Georgian Crisis: The Islam Connection

Prospect magazine has a must-read article "Caucasian Favours" on the situation in the Caucasus region in general, written by Daniel J Gerstle, a writer and human rights consultant.

Although according to some commentators the post inevitably comes along with a certain amount of bias, the writer's wish to deliver an objective piece of backdrop information was largely successful, specifically where the historical background is concerned:

(...) to understand why Russia’s response to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia was so strong, it helps to understand the role played by Russia’s southern ethnic minorities. Today, Russia's top national security concern is the Islamic radical insurgency ravaging its southern republics. The insurgency and the two Chechen wars which spawned it have killed well over 100,000 Russian citizens. By 2001, Russian federal and Chechen loyalist forces had largely beaten Islamic rebels. But with its attention focused on Chechnya, the Kremlin lost an advantage. Islamic radicals began recruiting disgruntled Muslim fighters all across the southern federal district and the conflict spread to the neighbouring Russian republics of Ingushetia, Dagestan, Kalbardino-Balkaria and Karachai-Cherkessia. The Kremlin has succeeded in securing the loyalties of all of the minority governments across the southern republics, including Chechnya, but the insurgency persists in a series of shootouts and bombings throughout southern Russia. With the insurgency still threatening to undermine regional governments, including that of North Ossetia, Russia desperately needed to find a way to re-consolidate its alliances among southern leaders. Russia’s protection of threatened South Ossetians in Georgia, in co-operation with North Ossetia, has done more to rally Kremlin allies there than any other political event since the terror attack on Beslan, North Ossetia, in 2004. Even Chechen special forces loyal to Moscow, who had taken a break from fighting insurgents at home, were spotted waving to photographers on their ride into battle in Tskhinvali, the devastated capitol of South Ossetia, on the frontline of Russia’s advance. Because of Russia’s action in Georgia, not only did North Ossetians move closer to union with South Ossetia, but southern leaders who represent minorities like the Cherkess, Kabardins, and Adyg, were able to bring their people closer to their ethnic brethren in Abkhazia. Southern leaders without ties to Georgia, like the Chechens and Ingush, joined in this fight to win points from Moscow as well as to repay neighbouring governments for the blood they sacrificed in the ongoing counter-insurgency (...)

The article ignited comments on the associated blog "First Drafts" that in narrative and idiom offer unintended insight how innuendo and false inferences prop up anti American prejudices, notably in reference to that 'American client' Saakashvili (alternatively referred to as hothead, popinjay, or loose canon): like Iraq's Government, he's a priori suspect - no shocking revelations there.

One gullible commentator refers us to a 'plausible' 'key-hole' story on Times Online, written by a committee of four on the basis of unspecified 'sources.' "The new cold war hots up" reads that ...

"(...) the US State Department’s internal timeline of the crisis pinpoints the explosion on August 1 of two roadside bombs, believed to have been planted by South Ossetian separatists sympathetic to Russia, as a decisive moment. Five Georgian policemen were injured, one severely.(...) It now appears that August 1 was a well-prepared “provocation” – one of the Kremlin’s favourit tactics. (...) the Georgian leader last week angrily said he had repeatedly warned Washington and EU countries that the Russians were preparing a military operation against Georgia but that he had been brushed aside. (...)"

That Georgian leader's claim is born out by the one year old article posted here yesterday ... the Russians have been hurling missiles at Georgia since August 2007. That in mind, puts the article's claim of the "US State Department's internal timeline of August 1" in certain light.

Since treason is second nature to the followers of relativist ideologies, it should come as no surprise that their mental radar screen remains virgin to the fact that the hothead merely did his prime duty as a leader, namely defending the people and the territory in his keeping.

Next stop: today's NATO emergency meeting in Brussels.

Here's the PDF to Daniel J Gerstle's entire article on Prospect, "Caucasian Favours."

- Filed on Articles in "Caucasian Heat" -

Georgian Crisis: since August 2007

The following posting on The Standard blog is dating back exactly one year: 15th August 2007.

Little did we know when we published our first post a few days ago on the subject of the rape of Georgia and titled it "Caught Sleeping in Tbilisi," that our misguided politicians and diplomats were actually long-term struck by a malignant form of catatonic coma!

Saakashvili may be a hot-head (the MSM's favorite qualification), but as it turns out, he was right all along!

