Matthew Yglesias » The Annals of Irony

Aug 15th, 2008 at 10:37 am

The Annals of Irony

George W. Bush: “Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st Century.”

Comments
56

Filed under: Bush, hegemony, Iron

56 Responses to “The Annals of Irony”

Daragh McDowell Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 10:39 am
Matt – instead of pointing out that *gasp* George W. Bush isn’t a very good president, why not devote some time to actually evaluating this critically, rather than as some game of competing frames of reference between American political parties.
JFD Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 10:47 am
Matthew’s Iraq war comparison is absolute fucking bullshit.

As Andrew Coyne wrote yesterday:

“So this is not Kosovo, to deal with one facile comparison. Neither is it remotely comparable to Iraq. To name only a few of the more obvious discrepancies, the Saakashvili government has not invaded or attacked five of its neightbours; it has not started two major wars, or caused the death of millions of people; it has not hosted or sponsored nearly every major international terrorist group; it has not defied 17 resolutions of the Security Council, each one backed by the threat of force; it has not corrupted a United Nations sanctions regime, nor blocked its arms inspectors, nor bribed high officials in member states; it has not developed, or tried to, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, nor has it used them on its own or other countries’ citizens; it is not a bestial dictatorship, whose people would be only too happy to see it gone. It is, in fact, a popularly elected, pro-Western, democratic government: imperfect as democracies go, but a paragon by the standards of the region — certainly when compared to the Medvedev/Putin thugocracy that runs Russia.”

BUT BUSH EQUALS PUTIN LMAO HAHAHAHAHHA IM SO IRONIC AND KEWLZ!
Pesto Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Daragh,

Not to speak for Matt or anything, but…

1) Matt has analyzed the substance of the situation numerous times this week. Just scroll down the main page and you’ll see lots of posts about the situation between Russia and Georgia.

2) The Administration and the McCain campaign are already treating this as “competing frames of reference between American political parties.” I think Matt is just pointing out the unbelievable hypocrisy and outright dishonesty of Bush, McCain, and the neo-cons who are saying whatever pops into their heads to seem like they’ve got a handle on the situation, even if what they say is contradicted by virtually everything else they’ve said and done for the last 7 years.
steve duncan Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 10:53 am
I’m curious to know how JDF is so sure Georgia isn’t guilty of at least some of the counts on his laundry list of regime malfeasance?
cleek Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 10:59 am
Matthew’s Iraq war comparison is absolute fucking bullshit.

are you sure you’re on the right thread ?
max Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:00 am
Shorter JFD:
Q: When is a peacekeeper not a peacekeeper but a bestial occupier?
A: When it’s a Russian peacekeeper!

max
['We have ALWAYS been at war with Eurasia!']
howard Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:07 am
wrt jfd, it’s amazing how proud the right-wingers are of memorizing the critique of iraq! they love to keep trotting it out!

as for irony, bush doesn’t know the meaning of the word.
joe from Lowell Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:08 am
I really don’t think that the fact that Josef Stalin decided to make South Ossetia part of Georgia instead of part of Russia is much of a moral peg on which which to hang an argument that Georgia’s rocket, artillery, tank, and infantry attack on the region is materially different from Saddam’s similar attack on Kuwait.
Daragh McDowell Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:12 am
Pesto –

I’ve read what Matt’s written over the past couple of days and it has been 90% commentary not on the conflict itself, but on what one political party (the GOP) has been saying about the conflict, with the implcation that the fact that they’re saying X obviously means that the most desirable policy course is Y. Georgia’s strategic location, overall Russian strategic perspective and world-view, the implications for general international norms of a great power deliberately and pursposefully dismembering a smaller one? Nada.

A classic example is this post, in which Matt debunks the notion that Ukraine might be next on Russia’s agenda, by pointing out that Neo-conservative commentators have argued this point and that they are almost always wrong. Perhaps a fair point if there wasn’t any other evidence forthcoming about a possible threat to Kiev, but if I may indulge in a slight bit of blog self-promotion, there have been several statements to the effect of ‘Ukraine, you’re next’ from the Russian foreign policy and security establishment over the past few days. Several other non-neocon analysts such as Strobe Talbott and Radio Free Europe have noticed this bellicosity. Matt ignores it, because it doesn’t fit into his meme.

