Moscow: 'Georgia used foreign soldiers'
Russia's top investigator claims to have evidence that citizens from Nato member states including the US and Turkey fought for Georgia in the five-day war in August.
Asked to list the nationalities of the foreign fighters it believes were involved, Alexander Bastrykin, head of the Prosecutor-General's investigative committee said: "America, the Czech Republic, Chechnya, the Baltic States, Ukraine and Turkey."
"There were also two snipers - one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman" - Alexander Bastrykin"It was a fairly small number of people. They mainly fulfilled support roles", Mr Bastrykin told reporters in Russia's second city of St Petersburg.
Suggesting that some had conducted training for the Georgian armed forces, he said: "There were also two snipers - one from Ukraine and I believe a Latvian woman."
He added that he considered the presence of foreign fighters a criminal offence and would raise the issue at a meeting with representatives of Interpol.
A senior security official in Tbilisi dismissed the statement and said by law only Georgian nationals could serve in the country's armed forces.
Kakha Lomaia, the Secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said: "The statement that almost half of the world was fighting in our army in August is just a fantasy of those in the Russian leadership who would like to justify killings of the peaceful population."
Russia launched a massive counter-offensive on land and sea in August after Georgian forces tried to retake South Ossetia, a Moscow-backed separatist region that rejects Tbilisi's rule.
Original article posted here.
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Maybe be wishful thinking or propaganda, but I thought it was good news so posted. Caveat emptor: I wouldn't rely on its prognostication.
End of Saakashvili rule is near - Georgian opposition leader
TBILISI. Nov 25 (Interfax) - Georgian opposition leader Giorgy
Khaindrava believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is losing
popularity, but is doing everything to retain power.
"Saakashvili realizes that his days [as president] are numbered,
and he is doing everything to hold on to power to ensure his security,"
Khaindrava told Interfax on Tuesday.
"After the August catastrophe," Saakashvili is "a political corpse"
and "is unlikely to stay in power before the end of his second (and
last) presidential term," said Khaindrava.
"What is dangerous in Georgia now is not so much Saakashvili, but
the criminal group that has usurped power and that can create a lot more
problems," he said.
"We have more than once warned Western politicians that the coming
to power of Saakashvili and people close to him is dangerous not only
for Georgia, but nobody listened to the Georgian opposition. Now the
West is probably reconsidering its attitude to Saakashvili because he
was the catalyst of the aggravation of relations between the West and
Russia," said Khaindrava.
Khaindrava did not rule out that the situation in Georgia may
seriously aggravate in the next few months as a result of the August
events and the world crisis and that "Saakashvili and the Georgian
opposition will no longer be able to control it and people will take to
the streets."
When asked how pragmatic it would be for the Georgian opposition to
come to power in this situation, Khaindrava said: "There will be no
other way out, because otherwise Georgia will face a humanitarian
catastrophe."
"After the August events, Georgia virtually lost its statehood and
its fate is now being decided in the capitals of other countries, but it
cannot go on like this," he said.
Khaindrava accused the Russian authorities of "aggression and
occupation of Georgia." "Russia's imperialist policy is interested in
chaos in Georgia, and a second occupation stage is possible to maintain
it," he said, adding that the issue of Georgia's territorial integrity
and the return of Abkhazia and South Ossetia "will not be taken off the
agenda under any circumstances" if the Georgian opposition comes to
power in Georgia.
Commenting on the November 23 attack on the cars carrying the
presidents of Georgia and Poland, Khaindrava called this incident "a
prank by Saakashvili and [Polish President Lech] Kaczynski, who have
long lost the trust of their people in their countries."
Original article posted here.
TBILISI. Nov 25 (Interfax) - Georgian opposition leader Giorgy
Khaindrava believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is losing
popularity, but is doing everything to retain power.
"Saakashvili realizes that his days [as president] are numbered,
and he is doing everything to hold on to power to ensure his security,"
Khaindrava told Interfax on Tuesday.
"After the August catastrophe," Saakashvili is "a political corpse"
and "is unlikely to stay in power before the end of his second (and
last) presidential term," said Khaindrava.
"What is dangerous in Georgia now is not so much Saakashvili, but
the criminal group that has usurped power and that can create a lot more
problems," he said.
"We have more than once warned Western politicians that the coming
to power of Saakashvili and people close to him is dangerous not only
for Georgia, but nobody listened to the Georgian opposition. Now the
West is probably reconsidering its attitude to Saakashvili because he
was the catalyst of the aggravation of relations between the West and
Russia," said Khaindrava.
Khaindrava did not rule out that the situation in Georgia may
seriously aggravate in the next few months as a result of the August
events and the world crisis and that "Saakashvili and the Georgian
opposition will no longer be able to control it and people will take to
the streets."
When asked how pragmatic it would be for the Georgian opposition to
come to power in this situation, Khaindrava said: "There will be no
other way out, because otherwise Georgia will face a humanitarian
catastrophe."
"After the August events, Georgia virtually lost its statehood and
its fate is now being decided in the capitals of other countries, but it
cannot go on like this," he said.
Khaindrava accused the Russian authorities of "aggression and
occupation of Georgia." "Russia's imperialist policy is interested in
chaos in Georgia, and a second occupation stage is possible to maintain
it," he said, adding that the issue of Georgia's territorial integrity
and the return of Abkhazia and South Ossetia "will not be taken off the
agenda under any circumstances" if the Georgian opposition comes to
power in Georgia.
Commenting on the November 23 attack on the cars carrying the
presidents of Georgia and Poland, Khaindrava called this incident "a
prank by Saakashvili and [Polish President Lech] Kaczynski, who have
long lost the trust of their people in their countries."
Original article posted here.
Tuesday, September 16, 2008
The proof of US involvement in Georgia
International Large-Scale Military Exercise ‘Immediate Response 2008’
August 1, 2008
Tea Kerdzevadze, Georgia Today
The International Training “Immediate Response 2008” conducted with the joint efforts of the USA and Georgian Armed Forces was held at Vaziani Military Base on July 15-31. The mission of the training was to improve combined capabilities and strengthen regional cooperation.
The exercise involved the conduction of a combined brigade-level CPX exercise with Georgian Armed Forces to develop a common understanding of coalition staff planning procedures; combined live-fire FTX/STX to train on tactics, techniques and procedures for the conduct of coalition security and stability operations and to deploy the 21st TSC EECP and exercise limited theater opening capabilities.
In total, 1,630 servicemen participated, including representatives of the Joint Staff, Land Forces Staff, IV Brigade, the 41st and 42nd Battalions and Engineer Battalion Company from Georgia. From the USA, 1,000 military servicemen took part in the exercise including the United States Army Europe, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 1st Battalion 121 Infantry Regiment Georgian National Guard (Atlanta, Georgia) and 5045th General Support Unit. As well as Georgian and American participants, 10 servicemen each from Azerbaijan, Armenia and the Ukraine took part.
The exercise consisted of two stages. First of all, the practical and theoretical parts of the CPX exercises, situational and field trainings were held. The second stage comprised staff and command training. IV Brigade Staff participated in the first stage which underwent the training with modern computer equipment. Within the JKT Program, the I Brigade by which it streamlined decision making process, took direct participation in the planning process and elaborated the action plan. After approving the plan, the operations were carried out via computers.
Preparation for the military training “Immediate Response” started in summer 2007. Since then, planning conferences were held from time to time to discuss and arrange all kinds of issues concerning the exercises, including logistical and medical support and equipment transportation. Georgia provided 90 percent of the logistical support for the exercise with local resources, including railway, customs clearance and security issues. In the framework of the logistical support, Georgia also modernized Vaziani Military Base as well. The rest of the equipment - basic field gear, tents, power generators, logistical vehicles and two HH-60 Blackhawk medical evacuation helicopters - were shipped from the United States, Germany and Italy.
The opening ceremony of Immediate Response 2008 was held at Vaziani Military Base on July 15. The ceremony was opened accompanied with the national anthems of five countries. The Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces LTC Alexander Osepaishvili and SETAF Brigadier General William B. Garrett delivered speeches. BG Garrett stated that he welcomed the exercise Immediate Response 2008 saying it was an honor and a privilege to be in Georgia. “Over the next several weeks, we will live together, work together and train together. This is an invaluable opportunity to get to know and understand one another, to learn about different cultures and to build enduring relationships between professional militaries,” said the Brigadier General. He also expressed particular gratitude towards the Georgian Armed Forces for the strong support not only for the exercise but also for continuing service with the American forces, allies and partners.
The training scenario envisaged a peacekeeping operation in Iraq. This training helped the IV Brigade with its preparations to be deployed in Iraq. The US Marine Corps and the American National Guard Company carried out the field operations with the IV Brigade Staff. The joint training took place on Vaziani firing ground and Vaziani airport. Settlement models were arranged on Vaziani airport where the soldiers were trained how to battle within inhabited areas. Their main purpose was to create and implement a full range of operational tasks; to set up check-points, seize settled areas, convey information, patrol, etc.
The scenario of the training was the following: the situation was held within a built-up, inhabited area. As the terrorists carried out sudden attack over the inhabitants, the Georgian and American militaries patrolled and evacuated and rescued the citizens. If any of the inhabitants were wounded the soldiers administered medical assistance and transported them to the appropriate facilities. After this the military servicemen implemented the clearance operation from the terrorists within the inhabited area.
On July 21, President Mikheil Saakashvili, Minister of Defense David Kezerashvili, the Chief of the Joint Staff of GAF Brigadier General Zaza Gogava and the Deputy Chief of JS LTC Alexander Osepaishvili attended this training and became acquainted with the joint Georgian-American training. At first, they visited the tactical operations center and command post of the US division. Then they went to Vaziani Airport to see the demonstrated training. After the end of the demonstrated exercise, the President of Georgia delivered a speech to the Georgian military servicemen who had participated in the training, saying: “The main task of Georgian officers and soldiers is training. This international exercise is a unique case as we have the possibility to hold trainings along with the representatives of the best army in the world for a month. I think that we have created a new military school in Georgia in recent years. Believe that what all of you have learned now will remain in our country and will be shared with the future generations. That is why we have to train theoretically and practically as this is a precondition of victory. The main thing is to get acquainted with independent decision-making and free thinking.”
On July 28, a demonstration day for media representatives was held in the framework of the international training “Immediate Response”. The event was attended by the Chief of Joint Staff of GAF Brigadier General Zaza Gogava, his deputies LTC Grigol Tatishvili and LTC Alexander Osepaishvili and Head of the US South European Forces Brigadier General William B. Garrett. The event was opened by the Officer of J-3 Operational Planning Department of Joint Forces Col. Erick Nantz who introduced the training presentation. The second stage of the exercise continued at Vaziani Airdrome where Georgian and American military servicemen carried out demonstrative training for the guests.
The scenario was set in one of the small urban areas of Iraq.
The main duty of the peacekeeping forces was to seize the terrorist who was hiding in one of the houses. The terrorist tried to escape when the coalition forces appeared but the troops did their best to detain him. After this, the platoon performed a humanitarian operation and transferred wounded people to hospital by military helicopters.
The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USA H.E. John Tefft also attended the exercise. After the demonstrative training he outlined the importance of the training, saying: “It is in a spirit of Partnership for Peace, part of the NATO program. It was very rewarding for me to see the joint work of soldiers from different countries. The command post trainings also went successfully. Ukrainian, Azeri, Armenian and Georgian soldiers participated in the exercise jointly. I believe that the exercise fulfilled its main purpose.”
Immediate Response is an annual, bilateral security cooperation exercise conducted between US and coalition partners. Approximately 1,600 military personnel consisting of US soldiers, airmen, marines and army civilian employees; and Georgian military personnel make up Task Force Immediate Response 2008. The training is designed to exercise combined interoperability, conduct combined arms live fire, conduct training on responsive medical aid in a combat environment and bilateral training with Georgian and other multinational defense forces. This is the first time that Immediate Response is conducted in Georgia. Poland and Bulgaria has commonly hosted this exercise in years past.
The SETAF Brigadier General William B. Garrett commanded the exercise from American side. We asked him for his thoughts and comments on Immediate Response.
What is the primary aim of the exercise “Immediate Response 2008”? What are the objectives of the exercise?
We are conducting this exercise to enhance interoperability with a key coalition partner. Georgia has provided consistent support to ongoing operations in Iraq. Georgia is the third largest force contributor to Operation Iraqi Freedom and that means a lot to the United States.
What do you expect from “Immediate Response 2008”?
The combined approach – active participation from all the countries involved – provided an invaluable opportunity to learn about different cultures, and to promote understanding and cooperation between our forces and strengthen our partnerships for the future.
What benefits will this exercise bring for the Georgian Armed Forces?
The Georgian Armed Forces will gain greater tactical proficiency as well as improving their ability to work with coalition partners. But the benefits gained from this exercise are not limited to Georgian Soldiers. American, Armenian, Azeri and Ukrainian service members all benefited from this exercise. I might also point out that the Georgian 4th Infantry Brigade is scheduled to deploy to Iraq next year. The tough, realistic training provided during Immediate Response 2008 will certainly help them prepare for that deployment.
