been planning this attack on Georgia for years."
Similar language was prevalent in media accounts that stressed Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's allegedly pro-democratic tendencies and Western education. (Saakashvili took power in a 2004 election in which he got more than 96 percent of the vote; he was re-elected in more competitive January 2008 balloting that was marred by state intimidation of opposition parties, according to an Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe report.) As the Los Angeles Times put it (8/13/08): "Russia has itched to strike at southern neighbor Georgia's brash, Western-oriented leader, President Mikheil Saakashvili. And Saakashvili gave the Kremlin an opportunity when he sent troops into the separatist region of South Ossetia last week in an effort to reassert Georgia's sovereignty."
A few outlets did remind readers of Saakashvili's crackdowns on dissent and independent media outlets (Los Angeles Times, 8/12/08; The Guardian, 8/14/08). But for the most part, the conflict was presented as black-and-white struggle between Moscow's despotic aggression and Georgia's pro-Western democracy. Any possible alternative perspective was more often denounced than presented, as when a Washington Post editorial (8/12/08) declared that "the most urgent need is to see clearly what is taking place. As the crisis deepened, one could hear in Washington the usual attempts to blame the victim, as if Georgia somehow deserved this fate because its elected government had opted for friendly relations with the West."
Actually, few in Washington seemed to be making a case for punishing Georgia for being friendly with the U.S. There was, however, competition among U.S. pundits for the most aggressive condemnation of Russia. Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen wrote (8/12/08), "Russia, as my grandmother could have told George W. Bush, always fights dirty." Post columnist George Will (8/12/08), meanwhile, declared that "Russia's aggression is really about the subordination of Georgia, a democratic, market-oriented U.S. ally." L.A. Times columnist Max Boot (8/12/08) compared Russia to Nazi Germany--while allowing that the analogy "may appear overwrought." Writing in the Washington Post (8/11/08), Robert Kagan also made a comparison to Nazi Germany.
A striking feature of the coverage was the ability of pundits who have enthusiastically advocated for U.S. invasions of sovereign countries, dismissing concerns that these would violate international law, to demand that Russia be punished for breaking that same law by violating Georgian sovereignty. These commentators seemed blissfully unaware of the contradiction, as when New York Times columnist William Kristol wrote (8/11/08) that "in Iraq, we and our Iraqi allies are on the verge of a strategic victory over the jihadists," citing this as evidence that 2008 was "an auspicious year for freedom and democracy," while two paragraphs later condemning the fact that "Russia has sent troops and tanks across an international border." Kristol even cited Georgia's eager participation in the violation of Iraq's sovereignty as a primary reason that "we owe Georgia a serious effort to defend its sovereignty."
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39 Comments so far
Show AllThis is NOT a 'Cold War'.
The Cold War was characterized by extreme diplomatic tension and covert proxy combat.
The Georgia/Russia spat started out as neo-con manipulation of a US puppet as a distraction to US activities in the Persian Gulf, but quickly morphed into the opening of the larger OIL WAR that will soon dominate world geopolitics.
As I said before, this is not a 'Cold War'. it is the opening salvo of a 'Hot' one.
"Good" U.S. diplomacy would have been us counseling Georgia's president (Saakashvili) not to be overly ambitious about South Ossetia and Abkhasia, because the West could not and would not defend them from a Russian incursion if they tried a stunt and Russia got mad.
Instead, we got Saakashvili blaming the West (in a press conference with Rice) for "letting this happen."
It is obvious that Saakashvili WAS NOT GIVEN GOOD COUNSEL by Bush/Rice, and, in fact, was probably badly misled (even egged on) to go ahead and make a woeful error.
Shift this to Obama. He's inexperienced and can probably clean this up and smooth it over. (Or, shift it to McCain, who has experience ramping things up to waste your money and the lives of your kids. Do you NEED a cold or hot war?)
Are the Russians the Bad Guys? Are "We" the Good Guys? And what do we mean by "We"? Hart and Naureckas open a door to this question. We need to step through it and look around.
As usual the media is framing this in terms of the model of two guys in a bar having a showdown. Us and Them, Good and Bad. "We" are America, or the "Free World" (whatever *that* is supposed to mean), "They" are Russia. The Russian Bear. The Russian War Machine. Us and Them, two actors playing "king of the mountain" somewhere Over There.
This simplistic model cripples the ability of the people to think. A model of nations as having internal structure is much more powerful. Even a two-part model - the rulers and the people - is a huge improvement over the "guy in a bar" model of a nation.
