Article

2008-08-12 Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia

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Posted by tipper 2008-08-12 09:03|| || Front Page|| [11124 views ] Top

#1 Well then I guess by this guy's logic we should have to give the Southwest United States to La Raza and allow them to declare the Independent State of Aztlan.

Posted by bigjim-ky 2008-08-12 10:17|| 2008-08-12 10:17|| Front Page Top

#2 But, bigjim-ky, isn't that pretty much what happened in Kosovo?

To your point, as I understand the Kosovo precedent the US should give in to the La Raza and allow them to form the ISA the way Serbia was forced to give in to the KIA. Self determination don't you know.

Now, I don't believe that every tribe gets its own postage stamp country cause it holds its collective breath and stamps their little feet.

In that sense I understood Serbia's point. Was it really so different than our Civil War?

The problem is of course who's perceived as the good guys and the bad guys and all the ancillary motivations of all the players and hangers on.

The principle at issue, however, is National Sovereignty. (Woodrow Wilson really jumped the shark with that self-determination rhetoric.) IMHO NS should only accrue to geographical regions sufficiently large to be viable. As far as that goes, I think that Yugoslavia should never have been broken up. There should have been a way to get them all to play together in a federal system with a weaker central gov't. kinda like the USoA.

Of course all those competing tribal big-wigs want to run the whole show so they won't PLAY nice together (can't kill your enemies that way) so we get s**t like this. Iraq could still breakdown this way but so far so good.

It never ceases to amaze me how smart and far seeing our founders were.

Posted by AlanC 2008-08-12 10:45|| 2008-08-12 10:45|| Front Page Top

#3 Re: Yugoslavia's breakup, it was the Germans who demanded EU and UN recognition of breakaway Croatia.

Just noting some continuity in recent European stances....

Posted by lotp 2008-08-12 10:57|| 2008-08-12 10:57|| Front Page Top

#4 sigh. yet again. The intervention in Kosovo was NOT based on self-determination. It WAS based on humanitarian intervention related to a genocide under way at the time.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-12 11:22|| 2008-08-12 11:22|| Front Page Top

#5 Looks like Moscow is claiming genocide by Georgia in So. Ossetia - right on cue.

Posted by lotp 2008-08-12 11:26|| 2008-08-12 11:26|| Front Page Top

#6 On July 4 a car with the pro-Georgian leader of South Ossetia Dmitry Sanakoyev, whom the separatists consider a renegade, was hit by a roadside bomb and shot at.

July 31 after two roadside bombs hit a Georgian police Toyota SUV near the Georgian village of Eredvi. Six Georgian policemen were wounded
In June the head of the OSCE Mission to Georgia Teri Hakala told Pavel Felgenhauerin in Tbilisi that military clashes were happening on an almost daily basis, that OSCE monitors are also being attacked and that the "sides are not speaking."

Russian peacekeepers, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, discovered that the bombs were made out of 122 mm artillery shells (www.mil.ru, August 2).

The South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity claimed that Georgians living in South Ossetia were begging to be "liberated" from the forces of the regime in Tbilisi (RIA-Novosti, August 2, 3, and 4).

and so on and so fort....
the Soviets are guilty...

Posted by 3dc 2008-08-12 11:31|| 2008-08-12 11:31|| Front Page Top

#7 "Looks like Moscow is claiming genocide by Georgia in So. Ossetia - right on cue."

yes, I know. Id rather not rehash the differences again, as Ive mentioned them repeatedly the last few days. Differences include weeks of negotiations during which evidence of Serb actions (later confirmed) piled up, versus Russia moving into S Ossetia within HOURS of the Georgian move. HOURS. No evidence other than the estimiated death toll in SO. Geez, an army attacks a city and civilians die. Like in Chechnya, like in Iraq, like ANYWHERE. That is NOT what the case was in Kosovo OR in Srebinica. But that evidence was good enough for Putin, the man who has opposed sanction on Sudan, on Burma, on Zimbabwe. And who was willing to VETO invasion of Iraq where REAL murders of civilians had taken place.

