Posts Tagged ‘Israel’
Arab world sees Bush’s response to Georgia-Russia crisis as hypocritical
Arab world sees Bush’s response to Georgia-Russia crisis as hypocritical
The U.S. president should be ‘too ashamed to speak about the occupation of any country, he is already occupying one,’ one observer says.
By Jeffrey Fleishman, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
CAIRO — President Bush’s condemnation of Russia as a bullying intimidator in the Georgian conflict struck a hypocritical note in a Middle East that has endured violent reverberations from the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq, and where the sharp White House rhetoric against Moscow echoes what many Arabs feel in turn about the U.S.
Many in the region are angered by what they see as the president’s swaggering style and frequent veiled threats of military force. His administration has been accused of alienating Muslims and instigating turmoil in a misguided war on terrorism.
Now Bush’s spirited criticism of Russia’s invasion of neighboring Georgia has raised derisive smirks among Arab commentators, who say the U.S. president is condemning the same power politics he practices.
Bush should be “too ashamed to speak about the occupation of any country, he is already occupying one,” said Mohammed Sayed Said, editor in chief of the Egyptian independent daily Al Badeel. “U.S. forces have been in Iraq for five years and they still fight in an unacceptable manner that violates human rights conventions. Bush had better talk about his own occupation of Iraq.”
Bitterness and suspicion toward Washington are easily summoned, from Cairo to Beirut to Baghdad. The Iraq war, the sense of drift over the Palestinian question, and Washington’s perceived failure to pay more than lip-service to promoting democracy and human rights have all undermined American standing.
The conflict in Georgia is Russia’s largest military engagement outside its borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Read more > > >
• Comparative size of Russian, Georgian armed forces
Details of how Georgian and Russian armed forces compare. Read more > > >
• Complete coverage of the Conflict in the Caucasus • Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili helped oust former Soviet Foreign Minister and Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze in the 2003 to became Europe’s youngest leader.
• Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is the 3rd and current president of Russia. He won the presidential election held on March 2, 2008 with about 70% of the vote.
• Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, an intelligence officer and politician, served as the country’s president from 1999 to 2008.
It is also widely noted here that Washington stood by uncritically during Israel’s military incursion into southern Lebanon in its 2006 war with Hezbollah.
So when Bush declared Friday that “bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century,” many dismissed his statement as a double standard.
“The U.S. administration is stumbling in the Middle East without considering any horizons for the future,” said Sateh Noureddine, political analyst and columnist at the Lebanese daily As Safir. “It is totally obsessed with the idea of its war against terrorism and this makes it lose even in the simplest political sense.
“The U.S. administration has done more harm to its allies in Georgia and the Middle East than to its enemies.”
But the Arab view is not solely driven by what goes on in the region. Some see a game of disingenuous revisionism in the administration’s backing of an independent ethnic-Albanian Kosovo — part of Serbia until this year — and its anger at Russia for sending troops into the Georgian separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Moscow says its tanks and battalions entered the former Soviet republic to stop atrocities committed by Georgian troops and paramilitaries against Russian sympathizers.
“Bush did not realize that by intervening heavily in other countries’ affairs, he would give the same right to other players,” said Gamal Abdel Gawad, an analyst with Al Ahram Center for Political and Strategic Studies in Cairo. “The U.S. had no problem to interfere and separate provinces from bigger states like it did with Kosovo.
“This is exactly what Russia is doing now: intervening to prevent the annexation of certain provinces to Georgia. Russia is using the same logic that the U.S. used.”
Others have a nuanced view of Bush’s motivations. Iraqi Deputy Foreign Minister Labeed Abbawi said there was no comparison between Russia’s actions in Georgia and the U.S. assault on his country.
“In Iraq we were dealing with a fascist government, which was hated by all Iraqis because of the suffering that was inflicted on them,” he said. “Saddam Hussein’s regime threatened regional stability and made war with neighboring countries.”
But the prevailing street-level opinion is simply that this is how big powers behave, with Russia acting the same way the U.S. would.
“Why should Bush care what Russia does to Georgia unless he or his administration has an interest in the issue to start with?” said Mohammed Abdullah, an Iraqi electrician. “The news is saying that the Americans trained the Georgians and apparently wanted them to join NATO. I can’t blame the Russians for doing what they’re doing. There’s a threat in their immediate vicinity and they decided to take care of it.
“What would the United States do if suddenly Mexico became an Iranian or Russian ally? They’d crush every last Mexican one way or another.”
jeffrey.fleishman
LaRouche : Poutine a infligé une défaite décisive à l’Empire britannique
LaRouche : Poutine a infligé une défaite décisive à l’Empire britannique
En agissant pour défendre les citoyens russes contre l’attaque de type terroriste menée par le gouvernement Soros de Géorgie, le Premier ministre russe Vladimir Poutine a infligé une défaite décisive à l’Empire britannique, a déclaré Lyndon LaRouche. Toute capitulation russe face à cette agression criminelle du gouvernement fantoche de Mikhail Saakashvili aurait été dramatique pour le monde.
Ce qu’a fait Poutine était objectivement nécessaire, a-t-il poursuivi. Il a eu absolument raison. Lui et le Président Medvedev ont compris que l’Empire britannique, avec son appendice américain et son agent George Soros, cherchait à consolider son empire mondial. Les Britanniques, et Poutine, savaient que la Russie, avec sa capacité thermonucléaire, était le seul obstacle à leur plan. Si la Russie s’était soumise aux termes dictés par les britanniques, le monde serait parti pour une 3e Guerre mondiale.
Poutine a donc décidé qu’il devait mettre une limite. Il a agit de manière décisive et a fait reculer les Britanniques et les Etats-Unis. En conséquence, le gouvernement fantoche de Géorgie a été détruit et un message a été envoyé au monde.
Certains intellectuels britanniques ont bien reçu le message, a t-il dit, évoquant l’article de David Blair dans le Daily Telegraph de Londres du 12 août. « En saisissant l’occasion d’infliger à la Géorgie des frappes aériennes et des incursions militaires, le Premier ministre russe Vladimir Poutine envoie un message catégorique, de portée mondiale. Le rideau est tombé sur l’ère où l’OTAN s’étendait continuellement en Europe de l’Est jusqu’à englober les anciennes républiques soviétiques, et où la Russie ne pouvait répondre que par des postures (…) l’équilibre des puissances en Europe a fondamentalement changé (…) », écrit le rédacteur diplomatique du Telegraph.
La Russie faisait face à une attaque sournoise à la Pearl Harbor, menée par les pions de Soros, et avec l’idée d’un nettoyage ethnique à la Hitler, a dit LaRouche. Poutine a vu cette menace existentielle pour la Russie et où elle pouvait mener, et il a agit comme Roosevelt l’a fait après Pearl Harbor. Il savait que s’il ne le faisait pas, l’Empire britannique, qui fait face à la dissolution de son système financier mondial, aurait poussé jusqu’à l’affrontement mondial.
Les gesticulations stupides de l’administration Bush ne font que témoigner de l’efficacité de l’action de Poutine, a-t-il dit. En ce qui concerne les candidats présidentiels, rien ne sert d’espérer que Barack Obama revienne à la réalité puisqu’il est un laquais acheté et payé par George Soros. Quant à McCain, LaRouche a expliqué qu’il ferait mieux de s’asseoir, réfléchir et arrêter d’être bête, plutôt que de la ramener.
La réponse russe à la provocation géorgienne est un point tournant, a-t-il conclut. Elle met un terme à près de 20 années d’assaut par l’Empire britannique, via Soros et d’autres organismes, pour tirer profit de l’effondrement soviétique et consolider son empire mondial. Pendant ce temps là, les Américains, seul autre point de résistance réelle, ont capitulé tragiquement en négociant leur propre destruction, alors qu’ils refusaient de prendre en compte sérieusement la menace contre leur propre nation et le monde. Comment les américains peuvent-ils être aussi bête au point de tolérer George Bush ? Comment peuvent-ils laisser Soros choisir le candidat présidentiel démocrate ?
