Stoopid Stuff

Georgia on my Mind

At this point, the madness, stupidity, hypocrisy and blind ideology have reached epic proportions. Let's look at what actually happened objectively. Georgia, traditionally a region under the purview of Moscow, with a limited history of independence, took advantage of the fall of the Soviet Union to declare independent nationhood. The borders were arbitrarily set to coincide with the original borders from the Georgian independence of 1918. These borders enclosed a number of independent minded regions with no love for the Georgians and no interest in being part of an independent Georgia. These regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, became autonomous regions with support from Russia.

Georgia is led by an American Educated nutjob with delusions of relevance on the world stage named Mikheil Saakashvil. Saakashvili pursued close economic and military ties to the west, primarily due to the fact that he had no hope of developing good relations with his enormous neighbor to the north. With ideologically - driven support from the Bush Administration, Georgia wanted to join NATO. Russia was understandably concerned by these actions by a nation with which it shared a 723 kilometer common border.

So we come to last week. Believing he could act in an unfettered manner due to perceived security agreements with the US and NATO, Saakashvili ordered his forces into South Ossetia to dislodge the separatist leadership and re-assert authority over the breakaway region. Russia, deeply unhappy with Georgia's increasingly close ties to the west, and unwilling to see Georgia incorporated into NATO, did the obvious, predictable thing and with her overwhelming military advantage over tiny Georgia drove the Georgian military units out of the Ossetia region and continued an offensive to punish Georgia for her actions, cripple her military capability and demonstrate that in her sphere of influence, it is a very bad idea to make Russia angry.

While this outcome was not only obvious and predictable, but entirely in keeping with the way the world has always worked, the American response has been just as predictably hypocritical and deeply, dangerously stupid.

The hypocricy is reflected in the sad bleating of the American administration over things like "Territorial Integrity", "Georgian Sovereignty" and how it is unacceptable in this day and age for a powerful nation to impose her will by force and seek "regime change" in an external nation. There is of course the obvious comparisons to Afghanistan and Iraq, but in fact, the complete lack of self-awareness and shame runs significantly deeper. For there is also the key question of geographic proximity. Powerful, imperial nations have always jealously managed the nations in their immediate sphere of influence. There is a security dimension to this, along with the economic and political explanations. It not only explains America's traditional dominance of her neighbors to the south and long-term friendly relations with Canada, but also the stick-in-the-craw spittle-spraying anger with Cuba that has led nearly to nuclear war on at least one occasion, and to dozens of confrontations over the years.

How can one be surprised, or even take significant umbrage at Russia being actively involved in the political and military status of neighbors with whom she shares a common border? If America can justify the invasion and occupation of Afghanistan and Iraq on national security grounds, how can she begrudge Russia doing the same with a regional neighbor? America's leadership may not like it, but for them to mindlessly bray about how it is no longer acceptable for a modern nation to act in this way flys in the face of Imperial America's actions in the last decade. And they must realize that this is clearly and transparently visible to the rest of the world.

And then there's the abject, ideologically - driven stupidity of the belligerent American response. With our recent lessons on the limitations of armed might, with our army and marines bogged down in the occupation of a couple of tiny, third world nations, much of our equipment deployed and worn out, National Guard and Reserves heavily over-committed, with the lessons learned over and over again since Vietnam, lessons clear for all to see, with all this knowledge and history apparent for the world to study, to threaten Russia with any kind of military response on THEIR BORDER is simply insane. Other than starting a nuclear war, what could we really hope to accomplish. Our forces would have to find a way to get halfway around the world while the Russian forces could just sit and wait for them. Our air might be better, but they have local bases and plenty of planes. Our navy might be better, but they can deploy subs and missile right there locally - our navy would lose most of their capital ships in two weeks. What do these idiots want to see, some kind of Normandy invasion? We don't have the ships, the troops or the ability to land in those numbers. And can you imagine the difficulty of doing so today, under a rain of ballistic missiles, cruise missiles and smart bombs?

And of course, the other side of this rich panoply of international idiocy is the threats and belligerence themselves. As they get repeated, without any action, indeed, without the ability to back them up, they lose all currency. Just as the threat of American military intervention was taken much more seriously before the actual American military intervention in Iraq demonstrated that the anticipated effectiveness of large - scale military action did not live up to the actual effectiveness. Indeed, America's military "sucess" in Iraq has damaged her much more deeply than Saddam ever could have dreamed. As American polititians, pundits, candidates and thought leaders continue to rant about the evils of Russian intervention in Georgia, ratcheting up the rhetoric to "Remember the Maine" levels, they merely demonstrate for all the world to see the impotence of twenty first century imperial America. For all McCain could actually do, he might as well tie an onion to his belt and yell at clouds. Russia knows America is powerless to act, and every threat and challenge she issues merely reinforces that point around the world...

posted by mikey @ 10:52 AM