Vast amounts of money, effort and intimidation have been expended on the suppression of this two-actor model. In the universities, the argument, rightly, is that the two-actor model is too simplistic. But rather than increasing its complexity one step at a time and testing its predictive power, they jettison it and try to replace it with something which contains no implied social criticism. Models with ten categories, a hundred, a thousand! Models where what category someone is in depends on how they think or describe themselves, what color their skin is, how they dress, how far they went in school, where their parents came from or how they react when the band plays "Dixie"! The very word "class" - as in "working class" and "ruling class" - has been expunged from their language!
Now, all of this can be pretty interesting, and generations of scholars have spent lifetimes amusing themselves with it. But in the meantime, the media barons are still using the "two guys in a bar" model to lead us around by the nose and enroll us in their wars!
We need to train ourselves to think in more complex terms, to break free of the media's "us" and "them" categories, to see conflicts such as the one playing out in Georgia as involving multiple "thems", and to think more realistically about what we mean by "us" and "our" stake in it. And beyond that, we need to make the mental shift from "we" meaning "you, me, George Bush, Bill Gates and 'our' friends in Georgia" to "you, me, Filipp who teaches school in Georgia, Misha the store clerk in Moscow and Yury who drives a truck in South Ossetia".
Next we need to find a way to communicate this way of thinking to the 98% of the American people who get their images of the world and their very language for describing it from FOX, CNN and ABC.
Our rulers have on their side the power of a vast, hundred-year-old propaganda and information-delivery system, with hundreds of thousands of employees - millions, if the textbook industry, the schools and the universities are included. We have on our side the truth, that their system isn't meeting and cannot meet the needs of the people and is leading us to destruction. Many of them don't truly believe the things they say, or even that "truth" and "reality" have any objective meaning, while we live in a real world. If they rule by fear, it reflects the fact that they live with a knawing fear - of us, and of the truth about themselves. And while much of what Obama is offering is arguably "phoney baloney", there can be no arguing with the demonstration he has given of the power of hope to arouse the people!
Finally, if we can build good communications, we have a huge advantage in numbers!
The crisis in Georgia is one more demonstration of what is at stake: whether we and our children and our great-great-grandchildren are to have a future. For our sake and theirs, we need to get clear about who is leading us to destruction, and to shake ourselves and each other free of the mental snares they use to suck us into their ghastly enterprises.
I am absolutely disgusted with: The U.S gov for the propaganda they feel they have the right to propagate, the MSM for being their propaganda delivery-system, and who continue to keep the incredibly immature and uninformed majority segment of the US population in a state of blind stupidity, and those stupid Americans who are too damn lazy to get up off their asses and inform themselves instead of passively allowing themselves to be led like sheep.
We have serious problems in this country and on this planet. It is past time for Americans to grow up, wake up and start informing themselves about what is really going on on this planet: overpopulation, peak oil, Peak everything, dying oceans, diminishing fresh water and arable land...and...a socio-econo-political culture that has reduced them to dumbed-down consumer robot-drones who are barely capable of critical thought.
Galen, Your comments are sobering and to the point. On top of the Georgian situation (which was likely initiated as a game plan by the neocons) is another development: Just a couple of days ago, a top General in the Russian military said that if the U.S. puts its missile defense system in Poland, Russia will respond militarily against Poland 100%. And Poland is a member of NATO, which means the U.S. is "obligated" to respond militarily to any aggression against Poland. American neocons are playing a very dangerous game here, one that the entire world could pay for in a heartbeat. The thought of bellicose John McCain becoming President (and one of his top advisors being Randy Scheunemann) adds to this overall worrisome scenario.
The framing of the current situation as a repeat of the Cold War is a misnomer and a strategic error of the first order. The Cold War was predicated on an "US vs. Them" scenario, with the later emergence of the Non-Aligned Movement. This is far from what the situation is now: a multi-power, multi-faceted scenario not unlike a poker game where one's allies and enemies changes according to the hand dealt. Where this situation gets really dangerous is when the powers eventually line up on one side or the other: this is what precipitated World War One. The scummy Neo-Cons are doing the United States and the world no favors by continuing to put their misguided propaganda and having the ears of the Bush crime family. Now is not the time for the dominant voices "explaining" world events be as compromised as the Neo-Cons.
