Matt Yglesias

35 Responses to “Mysteries of International Relations”

1. right Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 10:51 am

   Meanwhile, even if it had been true, it’s not clear why that would justify what the Russians are doing now in terms of sitting in Gori.

   Well, if the Georgian regime was actually engaging in a Holocaust of the South Ossetian population, I’d say it would justify Russia rolling into Tbilisi and knocking off the government. Of course, that’s not what is happening so it’s an academic point.

2. RRF Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 10:56 am

   I think the Russian assertions just reflect the way the use of force is justified in the 21st century. States still act in their national interest, but cloak and justify those actions in humanitarian and noble purposes–be it human rights, freedom, and/or democracy (Iraq anyone). It both makes their home polity feel more noble in their country’s actions, as well as an attempt to mute international criticism. The United States has always justified actions taken in their national interest in such terms, and it seems to be something that we have bequeathed to the rest of the world.

3. DivGuy Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 10:56 am

   I assume the lies are for domestic consumption – possibly to ease the transition from defensive war to imperialist occupation. (The ouevre of Stephen Hayes, stenographer for the VP and OSP, would be a good example.)

   While I agree that it would be smart for Russia to get out, that “rational” choice has rarely been the one made by imperialist powers over the last several centuries.

4. Ed Marshall Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 11:00 am

   But why bother with these lies? What does it accomplish?

   Do you remember when Clinton was claiming half a million Kosovars had been disappeared? It got you on board didn’t it?

5. Rum raisin Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 11:01 am

   Why do we keep asking that what can we do to make Russia leave? It seems like we are living in a neocon utopia where only force/war can get folks to change their minds. We should clearly rule out use of force. But can’t we (in concert with the Europeans) do something economically/ diplomatically to “persuade” Russia? Putin is a nasty autocratic prick but (unlike our fearless leader) he is not an imbecile. How much is he willing to risk over Georgia?

6. Laertes Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 11:02 am

   They should have really gone for the gusto and circulated stories about Georgian soldiers storming a hospital in Ossetia and dumping the babies out of the bassinets.

   Amateurs.

7. Chris Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 11:03 am

   We need to know how much imput Mcwars had in this affair,ie his foreign policy expert and neoconwarmonger Randy Shueneman….

8. DTM Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 11:04 am

   Just an idle thought, but it seems plausible to me that the Russians are consciously trying to portray this war as a mirror image of the Kosovo War, with accusations of atrocities by Georgian forces in South Ossetia being part of the package. And maybe the reason why they are doing that is to try to justify their actions inside Georgia proper (i.e., because NATO acted inside Serbia proper), but they could also just be trying to send a message to NATO.

9. Ethel-to-Tilly Says:
   August 18th, 2008 at 11:06 am

   The mere fact of the Georgian attack on South Ossetia was, I think, perfectly adequate pretext for a limited Russian military response.

   Under what principle of international law would the “mere fact” of a sovereign government using force against secessionists on it’s own internationally recognized territory justify a military response from a neighbor? Such an abandonment of ignoring a country’s territorial sovereignty would lead to all kinds of mischief and worse. A standing principle in international affairs has been to respect internationally recognized political boundaries. This widely adhered-to principle has largely prevented widespread chaos in Africa since states with arbitrarily drawn borders gained independence in the 1960s – it shouldn’t be so casually tossed over-board.

10. Chris G Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 11:07 am

    What are the Russians doing in Gori? Well, they could be dismantling Georgia’s military infrastructure in order to prevent a repetition of recent events. Or they could be preventing the South Ossetian militia from running riot. Or they could be preparing to get out. Thus far, Russia’s military actions seem to have followed a fairly obvious pattern – establish supremacy on the battlefield by disrupting the enemy’s ability to defend itself. It seems to follow the pattern of similar Western interventions in recent years.

11. Duncan Kinder Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 11:08 am

    Both sides of the Ossetia / Georgia debate are attempting to portray their client as a WWI – era “Belgium.”