The parallelism is BS. Its schoolyard level "YOU DID IT TOO". Its NOT a real historical comparison at all. Indeed, it is the dishonesty in the comparison that I find infuriating, and that gets under my skin far more than anything else. If Putin had just said "we have interests here, we're going to enforce them" that wouldnt have been nearly as bad as this stream of big lies coming out of moscow, and from Moscow's apologists.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-12 11:38|| 2008-08-12 11:38|| Front Page Top

#8 So there is historical memory in America! In fact, the American discussion of the Russian war on Georgia seems to consist mainly in remembering, or misremembering. The most pressing question of all is not how to stop Putin's vicious attack on an independent democratic state with a dream of the West, but whether or not we are witnessing a repetition of the Cold War. Who wants a repetition of the Cold War? Welcome back to the analogists' ball. If you are disgusted by Putin's war, then you are a grandchild of rollback and the sort of liberal lemming who would invade Iraq all over again. If you are not disgusted by Putin's war--no, everybody is disgusted by it, everybody thinks that it should have never been authorized and never been waged--if you prefer, let us say, not to get too worked up about it, to keep your head, because there are other moral and strategic considerations that must be taken calmly into account, then you are the sterling sort of liberal who has discovered, and not a moment to soon, the sublimity of realism. Actually, I am unfair here. It is only the latter sort of liberal that I wish to mock.

My colleague John Judis has flabbergasted me with something he posted on these pages a few hours ago. In an item ominously called "A New Cold War?", he writes: "McCain has consistently refused to acknowledge that Russia's turn toward an aggressive nationalism was triggered at all by American moves to expand NATO, abrogate the anti-missile treaty, build a pipeline through Georgia bypassing Russia, and a new anti-missile system in Eastern Europe. For McCain, it's simply a product of Vladimir Putin's evil intentions. That kind of outlook could fuel a new Cold War." Of course, a Russian invasion of Georgia could also fuel a new Cold War; but I'm getting ahead of my point.

I leave aside the matter of McCain and Obama, since I think the war in Georgia is primarily about the war in Georgia and not another excuse to chatter about the presidential campaign. I agree with Judis that abrogating the anti-missile treaty was stupid in a dark, Cheney-ish kind of way, though I fail to see the American offense in preferring that Russia not control every inch of pipeline that flows westward from central Asia. But it is not Judis's bill of particulars that amazes me so much as his general argument. I have heard it before, when I was a puppy. Judis appears actually to believe that Russia is--how shall I put it? I'll try the old way--expanding because it feels encircled. He writes plangently of "older Russian fears of encirclement." His quick picture of Putin's actions across Russia's border portrays a completely reactive man. What else was Putin to do? We pushed him into Georgia! And then there is the use of that word "simply." As in: "For McCain, it's simply a product of Vladimir Putin's evil intentions." That little word does a lot of business. Coming from an intellectual, it is one of the cruelest insults. As in: For Judis, it's simply a product of Western behavior. Not nice, right? And the insult to Judis is of course greater than the insult to McCain. For McCain always thinks simply, doesn't he? I mean, he supported the war in Iraq. But for Judis, and all the other liberals who have sagely grasped the limits of American force and the blandishments of soft power and the danger of flying too close to the sun--they pride themselves upon their complexity. They are not simply anything.

There is a large historical and even philosophical matter at stake here. It has to do with the analysis of the motives of America's rivals and enemies. Briefly, I see no reason almost ever to reduce their actions to our actions. Yes, history is a bramble of causes and effects, direct and indirect, and our policies have consequences; but still our rivals and our enemies are autonomous historical agents. They have beliefs and interests and desires and fears that we did not give them, or provide the occasion for them to get. Is there anything at all that we know about Vladimir Putin, about his background or his worldview or his career or his way with power, that makes his invasion of Georgia surprising? Putin champions a particular vision of Russia and a particular vision of Russia in the world. That vision is indigenous to himself and to the political culture over which he presides. It is a primary fact of the contemporary world. Not even the presidency of Barack Obama will rid him of it. You see, he does not wish to be rid of it.

So Judis's comment strikes me as a robotic reiteration of the old left-wing view of the Cold War, here applied to post-Soviet Russia. It is just a matter of hours before Richard Falk writes the same thing. (It turns out that those who remember history are also condemned to repeat it. Bummer.) But I will grant Judis his question. Is this a new Cold War? Truly I hope it is not. But whether or not it is a new Cold War, in Gori--and tomorrow maybe in Tbilisi--it is a hot war. Whether or not it is a new Cold War, it is an old war of authoritarianism against democracy. So what exactly are we supposed to tell our friends, the besieged Georgians? That we are tired? That they should have provoked Putin before 2003, or before 2001? That we have re-read Niebuhr?