As the Russians are playing word games over the French cheese ceasefire agreement they never intended to keep, and the relativized MSM are incorrigibly fixated on the Russia-was-provoked myth because that neatly covers their moral agnostics (they have already moved on to the resignation of President Musharraf of Pakistan), 160.000 refugees have descended on the Georgian capital Tbilisi. And now this ... dated 15th August 2007 ... read and weep:

The Standard: "The New Russia: Georgia Alleges Second Attack in Four Months - Missile Lands in Georgian Village"

Georgia has accused Russia of an "undisguised aggression," claiming two Russian Su24 jets entered Georgian airspace on August 7 and fired (or "ditched", according to other reports) a missile that landed near a house in the village of Tsitelubani.

The missile did not explode. (See The New York Times and the BBC for August 7 coverage.)

Georgia has called for an emergency UN meeting. Russia has denied all allegations.

The United States has called the act a "provocation" and the European Union has urged all sides to show restraint.

Meanwhile, the good people at The Economist have put the incident in context.

But there's much more context.

Well... A Second Missile Attack

As The Wall Street Journal notes, this was the second time in four months that Georgia has lodged a complaint with the international community regarding a Russian attack.

On March 11, two helicopters flew over the mountains into Georgia's Kodori Valley and fired a missile into a Georgian government building. This missile, as it happens, exploded.

- Caption: The People's Cube: "Red Primer for Children and Diplomats" - The Soviets' love for their fellow men never recognized borders. The new Ukranian Republic was allowed to join the new Russian Soviet Republics..."voluntarily." The independence of the new Georgian Republic was also granted by the Soviets in 1921. To "guarantee" this "independence," the Soviets incorporated Georgia into the Soviet Union eight months later, after Red Army invasion. -

Again from WSJ: "The sheer sophistication of a helicopter attack in high mountain passes at night would point to Russian authorship. Its military is the only one in the region known to have the equipment and training needed to pull it off."

The Russian government, not so unexpectedly, denied the allegations.

When asked by the UN to provide radar records, the Russian Defense Ministry claimed that the Russian military records "only flights by aviation of the Russian armed forces." As there were no Russian aircraft in the area that evening, the Ministry letter went on to explain, there were no records to provide.

At this point, let's all pause for three seconds and reflect on the purpose and uses of a military radar system.

Good.

It's should be clear now that Russian helicopters entered the airspace of a free, sovereign nation, staged a military attack, and the UN, the United States, and the European Union have offered no measured diplomatic response.

Now as the same free, sovereign nation makes a second accusation, the United States government has managed a whisper, while the European Union has taken upon itself the supreme responsibility of playing the role of kindergarten teacher.

Probably nothing to worry about...

An ultra-nationalist state that has changed its school textbooks to present Great Britain and the United States as its 'totalitarian' adversaries and stated directly that oil and gas supplies ought be used as geopolitical weapons (See previous post).

Cooler heads...

Here's the map of oil and gas pipelines (in French) from Russia to Europe, in case you were wondering...

The last half year has seen the Russian government take aggressive new stances in the international game of power and indoctrinate its new generation with belligerent nationalist ideology that lauds the glories of the Soviet past. It has also seen the Russian military accused of various acts of aggression. This above post is only a part of the whole. >>>

- Filed on Articles in "Caucasian Heat" -

The War on Reality: the Return of the Evil Empire

If reason makes no sense to your argument as reality clearly shows otherwise, attack reason as pernicious and superficial, and persuade the world that reality doesn't exist.

Communism was one of the main subjectivist ideologies that had their roots in the war on existence which was covertly pushed by the anti-modern philosophers of eighteenth century Germany. The battle was over the nature of thought itself. It grew out of fear for the 'cold' rationality of the Enlightenment, the liberty it propagated for peoples and individuals, and the Luddite angst over science and technology as expressed by Rousseau.

How to get the popular liberty genie, released by the Enlightenment, back into the bottle? For such a feat to be accomplished nothing less than the perception of reality needed to be altered, while the living conditions had to seen to be improving extensively. The followers have been working at it to this day.

The atheist branch went so far as to envision turning the physical world itself into the Paradise of Heaven. As a result the politics growing out of these philosophies use as their working material - not the realities of this world - but rather as it ought to be, at least from their point of view.

After the radicalism of Rousseau and the pious mind-games of Kant, the Hegelians divided into a Right and a Left faction. The Right had their base in Prussian Nationalism, which later morphed via Nietzsche into National Socialism; the Left produced Carl Marx, and the rest as they say, is history. After the Right was defeated in World War II all main arteries united together in Postmodernism. The philosopher Heidegger acted as the bridge over which Right and Left subjectivists unite.

