By Alan Caruba
I had the odd thought while watching the news coverage of the Russian invasion of Georgia that Vladimir Putin had locked up the election for John McCain.
Earlier I thought that President Bush had partially handed over the Oval Office when he announced in effect that U.S. troops would begin to come out of Iraq in the foreseeable future. That pretty much took that issue off the table for Barack Obama.
Obama had shot to the top of the Democrat heap of candidates by emphasizing he had been against the Iraq war from the days before he was elected Senator. Then, after that, Barack managed to find it in his heart to vote for every funding bill involving the war. This has come to be called “refining” his views. Indeed, one can witness Obama refine his views on almost any issue between breakfast and dinner.
I am pretty sure that Vladimir Putin wasn’t thinking “This is a sure way to remind everyone we live in a dangerous world, filled with people like myself who actually want to go to war if it involves a very small nation that can’t fight back.”
The net effect of the Russian invasion of Georgia was to remind anyone over the age of 65 that the United States, following World War Two, was locked into a Cold War with Russia for nearly fifty years. During that time, there were a number of hot wars as well.
I have an older brother who served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and, in 1962, I can remember being in Fort Benning, Georgia, getting ready to don full battle gear in the event the Russians tried to run the Cuban “missile crisis” blockade that President Kennedy had imposed. You don’t forget stuff like that.
And, of course, you don’t forget seven years of the Vietnam War stretching from Kennedy to Nixon. That was a proxy war, albeit a civil war. Even I participated in peace marches around the Washington Monument to get an end to that confrontation.
I have a feeling that Americans have mostly forgotten the fear that gripped us all on 9/11. If you lived or worked in New York, you were always scanning the sky for another wayward jet airliner. Soon enough we were laughing at the Homeland Security alert colors. The problem, however, is that we are still locked into a war with Islamic fundamentalists and are likely to be for a very long time to come.
Yes, there actually is a reason we have troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.
While the conflict in Georgia is occurring someplace most Americans could not find on the map, the video coverage of the long convoys of Russian troop carriers and tanks are a vivid reminder of the ugliness of war and the potential for an attack from anywhere at any time.
Ever since it became obvious that the U.S. had finally begun to win the war in Iraq, all coverage of that conflict disappeared from our television screens and the front pages of our daily newspapers.
The Georgia conflict is the kind of thing that influences voters; as well it should. Somewhere in the back of our minds we all know that McCain is an Annapolis graduate who fought in the Vietnam War and survived brutal treatment as a prisoner. Some of us may even know he comes from a family whose men served our nation in war going back to World War I.
The contrast between the statements issued by McCain and Obama was significant. McCain’s was clearly a strong denunciation of the Russians while Obama whimpered about the importance of the Russians and Georgians sitting down over a cup of tea to work things out.
So, thank you, Vladimir Putin. My guess is you just got John McCain elected.
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Georgia. Show all posts
Friday, August 15, 2008
Wednesday, August 13, 2008
Pleading the Russian Cause
By Alan Caruba
By August 12 former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev’s opinion piece was in The Washington Post and by the next day in my daily newspaper in New Jersey as he pled the case for Russia.
Turns out, the massive troop movement into Georgia, a tiny nation on the border of the Russian Federation, the air assault, and the Russian navy just offshore, was all Georgia’s fault.
“The root of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia’s separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy.” Then, according to Gorbachev, on August 7 “The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas.”
“Russia had to respond.”
Naturally, Russia had to respond with a remarkably well coordinated attack during the Olympic Games while much of the world was distracted, while the U.S. Congress was in recess, and while many younger Americans were trying to figure out where Georgia was and why they should care.
Not to overstate the reasons why the U.S. is also probably to blame for all this, Gorbachev noted that “Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors” and “By declaring the Caucasus, a region that is thousands of miles from the American continent, a sphere of its ‘national interest’, the United States made a serious blunder.”
The United States regarded South Korea, when it was attacked by Stalinist North Korea, a national interest and felt the same about Vietnam. It has protected Taiwan. It liberated Grenada when communists attempted to turn it into another Cuba and it rid itself of a drug lord in Panama who was also that nation’s president. More recently, it felt its national interests were well served by chasing the Taliban out of Afghanistan (they’re back) and deposing the Iraqi despot, Saddam Hussein, best known for starting wars with both Iran and Kuwait.
America has an interest in the entire world. It has been instrumental in helping many nations establish democratic governments. Our military plays a training and protective role in numerous nations.
That old guy, John McCain, a Senator who has actually been to Georgia, issued a lengthy statement regarding the Russian invasion in which he said, "Americans wishing to spend August vacationing with their families or watching the Olympics may wonder why their newspapers and television screens are filled with images of war in the small country of Georgia. Concerns about what occurs there might seem distant and unrelated to the many other interests America has around the world. And yet Russian aggression against Georgia is both a matter of urgent moral and strategic importance to the United States of America.
