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Joe Lieberman (some prefer "Loserman" because of the last election,
some just because the idea of him as "Lover Man" is obscene) addressed,
as it were, the (pardon the expression) Republican Convention. Also,
Bush talked about the "Angry Left." (That's you and 80% of the
population)
We seem to have lost track of what has been going on in Russia.
Ever since the fall of the Soviet Union, the U.S. has felt free to "rule
the world," making us nostalgic for the good ol days when there was not
only a balance of power, but also the comforting thought that at any
time there may be a nuclear war and all our trials would soon be over.
Palin will speak tonight. As a hockey mom, she should know the
cardinal rule when playing short-handed: "Get the puck outta there."
*[Some have pointed out that what with the PTA, being mayor of a town
twice the size of my own HighSchool, and 2 year Governor of a State
almost as populous as Gary Indiana, she has more executive experience
than Obama, but then the same applies to McCain, so she should be the
Presidential candidate, even if her plane wasn't shot down.*]
Anyway, after Georgia invaded the mainly Russian provinces, Russia
took them back. Here is an article explaining what is at stake there
and why there is so much obfuscation about it.
**********************************************
By *Serge Halimi*
Source: Le Monde diplomatique <http://MondeDiplo.com/2008/09/01russia>
Serge Halimi's ZSpace Page
<http://www.zcommunications.org/zspace/sergehalimi>
Join ZSpace <https://www.zcommunications.org/zsustainers/signup>
The question of responsibility for the hostilities in the Caucasus
shouldn't worry us too much. Less than a week after Georgia's invasion,
two well-known French commentators said it was old stuff. An influential
neo-conservative from the United States backed that view: knowing who
started things "is not very important", wrote Robert Kagan. "This war
did not begin because of a miscalculation by Georgian president Mikheil
Saakashvili. It is a war that Moscow has been attempting to provoke for
some time" (1).
One hypothesis deserves another. If, on the day of the opening ceremony
of the Beijing Olympics, somebody else than Saakashvili, a graduate of
New York's Columbia Law School, had started a war, would western
capitals and their media have been able to contain righteous indignation
at such a symbolic act?
History is easier to follow when goodies and baddies are decided in
advance. The goodies, such as Georgia, have the right to defend their
territorial integrity against the separatist struggles of their
neighbours. The baddies, such as Serbia, must accept the
self-determination of minority communities or expect to be bombed by
Nato. The moral of this story is even more enlightening when, to defend
his country's borders, the charming pro-American Saakashvili repatriates
some of the 2,000 soldiers he had sent to invade Iraq.
On 16 August President George Bush, speaking with gravity, rightly
invoked the "Security Council resolutions of the United Nations"
including the "sovereignty and independence and territorial integrity"
of Georgia whose "borders should command the same respect as every other
nation's".
Only the US has the right to act unilaterally when it decides (or
claims) that its security is at stake. In reality, events have followed
a simpler plan: the US plays for Georgia against Russia; Russia plays
for South Ossetia and Abkhazia to "punish" Georgia.
Two Pentagon position papers have indicated a desire to prevent the
resurgence of Russian power ever since 1992, when it was in ruins. To
ensure that US hegemony, which began with the first Gulf war and the
disintegration of the Soviet bloc, became permanent, the Pentagon
announced that it would be necessary to "convince likely rivals that
they no longer need aspire to a greater role". If that didn't work, the
US would know how "to dissuade" them. And the main target was Russia,
"the only power in the world which could destroy the US".
So can we chide Russian leaders for bristling against western help for
the "colour revolutions" of Ukraine and Georgia, the inclusion of former
members of the Warsaw Pact in Nato and the prospect of US missiles on
Polish soil - all of which were elements of the old US strategy to
weaken Russia, whatever its regime or its politics? "Russia has become a
great power, that's what's so worrying," admitted Bernard Kouchner,
France's foreign minister (2).
Zbigniew Brzezinski, the architect of the US' risky strategy in
Afghanistan, recently explained the other part of the US grand design:
"We have access through Georgia... to the oil and soon also the gas that
lies not only in Azerbaijan but beyond it in the Caspian sea and beyond
in Central Asia. So, in that sense, it's a very major and strategic
asset to us" (3). He can't be accused of inconsistency: even in the days
of Boris Yeltsin, when Russia was still floundering, he advocated
driving it from the Caucasus and Central Asia so that energy flows to
the West could be guaranteed (4).
Nowadays Russia is doing better, the US is doing less well and oil
prices have taken off. Victim of its president's provocative actions,
Georgia has just been hit from three directions.
________________________________________________________
(1) Bernard-Henri Lévy and André Glucksmann, Libération, 14 August 2008,
and Robert Kagan, Washington Post, 11 August 2008.
(2) Interview in the Journal de Dimanche, Paris, 17 August 2008.
(3) Bloomberg News, 12 August 2008.
(4) Zbigniew Brzezinski, The Grand Chessboard, Basic Books, New York, 1997.
Translated by Robert Waterhouse
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