La clé de la victoire sur l’ennemi de l’humanité, l’Empire britannique, c’est de refuser la compromission sur les fondamentaux et de retourner les règles du jeu, a-t-il dit. C’est ce qu’a fait le Premier ministre Poutine, pour l’avantage du monde entier.
Certaines personnes en Grande-Bretagne ont reçu le message, a-t-il dit. Il est temps que les Américains fassent de même. Il est temps de détruire tout ce qui est associé avec l’Empire britannique, et particulièrement ses principaux agents, Al Gore et George Soros. Si ce n’est pas fait d’ici à l’élection de novembre, les Etats-Unis cesseront d’être.
http://www.solidariteetprogres.org
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Soutien américain à la Géorgie
Georges Bush, président américain a appelé au retrait des troupes russes de la Géorgie et a déclaré avoir dépêché la secrétaire d’Etat Condoleeza Rice à Tbilissi, comme signe de ferme soutien de Washington à ce pays. La secrétaire d’Etat Rice est partie jeudi pour Paris pour discuter ave Nicolas Sarkozy, président français, pour prendre ensuite le chemin de Tbilissi afin de s’entretenir avec le président Mikhaïl Saakachvili et le ministre géorgien des Affaires étrangères.
Dans une courte allocution à la Maison blanche, Bush a indiqué que les Etats-Unis étaient aux côtés du gouvernement géorgien et que l’intégrité territoriale de la Géorgie devait être respectée.
En critiquant virulemment Moscou pour avoir attaqué la Géorgie, le président américain a averti que cette action russe mettrait en danger les relations de la Russie avec l’Occident après la guerre froide.
Selon Bush, la Russie pour améliorer ses rapports détériorés avec les Etats-Unis, l’Europe et d’autres pays doit mettre verbalement et pratiquement fin à cette crise. Bush a ajouté que certains rapports contredisaient les affirmations russes sur l’arrêt des opérations militaires et la cessation des hostilités, et que Washington s’attendait à ce que la Russie respecte ses engagements et retire toutes ses troupes présentes sur le sol géorgien.
Bush a fait également état de ses conversations téléphoniques avec les présidents français et géorgien Sarkozy et Saakachvili. Par ailleurs, Condoleeza Rice a pour sa part menacé que si la Russie ne respectait pas le cessez-le feu, elle risquerait l’isolement international. Elle a ajouté que certains rapports sur la violation du cessez-le feu ne feraient qu’aggraver l’isolement de Moscou et donneraient l’impression que la Russie n’en faisait qu’à sa tête et n’agissait pas comme un partenaire international.
Les Etats-Unis, en plus de leur soutien politique, ont envoyé des aides à la Géorgie. Bush a annoncé l’envoi des aides humanitaires américaines, transportées par des avions C-17 à Tbilissi. Par Ailleurs, le Pentagone, est en train d’étudier les besoins en munitions de l’armée géorgienne, fortement atteinte dans la guerre de 4 jours. Moscou a réagi avec indignation à ces positions de Washington sur la Géorgie. Sergueï Lavrov, chef de la diplomatie russe a affirmé à ce sujet : il semble que les dirigeants de la Géorgie soient les facteurs de la réalisation un projet spécial américain, ajoutant que les Etats-Unis devaient choisir entre ce projet et une coopération réelle avec la Russie.
Selon un autre rapport, Condoleezza Rice a dit à Lavrov que les Etats-Unis soutenaient fermement la Géorgie, et que si Washington devait choisir, il choisira indubitablement de rester aux côtés de la Géorgie. Dana Perino, porte-parole de la Maison Blanche en rejetant toute tension dans les relations Moscou-Washington a déclaré que ces relations étaient devenues trop compliquées.
IRIB
The American Military Crisis
The American Military Crisis
All you really need to know is that, at Robert Gates’ Pentagon, they’re still high on the term “the Long War.” It’s a phrase that first crept into our official vocabulary back in 2002 but was popularized by CENTCOM commander John Abizaid in 2004 – already a fairly long (war-)time ago. Now, Secretary of Defense Gates himself is plugging the term, as he did in April at the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, quoting no less an authority than Leon Trotsky:
“What has been called the Long War is likely to be many years of persistent, engaged combat all around the world in differing degrees of size and intensity. This generational campaign cannot be wished away or put on a timetable. There are no exit strategies. To paraphrase the Bolshevik Leon Trotsky, we may not be interested in the Long War, but the Long War is interested in us.”
The Long War has also made it front and center in the new “national defense strategy,” which is essentially a call to prepare for a future of two, three, many Afghanistans. (”For the foreseeable future, winning the Long War against violent extremist movements will be the central objective of the U.S.”) If you thought for a moment that in the next presidency some portion of those many billions of dollars now being sucked into the black holes of Iraq and Afghanistan was about to go into rebuilding American infrastructure or some other frivolous task, think again. Just read between the lines of that new national defense strategy document where funding for future conventional wars against “rising powers” is to be maintained, while funding for “irregular warfare” is to rise. The Pentagonization of the U.S., in other words, shows no sign of slowing down. Here, by the way, is the emphasis in the new Gates Doctrine – from a recent Pentagon briefing by the secretary of defense – that should make us all worry. “The principal challenge, therefore, is how to ensure that the capabilities gained and counterinsurgency lessons learned from Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as the lessons relearned from other places where we have engaged in irregular warfare over the last two decades, are institutionalized within the defense establishment.” Back to the future?
And here’s a riddle for our moment: How long is a Long War, when you’ve been there before (as were, in the case of Afghanistan, Alexander the Great, the imperial Brits, and the Soviets)? On the illusions of victory and the many miscalculations of the Bush administration when it came to the nature of American military power, no one in recent years has been more incisive than Andrew Bacevich, who experienced an earlier version of the Long War firsthand in Vietnam. His new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism, has just been published. Short, sharp, to the point, it should be the book of the election season, if only anyone in power, or who might come to power, were listening. (The following piece, the first of two parts this week at TomDispatch, is adapted from section three of that book, “The Military Crisis.”) But if you want the measure of our strange, dystopian moment, Barack Obama reportedly has a team of 300 foreign policy advisers – just about everyone ever found, however brain-dead, in a Democratic presidential rolodex – and yet Bacevich’s name isn’t among them. What else do we need to know? Tom
Illusions of Victory
How the United States did not reinvent war… but thought it did
by Andrew Bacevich
“War is the great auditor of institutions,” the historian Corelli Barnett once observed. Since 9/11, the United States has undergone such an audit and been found wanting. That adverse judgment applies in full to America’s armed forces.
Valor does not offer the measure of an army’s greatness, nor does fortitude, nor durability, nor technological sophistication. A great army is one that accomplishes its assigned mission. Since George W. Bush inaugurated his global war on terror, the armed forces of the United States have failed to meet that standard.
In the aftermath of Sept. 11, 2001, Bush conceived of a bold, offensive strategy, vowing to “take the battle to the enemy, disrupt his plans, and confront the worst threats before they emerge.” The military offered the principal means for undertaking this offensive, and U.S. forces soon found themselves engaged on several fronts.
Two of those fronts –- Afghanistan and Iraq – commanded priority attention. In each case, the assigned task was to deliver a knockout blow, leading to a quick, decisive, economical, politically meaningful victory. In each case, despite impressive displays of valor, fortitude, durability, and technological sophistication, America’s military came up short. The problem lay not with the level of exertion but with the results achieved.
In Afghanistan, U.S. forces failed to eliminate the leadership of al-Qaeda. Although they toppled the Taliban regime that had ruled most of that country, they failed to eliminate the Taliban movement, which soon began to claw its way back. Intended as a brief campaign, the Afghan War became a protracted one. Nearly seven years after it began, there is no end in sight. If anything, America’s adversaries are gaining strength. The outcome remains much in doubt.
