The New Geopolical Paradigm: A Vacuum Filled With Narcissism

The Postmodern philosophy is turning out everything it promised to be: hot air, empty rhetoric, yada yada, sticking labels ... that's it! It produces nothing, because it is nothing.

Only God can create ex nihilo, something out of nothing. Oh, it works okay in campaign mode, as long as people's minds can be manipulated, but contrary to the Postmodern premise that thought creates reality, it is concepts that lead to molecules and atoms!

Consider Lawrence Eagleburger's recent laments in an interview with FoxNews' Greta van Susteren during which he rather concisely summed up the problem (btw, he must be another one of those racists!):

(...) This President has spent his time talking in public every chance he gets, yet I see nothing that comes out of that talk that leads to anything concrete (...) Eagleburger mentions as a classic example the debate over health care reform.

(...) The Democrats have control of the Congress and one would think they can pass any legislation they wanted within a short period of time. Instead it goes on forever. (...)  We still have no idea what the Bill may be in the end and the reason we don't is because when it comes to the right place to make some decisions - make it clear that this is what the President wants - it disappears (...) Shut up until you've decided what it is you want (...) there's no direction ...

In a recent post entitled "The O Team: Mental Babies With Razors" we explained it as follows:

Their skewed philosophy rests on the error that universals are but a figment of man's imagination. From this fallacy follows that

concepts and essences - being universals - also do not exist. As a result, some arbitrary attribute may attach itself to - for instance man or a system - and mistakingly serve the purpose of an essence: what to think of systems that take decisions (no parenthesis there, and taken quite literally)  or an angry mob. 

- Caption: pomo concept of 'a running nose' - 

If you think this mushrooming of nothing is harmless, think again. As the empty suit is vaporizing hot air, enemy clouds are gathering. Consider this article by Jennifer Rubin in Commentary Magazine, "No Master Plan at All":

"As the media and political observers pick over the remains of the failed Olympics-bid debacle, the debate has boiled down to this:  (...) Suddenly, the entire country realizes that there is no “master plan” behind what Obama does. In fact, there may be no plan at all."

Rubin mentions the Obama's upending of the Clinton machine in the Democratic primary, the Reverend Wright flap, Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid crafting the stimulus as examples during which the Obama mystique held sway: "There must be a reason ... he was laying the groundwork for something or other (...)"

And all that genuflecting on the world stage and those unilateral concessions—there must be a game plan, a secret deal, with Russia. He’s got it wired. The same with that secret Iranian nuclear plant. Sure he knew about it and didn’t say anything, but it really was better—and he knew this all along—to delay the revelation and let months and months pass as the Iranian mullahs worked diligently to cement their regime and advance their nuclear program. Can’t you just hear the gears whizzing in the White House? (...) Observers were convinced that the deal to give it to Chicago was set, because no president would go—and no staff would let him go—to Copenhagen to be humiliated, right? Uhh, no."

I'm no card carrying member of the O personality cult, but as late as last week our entry in the Articles dossier on nuclear proliferation read:

"The Iran conundrum: This doesn't make any sense - at all! How does one gell the fact that only last week Obama tossed the Czech Republic and Poland under the bus (not to mention the 2007 NIE, that political construct dating back to the Bush years, that denied Iran has nuclear capability altogether) with the following? Update: add this to the mix: Robert Spencer: "Iran test-firing missile that can reach Israel" ...

But now we know better. Narcissism instead of nukes may well be the real killer ... Charles Krauthammer in NRO The Corner: "Obama’s French Lesson":

"When France chides you for appeasement, you know you’re scraping bottom (...) On September 24, Obama ostentatiously presided over the Security Council. With 14 heads of state (or government) at the table, with an American president in the chair for the first time ever, with every news camera in the world trained on the meeting, it would garner unprecedented worldwide attention.

Unknown to the world, Obama had in his pocket explosive revelations about an illegal uranium-enrichment facility that the Iranians had been hiding near Qom. The French and the British were urging him to use this most dramatic of settings to stun the world with the revelation and to call for immediate action. Obama refused. (...) “The administration told the French,” reports the Wall Street Journal, “that it didn’t want to ‘spoil the image of success’ for Mr. Obama’s debut at the U.N.”

Image? Success? Sarkozy could hardly contain himself. At the council table, with Obama at the chair, he reminded Obama that “we live in a real world, not a virtual world.” He explained: “President Obama has even said, ‘I dream of a world without (nuclear weapons).’ Yet before our very eyes, two countries are currently doing the exact opposite.”

Sarkozy’s unspoken words? “And yet, sacre bleu, he’s sitting on Qom!” (...) Bismarck is said to have said: “There is a providence that protects idiots, drunkards, children, and the United States of America.” Bismarck never saw Obama at the UN. Sarkozy did."

Of the Freedom Fatwa, Political Consciousness & Tumbling Turbans (cc the leader)

How important the present uprising in Iran is, as it is aimed at toppling a rabid, nuclear trigger-happy regime of Islamofascist apocalyptic cheerleaders, and just how this dovetails with geopolitical forces, is born out by today's post in Elsevier authored by Dutch-Iranian refugee and Leiden University lecturer, Afshin Ellian.

We are in uncharted territory! Here be dragons ...

