Considering America’s war crimes in Bosnia and Serbia, and considering the fact that the US ambassador to the UN is a Sunni Muslim Afghan citizen who is contemplating replacing Karzai as Afghan president, I’ll tentatively side with Russia in the matter of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
+ + +
UN Charter 1.1:
“The Purposes of the United Nations are: … (2) To develop friendly relations among nations based on respect for the principle of equal rights and self-determination of peoples.”
Self-determination.
I personally couldn’t care less what the UN says or does, but since Georgia’s a signatory of the Charter, I’d expect it to honour the text it signed.
+ + +
The South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, upon the newly independent Soviet Republic of Georgia’s annulment of Alani civil and linguistic rights and autonomous status, immediately announced their goal of independence. Then they fought for it, and have been de facto independent for almost two decades. In other words, they have never been a part of the Republic of Georgia. The same is true of the former Soviet Republic of Abkhazia.
Alanis and Abkhazis are not liked by Georgians, and have no interest in being Georgian. Abkhazis and Alanis are linguistically, ethnically and nationally distinct from Georgians and from each other and have a will to be free of rule from Tbilisi. They also have legal and political grounds to assert their independence.
The Georgians violated the armistice agreements that they had signed, and committed acts of aggression against the people they claim as citizens and against a military force that astronomically outclasses and outnumbers them, in the cynical and misguided (i.e. stupid) expectation that Nebraska farmboys and Liverpudlian squaddies would be sent to die for Georgia.
Russia and Georgia are UN members. If Russia wants to be the guarantor of two of its neighbors’ national self-determination, why is that anyone else’s business?
If Abkhazia and South Ossetia are independent, or Georgian territory, or Russian territory; what difference does that make to Western Europe or NATO or the USA? None at all. Nobody in the West has any business getting directly involved in this dispute at this point in time.
If Georgians are mind-numbingly stupid enough to go to war with what it claims are its own citizens when those people are being protected by one of the world’s greatest military forces (and a veto-wielding UN security-council member), why should anyone but Georgians pay the price?
+ + +
Georgia brought this situation upon its own head. Georgia is a UN member, and according to the UN charter, nations have the right to self-determination. Both Abkhazis and Ossetians were legally recognized nations with the USSR, and both broke all ties with Georgia as soon as the USSR split up. Georgia’s reaction to the fall of the USSR was to immediately violate the autonomy that the Abkhazi Republic and the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast had enjoyed within Soviet Georgia.
Tbilsi has been intransigent in negotiations with both territories. And Georgia should be expected to understand Russia and be able to predict its actions better than any Westerner would. Therefore, Georgia has acted belligerently and stupidly. If they end up just losing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, they should consider themselves lucky. And if they have any sense they’ll get rid of that idiot Saakashvili, with or without Russian motivation to do so.
If they have brains they’ll offer Saakashvili to the Russians, and immediate recognition of Abkhaz and Osseti independence, in exchange for a Russian withdrawal.
US military action in Georgia would inevitably involve NATO. NATO is the US, Canada, Turkey, Germany, the UK, etc. etc. etc. And Turkey, the only other major power in the Black Sea, wants to either “recover” Adjara, or see it re-assert the independence it lost when Abashidze was driven into Russian exile. [Note that Russia returned the Batumi 12th Military Base (former 145th Motor Rifle Division) to Georgian sovereignty on November 17, 2007, more than a year ahead of schedule.]
What possible reason could the UK the US or anyone have to take action against Russia?
WWII analogies make no sense, as the Presidents of Poland and the Czech Republic have just pointed out, in spite of their respective legislatures’ rush to line up with their NATO overlords’ belligerant stance.
France had a treaty with Poland. The Sudetendeutsch were not victims of Slavic aggression.
Georgia is in no sense an “ally” of the West, and both South Ossetia and Abkhazi are victims of Georgian aggression.
There are no treaties or formal alliances or mutual defense pacts between Georgia and any Western nation.
NATO and the US are in no position to criticize Russia after their shameful aggression against Serbia, which, you might have noticed, does not border the US. Nor does the US or its allies have any excuse to thwart the national will of the Abkhaz or Alan peoples, after the US and its allies violated UN 1244 to grant “independence” to the Kosovo thugocracy.