"Georgia is an ancient country, at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion. After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises.”
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/PressReleases/Read.aspx?guid=612817d8-e377-44df-9ebe-aca0ea95e945
Reading Sen. McCain’s entire statement will tell you more about the real situation than you are likely to read in any U.S. newspaper since quite a few choose to ignore it.
The real blunder would be to forget the nearly fifty years of the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States or to overlook the way Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has steadily replaced the Soviet Union with a comparable autocratic government that does not hesitate to murder Russian journalists who print the truth or Russian dissidents overseas who might expose it.
We have returned to the Bad Old Days of the Russian Bear doing what it has always done; forcibly subjugating nations on its borders.
What I find disturbing is how swift some U.S. daily newspapers were to publish the “party line” by a former leading participant in Soviet hegemony. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
By August 12 former president of the Soviet Union, Mikhail Gorbachev’s opinion piece was in The Washington Post and by the next day in my daily newspaper in New Jersey as he pled the case for Russia.
Turns out, the massive troop movement into Georgia, a tiny nation on the border of the Russian Federation, the air assault, and the Russian navy just offshore, was all Georgia’s fault.
“The root of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia’s separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy.” Then, according to Gorbachev, on August 7 “The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas.”
“Russia had to respond.”
Naturally, Russia had to respond with a remarkably well coordinated attack during the Olympic Games while much of the world was distracted, while the U.S. Congress was in recess, and while many younger Americans were trying to figure out where Georgia was and why they should care.
Not to overstate the reasons why the U.S. is also probably to blame for all this, Gorbachev noted that “Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors” and “By declaring the Caucasus, a region that is thousands of miles from the American continent, a sphere of its ‘national interest’, the United States made a serious blunder.”
The United States regarded South Korea, when it was attacked by Stalinist North Korea, a national interest and felt the same about Vietnam. It has protected Taiwan. It liberated Grenada when communists attempted to turn it into another Cuba and it rid itself of a drug lord in Panama who was also that nation’s president. More recently, it felt its national interests were well served by chasing the Taliban out of Afghanistan (they’re back) and deposing the Iraqi despot, Saddam Hussein, best known for starting wars with both Iran and Kuwait.
America has an interest in the entire world. It has been instrumental in helping many nations establish democratic governments. Our military plays a training and protective role in numerous nations.
That old guy, John McCain, a Senator who has actually been to Georgia, issued a lengthy statement regarding the Russian invasion in which he said, "Americans wishing to spend August vacationing with their families or watching the Olympics may wonder why their newspapers and television screens are filled with images of war in the small country of Georgia. Concerns about what occurs there might seem distant and unrelated to the many other interests America has around the world. And yet Russian aggression against Georgia is both a matter of urgent moral and strategic importance to the United States of America.
"Georgia is an ancient country, at the crossroads of Eastern Europe and Central Asia, and one of the world's first nations to adopt Christianity as an official religion. After a brief period of independence following the Russian revolution, the Red Army forced Georgia to join the Soviet Union in 1922. As the Soviet Union crumbled at the end of the Cold War, Georgia regained its independence in 1991, but its early years were marked by instability, corruption, and economic crises.”
http://www.johnmccain.com/Informing/News/PressReleases/Read.aspx?guid=612817d8-e377-44df-9ebe-aca0ea95e945
Reading Sen. McCain’s entire statement will tell you more about the real situation than you are likely to read in any U.S. newspaper since quite a few choose to ignore it.
The real blunder would be to forget the nearly fifty years of the Cold War between the former Soviet Union and the United States or to overlook the way Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has steadily replaced the Soviet Union with a comparable autocratic government that does not hesitate to murder Russian journalists who print the truth or Russian dissidents overseas who might expose it.
We have returned to the Bad Old Days of the Russian Bear doing what it has always done; forcibly subjugating nations on its borders.
What I find disturbing is how swift some U.S. daily newspapers were to publish the “party line” by a former leading participant in Soviet hegemony. The more things change, the more they remain the same.
Monday, August 11, 2008
Russian Pride, Russian Power
By Alan Caruba
“Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has taken a giant step backwards into its Soviet past, and nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of energy politics. Modern Russian politics and energy sources, first oil and then both oil and gas, have been inextricably connected in a way unmatched by any other major power in the history of the world.”
That’s how Michael J. Economides and Donna Marie D’Aleo open their book, “From Soviet to Putin and Back: The Dominance of Energy in Today’s Russia.”
Central to the Russian psyche is its preference for strong leadership and, after what the Russians considered to have been the embarrassment of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, it was Putin who tapped into this centuries old desire for a Tsar. Secondary to that was the massive feeling of wounded pride when the old Soviet Union collapsed. Imagine being raised to believe that Communism was a superior economic and social system, only to discover that it was no match for the capitalism of the West?