    E.g.:

    During the course of the war 1160 pamphlets were published, many bringing propaganda to a new level. An early pamphlet, Report on Alleged German Outrages, written during 1915, said that the Germans had systematically tortured Belgium civilians. To make the pamphlet more believable, the famous Dutch artist Louis Raemaker was asked to make some drawings that would create high emotion among the British public. The artist never actually went to Belgium.

    and this:

    During the First World War most countries publicized stories of enemy soldiers committing atrocities. It was believed that it would help persuade young men to join the armed forces. As one British general pointed out after the war: “to make armies go on killing one another it is necessary to invent lies about the enemy”. These atrocity stories were then fed to newspapers who were quite willing to publish them. British newspapers accused German soldiers of a series of crimes including: gouging out the eyes of civilians, cutting off the hands of teenage boys, raping and sexually mutilating women, giving children hand grenades to play with, bayoneting babies and the crucifixion of captured soldiers.

    In December 1914 Herbert Asquith appointed a committee of lawyers and historians under the chairmanship of Lord Bryce to investigate alleged German atrocities in Belgium. The report, published in 30 different languages, claimed that there had been numerous examples of German brutality towards non-combatants, especially towards old men, women and children. Five days after the Bryce Report was issued, the German authorities published its White Book. This included accounts of atrocities committed by Belgians on German soldiers.

    So we’ve heard this tune before.

12. Dan Kervick Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 11:30 am

    You are too quick to size this up Matt. There have been numerous first-hand reports from many different media outlets around the world that report a lot more damage in Tskhinvali than Lasseter saw. And despite disagreements about the extent of the damage, in almost all of the interviews with South Ossetians I have come across, the interviewee expressed gratitude for the Russian intervention.

13. Dan Kervick Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 11:41 am

    Under what principle of international law would the “mere fact” of a sovereign government using force against secessionists on it’s own internationally recognized territory justify a military response from a neighbor?

    Well if force was used punitively against cities and residences and non-combatants, wouldn’t this qualify as a humanitarian intervention justified under the new international law of the Responsibility to Protect?

    It’s the new international liberal order in action.

14. Peter K. Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 11:55 am

    You are too quick to size this up Matt. There have been numerous first-hand reports from many different media outlets around the world that report a lot more damage in Tskhinvali than Lasseter saw. And despite disagreements about the extent of the damage, in almost all of the interviews with South Ossetians I have come across, the interviewee expressed gratitude for the Russian intervention.

    Yeah if you’re on side you spin it one way, if you’re on the other side you spin it the other. Almost makes it seems like there is no objective reality. Except there is.

    I’d guess Dan is an “anti-war” lefty just by this description. I’m just glad Russia didn’t topple the Georgian government.

    Thing is Russia has a track record with Chechnya, which wasn’t that long ago. They destroyed that village in order to save it. So, Russians going on about human rights and genocide is friggin weird, almost Orwellian.

    I mean they constantly vote in the UN to shield violators of human rights. They back Belarus, an oppresive dictatorship. This isn’t just US propaganda.

15. roger Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 11:55 am

    The more Georgia is humiliated, the likelier that Saakashvili will become unpopular. The Russians seem to me to have a pretty simple strategy of pinning Saakashvili with the atrocity label, destroying Georgia’s economy, and thus provoking the overthrow of the Georgian government. The counter-propaganda offensive has been to make Saakashvili seem like a neo-con dream of a democracy fighter. This is why, in their thumb sucker pieces, the NYT will blandly ignore the fact that Saakashvili’s rose revolution was financed by another handy kleptocrat, or will use the phrase, “was elected handily” to mean – received 96 percent of the vote. It is sort of hard to make it plausible that democracy’s warrior received 96 percent of the vote – it makes the vote look a little, oh, rigged.

    The most interesting thing about this very minor border incident is its demonstration of the narrow spectrum of opinion in the power elite that runs us. Its relatively easy, it appears, for an autocrat to gain lopsided attention in the U.S. by hiring the right lobbyists and flattering the right opinion makers – who are, indeed, on the right. It is almost funny how dominant the neo cons are in that section of the MSM dedicated to foreign affairs. As Americans generally could care less, foreign policy is a prime target for takeover by minority special interest groups. There simply isn’t a liberal foreign policy group in the U.S. any more – which is why the MSM endlessly recycles the Iraq hawks.

16. bakho Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 11:59 am

    From a Russian military standpoint, the Russians should do as much dismantling of Georgian capabilities as they can before they withdraw. That includes closing out bases and removing munitions that could be shaped into IEDs or other partisan warfare against the new structure on the ground. Dismantling the bases probably require control of nearby cities and sufficient deterrence of attacks.