In Iraq, events followed a similar pattern, with the appearance of easy success belied by subsequent developments. The U.S. invasion began on March 19, 2003. Six weeks later, against the backdrop of a White House-produced banner proclaiming “Mission Accomplished,” President Bush declared that “major combat operations in Iraq have ended.” This claim proved illusory.
Writing shortly after the fall of Baghdad, the influential neoconservatives David Frum and Richard Perle declared Operation Iraqi Freedom “a vivid and compelling demonstration of America’s ability to win swift and total victory.” Gen. Tommy Franks, commanding the force that invaded Iraq, modestly characterized the results of his handiwork as “unequaled in its excellence by anything in the annals of war.” In retrospect, such judgments – and they were legion – can only be considered risible. A war thought to have ended on April 9, 2003, in Baghdad’s al-Firdos Square was only just beginning. Fighting dragged on for years, exacting a cruel toll. Iraq became a reprise of Vietnam, although in some respects at least on a blessedly smaller scale.
A New American Way of War?
It wasn’t supposed to be this way. Just a few short years ago, observers were proclaiming that the United States possessed military power such as the world had never seen. Here was the nation’s strong suit. “The troops” appeared unbeatable. Writing in 2002, for example, Max Boot, a well-known commentator on military matters, attributed to the United States a level of martial excellence “that far surpasses the capabilities of such previous would-be hegemons as Rome, Britain, and Napoleonic France.” With U.S. forces enjoying “unparalleled strength in every facet of warfare,” allies, he wrote, had become an encumbrance: “We just don’t need anyone else’s help very much.”
Boot dubbed this the Doctrine of the Big Enchilada. Within a year, after U.S. troops had occupied Baghdad, he went further: America’s army even outclassed Germany’s Wehrmacht. The mastery displayed in knocking off Saddam, Boot gushed, made “fabled generals such as Erwin Rommel and Heinz Guderian seem positively incompetent by comparison.”
All of this turned out to be hot air. If the global war on terror has produced one undeniable conclusion, it is this: Estimates of U.S. military capabilities have turned out to be wildly overstated. The Bush administration’s misplaced confidence in the efficacy of American arms represents a strategic misjudgment that has cost the country dearly. Even in an age of stealth, precision weapons, and instant communications, armed force is not a panacea. Even in a supposedly unipolar era, American military power turns out to be quite limited.
How did it happen that Americans so utterly overappraised the utility of military power? The answer to that question lies at the intersection of three great illusions.
According to the first illusion, the United States during the 1980s and 1990s had succeeded in reinventing armed conflict. The result was to make force more precise, more discriminating, and potentially more humane. The Pentagon had devised a new American Way of War, investing its forces with capabilities unlike any the world had ever seen. As President Bush exuberantly declared shortly after the fall of Baghdad in April 2003, “We’ve applied the new powers of technology … to strike an enemy force with speed and incredible precision. By a combination of creative strategies and advanced technologies, we are redefining war on our terms. In this new era of warfare, we can target a regime, not a nation.”
The distinction between regime and nation was a crucial one. By employing these new military techniques, the United States could eliminate an obstreperous foreign leader and his cronies, while sparing the population over which that leader ruled. Putting a missile through the roof of a presidential palace made it unnecessary to incinerate an entire capital city, endowing force with hitherto undreamed-of political utility and easing ancient moral inhibitions on the use of force. Force had been a club; it now became a scalpel. By the time the president spoke, such sentiments had already become commonplace among many (although by no means all) military officers and national security experts.
Here lay a formula for certain victory. Confidence in military prowess both reflected and reinforced a post-Cold War confidence in the universality of American values. Harnessed together, they made a seemingly unstoppable one-two punch.
With that combination came expanded ambitions. In the 1990s, the very purpose of the Department of Defense changed. Sustaining American global preeminence, rather than mere national security, became its explicit function. In the most comprehensive articulation of this new American Way of War, the Joint Chiefs of Staff committed the armed services to achieving what they called “full-spectrum dominance” – unambiguous supremacy in all forms of warfare, to be achieved by tapping the potential of two “enablers” – “technological innovation and information superiority.”
Full-spectrum dominance stood in relation to military affairs as the political scientist Francis Fukuyama’s well-known proclamation of “the end of history” stood in relation to ideology: Each claimed to have unlocked ultimate truths. According to Fukuyama, democratic capitalism represented the final stage in political economic evolution. According to the proponents of full-spectrum dominance, that concept represented the final stage in the evolution of modern warfare. In their first days and weeks, the successive invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq both seemed to affirm such claims.
How Not to “Support the Troops”
According to the second illusion, American civilian and military leaders subscribed to a common set of principles for employing their now-dominant forces. Adherence to these principles promised to prevent any recurrence of the sort of disaster that had befallen the nation in Vietnam. If politicians went off half-cocked, as President Lyndon Johnson and Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara had back in the 1960s, generals who had correctly discerned and assimilated the lessons of modern war could be counted on to rein them in.
These principles found authoritative expression in the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine, which specified criteria for deciding when and how to use force. Caspar Weinberger, secretary of defense during most of the Reagan era, first articulated these principles in 1984. Gen. Colin Powell, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the early 1990s, expanded on them. Yet the doctrine’s real authors were the members of the post-Vietnam officer corps. The Weinberger-Powell principles expressed the military’s own lessons taken from that war. Those principles also expressed the determination of senior officers to prevent any recurrence of Vietnam.
Henceforth, according to Weinberger and Powell, the United States would fight only when genuinely vital interests were at stake. It would do so in pursuit of concrete and attainable objectives. It would mobilize the necessary resources – political and moral as well as material – to win promptly and decisively. It would end conflicts expeditiously and then get out, leaving no loose ends. The spirit of the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine was not permissive; its purpose was to curb the reckless or imprudent inclinations of bellicose civilians.
According to the third illusion, the military and American society had successfully patched up the differences that produced something akin to divorce during the divisive Vietnam years. By the 1990s, a reconciliation of sorts was under way. In the wake of Operation Desert Storm, “the American people fell in love again with their armed forces.” So, at least, Gen. Colin Powell, one of that war’s great heroes, believed. Out of this love affair a new civil-military compact had evolved, one based on the confidence that, in times of duress, Americans could be counted on to “support the troops.” Never again would the nation abandon its soldiers.
The all-volunteer force (AVF) – despite its name, a professional military establishment – represented the chief manifestation of this new compact. By the 1990s, Americans were celebrating the AVF as the one component of the federal government that actually worked as advertised. The AVF embodied the nation’s claim to the status of sole superpower; it was “America’s Team.” In the wake of the Cold War, the AVF sustained the global Pax Americana without interfering with the average American’s pursuit of life, liberty, and happiness. What was not to like?
Events since 9/11 have exposed these three illusions for what they were. When tested, the new American Way of War yielded more glitter than gold. The generals and admirals who touted the wonders of full spectrum dominance were guilty of flagrant professional malpractice, if not outright fraud. To judge by the record of the past twenty years, U.S. forces win decisively only when the enemy obligingly fights on American terms – and Saddam Hussein’s demise has drastically reduced the likelihood of finding such accommodating adversaries in the future. As for loose ends, from Somalia to the Balkans, from Central Asia to the Persian Gulf, they have been endemic.
When it came to the Weinberger-Powell Doctrine, civilian willingness to conform to its provisions proved to be highly contingent. Confronting Powell in 1993, Madeleine Albright famously demanded to know, “What’s the point of having this superb military that you’re always talking about, if we can’t use it?” Mesmerized by the prospects of putting American soldiers to work to alleviate the world’s ills, Albright soon enough got her way. An odd alliance that combined left-leaning do-gooders with jingoistic politicians and pundits succeeded in chipping away at constraints on the use of force. “Humanitarian intervention” became all the rage. Whatever restraining influence the generals exercised during the 1990s did not survive that decade. Lessons of Vietnam that had once seemed indelible were forgotten.