The Soviet Union fell because, in the end, it was heavily, if not entirely, dependent on the sale of that nation’s vast oil and gas reserves. The fall in the price per barrel did in the Soviet Union and you can thank Ronald Reagan for that because it was he who hatched the plot with the King of Saudi Arabia to make it happen. Cheap oil thanks to Saudi production in the 1980s kept the price low. Soviet revenues declined.
Pride and the price of oil are surely part of the reason Russian troops are in Georgia today. The Russians want Georgia back under their control and are not unmindful that control of the pipeline that runs through Georgia would increase the power they already hold over Europe as its chief supplier of oil and gas.
Americans are awakening these days to some rude lessons about energy. If, for example, Congress refuses for some three decades to permit drilling where billions of barrels of American oil exists and refuses to permit exploration for more oil off the continental shelf, you end up paying up to $4.00 for a gallon of gasoline because you’re importing 60% or more of what you need from foreign sources.
Not all the corn grown in America could ever replace the amount of gasoline we require for a nation that virtually runs on the wheels of trucks and whose business is conducted by people accustomed to climbing on and off jet airliners. Not all the wind turbines or solar panels will ever provide the electricity we get from “dirty” coal or the 20% we get from “clean” nuclear power.
“The search for, and control of energy resources, have been central to major world conflicts, including both World Wars and other global conflicts and civil wars,” the book’s authors remind us.
The Russians understand that, even if Americans do not. War weary after five years in Iraq, a nation that sits atop the second largest reserves of oil in the Middle East, too many Americans are still too eager to castigate President Bush for ridding that region of the single most destabilizing force in modern times, Saddam Hussein. In the process, the projection of U.S. power has accelerated the degradation of the non-state menace of al Qaeda.
My guess—and that’s all it is—is that Europe and the U.S. will cede Georgia to Russia because there is no compelling reason to go to war over it. The failure to incorporate Georgia into NATO was, in retrospect, poor judgment. One wonders how fast the Ukraine’s application will be processed. The European Union is hardly a military power. The Russians sit on the United Nations Security Council and are not likely to welcome anything more than a weak protest.
The world has returned to the bad old days of the Cold War where two great powers competed, the United States and Russia. The Russians are pumping their own oil and gas reserves, earning handsome revenues in the global marketplace.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, the two Democrat leaders in Congress are more concerned about “saving the planet” from a non-existent global warming than in protecting our national interests. The Democrat candidate for President would be more at home in the Russian Duma discussing the redistribution of wealth and the creation of social programs than in defending the republic.
“Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has taken a giant step backwards into its Soviet past, and nowhere is this more evident than in the realm of energy politics. Modern Russian politics and energy sources, first oil and then both oil and gas, have been inextricably connected in a way unmatched by any other major power in the history of the world.”
That’s how Michael J. Economides and Donna Marie D’Aleo open their book, “From Soviet to Putin and Back: The Dominance of Energy in Today’s Russia.”
Central to the Russian psyche is its preference for strong leadership and, after what the Russians considered to have been the embarrassment of Gorbachev and Yeltsin, it was Putin who tapped into this centuries old desire for a Tsar. Secondary to that was the massive feeling of wounded pride when the old Soviet Union collapsed. Imagine being raised to believe that Communism was a superior economic and social system, only to discover that it was no match for the capitalism of the West?
The Soviet Union fell because, in the end, it was heavily, if not entirely, dependent on the sale of that nation’s vast oil and gas reserves. The fall in the price per barrel did in the Soviet Union and you can thank Ronald Reagan for that because it was he who hatched the plot with the King of Saudi Arabia to make it happen. Cheap oil thanks to Saudi production in the 1980s kept the price low. Soviet revenues declined.
Pride and the price of oil are surely part of the reason Russian troops are in Georgia today. The Russians want Georgia back under their control and are not unmindful that control of the pipeline that runs through Georgia would increase the power they already hold over Europe as its chief supplier of oil and gas.
Americans are awakening these days to some rude lessons about energy. If, for example, Congress refuses for some three decades to permit drilling where billions of barrels of American oil exists and refuses to permit exploration for more oil off the continental shelf, you end up paying up to $4.00 for a gallon of gasoline because you’re importing 60% or more of what you need from foreign sources.
Not all the corn grown in America could ever replace the amount of gasoline we require for a nation that virtually runs on the wheels of trucks and whose business is conducted by people accustomed to climbing on and off jet airliners. Not all the wind turbines or solar panels will ever provide the electricity we get from “dirty” coal or the 20% we get from “clean” nuclear power.
“The search for, and control of energy resources, have been central to major world conflicts, including both World Wars and other global conflicts and civil wars,” the book’s authors remind us.