What took place in South Ossetia last Thursday, was not an invasion or a siege; it was a massacre. The people had no way to defend themselves against a fully-equiped modern army. It was a war crime. It was another Cheney/Bush/Rice 'Shock `N Awe' crime against humanity. Just look at how Rupert and his Israeli controlled media is spinning this atrocity.
The US and Israel have hundreds of military and civilian contractors training the Georgian army.
It takes time to mobilize an army and logistics are an enormous part of any military endeavour. It doesn't come together overnight.
Add one plus one and it is impossible for the US not to have known about the invasion of South Ossetia before the event.
Then it is reasonable to assume that the people who have been training the Georgian military taught them the tactics used in the invasion - massive bombardment of civilians - shock and awe - if you can't use it yourself, deny it to the enemy - etc, etc, ad nauseam.
14/08/08 "Pravda" -- - So you have the colossal audacity, Mr. Bush, to "warn" Russia to pull back? As the wanton,
perverse war criminal under whose watch the world saw the crime known as "shock and awe" committed, I'd say you
were well out of your mind to suggest that Russia should pull back.
What's a little shock and awe among inferior people we want to rob and destroy, eh?
What do human beings need an infrastructure for?
Why do they need clean water? Why do they need electricity?
What's a little torture?
What's a little regime change? Don't recall when that was a goal of yours?
What's a little deviant, perverted sexual experimentation and humiliation?
What's a few secret detention camps?
What's wrong with destroying an environment for 4 billion years and generations after generations of people? After all,
they're just rag heads, aren't they Mr. Bush?
Perhaps when Russia even begins to match your tremendous feats of glory can you speak about pulling back you fool
of the worst kind.
You can also tell your number two man to shut up. Cheney said "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that
its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."
So how do you plan to answer this erroneously termed "aggression"? He says this will "worsen" relations with the
United States? Buddy, relations with the United States could hardly be any worse than they are now.
The United States shows no respect for Russia. The United States shows no respect for any other country weaker than
itself, much less a rival as you perceive Russia to be. How about your NATO? Today the west, tomorrow the world, eh?
America uber alles!
How about your missile shield breathing down the neck of the Russian nation? There to protect Europe from Iran? The most
totally absurd thing that only a moron would believe.
How about your deliberate breaking of your agreements regarding Serbian Kosovo? UN Resolution 1244 which your country
agreed to, is the ink dry…you deliberately went against it and recognized Kosovo in total disregard and in violation of that agreement.
And you expect your words to be heeded or even listened to? You are joking! It is said when Caligula went mad he heard laughing.
Do you hear people laughing at you Mr. Bush?
Listening to you, your Vice President, Condi Rice and US and western officials complain about "regime change," "invasion,"
"bloodshed" and "suffering civilians" (in the light of their crimes across the world) have become nothing but laughable at best
and highly infuriating and enraging at worst.
You are an idiot!
We seem to recall that when your Israeli friends were absolutely devastating the people of Lebanon, wantonly killing civilians,
destroying their country's infrastructure and destroying their environment also….the flapping jaw of your representative,
Condoleezza Rice and your entire administration were saying no ceasefire, no nothing, just keep on going, keep on committing
acts of state terrorism on innocent people, keep on committing your war crimes, you have them covered.
Well, Mr. Bush, this is it. Moscow better get this one right: No limited engagement nonsense. Moscow has the moral and legal
right to carry out full scale military operations within Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia to ensure the safety of its citizens, to ensure
the protection of Abkhazians and Ossetians and to finally destroy NATO plans for the Caucasus region.
No sane, informed, honest, rational person can blame Russia for reacting to a genocide against their own citizens in Georgia.
But then you are NONE of those things.
The problem is not what Russia is doing, but how the US is reacting to it. If you were sane, if you were informed, if you were
honest, if you were rational, if you were even marginally fair, you should be happy to see Russian forces put an end to the killing
of Russian citizens by the Georgian military. But no, your government is advised by lunatics who belong in psychiatric wards
instead of the Pentagon and White House. And you, Mr. Bush, belong in an international criminal court to be judged for your
crimes against peace and your crimes against humanity.
Lisa KARPOVA
Chris Horton 1:53 p.m:
Absolutely right on.
The tendency to fall into "good hat / bad hat" thinking shows up in many comments on CD. Albeit with different "spin" than the mainstream propaganda.
From a certain perspective, it is clearly "good" that Russia is directly confronting the US march toward global domination.