Just a few days ago we witnessed a prominent cleric, Grand Ayatollah Hossein Ali Montazeri issue a Jeffersonian Fatwa for Freedom! The mainstream press kept it under wraps, or perhaps they just missed it, busy as they must have been covering Obama's completion of the US Supreme Soviet, or frantically reporting of the latest narcissistic socialight's transgressions.

After giving you the translation of Ellian's post we will wrap this up with another enlightening interview on the same topic, published recently on Front Page Magazine.


"The West Must Support the Iranian People"

"They've killed my son. For 26 days they've told me that my son was in Ewin Prison. You all know who the murderers are. No one can stop me, no one can stop us. They've killed my boy."

Those words were spoken by the mother of Sohrab (19) at his funeral. She wanted to become one with the soil. [ed. Read what happened to Sohrab in "Allah's Sons Keep Up the Killing in Iran"].

A few days ago Mousavi and his wife visited Sohrab's family. The mother explained to Mousavi that the people will not be stopped. In that part of the city thousands of protesters shouted "death to the dictator". It can all be watched on YouTube [links below].

Last Friday [yesterday] once again hundreds of thousands of people  hit the streets. According to several witnesses Tehran's streets contained a million people and more. The BBC states the people shouted: "Azadi, azadi (freedom); Mousavi, we support you."

YouTube video: Tehran, July 17 2009 - Part I

This really was the most historic Friday prayers in Iran. It was crowded, because Rafsanjani (Iran's second man) was giving a sermon. That's why the protesters addressed him: "Rafsanjani, if you are silent today, you are a traitor."

YouTube video: Tehran, July 17 2009 - Part II

Also present were Hezbollah types. They were ferried early morning with buses to the enclosed prayer site. Only once did they dare call for "death to America, death to Israel". The masses outside yelled: "Death to Russia; Russia shame on you, let us in peace".

YouTube video: Tehran, July 17, 2009

This is just unbelievable. The people have a political consciousness. Yes, the Americans and the Israelis have nothing to do with the situation in the country. But Russia does. The Russians and the Chinese are loyal allies of the regime. They were among the first to congratulate and acknowledge Ahmadinejad as President. The people know the security forces are trained principally by the Russians. [Watch a Russian flag burnt in effigy ceremony here].

The Russians are doing this, because they truly make lots of money from the moronic ayatollahs. All Russian produced airplanes are sold to Iran. It is old junk that isn't worth a dime. But it has killed 2500 people over the course of 20 years. Russia also sells nuclear technology and weapons to Iran. Moscow must understand that if the people succeed in toppling Ahmadinejad's and Khamenei's regime, such dealings will be over. 

Rafsanjani's sermon was not broadcast on state television, but through the international media everyone knows what was in it: "The regime is in an unparalleled crisis. The people do not trust the Government. The Government must release political prisoners." He also talked about the victims of the uprising.

These words were spoken by the regime's second man. It would seem that even Friday's sermon isn't safe territory anymore for the established order.

Well informed sources have told me that on June 15 Rafsanjani took delivery of a letter sent by the Revolutionary Guard's High Command. The letter consisted of eight lines, conveying two messages: (a) There's still a red line that must not to be crossed. (b) This goes for Rafsanjani as well, and if he joins Mousavi, the Revolutionary Guard (RG) will act mercilessly. The letter was signed by Jafari (Supreme Commander of the RG). 

The letter ended: cc Ayatollah Khamenei. I've never heard of such a thing in my life! Cc the leader. This means that real power is no longer in the hands of Khamenei. In power are a number of very radical ayatollahs and the RG.

I hope Western Governments are aware of that, because it is with these people, and not with Khamenei, that they must negotiate Tehran's nuclear ambitions. This is a club that wants a nuclear device very badly indeed. Almost everyone in the enlightened world is aware of that.

If the West should make the wrong choice like Russia did, it will be punished by the Iranians. That is not in the interest of the West. It is clear that the people will take this to the very end. And the West must support them.

Also Karoubi, the other Ahmadinejad rival, took part in Friday prayers. In full view of everyone he was attacked by plain clothes scum. His turban tumbled. Isn't that ironic? Even the clergy are no longer safe in Iran. A theocracy is the least safe system for clergymen: there is no separation of judge and prosecution. Sinister, isn't it?

The turban tumbled! Isn't that symbolic for the Islamic regime itself? Islamofascism without a turban! Perhaps the end of Iranian Islamism is neigh.


Front Page Magazine: "Russian Intelligence and Islamic Terror", by Jamie Glazov

Frontpage Interview's guest today is Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy, a former KGB agent who became one of the KGB’s harshest critics. He is the author of seven books about the KGB and Japan. His new book is KGB/FSB's New Trojan Horse: Americans of Russian Descent.

FP: Konstantin Preobrazhenskiy, welcome to Frontpage Interview.

Is Russia America’s ally in fighting Islamic terrorism?

Preobrazhenskiy: No absolutely not. And this is one of the many American prejudices and misunderstandings of Russia.

Americans generally believe that Russia is as afraid of Islamic terrorism as the U.S. is. They are reminded of the war in Chechnya, the hostage crisis at the Beslan School in 2004 and at the Moscow Theater in 2002, and of the apartment house blasts in Moscow in 1999, where over 200 people were killed. It is clear that Russians are also targets of terrorism today.

