Like most people who have a desire to understand the geopolitical world, I have been following the recent military adventures between Russia, the former communist bloc nation of Georgia, and a tiny republic called South Ossetia.
by Frank Roman, BOD, EAU
In the simplest of terms: Georgia, a Western backed potential NATO member perched on Russia’s front porch attacked South Ossetia, a breakaway Republic which has remained loyal to Russia. Russia then unleashed its full fury upon Georgia, NATO style. In other words, if Russia were to attack NATO member Poland (!) the other NATO member nations –including the United States– would have to regard such malfeasance as a direct attack upon themselves. Which is to say Russia leaped to the defense of an ally just like the United States would have, a concept few people should disagree with, national ideologies aside.
So let’s keep it simple, shall we? Although the Russian bear thoroughly waxed Georgia’s can by coming to the defense of South Ossetia and has made humiliating demands to prevent further military action, what has amazed me thus far is the American general public’s mewling reaction to this conflict — and its ignorance. Believe it or not in spite of the well documented fact that Georgia attacked Ossetia first and Russia beat back the aggressor most people seem to have either forgotten what started this conflict or they never knew about it in the first place. A good indicator for the latter scenario has been to simply listen to talk radio and the caller’s comments. It took no more than 48 hours to hear the term ‘Nazi’ applied to Russia by people who continue to breathlessly call sundry talk shows to express their ‘horror’ at Russia’s “inexplicable” aggression toward Georgia (no, not the Peach State). It was as though people believed the Kremlin decided to attack somebodyover breakfast simply because they could, another manifestation of the Apocalypse in some quarters I’m sure. The talk show callers I heard,syndicated and local, not to mention the way the national media hasframed this conflict by depicting Russia as a hyperventilatingStalinist resurrection has dovetailed into an equation with two factorsinstead of three: although it only happened a few days ago (from thedate of this post) no one seems to recall that a) Georgia started it byattacking Ossetia, b) Russia beat back Georgia (like the “Nazis” they are), and c) Georgiasurrendered.
This insipid mindset includes, of all people, Rush Limbaugh!
Old Rush was practically drooling onto his gold plated microphone as he verified to us all in true neocon fashion that America’s overseas military excursions were far from over. The Soviet Union has shambled out of it’s dusty closet and it would in all liklihood fall upon America’s blood and treasure to make the world safe for democracy and WalMart workers in China. Following an extended period of Putin bashing on Rush’s show (12 August 08) a caller by the name of George contacted “America’s Anchorman” to set the record straight.
RUSH: Here’s George in Fair Oaks, California, great to have you with us. Hello, sir.
CALLER: Good morning, Rush. Well, I guess it’s the afternoon where you’re at.
RUSH: Yes.
CALLER: And thank you. I was waiting for a long time, and I soaked up all that free vitamin D, I almost got sunburned.
RUSH: (laughing) I’m glad you’ve got a sense of humor, George.
CALLER: But I like to comment on this Ossetia and all this Georgia problems. I think this Georgian president could not have chosen a worse time to do what he did, to invade the area.
RUSH: What did he do? (Except for several callers including George here, Rush didn’t know about Ossetia — Ed.)
CALLER: Well, he invaded autonomous territories, militarily, and I compare — I’m a Serb, and I look at this —
RUSH: Wait. I really want to learn here because you now are the third caller who has called. I know you’re Russian, right?
CALLER: No, no. I’m a Serb! (Remember Kosovo? — Ed.)
RUSH: You’re a Serb. Okay. But you’re the third caller to blame this on Georgia and Saakashvili.
CALLER: Saakashvili, yeah.
RUSH: Saakashvili. It’s going against everything that I’ve heard, here. What occasion what did Saakashvili do to provoke the Russians? This had to do with South Ossetia?
RUSH: Well, of course, because he attacked a province, and he used the Olympics to do that because he was thinking that Russia because of Putin there and our president there, there wouldn’t be any retaliation, and the stupidity on his part. He knows the Russians will never care. They don’t care what’s happening in the world, what the world is going to think about harmony or sports or anything. They’re going to protect their territory, and they feel it’s their territory because it is settled by ethnic Russians or Ossetians or whatever they are and if they had that autonomy, then why did they have to invade?
RUSH: South Ossetia, for years they have been disunified or deunified, if I can say this, with Georgia. What did Saakashvili do that he hasn’t been doing that hasn’t been going on for years that prompted this? I’m really stunned here at the number of people that want to try to say that the Russians had every right to go in and do what they did and that we were meddling and that Saakashvili was meddling, and he finally got what he deserved.
CALLER: Well, to Saakashvili, our influence is really great in Georgia, you know, our American influence, and what this guy is doing, pulling the card right now, he wants to assert himself as a leader, pro-Westerner, somebody who wants to be a part of the European Union, and he used this spot to have the opera or of the whole world against the Russians for the actions that he took. I think he is like a prostitute looking for a better john, and now how to get a better john is to get johns pissed — pardon my language, pissed off — at each other, let them duke it out, and I’ll just stand in the back. That was a mistake on his part. It will backfire on him, you’ll see.
RUSH: I’ll take this under advisement. None of what I have read has proffered this theory. But yet you are third caller today which has essentially said that the Russians had no choice, that they were simply defending themselves. So our first caller referred to Saakashvili as a sack of excrement. You have referred to him as a prostitute looking for a better john.