How do you estimate the preparation level of Georgian military servicemen?
The Georgian Soldiers we trained with the last few weeks from the 4th Brigade are fit, motivated, and disciplined. They are eager to learn. They interact well with their coalition partners. American soldiers are very proud to serve alongside Georgian soldiers.
As you are informed the IV Brigade is preparing to carry out peacekeeping mission in Iraq? What recommendations would you give our soldiers in this regard?
Continue to train hard for the mission in Iraq, incorporate the experiences of those who are currently serving in Iraq, and build on those things you learned during Exercise Immediate Response 08.
What obstacles do you see in the process of implementation of “Immediate Response 2008”? What is the most challenging of this exercise?
We don’t see obstacles, only challenges. There were several aspects to this exercise that were critical to success; I can not name one in particular. Our Georgian counterparts really went the extra mile to accommodate this exercise and provided excellent support. They were fantastic hosts and we look forward to working with them in the future.
On July 15, First Deputy Defence Minister Batu Kutelia and Chief of the Joint Staff of Georgian Armed Forces, Brigadier General Zaza Gogava, went on an official visit to Iraq.
They visited the 1st Infantry Brigade stationed in FOB Delta, Basra Base and Cop Cleary. The Battalion commanders briefed the MoD officials about operations and tasks provided by Georgian military contingent in Vassit Province.
In the framework of this visit, Minister Batu Kutelia and BG Zaza Gogava met with the following multi-national forces: Iraq Commanding General, General David Petraeus, Multi-National Corps- Iraq Deputy Commanding General for the Coalition, Brigadier General Nicholas Matern and the 10th Mountain CG, Major General Michael Oates. During the meetings with the multi-national forces, the commanders evaluated the Georgian peacekeeping mission very positively.
Currently in Iraq, the Georgian military contingent is represented by the 1st Infantry Brigade that rotated with the 3rd Infantry Brigade in January 2008. The Georgian contingent in Iraq counts 2000 personnel. The main base which is under Georgians’ control is FOB Delta, located in city of Al Kut, Vassit Province. The main tasks for Georgian military are to set up roadblocks, stationary and mobile checkpoints, provide security in Vassit Province and to control of the checkpoint located at the Iran –Iraq border.
The part of Iranian border that is now controlled by Georgian peacekeepers was the place where smuggled arms once passed. During operations provided by Georgian troops, there were 110,000 vehicles and 560,958 people checked, and 1,500 Iraqi civilians were provided with medical services by the Georgian military doctors.
The Georgian troops actively participate with their American counterparts in Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) where the military cooperates with civilian agencies and institutions in order to bring peace and stability and foster better relations. “We have a very good relationship with the local inhabitants,” said Captain Zaur Makaradze, CIMIC group commander, from the 1st Infantry Brigade. On the question how dangerous it is Captain Makharidze answered with smile “It’s quite dangerous, but we are not afraid…We help Iraqi people.”
Deputy Defence Minister Batu Kutelia commented on the visit: “We have discussed the success of Georgian Military in Iraq and General Petraeus evaluates our mission very highly. He thanked us for our decision to continue our contingent here in Iraq until the end of year.”
According to BG Gogava: “General Petraeus estimated very positively the Georgian troops… He has once more underlined the high level of preparedness of the Georgian soldiers. There were a lot of thankful words said about Georgian Armed Forces. Afterwards there was a detailed conversation about the present situation in Vassit Province, and what a positive role has been played by the Georgian soldiers. These were the main subjects which were discussed by us. Then after we talked about the future plans, and the role of Georgian military in future operations in Vassit Province.”
Internal Minister of de facto South Ossetia Mikheil Mindzaev, has confirmed the information over equipment of the fortification structures. According to Mindzaev, the ministry is obliged to conduct engineering works and reinforce the posts in such a manner.
He added that there was not alternative and they were only acted in response to the same kind of activity on the part of the Georgians.
Moreover, the minister stated that the Georgian side intends to implement provocations and these actions will be directed towards peaceful population in the breakaway region. “We are aware that Tskhinvali is violating the agreement by such steps, but it is worth noting that Georgia has taken the first steps in violation and we only responded,” Mikhail Mindzaev stated.
The launching of fortifying activities on the part of Ossetian separatists has been evaluated as grave violation of the agreement by OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Original article posted here.
August 1, 2008
Tea Kerdzevadze, Georgia Today
The International Training “Immediate Response 2008” conducted with the joint efforts of the USA and Georgian Armed Forces was held at Vaziani Military Base on July 15-31. The mission of the training was to improve combined capabilities and strengthen regional cooperation.
The exercise involved the conduction of a combined brigade-level CPX exercise with Georgian Armed Forces to develop a common understanding of coalition staff planning procedures; combined live-fire FTX/STX to train on tactics, techniques and procedures for the conduct of coalition security and stability operations and to deploy the 21st TSC EECP and exercise limited theater opening capabilities.
In total, 1,630 servicemen participated, including representatives of the Joint Staff, Land Forces Staff, IV Brigade, the 41st and 42nd Battalions and Engineer Battalion Company from Georgia. From the USA, 1,000 military servicemen took part in the exercise including the United States Army Europe, 3rd Battalion, 25th Marine Expeditionary Unit, 1st Battalion 121 Infantry Regiment Georgian National Guard (Atlanta, Georgia) and 5045th General Support Unit. As well as Georgian and American participants, 10 servicemen each from Azerbaijan, Armenia and the Ukraine took part.
The exercise consisted of two stages. First of all, the practical and theoretical parts of the CPX exercises, situational and field trainings were held. The second stage comprised staff and command training. IV Brigade Staff participated in the first stage which underwent the training with modern computer equipment. Within the JKT Program, the I Brigade by which it streamlined decision making process, took direct participation in the planning process and elaborated the action plan. After approving the plan, the operations were carried out via computers.
Preparation for the military training “Immediate Response” started in summer 2007. Since then, planning conferences were held from time to time to discuss and arrange all kinds of issues concerning the exercises, including logistical and medical support and equipment transportation. Georgia provided 90 percent of the logistical support for the exercise with local resources, including railway, customs clearance and security issues. In the framework of the logistical support, Georgia also modernized Vaziani Military Base as well. The rest of the equipment - basic field gear, tents, power generators, logistical vehicles and two HH-60 Blackhawk medical evacuation helicopters - were shipped from the United States, Germany and Italy.
The opening ceremony of Immediate Response 2008 was held at Vaziani Military Base on July 15. The ceremony was opened accompanied with the national anthems of five countries. The Deputy Chief of the Joint Staff of the Georgian Armed Forces LTC Alexander Osepaishvili and SETAF Brigadier General William B. Garrett delivered speeches. BG Garrett stated that he welcomed the exercise Immediate Response 2008 saying it was an honor and a privilege to be in Georgia. “Over the next several weeks, we will live together, work together and train together. This is an invaluable opportunity to get to know and understand one another, to learn about different cultures and to build enduring relationships between professional militaries,” said the Brigadier General. He also expressed particular gratitude towards the Georgian Armed Forces for the strong support not only for the exercise but also for continuing service with the American forces, allies and partners.
The training scenario envisaged a peacekeeping operation in Iraq. This training helped the IV Brigade with its preparations to be deployed in Iraq. The US Marine Corps and the American National Guard Company carried out the field operations with the IV Brigade Staff. The joint training took place on Vaziani firing ground and Vaziani airport. Settlement models were arranged on Vaziani airport where the soldiers were trained how to battle within inhabited areas. Their main purpose was to create and implement a full range of operational tasks; to set up check-points, seize settled areas, convey information, patrol, etc.
The scenario of the training was the following: the situation was held within a built-up, inhabited area. As the terrorists carried out sudden attack over the inhabitants, the Georgian and American militaries patrolled and evacuated and rescued the citizens. If any of the inhabitants were wounded the soldiers administered medical assistance and transported them to the appropriate facilities. After this the military servicemen implemented the clearance operation from the terrorists within the inhabited area.
On July 21, President Mikheil Saakashvili, Minister of Defense David Kezerashvili, the Chief of the Joint Staff of GAF Brigadier General Zaza Gogava and the Deputy Chief of JS LTC Alexander Osepaishvili attended this training and became acquainted with the joint Georgian-American training. At first, they visited the tactical operations center and command post of the US division. Then they went to Vaziani Airport to see the demonstrated training. After the end of the demonstrated exercise, the President of Georgia delivered a speech to the Georgian military servicemen who had participated in the training, saying: “The main task of Georgian officers and soldiers is training. This international exercise is a unique case as we have the possibility to hold trainings along with the representatives of the best army in the world for a month. I think that we have created a new military school in Georgia in recent years. Believe that what all of you have learned now will remain in our country and will be shared with the future generations. That is why we have to train theoretically and practically as this is a precondition of victory. The main thing is to get acquainted with independent decision-making and free thinking.”
On July 28, a demonstration day for media representatives was held in the framework of the international training “Immediate Response”. The event was attended by the Chief of Joint Staff of GAF Brigadier General Zaza Gogava, his deputies LTC Grigol Tatishvili and LTC Alexander Osepaishvili and Head of the US South European Forces Brigadier General William B. Garrett. The event was opened by the Officer of J-3 Operational Planning Department of Joint Forces Col. Erick Nantz who introduced the training presentation. The second stage of the exercise continued at Vaziani Airdrome where Georgian and American military servicemen carried out demonstrative training for the guests.
The scenario was set in one of the small urban areas of Iraq.
The main duty of the peacekeeping forces was to seize the terrorist who was hiding in one of the houses. The terrorist tried to escape when the coalition forces appeared but the troops did their best to detain him. After this, the platoon performed a humanitarian operation and transferred wounded people to hospital by military helicopters.
The Ambassador Extraordinary and Plenipotentiary of the USA H.E. John Tefft also attended the exercise. After the demonstrative training he outlined the importance of the training, saying: “It is in a spirit of Partnership for Peace, part of the NATO program. It was very rewarding for me to see the joint work of soldiers from different countries. The command post trainings also went successfully. Ukrainian, Azeri, Armenian and Georgian soldiers participated in the exercise jointly. I believe that the exercise fulfilled its main purpose.”
Immediate Response is an annual, bilateral security cooperation exercise conducted between US and coalition partners. Approximately 1,600 military personnel consisting of US soldiers, airmen, marines and army civilian employees; and Georgian military personnel make up Task Force Immediate Response 2008. The training is designed to exercise combined interoperability, conduct combined arms live fire, conduct training on responsive medical aid in a combat environment and bilateral training with Georgian and other multinational defense forces. This is the first time that Immediate Response is conducted in Georgia. Poland and Bulgaria has commonly hosted this exercise in years past.
The SETAF Brigadier General William B. Garrett commanded the exercise from American side. We asked him for his thoughts and comments on Immediate Response.
What is the primary aim of the exercise “Immediate Response 2008”? What are the objectives of the exercise?
We are conducting this exercise to enhance interoperability with a key coalition partner. Georgia has provided consistent support to ongoing operations in Iraq. Georgia is the third largest force contributor to Operation Iraqi Freedom and that means a lot to the United States.
What do you expect from “Immediate Response 2008”?
The combined approach – active participation from all the countries involved – provided an invaluable opportunity to learn about different cultures, and to promote understanding and cooperation between our forces and strengthen our partnerships for the future.
What benefits will this exercise bring for the Georgian Armed Forces?
The Georgian Armed Forces will gain greater tactical proficiency as well as improving their ability to work with coalition partners. But the benefits gained from this exercise are not limited to Georgian Soldiers. American, Armenian, Azeri and Ukrainian service members all benefited from this exercise. I might also point out that the Georgian 4th Infantry Brigade is scheduled to deploy to Iraq next year. The tough, realistic training provided during Immediate Response 2008 will certainly help them prepare for that deployment.
How do you estimate the preparation level of Georgian military servicemen?
The Georgian Soldiers we trained with the last few weeks from the 4th Brigade are fit, motivated, and disciplined. They are eager to learn. They interact well with their coalition partners. American soldiers are very proud to serve alongside Georgian soldiers.
As you are informed the IV Brigade is preparing to carry out peacekeeping mission in Iraq? What recommendations would you give our soldiers in this regard?
Continue to train hard for the mission in Iraq, incorporate the experiences of those who are currently serving in Iraq, and build on those things you learned during Exercise Immediate Response 08.
What obstacles do you see in the process of implementation of “Immediate Response 2008”? What is the most challenging of this exercise?
We don’t see obstacles, only challenges. There were several aspects to this exercise that were critical to success; I can not name one in particular. Our Georgian counterparts really went the extra mile to accommodate this exercise and provided excellent support. They were fantastic hosts and we look forward to working with them in the future.
On July 15, First Deputy Defence Minister Batu Kutelia and Chief of the Joint Staff of Georgian Armed Forces, Brigadier General Zaza Gogava, went on an official visit to Iraq.
They visited the 1st Infantry Brigade stationed in FOB Delta, Basra Base and Cop Cleary. The Battalion commanders briefed the MoD officials about operations and tasks provided by Georgian military contingent in Vassit Province.