As truth has the nasty habit of reasserting itself constantly, indeed oozes through every crack in the manufactured world of make-believe, the false perception needs to be actively inculcated on people's souls on a perpetual basis. Apart of manipulation of reality, ingraining is helped along by the use of physical coercion. This was justified by Rousseau's delusion, in which submission to the collective's 'common will' is seen as the highest ethical standard. Kant, Marx and Corporal Hitler agreed.

The main tool of Communism has always been the mind-games played on the masses as a means of control. The Nazis excelled in this as well. Leonard Peikoff in The Ominous Parallels makes the case that the Nazi concentration camps were actually a gigantic controlled experiment in mind-control. The Communist gulags and mental hospitals in which enemies of the collective were interned, are similar laboratories of evil.

It was one of the victims of those Siberian camps who died only last week, Alexander Solzhesitsyn, who worded so well how the war on reality works. “Violence can only be concealed by a lie, and the lie can only be maintained by violence. Any man who has once proclaimed violence as his method is inevitably forced to take the lie as his principle.”

The last part in fact works the other way around: any man who has once accepted the lie as his core philosophy is inevitably forced to take violence as his method of maintaining it.

Today's Russian oligarchy have their roots in the Soviet version of the Gestapo: the KGB. Whatever the case, it is hardly surprising that men who were from early childhood severely indoctrinated with the pernicious Soviet ideology, in midlife suddenly turn round and become the champions of liberty; their brains are just not wired this way. Such an expectation is as naive as it is hazardous; yet the world nursed this illusion since 1989. Georgian President Saakashvili, himself well versed in the intricacies of the Soviet war on reality, in a interview said it like this: "They use lies as an instrument of communication."

Younger people, born before the implosion of Communist collective might well study the brilliant work by George Orwell, 1984 which describes to perfection how the manipulation of reality works in such totalitarian systems that are built on its denial. The New Speak vocabulary drives the world of Ingsoc's smoke and mirrors.

The finger prints of the Soviet Pavlov reactions are all over the Georgian crisis. Just one of those knee-jerks is the Russian attitude towards the press, the messengers of reality (at least, until they were assaulted themselves by the war-on-reality vampire; since then they have become its tools).

It may take some time for the penny to drop, but for the Postmodern transnational progressives the re-emergence of the Evil Empire is good news. After all, Communism was only a means to an end: the state would wither away to bring about a global, multicultural collective. This is precisely what the KGB demoralized tranzies, currently in power, want to establish.

With the tragic events of last week, in which the fledging democracy of Georgia was sacrificed on the altar of debilitated tranzy diplomacy, the phantom of a global dystopia has come one step closer.

After sitting on the fence for a day or so the Left and the mainstream media have made up their minds. This wasn't a hard one (see Socialist Causes Explained): the Russian Sorelian myth in the making, that Georgia provoked the attack by an all out assault on Tskhinvali is swallowed hook, line and sinker; besides thus being the aggressor, Georgians are also primitive flag-waiving 'Nationalists', Christians (too bad Muslims aren't in charge in Ossetia), but their greatest sin of all, is that they are uninhibited pro Americans and proud of it.

When will the relativized stooges, the useful idiots, get their heads around the fact that America - far from being the enemy - is the sole guarantor against the global dystopia? The Evil Empire never was about ideology. It was always about power for power's sake. Communism was but a means to an end; geopolitical Darwinism will do as well, as it did before the onset of ideology.

Update:

"The People's Tools," Communist Revisionism for Dummies

Update:

A post by Paul Goble, director of research and publications at the Azerbaijan Diplomatic Academy on "Window on Eurasia" is instructive:

"Russian television, the most influential media channel in that country, has so distorted what is taking place in Georgia in the course of its “construction” of reality there that Russians who want to know what is really happening have been forced to turn to the Internet or, as during the Cold War, to Western broadcasters such as Radio Liberty.

In an analysis which was posted on Fontanka.ru today, media critic Sergey Ilchenko observes that “facts, especially in our days, do not exist on the television screen ‘in a pure form,’ separate from interpretation and commentary” as Russian TV’s approach to Georgia has clearly demonstrated over the last five days (www.fontanka.ru/2008/08/12/033/).

Catastrophes and conflicts, he points out, are “constructed” by television whose editors and reporters “ever more frequently appear in the role of directors of reality,” as the movie “Wagging the Dog” and Russian coverage of the war in Georgia show to the satisfaction of anyone who cares to pay attention. (...) >>>

- Filed on Articles in "Freedom isn't Free" -

Georgian Crisis: The Moral Principles Explained

To the Postmodern politicians in Europe and the State Department the moral criterium is violence: never mind the rights and wrongs (in which they do not believe), aggressors are punished by being shunned from the global tribe.