George W. Bush remarked today that the Russian invasion of Georgia is "unacceptable in the 21st century." That is exactly what someone who just spent a few jolly days in the Bird's Nest Stadium would say. After all, haven't we googled and globalized ourselves out of this sort of outrage? So, I prefer Judis's anxiety that there may be historical continuities. I am not sure if the new strategic role of Russia--and China, for that matter--makes our century continuous with the twentieth or the nineteenth; but I have no doubt that the twenty-first century is not a new beginning in human affairs, and that we are entering another era of great power competition. The labels are not that important. What matters is a proper description of what is happening. It was a proper description of Iraq's invasion of Kuwait that made an effective response possible. It was an improper description of the atrocities in Bosnia and Rwanda that delayed an effective response in the former and prevented an effective response in the latter. No, it is not clear how exactly the West can get Russia the hell out of Georgia. But description must precede prescription, as clarity must precede policy; and it is really disheartening to see this war so callously and tendentiously misdescribed. It makes me worry that the influence of the presidency of George W. Bush on American liberalism will last a very long time.

--Leon Wieseltier

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-12 11:57|| 2008-08-12 11:57|| Front Page Top

#9 superstitiousGalitizianer, no matter how hard you try to ignore it Kosovo was a province that was trying to breakaway from the state of Serbia.

The analog in the situation to Georgia is that South Ossetia and Abkhasia are break away provinces.

Maybe the Russians don't have a good, moral reason to intervene as the Euros and we did in Kosovo but that is immaterial to the basic fact of secession. The problem is almost always based on these tribal lusts for power. Why the hell can't the Georgians, Ossetians & Abkhanazians get along in a federated nation? Same question about the tribes of the Balkans and the various tribes of Pakiwaki?

The Balkans and most all of the Middle East and the Caucasus regions are all made up of tribes that want to be on top and if they can't be the big fish in the big pond, they want to be the big fish in their own little pond.

Tribalism has been the bane of the world for a long time, but, it was held somewhat in check when the Soviet Empire ruled (see Yugoslavia).

It's one thing when little tribes fight little tribes. We should stay the hell out of those (see Kosovo). The problems get serious when one of the big powers injects itself in a small tribal war (see Russia) for either moral or other reasons.

Posted by AlanC 2008-08-12 13:23|| 2008-08-12 13:23|| Front Page Top

#10 "It's one thing when little tribes fight little tribes. We should stay the hell out of those (see Kosovo). "

and thats where I dont agree. MOST tribe - tribe fights dont end in genocide, and we have a right and a duty to stop genocide.

We were right to go into Kosovo, about as right as we've been about anything. That Putin wants to use it as an excuse for his aggressions only shows what scum he is.

And no, the Soviet empire didnt hold tribalism in check, its corruption INCREASED tribalism (and with Russians on top). The answer to tribalism is democracy and development, not tyranny.

That Kosovo was a breakaway province is NOT RELEVANT. It had been trying to breakaway for years. We did not intervene until the Serbs went beyond acceptable bounds, when they started on a genocidal ethnic cleansing.

I swear on the lost grave of my great grandfather (murdered by germans in Galicia, in the General government of Poland, in 1942) that I will give genocidaires no peace, not now, not ever.

Posted by superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-12 13:40|| 2008-08-12 13:40|| Front Page Top

#11 The headlined article actually does describe the correct analogue to Kosovo - independence for Abkhazia and South Ossetia, combined with membership in the UN. That's if the Russians are acting in good faith. But you know - and I know - this isn't going to happen. The Russians are in both territories, and have attacked Georgia, in order to expand Russia's territory. It's that simple. The proper comparison isn't Kosovo - it's the German annexation of Czechoslovakia's Sudetenland in the run-up to WWII.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2008-08-12 13:48|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2008-08-12 13:48|| Front Page Top

#12 It appears that the Czechs were criticized for being obstinate about the Sudetenland back in the 1930's. From the Journal:

But the Caucasus is the real thing: armies marching, fleets circling, rockets flaring. Many are blaming "hot-headed" President Mikheil Saakashvili for having baited the bear, and he is no angel, for sure. Didn't he go first by ordering his army into South Ossetia?

But in 1939, they also blamed the "hot-headed" Poles for refusing to placate Hitler, and so he just had to flatten Warsaw on Sept. 1. They also castigated the Czechs, a "faraway country of which we know little" for being so obstinate in resisting German demands on the Sudetenland.

Posted by Zhang Fei 2008-08-12 13:52|| http://timurileng.blogspot.com]">[http://timurileng.blogspot.com] 2008-08-12 13:52|| Front Page Top

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