In the framework of this visit, Minister Batu Kutelia and BG Zaza Gogava met with the following multi-national forces: Iraq Commanding General, General David Petraeus, Multi-National Corps- Iraq Deputy Commanding General for the Coalition, Brigadier General Nicholas Matern and the 10th Mountain CG, Major General Michael Oates. During the meetings with the multi-national forces, the commanders evaluated the Georgian peacekeeping mission very positively.
Currently in Iraq, the Georgian military contingent is represented by the 1st Infantry Brigade that rotated with the 3rd Infantry Brigade in January 2008. The Georgian contingent in Iraq counts 2000 personnel. The main base which is under Georgians’ control is FOB Delta, located in city of Al Kut, Vassit Province. The main tasks for Georgian military are to set up roadblocks, stationary and mobile checkpoints, provide security in Vassit Province and to control of the checkpoint located at the Iran –Iraq border.
The part of Iranian border that is now controlled by Georgian peacekeepers was the place where smuggled arms once passed. During operations provided by Georgian troops, there were 110,000 vehicles and 560,958 people checked, and 1,500 Iraqi civilians were provided with medical services by the Georgian military doctors.
The Georgian troops actively participate with their American counterparts in Civil-Military Co-operation (CIMIC) where the military cooperates with civilian agencies and institutions in order to bring peace and stability and foster better relations. “We have a very good relationship with the local inhabitants,” said Captain Zaur Makaradze, CIMIC group commander, from the 1st Infantry Brigade. On the question how dangerous it is Captain Makharidze answered with smile “It’s quite dangerous, but we are not afraid…We help Iraqi people.”
Deputy Defence Minister Batu Kutelia commented on the visit: “We have discussed the success of Georgian Military in Iraq and General Petraeus evaluates our mission very highly. He thanked us for our decision to continue our contingent here in Iraq until the end of year.”
According to BG Gogava: “General Petraeus estimated very positively the Georgian troops… He has once more underlined the high level of preparedness of the Georgian soldiers. There were a lot of thankful words said about Georgian Armed Forces. Afterwards there was a detailed conversation about the present situation in Vassit Province, and what a positive role has been played by the Georgian soldiers. These were the main subjects which were discussed by us. Then after we talked about the future plans, and the role of Georgian military in future operations in Vassit Province.”
Internal Minister of de facto South Ossetia Mikheil Mindzaev, has confirmed the information over equipment of the fortification structures. According to Mindzaev, the ministry is obliged to conduct engineering works and reinforce the posts in such a manner.
He added that there was not alternative and they were only acted in response to the same kind of activity on the part of the Georgians.
Moreover, the minister stated that the Georgian side intends to implement provocations and these actions will be directed towards peaceful population in the breakaway region. “We are aware that Tskhinvali is violating the agreement by such steps, but it is worth noting that Georgia has taken the first steps in violation and we only responded,” Mikhail Mindzaev stated.
The launching of fortifying activities on the part of Ossetian separatists has been evaluated as grave violation of the agreement by OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe.
Original article posted here.
Thursday, September 11, 2008
Wednesday, September 10, 2008
Monday, September 08, 2008
Fanning the Georgian flames
US shrinks from arming Georgia
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - As if the outgoing administration of US President George W Bush didn't already have enough on its plate, the question of whether and how to re-arm Georgia in the aftermath of its thrashing last month by Russia is moving steadily up an increasingly crowded foreign policy agenda.
Moscow has already signaled that any move to supply the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili with the advanced weapons that he has long sought - including the powerful hand-held anti-tank rockets and Stinger surface-to-air missiles which contributed heavily to Russia's defeat in Afghanistan - will significantly increase tensions with Washington, which soared to a post-Cold War high in the wake of the Russian intervention.
But besides pledging to continue its push for Georgia's admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)- something with which Washington's European allies would have to go along with - the Bush administration has so far declined to make any promises in regard to military aid.
Indeed, even Vice President Dick Cheney, who had reportedly pushed hard for sending such advanced equipment to Georgia even before last month's war, refrained from making any promises last Thursday during his high-profile visit to the Georgian capital.
"Over time, I'm sure, people will look at what happened with the military here and what the needs are," an official who accompanied Cheney on his four-hour stay in Tbilisi told US reporters on the vice president's plane. "But I think the focus for the moment is on the humanitarian and long-term economic needs."
The issue is nonetheless likely to loom large in the coming months, particularly if foreign policy plays a key role in the ongoing presidential election campaign, which moved into high gear on Friday with the end of the Republican National Convention.
In his acceptance of the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday night, Senator John McCain called for "solidarity" with Georgia in a speech that was remarkably light on foreign policy issues. From the moment that hostilities between Georgia and Russia began, McCain, who considers Saakashvili a friend and who he spoke with frequently by phone during the crisis, has consistently called for stronger action against Russia than the administration has been willing to take, including expelling it from the Group of Eight (G-8) nations.
While McCain has not explicitly endorsed filling Saakashvili's wish list, some of his key neo-conservative advisers, such as Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations and Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, have pressed the administration to take such a course. Their appeal has been supported by two of McCain's closest senate colleagues.
"Specifically, the Georgian military should be given the anti-aircraft and anti-armor systems necessary to deter any renewed Russian aggression," wrote independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, in the Wall Street Journal late last month. "We avoided giving the types of security aid that could have been used to blunt Russia's conventional onslaught. It is time for that to change," according to the two senators.
Their advice was published just as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev formally recognized the two breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, in defiance of a personal appeal by Bush for him not to do so.
While Bush and other top administration officials strongly denounced Medvedev's move - Cheney on September 4 called it "an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change [Georgia's] borders by force". The administration has so far moved relatively cautiously, ignoring appeals for stepped-up military aid to rebuild Georgia's battered forces and upgrade its weaponry. The emphasis instead has been on the delivery of humanitarian and economic assistance.
"The first order of business should not be some sort of punishment," Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried told the Washington Times. "Russia has to decide how much it wants to isolate itself from the world. We don't want to have a bad relationship with Russia. We've never wanted that."
So far, US actions have been largely limited to its pledge to push Georgia's and Ukraine's membership in NATO, effectively shelving Russia ascension to the World Trade Organization, and to suspend a bilateral strategic dialogue and review a number of other bilateral military cooperation agreements.
In the immediate aftermath of the five-day war, Washington also quickly sealed a long-pending bilateral accord that would permit it to build missile defense systems in Poland. That move drew particularly harsh criticism from Moscow, which has also reiterated a vow to strongly oppose any efforts to admit Georgia and Ukraine to NATO - a military alliance which it sees as aimed at encircling and containing Russia.
Aside from those moves the administration has focused on supplying humanitarian and economic assistance to Georgia - albeit via military transport aircraft and warships in the Black Sea. In conjunction with the European Union (EU) it has also helped arrange a US$750 million line of credit to help Tbilisi finance the repair of the substantial infrastructural damages it incurred in the war.
In addition, Washington has pledged $1 billion in economic and reconstruction assistance, more than half of which will be sent over the next five months. That amount would make the Caucasian nation the fourth biggest US aid recipient after Israel, Iraq, and Egypt.
The administration's relative caution, particularly with respect to military aid, appears motivated by several factors.
Increasing tensions with Moscow further could seriously jeopardize other top foreign policy interests, according to senior officials and independent analysts, including Washington's hopes for applying additional pressure, particularly through the UN Security Council, on Iran to halt its nuclear program. It could prompt Russia to suspend an agreement that lets NATO use Russian and Central Asian bases and air space to supply its troops in Afghanistan.
A more aggressive stance could also harm relations with key European allies, such as Germany, France, and Italy, which are eager to ramp down tensions, in part due to their own heavy investments in Russia's economy and dependence on gas supplies.
US officials are also reluctant to address the question of additional military aid in light of the Georgian armed forces' poor performance during the war - the army retreated in chaos at the first contact, while all of its warships were destroyed in port - and what some of them describe as the recklessness of Saakashvili himself in ordering the attack on Tskhinvali that triggered Russia's offensive.
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy, and particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.
Original article posted here.
By Jim Lobe
WASHINGTON - As if the outgoing administration of US President George W Bush didn't already have enough on its plate, the question of whether and how to re-arm Georgia in the aftermath of its thrashing last month by Russia is moving steadily up an increasingly crowded foreign policy agenda.
Moscow has already signaled that any move to supply the government of President Mikheil Saakashvili with the advanced weapons that he has long sought - including the powerful hand-held anti-tank rockets and Stinger surface-to-air missiles which contributed heavily to Russia's defeat in Afghanistan - will significantly increase tensions with Washington, which soared to a post-Cold War high in the wake of the Russian intervention.
But besides pledging to continue its push for Georgia's admission to the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO)- something with which Washington's European allies would have to go along with - the Bush administration has so far declined to make any promises in regard to military aid.
Indeed, even Vice President Dick Cheney, who had reportedly pushed hard for sending such advanced equipment to Georgia even before last month's war, refrained from making any promises last Thursday during his high-profile visit to the Georgian capital.
"Over time, I'm sure, people will look at what happened with the military here and what the needs are," an official who accompanied Cheney on his four-hour stay in Tbilisi told US reporters on the vice president's plane. "But I think the focus for the moment is on the humanitarian and long-term economic needs."
The issue is nonetheless likely to loom large in the coming months, particularly if foreign policy plays a key role in the ongoing presidential election campaign, which moved into high gear on Friday with the end of the Republican National Convention.
In his acceptance of the Republican presidential nomination on Thursday night, Senator John McCain called for "solidarity" with Georgia in a speech that was remarkably light on foreign policy issues. From the moment that hostilities between Georgia and Russia began, McCain, who considers Saakashvili a friend and who he spoke with frequently by phone during the crisis, has consistently called for stronger action against Russia than the administration has been willing to take, including expelling it from the Group of Eight (G-8) nations.
While McCain has not explicitly endorsed filling Saakashvili's wish list, some of his key neo-conservative advisers, such as Max Boot of the Council on Foreign Relations and Frederick Kagan of the American Enterprise Institute, have pressed the administration to take such a course. Their appeal has been supported by two of McCain's closest senate colleagues.
"Specifically, the Georgian military should be given the anti-aircraft and anti-armor systems necessary to deter any renewed Russian aggression," wrote independent Democrat Joe Lieberman and Lindsay Graham, in the Wall Street Journal late last month. "We avoided giving the types of security aid that could have been used to blunt Russia's conventional onslaught. It is time for that to change," according to the two senators.
Their advice was published just as Russian President Dmitry Medvedev formally recognized the two breakaway Georgian provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, in defiance of a personal appeal by Bush for him not to do so.
While Bush and other top administration officials strongly denounced Medvedev's move - Cheney on September 4 called it "an illegitimate, unilateral attempt to change [Georgia's] borders by force". The administration has so far moved relatively cautiously, ignoring appeals for stepped-up military aid to rebuild Georgia's battered forces and upgrade its weaponry. The emphasis instead has been on the delivery of humanitarian and economic assistance.
"The first order of business should not be some sort of punishment," Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Daniel Fried told the Washington Times. "Russia has to decide how much it wants to isolate itself from the world. We don't want to have a bad relationship with Russia. We've never wanted that."
So far, US actions have been largely limited to its pledge to push Georgia's and Ukraine's membership in NATO, effectively shelving Russia ascension to the World Trade Organization, and to suspend a bilateral strategic dialogue and review a number of other bilateral military cooperation agreements.
In the immediate aftermath of the five-day war, Washington also quickly sealed a long-pending bilateral accord that would permit it to build missile defense systems in Poland. That move drew particularly harsh criticism from Moscow, which has also reiterated a vow to strongly oppose any efforts to admit Georgia and Ukraine to NATO - a military alliance which it sees as aimed at encircling and containing Russia.
Aside from those moves the administration has focused on supplying humanitarian and economic assistance to Georgia - albeit via military transport aircraft and warships in the Black Sea. In conjunction with the European Union (EU) it has also helped arrange a US$750 million line of credit to help Tbilisi finance the repair of the substantial infrastructural damages it incurred in the war.
In addition, Washington has pledged $1 billion in economic and reconstruction assistance, more than half of which will be sent over the next five months. That amount would make the Caucasian nation the fourth biggest US aid recipient after Israel, Iraq, and Egypt.
The administration's relative caution, particularly with respect to military aid, appears motivated by several factors.
Increasing tensions with Moscow further could seriously jeopardize other top foreign policy interests, according to senior officials and independent analysts, including Washington's hopes for applying additional pressure, particularly through the UN Security Council, on Iran to halt its nuclear program. It could prompt Russia to suspend an agreement that lets NATO use Russian and Central Asian bases and air space to supply its troops in Afghanistan.
A more aggressive stance could also harm relations with key European allies, such as Germany, France, and Italy, which are eager to ramp down tensions, in part due to their own heavy investments in Russia's economy and dependence on gas supplies.
US officials are also reluctant to address the question of additional military aid in light of the Georgian armed forces' poor performance during the war - the army retreated in chaos at the first contact, while all of its warships were destroyed in port - and what some of them describe as the recklessness of Saakashvili himself in ordering the attack on Tskhinvali that triggered Russia's offensive.