Meanwhile, the reconciliation of the people and the army turned out to be a chimera. When the chips were down, “supporting the troops” elicited plenty of posturing but little by way of binding commitments. Far from producing a stampede of eager recruits keen to don a uniform, the events of 9/11 reaffirmed a widespread popular preference for hiring someone else’s kid to chase terrorists, spread democracy, and ensure access to the world’s energy reserves.
In the midst of a global war of ostensibly earthshaking importance, Americans demonstrated a greater affinity for their hometown sports heroes than for the soldiers defending the distant precincts of the American imperium. Tom Brady makes millions playing quarterback in the NFL and rakes in millions more from endorsements. Pat Tillman quit professional football to become an army ranger and was killed in Afghanistan. Yet, of the two, Brady more fully embodies the contemporary understanding of the term patriot.
Demolishing the Doctrine of the Big Enchilada
While they persisted, however, these three illusions fostered gaudy expectations about the efficacy of American military might. Every president since Ronald Reagan has endorsed these expectations. Every president since Reagan has exploited his role as commander in chief to expand on the imperial prerogatives of his office. Each has also relied on military power to conceal or manage problems that stemmed from the nation’s habits of profligacy.
In the wake of 9/11, these puerile expectations – that armed force wielded by a strong-willed chief executive could do just about anything – reached an apotheosis of sorts. Having manifestly failed to anticipate or prevent a devastating attack on American soil, President Bush proceeded to use his ensuing global war on terror as a pretext for advancing grandiose new military ambitions married to claims of unbounded executive authority – all under the guise of keeping Americans “safe.”
With the president denying any connection between the events of Sept. 11 and past U.S. policies, his declaration of a global war nipped in the bud whatever inclination the public might have entertained to reconsider those policies. In essence, Bush counted on war both to concentrate greater power in his own hands and to divert attention from the political, economic, and cultural bind in which the United States found itself as a result of its own past behavior.
As long as U.S. forces sustained their reputation for invincibility, it remained possible to pretend that the constitutional order and the American way of life were in good health. The concept of waging an open-ended global campaign to eliminate terrorism retained a modicum of plausibility. After all, how could anyone or anything stop the unstoppable American soldier?
Call that reputation into question, however, and everything else unravels. This is what occurred when the Iraq War went sour. The ills afflicting our political system, including a deeply irresponsible Congress, broken national security institutions, and above all an imperial commander in chief not up to the job, became all but impossible to ignore. So, too, did the self-destructive elements inherent in the American way of life – especially an increasingly costly addiction to foreign oil, universally deplored and almost as universally indulged. More noteworthy still, the prospect of waging war on a global scale for decades, if not generations, became preposterous.
To anyone with eyes to see, the events of the past seven years have demolished the Doctrine of the Big Enchilada. A gung-ho journalist like Robert Kaplan might still believe that, with the dawn of the 21st century, the Pentagon had “appropriated the entire earth, and was ready to flood the most obscure areas of it with troops at a moment’s notice,” that planet Earth in its entirety had become “battle space for the American military.” Yet any buck sergeant of even middling intelligence knew better than to buy such claptrap.
With the Afghanistan War well into its seventh year and the Iraq War marking its fifth anniversary, a commentator like Michael Barone might express absolute certainty that “just about no mission is impossible for the United States military.” But Barone was not facing the prospect of being ordered back to the war zone for his second or third combat tour.
Between what President Bush called upon America’s soldiers to do and what they were capable of doing loomed a huge gap that defines the military crisis besetting the United States today. For a nation accustomed to seeing military power as its trump card, the implications of that gap are monumental.
Andrew Bacevich, professor of history and international relations at Boston University, retired from the U.S. Army with the rank of colonel. This piece is adapted from his new book, The Limits of Power: The End of American Exceptionalism (Metropolitan Books, 2008). He is also the author of The New American Militarism, among other books. His writing has appeared in Foreign Affairs, the Atlantic Monthly, the Nation, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and the Wall Street Journal.
http://www.antiwar.com/engelhardt/?articleid=13289
Russian Troops Report US And Israeli Soldiers Killed
Russian Troops Report US And Israeli Soldiers Killed
In Georgian War
We have received our first report from Sister Nikolaevna who had traveled from Moscow to Vladikavkaz to assist in the aiding of the refuge children that have been pouring into Russia from South Ossetia after the brutal Georgian destruction of their homeland, and which details that ‘many’ foreign fighters have been killed after Russian Military units began their liberation of both South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
According to staff officers accompanying Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn returning from the battlefront, at least 7 foreign fighters identified as American and Israel soldiers have been found among the rubble of the now freed, but destroyed, capital city of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali.
The 3 dead American soldiers, these reports state, were identified by their uniform patches as belonging to the United States 173 Airborne Brigade assigned to the US’ Southern European Command, and who just a few weeks ago were airlifted to Georgia for what was described as a ‘war game’ exercise with Georgian Military Forces preparing for their unprovoked attack upon the Russian peoples of South Ossetia.
The 4 dead Israeli soldiers, these reports continue, are believed to part of the Israeli governments sponsored mercenary forces who have previously wreaked havoc in the US protected South American puppet state of Colombia, and to which Israel is now its largest weapons supplier.
Israel has, likewise, become the United States choice for funneling weapons to Georgian Military Forces, but are attempting to quickly back away from their part in this most unnecessary war, and as we can read as reported by the Haaretz News Service:
“Israel is hoping to maintain a low profile with regard to the war in Georgia, government officials told Haaretz. One source noted that currently, neither side of the conflict is pleased with Israel’s position, since Russia has been irked by Israeli-Georgian weapons deals for some time, and Tbilisi is now frustrated by Israel’s decision to halt arms exports.”
Russia’s chairman of the State Duma Committee for Security, Vladimir Vasilyev, was quick to blast the Americans by stating, “The things that were happening in Kosovo, the things that were happening in Iraq – we are now following the same path. The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America. South Ossetian defense officials used to make statements about imminent aggression from Georgia, but the latter denied everything, whereas the US Department of State released no comments on the matter. In essence, they have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals. They are responsible for this. The world community will learn about it.”
Unfortunately, however, the peoples of the Western World, especially the United States, are not being told the truth about this war, and Georgia’s unprovoked attack upon South Ossetia and, instead, are being told by their propaganda media organs that Russia is the aggressor in this conflict, though Russian forces have done nothing more than what any sovereign Nation would do when invaded by a foreign military who began mass killings of civilians.
Russian Leaders Putin and Medvedev [both pictured top left] are, also, reported to be enraged by the United States providing an immediate airlift for Georgian Military Forces serving in Iraq, and which Military Analysts states make the United States an active participant in this war.
To the most unfortunate outcome of this new war for the American people is how, once again, they have been lied to by their War Leaders to support a brutal dictatorship, and as best pointed out by the AntiWar News Service:
“What’s particularly disgusting is the spectacle of the fraudulent Saakashvili’s smug mug all over Western television – the BBC and Bloomberg, for starters – invoking his great love of “democracy” and “freedom” and calling on the U.S. to intervene in the name of supposedly shared “values.” What drivel! Up until very recently, Saakashvili has been busy rounding up his political opponents and charging them with espionage, as his police beat demonstrators in the streets. When this happened, even our somnolent media sat up and took notice, but they seem to have forgotten.
Saakashvili uses the Western media as a platform to broadcast his great love for “freedom” and make the case against the Russian “aggressors,” comparing the present conflict with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s – and even the bloody 1956 repression of the Hungarians! This is nonsense. Russia is not the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain has long since been melted down for scrap metal, and, if anything, Saakashvili resembles the Hungarian satraps of the Kremlin rather than the heroic freedom-fighters, given his absolute fealty to his foreign masters in Washington, to whom he appeals for help in putting down an internal rebellion.”
How 888 Is Beating 666
How 888 Is Beating 666
By Benjamin Fulford
Historians are certain to write that 2008 08 08 was the date when Western rule of the world came to an end.
