Cole in Salon: The Bush/Cheney Kettle Call the Putin Pot Black
My column, , "Putin's War Enablers: Bush and Cheney (Russia's escalating war on Georgia reveals the consequences of the Bush administration's long assault on the international rule of law.) is now out in Salon.com.
Excerpt:
' 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.'
Read the whole thing
posted by Juan Cole @ 8/14/2008 01:22:00 AM
|
Facebook
8 Comments:
It is really amazing/amusing how the "scholars" in the American Enterprise Institute are reacting to the Georgian conflict.
American Hypocrisy Institute (aka AEI)
The seem to have forgotten their "scholarly" work in Project for New American century, or the legacy of Reagan Administration.
Russia went to the UNSC and did NOT act unilateraly. Here is a transcript of the 8/8/08 UNSC meeting. On page 8, Russian Ambasador Churkin says:
"I would like also to comment on the point that during Security Council’s prior consultations today, the Council was unable to work out a clear reaction to today’s events and was unable to send an unambiguous message to both parties, primarily Tbilisi, on the need to put an end to violence and on the need to reject the use of force. The reason for the incapacity of the Security Council to develop a clear reaction to these events unfortunately lies in the absence of clear political guidelines among a number of Council
members."
He also says much more.
The military account shows Russian forces were outnumbered by the Georgian military, but that the Georgian troops broke and ran. REgime change was only suggested after the Georgian attack. And Russia certainly does NOT covet Georgia or Armenia, and it already has good leverage at Baku. I understand you wanted to make a parallel association with Bush as your thesis, but you should have admitted the falsity of your intro far more clearly.
The Caucaus has always been a rough place. Led by Imam Shamil, the story of the Chechen resistence to Russian colonial forces is epic. Dudayev tried to become the second Shamil, but Yeltsin killed him, and was priased by Clinton for doing so. Putin was also praised by Bush for finally grinding the Chechens into the dirt. The Chechens had the misfortune of their territory being atop part of the Russian Oil Patch. There is another "frozen conflict" there: Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian enclave located within Azerbaijan.
What is most disturbing is the way the Propaganda System was so insync with BushCo trumpeting the Big Lie of Russia being the aggressor with the intent to rekindle the Cold War.
In 40 years, the oil and gas will be mostly gone, and there will be no need for a pipleline crossing Georgia. Is that worth risking a nuclear war over?
Russia acted unilaterally rather than going through the U.N. Security Council.
The thing is Russia did go to the Security Council on the very first day - the US, UK and others blocked the Russian statement because it called on both sides to reject the use of force, those idiots Bush/Cheney/Rice and Brown/Miliband thought they were buying Georgia time to complete its aggression just like did for Israel in Lebanon in 2006. Instead they gave the Russians time to give Georgia a "good kicking".
Maybe Russia set a trap for these morons, I dunno, but the arrogant fools walked straight into it.
ref : “Russia's escalating war on Georgia reveals the consequences of the Bush administration's long assault on the international rule of law.”
While it is certainly true that Bush&Co have succeeded in stripping off that veneer of mythos ~ that the Americans ever had any credibility as a ‘non-warlike nation’ to begin with ~ in my humble opinion, Professor, you are here ignoring a consistent historical thema of larger, more powerful nations/tribes waging War sans raisons raisonnable against weaker peoples simply because it is possible for them to do so, and for that leader to posture himself thus to his own political advantage.
iow, What Mr. Putin has done is nothing new, and it is a bit of a stretch for an historian to write that Messrs. Bush and Cheney were the Russians' "teachers" in that regard; or that ‘IRAQ’ was an enabling historical milestone for "illegal" aggression by a continental - dominating State. To do so is to say that "The Russians were puny, but now Bush&Co has made them powerful (yet again)", as if the Russian eagle was Phoenix, arising from the ashes all because of the Americans' post-9/11 politics of anxious masculinity.
otoh, if we accept your thesis, Professor, that unilateral aggression by one SuperState begets copycat criminal acts by other military regimes, should we then conclude that ‘GEORGIA’ will then be as disastrous a waste of blood and treasure for the Russians as ‘IRAQ’ has been history writ for the Americans?