There are connections between Russian and Russian citizens on one hand and Abhazia and South Ossetia and Abkhazis and Alanis on the other. There are more Alani in Russia than there are in Georgia. There are thousands of Abkhazi in Russia. The Russian language is widely used in both Abkazia and South Ossetia. And Russians, Abkazi and Alani were all in the same country less than 20 years ago. Therefore, it’s not so strange that residents of both regions would be entitled to, or be given, Russian citizenship.
NATO’s attitude towards Abkazia and South Ossetia are reminsiscent of the USSR’s use of the conflict in Northern Ireland to undermine the UK. Unlike the USSR (or NATO) Russia does not claim the right to determine or intervene in the relationship between Belfast, London and Dublin.
All Northern Irish residents with family in the province going back to 1921 are equally entitled to citizenship in the United Kingdom and in the Republic of Ireland. The fate of that province will be determined by the democratic will of the populace. Neither the Irish or British governments has ever objected to either side giving citizenship to Ulstermen. For that matter, the Republic of Ireland immediately upon its founding, granted Irish citizenship to millions of English citizens. And neither side has ever taken military action to thwart the democratic will of the people of Northern Ireland, as Georgia has done in South Ossetia and Abkazia.
+ + +
And the role of Zalmay Khalilizad is relevant, especially considering his roles in Bosnia, Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan.
Who is the US ambassador to the UN? Who supported the Mujahadeen in Afghanistan, and Al-Qaeda in Bosnia, and terrorists in Iraq, and the KLA in Kosovo, and Saakashvili in Georgia? Who is it who fancies himself as the American supported Caliph from Turkmenistan to Albania?
The New York Times:
Zalmay Khalilzad is the U.S. ambassador to the United Nations. He has also served in two other crucial posts during the Bush administration: as ambassador to Afghanistan — where he was known as “the viceroy” — and ambassador to Iraq.
There have been recent reports that Mr. Khalilzad, the
highest-ranking Muslim (a Sunni) in the Bush administration, is a possible candidate to be president of Afghanistan.”
March 25, 2007:
The senior American envoy in Iraq, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad, held talks last year with men he believed represented major insurgent groups.
Mr. Khalilzad flew to Jordan for some of the talks, which included self-identified representatives of the Islamic Army of Iraq and the 1920 Revolution Brigades, two leading nationalist factions.
Mr. Khalilzad’s willingness even to approach rebel groups seemed at odds with the public position of some Bush administration officials that the United States does not negotiate with insurgents. It was not clear whether he had to seek permission from Washington before engaging in these talks.
Mr. Khalilzad’s efforts to woo the Sunni Arabs have infuriated many politicians in the ruling Shiite bloc, including Prime Minister Nuri Kamal al-Malaki. Shiite leaders increasingly see the Americans as trying to check the power of the majority Shiites. That could push them closer to Iran, which is ruled by Shiite Persians.
After the Samarra bombing of February 2006, Mr. Khalilzad began saying that killings largely attributed to Shiite militias were more destabilizing than violence by Sunni insurgents. Displeased with the hard-line Shiite attitude of Ibrahim al-Jaafari, then the prime minister, Mr. Khalilzad helped engineer Mr. Jaafari’s ouster, only to see Mr. Jaafari replaced by a party deputy, Mr. Maliki, who is beholden to the radical Shiite cleric Moktada al-Sadr.
Some Shiite leaders began calling Mr. Khalilzad by the Sunni nickname of “Abu Omar.”
Critics of Mr. Khalilzad to say that he never brokered any lasting solutions to this country’s sectarian squabbles.
“Khalilzad’s policy is based on compromise,” Mr. Sineid said. “He’s like an Arab sheik — he wants to make different groups sit down and compromise. That usually means putting off the hard decisions until the future.”
June 6, 2007:
One by one, the ambassadors at an unusually jolly diplomatic dinner last month rose to pay tribute to the new American ambassador, Zalmay Khalilzad.
He was a needed “breath of fresh air,” said one.
Mr. Khalilzad, “I have discovered from your comments that the best thing I have done was to choose my predecessor.”
Mr. Khalilzad, the former American ambassador to Afghanistan and Iraq, has been welcomed effusively since his arrival six weeks ago, and one frequently mentioned reason is that he strikes people as so different from John Bolton, the combative former American ambassador.