CALLER: Well, you know, it’s true.
RUSH: You’re making this guy sound like a Democrat.
CALLER: Yeah, well, thank you. (laughing) I’m a right-wing — military right-wing. I don’t ally myself with anybody. But I’m looking at the Serbia and Kosovo, and we bombed their infrastructure to Stone Age, and for what? Another autonomous province which is actually a Serbian territory, which was occupation by population. Same thing that’s happening in our country right here. We are being occupied — occupation by population: foreigners coming in illegally and more and more and using our, you know, services. The same thing happened over there, and Serbs got clobbered.
RUSH: There was a religious component there.
CALLER: Well, religious component was overblown by the media — Associated Press for misinformation I should say. Because they were… As you know yourself, what kind of writing goes on in newspapers, whoever pays more —
RUSH: (laughs) That’s right. I can’t disagree with you on that. We’ve called attention to that on previous occasions. Well, look, thanks, George. I appreciate it very much.
BREAK TRANSCRIPT
RUSH: I just got an interesting note from a friend of mine (Here we go. — Ed.) who is in the area of international studies who has been monitoring the program today, and he said the Serb who just called from Fair Oaks, California, has got a point, but it still needs to be modified somewhat because all the callers today that we’ve taken so far on this said the Russians were right to defend themselves, that somehow Saakashvili provoked all this. And the note I have from my friend said this is not what has caused this. It’s not that Saakashvili did anything. He said that the Serb caller had an important point. The Serbs, to this day, are rightly angry (Imagine that. — Ed.) that our state department and the European Union and even people like McCain decided to show how much they love Islam by allowing the Kosovo Muslims to annex part of Serbia, rather than stop it because they don’t want to be critical of Islam, want to show our magnanimity. Okay, go ahead and do that. Now, Russia was the Serbs’ protectors, and they protested at the time saying that these nitwits were setting a president to allow insurgent separatist terrorist factions to break away from sovereign countries. That’s basically what the Kosovo Muslims annexing part of Serbia was. (We so-called “extremists” who wanted to see Serbia remain white and sovereign, have been saying that for over a decade. But you and your bosses wouldn’t listen. — Ed.)
So the state department, the European Union all ignored the Russians and their complaints, and the Russians said, “Okay, if that’s the way you want it,” and so now Putin has encouraged his own insurgent separatist terrorist factions to break off parts of Georgia on the pretext that Georgia has caused this, that Saakashvili has brought this about. The bottom line, though, it’s still all a pretext. Russia would have done this anyway because that’s who they are, but this is why some people think that we have given the Russians a pretext because we didn’t object when we allowed part of Serbia to be annexed for Kosovo for the Muslims there. All of you people who have called here today who might think that the Russians are defending themselves, yeah, okay, the Russians are defending themselves. How? That’s why they tried to kill the now president of Ukraine with poison. That’s why they’ve killed some expatriates. It’s why they’ve murdered and jailed some journalists who dare to question Putin. It’s why they have jailed several corporate executives who don’t bow to Putin and that’s why Putin circumvented his own constitution by switching jobs so he could still run Russia. It’s all in self-defense.
How about Litvinenko? Litvinenko, the guy they poisoned with polonium 212 simply because he was criticizing Putin. I mean, they have been engaging in Soviet-style tactics for a long time here. And of course that’s all Saakashvili’s fault, too. How can we sit here and say that the Russians are simply defending themselves when they’re out there committing all these atrocities?
=============================
Whatever you say Rush. I guess the nation we no longer recognize is as pure as the driven snow, right? As far as European Americans United is concerned the United States and its allies could have shut down the so-called War on Terror much sooner had it allied itself with Russia on Sept 12, 2001. But that’s a subject for another day.
“Ever since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, Russia has watched with growing alarm how the successive US administrations have violated the promise made by President George HW Bush to respect the status quo existing at the time of the end of the cold war in 1990. The eastward expansion of NATO, which started during the Bill Clinton presidency, has covered not only the Baltic states, but also all of the east European members of the now-defunct Moscow-led Warsaw Pact. As if this were not enough, plans are being made to expand NATO to admit Ukraine, a former European constituent of the Soviet Union, and Georgia, a former Caucasian constituent of the Soviet Union.” (Source)
What exactly would the United States do if for example all of Central and Southern America including Cuba formed a similar alliance and encroached upon her sovereignty and safety?
Timeline
2004 – Mikhail Saakashvili wins Georgian presidential election and declares his intentions to bring breakaway regions of South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Ajaria back into the fold.
2006 – South Ossetians vote overwhelmingly in favour of independence from Tbilisi in an unrecognised referendum. In a simultaneous referendum, the region’s minority ethnic Georgians vote to stay with Tbilisi.
October 2007 – Talks hosted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe between Georgia and South Ossetia break down.
March 2008 – South Ossetia asks the world to recognise its independence from Georgia, following the west’s support for Kosovo’s secession from Serbia.
March 2008 – Georgia’s bid to join Nato prompts Russia’s parliament to urge the Kremlin to recognise the independence of South Ossetia (and Abkhazia).
April 2008 – South Ossetia rejects a Georgian power-sharing deal and insists on full independence.
August 2008 – Fighting breaks out between Georgian and separatist South Ossetian forces.