I’m as loathe to admit as the next guy that Bill Kristol or John McCain might be right about something, but that doesn’t excuse what appears to be a conscious refusal to pay attention to reality when it contradicts ideology. After all, isn’t that what neo-cons are primarily guilty of in the first place?
jerri Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:18 am
bush has nothing…bluster and wagging his finger at the camera is the best he can do. The entire army and its equipment sits in Iraq watching the sunnis blow up shia. 2/3 of the navy sit in the gulf watching the iranians pick their noses. The air force, what air force…I don’t believe bush has the $ to fuel up the jets.
right Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am
1) Everyone should agree there’s no real parallel here to Iraq or even Kosovo. This is a premeditated Russian power-play against a reasonably behaved (though surely not perfect) regime who made the enormous strategic error of giving Russia mild provocation.

2) That said, the irony of the US critique of Russia’s actions is that there are plenty of truly analogous actions in recent US history, as Matt and others have amply pointed out, from Guatemala to Cuba to Chile to Nicaragua to Haiti. That many of these were in a “Cold War” mind set is hardly a strong defense given that Russia is still in a Cold War mind set.

3) However, there are legitimate reasons that the international community should be very concerned about what happens to Georgia, most of which have to do with control of the vital Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline. Matt pooh-poohs this as an important geopolitical issue, but gives no explanation for doing so. Apparently it’s no big deal to have Russia and Iran able to hold Europe hostage for all its energy needs.
Pesto Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:23 am
Daragh,

I’m not going to go re-read all of Matt’s posts on Georgia to characterize the degree to which each concerns the conflict itself or the political struggle over the conflict. I guess the 3rd level of meta that you’re advocating — let’s discuss Matt’s discussion of the discussion about the conflict — seems pretty pointless to me.

I’m as loathe to admit as the next guy that Bill Kristol or John McCain might be right about something, but that doesn’t excuse what appears to be a conscious refusal to pay attention to reality when it contradicts ideology. After all, isn’t that what neo-cons are primarily guilty of in the first place?

No, what the neo-cons are primarily guilty of is being bloodthirsty, anti-democratic, militaristic imperialists.

They don’t hate Putin. They’re jealous of him.
Freddie Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:36 am
http://lhote.blogspot.com/2008/08/cubageorgia.html
mpowell Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:43 am
The reason that there are more posts on the attempted framing of this issue by McCain and the GOP than on the actual issue is b/c analysis of the situation is not all that complicated. Mostly because we don’t have a lot of leverage in the situation. You can ruminate all you want on the shift of the balance of power in the crimean region, but that doesn’t really change the options on the table. Look at Krauthammer’s, “we’ll boycott their olympics!” recommendations for how to ‘get tough’ on the Russians. It’s a freakin’ joke. On the other hand, we have a lot of leverage in insuring that the criminals currently running our own foreign policy don’t get to use this as a tool to retain their disgusting grip on political power.

Bill Kristol and John McCain are pretty much never right, and certainly not on this issue. It’s useful to point out that their claims don’t stand up to the slightest bit of scrutiny. Even by their own standards and previous statements, their current outlook on this issue is clearly wrong. We have an election coming up that will determine the course of US policy making across the board for at least 4 years. So yes, the important thing is to point out how dishonest and lacking in credibility one side is, on this issue and every other issue of our time.
Harvey Lobster Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:48 am
Right, your post is certainly thought-provoking, and well-argued. But I don’t think we all actually agree that there is *no* analogy here with Iraq or Kosovo.

Everyone should agree there’s no real parallel here to Iraq or even Kosovo. This is a premeditated Russian power-play against a reasonably behaved (though surely not perfect) regime who made the enormous strategic error of giving Russia mild provocation.

Two comments here. First, I think you exaggerate Georgia’s virtues, though I’m no expert. The provocations were both real and stupid – and, as you probably understand well, the real Kosovo analogy is between Kosovo and the breakaway regions, not between Russia and the United States or even between Georgia and Serbia (if ethnic self-determination is good for the goose, then it’s good for the gander, is the fundamental point).