Jim Lobe's blog on US foreign policy, and particularly the neo-conservative influence in the Bush administration, can be read at http://www.ips.org/blog/jimlobe/.
Original article posted here.
Thursday, September 04, 2008
Updates on the Grand Chessboard
Putin's Ruthless Gambit
The Bush Administration Falters in a Geopolitical Chess Match
By Michael T. Klare
"TomDispatch" -- - Many Western analysts have chosen to interpret the recent fighting in the Caucasus as the onset of a new Cold War, with a small pro-Western democracy bravely resisting a brutal reincarnation of Stalin's jack-booted Soviet Union. Others have viewed it a throwback to the age-old ethnic politics of southeastern Europe, with assorted minorities using contemporary border disputes to settle ancient scores.
Neither of these explanations is accurate. To fully grasp the recent upheavals in the Caucasus, it is necessary to view the conflict as but a minor skirmish in a far more significant geopolitical struggle between Moscow and Washington over the energy riches of the Caspian Sea basin -- with former Russian President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin emerging as the reigning Grand Master of geostrategic chess and the Bush team turning out to be middling amateurs, at best.
The ultimate prize in this contest is control over the flow of oil and natural gas from the energy-rich Caspian basin to eager markets in Europe and Asia. According to the most recent tally by oil giant BP, the Caspian's leading energy producers, all former "socialist republics" of the Soviet Union -- notably Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- together possess approximately 48 billion barrels in proven oil reserves (roughly equivalent to those left in the U.S. and Canada) and 268 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (essentially equivalent to what Saudi Arabia possesses).
During the Soviet era, the oil and gas output of these nations was, of course, controlled by officials in Moscow and largely allocated to Russia and other Soviet republics. After the breakup of the USSR in 1991, however, Western oil companies began to participate in the hydrocarbon equivalent of a gold rush to exploit Caspian energy reservoirs, while plans were being made to channel the region's oil and gas to markets across the world.
Rush to the Caspian
In the 1990s, the Caspian Sea basin was viewed as the world's most promising new source of oil and gas, and so the major Western energy firms -- Chevron, BP, Shell, and Exxon Mobil, among others -- rushed into the region to take advantage of what seemed a golden opportunity. For these firms, persuading the governments of the newly independent Caspian states to sign deals proved to be no great hassle. They were eager to attract Western investment -- and the bribes that often came with it -- and to free themselves from Moscow's economic domination.
But there turned out to be a major catch: It was neither obvious nor easy to figure out how to move all the new oil and gas to markets in the West. After all, the Caspian is landlocked, so tankers cannot get near it, while all existing pipelines passed through Russia and were hooked into Soviet-era supply systems. While many in Washington were eager to assist U.S. firms in their drive to gain access to Caspian energy, they did not want to see the resulting oil and gas flow through Russia -- until recently, the country's leading adversary -- before reaching Western markets.
What, then, to do? Looking at the Caspian chessboard in the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton conceived the striking notion of converting the newly independent, energy-poor Republic of Georgia into an "energy corridor" for the export of Caspian basin oil and gas to the West, thereby bypassing Russia altogether. An initial, "early-oil" pipeline was built to carry petroleum from newly-developed fields in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea to Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea coast, where it was loaded onto tankers for delivery to international markets. This would be followed by a far more audacious scheme: the construction of the 1,000-mile BTC pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to Tbilisi in Georgia and then on to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Again, the idea was to exclude Russia -- which had, in the intervening years, been transformed into a struggling, increasingly impoverished former superpower -- from the Caspian Sea energy rush.
Clinton presided over every stage of the BTC line's initial development, from its early conception to the formal arrangements imposed by Washington on the three nations involved in its corporate structuring. (Final work on the pipeline was not completed until 2006, two years into George W. Bush's second term.) For Clinton and his advisors, this was geopolitics, pure and simple -- a calculated effort to enhance Western energy security while diminishing Moscow's control over the global flow of oil and gas. The administration's efforts to promote the construction of new pipelines through Azerbaijan and Georgia were intended "to break Russia's monopoly of control over the transportation of oil from the region," Sheila Heslin of the National Security Council bluntly told a Senate investigating committee in 1997.
Clinton understood that this strategy entailed significant risks, particularly because Washington's favored "energy corridor" passed through or near several major conflict zones -- including the Russian-backed breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. With this in mind, Clinton made a secondary decision -- to convert the new Georgian army into a military proxy of the United States, quipped and trained by the Department of Defense. From 1998 to 2000 alone, Georgia was awarded $302 million in U.S. military and economic aid -- more than any other Caspian country -- and top U.S. military officials started making regular trips to its capital, Tbilisi, to demonstrate support for then-president Eduard Shevardnadze.
In those years, Clinton was the top chess player in the Caspian region, while his Russian presidential counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, was far too preoccupied with domestic troubles and a bitter, costly, ongoing guerrilla war in Chechnya to match his moves. It was clear, however, that senior Russian officials were deeply concerned by the growing U.S. presence in their southern backyard -- what they called their "near abroad" -- and had already had begun planning for an eventual comeback. "It hasn't been left unnoticed in Russia that certain outside interests are trying to weaken our position in the Caspian basin," Andrei Y. Urnov of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in May 2000. "No one should be perplexed that Russia is determined to resist the attempts to encroach on her interests."
Russia Resurgent
At this critical moment, a far more capable player took over on Russia's side of the geopolitical chessboard. On December 31, 1999, Vladimir V. Putin was appointed president by Yeltsin and then, on March 26, 2000, elected to a full four-year term in office. Politics in the Caucasus and the Caspian region have never been the same.
Even before assuming the presidency, Putin indicated that he believed state control over energy resources should be the basis for Russia's return to great-power status. In his doctoral dissertation, a summary of which was published in 1999, he had written that "[t]he state has the right to regulate the process of the acquisition and the use of natural resources, and particularly mineral resources [including oil and natural gas], independent of on whose property they are located." On this basis, Putin presided over the re-nationalization of many of the energy companies that had been privatized by Yeltsin and the virtual confiscation of Yukos -- once Russia's richest private energy firm -- by Russian state authorities. He also brought Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas supplier, back under state control and placed a protégé, Dmitri Medvedev -- now president of Russia -- at its helm.
Once he had restored state control over the lion's share of Russia's oil and gas resources, Putin turned his attention to the next obvious place -- the Caspian Sea basin. Here, his intent was not so much to gain ownership of its energy resources -- although Russian firms have in recent years acquired an equity share in some Caspian oil and gas fields -- but rather to dominate the export conduits used to transport its energy to Europe and Asia.
Russia already enjoyed a considerable advantage since much of Kazakhstan's oil already flowed to the West via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which passes through Russia before terminating on the Black Sea; moreover, much of Central Asia's natural gas continued to flow to Russia through pipelines built during the Soviet era. But Putin's gambit in the Caspian region evidently was meant to capture a far more ambitious prize. He wanted to ensure that most oil and gas from newly developed fields in the Caspian basin would travel west via Russia.
The first part of this drive entailed frenzied diplomacy by Putin and Medvedev (still in his role as board chairman of Gazprom) to persuade the presidents of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to ship their future output of gas through Russia. Success was achieved when, in December 2007, Putin signed an agreement with the leaders of these countries to supply 20 billion cubic meters of gas per year through a new conduit along the Caspian's eastern shore to southern Russia -- for ultimate delivery to Europe via Gazprom's existing pipeline network.
Meanwhile, Putin moved to undermine international confidence in Georgia as a reliable future corridor for energy delivery. This became a strategic priority for Moscow because the European Union announced plans to build a $10 billion natural-gas pipeline from the Caspian, dubbed Nabucco" after the opera by Verdi. It would run from Turkey to Austria, while linking up to an expanded South Caucasus gas pipeline that now extends from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Erzurum in Turkey. The Nabucco pipeline was intended as a dramatic move to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian natural gas -- and so has enjoyed strong support from the Bush administration.
It is against this backdrop that the recent events in Georgia unfolded.
Checkmate in Georgia
Obviously, the more oil and gas passing through Georgia on its way to the West, the greater that country's geostrategic significance in the U.S.-Russian struggle over the distribution of Caspian energy. Certainly, the Bush administration recognized this and responded by providing hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the Georgian military and helping to train specialized forces for protection of the new pipelines. But the administration's partner in Tbilisi, President Mikheil Saakashvili, was not content to play the relatively modest role of pipeline protector. Instead, he sought to pursue a megalomaniacal fantasy of recapturing the breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia with American help. As it happened, the Bush team -- blindsided by their own neoconservative fantasies -- saw in Saakashvili a useful pawn in their pursuit of a long smoldering anti-Russian agenda. Together, they walked into a trap cleverly set by Putin.
It is hard not to conclude that Russian prime minister goaded the rash Saakashvili into invading South Ossetia by encouraging Abkhazian and South Ossetian irregulars to attack Georgian outposts and villages on the peripheries of the two enclaves. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly told Saakashvili not to respond to such provocations when she met with him in July. Apparently her advice fell on deaf ears. Far more enticing, it seems, was her promise of strong U.S. backing for Georgia's rapid entry into NATO. Other American leaders, including Senator John McCain, assured Saakashvili of unwavering U.S. support. Whatever was said in these private conversations, the Georgian president seems to have interpreted them as a green light for his adventuristic impulses. On August 7th, by all accounts, his forces invaded South Ossetia and attacked its capital city of Tskhinvali, giving Putin what he long craved -- a seemingly legitimate excuse to invade Georgia and demonstrate the complete vulnerability of Clinton's (and now Bush's) vaunted energy corridor.
Today, the Georgian army is in shambles, the BTC and South Caucasus gas pipelines are within range of Russian firepower, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia have declared their independence, quickly receiving Russian recognition. In response to these developments, the Bush administration has, along with some friendly leaders in Europe, mounted a media and diplomatic counterattack, accusing Moscow of barbaric behavior and assorted violations of international law. Threats have also been made to exclude Russia from various international forums and institutions, such as the G-8 club of governments and the World Trade Organization. It is possible, then, that Moscow will suffer some isolation and inconvenience as a result of its incursion into Georgia.
None of this, so far as can be determined, will alter the picture in the Caucasus: Putin has moved his most powerful pieces onto this corner of the chessboard, America's pawn has been decisively defeated, and there's not much of a practical nature that Washington (or London or Paris or Berlin) can do to alter the outcome.
There will, of course, be more rounds to come, and it is impossible to predict how they will play out. Putin prevailed this time around because he focused on geopolitical objectives, while his opponents were blindly driven by fantasy and ideology; so long as this pattern persists, he or his successors are likely to come out on top. Only if American leaders assume a more realistic approach to Russia's resurgent power or, alternatively, choose to collaborate with Moscow in the exploitation of Caspian energy, will the risk of further strategic setbacks in the region disappear.
Michael T. Klare is professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books).
Original article posted here.
The Bush Administration Falters in a Geopolitical Chess Match
By Michael T. Klare
"TomDispatch" -- - Many Western analysts have chosen to interpret the recent fighting in the Caucasus as the onset of a new Cold War, with a small pro-Western democracy bravely resisting a brutal reincarnation of Stalin's jack-booted Soviet Union. Others have viewed it a throwback to the age-old ethnic politics of southeastern Europe, with assorted minorities using contemporary border disputes to settle ancient scores.
Neither of these explanations is accurate. To fully grasp the recent upheavals in the Caucasus, it is necessary to view the conflict as but a minor skirmish in a far more significant geopolitical struggle between Moscow and Washington over the energy riches of the Caspian Sea basin -- with former Russian President (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin emerging as the reigning Grand Master of geostrategic chess and the Bush team turning out to be middling amateurs, at best.
The ultimate prize in this contest is control over the flow of oil and natural gas from the energy-rich Caspian basin to eager markets in Europe and Asia. According to the most recent tally by oil giant BP, the Caspian's leading energy producers, all former "socialist republics" of the Soviet Union -- notably Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan -- together possess approximately 48 billion barrels in proven oil reserves (roughly equivalent to those left in the U.S. and Canada) and 268 trillion cubic feet of natural gas (essentially equivalent to what Saudi Arabia possesses).
During the Soviet era, the oil and gas output of these nations was, of course, controlled by officials in Moscow and largely allocated to Russia and other Soviet republics. After the breakup of the USSR in 1991, however, Western oil companies began to participate in the hydrocarbon equivalent of a gold rush to exploit Caspian energy reservoirs, while plans were being made to channel the region's oil and gas to markets across the world.
Rush to the Caspian
In the 1990s, the Caspian Sea basin was viewed as the world's most promising new source of oil and gas, and so the major Western energy firms -- Chevron, BP, Shell, and Exxon Mobil, among others -- rushed into the region to take advantage of what seemed a golden opportunity. For these firms, persuading the governments of the newly independent Caspian states to sign deals proved to be no great hassle. They were eager to attract Western investment -- and the bribes that often came with it -- and to free themselves from Moscow's economic domination.
