Mary Dejevsky: Why did the West ignore the truth about the war in Georgia?

The US and UK left the impression that Russia was the guilty party

Thank goodness, they might be thinking at the US State Department and the British Foreign Office, for the financial crisis. Were it not for the ever-blacker news about the Western world's economy, another scandal would be vying for the headlines – and one where the blame would be easier to apportion. It concerns our two countries' relations with Russia and the truth about this summer's Georgia-Russia war.

Over the past couple of weeks, a spate of reports has appeared in the American and British media, questioning many assumptions about that war, chief among them that Russia was the guilty party. Journalists from the BBC, The New York Times and Canada's Embassy magazine, among others, travelled to South Ossetia, the region at the centre of the conflict, in an effort to establish the facts.

Not the "facts" as told by the super-slick Georgian PR machine at the time, nor the "facts" as eventually dragged from the hyper-defensive and clod-hopping communicators of the Kremlin. But the facts as experienced on the ground by those who were there: civilians, the local military commander, and the small number of unarmed monitors stationed in the region by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe.

The journalists travelled to the region separately and by different routes. They spoke to different people. But their findings are consistent: Georgia launched an indiscriminate military assault on South Ossetia's main town, Tskhinvali. The hospital was among the buildings attacked; doctors were injured even as they operated.

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punditman says...

Where were these reporters when it really mattered? Punditman has been documenting the blatant use of propaganda by Western governments in the Georgia-Russia war — accompanied by hopelessly biased reporting in the western press — since that conflict occurred last summer. This occurred despite the indisputable fact that Georgia launched an indiscriminate military assault on South Ossetia's main town, Tskhinvali — which led to a Russian response.

It seems there is now some pull back from the official position.

Nevertheless, a recent case in point: In a November 12th broadcast, BBC's HARDtalk programme host, Stephen Sackur accused Russia alone of starting the war when he interviewed Konstantin Simonov, Director General of the National Energy Security Fund, Russia. It was as if the West and Israel played no role whatsoever in stirring up and training Georgian forces, and Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili is all lilly white.

So this is all old hat. Does that make us "pro-Russian"? No. Does it make us truth-seekers? Yes, because we smelled a rat from the beginning — and we were right.

September Surprise: Get ready for it...

by Justin Raimondo
www.antiwar.com

While the rest of the pundits opine about the meaning and implications of Sarah Palin's ascension from small town mayor to prospective vice president – and whether or not her daughter's private life is fair game for any media outlet other than the National Enquirer – those of us whose job it is to stand watch on the ramparts and report the real news are wondering when – not if – the War Party will pull a rabbit out of the proverbial hat. For months, I've been warning in this space that an American attack on Iran is imminent, and now I see that the Dutch have reason to agree with my assessment. Their intelligence service reportedly has pulled out of a covert operation inside Iran on the grounds that a U.S. strike is right around the corner – in "a matter of weeks," according to De Telegraaf, a Dutch newspaper.

As the story goes, the Dutch had infiltrated the purported Iranian weapons project and were firmly ensconced when they got word that the Americans are about to launch a missile attack on Iranian nuclear facilities. They wisely decided to close down the operation and pull out.

Remember, the Israelis have been threatening to strike on their own for months: what's changed is that now, apparently, the U.S. has caved in to what is a blatant case of blackmail and has agreed to do the job for them.

We haven't heard much about Iran lately, at least compared to the scare headlines of a few months ago, when rumors of war were swirling fast and furious. The Russian "threat" seems to have replaced the Iranian "threat" as the War Party's bogeyman of choice. What we didn't know, however, is that the two focal points are intimately related.

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punditman says...If you were wondering why the Israelis have been messing around in the Caucasus and why they had a thousand Israeli military advisers training Georgia's armed forces and why they were deeply involved in the Georgian army’s preparations to attack and capture the capital of South Ossetia, then this article explains why. And just when you thought the Iran issue was put safely on the back burner...

What Baloney...A Cold War Redux?

punditman says...

If we are going to have another Cold War, can we at least have a good reason to once again spend billions on theormonuclear weaponry? Like, I dunno, say Russian missiles in Cuba or something?