But in all of these events, the participation of the FSB, Federal Security Service, inheritor to the KGB, is also clear. The FSB’s involvement in the Moscow blasts has been proven by lawyer Mikhail Trepashkin, a former FSB Colonel. For this he was illegally imprisoned in 2003.

A key distinction between Russian and American attitudes towards Islamic terrorism is that while for America terrorism is largely seen as an exterior menace, Russia uses terrorism as a tool of the state for manipulation in and outside the home country. Islamic terrorism is only part of the world of terrorism. Long before Islamic terrorism became a global threat, the KGB had used terrorism to facilitate the victory of world Communism.

FP: Give us the background of Soviet involvement with Islamic terror. (...) >>>

For more on the use of terror as a form of coercion in totalitarian systems, see our file "The Unholy Alliance".

Update:

Oh oh ... NYT reporting fallout from Rafsanjani sermon today. Get this: "Ayatollah Muhammad Yazdi, a conservative member of Iran’s Guardian Council and the former head of the judiciary, lashed out at Mr. Rafsanjani, saying the former president did not have the right to call for the release of arrested protesters. He also said Mr. Rafsanjani had exaggerated the role of democracy in Islamic government and thereby diminished the importance of divine sanction. “Legitimacy and acceptance are different in Islamic government,” Ayatollah Yazdi told the semi-official Fars news agency. “Votes alone do not create legitimacy.”"

- Filed on Articles in "Ellian Blogs" - 

President O: the Fall Out Begins

The reactions are coming in, fast and furious ...

Civilian Irregular Information Defense Group: "Colonel George Taylor, USAF, Had This to Say"

A Republic, if you can keep it. Looks to me like we can’t.

RedState: Obama Administration Survival Guide - Welcome To The Loyal Opposition"

The nation awakens today to a grim day (although less grim than it might have been, as the late Senate races come in and the prognosis for a decent-sized GOP resistance looks much better). But America has endured worse. Here's 12 ways I recommend that conservatives and Republicans prepare to face the next four years under President Obama (yeah, get used to that one) (...)

... RedState notices something else as well, which can also be witnessed all over the Dutch media (sometimes interpreting subjectivist PC lingo can be really, really hard: they've got me on this one - anyone?) ...

"Oh, so now it's OK to call him Barack Hussein Obama?"

Brace yourselves for what is coming. One CNN contributor just said (paraphrase): "I can now say what I couldn’t say before. We haven’t just elected a black president. We have elected a black president whose middle name is HUSSEIN."

... hmm, and it looks like Morning Bell has a few bats loose in the belfry ...

Morning Bell: "Congratulations, President-Elect Obama"

After a hard-fought campaign nearly two years in the making, last night a candidate was elected president of the United States. That candidate promised to “cut taxes for 95% of workers and their families,” expand the Army by 65,000 and the Marines by 27,000, and enact “a net spending cut” for the federal government. Lower taxes, a strong defense and shrinking the size of government. These are core conservative beliefs. Anyone who claims yesterday’s election was the end of conservatism simply was not paying attention to the campaign (...) >>>

... well, looks like the usual suspects didn't lose much time either ...

The Age: "Russia's Medvedev hits out at US"

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has blamed the United States for the world's problems and announced new missile deployments in Europe, calling on incoming US counterpart Barack Obama to mend Washington's ways.

Medvedev rounded on the United States for ills ranging from the global financial crisis to the recent war in Georgia, in a state-of-the-nation speech that was watched intently by his mentor Vladimir Putin, and omitted mentioning Obama by name. (...) >>>

The Right Perspective: "Taliban Calls On US Troop Withdrawal"

The Afghan Taliban has called on US-president elect Barack Obama only hours after his election victory,to withdraw troops from Afghanistan and usher in an “era of peace” in the world. “We want him (Obama) to change the policies of President (George W.) Bush. He could end the years-long war by withdrawing U.S. and allied troops from Afghanistan, ” Qari Mohammad Yusuf Ahmadi, spokesman for the Taliban, told the Pakistan-based Afghan Islamic press. “To those who tear the world down, we will defeat you,” Obama said in his victory speech in Chicago. >>>

... in the meantime the state coup against the private sector continues unabated ...

CNBC: "Pros Say: Obama Win = Oil Up, Dollar Down"

(...) Rules Will Be Rewritten - "Going forward, what the markets have to anticipate is going to be a substantial rewriting of the rules of the game. A real philosophical discussion about should the banking system be like a utility, paid like a utility, regulated like a utility, or should it have the entrepreneurial innovative drive that it has in the rest of the economy? And the way you set those rules up will define which of your views will make and will lose money going forward," Dr. Philippa Malmgren, president of Canonbury Group & former economic adviser to President George W. Bush, said. >>> also see video ...

CNBC: "Obama Has to Step Up to the Plate"

... oh, great - and the brothers of peace are weighing in as well with invective, racism and irresponsible journalism (that last one: welcome to the club) ...