The Russians understand that, even if Americans do not. War weary after five years in Iraq, a nation that sits atop the second largest reserves of oil in the Middle East, too many Americans are still too eager to castigate President Bush for ridding that region of the single most destabilizing force in modern times, Saddam Hussein. In the process, the projection of U.S. power has accelerated the degradation of the non-state menace of al Qaeda.
My guess—and that’s all it is—is that Europe and the U.S. will cede Georgia to Russia because there is no compelling reason to go to war over it. The failure to incorporate Georgia into NATO was, in retrospect, poor judgment. One wonders how fast the Ukraine’s application will be processed. The European Union is hardly a military power. The Russians sit on the United Nations Security Council and are not likely to welcome anything more than a weak protest.
The world has returned to the bad old days of the Cold War where two great powers competed, the United States and Russia. The Russians are pumping their own oil and gas reserves, earning handsome revenues in the global marketplace.
Meanwhile, back in the United States, the two Democrat leaders in Congress are more concerned about “saving the planet” from a non-existent global warming than in protecting our national interests. The Democrat candidate for President would be more at home in the Russian Duma discussing the redistribution of wealth and the creation of social programs than in defending the republic.
Saturday, August 9, 2008
Georgia On My Mind
By Alan Caruba
Considering what was happening in a secessionist part of Georgia, invaded by Russia, the sight of President Bush and Prime Minister Putin chatting amiably Friday night at the opening of the Olympic Games was fairly astonishing. Russian troops were in the process of invading Georgia and their planes were even bombing Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin.
Of course, it was Stalin who was not much upset when thousands of Georgians starved to death in the course of his advancing the power of the Communist Party over Russia and what came to be known as its satellite nations.
I had a brief mental picture of people running up and down the halls of the NATO headquarters in a panic until I realized that Georgia was not a part of NATO. What this means is that Europeans will watch from the sidelines as Russian tanks reassert their hegemony.
What is not known as this is written is whether the Russians will settle for taking South Ossetia away from Georgia. It is, not surprisingly, just across the border from North Ossetia.
What we do know is that the Russian army is very good at reducing to rubble anything they want. They wanted to retain Chechnya and they still have it. It’s mostly burnt out structural skeletons of buildings, but it still Russian burnt out structural skeletons of buildings.
As for the rest of Georgia, President Bush’s demeanor suggests that Vladimir told him that all those tanks, planes and troops are in South Ossetia purely for the purpose of liberating its people from the evil Georgians and that they—the Russians—don’t intend to grab any more land for now.
So it looks like the dogs of war will not be loosed upon the continent of Europe and the missiles will not be flying as was the fear from the bad old days of the Cold War. Wars are expensive and Russia is living mostly off its oil and gas revenues. There’s simply no point to expand this military adventure.
Moreover, they know the Europeans will stamp their feet and then do nothing. The parliament of the European Union may even convene a meeting for ten minutes or so to discuss the problem and then break for lunch.
Americans who invaded and have occupied Iraq since 2003 are not in a strong moral position to protest too loudly. And, anyway, who ever heard of the city of Abkhazia before last Friday?
Considering what was happening in a secessionist part of Georgia, invaded by Russia, the sight of President Bush and Prime Minister Putin chatting amiably Friday night at the opening of the Olympic Games was fairly astonishing. Russian troops were in the process of invading Georgia and their planes were even bombing Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin.
Of course, it was Stalin who was not much upset when thousands of Georgians starved to death in the course of his advancing the power of the Communist Party over Russia and what came to be known as its satellite nations.
I had a brief mental picture of people running up and down the halls of the NATO headquarters in a panic until I realized that Georgia was not a part of NATO. What this means is that Europeans will watch from the sidelines as Russian tanks reassert their hegemony.
What is not known as this is written is whether the Russians will settle for taking South Ossetia away from Georgia. It is, not surprisingly, just across the border from North Ossetia.
What we do know is that the Russian army is very good at reducing to rubble anything they want. They wanted to retain Chechnya and they still have it. It’s mostly burnt out structural skeletons of buildings, but it still Russian burnt out structural skeletons of buildings.
As for the rest of Georgia, President Bush’s demeanor suggests that Vladimir told him that all those tanks, planes and troops are in South Ossetia purely for the purpose of liberating its people from the evil Georgians and that they—the Russians—don’t intend to grab any more land for now.
So it looks like the dogs of war will not be loosed upon the continent of Europe and the missiles will not be flying as was the fear from the bad old days of the Cold War. Wars are expensive and Russia is living mostly off its oil and gas revenues. There’s simply no point to expand this military adventure.
Moreover, they know the Europeans will stamp their feet and then do nothing. The parliament of the European Union may even convene a meeting for ten minutes or so to discuss the problem and then break for lunch.
Americans who invaded and have occupied Iraq since 2003 are not in a strong moral position to protest too loudly. And, anyway, who ever heard of the city of Abkhazia before last Friday?
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