    Moving forward with Ossetia will be part of Russia and not Georgia Peace will require a lot of effort to stop insurgents and get support for the new order.

    The US, and especially Republican administrations have few qualms about supporting regimes that do not protect minority rights. Bush promotes democracy- which to him, means voting for a leader and letting the leader do whatever he wants. What makes American government special is not “Voting for leaders” but our system of checks and balances that “protect the rights of minorities”. It is the “democracy” trumps human rights arguments that Republicans have made since the inception of the party from its nativist roots.

    The root cause of the conflict is protection of rights in Ossetia and the use of force by Georgia as coercion.

17. Edward, the mad shirt grinder Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 12:00 pm

    I seem to remember a flock of medical students in Grenada that somehow needed to be evacuated for their own safety after the unprovoked US invasion of that country.

18. Dan Kervick Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    I do think there is an objective reality here Peter K. I just wouldn’t presume to think we know it all based on a single account by one reporter, when there are other accounts by other reporters telling a different story. We’re still seeing a lot of different parts of the elephant.

19. Kellie Strøm Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 12:25 pm

    Matthew, your apparent confidence in the narrative of your opening sentence is pretty curious considering what follows. The Washington Post’s attempt to find the start point to this war shows your view to be way too simplistic.

20. RKU Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 12:28 pm

    Well, poor Matt says it’s “totally untrue” that the Georgian attacks left the Ossetian capital looking something like Stalingrad.

    Strangely enough, that’s exactly the phrase used in this morning’s Washington Post:

    Peter Finn, Washington Post

    The war here cut a swath of destruction, severely damaging many homes and apartment buildings.

    Gaping holes scar five-story blocks of apartments, the detritus of what was once ordinary life blown onto shattered balconies.

    In one neighborhood, along Telman Street, house after crumpled house was a scorched shell, bricks piled high in basements exposed to the sunlight. The area is about 200 yards from destroyed separatist government buildings, an acknowledged target of Georgian forces.

    A school, a library and a kindergarten were blackened and pockmarked from small-arms fire, as were the houses around them.

    At certain moments, in certain places, the smell of rotting corpses was in the air.

    The scale of the destruction is undeniable; some streets summon iconic images of Stalingrad during World War II or Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, which was leveled in two wars between Russian troops and Chechen separatists.

    Look, I haven’t been there myself, but maybe Matt should read his own local newpaper before he becomes so sure about things.

    Or does he believe that the Washington Post has now become a Russia/Putin shill…

21. Justine Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 12:51 pm

    The whole thing is complicated somewhat by the fact that the Russians took the decision to send in the Vostok battalion in the first days of the war. The Vostok battalion is made up of former Chechen rebels and is answerable not to the army but to the Russian Defense Ministry’s Main Intelligence Directorate. Essentially, these guys are thugs – their leader is on Russia’s federal wanted list after a shootout between his people and forces loyal to the Chechen President Ramzan Kadyrov. It’s very possible that the Russian army per se doesn’t have much control over them, making enforcing ceasefire terms complicated. I’m reading that the Vostok battalion are in Gori – it’s likely that that’s where the reports of looting etc are coming from.

    The situation is complicated further by the fact that it’s not in the Russians’ interests to have the West see that they don’t have control over their own forces. I’m speculating here, but it’s possible that they’d prefer to have it thought that they won’t keep faith with their ceasefire agreement than that they’re not in control. There’s a bit more about this here: http://www.jamestown.org/chechnya_weekly/article.php?articleid=2374375

22. Njorl Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 1:24 pm

    RKU,
    If you read that Post passage carefully, you see that it is consistent with what Matt is talking about. What the author describes is not a destroyed city. Because he lingers on what was destroyed, he evokes emotion.

    But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture. While it was clear there had been heavy fighting — missiles knocked holes in walls, and bombs tore away rooftops — almost all of the buildings seen in an afternoon driving around Tskhinvali were still standing.

    Is completely consistent with:

    Gaping holes scar five-story blocks of apartments, the detritus of what was once ordinary life blown onto shattered balconies.

    In one neighborhood, along Telman Street, house after crumpled house was a scorched shell, bricks piled high in basements exposed to the sunlight. The area is about 200 yards from destroyed separatist government buildings, an acknowledged target of Georgian forces.