Memri: "Initial Arab Media Reactions to Obama's Election"

"The Democrats Are Like a Snake That "Kill[s] You Slowly Without You Noticing" - "That Black Man" Will Never Change U.S. Policy" - "We Hereby Declare Obama the 44th President [Before It's Official]... Even If It Might Be Considered Irresponsible Journalism"
~


- Filed on Articles in "The Pomo Presidency," a continuation of "The Pomo White House" -

Georgian Crisis: Ten Reasons Why Russia is to Blame

Okay, this is it. Resisting pressure for a recap of the Georgian crisis, this article written by Christopher Westley, an adjunct scholar at the Ludwig von Mises Institute signals that a review is actually long overdue.

Apart from the blatant postmodern moral equivalencing (Russia is the USA; Georgia is Texas; What's next? Bush is Hitler?) that one hardly expects from a self-respecting economic institute as the Von Mises, the time horizon in which these events are supposed to have taken place - as was the case with Kosovo and Bosnia - does not exceed the period when the crisis was shot into the public consciousness by the media. Conflicts have histories and run-ups which usually play out well before the first shot is fired. The relativist brainpower however is strictly limited to the here and now and cannot be bothered with historical perspectives or absolute realities.

Russia (and the anti-militarist Westley) claim Georgia provoked Russia - the self-imposed 'peace enforcer in the conflict - when 'the regime' dastardly attacked the South Ossetian town of Tskinvali with heavy artillery on the opening morning of the Beijing Olympics (08/08/08). In the consciousness of the Westleys this is the arbitrary starting point of the crisis. But military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer, an independent, Moscow-based defense analyst gives another sequence of events in "The Russian-Georgian War was preplanned in Moscow":

"Late in the evening of August 7, a heavy mortar bombardment of Georgian villages near the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali provoked Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to order a major assault. The night attack by Georgian troops outfitted with Western-made night-vision equipment flushed the Ossetian fighters out and Tskhinvali was overrun in the morning. To stop the Georgian offensive thousands of Russian troops with hundreds of pieces of armor invaded through the Roki tunnel and rushed forward. Russian jets began bombing Georgian military installations and cities (see EDM, August 7)."

The Russian propaganda that Moscow had to take humanitarian action went unquestioned (because this allows an anti-American stance and saves one making a moral choice) and was repeated ad nauseam by the mainstream media (because our pragmatist position is so ethical that it justifies unethical behavior). It is by now just as irrevocably entrenched as 'the illegal Bush war' and the 'occupations'. There simply is no act of treason the deluded will not stoop to, in order to preserve their psycho-pathological projection.

As usual the train of logic to reach such an outcome requires a few maneuvers in irrationality. Who knows what goes on underneath the skull, but it may well be they believe that some KGB remnant in the Kremlin holds the secret to a Cold War period black-op, that enables them to levitate military hardware, as well as large troops contingents into the region practically overnight, by a sheer act of the will (thought creates reality). One just wonders what to make of the rapid deployment of the Black Sea naval task force, and the fact that large contingents of troops were also poured into Abkhazia.

This blog coincidentally stumbled upon a one year old item ("The New Russia: Georgia Alleges Second Attack in Four Months,"containing links to BBC and NYTimes articles) which has long passed out of the public consciousness, from which it transpires that Russia has been hurling missiles into Georgia since August 2007! So much for the hotheaded impulsiveness of the 'client' President Saakashvili (another poodle from the Bu$Hitler kennels)!

Of course this might be dismissed as a perverted form of double bluff, but the event that the US had to airlift some 2,000 Georgian troops from Iraq after the fact, and not before, is a strong indication there was no premeditated intention of poking the bear on the part of the Georgian Government, that was at the time for the most part, enjoying their holidays.

And then, there's the comment by aforementioned independent defense analyst Pavel Felgenhauer. He says the aim, from the start, was to overthrow the Georgian Government and the that trap was laid long ago, actually in April when NATO declined to offer Georgia and Ukraine a Membership Action Plan. Read all of Felgenhauer's "The Russian-Georgian War was preplanned in Moscow."

After the fact you've also got to relativize away the Human Rights Watch report, and before it the cyber-attacks, which turned out to be private initiatives. And intimidating and targeting the press is of course totally off topic. Also the wider economic and geopolitical pointers must be ignored, unless you can build a conspiracy theory which implicates 'the joint American and Israeli 'military industrial complex'; having done all that successfully, the fact that the playbook is the mirror carbon copy of the Kosovo precedent, must also be ducked.

If we turn to Brian Whitmore of Liberty Radio we read: " Less than one month before Russia's armed forces entered Georgia on August 8 and held massive military training exercises in the North Caucasus involving 8,000 servicemen and 700 pieces of military hardware. At center stage in those maneuvers -- which took place in the second half of July, not far from Georgia's border -- was Russia's 58th Army, the very unit that would later play a key role in the incursion. Those exercises were just one link in a chain of incidents suggesting that Russia's military action in Georgia was planned months in advance, awaiting only an appropriate pretext to act."

We've been caught napping and the West "dismissed the Russian warnings and preparations as bluff until it was too late. US Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza stated in Tbilisi, "Now we know" the true mission of the Railroad troops in Abkhazia (Interfax, August 11)," writes Felgenhauer.