The Beijing Olympic opening ceremonies were attended by 80 heads of state and watched by 4 billion people. This ceremony formalized a transition that is already a statistical reality, The West controls 40% of world GDP and 17% of the world’s population. Asia now accounts for a fast growing 40% share of world GDP , 63% of global financial assets and 65% of the world’s population., In addition China is about to end the US’s 100 year rule as the worlds largest manufacturing nation.
More important than these statistics, however, is the moral dimension. The G8 summit held this July in Japan was proof of how far the West has fallen from its former position as a moral beacon for the world. If you read the transcripts of the press conferences held by the 22 world leaders who were at that summit, you will see that the Zionist controlled nations: Canada, Germany, the US, England and France have become isolated from the rest of humanity. World leaders were disgusted to hear of the suppressed World Bank report that proved these countries were subsidizing world starvation by paying farmers to grow fuel instead of food.
Furthermore, the world now is fully aware that it is the Zionist powers who are responsible for almost all terrorism in the world. The world knows the Taleban, Al CIA Duh, the Tibetan “freedom fighters” etc. are funded and set up by the petroleum and military lobbies that control the West.
The cornered Zionists are now trying, in their last desperate ploy, to start WW3. They are hoping to provoke a war with Iran and get Russia and China involved. However, the people of the world know that no matter how brainwashed the Western majority may be, they are not brainwashed enough to start a war that could kill billions on behalf of a few thousand plutocrats. Furthermore, China and Russia are not stupid enough to fall into the Zionist trap in Iran.
This is not how a transition from Western elite rule to rule by the human majority was supposed to be. It is not too late for the West to marshal all its resources for a massive campaign to end environmental destruction, poverty and war before handing over a pristine planet to the future generations of humanity.
We must not let the cornered beasts have any excuse to carry out their planned genocide. They suffer from collective insanity and so we need to help them escape from their nightmare reality of eternal warfare, disease, starvation and mass slavery. The West must show the world what it is really made of. It is now or never.
Benjamin Fulford
The Puppet Masters Behind Georgia President Saakashvili
The Puppet Masters Behind
Georgia President Saakashvili
By F. William Engdahl *
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The controversy over the Georgian surprise military attacks on South Ossetia and Abkhazia on 8.8.08 makes a closer look at the controversial Georgian President and his puppet masters important. An examination shows 41 year old Mikhail Saakashvili to be a ruthless and corrupt totalitarian who is tied to not only the US NATO establishment, but also to the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. The famous ‘Rose Revolution of November 2003 that forced the ageing Edouard Shevardnadze from power and swept the then 36 year old US university graduate into power was run and financed by the US State Department, the Soros Foundations, and agencies tied to the Pentagon and US intelligence community.
Mihkail Saakashvili was deliberately placed in power in one of the most sophisticated US regime change operations, using ostensibly private NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) to create an atmosphere of popular protest against the existing regime of former Soviet Foreign Minister Edouard Shevardnadze, who was no longer useful to Washington when he began to make a deal with Moscow over energy pipelines and privatizations.
Saakashvili was brought to power in a US-engineered coup run on the ground by US-funded NGO’s, in an application of a new method of US destabilization of regimes it considered hostile to its foreign policy agenda. The November 24 2003 Wall Street Journal explicitly credited the toppling of Shevardnadze’s regime to the operations of “a raft of non-governmental organizations . . . supported by American and other Western foundations.” These NGOs, said the Journal, had “spawned a class of young, English-speaking intellectuals hungry for pro-Western reforms” who were instrumental laying the groundwork for a bloodless coup.
Coup by NGO
But there is more. The NGOs were coordinated by the US Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, who had just arrived in Tbilisi fresh from success in orchestrating the CIA-backed toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, using the same NGOs. Miles, who is believed to be an undercover intelligence specialist, supervised the Saakashvili coup.
It involved US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation. It involved the Washington-based Freedom House whose chairman was former CIA chief James Woolsey. It involved generous financing from the US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by Ronald Reagan in the 1980’s to “do privately what the CIA used to do,” namely coups against regimes the US Government finds unfriendly.
George Soros’ foundations have been forced to leave numerous eastern European countries including Russia as well as China after the 1989 student Tiananmen Square uprising. Soros is also the financier together with the US State Department of the Human Rights Watch, a US- based and run propaganda arm of the entire NGO apparatus of regime coups such as Georgia and Ukraine’s 2004 Orange Revolution. Some analysts believe Soros is a high-level operative of the US State Department or intelligence services using his private foundations as cover.
The US State Department funded the Georgia Liberty Institute headed by Saakashvili, US approved candidate to succeed the no-longer cooperative Shevardnadze. The Liberty Institute in turn created “Kmara!” which translates “Enough!” According to a BBC report at the time, Kmara! Was organized in spring of 2003 when Saakashvili along with hand-picked Georgia student activists were paid by the Soros Foundation to go to Belgrade to learn from the US-financed Otpor activists that toppled Milosevic. They were trained in Gene Sharp’s “non-violence as a method of warfare” by the Belgrade Center for Nonviolent Resistance.
Saakashvili as mafioso President
Once he was in place in January 2004 as Georgia’s new President, Saakashvili proceeded to pack the regime with his cronies and kinsmen. The death of Zurab Zhvania, his prime minister in February, 2005, remains a mystery. The official version-poisoning by faulty gas heater-was adopted by American FBI investigators within two weeks of the killing. That has never seemed credible to those familiar with Georgia’s gangland slayings, crime, and other manifestations of social decay. Zhvania’s death was followed closely by a functionary of the Premier’s apparat, Georgi Khelashvili, who allegedly shot himself the day after his chief’s demise. The head of Zhvania’s research staff was later found dead as well.
Figures allied with Saakashvili reportedly had a hand in the premier’s death. Russian journalist Marina Perevozkina quoted Gia Khurashvili, a Georgian economist. Prior to the fatal incident, Mr. Khurashvili had published an article in Resonans newspaper opposing the privatization and sale of Georgia’s main gas pipeline. Ten days before the prime minister’s body was found, Khurashvili was attacked and his editor-in-chief-citing pressure from ’security service’ figures he refused to name-issued him a warning.
The late premier’s position on the pipeline issue was believed the direct reason for the murder of Zhvania. Zhvania’s brother, Georgi, also told Perevozkina that not long before Zhvania’s death he received a warning that someone was preparing to kill his brother. Saakashvili was reportedly livid when the US State Department invited Zhvania to Washington to win a Freedom Medal from the US Government’s National Democratic Institute. Saakashvili tolerates no rivals for power it seems.
Saakashvili, who cleverly marketed himself as “anti-corruption,” appointed several of his family members to lucrative posts in government, giving one of his brothers a position as chief adviser on domestic issues to the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline project, backed by British Petroleum and other oil multinationals.
Since coming to power in 2004 with US aid, Saakashvili has led a policy of mass-scale arrests, imprisonment, torture and deepened corruption. Saakashvili has presided over the creation of a de facto one-party state, with a dummy opposition occupying a tiny portion of seats in the parliament, and this public servant is building a Ceaucescu-style palace for himself on the outskirts of Tbilisi. According to the magazine, Civil Georgia (Mar. 22, 2004) until 2005, the salaries of Saakashvili and many of his ministers were reportedly paid by the NGO network of New York-based currency speculator Soros- along with the United Nations Development Program.
Israel US military train Georgian military
The current military assault on South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in violation of Saakashvili’s pledge to seek a diplomatic not military solution to the territorial disputes, is backed by US and Israeli military “advisers.” Israel’s Haaretz newspaper reported that on August 10, Georgian Minister of Reintegration, Temur Yakobshvili, “praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might, in an interview with Army Radio. ‘Israel should be proud of its military which trained Georgian soldiers,’ Yakobashvili told Army Radio in Hebrew, referring to a private Israeli group Georgia had hired.”
One of the targets of Russian bombs near Tbilisi was, according to IsraelNN.com, “a Georgian military plant in which Israeli experts are upgrading jet fighters for the Georgian military Russian fighter jets bombed runways inside the plant, located near Tbilisi, where Israeli security firm Elbit is in charge of upgrading Georgian SU-25 jets.”