But the world is way more complex than just that narrow perspective. We need ways of thinking, and ways of identifying ourselves and each other, that allow us to strategize for a world in which no "great nations" are angling for global domination. Thanks for bringing this broader perspective.
what? no comments on the russian backed paramilitaries attacking georgia and refusing to accept the peace agreement given by the president of georgia?(the one where he gave in to all their demands) You know alternative media is always a good thing but when it essentially becomes a soapbox for Putin's totalitarian government, it just might wear out its welcome.
Saakashvili is a thug. For those following Georgia's politics loosely, it is nauseating to see him portrayed as a hero of liberty in American media just because he speaks English.
Kennedy nearly caused WW3 because of Russian rockets stationed further away from the US than what the US constantly expect Russia to swallow.
And anyway: When the West accepted the breakaway of Kosovo from a sovereign nation against that nation's will, it set a precedent, as Russia at the time kept pointing out.
American journalists, with only few notable exceptions, seem to me like sheep these days.
So thanks for this article, it's about the only one I read in America about this subject which isn't full of mistakes and cold war bravado.
ChrisHorton, sure, the elites reap a ton of benefits with an "us versus them" model of US geopolitical aggression.
In the progressive K-12 civics curriculum that we are now developing, the kids will learn to put themselves into the elite mindset and discover the elite's motives. They'll learn that "us versus them" is the basic line of code to program the human fighting machine. The less thinking, the better the fighting. And the elites themselves may hide inside the "us" and get free protection from "them" while on the take.
The more complicated model of reality is that within each geopolitical rival is an "elites versus the people". So actually the geopolitics are about "our elites versus their elites" and are almost always against the interest of the people on both sides.
As you said, academics enjoy expanding the model to infinite complexity but that's an end in itself, not the means to solving real world problems. The "second order approximation" consisting of "us versus them" expanded by "elites vs the people" (on both sides) is a good one and is going in the progessive K-12 curriculum, so everyone will understand that geopolitics are the pinnacle of class warfare, elite exploitation of people.
Daniel David August 16th, 2008 1:11 pm
"Shift this to Obama. He's inexperienced and can probably clean this up and smooth it over. (Or, shift it to McCain, who has experience ramping things up to waste your money and the lives of your kids. Do you NEED a cold or hot war?)"
Yes, Obama has done such a wonderful job with his stand on the Iraq war, his stated intention to expand the U.S. military , and his stated intention to expand the war in Afghanistan.
Lobo Gris
Just wanted to thank the author's of this article, or their insight.
The main stream media sound very hollow and orchestrated to some of the audience. I can't see how a business can survive when its product is garbage.
I can no longer envision a scenario, despite the pain and suffering that may attend it, where ignorance is an indefinite condition. While "independent and foreign media" enable many of us to spot the incongruities and "hypocrisy. . .than disinterested humanitarian concern," that indicate fabrication and pretense, we are as if looking into a huge uncertainty of - we don't really entirely know under any circumstances, it is all too secretive, as if it were none of our concern.
There's too much that remains disturbing. It forces us to doubt, to remain unclear in our interpretations.
Though many of our current realities may seem pleasing, we go about our business, we watch our Olympics, many of us also realize that this reality, supported by the illusory interpretation of the media, is a malaise.
There's the interesting proverb which I've witnessed on several occasions to have some relation to our earthly condition, to my sorrow, "the truth comes out in time." The problem with proverbs is that this remains to be seen, and is speculation. Better the truth at any cost, I think, perhaps even one's own life, than to have lived a life that was untrue.
Even if your sympathies lie with Saakashvili and Georgia, you have to admit that the gamble they took was an incredibly stupid one. Georgia's economy and military will probably take a generation to recover. Her chances of ever becoming a member of Nato are between zero and none. Her chances of receiving further US military aid are not much better.
It was stupid, self-destructive, expensive and avoidable and, of course, had the full support of US neocons.
Deja vous all over again. In 1968, the USSR along with Poland, Hungary, Bulgaria and East Germany invaded Czechoslovakia. It was wrong but, since the US commit its own acts of agression in the Dominican Republic and VIetnam, it had no right to criticize.
In 2008 Russia invaded Georgia. Since the US tried to overthrow Venezuela's government and threatened Iran's and invaded Iraq and made shambles of the country, it is in no position to criticize. Bush of course claims that he is exporting our constitution.
To quote the Libertarian Party "One can't take the Constitution to other countries if it has already been burned in one's own homeland.".