That's water under the bridge, but we can stop repeating the propaganda canard that the Russians were 'provoked' and that their hand was forced by humanitarian considerations (the alleged genocide: goes to intent - in the light of the above, wish them a good time of it). Were they also provoked or moved by humanitarian sensitivities during the last century, when they forcibly incorporated the 'near abroad' into the USSR and force-fed them on vicious Marxist ideology?

The West made a grave mistake in seeking Kosovo's unilateral proclamation of independence towards a Greater Albania, but two wrongs wouldn't have made a right.

- Drawings by Victor Vashi from the book Red Primer for Children and Diplomats - Hat Tip: The People's Cube -

More on the Georgian Crisis, in chronological order:

- The Heat is on in the Caucasus (update)
- Caught Sleeping in Tbilisi
- Georgia Live Updates
- The Intricacies of Postmodern Diplomacy
- Georgian Crisis: Target the Messenger
- The War on Reality: the Return of the Evil Empire
- Georgian Crisis: since August 2007
- Georgian Crisis: The Islam Connection
- Georgian Crisis: "Russia is Blowing Up Europe"
- The LooneyGlobs and Cold War Ghosts
- Putinism Explained: the Power Tool

Related:

- "Freedom isn't Free"
- "Rumbling Russia"
- "Communist Crimes on Trial"

Update - Michael Totten in Georgia: "The Truth About Russia in Georgia"

- Filed on Articles in "Caucasian Heat" -

Putinism Explained: the Power Tool

Here follows an eight part CBC Newsworld documentary "The Putin System," which analyzes the life and politics of Russia's, now Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin.

Specifically those still swooning over 'having looked into his soul' romantics, or transnational idealists harboring otherwise dangerously Utopian One World notions, are strongly advised to watch it closely.

The 'managed democracy' of the 'single economic space' of the reconstituted USSR is the nearest we will ever get in real life to the James Bond antagonist in a number of 007 films, SPECTRE (SPecial Executive for Control, Terrorism, Revenge and Extortion): total state through a corporation, in this case Gazprom, a gigantic transnational tool for the funneling of public resources to selective private coffers.

As a worthy heir to the manufactured reality that was every day life in the Soviet Union, Putinism proudly includes in its doctrine the contradictions of democracy (or what passes for it) and dictatorship, as well as state and liberalism. The latter is meant strictly nominally, as in "the Democratic Republic of the Congo."

The neotot KGB ship of state is tightly run under the premise that "control is safe, no control is a threat, therefore as many things as possible should be controlled."

The paranoid mass is collectively held together by the Sorelian myths of outside and inside enemies and the lie reaching back to the anti-modernist school of thought, that the individual is insignificant but that the collective is supernaturally powerful. It therefore comes as no surprise that the reversed sequence of events in the Georgian crisis is uncritically lapped up as Smirnoff on the rocks. Some never learn ...

Putinism, as a true total movement, likes 'em young: the Nashi youth organization's growth is prolific!

Whereas the doctrine has dispensed with ideology, it has seamlessly and effortlessly reconstituted all the Soviet trappings. Led by sheer Pragmatism (we unashamedly do whatever is in our interest), what's left is pure, brutal power politics for its own sake.

Those useful idiots in the West who took the communist idealism seriously and who - against all evidence - refused to believe otherwise, could draw some insightful conclusions from this (but they probably won't - as said, some never learn): the essence of the Marxist school of ideology always was a common power-grab and very little else. The core question was, how to get the unwashed to grab power on your behalf?

Putin has come up trumps from his long walk through the nomenklatura. The clever thing is, he's done it almost single-handedly. It is to be hoped that the overplaying of his hand in Georgia will put a number of Western politicians on the highest state of alert.

Now that 'history is back' it may help clear the postmodern, transnational air that can only lead to utter disaster (in fact, the anomaly in international law of Kosovo's unilateral independence has produced the present crisis and can potentially, cause many more besides).

It may well be that the autocrats Russia, China, a number of Muslim countries, and their Third World clients will gang up against the West and Israel. It may also bring about a re-alignment in Euro-American relations and bring them closer together.

If the latter decades of the last century were at times a little boring, developments in the new millennium have already handsomely made up for that. We live in interesting times after all.


get your vodpod

In case of problems the videos can also be accessed from the Vodpod page.

- Filed on Articles in "Rumbling Russia" -

Today's LooneyGlobs: Slow Retreat

Townhall: "Blame Everyone But Russia!" by Victor Davis Hanson

An inventory of Western reactions to the Russian invasion of Georgia ... European public opinion is probably sharply divided between the American Left wing and the liberal mainstream. Hanson's conclusion sounds about right:

"The more Russia promises to leave Georgia, the more it seems to stay put. One reason may be that Putin keeps counting on us either to be confused, contradictory or angrier at ourselves than at Russia over his latest aggression. And given our inability to speak with one voice, he seems to be absolutely right." >>>

In the meantime at the UN ...