More significantly, though, just because Georgia is, arguably, a halfway-decent state, and that Iraq was a terrible, tyrannical state doesn’t counter the arguments of realist liberals. Namely, that our action against Iraq, like Russia’s against Georgia, was a “premeditated power-play,” and had absolutely nothing to do with Iraq’s tyranny *except* as a plausible provocation.

I don’t think anyone will disagree with you that Iraq was a terrible place and that Georgia is a mostly ok place, but that doesn’t, in my view, particularly damage the analogy. I understand the U.S. invasion of Iraq as an attempt to set up a protectorate for geopolitical reasons, which *is* precisely what’s happening in Georgia. You are right that the differences between Georgia and Iraq are very important, but they don’t relate to the geopolitical motivations behind either war.
Daragh McDowell Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 11:49 am
Pesto –

I’d tend to agree with your assessment of the Neo-Cons as a group, but you have put it a bit more eloquently. The hat is off.

While I may be advocating a ‘third-level meta’ critique, I do think there’s usefulness here. Matt is a very prominent journalist – by and large deservedly so. His opinions influence the opinions of people who don’t have the time or the inclination to spend as much time researching foreign affairs. If he’s simply going to take his cues by knee-jerk opposing those he disagrees with, then it calls into question his reliability as a ‘thought-leader’ (to use a particularly nauseating 21st century neologism.)

And frankly the whole point of this comments section is to have a discussion, to point out where Matt and/or his critics might be wrong, hopefully in order to influence further commentary.

Anyway, over to you Matt…
Ed Marshall Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 12:05 pm
1) Everyone should agree there’s no real parallel here to Iraq or even Kosovo.

Why?

This drives me up a wall. It boils down to “our bullshit reasons to invade people are good, and their bullshit reasons are outrageous propaganda”. I caught some Russian TV and while it amused me to see the Russians foam and froth and accuse Georgia of genocide and massive human rights violations, at least I understand that it looks just as ridiculous to anyone not in the U.S. that our media is just as ridiculous.
Grand Moff Texan Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 12:15 pm
it has not corrupted a United Nations sanctions regime, nor blocked its arms inspectors, nor bribed high officials in member states; it has not developed, or tried to, chemical, biological and nuclear weapons, nor has it used them on its own or other countries’ citizens

I look forward to Andrew Coyne’s invasion of the USA, which no doubt JDF will cut ‘n paste so he can look like he has something to say.
.
Grand Moff Texan Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 12:17 pm
Everyone should agree there’s no real parallel here to Iraq or even Kosovo. This is a premeditated Russian power-play against a reasonably behaved (though surely not perfect) regime who made the enormous strategic error of giving [...] mild provocation.

Ah, so you agree that there is a parallel with the invasion of Iraq on at least three separate points.
.
joeskeys Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 12:19 pm
Thank you pesto. Loathsome neocons.

“Bullying” pretty much describes Bush administration policy not towards Iraq but pretty much everywhere. Witness Iran, North Korea. It’s amazing what happens when you make invading unfriendly non-aggressor states acceptable policy for great powers.

Besides, the issue here is making sure Russia doesn’t remove Georgia’s elected government. At this point, they haven’t, and they’ve repeatedly said they won’t. Mostly they’re completely neutering Georgia’s military and securing the breakaway provinces. I think after Kosovo we can’t really complain about a course of action like that, especially since the Georgians attacked first, but we can stand firm with Georgia’s right to continue to exist (with or without S. Ossetia), and we’re doing that.

If McCain were president, of course, we would already be at war with Russia…
joeskeys Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 12:23 pm
p.s. Bill Kristol is never actually right, even if (and I say “if” because I haven’t seen it yet) he comes to the correct conclusion. If I say 2+2=4 because Putin is Hitler and it’s always 1939, the fact that I’ve come to the correct answer doesn’t make me “right” and it certainly doesn’t give me the slightest bit of credibility.

And he’s not right on this issue either.
Lon Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 12:32 pm
JFD,

You seem to have missed that Yglesias did not make an Iraq Georgia parallel. He mocked Bush’s fatuous attempt at making a disanalogy.

It does not seem too hard to make a serious case as to why what Russia did in Georgia is different than what we did in Iraq. But unfortunately Bush (and it appears the right in general) either lacks the ability or the interest in making serious cases. And so they reduce every situation to a level of simplemindedness at which the serious case doesn’t hold up.