Regarding the ongoing tensions resulting from the recent flare-up between Russia and Georgia, dare I say, that the Russians may actually have a point?

By saying such a thing, I almost feel like I've been cast back in time to some late night drunken debate in my undergraduate residence. In those days, merely pointing out that Russia had a legitimate sphere of interest meant that you risked being labeled a "Commie sympathizer" or a "useful idiot" and therefore part of their plan for global domination. Such talk could cause great personal distress and was therefore generally reserved to like-minded audiences, such as fellow anti-nuke marchers.

A loose analogy would be to try to look at things from the perspective of the average Pashtun tribesman today, or to take an honest look at the recent history of warfare in Afghanistan. You may as well shut up, lest your voice fall upon deaf ears, with many a glazed eye looking at you like you have 5 left feet; whilst the fat-assed cracker at the end of the bar spontaneously combusts all over your nitrate-laden sausage.* It's usually not worth the risk.

Seriously, has history taught us nothing? The Commie empire may be long gone, but irrational fear of the Russian bear is alive and well.

The Russians point to a growing NATO naval presence in the Black Sea and accuse the West of using aid shipments as cover to rearm Georgia after Russia's bloody foray into Georgia earlier this month left Georgia's military decimated.

According to Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, "It's not a common practice to deliver humanitarian aide using battleships."

Ah, yeah -- he does have a point. And saying so doesn't mean I support Russia's recent incursion into Georgia. It merely means I understand something about geopolitics, distasteful as it often is.

Should anyone be surprised, if in fact, these Russian accusations are true? After all, the West has been arming Georgia with military advisors, weapons sales and the promise of NATO membership -- NATO being that "Western" organization, of course, created as an anti-Soviet military alliance. The alliance apparently sees fit to go stomping around Afghanistan to do the bidding of its hegemonic power, the United States (Note: They should at least re-brand themselves because the "North Atlantic" Treaty Organization is so 20th century!)

I digress. In this case at least, NATO is doing its usual job of surrounding Russia and we are to assume that this is an inalienable right handed down from the heavens, and so shall it always be. But imagine the reaction in Washington, Ottawa and London if an "Eastern" alliance was expanding into Mexico. Such thoughts are reserved for people who live on other planets, I suppose.

Meanwhile, much to the chagrin of the old Russian security establishment, a thousand Israeli military advisers from Israeli security firms have been training Georgia's armed forces and were deeply involved in the Georgian army’s preparations to attack and capture the capital of South Ossetia. What the hell? As usual, Israel gets a pass. And why not? They too have the God-given right to covertly mess around in other countries without a peep out of CNN.

Did the Bush administration actually prod the Georgians into their ill-fated, amazingly stupid attack on the breakaway South Ossetians? Was it part of an election ploy by the McCain team, as some have suggested? Or did the US and the Europeans just completely botch up the diplomacy aspect, big time?

Either way, it is a dangerous game that NATO is playing in the Russian backyard, and we have no business playing Nicky Nicky Nine Door on their back porch.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband may not be personally interested in starting up a new Cold War, (as he stated on a recent visit to the Ukraine), but there is clear evidence that many neo cons in the US government want precisely that.

The inconsistency of, on the one hand -- recognizing the independence of Kosovo earlier this year, but on the other hand -- not recognizing the disputed province of South Ossetia, is clear for all to see. But in order to see, one needs open eyes and a little effort with a keyboard because such glaring hypocrisy on the part of the West barely merits mention in the mainstream press.

What you won't read or hear about offline is the following perspective, put so succinctly by Nebojsa Malic over at antiwar.com:

It is difficult, perhaps even impossible, to communicate with someone so obsessed with managing the perceptions of reality that they've become incapable of recognizing reality altogether. In the Bizarro World of the Atlantic Empire, the bombing of Serbia was humanitarian, the invasion of Iraq was defensive, the occupation of Afghanistan was democratic, and the separation of Kosovo was legal – while the Russian intervention to neutralize the Georgian army and save the Ossetians from ethnic cleansing was "aggression" befitting Hitler or Stalin.