Israeli Foreign Minister and candidate to succeed ousted Israeli Prime Minister, Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, proclaimed on August 10 that “Israel recognizes Georgia’s territorial integrity,” code for saying it backs Georgia’s attempt to take South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The reported 1,000 Israeli military advisers in Georgia were not alone. On July 15, the Reuters news wire carried the following report: “VAZIANI, Georgia – One thousand U.S. troops began a military training exercise called “Immediate Response 2008,” in Georgia on Tuesday against a backdrop of growing friction between Georgia and neighboring Russia. The two-week exercise was taking place at the Vaziani military base near the capital Tbilisi, which was a Russian air force base until Russian forces withdrew at the start of this decade under a European arms reduction agreement… Georgia has a 2,000-strong contingent supporting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and Washington provides training and equipment to the Georgian military. The United States is an ally of Georgia and has irritated Russia by backing Tbilisi’s bid to join the NATO military alliance… “The main purpose of these exercises is to increase the cooperation and partnership between U.S. and Georgian forces,” Brig. Gen. William B. Garrett, commander of the U.S. military’s Southern European Task Force, told reporters.”
With Russia openly backing and training the indigenous military in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to maintain Russian presence in the region, especially since the US-backed pro-NATO Saakashvili regime took power in 2004, the Caucasus is rapidly coming to resemble Spain in the Civil War from 1936-1939 where the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and others poured money and weapons and volunteers into Spain in a devastating war that was a precursor to the Second World War.
In a curious footnote to the actual launch of military fighting on the opening day of the Olympics when Putin, George W. Bush and many world leaders were in Beijing far away, is a report in IsraelNN.com by Gl Ronen, stating that “The Georgian move against South Ossetia was motivated by political considerations having to do with Israel and Iran, according to Nfc. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili decided to assert control over the breakaway region in order to force Israel to reconsider its decision to cut back its support for Georgia’s military.”
Ronen added, “Russian and Georgian media reported several days ago that Israel decided to stop its support for Georgia after Moscow made it clear to Jerusalem and Washington that Russia would respond to continued aid for Georgia by selling advanced anti-aircraft systems to Syria and Iran.” Israel plans to get oil and gas from the Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from the Caspian.
Although as of this writing Russian President Medvedev has announced Russia is halting its military response against Georgian targets, the situation is anything but stable. The insistence of Washington in bringing Georgia into its geopolitical sphere and backing an unstable regime around Mikhail Saakashvili may well have been the straw which broke the Russian camel’s patience if not his back.
Whether oil pipeline disputes or Russian challenges to Israel are the proximate trigger for Saakashvili’s dangerous game, it is clear that the volatile Georgian and his puppet masters may have entered a game where no one will be able to control the outcome.
* F. William Engdahl is a Global Research Associate and is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press) and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation www.globalresearch.ca. He may be reached through his website,
www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net. |
Paul Craig Roberts : Yes, without America there would be no war in Ossetia and no war between Russia and its former constituent part. US ruling Elite went From Stupid to Moronic to Evil
Paul Craig Roberts : Yes, without America there would be no war in Ossetia and no war between Russia and its former constituent part. US ruling Elite went From Stupid to Moronic to Evil
By Paul Craig Roberts
“Although it is not true that all conservatives are stupid people, it is true that most stupid people are conservative.” John Stuart Mill
Many years ago, during the 1970s if memory serves, neoconservative Irving Kristol, echoing John Stuart Mill, called his conservative party, the Republican Party, “the stupid party.”
Kristol was referring to the Republican’s inability to compete on the policy front. Jack Kemp and Ronald Reagan led the Republicans out of the wilderness, but now Republicans have reverted to the stupid party, or more precisely the moronic party.
Today, August 9, 2008, as I write, it is the “liberal” Washington Post that has written an editorial urging the US to go to war with Russia.
With its editorial, “Stopping Russia: the US and its allies must unite against Moscow’s war on Georgia,” the Washington Post has established a world record for the maximum number of lies in the minimum number of words.
Except for the Washington Post, the entire world knows that Georgia (the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, not Georgia USA) initiated the aggression that killed Russian peacekeepers and hundreds of civilians in South Ossetia, peacekeepers who were there with the blessing of Georgia and international agreements.
The true facts are available all over the world press. But the “liberal” Washington Post serves up the lie that Russia has attacked Georgia and conceivably plans to conquer all of Georgia. “This is a grave challenge to the United States and Europe,” thunders the Bush Regime’s mouthpiece, aka, “the liberal media.”
Thirsting for blood, the “liberal media” declares: “The United States and its NATO allies must together impose a price on Russia.”
Here we see the combination of idiocy and delusion in one sentence. The United States has proved that it is incapable of occupying Iraq, much less Afghanistan. Russia has a large trade surplus. America’s NATO allies are dependent on Russian natural gas. Yet the “liberal” Washington Post wants a bankrupt US and “its NATO allies” who are dependent on Russian energy “to impose a price on Russia” for defending its peacekeepers!
Seldom has the world seen such total insanity as the neoconservative Washington Post, a propaganda sheet as far from “liberal media” is it is possible to be.
Georgia was part of Old Russia and the Soviet Union for two centuries. After Soviet communism collapsed, the US taxpayer funded neoconservative National Endowment for Democracy broke every agreement that President Reagan had made with Gorbachev and began using US taxpayers’ money to rig and purchase elections in former constituent parts of the Russian/Soviet empire.
The Endowment for Democracy purchased Georgia as a US colony. The affront to Russia was extreme, but at the time Russia was weak. Oligarchs with outside money had grabbed control over Russian resources, and Russia was in dire straits and could not resist American imperialism.
Putin corrected the situation for Russia.
Now, using American weapons, Georgia for reasons yet to be revealed has violated its own agreement with Russia and attacked South Ossetia, killing in the process Russian peacekeepers. Vladimir Vasilyev, chairman of the Russian State Duma Committee for Security told the press: “The things that were happening in Kosovo, the things that were happening in Iraq – we are now following the same path. The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America.”
Yes, without America there would be no war in Ossetia and no war between Russia and its former constituent part.
Without America there would be no war in Afghanistan. No war in Iraq.
Without America there would not be 1.2 million dead Iraqis and 4 million displaced Iraqis. We have no idea of the toll on Afghan civilians, although women and children appear to be the prime targets of the US/NATO forces that are “bringing peace and freedom to Afghanistan.”
Recently, US Secretary of State Condi Rice said that the US government could not prevent an Israeli attack on Iran. Israel is an independent country, said the American Secretary of State. What an extraordinary lie.
Israel cannot exist without American weapons and money. Israel cannot attack Iran without overflying Iraq, which the US air force can easily prevent. It is clear as day that the Bush Regime has given the green light to Israel to attack Iran so that the Bush Regime can rush to “Israel’s defense.”
Meanwhile the “liberal” media is urging the US to get involved in a war between Russia and Georgia. The insanity will lead to the unloosening of nuclear weapons.
Paul Craig Roberts email him was Assistant Secretary of the Treasury
http://www.vdare.com/roberts/080810_stupid.htm
USA approves Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia and Russia – Putin says Bush running interference on Georgia
USA approves Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia and Russia
US presidential runoff John McCain said that Russia should not interfere in the conflict in South Ossetia. The pro-Georgian propaganda in the US media testifies to the same opinion. It brings up the idea that the Georgian aggression against the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia has been coordinated with the US administration. Nevertheless, all arguments of US politicians and experts (Pravda.ru interviewed some of them) do not withstand any criticism.
“We must immediately call a meeting of the NATO Council to estimate Georgia’s security and consider the measures, which NATO may take to stabilize the highly dangerous situation,” John McCain said.
“The international community needs to deploy independent and neutral peacemaking forces in South Ossetia. Russia must immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw troops from the sovereign territory of Georgia,” McCain believes.