But there turned out to be a major catch: It was neither obvious nor easy to figure out how to move all the new oil and gas to markets in the West. After all, the Caspian is landlocked, so tankers cannot get near it, while all existing pipelines passed through Russia and were hooked into Soviet-era supply systems. While many in Washington were eager to assist U.S. firms in their drive to gain access to Caspian energy, they did not want to see the resulting oil and gas flow through Russia -- until recently, the country's leading adversary -- before reaching Western markets.
What, then, to do? Looking at the Caspian chessboard in the mid-1990s, President Bill Clinton conceived the striking notion of converting the newly independent, energy-poor Republic of Georgia into an "energy corridor" for the export of Caspian basin oil and gas to the West, thereby bypassing Russia altogether. An initial, "early-oil" pipeline was built to carry petroleum from newly-developed fields in Azerbaijan's sector of the Caspian Sea to Supsa on Georgia's Black Sea coast, where it was loaded onto tankers for delivery to international markets. This would be followed by a far more audacious scheme: the construction of the 1,000-mile BTC pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to Tbilisi in Georgia and then on to Ceyhan on Turkey's Mediterranean coast. Again, the idea was to exclude Russia -- which had, in the intervening years, been transformed into a struggling, increasingly impoverished former superpower -- from the Caspian Sea energy rush.
Clinton presided over every stage of the BTC line's initial development, from its early conception to the formal arrangements imposed by Washington on the three nations involved in its corporate structuring. (Final work on the pipeline was not completed until 2006, two years into George W. Bush's second term.) For Clinton and his advisors, this was geopolitics, pure and simple -- a calculated effort to enhance Western energy security while diminishing Moscow's control over the global flow of oil and gas. The administration's efforts to promote the construction of new pipelines through Azerbaijan and Georgia were intended "to break Russia's monopoly of control over the transportation of oil from the region," Sheila Heslin of the National Security Council bluntly told a Senate investigating committee in 1997.
Clinton understood that this strategy entailed significant risks, particularly because Washington's favored "energy corridor" passed through or near several major conflict zones -- including the Russian-backed breakaway enclaves of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. With this in mind, Clinton made a secondary decision -- to convert the new Georgian army into a military proxy of the United States, quipped and trained by the Department of Defense. From 1998 to 2000 alone, Georgia was awarded $302 million in U.S. military and economic aid -- more than any other Caspian country -- and top U.S. military officials started making regular trips to its capital, Tbilisi, to demonstrate support for then-president Eduard Shevardnadze.
In those years, Clinton was the top chess player in the Caspian region, while his Russian presidential counterpart, Boris Yeltsin, was far too preoccupied with domestic troubles and a bitter, costly, ongoing guerrilla war in Chechnya to match his moves. It was clear, however, that senior Russian officials were deeply concerned by the growing U.S. presence in their southern backyard -- what they called their "near abroad" -- and had already had begun planning for an eventual comeback. "It hasn't been left unnoticed in Russia that certain outside interests are trying to weaken our position in the Caspian basin," Andrei Y. Urnov of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs declared in May 2000. "No one should be perplexed that Russia is determined to resist the attempts to encroach on her interests."
Russia Resurgent
At this critical moment, a far more capable player took over on Russia's side of the geopolitical chessboard. On December 31, 1999, Vladimir V. Putin was appointed president by Yeltsin and then, on March 26, 2000, elected to a full four-year term in office. Politics in the Caucasus and the Caspian region have never been the same.
Even before assuming the presidency, Putin indicated that he believed state control over energy resources should be the basis for Russia's return to great-power status. In his doctoral dissertation, a summary of which was published in 1999, he had written that "[t]he state has the right to regulate the process of the acquisition and the use of natural resources, and particularly mineral resources [including oil and natural gas], independent of on whose property they are located." On this basis, Putin presided over the re-nationalization of many of the energy companies that had been privatized by Yeltsin and the virtual confiscation of Yukos -- once Russia's richest private energy firm -- by Russian state authorities. He also brought Gazprom, the world's largest natural gas supplier, back under state control and placed a protégé, Dmitri Medvedev -- now president of Russia -- at its helm.
Once he had restored state control over the lion's share of Russia's oil and gas resources, Putin turned his attention to the next obvious place -- the Caspian Sea basin. Here, his intent was not so much to gain ownership of its energy resources -- although Russian firms have in recent years acquired an equity share in some Caspian oil and gas fields -- but rather to dominate the export conduits used to transport its energy to Europe and Asia.
Russia already enjoyed a considerable advantage since much of Kazakhstan's oil already flowed to the West via the Caspian Pipeline Consortium (CPC), which passes through Russia before terminating on the Black Sea; moreover, much of Central Asia's natural gas continued to flow to Russia through pipelines built during the Soviet era. But Putin's gambit in the Caspian region evidently was meant to capture a far more ambitious prize. He wanted to ensure that most oil and gas from newly developed fields in the Caspian basin would travel west via Russia.
The first part of this drive entailed frenzied diplomacy by Putin and Medvedev (still in his role as board chairman of Gazprom) to persuade the presidents of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan to ship their future output of gas through Russia. Success was achieved when, in December 2007, Putin signed an agreement with the leaders of these countries to supply 20 billion cubic meters of gas per year through a new conduit along the Caspian's eastern shore to southern Russia -- for ultimate delivery to Europe via Gazprom's existing pipeline network.
Meanwhile, Putin moved to undermine international confidence in Georgia as a reliable future corridor for energy delivery. This became a strategic priority for Moscow because the European Union announced plans to build a $10 billion natural-gas pipeline from the Caspian, dubbed Nabucco" after the opera by Verdi. It would run from Turkey to Austria, while linking up to an expanded South Caucasus gas pipeline that now extends from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Erzurum in Turkey. The Nabucco pipeline was intended as a dramatic move to reduce Europe's reliance on Russian natural gas -- and so has enjoyed strong support from the Bush administration.
It is against this backdrop that the recent events in Georgia unfolded.
Checkmate in Georgia
Obviously, the more oil and gas passing through Georgia on its way to the West, the greater that country's geostrategic significance in the U.S.-Russian struggle over the distribution of Caspian energy. Certainly, the Bush administration recognized this and responded by providing hundreds of millions of dollars in military aid to the Georgian military and helping to train specialized forces for protection of the new pipelines. But the administration's partner in Tbilisi, President Mikheil Saakashvili, was not content to play the relatively modest role of pipeline protector. Instead, he sought to pursue a megalomaniacal fantasy of recapturing the breakaway regions of Abhkazia and South Ossetia with American help. As it happened, the Bush team -- blindsided by their own neoconservative fantasies -- saw in Saakashvili a useful pawn in their pursuit of a long smoldering anti-Russian agenda. Together, they walked into a trap cleverly set by Putin.
It is hard not to conclude that Russian prime minister goaded the rash Saakashvili into invading South Ossetia by encouraging Abkhazian and South Ossetian irregulars to attack Georgian outposts and villages on the peripheries of the two enclaves. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice reportedly told Saakashvili not to respond to such provocations when she met with him in July. Apparently her advice fell on deaf ears. Far more enticing, it seems, was her promise of strong U.S. backing for Georgia's rapid entry into NATO. Other American leaders, including Senator John McCain, assured Saakashvili of unwavering U.S. support. Whatever was said in these private conversations, the Georgian president seems to have interpreted them as a green light for his adventuristic impulses. On August 7th, by all accounts, his forces invaded South Ossetia and attacked its capital city of Tskhinvali, giving Putin what he long craved -- a seemingly legitimate excuse to invade Georgia and demonstrate the complete vulnerability of Clinton's (and now Bush's) vaunted energy corridor.
Today, the Georgian army is in shambles, the BTC and South Caucasus gas pipelines are within range of Russian firepower, and Abkhazia and South Ossetia have declared their independence, quickly receiving Russian recognition. In response to these developments, the Bush administration has, along with some friendly leaders in Europe, mounted a media and diplomatic counterattack, accusing Moscow of barbaric behavior and assorted violations of international law. Threats have also been made to exclude Russia from various international forums and institutions, such as the G-8 club of governments and the World Trade Organization. It is possible, then, that Moscow will suffer some isolation and inconvenience as a result of its incursion into Georgia.
None of this, so far as can be determined, will alter the picture in the Caucasus: Putin has moved his most powerful pieces onto this corner of the chessboard, America's pawn has been decisively defeated, and there's not much of a practical nature that Washington (or London or Paris or Berlin) can do to alter the outcome.
There will, of course, be more rounds to come, and it is impossible to predict how they will play out. Putin prevailed this time around because he focused on geopolitical objectives, while his opponents were blindly driven by fantasy and ideology; so long as this pattern persists, he or his successors are likely to come out on top. Only if American leaders assume a more realistic approach to Russia's resurgent power or, alternatively, choose to collaborate with Moscow in the exploitation of Caspian energy, will the risk of further strategic setbacks in the region disappear.
Michael T. Klare is professor of peace and world security studies at Hampshire College and the author, most recently, of Rising Powers, Shrinking Planet: The New Geopolitics of Energy (Metropolitan Books).
Original article posted here.
Wednesday, September 03, 2008
The latest US crony puppet state on the verge of collapse after leading party comes under investigation for arming another crony criminal US puppet.
Ukraine: lawmakers to probe weapons to Georgia
The Associated Press
Published: September 2, 2008
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KIEV, Ukraine: Ukrainian lawmakers voted Tuesday to form a panel to investigate their country's weapons supplies to Georgia following Russia's war with that nation last month.
Ukraine has been a major supplier of weapons to its ally Georgia, whom it backed firmly in the conflict. Ukrainian military officials say the arms supplies are perfectly lawful and will not be halted.
But Valeriy Konovalyuk, a lawmaker from the opposition Party of Regions, which has ties to Moscow, told the legislature Tuesday that he believes Ukraine was engaged in "illegal weapons supplies." He did not elaborate.
The legislature voted to set up a panel to look into the claims.
Last month's military conflict between Georgia and Russia, which ended with Russian troops pushing deep into Georgia and Moscow's recognition of two Georgian breakaway provinces' independence, has deeply divided Ukrainian politicians and the public.
Today in Europe
Georgians eager to rebuild army
Cheney arrives in Azerbaijan
Two Georgians went to war but never got to fight
Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has firmly backed his Georgian counterpart Mikhail Saakashvili and condemned Moscow's actions. Both leaders seek to make their countries NATO members and shed Russia's influence — steps that have angered Moscow. But the opposition Party of Regions, which has ties to Moscow, and the Communists have swung their support behind the Kremlin.
Parliament debated all day Tuesday, but failed to pass a resolution on the conflict, as the president had asked them to.
The issue is especially contentious since many here worry that Ukraine, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based, could be Russia's next target.
Analysts say that a war between Russia and Ukraine is highly unlikely. While Georgia is a small nation of 4.6 million people, Ukraine is roughly the size of France, with a population of 46 million.
Russia also relies on Ukraine for transporting its natural gas to European consumers, and it is Ukraine's energy supplier and top trading partner. But Ukraine is likely to come under immense economic and diplomatic pressure from Moscow to give up its NATO aspirations.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was here recently to offer support, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to visit soon.
Orignal article posted here.
The Associated Press
Published: September 2, 2008
E-Mail Article
Listen to Article
Printer-Friendly
3-Column Format
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KIEV, Ukraine: Ukrainian lawmakers voted Tuesday to form a panel to investigate their country's weapons supplies to Georgia following Russia's war with that nation last month.
Ukraine has been a major supplier of weapons to its ally Georgia, whom it backed firmly in the conflict. Ukrainian military officials say the arms supplies are perfectly lawful and will not be halted.
But Valeriy Konovalyuk, a lawmaker from the opposition Party of Regions, which has ties to Moscow, told the legislature Tuesday that he believes Ukraine was engaged in "illegal weapons supplies." He did not elaborate.
The legislature voted to set up a panel to look into the claims.
Last month's military conflict between Georgia and Russia, which ended with Russian troops pushing deep into Georgia and Moscow's recognition of two Georgian breakaway provinces' independence, has deeply divided Ukrainian politicians and the public.
Today in Europe
Georgians eager to rebuild army
Cheney arrives in Azerbaijan
Two Georgians went to war but never got to fight
Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has firmly backed his Georgian counterpart Mikhail Saakashvili and condemned Moscow's actions. Both leaders seek to make their countries NATO members and shed Russia's influence — steps that have angered Moscow. But the opposition Party of Regions, which has ties to Moscow, and the Communists have swung their support behind the Kremlin.
Parliament debated all day Tuesday, but failed to pass a resolution on the conflict, as the president had asked them to.
The issue is especially contentious since many here worry that Ukraine, where the Russian Black Sea Fleet is based, could be Russia's next target.
Analysts say that a war between Russia and Ukraine is highly unlikely. While Georgia is a small nation of 4.6 million people, Ukraine is roughly the size of France, with a population of 46 million.
Russia also relies on Ukraine for transporting its natural gas to European consumers, and it is Ukraine's energy supplier and top trading partner. But Ukraine is likely to come under immense economic and diplomatic pressure from Moscow to give up its NATO aspirations.