The practical consequence to the President's policies has been to entangle US military power in Iraq (and also Afghanistan) such that we cannot project a credible threat of force against other states.
Of course, the Georgia crisis is further evidence of the President's foolhardy "freedom agenda." He's emboldened Saakashvili (whose own democratic "credentials" and claim to incorruption are dubious) into provoking a disastrous armed conflict with Russia. The US didn't go to war with Russia to reunify Germany,why on earth would we ever give the impression we'd do that for Georgia? And who encouraged Saakashvili with the stupid idea that armed force is the way the unify peoples? (All he's done--the entirely predictable result--is sever permanently any hope of reconciliation, either under an autonomy deal or otherwise, these provinces from Georgia.
So, for the President, it's a twofer. He emboldens a weak country to provoke a conflict with a vastly stronger country under the impression we'd involve ourselves. And he encourages Saakashvili in the stupid idea that militarism can solve what are essentially ethnic/cultural conflicts.
The only think I can say, is I'm pleasantly surprised that Bush & Co. (as well as the anti-Russian establishment in the Democratic party) didn't push us into war. I was convinced they would do that, asininity aside. (The neocons want a conflict with Russia even more than Iran.) At least we know Bush, et al. are not that stupid.
even without the Iraq war, US set precedent for this type of aggression through its bombing of Yugoslavia in 1998.
although the are similarities between what russia did and Washington's actions, there are important differences:
1. as blowback noted, Russia did in fact go to the UN, but wasn't able to stop Georgia in time.
2. Russia is closer to the Ossetians and has allowed thousands of Ossetian refugees into its borders. US, on the other hand, has taken in very few refugees from the wars that it caused, leading countries like syria to take in nearly 1.5 million fleeing iraqis.
3. the Russian conflict with Georgia lasted a few days, US wars have stretched for months (yugoslavia) and years (iraq), with several orders of magnitude more casualties.
That's a bit of a stretch.
In fact, it's over the top and erroneous.
Putin didn't need Bush-Cheney's bad example to encourage his outrageous invasion. Putin has been gradually gaining more political power over the last 8 years which ripened with the last Russian elections. This 'counter-attack' was hardly a surprise as the Russians who suddenly unleashed
a truly colossal blow against what appears to have been a modest incursion by Georgian troops into the bogus 'Republic of South Ossetia'(get a load of their 'President' Kokoity-a former wrestler), which resembles a backwoods 'county' of 70000 people 1/3 of which are ethnic Georgians out of a country of 4.6 million people. Then like the Superman that he is Vlad comes flying in from Beijing suddenly shreiking about 'genocide'.
And this isn't the first Putonian provocation; remember the Internet cyberattacks on the genocidal Estonians who tried to relocate a statue?
Actually Bush did at least half-heartedly make the case at the UN on both Iraq and Kosovo.
No, this is actually much worse than Bush-Cheney in prinicple.
True, the total effect is far less
mainly because it hasn't gone on forever but that makes it more important to denounce it.
I think most Russians are mortified
(see the Russian-Georgian sympathy at the Olympics).
But we must denounce this outrage as Amb. Holbrook has on PBS.
He was a beacon of reason and firmness (and a shame to faux-Russian scholar Sec of State Rice).
That man should be Obama's Sec of State.
We will all be better off if we denounce all these international aggressions and not to compare them.
Notice that two members of the peanut gallery who think that Dr. Pott is not the least bit comparable to Prof. Kettel both say "That's a bit of a stretch."
Somebody might look into whether this "stretching" business is the standard response of virile ganders who find themselves expected to obey the same rules as silly geese.
___
On the main topic, the Salon article does not altogether satisfy, mostly, I think, because the rhetoric of it boils down to pointing at this "world of vigilante powers that spout rhetoric about high ideals to justify their unchecked military interventions" and then expecting everybody to shout "Ick! Who ordered THAT? Away with it!" instantly and in unison.
Alas! to behold Planet Dubya is not necessarily to loathe it. There are a number of people who positively relish that sort of world, not to mention a much larger number who don’t much mind it as long as it leaves them alone.
Happy days.
Post a Comment
<< Home