highnote
08-19-2008, 08:31 PM
Blowback from Bear Baiting
By Patrick Buchanan
Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its
breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the
Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.
Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss
of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and
sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.
Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and
to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.
Revelling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America's lone
democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the
world with a fait accompli. Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.
American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight -- Russia finished it. People
who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end. Russia's response was "disproportionate" and
"brutal," wailed Bush. True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a
border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more
"disproportionate"?
Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days
and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than
Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi? Is not Western hypocrisy
astonishing?
When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia,
Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces,
whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed
in breaking away? Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda
of the neocons, many of who viscerally detest Russia?
That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of
punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's
nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany. When Moscow pulled the Red Army out
of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states,
and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do?
American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to
Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six
Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are
now NATO members. Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.
This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has
sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet. When
did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?
The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was
superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian
missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs.
A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand.
We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then
we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and
tried to repeat it in Belarus.
Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.
Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan, where Europe had opted out of the Cold War after Moscow
installed those SS-20 missiles east of the Elbe. And Europe had abandoned NATO, told us to go home and
become subservient to Moscow. How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the
Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to
Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we
are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian
behavior?For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's
face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost - in Tbilisi.
By Patrick Buchanan
Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its
breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the
Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.
Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss
of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and
sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.
Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and
to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.
Revelling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America's lone
democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the
world with a fait accompli. Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.
American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight -- Russia finished it. People
who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end. Russia's response was "disproportionate" and
"brutal," wailed Bush. True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a
border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more
"disproportionate"?
Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days
and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than
Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi? Is not Western hypocrisy
astonishing?
When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia,
Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces,
whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed
in breaking away? Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda
of the neocons, many of who viscerally detest Russia?
That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of
punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's
nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany. When Moscow pulled the Red Army out
of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states,
and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do?
American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to
Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six
Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are
now NATO members. Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO.
This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has
sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet. When
did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?
The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was
superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian
missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs.
A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand.
We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then
we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and
tried to repeat it in Belarus.
Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.
Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan, where Europe had opted out of the Cold War after Moscow
installed those SS-20 missiles east of the Elbe. And Europe had abandoned NATO, told us to go home and
become subservient to Moscow. How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the
Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to
Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we
are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian
behavior?For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's
face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost - in Tbilisi.