BBC: "UN split over Georgia resolutions"

The UN Security Council is deadlocked over the situation in Georgia with the US and Russia rejecting rival resolutions on the crisis. Washington says it is prepared to veto a Russian resolution seeking to implement a six-point ceasefire plan. Russia has reiterated its opposition to a rival French text reaffirming Georgia's territorial integrity. Russian says its troops will leave Georgia on Friday but 500 will stay in a "buffer zone" around South Ossetia. Local reports suggest Russian troops are still dug in at positions inside Georgia, but there has been some movement around the town of Gori, which Russia has promised to leave by 1600 GMT (...) >>>

... we've seen this procrastination for over a week now ... 'buffer zones' and self-appointed 'peace-keepers' ... yet something appears to be moving ... Georgian Times: "Troops Quit Administrative Headquarters in Zugdidi", SOS Georgia: "The streets of Gori are already controlled by Georgian Patrol Police"

In all the confusion over Georgia it seemed we've missed a important detail:

Pajamas: "Will NATO Abandon Ukraine Too? - A newly aggressive Russia sure hopes so,"by Kim Zigfeld

(...) NATO (...) must arm Ukraine to the teeth. It must make it such a hard target that the lunatics who “govern” neo-Soviet Russia will not even consider moving against it, as they recently did in Georgia. The reasons are so obvious that they hardly need to be stated. The role played by Russia’s Black Sea Fleet in brutally assaulting Ukraine has not been sufficiently reported (...) Last week, Ukraine demanded that Russia give 72 hours notice before activating war ships at its naval base in Crimea, on Ukrainian territory (similar to the U.S. base in Guantanamo, Cuba). Russia said it would simply ignore the demand.

The Moscow Times reported: “The chief of Ukraine’s General Staff, Serhiy Kirichenko, promised to fulfill Yushchenko’s decree. ‘The president’s decree on the Black Sea Fleet will, of course, be implemented on the territory of Ukraine. The Defense Ministry and the General Staff are among those state bodies responsible for this task.’” As Ukraine stands up for its comrade Georgia (...) Russia uses this as a pretext to ratchet up its confrontation rather than defuse it. It is a clear signal that Russia’s intentions towards Ukraine are at least as malevolent as they are towards Georgia, if not more so (...) >>>

Governments, security services, everyone must have been comatose in the run up to the operation. Blogger Diana Chachua on Peace in Georgia is relaying an article on Radio Liberty that Russia's armed forces entered Georgia on August 8 and held massive military training exercises in the North Caucasus involving 8,000 servicemen and 700 pieces of military hardware. At center stage in those maneuvers -- which took place in the second half of July, not far from Georgia's border -- was Russia's 58th Army, the very unit that would later play a key role in the incursion. Those exercises were just one link in a chain of incidents suggesting that Russia's military action in Georgia was planned months in advance, awaiting only an appropriate pretext to act.

Military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer says the aim, from the start, was to overthrow Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili and his pro-Western government."This was prepared long ago (...) April -- the month in which Felgenhauer claims Russia made its decision to invade -- was also the month when the NATO military alliance declined to offer outright a Membership Action Plan (MAP) to Georgia and Ukraine at its annual summit in Bucharest. In an August 14 article published in the "Novaya gazeta" weekly, Felgenhauer, who is credited with maintaining close sources in the Russian military, claims Moscow's plan began taking shape shortly after Georgia and Ukraine were denied a MAP.

(...) Such interpretations contradict the official narrative of the war promoted relentlessly by the Kremlin in the domestic and international media -- that Russian forces acted only in order to defend Russian citizens and peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia from Georgian soldiers intent on "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide" in the breakaway region. For now, there is no smoking gun to prove Russia methodically plotted its incursion into Georgia (...) >>> read it all

For the romantically inclined, here's fiction meeting reality, a blueprint for an African coup:

The Weekly Standard: "Destination Malabo - A group of mercenaries' failed attempt to take over the worst place on earth," by Mark Hemingway

It was a complicated plan. But the beauty of it was that it allowed for many things to go wrong without compromising the whole. (...) As the full details of the coup continue to emerge, aspiring writers should pay close attention. There are no doubt a few good novels to be wrung out of the ongoing intrigue (...) in the Worst Place on Earth (...) you just can't make this stuff up (...) >>>
.

The LooneyGlobs and Cold War Ghosts

• Macedonia Online: " Russian Aircraft Carrier heads for Syria"
  
  The Russian aircraft carrier “Admiral Kuznetsov” is ready to head from Murmansk towards the Mediterranean and the Syrian port of Tartus. The mission comes after Syrian President Bashar Assad said he is open for a Russian base in the area. (...) The mission will also include the missile cruiser “Moskva” and several submarines, Newsru.com reports. President Assad in meetings in Moscow this week expressed support to Russia’s intervention in South Ossetia and Georgia. He also expressed interest in the establishment of Russian missile air defence facilities (...) >>>
  
  
• Jerusalem Post: "Analysis: Assad's shopping list"
  

• Euronews: Interview with Georgia's FM
  

• Breaking News: Obama has sneezed .... Patriot says USA did not do much for Czechoslovak citizens in 1968

• The Star: "Pressure builds on Russia - Canada to review 'everything' including Arctic ties; NATO suspends council, stops short of sanctions"
  
  Canada's relations with Russia over disputed Arctic territory could become frostier as NATO members seek to discipline the country for its invasion of Georgia, a top aide to Prime Minister Stephen Harper suggests. The warning comes after a meeting of the military alliance in Brussels where foreign ministers declared that a "business as usual" relationship with Russia cannot continue. Russia continues to occupy parts of neighbouring Georgia and Russian troops yesterday paraded bound and blindfolded Georgian soldiers on armoured vehicles and may have blown up a Georgian warship. (...) >>>
  

• The Russophobe is following developments closely ... the Exile has been suspended ...
  

