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I read an interesting article in The Chicago Tribune about the spin coming from the Russian and Georgian governments recently. A few interesting tidbits:
Regarding hysterical Russian claims of genocide:
"Genocide is what's happened," said Russian Deputy Prime Minister Sergei Ivanov, a longtime member of Putin's inner circle. "Widespread physical destruction—with artillery shells, tanks and guns—of thousands of Russian citizens. Basically, an ethnic cleansing operation was carried out."
But when Human Rights Watch researchers talked to doctors at Tskhinvali Regional Hospital, they were told that most of those killed in the capital were brought to the hospital, and the toll was 44, a count that included combatants and civilians. Bodies were not taken to the city morgue because the fighting had knocked out the city's electricity.
"That's 44 too many, and clearly unacceptable," said Marc Garlasco, a senior military analyst at Human Rights Watch. "But the Russian propaganda machine is clearly working very hard right now."
And regarding allegations that Georgia arbitrarily launched an unprovoked assault of South Ossetia for no particular reason, the Tribune piece reports:
Much of the information war has focused on who instigated the conflict. Russia has repeatedly insisted that Georgia waged its assault on South Ossetia unprovoked. "Who, after all, started military action in South Ossetia?" [Russian de jure president] Medvedev said at a news conference Friday. "Was it Russian peacekeepers, Russian forces or the Georgian army?"
Medvedev did not mention the barrage of shelling from South Ossetian separatists directed at Georgian villages that preceded the Georgian assault. While [Georgian President Mikheil] Saakashvili has been widely criticized both in Georgia and in the international community for overreacting to the South Ossetian shelling, the beginnings of the conflict were not as black and white as the Kremlin has portrayed.
But while Georgia's shelling of a town drew loud condemnation from the much of the North American left, 'massive'* Russian bombardement of Georgian civilian areas merits barely a mention.
(*-Human Rights Watch's description)
A Human Rights Watch (HRW) report weighed in on the situation.
It notes that both armies have used 'indiscriminate' force at various times in the conflict. It criticized the Georgians for "indiscriminate force during their assault on Tskhinvali [the South Ossetian capital] and neighboring villages."
HRW has "confirmed the Russian military’s use of cluster bombs in two towns in Georgia."
It also reported that the Russian military has 'targeted' civilian convoys fleeing the conflict for aerial bombing. It also accuses the Russian military of "Ongoing looting, arson attacks, and abductions by militia are terrorizing the civilian population, forcing them to flee their homes and preventing displaced people from returning home."
In other words, Georgia's crime was recklessness. Russia's crimes were conscious and planned. Both are unacceptable, but they are not equal, neither in intent, nor in scale.
Another HRW report accuses South Ossetian militas, armed by Moscow, of burning and looting Georgian villages. Essentially, the same ethnic cleansing that Russia attributed to Georgia... except far more fitting of such a high charged phrase.
The North American left's response to all this? Silence. Or some half-hearted apologia that tosses in a little token criticism of Russia while implying that Georgia got what it deserved for befriending Bush.
The progressive left shouldn't stick their finger in the wind, find out what the neo-cons argue and base their principles on the opposite. If the progressive left is going to claim to stand against imperialism and for human rights, it must unequivocally condemn all war crimes and all militarism, including Russia's.
Certainly, ethnic cleansing and targeting fleeing civilians for bombing are at least as worthy of outrage as 'Koran abuse.'
2 comments:
Brian:
Great write ups on Georgia. I think if this weren't an election year, the progressive finger pointing and desire to always be on the opposite side of any issue with conservatives would be more easily set aside. A call to wake up to the ambitions of Putin and Russia has been met with cries of "warmongering", as if all conservatives are just drooling at the prospect of war with Russia.
At least as far as this conservative is concerned, war with Russia is to be avoided if at all possible. The downside being that it depends almost entirely on Russia's actions and plans. It is my hope that a strong, united NATO, through the use of sanctions, can get Russia to back off. Since they control much of the resources that Europe depends upon for energy, the sanctions may be more difficult for the Europeans to bear than the Russians.
This is a tricky situation to be sure, but if NATO and the rest of the free world don't unite and face Russia down, then we might as well get out the long johns and winter coats because the Cold War will be back with a bang, and could turn from cold to hot at any time.
Bloggers on both sides of the political spectrum need to take American politics out of the equation, and focus on a threat that could make the Mayan end-of-the-world predictions for 2012 come true.
Waston, thanks for the good word.
Over the last several years, every bad guy in the world has been deemed by the American right as 'the Hitler of the [insert region]' that must be stopped with American force lest western civilization crumble to the forces of anti-freedom. The way the right is reacting to Russian invasion is very similar to the way they whipped up sentiment to justify the unjustifiable war in Iraq, the questionable one in Afghanistan and the one they're desperately trying to provoke with Iran.
So I fully understand why progressives are hesitant to join in what they see as a repetition of beating of the war drums. Putin really is a threat to international security. But the right's insistence on invoking a new Hitler every week has made it the boy who cried wolf now that there is a real threat.
Most Americans, left or right, know very little about Russia or the Caucusus. So they necessarily force it into the prism of American politics. To the right, it's freedom vs evil as Bush neatly portrays everything. To the left, it's a repeat of a well-worn path toward an unnecessary, destructive war of choice that we've already travelled before.
I'm not an expert on Russia or Caususus, but I am better informed than most Americans. I know what how Russia's thrown its weight around in places like Ukraine, Poland and Latvia... and even the EU as a whole. So my suspicion of Putin is based on that assessment and on objective (hopefully) human rights considerations, not on well-worn right-wing militaristic rhetoric or a revulsion to it.
I don't trust BushCo because they're a bunch of reactionaries and militarists. Putin's at least as reactionary and militaristic so why shouldn't I mistrust him at least as much?
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