    Comparing it to Stalingrad, where some urban areas were reduced to this:

    http://img365.imageshack.us/my.php?image=infantrycharge9pj.jpg

    is ridiculous.

23. RKU Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 1:44 pm

    Look, all of South Ossetia combined would just be a tiny city in America, and the capital “city” is really just the equivalent of a small town. Also, the Georgians had only been attacking it for a day or so, before the Russians counter-attacked and the Georgians ran away.

    Now no one in their right mind would claim that a small town attacked for a day or so is “exactly like Stalingrad”. But the WashPost reporter said that *parts* of the “city” looked like Stalingrad, which given wartime poetic license isn’t too different from what the Russian propaganda was claiming. There’s a pretty wide difference between typical wartime “exaggeration” and something being “totally untrue.”

    Similarly, the Ossetians claim that 2000 people were killed and Western pundits talk about 44 bodies. My guess would be the geometric mean of both these distortions, maybe a couple of hundred dead, and 70% of the population fled.

    Is this “genocide”? Well, in recent years America’s been in the forefront of giving that term an exceptionally “expansive” definition…

24. Njorl Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 4:39 pm

    “Similarly, the Ossetians claim that 2000 people were killed and Western pundits talk about 44 bodies. My guess would be the geometric mean of both these distortions, maybe a couple of hundred dead, and 70% of the population fled. “

    It isn’t western pundits talking about “44 bodies”, it’s South Ossetian Doctors who issued death certificates for all known deaths in the capital as reported by independent human rights organization representitives who personally interviewed them. Those are the ones saying “44 bodies”. And roughly half of those bodies were believed to be combatants. While there were almost certainly some undiscovered dead, and others who may have succumbed to injuries, the number of civilian dead in the capital will probably not break 50.

25. Richard Steven Hack Says:
    August 18th, 2008 at 5:39 pm

    And this quote from the McClatchy article:

    The doctor at the Tskhinvali hospital, Tina Zakharova, said she wanted to clarify that she wasn’t disagreeing with the South Ossetian officials’ numbers, adding that many bodies had been buried in gardens and cemeteries in outlying villages. She could not, however, explain how more than 2,000 dead — the difference between her hospital’s count and the Kremlin-backed officials’ tally — were buried in a relatively small area without any evidence such as stacks of coffins or mass funerals.

    Meaning she went looking for those funerals while doing her duty at the hospital? I highly doubt that.

    Bottom line: We’re taking the word of one doctor. Granted, the Russians are likely exaggerating based on unreliable estimates from their troops on the ground. But the figure of 44 is as unlikely as 2,000.

    And then there’s this comment from a Russian:

    translated Comment from russian side.
    by VaskaCat on 17.08.2008 [15:29 ]
    I’ve translated into English comment from Russian side:
    Russian original : http://www.iraq-war.ru/article/172313
    English translation : vaskacat.blogspot.com

    It is a lot of lie about this war. Maybe even more then about war in Iraq.

    Basically what people knows about conflict is : Russia attacked democratic Georgia…

    Fact that Russia has signed peacemaking contract with Georgia and simply was following obligation during last 18 years noone remember in western media. Same obligations was on Georgian side but they numerously violated them.

    Any way on some Russian forum I read comments of soldier who was being there on Russian Army side. I try to make close translation:

    Our man just came from Ossetia. His face was green despite he was in Afghanistan, being twice in Chechnya. He drunk bottle of whiskey but remain sober after.
    Then he told us about war over there:
    I never seen anything close to that. Lets not speak about nationalities. Everything you can see on TV (Russian TV mentions 2000 peaceful Ossetia people died from Georgian Blitzkrieg) is not even half of whats going on there.
    From Georgia side were lots of mercenaries, all kind of. What they were doing were unimaginable. Little children came to cars, mercenaries collected them and start …. slaughter them. Mothers came out basement rush after them. Georgian mercenaries start putting organs and fragments of bodies of their babies in to their mouthes. Men and young boys were killed indiscriminately. Others – old people, women, children were collected in Church and burned. (Georgian same Christians as Ossetia people), in attempt to escape, were executed by shooting. Young women were raped. then slaughter to pieces, alive.
    (Since people of Tzhinvali were hiding in basements after town was devastated). They knocking in basements. Were talking on Ossetin language. Some opening doors. In best case they just executed them by shooting or thrown hand grenade. Children were slaughtered in front of mothers, mothers were slaughtered in front of children and old people. To keep men clam shoot through their hands or just cut off.