Ariel Cohen, a well-known US specialist on the Soviet Union, a Senior Research Fellow at the Heritage Foundation, stated that Russia was planning the incursion for months and that it was intended to demonstrate its hegemony over Eastern Europe, push Mr. Saakashvili from power in Georgia and not to let Georgia become a NATO member.
Apparently, McCain and other US experts believe that the extermination of thousands of innocent people and the destruction of their houses can be referred to as the retrieval of the territorial integrity.
It is worthy of note that Russia’s Air Force already prevented Georgia’s aggression against South Ossetia a month ago. The situation aggravated soon after Condoleezza Rice’s visit to Georgia. It is not ruled out that Ms. Rice okayed the beginning of the war in the region on behalf of the US administration.
Taking McCain’s remarks into consideration, one shall assume that the USA has provided certain guarantees to Georgia. The Georgian troops would not have opened fire on Russian peacemakers otherwise. Such battles inevitably lead to a war against Russia. Georgia would not dare to proceed so alone, without the support from the West. Furthermore, Georgia asked the USA to withdraw its contingent from Iraq to redeploy the military men to South Ossetia.
The evidence to proof the USA’s hand behind the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia can be found in Western media. Western news agencies, Reuters, for example, have been distributing countless photographs depicting Russia’s supposed atrocities in Georgia. Such photos along with adequate headlines can be found in practically all US newspapers (The New York Times is the best example for it). All of them unanimously accuse Russia of aggression against Georgia, but they do not say a word about Georgia’s actions against civilians in S. Ossetia.
This war has given the US administration an excellent opportunity to distract attention from the Summer Olympics in Beijing, which Washington originally intended to disrupt. In addition, it would escalate the situation in the restive Caucasus to exhaust Russia with never-ending conflicts there. In this case the US would obtain a full right to enter the territory under the guise of peacemaking forces and grant the NATO membership to Georgia.
Ukraine ’s Foreign Ministry would not have released its anti-Russian statement without USA’s instructions either. Ukraine virtually supported Georgia’s aggression having acknowledged the right of the latter to defend its territorial integrity with the use of military force.
A for history, the question of separatism – Georgia or Ossetia – is disputable. It was Georgia which decided to pull out from the USSR, whereas the Ossetians protested against such a decision.
Georgia shells hospitals and houses, killing thousands of Ossetians. Yugoslav President Slobodan Milosevic used to be charged with genocide for the slaughter of several dozens of Albanians.
US politicians have not voiced an appeal to cease the extermination of South Ossetia people. Vice versa, John McCain attempts to turn everything upside down accusing Russia of aggression, although Russia took adequate measures to save the Ossetians from extermination. The USA does not condemn Mikhail Saakashvili, which is another fact to prove that the Georgian president has won USA’s approval for the war.
Speak your mind on Pravda.ru forum
http://english.pravda.ru/hotspots/conflicts/11-08-2008/106053-georgia_ossetia_russia
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Putin says Bush running interference on Georgia
BY MICHAEL MAINVILLE
IN TBILISI
Dozens of Russian warplanes staged air raids in Georgia yesterday, officials said, but Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States of trying to undermine Russia’s mounting military offensive.
Georgian forces shelled the South Ossetia capital, as European ministers went to Georgia and Russia in a bid to end the worsening crisis which Russia says has left 2000 dead.
French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said yesterday that Georgia had accepted the bulk of a European Union-backed peace plan to defuse the conflict, as he headed to Moscow for crisis talks.
Refugees sought shelter in Russia on Sunday after fleeing Georgian forces battling for control. They described being shelled and shot at and forced to run for their lives.
Mr Bush told Mr Putin that the Russian offensive was unacceptable.
Mr Putin responded by accusing the US of trying to disrupt the Russian military operation by transporting Georgian troops from Iraq into the conflict zone.
Russian warplanes bombed Tbilisi airport, also hitting civilian targets in the Georgian city of Gori, the Georgian interior ministry said. AFP
Russians out of South Ossetia? Americans out of Iraq and Afghanistan!
Russians out of South Ossetia?
Americans out of Iraq and Afghanistan!
Christopher King
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The USA’s efforts to stop a European/Russian superstate
August 10, 2008 Christopher King argues that the “US and NATO are behind the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia” but have misjudged Russian resolve. He says it is time for Europe to distance itself from NATO, which has become a US tool, and to choose whether it wants Russia as a friend or an enemy. The European Union needs to re-evaluate its relationship to both the United States and NATO. I’ve said recently (see “The USA, Russia and the spinoff from Iraq and Iran” and “Iran’s ‘provocative missile test’”) that US plans to instal a missile shield in Poland and the Czech Republic are designed to cause trouble between Europe and Russia as well as distracting Europe from US Middle Eastern outrages. These missiles, under US control, are supposed to protect Europe and if you believe that, you probably believe in the tooth fairy. US negotiations for these missiles don’t appear to be going very well since the Poles and Czechs don’t much like the idea of being targeted in response by Russian missiles and the Russians have been musing about installing their missiles in Cuba for a re-run of the Cuban missile crisis and near nuclear war of the 1960s. That would not be popular with US voters. What do do? Are there any trouble spots that can be stoked up to show Russia as an aggressor? What about Georgia and the South Ossetia separatists on Russia’s southern border?
So we’ve arrived at having a US/NATO-sponsored provocation with Georgia invading its breakaway semi-independent province. South Ossetia’s declaration of independence was supported by almost all its residents. The South Ossetian argument is that if the West and NATO supported Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, they should support its independence from Georgia. That sounds reasonable. No? Of course, no! The difference is that South Ossetia wants ties with Russia and the US has been pressing for Georgia to join NATO. Condoleeza Rice predictably, was quick to call on the Russians to withdraw from South Ossetia. President Bush says sanctimoniously that Georgia is a sovereign nation and that its territorial integrity should be respected. That is pretty rich (hypocritical) as we say in the UK. Before Condoleeza or anyone else in the US takes that position they could prevail on President Bush to leave Iraq and Afghanistan where they are looting oil, killing hundreds of thousands, if not millions of people, driving millions of refugees from their homes and creating general disaster half a world away from their own country. While she is about it, Condoleeza could also call on the Israelis to leave Palestinian and Syrian territory outside their 1967 borders and allow the ethnically cleansed Palestinians and their descendants to return and re-claim their property that was stolen by the Israelis. To return to South Ossetia and Georgia, we should note that NATO rejected South Ossetia’s referendum in favour of independence. “What’s this? What does a national referendum, particularly in a non-NATO country, have to do with NATO?” you might wonder; “Isn’t NATO our warrior arm, dedicated to defend us against armed aggression?” Not any more. It’s now a political organization as well. The EU countries should seriously consider whether it is a good idea to allow its military arm to make political decisions, particularly when it is driven by US rather than European interests. NATO has also taken on a role in formulating conspiracy theories against Russia, for example Russia’s “Gas OPEC plans“, reported by the Financial Times. There seems to be no evidence for this whatever and even if it were true, (a) What does it have to do with NATO and (b) Would it matter more than our existing oil OPEC? Russia still wants to sell its gas and can do so on any terms it wishes whether NATO or the EU like them or not. The new non-Communist free-market Russia, that the US and Europe wanted and got, is a disaster for NATO because it no longer has an enemy. The only way to save careers and maintain funding is for NATO officers to create enemies and new threats. Its presence in Iraq and Afghanistan is no longer popular so a prod at Russia through South Ossetia has doubtless been designed to produce a response that can be spun as Russian aggression. The new Russia is also a disaster for the US. Russia is creating strong economic ties with Europe. There is serious talk of a free trade agreement between the EU and Russia and the possibility of Russia becoming an EU member is being talked about. Russia is, after all, historically a part of Europe. You can imagine how the idea of such an economic superpower is perceived in the US with its declining oil reserves and economy. As matters stand, rather than having the purely defensive joint military force with the US that was its original purpose, Europe finds itself supporting, through NATO, the US’s aggressive foreign policies in the Middle East. Worse still, NATO is formenting trouble between Europe and Russia, which should be thought of as a valuable friend and future EU partner, rather than an enemy. To be blunt, NATO has become a tool for the extension of US influence and foreign policy. This is argued cogently by F. William Engdahl whose article I have resisted plagiarising. One might consider why Finland rejects NATO membership. The main reason given by opponents of membership in a poll 18 months ago is that Finland could be drawn into conflicts that have no direct bearing on their country. This seems to be a polite refusal to fight wars for the US and Israel. Indeed, Israel has recently joined a NATO exercise and Italy’s defence minister has proposed that Israel should join NATO. Certainly it might, when it withdraws to its pre-1967 borders, abandons its settlements on stolen Palestinian land and gives right of return to the Palestinians. Alternatively, a single state with right of return and equal rights might do. The evidence is clear. NATO has become not only counter-productive to European interests but an immediate danger to the EU as an arm of the US military-industrial complex. The South Ossetia conflict is an unmistakable warning. The US and NATO provocateurs have shown their hand and have gone too far. Russia has acted with commendable restraint in relation to the US’s outrageous attempts to bribe new EU countries to accept its missiles on Russia’s borders. There can be no doubt that the US and NATO are behind the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia but have misjudged Russian restraint for unwillingness to act. What they now have is called, I believe, “blowback”. The EU needs to reassess NATO from fundamental principles of its defensive needs. The current senior command of NATO has clearly been politicized by the US. This is unacceptable as also is NATO’s current role as tool of the US. The EU should make some decisions about its links and future with Russia, its economically important and militarily powerful neighbour. The choice is simple: to have Russia as a friend in the short term and EU member eventually or make it an enemy. It is clear that the USA’s military-industrial complex needs Russia as an enemy, not only to stay in business but to prevent a European Union/Russian superstate developing. Europe needs to pursue its own peaceful interests, ideally keeping a good relationship with the US while working with Russia toward closer economic integration. If the US does not like that, it is too bad. The US has used up its global credibility and goodwill. Russia has had a bad press in the West for the last 60 years, not always undeserved. We should recall, however, that the man who set Russia and the Soviet Union on its post-war course, created Churchill’s “iron curtain”, the nuclear arms race and the repressive character of the Soviet post-war state, was not Russian at all. Josef Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, otherwise known as Stalin, was Georgian, born in Gori, just south of South Ossetia.
