Georgia. What Happened?
You’re going to have to read a lot of independents and between a lot of lines to get a handle on this one. Even the UN Security Council can’t agree three lines of text.
While it might not be world war on the ground, international media is locked in ‘moral’ combat while foreign ministers on different sides denounce their opposite numbers.
Argumentation is on the ‘well they started it’ playground level, rhetoric devoid of reality. But then, one set of peacekeepers attacking another is rather absurd to begin with.
Blatant propaganda is quickly making a case for one side or the other. But it looks like public relations struggling for rationale. Igniting this conflict isn’t to anyone’s advantage.
Would ‘NATO wannabe‘ Saakashvili have been so reckless as to poke the bear? As with the wine embargo, Russia can impose crippling sanctions on Georgia. Also at risk is a huge chunk of national revenue which comes from Georgians working in Russia sending money home. And if Saakashvili wants a United Georgia, is sacking Ossetia’s capital any way to go about it? In a recent referendum, 99% of Ossetians voted for separation from Georgia.
For the same reasons, Russia doesn’t need the force of arms, or to force the will of pro-Russian separatists and it hardly needs the bad press. Both the rouble and Russia’s stock market took a hammering. A conspiracy theory would make more sense.
The emerging analysis is that Saakashvili gambled and got it wrong. Or maybe - like Saddam invading Kuwait - he was tipped the wrong wink. But most Western media doesn’t see it that way and that seems more important than what’s actually happening.
The operation to take back South Ossetia was clearly a planned military offensive by Georgia, which mobilised thousands. Georgian artillery and missiles shelled the capital Tskhinvali for 15 hours. In the Wall Street Journal, American Senator Biden promptly praised the Georgian president for his restraint, while the UK’s Daily Mail screams, ‘Russia Blitzes Rebel State’. That pretty much sums up the general objectivity.
At this time, it’s interesting to read blogger Wu Wei, who is actually in Georgia. She paints a good picture of why reporting is often unreliable. There are news blackouts, mobile networks are down and foreign Ambassadors are too busy evacuating themselves to be helpful, let alone informative.
It all reminds me of the Evelyn Waugh novel, ‘Scoop‘, where a London paper’s gardening correspondent is sent to cover a war in Africa. No one is quite sure who are the ‘rebels’ and who are the ‘patriots’, so the journos sit around in a hotel drinking making stuff up to order. Appropriately, Waugh’s satire of foreign correspondents was based on his own experiences of working for the Daily Mail.
“Or maybe - like Saddam invading Kuwait - he was tipped the wrong wink.”
You mean, there might be a new April Glaspie? The last US official of high standing to visit Georgia was C…. I wonder if anyone is going to take the rap in the W Administration (on the feeble assumption that it was the ‘wrong wink’) … then again, I doubt it will happen this side of an election…that/those person/s might find employment in Washington more difficult in future…
Probably you read the same story in the New York Times?
‘After Mixed Messages, A War Erupted In Georgia’.
Link
It looks increasingly as if ‘tipping the wrong wink’ is what happened and a number of people are in denial. The likelihood of Saakashvili going against explicit instructions from his Washington paymasters are slim.
Nope, missed that one, but picked up the gist from several different media outlets
I just read your most recent piece about this being a pre-planned ‘PR war’ a la Litvinenko, the clue being the Roki Tunnel. Could this be a W. gift to the ‘next’ republican president? It is certainly very ‘cheap’ for the US.
If this is indeed the case, there is always the real possibility that it will fail. I’m not convinced that ‘The New Menace’ (TM) will grip the american popular imagination in the same way as it was gripped a few years ago, in 2003. Could this be the last dying gasp of the Neocon movement to restrict a more ‘flexible’ policy in the next administration even if McCain doesn’t win? Could one imagine Obama really saying ‘we must negotiate’ with the media clamour?