We are not in a position to object to the conducting of foreign affairs by bullying and intimidation. We have gone through 7 years in which we have used little else. The case can be made that we are using these tactics to advance democracy while they are using it to crush democracy, but then we are still in no position to criticize the tactics per se.
Don Williams Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 1:01 pm
1) In my opinion, JFD exemplies the two-faced deceit of the conservatives.

2) How many Iraqis have been killed since Bush invaded Iraq? How does that compare to Georgia’s casualties?

3) Russia crossed its border to protect ethnic Russians — Bush went on the opposite side of the world to grab oil deposits. And the truth is, the Republicans don’t give a shit about the Georgians — look at how they have ignored genocides in non-oil bearing countries. Republicans use words like “democracy” and freedom as con games to cover up their indefensible agenda — sending our sons to die to protect Big Oil’s foreign interests.

4) JFD also doesn’t mention that when Saddam invaded Iran he did so with Ronald Reagan and Dick Cheney’s strong approval and support. And he got the green light from George H Bush when he invaded Kuwait as well.

How can you tell that a Neocon’s lying? When his lips move.

5) Maybe JFD would like to tell us how many IRaqi children died in the 1990s from waterborne diseases when the US bombed Iraqi waterplants and then blocked the import of purification chemicals.

6) There is a difference between Iraq and Georgia: None of our sons have died for the sake of Big Oil in Georgia yet.
Plus everyone now knows what lying, traitorous shitheads Bush, CHeney, and the Republicans are.
Daragh McDowell Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 1:14 pm
“3) Russia crossed its border to protect ethnic Russians — Bush went on the opposite side of the world to grab oil deposits.”

Lon – Neither the Ossetians nor the Abkhazians are ethnic Russians. The Russian state granted citizenship to anything with a pulse in either country as part of a recognised creep towards annexation, and then used it as a casus beli.

Secondly, the whole reason Georgia is so important is because its the one pathway that could possibly allow Central Asian states access to Western energy markets that doesn’t go through Iran or Russia. Currently they have to sell their oil and gas to Russia (which uses its monopsony on supply links to keep prices artificially low) which then re-exports them to Europe (at Market prices.)

My oh my, where did that high horse you were riding go?
Freddie Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 1:42 pm
I just think the people arguing that the Russians are uniquely pernicious here are deep in the throes of a very common inability to judge the United States by anything resembling equitable standards. Everything we do is permissible, anything our self-defined antagonists do is terrible immoral. Of course, people won’t come out and say that. They’ll find whatever possible justifications they can for American action. But as I’ve written about before, all of these justifications lead inevitably for completely excusing American misdeeds. Is that integrity?

To begin with, the whole thing is a dodge anyway. The relative morality of the United States is largely immaterial; whether or not the United States’s actions are moral is an important question and wholly separate from whether they are more or less moral than those of Bad Actor X. Saying that the United States is more moral than Putin’s Russia (or Iran or Hamas or North Koreas or whoever) is indeed damning with faint praise.

When people get angry about conservatives attacking Russia for violating the territorial integrity of Georgia, while cheerleading an aggressive American foreign policy that leads to things like invading Iraq, they aren’t saying that what matters is whether the United States is worse or not. They are pointing out that the same behavior that these people deride when performed by Russia is applauded when performed by America. Are there ever perfect analogs between the actions of several countries? No. But does that really excuse any and all examples of American hypocrisy? Of course. If we can agree on the general principle that great powers shouldn’t invade other countries without a justification in self-defense, then that principle condemns the United States invading Iraq as clearly as it condemns Russia invading Georgia. If it’s wrong to enact a manipulative and coercive sphere of influence towards your near neighbors, and I believe it is, then it’s equally wrong for America to do it towards Latin America as it is for Russia to do it towards Eastern Europe. This is a matter of the most basic morality. It’s just like Jesus said– you need to clean up your own house before you start telling other people how to run theirs. That doesn’t excuse Russian actions. It condemns American actions equally.

