The Western media keeps pounding us with a Russian aggression against
tiny helpless Georgia. The very facts speak, however, a different language.
The Western media keeps pounding us with a Russian aggression against
tiny helpless Georgia. Georgian propaganda to mobilise its population
like the story of an imminent attack on the capital Tbilisi as well as
comparisons with the invasion of Afghanistan or Czechoslovakia simply
were reproduced by the cooperate media.
The very facts speak, however, a different language. It was the extremely pro-imperialist Georgian president Saakashvili to order the attack on South Ossetia. The invasion of the Georgian troops into the province’s capital Tzinvali left at least several hundreds if not thousands civilian dead and caused a mass flight of Ossetians.
Saakashvili’s adventurist assault could not other than prompt the Russian response. Maybe it was even intending to force the U.S. to give military support.
The Russian backlash was massive and inflicted a clear defeat on Georgia. It had not only to withdraw from South Ossetia but also to evacuate it last positions in Abkhazia, the second and more important break-away region. But Russia went further in order to teach the West a lesson. It bombarded the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, the main energy route from Central Asia to Europe not under Russian control, and for a short while imposed a naval blockade on Georgia’s main port Poti. The Western imperialist powers could only stand by and watch the Russian muscle flexing solely bringing its propaganda apparatus in motion. The Russian victory on the ground they could not stop.
The anti-imperialists certainly cannot decry the setback of the overzealous Western puppet regime in Tbilisi. We should not forget that the small country has deployed the third largest occupation contingent to Iraq after the US and Britain which the U.S., by the way, immediately flew back home. There is not only American but also massive Israeli involvement in the military built-up of Georgia which is pressing to join NATO. And we need to remember that the regime was brought into office by a so-called revolutions instigated by the U.S. soft power apparatus copying the Serbian and Ukrainian model thus lacking popular legitimacy. On several occasions it has already shown its authoritarian character and repressed popular dissent.
The Western insistence on Georgian territorial integrity and right to self-determination is ridiculous and hypocritical. Russia is completely right to point to Kosovo. Why the Albanians got the right to secede purging all the other people while the minorities of Georgia are denied the right to self-determination? From a democratic point of view the Georgian claim on South Ossetia and Abkhazia is clearly illegitimate. The chauvinist traits of Georgian nationalism are well known.
The dominant fact of Western imperialist appetites should, however, not mislead us to become apologists to the Russian intervention and ambitions. Moscow only supports the right to self-determination when it serves its geo-strategic interests while the Kremlin keeps leading a bloody war against the Chechen people on the other side of the Caucasus. We cannot deny the Russian imperial past and its new resurgence. Also in the current case Russian defence against Western advance is very close to or even tends to surpass the lines of violating legitimate national sentiments of the Georgian people. We do not have a clear picture of the reported attacks on the Georgian towns of Gori and other civilian sites. One always has to suspect Western propaganda. Given the Chechen experience we would, however, not be astonished if the Russian army had attacked also civilian targets without military use. Overstretching the bow appears as imperial threat which risks to bolster the Saakashvili regime.
Eventually what we refuse in the strongest possible terms is a Western military forces deployed under the guise of peacekeeping like it has been proposed by French president Sarkosy. This is nothing else than a trick to minimize the Western military defeat on the ground.
Anti-imperialist Camp
August 13, 2008
