Pipsqueak creates crisis
Georgia's attack on South Ossetia sets Russia and the U.S. on a dangerous course
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Pipsqueak Georgia's harebrained and disastrous attack on tiny South Ossetia has produced a full-blown crisis pitting the U.S. and NATO against Russia.
In an act fraught with danger, U.S. and NATO warships are delivering supplies to Georgia, watched by Russian men of war. The U.S. Congress may soon vote $1 billion for America's embattled Georgian satellite.
The western powers have resorted to fierce Cold War rhetoric. They are playing with fire. Russia has some 6,600 strategic nuclear weapons, mostly aimed at North America and Europe. Besides the U.S., which invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose air force just killed 90 Afghan civilians, 60 of them children, is in no position to lecture Moscow about aggression.
France's conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy, blasted Russia and shortly will hold a European summit over Georgia in Brussels. As usual, the Harper government faithfully echoed Washington's words.
Poland agreed to emplace a U.S. anti-ballistic missile system only 184 km from Russia's border, provoking Moscow's fury. Ukraine and Poland are loudly backing Georgia.
Russia's chief of staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, warns his nation has the right to launch a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" against enemies, in line, he tartly noted, with the Bush administration's own policies.
Topping off this war of words, two of Sen. John McCain's closest right wing allies, senators Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, went to Georgia and called for "tough" measures against Moscow. They urged isolating Russia for "aggression" and admitting Ukraine and Georgia to NATO.
MCCAIN PREVIEW
McCain's allies give a good preview of what his foreign policy would look like. Lieberman and Graham, leading proponents of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, had the chutzpah to insist, "Russia must not be allowed to control energy supplies."
This ugly mess recalls how the great powers blundered into both the first and second world wars over obscure locales such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Danzig Corridor.
The obvious lesson: Act with extreme caution. Few are listening as rhetoric sharpens.
The Bush administration -- most likely VP Dick Cheney -- almost certainly planned or knew about Georgia's attack on Russian-backed South Ossetia launched under cover of the Beijing Olympics. Whether the White House was trying to inflict a quick little military victory over Moscow, or whipping up war fever at home to boost John McCain's prospects in the presidential election, is uncertain.
This crisis over a mere 70,000 South Ossetians and 18,000 Abkhazians could have been resolved quietly by diplomacy. Instead, the Bush administration turned it into a major confrontation by accusing Russia of aggression.
Washington, which rightly recognized the independence of Kosovo's Albanians from Serb repression, denounced Russia's recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence from Georgian repression. Meanwhile, Moscow, which crushed the life out of Chechnya's independence movement, piously claimed to be defending Ossetian independence.
Things may get worse. The U.S. is pressing Ukraine to join NATO, though half of its 48 million citizens oppose doing so. Ukraine's constitution mandates a neutral state. Russia allowed Ukraine to decamp from the Soviet Union with the understanding it would never join NATO, and allow Russia's Black Sea Fleet to operate from Crimea.
Russian political expert Sergei Markov rightly notes that Washington and NATO see Ukraine as a rich new source of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, wars from which he says NATO leaders cannot withdraw their soldiers without committing "political suicide."
"Old Europe" is trying to avoid a clash with Moscow, while "new Europe" -- Georgia, Poland, the Czechs, and Balts -- frightened of Russia's growing power, eggs on the U.S.-Russia confrontation.
Not only did the clumsy U.S. attempt to expand its influence into Moscow's backyard backfire badly, Washington's childish, petulant response is as inflammatory as it is powerless. The Georgian crisis and empty threats against Russia have aroused strong nationalist passions in Russia, which sees itself increasingly isolated and surrounded by the U.S. and NATO.
Nationalist hysteria, jingoism, and fevered rhetoric are coming from both sides. We saw such lunacy before: In August 1914, and September 1939.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2008/08/30/6619621-sun.php
Georgia's attack on South Ossetia sets Russia and the U.S. on a dangerous course
By ERIC MARGOLIS
Pipsqueak Georgia's harebrained and disastrous attack on tiny South Ossetia has produced a full-blown crisis pitting the U.S. and NATO against Russia.