But the truth is, for people like these guys, there is literally no action that the United States could take that could cause them to criticize American bad behavior. They cognitive dissonance is astounding, but the mind’s capacity to subconsciously generate justifications for pretty much anything is quite large. Could these people defending American actions in comparison to Russia’s ever be convinced to see otherwise? Of course not. They’re entirely bent on seeing righteousness in America and immorality in America’s antagonists. They’re in the tank and they’re going to stay there.
Freddie Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 1:43 pm
*Of course NOT, obviously.
LaFollette Progressive Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 1:53 pm
Neither the Ossetians nor the Abkhazians are ethnic Russians. The Russian state granted citizenship to anything with a pulse in either country as part of a recognised creep towards annexation, and then used it as a casus beli.

And yet the South Ossetians ARE the same ethnic group as the North Ossetians, who comprise an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation. And most of the population in Abkhazia seems to prefer being within the Russian federation, or an independent Russian protectorate, than living in a province of Georgia. Every single report coming out of that region backs up the fact that both the Abkhaz and Ossetes want Russia to protect them from Georgian ethnic cleansing (they also seem to want to ethnically Georgians from their territory.) Here’s just one example.

There are practical reasons to oppose Russian efforts to annex land from their neighbors. But how on earth does it serve the cause of democracy and human rights to force these two regions to be part of a country they don’t want to be a part of?
Don Williams Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 1:55 pm
Re Lon’s comment “The case can be made that we are using these tactics to advance democracy while they are using it to crush democracy,”
———
The Bush Administration only promotes “democracy” in countries it wishes to take over for business reasons. Because it is easier to rig elections and convert subversion via huge, covert injections of money with that approach.

It is quite happy to strongly support dictatorships in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan so long as those dictators play ball with Houston.

Where in the hell did people get the idea that Saakashvili was thrown up by the people of Georgia?

His election was strongly engineered by the US government for the benefit of US Big Oil, not for the benefit of the Georgian people.

Look,e.g at this copy of the November 24, 2003 Wall Street Journal article on Saakashvili — which describes the role US funding sources played in his movement: http://www.leftgatekeepers.com/articles/ProWestLeadersInGeorgiaPushShevardnadzeOutByHughPopeWSJ.htm
Lon Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 2:08 pm
Daragh McDowell,

You seem to think that your comment answers something I said. I am not sure why. Did you mean to be responding to someone else? Or do your comments address something I said in some way that I can’t see?
Don Williams Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 2:10 pm
Re “They cognitive dissonance is astounding, but the mind’s capacity to subconsciously generate justifications for pretty much anything is quite large. Could these people defending American actions in comparison to Russia’s ever be convinced to see otherwise? Of course not. They’re entirely bent on seeing righteousness in America and immorality in America’s antagonists. ”
———-
They’re not even defending America and American values and what’s in the American interests. They’re whores for Big Oil , plain and simple. They don’t see conflicts in standards of morality because they are psychopaths — they don’t even understand the concept of morality.

You cannot rouse the nations of Europe to fight Russian aggression when Europe has decided that your own national leaders are vicious, predatory psychopaths.

Bush had to lie to the American people re WHY the Sept 11 attack occurred — because he couldn’t acknowledge Bin Laden’s point: the American people are responsible for the murderous acts of the leaders they elect. Including decades of supporting the Saudi dictatorship and the deaths of 600,000 children in Iraq.

We hear of Russian authoritarian acts — but Stalin on his best days could not equal Condi Rice going to the CEOs of America’s 5 major TV networks and twisting their arms to suppress Bin Laden’s speech. Because the one thing Cheney and Bush had to do was cover up how Sept 11 was Big Oil’s chickens coming home to roost.

I am sick and tired of Bush supporters lying to the people of this country. I am sick and tired of $Trillions being stolen from our SOcial Security to fund corrupt treason. I am sick and tired of evil whores making a middle class living by blandly lying so they can justify sending our sons to die for the sake of a rich man’s profit.
right Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 2:14 pm
Namely, that our action against Iraq, like Russia’s against Georgia, was a “premeditated power-play,” and had absolutely nothing to do with Iraq’s tyranny *except* as a plausible provocation.

The United States spent months before the Iraq war building alliances for the action taken in Iraq. They made their case loudly and repeatedly. They sought UN resolutions. They repeatedly warned Saddam Hussein and the Iraqi government exactly what would happen if he did not leave the country.