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Russian troops invade Georgia and take the city of Gori – Fear of Russia ends Israeli support for Georgia
Russian troops invade Georgia and take the city of Gori
Tony Halpin in Gori, and Kevin O’Flynn in Moscow
Russian forces overran the strategic Georgian city of Gori today as troops prepared to defend the capital Tbilisi from what one official called a “total onslaught”.
Georgian soldiers fled Gori, 17 miles from the border with rebel South Ossetia, in panic and disarray, clinging to the sides of cars and vehicles as they sped out of town. A Georgian armoured personnel carrier was in flames on the street, a victim of the sudden rout.
Alexander Lomaia, secretary of the Georgian security council, said that the Georgian army had been told instead to concentrate its efforts on holding Mtskheta, 15 miles from the capital.
“Russian forces are occupying Gori. Georgian armed forces received an order to leave Gori and to fortify positions near Mtskheta to defend the capital. This is a total onslaught,” Mr Lomaia said.
Analysis: roots of the Georgia-Russia conflict
Central cause of the conflict is that Southern Ossetes want to unite with their counterparts in the North, part of Russia
Just hours before Russian forces entered the town Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and France’s foreign minister Bernard Kouchner had been forced to dive for cover when an unidentified helicopter flew overhead.
Georgia was facing a Russian push on two fronts as as the Kremlin continued to ignore international pressure for a ceasefire five days into the conflict.
In the west, Russian troops entered Georgia from the breakaway region of Abkhazia on the Black Sea, while in the north, intense shelling continued in and around South Ossetia.
Moscow confirmed that its soldiers had swept from Abkhazia into the town of Senaki, 40 km inside Georgia. The Defence Ministry in Moscow claimed that the raid on Senaki was intended to prevent Georgian troops from regrouping for “new attacks on South Ossetia”.
The admission marked a dangerous new phase in the conflict as Russia advanced into Georgian territory with no indication of when its offensive might cease, despite a claim from President Medvedev that much of the operation was complete.
President Saakashvili told Georgians in a televised address that Russia was attempting to occupy the whole country. He said: “This provocation was aimed at occupying South Ossetia, Abkhazia and then all of Georgia.”
He claimed that Russian tanks were rampaging through the countryside while Russian troops were carrying out summary killings and human rights abuses.
In the hours before the fall of Gori, The Times witnessed Russian MiG fighter jets bombing Georgian positions about 9 km from the border with South Ossetia, and there were sustained exchanges of artillery fire.
Soldiers on the ground claimed that Russian and South Ossetian forces had established artillery positions inside the border on the Georgian side. Georgian tanks and heavy weaponry ringed the outskirts of Gori in anticipation of a Russian advance, which was not long coming.
The prospects for a negotiated ceasefire were dealt a blow when Russia’s ambassador to Nato declared that Mr Saakashvili “is no longer a man that we can deal with”. Dmitri Rogozin said: “He must be punished for breaching international law. He is responsible for many war crimes.”
President Sarkozy of France is preparing to fly to Georgia and Russia tomorrow on a peace mission, following a round of shuttle diplomacy by his foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, who is due in Moscow tonight carrying a draft ceasefire proposal signed by Mr Saakashvili.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister, said that Russia would continue its military operation until “its logical end”.
He hit out at the United States in particular for transporting 800 Georgian soldiers from Iraq, some of whom have been deployed in Gori on the border of South Ossetia.
Russia warned the West that “the Georgian side was preparing aggression,” said Mr Putin. “Nobody was listening. And this is the result. We have finally come to it. However, Russia will of course carry out its peacekeeping mission to its logical end.”
Russia’s incursion into Georgian territory follows a rapid troop build up, as thousands of Russian troops have poured into Georgia’s breakaway provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Nato’s Secretary-General today criticised Russia over its “disproportionate” use of force. Jaap de Hoop Scheffer was “seriously concerned” about Russia’s response and its “lack of respect for the territorial integrity of Georgia,” a spokesperson said.
The statement followed President Bush’s comments in Beijing, where he was watching the Olympics. He said he had spoken “firmly” to Mr Putin, who was directing the Kremlin’s actions in Georgia.
Gordon Brown today made his first direct comments on the crisis, saying there was “no justification” for Russia’s military action in Georgia, and that there was a “clear responsibility” on Moscow to agree a ceasefire and bring a swift end to the conflict which threatened a “humanitarian catastrophe”.
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Fear of Russia ends Israeli support for Georgia
A top Georgian envoy in Israel on Sunday urged the Jewish state to use whatever leverage it has to put pressure on Russia to pull its forces out of the small Caucasus nation. But while voicing support for Georgian territorial integrity, Israel decided instead to appease Russia by halting all arms sales to Tbilisi.
Israel has sold some $500 million worth of military equipment to Georgia over the past few years, and top Israeli military experts have been involved in training Georgian armed forces.
Israeli soldiers who participated in training Georgian forces as recently as four months ago told Ha’aretz that they were not surprised when hostilities broke out. “There was an atmosphere of war about to break out. …From my point of view, the battles of the past few days were to be expected,” said one soldier.
As Russian forces invaded Georgia late last week and the two nations engaged in what is increasingly being called a full-scale war, Israel’s leadership expressed concerns that Moscow could retaliate for continued Israeli military support of Georgia by selling advanced arms to Iran and Syria.
Defense officials cited by The Jerusalem Post later said that arms sales to Georgia had ceased several months back, after Israeli authorities became alarmed by urgent requests for large supplies of weapons by Georgian authorities apparently aware that they were about to go to war with Russia…
http://www.israeltoday.co.il/default.aspx?tabid=178&nid=16875