British Foreign Secretary David Miliband was here recently to offer support, and U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney is expected to visit soon.
Orignal article posted here.
Wednesday, August 27, 2008
Obama's Georgia position: No change, same ole shit
Change? Regarding Georgia and South Ossetia the gibberish seems frighteningly familiar in positions taken yesterday regarding Georgia.
http://www.bloomberg.com/a
In an earlier statement regarding Kosovo, Obama had been particularly subtle. While he said that "Kosovo’s independence is a unique situation resulting from the irreparable rupture Slobodan Milosevic’s actions caused; it is in no way a precedent for anyone else in the region or around the world." it also seems to me that everyone can argue that their particular situation is unique.
http://2008central.net/200
And why would recognizing the right of self determination of people who want to be independent be abhorrent to Western values? Isn't this what concerning Tibet is all about?
The fact is that these positions are driven less by principled positions that by real-politic maneuvers in a geo-strategic fight of positions taken "to preserve US interests." The US has been promoting the breakup of both Bolivia and Venezuela, but, as is usual with the Bush Administration, has failed miserably. (Venezuela: oil rich Zania region http://notapundit.wordpres
As a result of Bush's meddling, Bolivian president Evo Morales was forced to issue a recall vote regarding his presidency after refusing to recognize the secessionist attempts. He won the recall vote easily, but it still seems that trouble is brewing, and it is quite likely that US money and advice spurs these efforts.
http://www.taipeitimes.com
So when Obummer and McCain talk about the illegality of South Ossetia to be independent, and the unwise behavior of Russia to recognize autonomy, please do not believe a word of it. Rather it all comes down to friends, enemies and natural resources. And in this regard Obummer is singing much the same song as the front and center warmongers, Bush and McCain, filled with much the same hypocrisy and duplicity.
Tuesday, August 26, 2008
Russia not so scared, and calling the West's bluff
Russia recognises Georgian rebels | ||||||
| Russian president speaks to BBC President Dmitry Medvedev has declared that Russia formally recognises the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Mr Medvedev told the BBC Russia had tried to preserve Georgian unity for 17 years, but that the situation had changed after this month's violence. He said Moscow now felt obliged to recognise South Ossetia and Abkhazia as other countries had done with Kosovo. The decree, in defiance of a plea from the US, has provoked a wave of protest. Georgia accused Russia of an unconcealed annexation of its territory, and said the decrees had no legal force.
The US and France called the Russian move regrettable, while the UK said it categorically rejected it. Nato said the declaration violated numerous UN Security Council resolutions that Russia itself had endorsed. However the leaders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which have had de facto independence since the early 1990s, thanked Russia. Fighting between Russia and Georgia began on 7 August after the Georgian military tried to retake South Ossetia by force. Russian forces subsequently launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and Abkhazia and an EU-brokered ceasefire. 'No easy choice' In an announcement on Russian state television, President Medvedev said he had signed a decree to recognise Abkhazia and South Ossetia as independent states. He instructed the Russian foreign ministry to open negotiations on formal diplomatic relations with the two regions and called on other states to follow his country's example. Mr Medvedev said he had "taken into account the expression of free will by the Ossetian and Abkhaz peoples" and accused Georgia of failing over many years to negotiate a peaceful settlement to the problem.
"That was no easy choice to make, but it is the sole chance of saving people's lives," he added. The move followed votes in both houses of parliament on Monday, which called on Moscow to recognise the regions' independence. In an interview with the BBC at his residency in Sochi, on the border with Abkhazia, Mr Medvedev later said Russia had been obliged to act following a "genocide" started by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili against separatists in South Ossetia. The president compared Russia's recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to the West's recognition of Kosovo, which unilaterally declared independence from Serbia in February 2008. He also denied that Russia had breached the ceasefire agreement with Georgia, saying pursuing the security of the two regions included addressing their status. "The most important thing was to prevent a humanitarian catastrophe to save the lives of people for whom we are responsible, because most of them they are Russian citizens," he said. "So we had to take a decision recognising the two states as independent." Mr Medvedev said relations with the West were deteriorating sharply and that a new Cold War could not be excluded, but that Russia did not want one. "There are no winners in a Cold War," he said. Violation Georgian Deputy Foreign Minister Giga Bokeria responded to the Russian announcement angrily, saying: "This is an unconcealed annexation of these territories, which are a part of Georgia." Western countries, including the US, Germany, the UK and France immediately condemned the move.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking from the West Bank city of Ramallah, said the decision was "regrettable". "Since the United States is a permanent member of the Security Council this simply will be dead on arrival in the Security Council," she said. Late on Monday, the US state department had warned that recognition of the two provinces' independence would be "a violation of Georgian territorial integrity" and "inconsistent with international law". In a statement, it said President George W Bush had called on Russia's leadership to "meet its commitments and not recognise these separatist regions". In the two breakaway regions, however, Moscow's move was warmly welcomed. The leader of South Ossetia's separatist government, Eduard Kokoity, said he would ask Moscow to set up a military base on his territory. In the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali there were scenes of jubilation while residents in Abkhazia took to the streets to celebrate the news, firing into the air. "We feel happy," said Aida Gabaz, a 38-year-old lawyer in the Abkhaz capital Sukhumi. "We all have tears in our eyes. We feel pride for our people." 'New understanding' Earlier on Tuesday, Russia cancelled a visit by Nato's secretary general, one of a series of measures to suspend co-operation with the military alliance.
Russia's ambassador to Nato said the trip would be delayed until relations between the two were clarified. Dmitry Rogozin said a "new understanding" needed to be reached between Russia and Nato. The BBC's Humphrey Hawksley, in Moscow, says the recognition is bound to dramatically heighten tensions in Russia's already fragile relationship with the West. He says this and a series of other announcements indicate that Russia is preparing itself for a showdown. Although most of Russia's forces pulled out of the rest of Georgia last Friday, it is maintaining a presence both within the two rebel regions and in buffer zones imposed round their boundaries. Port control Some Russian troops also continue to operate near the Black Sea port of Poti, south of Abkhazia, where Russia says it will carry out regular inspections of cargo. HAVE YOUR SAY Russia is right to recognise South Ossetia and guarantee its security Branco, Bulgaria The US said on Tuesday that its warships would deliver aid to Georgia's port of Poti, which is under Russian control. The move could mean US and Russian forces coming face to face. Earlier, the head of European security organisation, the OSCE, Alexander Stubb, accused Russia of trying to empty South Ossetia of Georgians. Speaking to the BBC's Europe Today programme, he said: "They are clearly trying to empty southern Ossetia from Georgians, which I don't think goes by any of the books that we deal with in international relations". At a checkpoint in South Ossetia, the BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse said a South Ossetian commander said many Georgian civilians had already left of their own accord, because they were scared of the guns. | ||||||
This is an unconcealed annexation of these territories, which are a part of Georgia 
Wednesday, August 20, 2008
More prescient analysis by PaulCraig Roberts
The Neocons Do Georgia
Paul Craig Roberts
The success of the Bush Regime's propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.
As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag.
It certainly worked with Americans.
The gullibility and unconcern of the American people has had many victims. There are 1.25 million dead Iraqis. There are 4 million displaced Iraqis. No one knows how many are maimed and orphaned.
Iraq is in ruins, its infrastructure destroyed by American bombs, missiles, and helicopter gunships.
We do not know the death toll in Afghanistan, but even the American puppet regime protests the repeated killings of women and children by US and NATO troops.
We don't know what the death toll would be in Iran if Darth Cheney and the neocons succeed in their plot with Israel to bomb Iran, perhaps with nuclear weapons.
What we do know is that all this murder and destruction has no justification and is evil. It is the work of evil men who have no qualms about lying and deceiving in order to kill innocent people to achieve their undeclared agenda.
That such evil people have control over the United States government and media damns the American public for eternity.
America will never recover from the shame and dishonor heaped upon her by the neoconned Bush Regime.
The success of the neocon propaganda has been so great that the opposition party has not lifted a finger to rein in the Bush Regime's criminal actions. Even Obama, who promises "change" is too intimidated by the neocon's success in brainwashing the American population to do what his supporters hoped he would do and lead us out of the shame in which the neoconned Bush Regime has imprisoned us.
This about sums up the pessimistic state in which I existed prior to the go-ahead given by the Bush Regime to its puppet in Georgia to ethnically cleanse South Ossetia of Russians in order to defuse the separatist movement. The American media, aka, the Ministry of Lies and Deceit, again accommodated the criminal Bush Regime and proclaimed "Russian invasion" to cover up the ethnic cleansing of Russians in South Ossetia by the Georgian military assault.
Only this time, the rest of the world didn't buy it. The many years of lies--9/11, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda connections, yellowcake, anthrax attack, Iranian nukes, "the United States doesn't torture," the bombings of weddings, funerals, and children's soccer games, Abu Ghraib, renditions, Guantanamo, various fabricated "terrorist plots," the determined assault on civil liberties--have taken their toll on American credibility. No one outside America any longer believes the US media or the US government.
The rest of the world reported the facts--an assault on Russian civilians by American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian troops.
The Bush Regime, overcome by hubris, expected Russia to accept this act of American hegemony. But the Russians did not, and the Georgian military was sent fleeing for its life.
The neoconned Republican response to the Russian failure to follow the script and to be intimidated by the "unipower" was so imbecilic that it shattered the brainwashing to which Americans had succumbed.
McCain declared: "In the 21st century nations don't invade other nations." Imagine the laughs Jon Stewart will get out of this on the Daily Show. In the early years of the 21st century the United States has already invaded two countries and has been beating the drums for attacking a third. President Bush, the chief invader of the 21st century, echoed McCain's claim that nations don't invade other nations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7556857.stm
This dissonant claim shocked even brainwashed Americans, as readers' emails reveal. If in the 21st century countries don't invade other countries, what is Bush doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what are the naval armadas and propaganda arrayed against Iran about?
Have two of the worst warmongers of modern times--Bush and McCain--called off the US/Israeli attack on Iran? If McCain is elected president, is he going to pull US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan as "nations don't invade other nations," or is President Bush going to beat him to it?
We all know the answer.
The two stooges are astonished that the Americans have taught hegemony to Russians, who were previously operating, naively perhaps, on the basis of good will.
Suddenly the Western Europeans have realized that being allied with the United States is like holding a tiger by the tail. No European country wants to be hurled into war with Russia. Germany, France, and Italy must be thanking God they blocked Georgia's membership in NATO.
The Ukraine, where a sick nationalism has taken hold funded by the neocon National Endowment for Democracy, will be the next conflict between American pretensions and Russia. Russia is being taught by the neocons that freeing the constituent parts of its empire has not resulted in their independence but in their absorption into the American Empire.
Unless enough Americans can overcome their brainwashed state and the rigged Diebold voting machines, turn out the imbecilic Republicans and hold the neoconservatives accountable for their crimes against humanity, a crazed neocon US government will provoke nuclear war with Russia.
The neoconservatives represent the greatest danger ever faced by the United States and the world. Humanity has no greater enemy.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:
PaulCraigRoberts@yahoo.com
Original article posted here.
Paul Craig Roberts
The success of the Bush Regime's propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.
As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag.
It certainly worked with Americans.
The gullibility and unconcern of the American people has had many victims. There are 1.25 million dead Iraqis. There are 4 million displaced Iraqis. No one knows how many are maimed and orphaned.
Iraq is in ruins, its infrastructure destroyed by American bombs, missiles, and helicopter gunships.
We do not know the death toll in Afghanistan, but even the American puppet regime protests the repeated killings of women and children by US and NATO troops.
We don't know what the death toll would be in Iran if Darth Cheney and the neocons succeed in their plot with Israel to bomb Iran, perhaps with nuclear weapons.
What we do know is that all this murder and destruction has no justification and is evil. It is the work of evil men who have no qualms about lying and deceiving in order to kill innocent people to achieve their undeclared agenda.
That such evil people have control over the United States government and media damns the American public for eternity.
America will never recover from the shame and dishonor heaped upon her by the neoconned Bush Regime.
The success of the neocon propaganda has been so great that the opposition party has not lifted a finger to rein in the Bush Regime's criminal actions. Even Obama, who promises "change" is too intimidated by the neocon's success in brainwashing the American population to do what his supporters hoped he would do and lead us out of the shame in which the neoconned Bush Regime has imprisoned us.
This about sums up the pessimistic state in which I existed prior to the go-ahead given by the Bush Regime to its puppet in Georgia to ethnically cleanse South Ossetia of Russians in order to defuse the separatist movement. The American media, aka, the Ministry of Lies and Deceit, again accommodated the criminal Bush Regime and proclaimed "Russian invasion" to cover up the ethnic cleansing of Russians in South Ossetia by the Georgian military assault.
Only this time, the rest of the world didn't buy it. The many years of lies--9/11, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda connections, yellowcake, anthrax attack, Iranian nukes, "the United States doesn't torture," the bombings of weddings, funerals, and children's soccer games, Abu Ghraib, renditions, Guantanamo, various fabricated "terrorist plots," the determined assault on civil liberties--have taken their toll on American credibility. No one outside America any longer believes the US media or the US government.