For those who do believe in objective right and wrong - territorial integrity and the duty to defend - these are further explained in these CNN vids:




- Filed

Georgia Live Updates

CNN's Matthew Chance reported this afternoon that thousands of Russian troops were advancing from the abandoned city of Gori to the Georgian capital Tbilisi while there is supposed to be a EU brokered cease-fire going on ... shattered.

(Update: the Russian ambassador to NATO just consigned the information to the realm of Georgian propaganda. That is an obvious lie, as several Western journalists have reported live as the convoy passed them by. Update: EUX.TV here relates how the Russian propaganda 'hymn sheet' works.)

It is now becoming apparent that the Russian action was planned long in advance. Georgia, by reacting to the provocations allowed itself to fall into the trap. History being confined to the dust bin, collective memory had forgotten the Russians excel at chess: the art of thinking several moves in advance. Apparently it started in July with a cyber attack, but it is difficult to discern where that originated.

(Update: U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said Thursday during this press meeting that the Georgian/S. Ossetian/Russian skirmishes are a piece of regional folklore, traditionally held each year during the month of August; this year, according to Gates, things got a bit rough and spiraled out of hand - the trap was set.)

The vanguard made up of troops fresh from Chechnya, Ossetian paramilitaries - balaclavas and all - were moving in their wake. It has been confirmed it is mostly these irregulars who are responsible for the looting and mayhem, alcohol heavy on their breath. The Georgian army has collapsed.

Things being that fluid, others report that the convoy has already been diverted but it is about 50km removed from Tbilisi. The target seems to be an arms depot outside the capital which Russia wants to destroy.

The Russians are peeved that the West questions their motives for their actions. What's so hard to understand in Russians wanting to protect Russians? This would be more believable had they stayed in South Ossetia and hadn't they had a history of utter contempt for human lives (even for those they say to protect), and lost all sight of proportion.

President Saakashvili in an interview this afternoon called some Europeans naive. This is an understatement. Saakashvili himself is also not untouched by naivity, not realizing that Europe's Pragmatist leaders have long moved beyond democratic ideals (tainted by the much vilified neocons).

How far the postmodernists in Europe have got removed from reality becomes apparent when one hears the comments along the lines of 'power politics has no place in the 21st century' -- surely their moralizing and threats of isolation will deeply impress the muscle men, whose rhetoric isn't matched by their actions.

To the evolved politicians this is a fresh opportunity to delete another national border. The vista is a human race in which no one has a claim to national real estate (Sweden is leading the way). The abomination of racist, ethnic homes, like Israel and Greece must belong to a primitive and unenlightened past.

The new ideal are empire-style entities like today's Russia, power-blocks ruled by power-sharing bodies made up by quotas of minority representatives. Meet transnational progressivism. And we all lived peacefully ever after ...

For Russian collectivists there's also good news. After all, communism was only a means to an end: the state would collapse to bring about a global, multicultural collective. This is precisely what the KGB moralized tranzies are trying to establish. Their weapon: states that do not comply will be shunned. It's global tribalism.

The EU has managed a joint declaration, but an East vs West division is inevitable. The new Europe (former Warsaw Pact countries) having had experience with Russian hegemony, have positioned themselves squarely behind Georgia. Italy and Germany are gas dependent on Russia, the rest are simplistically relativized, meaning - since Saakashvili overplayed his hand both parties are morally reprehensible aggressors - end of story. The EU will send humanitarian aid and observers into the area.

The first American aid flight just arrived in Georgia. Condoleezza Rice is flying tomorrow to Paris and then on to Tbilisi.

Cyprus - Kosovo - Georgia: anybody see a pattern here?

The Heat is on in the Caucasus (update)

Both parties disagree which side upset the status quo: Russia says it is protecting the ninety percent of the South Ossetian population who hold Russian citizenship; Georgian President Shaakashvili claims Georgia has been attacked for its pro Western position. There's no contradiction here thanks to a fateful error made elsewhere by the West. At this point the plot thickens, as a mirror image of Kosovo's secession from Serbia emerges.

Circumstantial evidence or double bluff, Georgia is only now repatriating its troops from Iraq, after the fact.

And what should we read in the fact that both Vladimir Putin and George Bush were attending the Beijing Olympics when the news broke?

Meantime reports have it the fighting has spread to nearby Abghazia, another breakaway region attacking Georgia.

- Caption: ethnic map of the Causasus -

President Saakashvili said 150 Russian tanks invaded Georgian territory on 7th August at 23:50 hours. He claims the Russians have been holding military manoeuvres for months, openly discussing the invasion with the protection of the Russian citizens in S. Ossetia as a pretext. Georgia for its part sought to preserve its territory, but apparently overplayed its hand.