This is something I read....does any one disagree with what it says? Does any one think it does not sum the situation up?
"Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.
Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.
Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.
Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America's lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.
Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.
American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight — Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end.
Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush.
True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"?
Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?
Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?
When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces, whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed in breaking away?
Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda of the neocons, many of who viscerally detest Russia?
That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany.
When Moscow pulled the Red Army out of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states, and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do?
American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are now NATO members.
Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet.
When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?
The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs. A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand.
We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and tried to repeat it in Belarus.
Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.
Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan, where Europe had opted out of the Cold War after Moscow installed those SS-20 missiles east of the Elbe. And Europe had abandoned NATO, told us to go home and become subservient to Moscow.
How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian behavior?
For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost — in Tbilisi."
I agree with Russia 100% on this. The USA/Israel are wrong so accept it. They backed Georgia and got caught. I hope Russia stays in Georgia for the next 100 years.
Gates scoffs at Russian warnings to Poland
because our Sec. of War ain't at ground zero.
With Bush launching a new propaganda campaign to hypocritically dishonor Russia with the apparent motive of starting a new Cold War or worse, I am shocked that no one is challenging the validity of so blatantly misleading the American people into supporting him and McCain on a new disastrous adventure.
Why do we need a free press if all it does is to echo the voice of a man who has a long proven record of lies and deception to serve his purpose? To establish credibility, he uses every trick in the book -- using the best of loyal military and NGO "experts" to support their media briefings and attend media news shows that discuss foreign policy and situation commentary.
Bush has used the Pentagon and CIA before to invent or trigger information intelligence to defend the White House agenda. They even stoop to immoral and illegal clandestine operations to initiate situations that can be blamed on a target country. So why does anyone believe him or not understand his real motives and where are the investigative reporters? Are we going to wait until it is too late again?
MISSED THE REAL REASON PLS READ READ
missal defence in nato countries that surround Russia to protect nato countries from attacks from Iran Right this is the USA line?
Now read the truth below
Real reason is to stop Russian missals from being launched.
Why would Russia launch missals? IF IRAN WAS ATTACKED
This whole plan is the attack Iran and Russia can't do anything for a short time after it happens.
This article merely scratches the surface of what was covered on the Alex Jones radio show from the beginning of the conflict. It was probably the prompting of the listeners to his show that there is even any truthful coverage in the US of A. Georgian "peace keepers" stationed in South Ossetia mass slaughtered Russian peace keepers stationed there beginning the Georgian invasion slaughter. US and Israeli involvement is obvious, with the motive of bring NATO and missles to the borders of Russia, and testing the waters of an Iran invasion. Get ready for another Cuban missle crisis.
I haven't seen too much discussion about the fact that this event has Cheney's filthy fingerprints all over it. I suspect that he tried to prod the situation a little for whatever reason and miscalculated. Now he and his minions in the Beltway Neocon Punditcy are scrambling to rescue what they can. Why doesn't Pelosi do what she is oath-bound to do and impeach the pendejo!!!???
Dkm
Impeach, ha ha ha you got to be kidding
The f-ing jews run america accept it OK.
We are talking if you read my posting of 4:10 PM that america ( sucking jewish dick) are setting this up for the grand bush finial show. He wants to be the last presidento of america and doesn't give a shit.
"US, allies contemplating action against Russia"
Action? As in invading and plundering Russia's gas and oil? Before Iran?
Well that should be "Mission Accomplished" in a trice. No point is giving Bush's storm troopers winter clothing as this should be all over by election day. Sure.
...I hope the 'allies' have lots of firewood stored - they sure won't have any gas heat this winter...
Great piece, "Thomas More"!!
And there's AP, again, scrambling to find it's lost credibility. Of course, It never will, because it wants to be a credible establishment organization, acceptable to the powerful. It's misreading the road sign. And there's the U.S. government, with it's 'attitude' of watching and listening in equanimity as mainstream spokespersons assist in it's pursuit of 'credibility' - which means showing others that they can't win with a lawless, powerful state that targets them for whatever reason and they shouldn't even try to.
As for Georgia and Russia and South Ossetia, I don't care about people who don't care. I know about the persecution of minorities in those places, carried out by regular people and having the backing of the Orthodox Church and the state. I'm referring to Jehovah's Witnesses. I was once one of them.
Having said that, If the U.S. was going to care that it's actions (like those of the corporate media that cheerlead for the empire) were hypocritical, it wouldn't be the beast that it is. What's hypocrisy when you're spilling oceans of blood and helping your partners in the private sector to literally destroy the planet?