Sticking with this theme, maybe it is precisely the Necon recognition that they are over extended that lead to such a PR war, i.e. to concretize the euro-atlants encroachment up to Russia’s border. If Georgia was always expendable (on the assumption that even the Russians wouldn’t be so stupid as to blow up the pipeline), what other areas would such a war help US policy? So far, I read that the US & Poland have just initialled a ‘preliminary’ agreement on missile defense and both swear blind it has nothing to do with current events. Nothing else has come up (eyes on the Ukraine who have already squeaked about the Black Sea Fleet), but it will be interesting to see what other ‘agreements’ might happen in the last months of a W. administration.
Add to that, the clamor for ‘internationalization’ in the region is already leading to calls (in particularly EU policy circles) for that other seeping sore ‘Ngorno-Karabakh’ to be addressed and everything that might entail.
Curious indeed. On the other hand, the euros may well see that it is in their interests to have a comprehensive agreement with Russia as soon as possible. Unlike the US, they do actually share the same land mass.
As for NATO, it operates more as a ‘coalition of the willing’ since the 1999 war in Kosovo with the frogs vetoing lots of targets and generally turning it into a war by committee. It still doesn’t know what it is for and seems to evolve each time there is a crisis. Even with its ‘lack of action’ (well, Georgia is not a member), it’s not like everyone is going to quit an leave the US as the sole drunk left at the bar with a glass of scotch, mainly because the euros have no other credible security structure available (the WEU already long buried by NATO’s long shadow).
Still, one thing I think everyone can agree on is that this marks clear change, even if it already actually happened a while ago. I just hope that Medvyedev gets on with his ‘war against corruption’ and actually achieves something. This is just as important as the other stuff…
If the objective was to put the frighteners on the ‘little countries’, then it has worked a charm. Now they’ll all want half a dozen ‘missile defense systems’ each. Some Estonian volunteers pitched up to fight for Georgia. No surprise there.
The US will sabotage developing relations between Russia and the EU and it can do this quite effectively. Russia will always respond - maybe now Poland will get another beef ban. Russia sees the EU and NATO as one and the same animal in any case.
There’s always a chance it could just have been a massive US intelligence and miltary screw up, but the black PR would have kicked in anyway - and now it’s likely to go into overdrive. The front page of the ‘Times’ the other day featured a Georgian soldier just returned from Iraq. ‘I’m here to drink Russian blood’ was the caption quote. I fear this will be the tenor of the media for some time to come.
BTW, I have seen an explanation on a couple of sites as to why Roki (isn’t that an unaired film?) wasn’t blocked… it was to ‘help’ the refugees to leave the territory rapidly. How thoughtful.
Having had a little think about your last comment, I can imagine that the EU might now actually find the will to define itself in the ’security’ sphere. In the early 1990’s, there was talk of the Western European Union becoming a central plank of EC(EU) defense but I guess this was shot down by their atlantic cousins. NATO still hasn’t provided the EU what it needs, politically nor much militarily.
The last example is that EU countries have only now agreed to a joint EU bought, NATO pool of C-17 transporters (which go for $150 mill a piece). The Euros just don’t see any real reason to splash out on bang bangs. I doubt this will change much with the current excitement in the Caucasus.
Sorry, just got distracted by Euronews showing a norwegian military penguin inspecting soldiers. Wierd.
According to Georgia’s own disinfo sheet at http://www.civil.ge the Roki Tunnel was a target. Quote:
GEORGIA - 23.05 August 9
‘Georgian forces killed 60 Russian troopers and destroyed 40 battle tanks in a fierce fight in Tskhinvali and now the Georgian government troops are in full control of the South Ossetian capital attempting to advance further into north, the Interior Ministry has claimed.’
‘With Tskhinvali and surrounded areas under the Georgian control, he said, the troops were advancing further having “next target” the town of Java and the Roki Tunnel on high mountainous border with Russia.’
When this was published, of course, the news was inaccurate and the Georgian forces were not in control.