In fact, even punditman is somewhat amazed to witness the near complete re-demonization of the Russians within a few short weeks. As expected, the Big Media commentators have fallen into line, dutifully parroting the predictable horse manure spewing from the White House. But, at least according to a few informal discussions I've had with otherwise intelligent folks, many a common citizen has likewise fallen back under the radioactive spell of their Cold War programming from that bygone era. Duck and cover everybody, the Russian boogeyman is gonna get you!

People seem to forget that Russia does in fact have nukes, and that for very good historic reasons they are just a tad sensitive about their borders. Playing chicken with them is phenomenally reckless as is setting the time machine back several decades. I would hope that any drunken undergraduate student of history could tell you that.

*in truth, punditman typically does not eat sausage, bacon or baloney.

The Neocons Do Georgia

Humanity's Greatest Enemy?
www.counterpunch.org

By PAUL CRAIG ROBERTS

The success of the Bush Regime’s propaganda, lies, and deception with gullible and inattentive Americans since 9/11 has made it difficult for intelligent, aware people to be optimistic about the future of the United States. For almost 8 years the US media has served as Ministry of Propaganda for a war criminal regime. Americans incapable of thinking for themselves, reading between the lines, or accessing foreign media on the Internet have been brainwashed.

As the Nazi propagandist, Joseph Goebbels, said, it is easy to deceive a people. You just tell them they have been attacked and wave the flag.

It certainly worked with Americans.

The gullibility and unconcern of the American people has had many victims. There are 1.25 million dead Iraqis. There are 4 million displaced Iraqis. No one knows how many are maimed and orphaned.

Iraq is in ruins, its infrastructure destroyed by American bombs, missiles, and helicopter gunships.

We do not know the death toll in Afghanistan, but even the American puppet regime protests the repeated killings of women and children by US and NATO troops.

We don’t know what the death toll would be in Iran if Darth Cheney and the neocons succeed in their plot with Israel to bomb Iran, perhaps with nuclear weapons.

What we do know is that all this murder and destruction has no justification and is evil. It is the work of evil men who have no qualms about lying and deceiving in order to kill innocent people to achieve their undeclared agenda.

That such evil people have control over the United States government and media damns the American public for eternity.

America will never recover from the shame and dishonor heaped upon her by the neoconned Bush Regime.

The success of the neocon propaganda has been so great that the opposition party has not lifted a finger to rein in the Bush Regime’s criminal actions. Even Obama, who promises “change” is too intimidated by the neocon’s success in brainwashing the American population to do what his supporters hoped he would do and lead us out of the shame in which the neoconned Bush Regime has imprisoned us.

This about sums up the pessimistic state in which I existed prior to the go-ahead given by the Bush Regime to its puppet in Georgia to ethnically cleanse South Ossetia of Russians in order to defuse the separatist movement. The American media, aka, the Ministry of Lies and Deceit, again accommodated the criminal Bush Regime and proclaimed “Russian invasion” to cover up the ethnic cleansing of Russians in South Ossetia by the Georgian military assault.

Only this time, the rest of the world didn’t buy it. The many years of lies--9/11, Iraqi weapons of mass destruction, al Qaeda connections, yellowcake, anthrax attack, Iranian nukes, “the United States doesn’t torture,” the bombings of weddings, funerals, and children’s soccer games, Abu Ghraib, renditions, Guantanamo, various fabricated “terrorist plots,” the determined assault on civil liberties--have taken their toll on American credibility. No one outside America any longer believes the US media or the US government.

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punditman says...Paul Craig Roberts pulls no punches; he calls it as he sees it.

How the U.S. Invited a War in South Ossetia

War a la Carte

By ERIC WALBERG

www.counterpunch.org

Last week, Georgia launched a major military offensive against the rebel province South Ossetia, just hours after President Mikheil Saakashvili had announced a unilateral ceasefire. Close to 1,500 have been killed, Russian officials say. Thirty thousand refugees, mostly women and children, streamed across the border into the North Ossetian capital Vladikavkaz in Russia.