Facing him now is the far more fraught Kosovo issue, where Russia has been hinting broadly that it may veto a plan before the Security Council that would give the breakaway Serbian province independence. “What Churkin has said publicly, and what the discussion between him and me has been, I don’t want to signal an agreement,” he said. “But I also don’t want you to assume that there is no chance of an agreement, that we won’t reach an understanding.”
Jan. 30, 2008:
White House officials expressed anger on Tuesday about an appearance in which the United States ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, sat beside the Iranian foreign minister at a panel of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.
The United States does not have diplomatic relations with Iran, and the Bush administration has limited its official high-level dealings with Iran to discussions about Iraq, primarily in Baghdad. Administration officials said that Mr. Khalilzad’s appearance beside Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki in Davos at a panel on Iranian foreign policy surprised senior Bush administration officials, who became aware that Mr. Khalilzad had appeared with Mr. Mottaki only when a video of the discussion appeared on YouTube on Tuesday.
+ + +
If any US player had any role in this Georgian fiasco, it was surely Khalilzad and the other fools at State. If you read the comments above about the US’s Sunni Ambassador at the UN, you’ll have seen that he has a history of arrogance, narcissism, and free-lancing. Either that or Georgian arrogance and stupidity knows no bounds.
One can only hope they they alone will suffer the consequences of their arrogance and stupidity without dragging anyone else into their bloody-minded schemes.
I doubt that the US would have “okayed” this foolishness, especially since a Georgian defeat could have been predicted by a two-year old, and is not in American interests. But who knows what these lunatics are thinking?
+ + +
Regarding all the talk about the whether Russia is admirable or detestable, Communist, Fascist, Christian, Muslim, Imperialistic, Nationalistic, European, Asian . . . — and comments about the nature of Putin and the Kremlin leadership — all of that has not much bearing on the matter at hand. The relevant questions are:
- Are South Ossetia and Abkhazia Georgian?
- Are they independent?
- Should they be recognized as independent?
- Should Russia’s self-appointed role as defender of Abkazi and Alani and Adjari interests be respected?
- Is Georgia an ally of “The West”?
- Is Georgia (or, specifically, is Saakashvili) a US asset or a US millstone in the Caucasus?
- Is Georgia at fault?
- Is Russia at fault?
- Does Russia have genuine concerns regarding NATO expansionism?
- Are NATO goals in the Caucasus productive or counter-productive towards stability, peace and/or freedom?
- Does the US or any other NATO member have any credibility when they criticize Russia, especially after their actions in the Balkans?
And so on.
These questions require objectivity, and knowledge about the historical, geographic and ethnic contexts.
+ + +
And regarding Stalinist aggression, subversion, oppression and territorial expansionism in Finland, Romania, Czechoslovakia, Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Bessarabia, Bukovina, Korea, China, Bulgaria, Spain, Greece, Yugoslavia, elsewhere: STALIN–HITLER’S ALLY, IOSEF VISSARIONOVICH DZHUGASHVILI–WAS A GEORGIAN GANGSTER! As was the Mingrelian, Lavrenti Pavles dze Beria.
X
X
X
2 Comments
August 12, 2008 at 1:40 am
See link to extraordinary 1992 correspondence. I don’t have a website, thus, I can’t communicate same. I might post on P2P (I have rapidshare and other accounts).
Georgia’s Stalin2 – now deceased – was a pathological Russian hater, and Chechen lover. Please read this correspondence from Gamsakhurdia to Shevardnadze (successor to Stalin2 and former Foreign Minister of the USSR)
Assuming anyone worth communicating with knows how to use “Internet Archive,” please type the following dead link in same:
http://www.geocities.com/shavlego/ZG_Letter_SH.htm
Georgia is lead by revenge seeking cut-throats; Georgians will turf them out in a couple of days. Georgia cannot survive without Russia. Anti-jihadis need to be on Turkey’s north.
Check wiki on Gamsakhurdia. His hate of Russia was so vile that he accused Gorbachev of planning the 1991 coup in order to win a forthcoming election. He campaigned on a “Georgia for the Georgians” slogan. He wasn’t against Russification; he was against Russia.
I wonder if these pro-Georgia pundits even own a map.
August 16, 2008 at 12:14 am
[...] Blood-Thirsty Russians”, Not Jump to Comments Stalin, Grigoriy Konstantinovich Ordzhonikidze, Gaioz Devdariani, Eduard Shevardnadze, Panteleimon and [...]