Online Journal
Front Page 
 
 Donate
 
 Submissions
 
 Announcements
 
 NewsLinks
 
 Special Reports
 
 News Media
 
 Elections & Voting
 
 Health
 
 Religion
 
 Social Security
 
 Analysis
 
 Commentary
 
 Editors' Blog
 
 Reclaiming America
 
 The Splendid Failure of Occupation
 
 The Lighter Side
 
 Reviews
 
 The Mailbag
 
 Online Journal Stores
 Official Merchandise
 Amazon.com
 
 Links
 
 Join Mailing List
Search

Commentary Last Updated: Aug 13th, 2008 - 00:48:50


Irresponsible risk takers in command
By Rodrigue Tremblay
Online Journal Guest Writer


Aug 13, 2008, 00:12

Email this article
 Printer friendly page

�War prosperity is like the prosperity that an earthquake or a plague brings.�

�War . . . is harmful, not only to the conquered but to the conqueror.�

�To defeat the aggressors is not enough to make peace durable. The main thing is to discard the ideology that generates war.�

�The root of the evil is not the construction of new, more dreadful weapons. It is the spirit of conquest.� --Ludwig von Mises (1881-1973)

There are people in charge who think that provocation and aggression can be acceptable government policy. The sudden conflict between the former Soviet province of Georgia and Russia in the Caucasus in Eurasia is a good case in point.

What�s behind this conflict that erupted last Friday at the outset of the Beijing Olympic Games? First and foremost, let us keep in mind that the real and first aggressors in this conflict is the belligerent government of Georgia, led by an impulsive politician named Mikhail Saakashvili, who is openly supported by the governments of the U.S. and of Israel.

Early Friday, August 8, Georgian tanks and infantry, assisted by American and Israeli military advisers, launched an early morning massive artillery and rocket barrage on the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, thus directly provoking Russia, which had soldiers in that province.

At first blush, most people could easily arrive at the conclusion that Saakashvili is completely out of his mind for having declared war against its neighbor Russia, a country more than 50 times larger, with the goal of reoccupying the Russian-speaking province of South Ossetia, de facto independent since 1992. The only logical explanation would seem to be that the Georgia president believed, or had some form of assurance, that the Bush-Cheney administration would side militarily with him. Did he really believe that the Bush-Cheney administration, already deeply involved in two military conflicts in Iraq and in Afghanistan, would risk a world war to salvage an oil pipeline and a newly acquired colony in that far away part of the world? This would seem to be another insane idea.

It is a little known fact that the U.S. and Israel have been training and arming the Georgian military since 2002. This situation is tantamount to risking a restart of the Cold War with Russia. It has also sown the seeds of a much larger conflict in that part of the world by encouraging Georgia to embark on military manoeuvres. Little Georgia (4.5 m. inhabitants) even has 2,000 troops in Iraq, soldiers that the U.S. is now quickly flying back to Georgia. This goes a long way towards explaining how involved the Bush-Cheney administration and its Israeli surrogates have been in sticking it in the eyes of Russia. And now, the Russian bear is reacting. This is brinkmanship at a high level.

In the summer of 1914, a similar miscalculation resulted in igniting World War I.

This was a conflict that started with a single death (the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand on June 28, 1914) but which resulted, in the end, in 40 million deaths. The catastrophe was the result of a chain reaction of war declarations by various countries involved in the affairs of other countries. This remains an example of how relatively minor regional conflicts can escalate into conflagrations when hotheads are in command.

The Georgia-Russia spat represents a good opportunity for the U.N. Secretary-General, Mr. Ban Ki-moon, to show leadership and not to let things degenerate. Indeed, there is always the possibility that one politician after another will try not to lose face by escalating things. For example, the U.N Secretary-General should obtain from the Security Council the mandate to visit immediately the two capitals directly involved, and he should attempt to broker an immediate face-saving end to the hostilities. He should persuade the Russian leaders not to overreact to the Georgian President�s provocations. As for the latter, he has demonstrated that he is not worthy of occupying his functions.

Time is of the essence in such circumstances, because there are always some interests that stand to profit from a worsening situation.

For one, the presumptive Republican presidential candidate John McCain, who never met a war he didn�t like, has already tried to stoke the fire of conflict by calling for the 26-country NATO to get involved in what is essentially a local ethnic conflict. On the campaign trail, John McCain said: �We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia�s security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation.�

Incredibly, the Republican candidate is attempting to profit politically from this faraway crisis by advancing the frightening prospect of turning a small regional conflict into a world war. This could have something to do with the fact that Mr. McCain�s main foreign policy adviser is a former lobbyist for the government of Georgia and is a former neocon lobbyist for the U.S. military invasion of Iraq. This would seem to be a direct conflict of interests and reason enough for Mr. McCain to refrain from throwing oil on the fire.

I have said it before, and this incident confirms it; this man would seem to be unfit to be in charge of a heavily armed country.

Rodrigue Tremblay lives in Montreal and can be reached at rodrigue.tremblay@yahoo.com. He is the author of the book ��The New American Empire.� His new book, �The Code for Global Ethics,� will be published in 2008. Visit his blog site at thenewamericanempire.com/blog.

Copyright © 1998-2007 Online Journal
Email Online Journal Editor

Top of Page

Commentary
Latest Headlines
Making smarter cars instead of stupid decisions
Vote first; ask questions later
Cassandra complex
Obama exploits liberal denial
Livni states that the targets in Mumbai were Jewish and Israeli (another codeword for �Western�?)
Gaza: Salvation in a news broadcast
The tragic devastation of Iraq, a critical moral issue for America
Through a hole in the air . . .
What would Jesus buy?
The new Obama administration: A lot of more of the same
Deadly consumerism
Happy Thanksgiving? Not for all
The last Thanksgiving before GD2?
Obama�s odious entourage
Bush�s disgraceful legacy
500-year war against Vietnam
Can they do that?
Why do I live in the United States?
New deal? We need a new deck!
Consumers, then chumps for predatory capitalism