The rest of the world reported the facts--an assault on Russian civilians by American and Israeli trained and equipped Georgian troops.
The Bush Regime, overcome by hubris, expected Russia to accept this act of American hegemony. But the Russians did not, and the Georgian military was sent fleeing for its life.
The neoconned Republican response to the Russian failure to follow the script and to be intimidated by the "unipower" was so imbecilic that it shattered the brainwashing to which Americans had succumbed.
McCain declared: "In the 21st century nations don't invade other nations." Imagine the laughs Jon Stewart will get out of this on the Daily Show. In the early years of the 21st century the United States has already invaded two countries and has been beating the drums for attacking a third. President Bush, the chief invader of the 21st century, echoed McCain's claim that nations don't invade other nations. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7556857.stm
This dissonant claim shocked even brainwashed Americans, as readers' emails reveal. If in the 21st century countries don't invade other countries, what is Bush doing in Iraq and Afghanistan, and what are the naval armadas and propaganda arrayed against Iran about?
Have two of the worst warmongers of modern times--Bush and McCain--called off the US/Israeli attack on Iran? If McCain is elected president, is he going to pull US troops out of Iraq and Afghanistan as "nations don't invade other nations," or is President Bush going to beat him to it?
We all know the answer.
The two stooges are astonished that the Americans have taught hegemony to Russians, who were previously operating, naively perhaps, on the basis of good will.
Suddenly the Western Europeans have realized that being allied with the United States is like holding a tiger by the tail. No European country wants to be hurled into war with Russia. Germany, France, and Italy must be thanking God they blocked Georgia's membership in NATO.
The Ukraine, where a sick nationalism has taken hold funded by the neocon National Endowment for Democracy, will be the next conflict between American pretensions and Russia. Russia is being taught by the neocons that freeing the constituent parts of its empire has not resulted in their independence but in their absorption into the American Empire.
Unless enough Americans can overcome their brainwashed state and the rigged Diebold voting machines, turn out the imbecilic Republicans and hold the neoconservatives accountable for their crimes against humanity, a crazed neocon US government will provoke nuclear war with Russia.
The neoconservatives represent the greatest danger ever faced by the United States and the world. Humanity has no greater enemy.
Paul Craig Roberts was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury in the Reagan administration. He was Associate Editor of the Wall Street Journal editorial page and Contributing Editor of National Review. He is coauthor of The Tyranny of Good Intentions.He can be reached at:
Original article posted here.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Saturday, August 16, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
American ignorance and the New Cold War
Washington's Laughable Lack of Self-Awareness |
| Doug Bandow |
| The remarks by Zalmay Khalilzad, America's UN ambassador, denouncing Russian aggression against that paragon of democratic virtue, the Republic of Georgia, are almost too funny to quote. U.S. government hypocrisy obviously is not new, but Washington's inconsistency on this occasion is more spectacular than usual. Proving yet again that history has not ended, last week Georgia launched a blitzkrieg against the autonomous territory of South Ossetia in an attempt to coerce its inhabitants back under Tbilisi's control. In a response foreseen by everyone except, apparently, Georgia's narcissistic president, Mikheil Saakashvili, Russia responded with overwhelming military force, pushing back the Georgian troops – who had killed and destroyed freely when attacking South Ossetia – and seizing parts of Georgia. Tbilisi essentially sued for peace, and a cease-fire has been agreed to. This is a fight in which the U.S. has no stake. Georgia was part of the Soviet Union for 70 years. Not once did Washington worry about the strategic implications of Soviet control of the Caucasus. It need not worry about Russian influence in the Caucasus today. Admittedly, the Bush administration had dreams of dominating Russia along its borders through NATO, just as the administration hopes to continue dominating China along its borders, through alliances with Japan and South Korea, an informal compact with Taiwan, and U.S. naval superiority. But Washington's imperial pretensions are not the same as America's genuine, let alone vital, security interests. If the U.S. could survive, even prosper, while the Soviet Union controlled the same piece of real estate, the U.S. can survive, even prosper, while Russia influences Georgia. The fact that President George W. Bush, would-be president John McCain, and their neocon camp followers want Washington to run the world doesn't justify forcing the American people to take the risk and waste the money attempting to do so. Nevertheless, the U.S. government found itself, rather like Captain Renault in Casablanca, to be shocked, shocked at the notion that a major power might take military action against a small neighbor in violation of international law to advance its perceived national interests. At a fractious United Nations session last weekend, Ambassador Khalilzad represented a shocked America desperately attempting to save the world from militarism, aggression, and war. He complained of Russian "aggression," especially the fact that "there has been an intensification of Russian military activity in the South Ossetian region" and that "Military operations against Georgian forces in the conflict zone have escalated dramatically." Further, "Russia has been attacking villages and cities elsewhere in Georgia, including threatening the Zug Didi region and air attacks against Tbilisi's airport. Russian military attacks have also destroyed critical Georgian infrastructure, including seaports, airports, and other facilities." Khalilzad pointed to the conflict's dire consequences: "[T]he result of this escalation against a sovereign state that has not posed direct threat to Russia, has increased casualties and humanitarian suffering for the people of Georgia, including in South Ossetia and Abkhazia." But Moscow was "intransigent" and refused "to stop the violence" even though Georgia "offered a cease-fire and restoration of the status quo." Moreover, "Russia continues to resist efforts by the international community to mediate this conflict." Finally, there was the issue of national sovereignty. Explained Khalilzad, "[W]e must condemn the Russian military assault in [sic] the sovereign state of Georgia, the violation of the countries [sic] sovereignty and territorial integrity including the targeting of civilians and the campaign of terror against the Georgian population. Similarly, we need to condemn the destruction of Georgian infrastructure and violations of the country's sovereignty and territorial integrity." Ambassador Khalilzad asked, "Was Russia's objective regime change in Georgia, the overthrow of the democratically elected government of that country?" After all, he contended, the bad old days of tossing out governments of other nations were over. Khalilzad's remarks have been echoed by others. For instance, the White House expressed its support for Georgia's "territorial integrity." Vice President Richard Cheney denounced "this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity." President George W. Bush said that Moscow's tactics were "unacceptable in the 21st century." Administration officials pointed to the 1968 invasion of Czechoslovakia and the 1979 invasion of Afghanistan as Soviet precedents for Russia's actions. Bill Clinton's old political consultant Dick Morris claimed that Russia's attack on Georgia was akin to Adolf Hitler's campaign to acquire the Sudetenland in Czechoslovakia. James Robbins of the American Foreign Policy Council also pointed to Nazi Germany's use of ethnic Germans as a justification for its aggression. Khalilzad's remarks, so full of moral outrage and personal umbrage, are almost a perfect parody of statesmanship, representing what a hypocritical, self-important, morally blind, arrogant, even hubristic, government would say when another power follows its example. My God! Can you imagine! Aggression! Attacks on civilians! Humanitarian suffering! Violations of national sovereignty! Regime change! No one does that anymore. Except the U.S., of course. Let's see. How far back should we go? There was the CIA-supported coup against Iran's (elected) government in 1953 that brought the shah to power. In 1963 Washington greenlighted the coup against South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem, which resulted in his execution. Of course, in those days, there were lots of back-room plots – some of which worked, some of which didn't – against lots of nations. But one effort continues to this day: For nearly a half century Washington has been attempting to overthrow Fidel Castro. In the 1980s the Reagan administration funded and armed a guerrilla force in an attempt to oust the Nicaraguan government. In 1983 the U.S. invaded Grenada to remove a government viewed as inimical to American interests. Six years later the U.S. invaded Panama to arrest its head of state. In Somalia in 1993 Washington decided to arrest local warlords – the de facto government – whom it disliked. In 1994 the U.S. not only ousted the existing Haitian government, but put a new regime in its place. A decade later the U.S. intervened to oust the same (elected) leader. In 1999 the U.S. and NATO launched a war against Serbia to give autonomy, and ultimately independence, to the territory of Kosovo, supporting a violent secessionist movement which then ethnically cleansed hundreds of thousands of Serbs. The U.S. backed an unsuccessful coup in 2002 against Venezuela's (elected) President Hugo Chavez. That same year President George W. Bush simultaneously targeted Iraq, Iran, and North Korea for regime change, terming them members of the "Axis of Evil." A year later he invaded Iraq and ousted Saddam Hussein. Even now, the administration is attempting to browbeat the (elected) government in Baghdad to accept scores of bases and a long-term troop presence for use against other countries in the region. Moreover, Washington has spent freely – directly, through "foreign aid," as well as indirectly, through subsidies to nominally independent institutes and other NGOs – to replace existing regimes with pro-American governments in Georgia in 2003 and Ukraine in 2004. My goodness, who would have imagined a big power using its military to violate the sovereignty of other nations and cause civilian casualties, just to advance its own interests? How could a government consider attempting to oust a smaller country's ruling regime? It's just not done anymore. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov asserted that "it is not a part of our political culture or foreign policy to topple anyone or put someone on a throne." But it is part of America's political culture and foreign policy to do so. The Russians just don't understand the rules. Washington's hypocrisy is particularly glaring when one considers the 1999 NATO attack on Serbia. It was, indisputably, a war of aggression against a nation that had done nothing against America or the Europeans. There had been no threats, let alone hostile acts. Rather, Serbia was engaged in the traditional, though brutal, business of suppressing an armed insurgency. Ask Great Britain about the Irish. Ask the Spanish about the Basques. Ask Turkey about the Kurds. Ask the Americans about the Confederacy. However, outraged by the spectacle of some 2,000 deaths over the preceding year or two, the Western alliance acted – without the sanction of international law, let alone the approval of the United Nations – to violate Serbia's "sovereignty and territorial integrity," in Khalilzad's words. Not only did the U.S. (which was responsible for most of the military action) bomb Serbian military forces in Kosovo, but it also attacked civilian targets and destroyed civilian infrastructure in Serbia, well outside of the nominal combat zone. The assaults cost the lives of thousands (even NATO admits 1,500) of noncombatants in Kosovo and Serbia, while the Serbian authorities retaliated by driving out hundreds of thousands of ethnic Albanians, causing enormous "humanitarian suffering," as Khalilzad put it. The allies rejected any idea of a compromise, since they viewed the status quo as unacceptable. They were not interested in outside (meaning Russian) mediation to end the conflict until they feared that Belgrade's refusal to surrender might force them to initiate a ground war. Only then was some compromise acceptable. Earlier this year the U.S. and the Europeans acted to formally amputate Kosovo from Serbia, seizing roughly 15 percent of that nation's territory, with nary a thought about the consequences for the tens of thousands of ethnic Serbs still living in Kosovo. The Russians responded to allied support for Kosovo's independence by observing that the precedent had wide applications, including in the Caucasus. Russia's UN Ambassador Vitaly Churkin countered Khalilzad, observing, "This statement, ambassador, is completely unacceptable, particularly from the lips of the permanent representative of a country whose actions we are aware of, including with regard to the civilian populations in Iraq and Afghanistan and Serbia." Washington set the example, several times over. So the Bush administration and its neocon Greek chorus now is filled with moral outrage because Russia intervened in a hostile bordering state that is carrying out a violent campaign against secessionists who have strong ties with Russia. Can anyone take Washington's supposed concerns seriously? Obviously, one can argue about the legitimacy of the Abkhazian and South Ossetian campaigns for self-determination, but they go back decades, if not centuries, and are far more than Russian creations. There's no doubt that Moscow has cheerfully used these controversies as an opportunity to apply brutal, deadly force to humble an obnoxious opponent, but Georgia is no international innocent. The country is an authoritarian democracy, with demagogic President Saakashvili playing the nationalist card to win political support and abusing his power to crack down on opposition media and politicians. He sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to win American support, not to selflessly battle the global menace of "Islamofascist" terrorism. Moreover, his attack on South Ossetia ended up, whether planned that way or not, as an attack on civilians. Although one should be wary of Russian claims of 1,400 South Ossetian civilians killed in the initial Georgian assault on the city of Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's capital – after all, the U.S. government shamelessly circulated fake atrocity stories during both the first Gulf War and the attack on Serbia – using artillery and rocket launchers against urban areas was no surgical strike. Tens of thousands of South Ossetians have become refugees as well. The gratitude of South Ossetians toward Moscow appears genuine – and, frankly, well-founded. The war is still bad for the same reason that all wars are bad: they visit death and destruction upon the innocent and guilty alike, and usually set in motion unpredictable forces that often generate even more death and destruction, sometimes years down the line. But the war may have a salutary effect if it convinces the West that it can no longer bulldoze Russia, ignoring Moscow's legitimate security and other interests. Expanding NATO up to Russia's borders, working to accomplish regime change in former constituent parts of the Soviet Union, and treating Moscow as of no account when changing borders in the Balkans might not be the conscious policy of encirclement as seen from Russia, but it's easy to understand why Moscow views America's policies with suspicion. In any case, these were not wise tactics to use to win Russia's assistance in, say, confronting Iran. The days of America as the unipower, global colossus, and master of the universe are over. It turns out there are consequences to actions, and the U.S. – as well as Georgia – is paying the price for having forgotten that reality. Is the war in the Caucasus tragic? Certainly. Should the U.S. encourage peaceful resolutions of the Russia-Georgia-South Ossetia conflicts? Surely. Should Washington promote the fantasy that Georgia is a democratic exemplar upholding its natural right to rule South Ossetia while holding off a dangerous revanchist Russia? No. And should U.S. government officials pretend that Moscow is the only aggressive, threatening, self-interested actor on the international stage? Not on your life. It's time for Washington's interventionist elite to take a good, hard look in the mirror. |
Love the country, but Lithuania's president would be well adviced to STFU
Georgian ally Lithuania slams Russia over ceasefire breaches
(VILNIUS) - Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus Thursday accused Russia of failing to honour a ceasefire in Georgia and said he was deeply concerned by continued fighting there.