In an act fraught with danger, U.S. and NATO warships are delivering supplies to Georgia, watched by Russian men of war. The U.S. Congress may soon vote $1 billion for America's embattled Georgian satellite.
The western powers have resorted to fierce Cold War rhetoric. They are playing with fire. Russia has some 6,600 strategic nuclear weapons, mostly aimed at North America and Europe. Besides the U.S., which invaded Afghanistan and Iraq, and whose air force just killed 90 Afghan civilians, 60 of them children, is in no position to lecture Moscow about aggression.
France's conservative president, Nicolas Sarkozy, blasted Russia and shortly will hold a European summit over Georgia in Brussels. As usual, the Harper government faithfully echoed Washington's words.
Poland agreed to emplace a U.S. anti-ballistic missile system only 184 km from Russia's border, provoking Moscow's fury. Ukraine and Poland are loudly backing Georgia.
Russia's chief of staff, Gen. Yuri Baluyevsky, warns his nation has the right to launch a "pre-emptive nuclear strike" against enemies, in line, he tartly noted, with the Bush administration's own policies.
Topping off this war of words, two of Sen. John McCain's closest right wing allies, senators Joseph Lieberman and Lindsey Graham, went to Georgia and called for "tough" measures against Moscow. They urged isolating Russia for "aggression" and admitting Ukraine and Georgia to NATO.
MCCAIN PREVIEW
McCain's allies give a good preview of what his foreign policy would look like. Lieberman and Graham, leading proponents of the U.S. occupation of Iraq, had the chutzpah to insist, "Russia must not be allowed to control energy supplies."
This ugly mess recalls how the great powers blundered into both the first and second world wars over obscure locales such as Bosnia-Herzegovina and the Danzig Corridor.
The obvious lesson: Act with extreme caution. Few are listening as rhetoric sharpens.
The Bush administration -- most likely VP Dick Cheney -- almost certainly planned or knew about Georgia's attack on Russian-backed South Ossetia launched under cover of the Beijing Olympics. Whether the White House was trying to inflict a quick little military victory over Moscow, or whipping up war fever at home to boost John McCain's prospects in the presidential election, is uncertain.
This crisis over a mere 70,000 South Ossetians and 18,000 Abkhazians could have been resolved quietly by diplomacy. Instead, the Bush administration turned it into a major confrontation by accusing Russia of aggression.
Washington, which rightly recognized the independence of Kosovo's Albanians from Serb repression, denounced Russia's recognition of Abkhaz and South Ossetian independence from Georgian repression. Meanwhile, Moscow, which crushed the life out of Chechnya's independence movement, piously claimed to be defending Ossetian independence.
Things may get worse. The U.S. is pressing Ukraine to join NATO, though half of its 48 million citizens oppose doing so. Ukraine's constitution mandates a neutral state. Russia allowed Ukraine to decamp from the Soviet Union with the understanding it would never join NATO, and allow Russia's Black Sea Fleet to operate from Crimea.
Russian political expert Sergei Markov rightly notes that Washington and NATO see Ukraine as a rich new source of troops for Iraq and Afghanistan, wars from which he says NATO leaders cannot withdraw their soldiers without committing "political suicide."
"Old Europe" is trying to avoid a clash with Moscow, while "new Europe" -- Georgia, Poland, the Czechs, and Balts -- frightened of Russia's growing power, eggs on the U.S.-Russia confrontation.
Not only did the clumsy U.S. attempt to expand its influence into Moscow's backyard backfire badly, Washington's childish, petulant response is as inflammatory as it is powerless. The Georgian crisis and empty threats against Russia have aroused strong nationalist passions in Russia, which sees itself increasingly isolated and surrounded by the U.S. and NATO.
Nationalist hysteria, jingoism, and fevered rhetoric are coming from both sides. We saw such lunacy before: In August 1914, and September 1939.
http://www.torontosun.com/News/Columnists/Margolis_Eric/2008/08/30/6619621-sun.php
