It seems clear they done it; for God knows what reason - arrogance, hoping beyond hope, misjudgment - Georgia started something it couldn’t finish. The Russians, for their part, were playing for it for years; the harassment campaign, the motor-rifle regiments parked up on the southern road. But however wrong they were, I’m saddened by it; they believed in the European dream, in joining Sweden and Venice, far more seriously than they did in America in any practical sense.
Russia has Ledeenised the situation - they picked up some crappy little country and threw it against the wall to show they meant business. Vladimir Putin, who presumably spent the autumn of 1989 cursing in the mess at Yasenevo, turned up to take pseudo-charge in the field; the US advisors exited via the pool at the Sheraton. Isn’t it always the pool, at the Sheraton?
As with Ledeenisation 1.0, we didn’t really offer an alternative nor any resistance. Worryingly, a range of other ex-Soviet states lined up to offer their support to Russia; not that they needed Kazakh divisions, but it’s not hard to see which way this is going. Nicolas Sarkozy would have come off this the worst - he flew in, at last, the Western support, and recommended surrender on terms the Prussians of 1870 would have considered tough, but not before making profile with jet, grin, grip etc as the war went on. Worse, he doesn’t even seem to have checked that the terms were sufficiently humiliating before setting out. He didn’t even deliver that. Carlo Levi’s remark that nothing came from Rome but tax collectors and speeches on the radio comes to mind.
It’s a tale of ugliness and failure, all right. I said Sarkozy would have come off this the worst, but then….Bush administration bungling/stupidity/callousness is nothing surprising any more. But this is truly impressive. One of the good things about NATO, after all, is that it’s a lot harder for two member states to a) not tell the other the Russians are coming or b) not tell the other they’re coming for the Russians.
What now? Well, every wind turbine is a vote for independence. And perhaps Hezbollah should start offering military advisors; after all, they know a thing or three about dealing with an enemy on the other side of a hilly border with many tanks.
Feed: A Fistful of Euros
August 15th, 2008 at 7:01 am
“Russia has Ledeenised the situation - they picked up some crappy little country and threw it against the wall to show they meant business.”
According to Human Rights Watch Dutch cameraman Stan Storimans (from RTL) and several other civilians were killed by a clusterbomb.
See Human Rights Watch:
August 15th, 2008 at 8:21 am
[...] Alex linked to this item on Georgia in his post The Revolution is Over. One excerpt that may provide some additional food for thought in this context: The cost of the [...]
August 15th, 2008 at 2:04 pm
sometimes history results in paradoxes. Maybe the best way to achieve what many neocons claim to want - to stop the re-expansion of authoritarian power, to rally the democracies - is to elect someone the neocons claim to despite - Barack Hussein (there, I said it) Obama. Who will the Germans be more likely to listen to when it comes time to take firm action to prevent a repetition of the Georgia aggression in Ukraine? Who will reluctant Americans listen to? Who can best achieve the bipartisan and transatlantic unity that is needed to counter those who would turn back the gains of 1989?
August 15th, 2008 at 2:46 pm
According to Human Rights Watch Dutch cameraman Stan Storimans (from RTL) and several other civilians were killed by a clusterbomb.
Setting everything aside, this is prime example what is wrong with West:
Where was HRW to complain in 1999, when US was using cluster bombs over Niš in 1999, resulting in many civilian deaths? Here are some details how it looks like when US bombs small country:
From http://news.nis.org.yu/arh0003-e.html:
August 15th, 2008 at 3:24 pm
cluster bombs mainly seem to have become a big deal to HRW after the US bombardment of Afghanistan in fall 2001, and then Israeli campaign in Lebanon.
Some things change that have nothing to do with Russia and Serbia, you know.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:23 pm
Wouldn’t it be great if there was some means to check what HRW actually said at the time? Like, a distributed worldwide computer network with the capability of doing a full-text random search over millions of documents?
Oh. HRW, May 11th, 1999:
The CBU-89 Gator has been banned under the 1997 Mine Ban Treaty, which came into force in March 1999. The United States has not signed the treaty, but all other NATO members, except Turkey, have. Human Rights Watch calls on the United States not to use the CBU-89 Gator scatterable mine system, because this is an inherently indiscriminate weapon.
Human Rights Watch condemns NATO’s use of cluster bombs in Yugoslavia, given the proven high dud rate of the submunitions employed. These weapons are indiscriminate in effect—the equivalent of using antipersonnel landmines. Human Rights Watch is also concerned that cluster bombs may be used in attacks on urban centers. This would present a particularly hazardous condition for the civilian population and should therefore be avoided.
I propose Harrowell’s Law; when a participant in an Internet discussion claims that a given NGO was silent about X, they are always lying, and the NGO’s statements will be within the first 10 Google results. It’s usually Amnesty, but it’s highly generalisable.
August 15th, 2008 at 10:55 pm
Wouldn’t it be great if there was some means to check what HRW actually said at the time?
Thanks Alex for finding it, I tried various permutations of search terms: Serbia, Nis, Cassette, 1999, NATO on HRW.ORG, but I didn’t find it.
My apologies — can admin delete my comment above?
August 19th, 2008 at 4:13 am
Yeah. Nice article. It has exactly … zero named officials.
But hey, McClatchy is “pound-for-pound the best news organization in the U.S. since 2001″(thanks Mark!).
pshaw.
August 19th, 2008 at 11:51 am
You’re still wrong about Iraq, Bob, and there’s nothing you can do about it, no matter how much you bitch at the newspapers.
August 19th, 2008 at 2:51 pm
No, I turned out to be right.(memo: we won).
Or shall I dig up your absurdly naive and willful commentary? Sure!
http://fistfulofeuros.net/afoe/not-europe/so-what-did-happen-to-iraq/
Me:
“Wars are about offensives and counter offensives. In terms of the larger picture, I think it’s pretty obvious that the tide has turned against the terrorists. They’re doomed, short of an abrupt and premature US withdrawl.”
You:
“I’m sorry. I can only describe those quotes as vacuous at best and propagandistic at worst. The first appears to be an exercise in defining down readiness to improve headline numbers - what would convince me would be the US Army permitting an Iraqi (NOT Kurdish or SCIRI) formation to take the lead in a serious (i.e. non-featherbedded) operation in central Iraq and it not being a total clusterfuck.”
Anyhoo, par for the course. Makes for a good chuckle.
August 25th, 2008 at 3:14 am
[...] Alex linked to this item on Georgia in his post The Revolution is Over. One excerpt from that item that may provide some additional food for thought in this context: The [...]
December 5th, 2008 at 3:04 pm
[...] vednis on Sun 23-11-2008 Neologism for Independent Scholars Saved by pathconf on Sat 15-11-2008 The Revolution is Over Saved by marcusbourn on Fri 14-11-2008 LINK LOVE Saved by Mochtroid127 on Tue 28-10-2008 [...]