Adamkus, a staunch ally of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, pointed to military action in the flashpoint Georgian city of Gori.
"This causes great concern as it is not clear whose orders the Russian troops are executing and why Russia does not honour the declared ceasefire," he said in a statement.
A ceasefire brokered earlier this week by France, which is at the helm of the 27-member European Union, formally ended five days of fighting between Russian and Georgian forces.
The Baltic state of Lithuania has been pressing for a get-tough Western stance towards Russia over its offensive, which began last week after Tbilisi's troops attacked a pro-Russian breakaway region of Georgia to try to bring it back under government control.
Like Georgia, Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union until 1991 but in contrast with the troubled Caucasus republic it is now firmly anchored in the West, having joined NATO and the EU in 2004.
EU members have had trouble forging a common line on the conflict, with some members, including France and Germany, wary of ruining ties with a resurgent -- and energy rich -- Russia, while some central and eastern European members, including Lithuania, want a harder line.
Along with the leaders of ex-communist EU and NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Poland, Adamkus travelled to Tbilisi this week in a show of support for Saakashvili.
Adamkus' office said Thursday that the president believed it was essential for EU members and other Western states to deploy "a vast mission of peacekeepers, observers and other monitors who will record the illegal actions by Russian troops."
"Georgia's territorial integrity and the withdrawal of the occupation army must be the main objectives to be pursued by the international community after military actions are discontinued," it said.
Adamkus also expressed concern about Russian comments that ex-communist states would pay for supporting Georgia.
Russia's ambassador to Latvia, Alexander Veshnyakov, has warned them against criticising the Kremlin, saying "serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards."
On Thursday, Lithuania's Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas called the comments "worrying" and said he was taking them "very seriously".
Original article posted here.
(VILNIUS) - Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus Thursday accused Russia of failing to honour a ceasefire in Georgia and said he was deeply concerned by continued fighting there.
Adamkus, a staunch ally of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, pointed to military action in the flashpoint Georgian city of Gori.
"This causes great concern as it is not clear whose orders the Russian troops are executing and why Russia does not honour the declared ceasefire," he said in a statement.
A ceasefire brokered earlier this week by France, which is at the helm of the 27-member European Union, formally ended five days of fighting between Russian and Georgian forces.
The Baltic state of Lithuania has been pressing for a get-tough Western stance towards Russia over its offensive, which began last week after Tbilisi's troops attacked a pro-Russian breakaway region of Georgia to try to bring it back under government control.
Like Georgia, Lithuania was part of the Soviet Union until 1991 but in contrast with the troubled Caucasus republic it is now firmly anchored in the West, having joined NATO and the EU in 2004.
EU members have had trouble forging a common line on the conflict, with some members, including France and Germany, wary of ruining ties with a resurgent -- and energy rich -- Russia, while some central and eastern European members, including Lithuania, want a harder line.
Along with the leaders of ex-communist EU and NATO members Estonia, Latvia and Poland, Adamkus travelled to Tbilisi this week in a show of support for Saakashvili.
Adamkus' office said Thursday that the president believed it was essential for EU members and other Western states to deploy "a vast mission of peacekeepers, observers and other monitors who will record the illegal actions by Russian troops."
"Georgia's territorial integrity and the withdrawal of the occupation army must be the main objectives to be pursued by the international community after military actions are discontinued," it said.
Adamkus also expressed concern about Russian comments that ex-communist states would pay for supporting Georgia.
Russia's ambassador to Latvia, Alexander Veshnyakov, has warned them against criticising the Kremlin, saying "serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards."
On Thursday, Lithuania's Foreign Minister Petras Vaitiekunas called the comments "worrying" and said he was taking them "very seriously".
Original article posted here.
Thursday, August 14, 2008
The death of law and Russia's rise
Putin's war enablers: Bush and Cheney
Russia's escalating war on Georgia reveals the consequences of the Bush administration's long assault on the international rule of law.By Juan Cole
Aug. 14, 2008 | The run-up to the current chaos in the Caucasus should look quite familiar: Russia acted unilaterally rather than going through the U.N. Security Council. It used massive force against a small, weak adversary. It called for regime change in a country that had defied Moscow. It championed a separatist movement as a way of asserting dominance in a region it coveted.
Indeed, despite George W. Bush and Dick Cheney's howls of outrage at Russian aggression in Georgia and the disputed province of South Ossetia, the Bush administration set a deep precedent for Moscow's actions -- with its own systematic assault on international law over the past seven years. Now, the administration's condemnations of Russia ring hollow.
Bush said on Monday, responding to reports that Russia might attack the Georgian capital, "It now appears that an effort may be under way to depose [Georgia's] duly elected government. Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century." By Wednesday, with more Russian troops on the move and a negotiated cease-fire quickly unraveling, Bush stepped up the rhetoric, announcing a sizable humanitarian-aid mission to Georgia and dispatching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region.
While U.S. leaders have tended to back Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, there are two sides to every dispute, and in the ethnically diverse Caucasus it may be more like a hundred sides. Abkhazia and Ossetia are claimed by Georgia, but they have their own distinctive languages, cultures and national aspirations. Both fought for independence in the early 1990s, without success, though neither was Georgia able to assert its full sovereignty over them, accepting Russian mediation and peacekeeping troops.
The separatist leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia now speak of Saakashvili in terms reminiscent of the way separatists in Darfur speak of Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir. Sergei Bagapsh of Abkhazia and Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia have come out against conducting any further talks with Georgia, calling instead for Saakashvili to be tried for war crimes. Kokoity told Interfax, "There can be no talks with the organizers of genocide." The Russian press is full of talk of putting Saakashvili on trial for ordering attacks on Ossetian civilians.
All sides have committed massacres and behaved abominably. There are no clean hands involved, notwithstanding the strong support for Georgia visible in the press of most NATO member countries. (Georgia has been jockeying to join NATO, something Moscow stridently opposes.) Still, not everyone in NATO agrees that Saakashvili is a hero. While traveling with the negotiating team of President Nicolas Sarkozy, one French official observed that "Saakashvili was crazy enough to go in the middle of the night and bomb a city" in South Ossetia. The consequence of Russia's riposte, he said, is "a Georgia attacked, pulverized, through its own fault."
An emboldened Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin sarcastically likened Russia's actions to Bush's foreign policy. Pointing to the invasion of Iraq and the overthrow of Saddam Hussein, Putin said, "Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages ... And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed 10 Ossetian villages at once, who ran over elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilians alive in their sheds -- these leaders must be taken under protection."
In the run-up to the Iraq war, Bush officials repeated ad nauseam the mantra that Saddam Hussein had killed his own people. Thus, they helped create a case for unilateral "humanitarian intervention" of the sort Putin says Russia is now pursuing. Washington had failed to get a U.N. Security Council resolution authorizing a war on Iraq, and Iraq had not attacked the United States, so no principle of self-defense was at stake. But since all governments (even the United States under Abraham Lincoln) repress separatist movements, often ruthlessly, Bush was turning actions such as Saakashvili's attack on South Ossetia into a more legitimate cause for an outside power (especially one bordering it) to wage war against Georgia.
Indeed, Putin's invoking Bush's Iraq adventure points directly to the way in which Bush has enabled other world powers to act impulsively. With his doctrine of preemptive warfare, Bush single-handedly tore down the architecture of post-World War II international law erected by the founders of the United Nations to ensure that rogue states did not go about launching wars of aggression the way Hitler had. While safeguarding minorities at risk is a praiseworthy goal, the U.N. Charter states that the Security Council must approve a war launched for this purpose or any other, excepting self-defense. No individual nation is authorized to wage aggressive war on a vigilante basis, as Bush did in Iraq or Russia is now doing in the Caucasus.
Eight years ago, the United States would have been in a position to condemn Russia for its unilateral war without necessarily seeming hypocritical. After all, even the Korean War had been sanctioned by the United Nations, and President Dwight Eisenhower had condemned the 1956 tripartite attack on Egypt by Britain, France and Israel for violating the U.N. Charter.
Bush's recent argument, that a democratically elected government should not be overthrown (no matter what its behavior, apparently), was intended to sidestep comparisons between his own unilateral wars of aggression and ones such as the current Russian intervention. He was implying that his invasion of Iraq toppled a government that lacked the legitimacy enjoyed by Saakashvili's.
In fact, Bush's foreign policy includes a long list of actions intended to undermine elected governments.
Whether the United States was actively involved in the attempted coup in 2002 against Hugo Chavez, the democratically elected president of Venezuela, or merely cheered it on, it is clear that Venezuelan popular sovereignty meant nothing to Bush if it resulted in a government unfriendly to and critical of Washington.
An even more egregious example came with the destabilization and overthrow of the Hamas government, which won control of the Palestine Authority in January 2006. Bush insisted on allowing the participation in elections of Hamas, a fundamentalist party with a covert paramilitary that has struck at Israeli targets, including civilians. When the party unexpectedly won, however, Bush refused to recognize the legitimacy of the new government, denying it funds and sympathizing with the Israeli attempt to overthrow it. Israeli security forces kidnapped elected Hamas representatives and cabinet ministers, and harmed civilians by blocking medical aid and food that might go to people via the Hamas government.
In 2007, Bush and the Israelis supported a takeover in the West Bank by forces of the Palestine Liberation Organization, lead by Palestine Authority President Mahmoud Abbas. Similar attempts were made in Gaza, but they failed, leaving the elected Hamas government in charge of the small territory. Palestinian popular sovereignty, and Hamas' victory in what were widely judged to have been relatively free and fair elections, were disregarded by Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Bush.
Bush and Cheney also repeatedly sided with military dictator Pervez Musharraf against elected civilian politicians in Pakistan. Even when the Pakistani Parliament, elected in open polls last February, initiated impeachment proceedings against Musharraf earlier this week, the Bush administration came out against the idea of Musharraf's going into exile if convicted, urging that he be allowed to stay "honorably" in Pakistan if he stepped down.
Bush's exceptionalism, whereby he implicitly maintained that no international laws or institutions would be allowed to constrain U.S. actions taken in the name of national security, grew out of the sole superpower status of the United States after fall of the Soviet Union. A unipolar world is, however, an exceedingly rare circumstance in modern world history, and it was unlikely to last very long. China may soon have the economic and technological clout to go toe to toe with the United States; and Russia, fueled by the energy boom, is recovering from its economic disaster of the 1990s.
The collapse of the Soviet economy produced tremendous misery and downward mobility. Uncertainty made couples unwilling to risk having children. In one of the great demographic reversals in history, the Russian Federation's population fell by 10 million in the years after 1991. Russian need for U.S. foreign aid and goodwill led Moscow to acquiesce for a time in the expansion of U.S. influence into Eastern Europe and Central Asia.
Russia is now reemerging and flexing its muscles. The run-up in the price of oil and gas has filled Moscow's coffers, since it is one of the great producers of natural gas in the world (prices of natural gas tend to track with those of petroleum). Russia has reasserted its influence in countries such as Uzbekistan, which had briefly licensed a base to U.S. forces but then kicked them out, and in Turkmenistan, which recently agreed to pipe its natural gas through Moscow. Russian President Dmitri Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are increasingly acting like Gulf emirs, flush with petrodollars and assured of political leverage because of their control over energy resources.
In a unipolar world, the Bush doctrine of preemptive war allowed Washington to assert itself without fear of contradiction. The Bush doctrine, however, was never meant to be emulated by others and was therefore implicitly predicated on the notion that all challengers would be weaker than the United States throughout the 21st century. Bush and Cheney are now getting a glimpse of a multipolar world in which other powers can adopt their modus operandi with impunity. Bush's rhetoric may have sounded like that of President Woodrow Wilson, but his policy has often been to support the overthrow or hobbling of elected governments that he does not like -- and that has not gone unnoticed by countries that also count themselves great powers and would not mind following suit.
The problem with international law for a superpower is that it is a constraint on overweening ambition. Its virtue is that it constrains the aggressive ambitions of others. Bush gutted it because he thought the United States would not need it anytime soon. But Russia is now demonstrating that the Bush doctrine can just as easily be the Putin doctrine. And that leaves America less secure in a world of vigilante powers that spout rhetoric about high ideals to justify their unchecked military interventions. It is the world that Bush has helped build.
-- By Juan Cole
Original article posted here.
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