How many allies around the world do you think would have signed up to join Russia in their Georgian adventure?

On the latter point, it’s hard to make a credible case for why Bush went to war without heavily considering Iraq’s tyranny and destabilizing behaviors.
Don Williams Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 2:28 pm
Re Right’s comment “The United States spent months before the Iraq war building alliances for the action taken in Iraq. They made their case loudly and repeatedly. They sought UN resolutions”
——-
What utter rot. The second largest military group joining US forces in Iraq was our newly installed puppet in Georgia. The first was our poodle, Tony Blair. (With BP whispering in his ear.) NONE of the other nations –except for our deeply dependent whores in Eastern EUrope (e.g, Poland) –supported Bush.

The right’s continual citation of UN Resolutions shows amazing hypocrisy. Bush’s invasion was without UN sanction and violated the most basic law in the UN CHarter : that one nation may not invade another. By any objective legal standard, Bush deserves to be sitting in the Hague with the other war criminals. The fact is he is not is due to those 500 Minuteman silos in Montana and Wyoming.

Putin is merely following the example George Bush has set for the past 8 years:

that international law is a crock,
the laws of warfare are a crock,
US Big Oil is above the law and standards for civilized conduct,
the law of the jungle prevails,
and –as the Athenians told the Melians — the Strong do what they will and the Weak suffer what they must.

I would argue that the civilised rules the US tried to establish in the period 1940-1990 were of great benefit to the USA as well as to the world. WHen Bush made them into a farce and deceitful con game, he hurt the USA as much as he hurt the rest of the world. Our military men know that –even if our draftdodging Neocons do not.
Daragh McDowell Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 2:55 pm
La Follete Progressive –

Here’s the ethnic breakdown of Abkhazia in 1989:

Georgian – 239,872 (45.7%)
Abkhaz – 93, 267 (17.8%)
Armenian – 76,541 (14.6%)
Russian – 74, 913 (14.3%)
Greek – 14,644 (2.8%)

Now Abkhazia in 2003

Abkhaz – 94,606 (43.8%)
Georgian – 45,943 (21.3%)
Armenian, 44,879 (20.8%)
Russian – 23,420 (10.8%)
Greek – 1,486 (0.7%)

Sources GosKomStat and Abkhazian Statistical Agency (though to be fair the ICG considers the 2003 figures to be ‘unrealistically high.’)

Now remind me again just who ethnically cleansed whom?

Lon – you made an implicit contrast between the Iraq War (which I opposed for the record) and the Russian invasion of Georgia, claiming that the first one was about oil, while the second one was about Russia protecting ethnic Russians. I merely pointed out that this was entirely factually wrong, and that in fact energy politics had a HUGE role to play in this. So there.
right Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
The second largest military group joining US forces in Iraq was our newly installed puppet in Georgia. The first was our poodle, Tony Blair. (With BP whispering in his ear.) NONE of the other nations –except for our deeply dependent whores in Eastern EUrope (e.g, Poland) –supported Bush.

Um. Australia, Italy, Spain, Japan, South Korea, and the Netherlands are a few of what I guess you describe as non-nations that supported the Iraq war. Why didn’t Russia ask any of them – or anyone else – what they thought of an invasion of Georgia?

Georgia’s troops were sent by the previous Georgian regime, who was hardly a US “puppet”.
right Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Sorry, clicked Submit too soon. I meant to say I believe Georgia’s troops were originally sent by the previous regime. I can’t find confirmation at the moment so if anyone can prove the opposite would love to know. Thanks.
McKingford Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 8:29 pm
This is a premeditated Russian power-play against a reasonably behaved (though surely not perfect) regime who made the enormous strategic error of giving Russia mild provocation.

For everyone on the right getting the vapours over the Russians here, it’s worth remembering 2 important things:

1. Georgia killed the first 1000 people in this war (I’m not sure how expansive your definition of “mild” is…).

2. Russia went to the Security Council last Friday – before Georgia got its ass kicked – seeking a resolution calling for a “cessation of violence on all sides”. The US and UK nixed it. I wonder why.
Richard Steven Hack Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 8:36 pm
McDowell: “Now remind me again just who ethnically cleansed whom?”

You cite population demographics changing over 14 years and claim this is “evidence” of “ethnic cleansing”?