• BBC - On this day in: "1968: Russia brings winter to 'Prague Spring'"
  
  Dozens of people have been killed in a massive military clampdown in Czechoslovakia by five Warsaw Pact countries. Several members of the liberal Czechoslovak leadership have been arrested, including Prime Minister Alexander Dubcek. The Soviet news agency, Tass, claims "assistance" was requested by members of the Czechoslovak Government and Communist party leaders to fight "counter-revolutionary forces". But in a secret radio address, Czechoslovak President Ludvik Svoboda condemned the occupation by Warsaw Pact allies as illegal and committed without the government's consent. US President Lyndon Johnson said the invasion was a clear violation of the United Nations Charter (...) >>> watch the deja vue ...
  

• Here's another reminder:
  
  
• 
  

Georgian Crisis: "Russia is Blowing Up Europe"

With Russia taking up the Soviet habit of invading sovereign nations, and the ineffectual response by the world's international organizations, we have reached a preliminary pit where moral relativism may take us. How much deeper into the mire the debilitating mind-set eventually may lead, becomes clearer by the day.

The situation warrants a serious wake-up call, as the Lithuanian MEP, former President Vytautys Landsbergis has done today.

NATO stands accused of bias by the Russians. NATO, not being a neutral arbiter but a defense organization, is supposed to be biased on the side of the good guys! The bizarre condemnation by Russia is cunningly calculated to appeal to the morally relativized masses in the West.

At the root of the moral paralysis lurks the toxic philosophy of relativism, the notion that there is no objective truth and that therefore any opinion is as good as any other. In this scenario there are no good or bad guys, just narratives in the form of personal perspectives. This pernicious philosophy is imposed on us by our intellectual elites and useless idiots through the pressure of petty political correctness.

Europe has lost sight of the fact that we aren't neutral bystanders, but partisan members of a defense organization. This excerpt from World Politics Review marks the postmodern corruption: "While the United States (...) condemn Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, the Europeans have tried to maintain a delicate balancing act between the two belligerents. The French were even-handed (...)" This is abdicating the moral stance required as a member of NATO.

What's worse, many of Europe's politicians - to the Left as well as to the Right - have now adopted as their default attitude the philosophy of Pragmatism, another off-shoot in the Relativist school of thought. The result is well described in this Times Online article, "Georgia: Europe wins a gold medal for defeatism."

This defeatism is the result of a will, crushed by the conclusion that truth is unattainable: objective realism thus shunned, leads to moral agnosticism. In the absence of truth, it follows there is no right or wrong.

In times of peace and stability we can perhaps afford the luxury of an intelligentsia dabbling in suicidal mind-games, but right now it's becoming apparent that it rots away at our resolve and putrifies survival instincts. Our weekness invites adventurism on the part of the more absolutist. In short, there is a mounting requirement to raise awareness of the problem.

The former President of Lithuania, Vytautys Landsbergis knows the Russian capacity of constructed reality as no other. In 1991 he fought off a bloody attempt by the Soviets to overthrow his Government. He is presently a Member of the European Parliament for the conservative EPP-ED group.

Today he tolled the knell in that hapless institution by handing out a pamphlet in which he outlined his urgent caveats. It can be read on the site of EUX.TV but given its prime importance we reproduce it here below. This article on National Post goes deeper into the division between the old and the new Europe.

A concerted, undivided effort to regain control over reality-based thinking is long, long overdue. Even now - after the assault on Georgia - common denial is setting in. After Islamization failed to alert us to the existential danger of our own making, we now have the benefit of the omens emanating from the reconstituted Evil Empire. We must awake from the relativist stupor! Russia is playing us like a violin, and to all but NATO's Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, it's business as usual.

Here's Vytautys Landsbergis' interview with EUX and the text of his burning missive.



EUX.TV: "Landsbergis: Russia is Blowing Up Europe"

The gloomiest premonitions are short to become true. Europe divided, and unfortunately toadying is at last giving into Russian aggression. This was manifested by EU leaders' inefficiency even to state that a power having crossed the frontiers and raved within a sovereign country's community, nor the immobilized United Nations, dared to demand that invaders' armed forces as well as the supreme commander in chief in the Kremlin responsible for the ongoing violence and plunder get out immediately. Calls to stop crimes bring about nothing, neither does ineffective parlance on Russia's 'inadequate means'.

One seems as if expected to perceive - were the Russian bombers targeting fewer bombs on homes, exploding fewer bridges, had they sunk only two offshore patrol boats, not three, were they to have killed not two pressmen in Gori - only one instead, perhaps, those means would look acceptable.

The German proposals to stabilize the situation under the Russian occupation were just similar. To those unaware about the importance of the wording, Moscow has imposed to continue with the misconcepted usage of 'peace keepers' for invaders and, besides, an empty, time-wasting dissension on the future of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, whilst both Georgia's and Europe's future remain at stake.