    Georgian peace keepers were slaughter and killing wounded people when they were escaping from Tzhinvali, before start fire (of Russian Army probably).

    Alot of things like this happen there.

    Version of Georgian assault as genocide of Ossetin people – confirmed. (On captured Georgians military documents – operation mentioned as “Clean field”)

    How all this facts will be used we never know. Our looses unknown (of Russian Army). We cannot find their bodies (of Russian peace keepers). They can be captured can be … But we can find very few alive people who were doing peace keeping at outstanding posts (they must be killed in first minutes of assault without even chance for backfire), or who were in Tzhinvali base. Maybe they are in hospitals, no statistics yet.

    In incoming Army not much causalities ( regular Russian army came to stop Georgian assault) maybe its sounds cynical but military people should understand me. Less then expected.

    Civilians are still counting. How many under obstruction, or already buried. How many captured by Georgians? Lots of questions without answers. But I very doubt official 2000. In sense that its higher in few times.

    Resume: Everything what u seen on TV (Russian) thruth, but we have alot to learn about this. Maybe we will.

    Right now Tzhinvali is clearing from corpses. Corpses mostly unidentified buried altogether. Coffins not for them. Maybe for those were lucky identified by relatives. For others tarpaulin and chlorine,

    War as usual.

26. Richard Steven Hack Says:
    August 19th, 2008 at 6:43 am

    And then there’s this article from an Irish paper, whose reporter is on the ground in Tshinvali:

    Ruined Tskhinvali full of bitterness at Georgian offensive
    http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/world/2008/0819/1218868113676.html

    The war between Georgia and Russia was centred on this town of at most 10,000 people, and it cut a swathe of destruction, severely damaging many homes and apartment buildings. Gaping holes scar five-storey blocks of apartments, the detritus of what was once ordinary life blown onto shattered balconies.

    In one neighbourhood, along Telman Street, house after crumpled house was a scorched shell, bricks piled high in basements exposed to the sunlight. The area is about 200 yards from destroyed separatist government buildings in central Tskhinvali, an acknowledged target of Georgian forces.

    A school, a library and a kindergarten were blackened and pockmarked from small-arms fire, as were the houses around them. And the city was strewn with the ruined armour of both Georgian and Russian forces.

    At certain moments, in certain places, the smell of rotting corpses was in the air.

    Here in Tskhinvali, there was no doubt that Georgia started the war with Russia and much bitterness about the rain of artillery and rockets that the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili used in its efforts to capture the city. The Georgian government said much of the destruction of Tskhinvali was caused by a Russian counteroffensive, but that argument carries no weight with residents here, some of them clearly traumatised.

    People insist that a terrible barrage struck the city late on August 7th and continued into the morning – accounts supported by western monitors who were also forced into their cellars. Indeed, buildings used by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe were damaged, one severely.

    “Grad came and hit us,” said Garik Gabayev, referring to the fearsome BM-21 multiple rocket system employed by Georgian forces. Grad is a word that has entered the vocabulary of this town, cited by one resident after another as they described what they experienced.

    Gabayev sat outside Saturday afternoon, just down the street from his father-in-law’s pancaked home. “I don’t remember anything,” he said, visibly shaking. “All the walls collapsed.”

    The scale of the destruction is undeniable; some streets summon iconic images of Stalingrad during the second World War or Grozny, the capital of Chechnya, which was levelled in two wars between Russian and Chechen separatists.

    But the number of dead remains in dispute. Mikhail Minsayev, until yesterday the minister of interior in the separatist South Ossetian government, told reporters on Saturday that as many as 2,100 people had been killed.

    When challenged on that figure by reporters, who cited statements by medical workers and human rights groups that there was no evidence of such a high death toll, he said people quickly buried the dead in their yards or took the bodies to North Ossetia in Russia for burial.

    In conversations here, everyone interviewed said they had lost either no family members or one person. But those were interviews with people whose cellars had held. Many clearly had not.

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