Doesn’t wash. Show me the articles where the Abkhaz government or political entities in the country forced Georgians out of the region using either military, police or economic force.

Whereas Saakashvili used military force to attempt to crush South Ossetia.

And for those who don’t think Georgia used excessive force, read this:

Mikheil Saakashvili: War Criminal
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13304

The decidedly apolitical, non-ideological Web site Reliefweb put it this way:

“The place that has suffered most is South Ossetia which is home to both ethnic Ossetians and Georgians, the latter accounting for about a third of the population. The destruction there has been appalling and it looks as though many hundreds of civilians have died, in the first place as a result of the initial Georgian assault of August 7-8. Gosha Tselekhayev, an Ossetian interpreter in Tskhinvali with whom I spoke by telephone on August 10 said, ‘I am standing in the city center, but there’s no city left.’

“Ossetians fleeing the conflict zone talk of Georgian atrocities and the indiscriminate killing of civilians.”

They may be talking of Georgian atrocities, but we in the West have not heard them – nor will we, given the bias of our media, which is in thrall to the Georgia lobby and its U.S. government sponsors. The “mainstream” has already settled on a narrative to explain events in the Caucasus, and nothing short of a South Ossetian holocaust will wake them from their hypnotic state. The Russians, in their view, have got to be the bad guys, i.e., the aggressors. Anything that doesn’t fit into that storyline is cut from the script. Yet, as Reliefweb reports:

“On August 7, after days of shooting incidents in the South Ossetian conflict zone, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili made a speech in which he said that he had given the Georgian villagers orders not to fire, that he wanted to offer South Ossetia ‘unlimited autonomy’ within the Georgian state, with Russia to be a guarantor of the arrangement.

“Both sides said they were discussing a meeting the next day to discuss how to defuse the clashes.

“That evening, however, Saakashvili went for the military option. The Georgian military launched a massive artillery attack on Tskhinvali, followed the next day by a ground assault involving tanks.

“This was a city with no pure military targets, full of civilians who had been given no warning and were expecting peace talks at any moment.”

As if to underscore the utter indifference of Western media to the suffering of anyone politically incorrect enough to be pro-Russian, CNN broadcast footage of war-torn Tskhinvali even as its news announcer solemnly “reported” that the Russians were wreaking devastation on a city in Georgia proper, a classic case of the Orwellian media manipulation techniques that pass for journalism in the West. An unintended irony: the footage was a few feet from the spot where Russian peacekeepers had been slaughtered, the first victims of the Georgian assault. Or was it intended?

The tragicomic aspects of this media-induced cognitive dissonance came to the fore on Fox News the other day, when the announcer was interviewing a 12-year-old American girl who happened to be sitting in a café in Tskhinvali when Georgian bombs started raining down on her head. The announcer’s eyebrows shot up when the girl thanked the Russian soldiers. After the girl and her aunt finished their recounting of Georgian atrocities, the announcer capped off his report by intoning: “There are gray areas in war.”

The matter of attacking civilians is no doubt a moral “gray area” for the neocons at Fox, but what about the rest of the media – or is there no longer much of a difference, at least when it comes to the Russian question?

The Georgians were the aggressors here, and not only that, it was a particularly vicious sneak attack, undertaken while “peace talks” were supposedly taking place. As Reliefweb put it:

“The attack looked designed to take everybody by surprise – perhaps because much of the Russian leadership was in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games. It also unilaterally destroyed the negotiating and peacekeeping arrangements, under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, that have been in place for 16 years. Russian peacekeeping troops based in South Ossetia were among those killed in the Georgian assault.”

The Georgian offensive provoked a massive exodus to the north. Thousands fled, and with good reason. As the Guardian reports:

“Many had traveled in their nightclothes on rocky roads through the mountains and gave bloodcurdling accounts of Georgian atrocities. ‘I came in the boot of a car. Georgian snipers were firing at us from the forest. My brother stayed to fight. Our grandparents’ home was reduced to rubble. We don’t know where they are. Nothing is left of their village. It was totally destroyed by rockets and tank fire,’ Alisa Mamiyeva, 26, a teacher in Tskhinvali, said from the safety of Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia.”