But it is also a fact, that Russia has an entire history of waging war on civilian populations. Its style of warfare is to simply obliterate the will to fight. Residential complexes are indiscriminately bombed - no sensitivities over collateral damage there. Already the burnt out, Soviet style apartment buildings resemble scenes from the Chechen wars (first and second) (image: Grozny).

The Russian Black Sea fleet is preparing a blockade of Georgian ports.

A handful of orthodox thinkers have been warning for years of the dangers of Kosovo breaking away from Serbia, to no avail: how can any number of separatist actions be avoided with that precedent in mind? Ironically it was only Russia that supported Serbia in seeking to preserve its territorial integrity, but the postmodern tranzies wanted Kosovo's independence. Today in Georgia the shoe is on the other foot with Russia in the role of NATO, playing the humanitarian card. But no one is prepared as yet to interpret the Ossetian bit for independence as a 'Lockean revolution.'

CNN just reported that Vladimir Putin has arrived in the region. Just how that will influence the situation will be seen in the coming hours.

Meantime, here's some background information by George Gvishiani:

Georgia and the South Caucasus: "BACKGROUND: Russian Invasion of Georgia"

Please distribute to all relevant platforms on the Facebook or on other websites this statement of the Georgian Embassy in the US (they are my friends). File is attached and main text is in this e-mail below. I've just talked with Government in Tbilisi and with our Embassy here ... Almost all Gov. sites are down. Here is the text. Russian planes are hitting Poti where we have main communication points. (...) During the last 24 hours military forces of the Russian Federation in coordination with the Russian-supported and supplied South Ossetian militia launched combined air and ground attacks on Georgian territory. (...)

The Danger Room has another perspective:

Danger Room: "Did the U.S. Prep Georgia for War with Russia?"

Georgia and Russia are careening towards war. And the U.S. isn't exactly a detached observer in the fight. The American military has been training and equipping Georgian troops for years. The news thus far: Georgia, which has been locked in a drone war over the separatist enclave of Abkhazia, has launched an offensive to reclaim another breakaway territory, South Ossetia. Latest reports indicate that Georgian forces are laying siege to Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital. And Russia, which has backed the separatists, is sending in the tanks. So why should we care? Oh, just the prospect of a larger regional war that could drag in Russia – and involve the United States as well. When I last visited South Ossetia, Georgian troops manned a checkpoint outside Tskhinvali -- decked out in surplus U.S. Army uniforms and new body armor. (...) One of the U.S. military trainers put it to me a bit more bluntly. “We’re giving them the knife,” he said. “Will they use it?” >>>

Update: Here are two links on the oil connection:

SF Gate: "Georgia's oil pipeline is key to U.S. support"

(...) The pipeline that crosses Georgia can pump slightly more than 1 million barrels of crude oil per day, or more than 1 percent of the world's daily crude output. The 1,100-mile pipeline carries oil from Azerbaijan's Caspian Sea fields, estimated to hold the world's third-largest reserves. Its potential vulnerability was already in the spotlight after it was sabotaged this week, apparently by Kurdish separatists. Most of the oil is bound for Western Europe, where gas prices are even higher than the $4 and more a gallon that U.S. consumers are now paying. With only so much oil to go around, what the pipeline carries affects prices elsewhere. The United States also hopes it will be a model for other development projects that could have a more direct effect on the U.S. market. (...) >>>

Reuters: "Russian jets targeted major oil pipeline-Georgia"

Russian fighter jets targeted the the major Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) oil pipeline which carries oil to the West from Asia but missed, Georgia's Economic Development Minister Ekaterina Sharashidze said on Saturday. (...) There have been no independent verifications (...) >>>

Update:

Pajamas: "Russia’s Pathetic Defenders"

(...) Let’s be clear: What happened in Georgia is that Russia gave diplomatic recognition and support to a breakaway region of another country without international agreement, massed troops on the border, repeatedly violated Georgian airspace, shot down a Georgian aircraft, fired missiles into Georgian territory, and attempted to assassinate a major Georgian official in the region. Then it goaded the region into launching an attack on Georgian forces, and when Georgia finally responded with a limited strike against the region, after more than a year of provocation during which Georgia responded only with diplomatic protests, Russian invaded and seized the region, including the use of strategic bombers that destroyed civilian apartment blocks. Now, the breakaway region is engaged in massive attacks on Georgian civilians, in the manner of a pogrom. (...) >>>

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