Putin�s winning hand: Once the Atlantic alliance is shattered, America�s lifeline to the world is kaput
By Mike Whitney
Online Journal Contributing Writer
Aug 18, 2008, 00:22
There are no military installations in the city of
Tskhinvali. In fact, there are no military targets at all. It is an industrial
center consisting of lumber mills, manufacturing plants and residential areas.
It is also the home to 30,000 South Ossetians. When Georgian President Mikheil
Saakashvili ordered the city to be bombed by warplanes and shelled by heavy
artillery last Thursday, he knew that he would be killing hundreds of civilians
in their homes and neighborhoods. But he ordered the bombing anyway.
There was no �Battle of Tskhinvali�; that�s another fiction.
A battle implies that there is an opposing force that is resisting or fighting
back. That�s not the case here. The Georgian army entered the city unopposed. After
all, how can unarmed civilians stop armed units? Most of the townspeople had
already fled across the border into Russia or hid in their basements while the
tanks and armored vehicles rumbled by firing at anything that moved.
What took place in South Ossetia last Thursday, was not an
invasion or a siege; it was a massacre. The people had no way to defend
themselves against a fully-equipped modern army. It was a war crime.
In less than 24 hours, the Russian army was deployed to the
war zone where it chased the Georgian army away without a fight. Journalist
Michael Binyon put it like this, �The attack was short, sharp and deadly -- enough
to send the Georgians fleeing in humiliating panic.� Indeed, the Georgians left
in such haste that many of their weapons were left behind. It was a complete
rout; another black-eye for the US and Israeli advisers who trained the rabble
of thugs they call the Georgian army. Soon vendors on the streets of Tskhinvali
will be hawking weapons that were left behind with a mocking sign: �Georgia
Army M-16, never used, dropped once.�
By the time the army was driven out, the downtown area was
in engulfed in flames and the bodies of those who had been killed by sniper fire
were strewn along the streets and sidewalks. Many of the people who stayed
behind were simply too old or infirm to leave. Instead, they huddled in their basements
waiting for the shelling to stop. It was a bloodbath. The city�s only hospital
was deliberately targeted and destroyed; another war crime. By day�s end, over
2,000 people were killed in an operation that was clearly engineered with the
assistance of the Bush White House. Bush regards Saakashvilli as his main
client in the region; they are friends. He is America�s cat�s paw in the
Caucasus. Saakashvilli�s assignment is to try to get Putin to overreact
militarily and demonstrate to European allies that Russia still poses a threat
to their national security. Fortunately, many Europeans see through the ruse
and know that the trouble originates in Washington.
For the most part, Americans are still in the dark about
what really happened. There�s a great video circulating
on the Internet by a Russian citizen that has been living in USA for the last
10 years. He sums up the role of the US media with great precision. He says, �The
western media -- especially CNN--is feeding you complete horseshit. Russia did
not invade Georgia first.�
The coverage by the Western media has been abysmal. Nearly
every article and TV news segment begins with accusations of Russian aggression,
concealing the fact that the Georgian Army bombarded and invaded the capital of
South Ossetia one full day before the first Russian tank crossed the border. By
the time the Russians arrived, the city was already in a shambles and thousands
were dead.
These facts are not in dispute by those who followed the
developments as they took place. Now the media are revising the facts to manage
public perceptions, just as they did with the fictional WMD in Iraq. Many
people think that the media learned their lesson after they were exposed for
using bogus information in the lead up to the war in Iraq. But that is not
true. The corporate media -- especially FOX News, CNN and PBS (the smug,
liberal-sounding channel) -- continue to operate like the propaganda arm of the
Pentagon. It�s disgraceful.
In a 2006 referendum, 99 percent of South Ossetians said
they supported independence from Georgia. The voter turnout was 95 percent and
the balloting was monitored by 34 international observers from the West. No one
has challenged the results. The province has been under the protection of
Russian and Georgian peacekeepers since 1992 and has been a de facto
independent state ever since. If Putin applied the same standard as Bush did in
Kosovo, he would unilaterally declare South Ossetia independent from Georgia
and then thumb his nose at the UN. (Sauce for the goose, is sauce for the
gander) But Putin and newly-elected Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have
taken a conciliatory attitude towards the international community and tried to
resolve the issue through diplomatic channels. So far, they have conducted
themselves with restraint and avoided any confrontation.
Still, Russia�s operation in South Ossetia has ignited a
firestorm in the US political establishment, and Democrats and Republicans
alike are demanding that Russia be �taught a lesson.� Condoleeza Rice flew to
Tbilisi on Friday and ordered Russian combat troops to withdraw from Georgia
immediately. Saakashvili topped off Rice�s comments by saying that the Russian
troops were �cold-blooded killers� and �barbarians.� So much for
reconciliation.