The South Ossetians claim 1,400 dead, thus far, most of them victims of the Georgian assault on Tskhinvali, and Vladimir Putin went so far as to accuse the Georgians of launching a “genocide.” According to the BBC, however, “Russia failed to back up its claims of Georgian atrocities.” Not that the West is all that interested in airing the evidence. As Variety put it in a piece on how this war is being reported,

“Coverage in the U.S. and Europe is leaning heavily toward reports on the Georgian casualties of Russian bombing over the weekend. Few details are being given about the thousands said to have been killed when Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on Thursday and Friday.”

The blatant media bias displayed by the “mainstream” news organizations is more than matched by the shameful cover-up of Georgian atrocities by the mainline “human rights” organizations, first and foremost Human Rights Watch. In the most brazen display of willful ignorance since Walter Duranty overlooked the Soviet gulags, HRW spokeswoman Anna Neistat told the Guardian that Ossetian claims of Georgian atrocities were “suspicious”:

“The figure of 2,000 people killed is very doubtful. Our findings so far do not in any way confirm the Russian statistics. On the contrary, they suggest the numbers are exaggerated.”

Neistat avers that no more than 44 were killed and around 200 were wounded in the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali. Perhaps she should talk to International Red Cross spokeswoman Anna Nelson, who reports area hospitals “overflowing” with the dead and the wounded.

The voices of the Ossetians are barely reaching the West, but when they do – as in this Australian Broadcasting Corp. news report – they underscore the sheer ugliness of HRW’s appalling apologetics::

“One woman told how a family of four including two children tried to flee from a Georgian tank but it ‘fired on their car and they were all burned’ to death, said Angela, who like all the refugees only gave her first name. In another incident, a woman eight months pregnant and two family members fleeing from the city under attack were hit by tank fire and ‘nothing remained of them,’ Angela said.

“She saw the Georgian tanks roll into Tskhinvali, the soldiers shouting ‘Hail Saakashvili,’ who is the president of Georgia. ‘They destroyed the city,’ added Inna, 33, who said she could not understand how the Georgian troops ‘could do that to civilians.’

“‘You see your friend’s home burning and there’s nothing you can do. You just watch and cry, it’s a genocide,’ Inna said. An old woman among the refugees said all she had left was the dress she was wearing. ‘My house is destroyed,’ she said.”

To Antiwar.com’s audience, and regular readers of this column, none of this – Saakashvili’s folly, the Ossetian question, the volatile immediacy of the crisis – is anything new. As I wrote in November 2006:

“Russian ‘peacekeepers,’ OSCE ‘observers,’ South Ossetian troops, and the U.S.-trained-and-equipped Georgian military are facing off along ill-defined borders, with renegade ‘rebel’ bands supporting one side or the other running wild in the no-man’s land in between. This is a recipe for disaster, and an armed confrontation is bound to occur, with the distinct possibility of escalating into all-out warfare. The Russians would soon be drawn in, and the U.S. could not escape being dragged into this particular vortex – with fateful consequences all ’round.

“I can just hear McCain barnstorming the country in ‘08, denouncing ‘Russian imperialism’ and demanding that we ’stop Putin’ in the Caucasus before Russian troops cross the Bering Straits.”
KWAAYESNAMA Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 8:38 pm
Lets think about this for a moment:
If we never went into Iraq looking for non-existent weapons of mass destruction there would have been no need for a surge.
If we never went into Iraq there would be over 4,000 beautiful Americans alive today.
If we never went into Iraq thousands of young Americans would not have their lives ruined with horrific wounds.
If we never went into Iraq our economy would not be in shambles.
If we never went into Iraq in the last five years we would have been able to find the people responsible for 9-11.
If we never went into Iraq we would have been able to concentrate on economics our own nation.
Don Williams Says:
August 15th, 2008 at 8:55 pm
The Russians had long occupied a military base at Batumi , Georgia. If they were plotting to take over Georgia, why did they surrender that base to Georgia nine months ago?

See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Batumi#Present_Day and
http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=16321
Richard Steven Hack Says:
August 16th, 2008 at 4:08 am
They’ve got plans for Saakashvili now!

Saakashvili may be put on trial in Russia, say prosecutors
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29005
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Matt Yglesias

The Annals of Irony

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