The only credibility test for EU and NATO today is to request Russia's armed forces to be withdrawn immediately and unconditionally. Preventing it, Russia simply denounced any full withdrawal. Shut up your mouths, Europeans. Is that language addressed to Mr Sarkozy?

Whoever does not demand unconditional withdrawal, not 'stepping back' - actually justifies the incursion as well as the sea blockade, plundering, rape, total destruction of communications and economy infrastructure, if Georgians are not, at least, pushed to guerilla warfare in their sovereign land. Russia succeeded in 'balkanizing' South Ossetia - village against village, so, the destruction may now go deeper into Georgia. The new Georgian site, the town Akhalgori, is already occupied by 'independent Ossetians.' The mockery goes on.

Appeasing European leaders imperceptibly are becoming accomplices in total wrongdoing.

Russia in its line happily discloses itself as a medieval state-conqueror, to whom do belong all the goods taken from those defeated. "Our trophies." This is a quotation.

We have seen it all in Lithuania - the outright Soviet cynicism, ideological demagoguery, accompanying the violence of the military and chekist atrocities.

They began by accusing Lithuania to be the aggressor in 1940; the occupation was followed by the Red Terror, and they, by the use of specially re-dressed assault troopers, applying total warfare to peasants thrown out of their homes and land, well until the 12 March 1990.

This is being done currently in Georgia, while terrorists brought in from North Caucasus are also allowed to demonstrate how impotent the Tblisi government is, as it has agreed even not to undertake responsibility of protecting its own people. Europe de facto approves of free hands on this 'solution' and the fixed agreement. You don't resist, agreed Mr. Sarkozy. We'll not protect you either, only by statements. Let the Georgians retreat to the places of their dislocation. As to Russia's units' whereabouts or whenever they were to leave, it was left to be guessed. The Kremlin is free to tell lies every day. The Georgians will be requested, the Russians only suggested to. In response, they are already dictating the winners' conditions.

Hypocricy has been admitted: as if the bandits who followed the invaders' forces did not belong to the Russian units. Just so it was to be presented to us in 1991; portraying USSR interior OMON gangs as 'local forces' assigned to protect the local Poles from the Lithuanians. A bit later the whole so-called Baltic regional military structure (Russian, of course) was declared "local public force" which was provided to take part in determining the future "status" of the three Baltic States! President Boris Yeltsin behaved honestly, so the threatening GRU bubbles proved to be empty in the end.

Prior to it, we saw in Lithuania the night of 13 January 1991, which might be descending in Georgia presently. I can well remember the horrible sensation; we were butchered, looted, exposed to anything on their minds while the whole world stayed silent. It was only Boris Yeltsin who responded, as I later found out, by sternly warning Mr Gorbachev. But Gorbachev was by then already hostage of the crime perpetrated with his consent. And as the bloody morning drew closer, the West's protests were already heard.

The Soviet generals, however, were off the edge being prevented from "completing the job". It seems that around Tblisi things are alike. The Russians are mocking President Sarkozy and State Secretary Rice by distancing a little bit when they are in the city, and coming back nearer after the guests leave.

Georgia does not see the dawn, and Europe allows it to be so.

This might suggest the beginning of the pre-planned decline of the European Union and cataclysm of that ancient civilization. Speaking frankly, morally Europe already capitulated way back in Chechnya. Any simplified, primitive and artificial justification for that punishing Chechen genocide, the second after Stalin's one in 1944, was accepted. Now the berries are ripe. >>>

Today's Collection by the LooneyGlobs: Breaking News

"The program was about the answers, not about the candidates."

"Russia is Saudi Arabia with trees."

- Overheard on CNN

From Russia, With Tough Love - photos and a report from the front on Atlas Shrugs ...

NATO's "no business as usual" was dismissed by Russia as ... bias! Unbelievable ... seldom was a more morally relativized, even-handed message delivered by a NATO official. NATO's musketeer motto is its reason of being. But thanks to the postmodern (Pragmatist) Europeans NATO has now become a conflict mediator, a UN II or an EU II, that's how machismo Russia takes it, at least. For heaven's sake, NATO is supposed to be biased, it is a party, not a mediator. This needs careful watching ... George W. isn't buying.

In the meantime (10:13 CET) at Gori, Georgia ...

... there's blowback in Warsaw - there's no beating the strategy of fake paranoia and willful irrationality (a Soviet era remnant, now a retro communication weapon wielded by Western pomos) ...

And now for the good BREAKING NEWS!

EUX.TV: "Landsbergis: Russia is Blowing Up Europe"

"Vytautys Landsbergis was President of Lithuania in 1991, when he helped fight off a bloody attempt by the Soviet Union's army to overthrow his country's government. He now is a member of the European Parliament for the conservative EPP-ED group."

... much as the EU is a fundamentally undemocratic organization modeled on the Soviet Union, and as as such should be rejected, evidently it's not good news at all. Landsbergis is registering the moral agnosticism prevailing in Europe. Today he's tolling the knell in the European Parliament. He's distributed the following text:

The gloomiest premonitions are short to become true. Europe divided, and unfortunately toadying is at last giving into Russian aggression ... read it all >>> (full post follows shortly) ...

... symbolic is an accident reported by the same EUX.TV: ... ceiling of the parliament collapsed ...

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" -