Saakashvili�s hyperbolic rhetoric was followed by a surprise
announcement from Poland that they had approved Bush�s plans for deploying the
Missile Defense Shield in Eastern Europe. The system is supposed to defend
Europe from the possibility of attacks from so-called �rogue states� like Iran,
but the Kremlin knows that it is intended to neutralize their nuclear arsenal.
Political analyst William Engdahl explains the importance of
the proposed system in his article, Missile
defense: Washington and Poland just moved the world closer to war, �The
signing now insures an escalation of tensions between Russia and NATO and a new
Cold War arms race in full force. It is important for readers to understand . .
. the ability of one of two opposing sides to put anti-missile missiles to
within 90 miles of the territory of the other in even a primitive
first-generation anti-missile missile array gives that side virtual victory in
a nuclear balance of power and forces the other to consider unconditional
surrender or to preemptively react by launching its nuclear strike before 2012.�
The new �shield� will be integrated into the larger US
nuclear weapons system placing the world�s most lethal weapons just a few
hundred miles from Russia�s capital. It is a clear threat to Russia�s national
security and it must be opposed at all cost. It is no different than nuclear
weapons in Cuba. The timing of the announcement is particularly troubling as it
only adds to the tensions between the two superpowers.
President Medvedev made this statement after hearing of
Poland�s decision, �This decision clearly demonstrates everything we have said
recently. The deployment of new anti-missile forces in Europe is aimed at the
Russian Federation.�
It was President Ronald Reagan, the darling of the
neoconservatives, who decided to remove short-range nuclear weapons from the European
theater. Now, ironically, it is his ideological heir, George W. Bush, who is on
track to restart the Cold War by putting a high-tech nuclear system on Russia�s
perimeter. The younger Bush has already broken his father�s commitment to
Mikail Gorbachev to never expand NATO beyond Germany. Presently, Bush is
pushing to gain NATO membership for two former-Soviet states, Ukraine and
Georgia. If they are approved, then any future dispute with Russia will pit the
United States and Europe against Moscow. It�s no wonder Putin is trying to
derail the process.
The Bush administration has been planning for a
confrontation with Russia for more than a year. In fact, Raw Story reported on
operations that were conducted by the military on July 14, which were probably
a dress rehearsal for the current conflict.
According to Raw Story, �US troops on Monday (July 14) began
military exercises near the Russian border in ex-Soviet Ukraine and were poised
to launch them in Georgia, amid tense relations between Moscow and Washington.
A ceremony inaugurating the Sea Breeze-2008 NATO exercise was held off Ukraine�s
Black Sea coast against anti-NATO protests and a hostile reaction from
officials in Russia. Sea Breeze-2008 . . . includes forces from Armenia,
Azerbaijan, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany,
Greece, Latvia, Macedonia and Turkey . . . �The US-Georgia joint exercises will
be held at the Vaziani military base� less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from
the Russian border with a total of 1,650 servicemen taking part.�
So, it appears the Bush administration, working in
conjunction with the Pentagon, did have contingency plans for dealing with a
flare-up with Georgia. The real question is whether or not they planned to
initiate those hostilities to advance their own regional agenda? No one knows
for sure.
Now that Georgia�s American-trained army has been humiliated
in front of the world, Bush is trying desperately to save face by demanding
that Russia allow the US Air Force to deliver humanitarian aid via C-17
military aircraft to the tens of thousands of Georgians who were displaced in
the fighting. It is worth noting that, as yet, Bush has never delivered as much
as a bag of rice to the 2 million Iraqi refugees living in Jordan and Syria due
to his war in Iraq. Bush�s magnanimity is not only suspect, it also creates
real problems for Putin who will have to decide whether the offer is sincere or
just a ploy to open up the ports and airfields so that more weaponry and
ordnance can be delivered.
As Barry Grey suggests in his article �Bush Dispatches US
Military forces to Georgia,� the humanitarian operation could be a scam: �This
is a formula for an injection of US military and naval forces into Georgia of
indeterminate scope and duration. It will certainly involve the presence of
hundreds if not thousands of uniformed US military personnel on the ground, and
a substantial number of warships in the region. The US is introducing this
military force into a situation that remains highly unstable and combustible,
raising the possibility of a direct military clash between the United States
and Russia.�
Grey is right, but what choice does Putin have? His task is
to avoid a military confrontation with the United States while demonstrating to
his European partners that their future lies with Russia not America. That�s
the real goal. To achieve that, he needs to expose Bush as reckless, petulant,
and incapable of being a responsible steward of the global system. Maybe Putin
will have to back down at some point and swallow his pride; it makes no
difference. What matters, is the endgame, showing that Russia is strong and
dependable and will provide its European allies with oil and natural gas in a
businesslike manner. That�s the winning hand. Meanwhile, the United States will
be forced to take a long-overdue look in the mirror and revisit its strategy
for perennial war. Unfortunately, once the Atlantic alliance is shattered, America�s lifeline to the world is kaput.
Mike
Whitney lives in Washington state. He can be reached at fergiewhitney@msn.com.
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