And having said that, What do the South Ossetians - who I don't know much about - want? As long as that isn't trouble for others, then both Georgia and Russia should leave them alone or perhaps be good, helpful neighbors to them.
Like North Americans, people everywhere are facing a crisis of representation. Elites, employing the threat of violence, either openly deny it to the people or, in more 'advanced' countries, trick them into thinking they've got it. I honestly don't know how much more wisdom and peace there would be if 'little' people had a say in matters affecting them. But it's hard for me to not want that when I believe firmly, as I do, in fairness. Not democracy, exactly. Just fairness.
"Our next president has to be someone who'll work with Congress to dismantle Empire plus turning things around here at home."
"Otherwise?"
"The abyss."
"Based on?"
"Perpetual war + global warming = Doomsday."
Some great comments. Thomas, you should give the source of that article...
The best idea I've heard for the obviously brash attack on South Ossetia is to prevent Russia from getting involved with Iran. This would fit with the neocon spin that Russia is bad--although I don't know how much legs that line has. Sounds like a lot of people have caught on to the schemes and have had enough. Too bad Pelosi won't do her duty. I wonder how much of this wouldn't be happening if Bush and Cheney had to defend themselves in an impeachment.
Realpolitick and military limits are containing the neocons. Pragmatic, the Russians have been hesitant to give Iran their best surface-to-air missiles. Still, this doesn't change the bloodpath that will come if Iran is attacked--just make it a little less painful to attack. US military can't sustain any more wars even if neocons want them.
You may want to check my article in Opednews.com, linked through my blog (click my name above.)
This is just a natural result of the JINSA evil neocons
running the Pentagon. Disaster after disaster. One would think Americans would wake up, and return the US government
to its citizens.
JBPeebles August 18th, 2008 2:41 am
Araquin August 18th, 2008 1:15 am
It was written by Patrick Buchanan, an arch conservative.
I'm embarrased now to admit I put it in there to prove a point that we should realize that there are many conservatives that are not far away from our thinking, but I realize I should have put the attribution for it in when I posted it.
I think I thought nobody would read it....I realize now....my bad as they say. My apologies.
But I thought it summed the whole thing up nicely and was the truth. (though I didn't care for the Imperial reference)
From radical leftists to right wingers, all using Imperial, I masy have to modify my view. I'm the only one thats right? Probably not!!
Thomas,
Appreciate the source. I actually linked to that article, too!
Recently I've been thinking how political labels really don't matter. I mean, must we be so stuck into contrived definitions of Republicans and Democrats to divide us on specific issues.
I blogged in March about how identity politics were key to shaping perceptions, as opposed to where candidates stood on the issues. Actually swopa on needlenose had brought up a Paul Waldman boston.com article on the distinction.
Whatever the political orientation of the writer, their positions must be considered based purely on their merits. With a fairly clear-cut case of Georgian provocations, what Buchanan says simply make sense. While anti-liberal, Buchanan may be more of a friend to progressives because of his anti-intervention views, similar to those articulated by Ron Paul. Maybe the paradigm isn't liberal vs. conservative, but supporters of a larger state vs. those who believe in the Constitution.
The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline is the main factor in this Russian/Georgian conflict. Have you noticed the attention given this conflict by the United States?
Whether or not the IDF launches an air strike against Iran depends on the security of this pipeline. With the BTC pipeline secured, the neocons, who will not let Iran develop a nuclear capacity, will risk a temporary closure of Persian Gulf oil by the ensuing conflict between the USA and Iran.
Ironically, with the Russians pursuing their own oil interests in the Caucasus, the neocons may not risk striking Iran.
We shall see.
Well, Thomas More, Buchanan surprised me there. He didn't twist the truth as much as his ilk often does - personally, I don't care where people stand ideologically as long as they are trying to get to the bottom of things.
But in my experience from Europe, the Right loves to leave out the entire part of a story that doesn't prove its point while the Left only leaves out half the part it doesn't like to hear but finds an apology for the part it doesn't like. Or something like that.
Araquin August 19th, 2008 12:37 am
Quite true. Buchanan represents a fair number of conservatives I believe are heartily sick of the neocons. I just hope we are smart enough to use thast...if I'm right.
I loved that second paragraph!
I'm glad to see Russia wipe up the floor with that little US puppet Shakashvili.