The timing — and subterfuge — suggest the unscrupulous Saakashvili was counting on surprise. “Most decision makers have gone for the holidays,” he said in an interview with CNN. “Brilliant moment to attack a small country.” Apparently he was referring to Russia invading Georgia, despite the fact that it was Georgia which had just launched a full-scale invasion of the “small country” South Ossetia, while Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in Beijing for the Olympics. Twenty-seven Russian peacekeepers and troops have been killed and 150 wounded so far, many when their barracks were shelled by Georgian forces at the start of the invasion. Georgian State Minister for Reintegration Temur Yakobashvili rushed to announce that their mini-blitzkreig had destroyed ten Russian combat planes (Russia says two) and that Georgian troops were in full control of the capital Tskhinvali.

Russia’s Defense Ministry denounced the Georgian attack as a “dirty adventure.” From Beijing, Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said, “It is regrettable that on the day before the opening of the Olympic Games, the Georgian authorities have undertaken aggressive actions in South Ossetia.” He later added, “War has started.” Russian President Dmitry Medvedev vowed that Moscow will protect Russian citizens — most South Ossetians hold Russian passports. The offensive prompted Moscow to send in 150 tanks, to launch air strikes on nearby Gori and military sites, and to order warships to Georgia’s Black Sea coast.

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punditman says...Among many things, the above article goes on to explain that a thousand Israeli military advisers from Israeli security firms have been training the country’s armed forces and were deeply involved in the Georgian army’s preparations to attack and capture the capital of South Ossetia. It's all insane. But you won't read about that little tidbit in your newspaper or hear about it on CNN.

Putin’s War Enablers: Bush and Cheney

by Juan Cole

The run-up to the current chaos in the Caucasus should look quite familiar: Russia acted unilaterally rather than going through the U.N. Security Council. It used massive force against a small, weak adversary. It called for regime change in a country that had defied Moscow. It championed a separatist movement as a way of asserting dominance in a region it coveted.

Indeed, despite George W. Bush and Dick Cheney’s howls of outrage at Russian aggression in Georgia and the disputed province of South Ossetia, the Bush administration set a deep precedent for Moscow’s actions — with its own systematic assault on international law over the past seven years. Now, the administration’s condemnations of Russia ring hollow.

Bush said on Monday, responding to reports that Russia might attack the Georgian capital, “It now appears that an effort may be under way to depose [Georgia’s] duly elected government. Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century.” By Wednesday, with more Russian troops on the move and a negotiated cease-fire quickly unraveling, Bush stepped up the rhetoric, announcing a sizable humanitarian-aid mission to Georgia and dispatching Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to the region.

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Press Calls for War in the Caucasus: The Smell of Propaganda in the Morning

By GREG MOSES

www.counterpunch.org

There are two sides bleeding and too many dead in what is hopefully the aftermath of a weekend war in the Caucasus. And right on cue, the prime opinion space for the American mind is being occupied this Monday morning by a propagandist for perpetual war.

"Will Russia get away with it?" asks the beaming columnist for the New York Times, his smile winking at you as if no way he could be talking up death and disaster.

On one side of the world, writes the propagandist, you have "the United States and its democratic allies." On the other side, you'll find "dictatorial and aggressive and fanatical regimes" who "seem happy to work together to weaken the influence of the United States and its democratic allies."

"The United States, of course, is not without resources and allies to deal with these problems and threats," hints the propagandist. "But at times we seem oddly timid and uncertain." Which brings us around to his winking question again: "Will we let Russia get away with it?"

But what if we paraphrase a famous movie hero and remind the propagandist that aggressive is as aggressive does. Then, we may ask, which side of the propagandist's world last Thursday picked up its guns and blasted a path through the Caucasus Mountains to the city of Tskhinvali, killing as many local militia as possible and quite a few others who somehow got in the way?

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punditman says...
As usual Big Media are falling right into line in the service of their political masters who think a new Cold War is a neat idea.
Thus, they (Russia)=always Evil
& We (the West and our wonderful allies) =always Good.
Welcome to kindergarten, kids.
Have any of you seen this movie before?