August 2008
Monthly Archive
August 10, 2008
Poor Mikheil Saakashvili. The Georgian president truly opened a can of worms when he launched a military attack on South Ossetia earlier this week.
What was he thinking? By firing an artillery and rocket barrage on the Ossetian capital, he brought Georgian forces into direct conflict with Russian forces monitoring a ceasefire between the Ossetians and Georgians.
It was a pretty blatant provocation of the Russians and was bound to inflame separatist fury among the Ossetians. It was also pretty obvious that Georgia’s armed forces had no chance of holding their own against the Russian army.
Georgia has long had problems with two minority regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, problems that have seen periodic armed clashes. Now, with South Ossetia in open revolt and Georgian forces driven out by the Russians, Abkhazia is also ratcheting up its separatist demands. With Russian fighters and bombers in support, Abkhazia is moving to drive Georgian forces out of their territory and it appears to be succeeding.
When Milosovich sent Serbian forces against Kosovo, NATO responded with a bombing campaign against the Serbs. When Saakashvili sent his forces to seize Ossetia, Russia responded with a bombing campaign against Georgian targets.
Did Saakashvili gamble that his attack on Ossetia would bring NATO or American military backing? If so he showed himself to be naive and dangerously naive at that. It was a reckless stunt with far-reaching consequences.
To several European nations, Saakashvili’s rash actions will be seen as clear justification of their objections to Georgia’s admission into NATO. They’ve already had their fill of “shoot’em up” cowboys in the White House and have no appetite for a mini-Bush in Tbilisi who could trigger a NATO/Russia showdown. Bush’s warm embrace of Saakashvili won’t cut much ice with the Europeans.
Will America send the cavalry to Georgia’s rescue? It’s hard to imagine Washington doing that. With its forces bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan the last thing the Pentagon needs is any military action that could ratchet up tensions with the Shanghai Cooperation Organization. Iran, maybe. Russia and China? Over Ossetia or even Abkhazia? Forget it.
I expect the best Washington can do at this point is to extract Georgia from this silliness as intact as possible. That may mean yielding sovereignty to South Ossetia and perhaps even to Abkhazia.
As for Saakashvili, it may be over for him, both at home and abroad. He precipitated an armed conflict with a resurgent, regional superpower that no one wanted and, worse, he lost, crying “uncle” within two days. He acted without the knowledge or support of his Western backers. He has severely undermined Georgia’s prospects with NATO. If he loses even South Ossetia, Georgian opposition politicians will serve him up for dinner.
August 9, 2008
The 56-nation Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE, says Russia’s days as peacekeeper in South Ossetia are over. OSCE chairman, Finnish foreign minister Alexander Stubb is quoted by Reuters as saying, “”It is clear that there is no return to the status quo, to what was.”
“Russian troops poured into South Ossetia on Friday, hours after Georgia launched a large-scale offensive aimed at restoring control over the region which broke away after a war in the early 1990s. A peacekeeping force with 500 members each from Russia, Georgia and North Ossetia monitored a truce in the region which broke down this week.
“…Stubb also said there was no question the current conflict was a war. “This is a war, no doubt about it. There is no reason to call it anything else.”
He said Georgia’s territorial integrity and the right to self-determination of South Ossetia were basic principles which would guide the OSCE throughout the conflict.”
It’s those last few words, the recognition of “the right to self-determination of South Ossetia” that will ruffle feathers in Washington as well as Tbilisi. The Georgians want to subjugate the Ossetians into assimilation. The South Ossetians want nothing to do with Georgia which is why they’ve turned to Russia for protection even before the reign of Catherine the Great. Self-determination would mean a Kosovo-style sovereignty for Ossetia and an outright repudiation of Georgia’s dodgy claims to the territory.
The litmus test of South Ossetian loyalties has been apparent in the streams of refugees foreign reporters have observed streaming, not into Georgia, but straight into Russia.
Meanwhile Condoleeza Rice has called South Ossetia is “Georgian soil.” Good luck with that, Condi.
August 9, 2008
Look at George Bush and South Ossetia. See any connection? Too bad because it’s there.
One of the lasting scars we’ll all have to deal with after the death of the BuCheney regime will be the enormous damage it’s caused to global security. Answer a few questions.
Who drove the revival and spread of Islamist fundamentalism?
Who has destabilized the once Sunni-dominated Middle East and precipitated the ascendancy of Shiite power in Iraq, Iran, Syria, Lebanon and the Occupied Territories?
Who relentlessly pressed for the expansion of NATO right to the borders of Russia?
Who has undermined the strength and economic stability of the very nation the world has accepted for so long as the leader of the Free World, the United States itself?
Who has sparked and then fueled arms races around the world?
These are just some of the dregs of BuCheney that’ll be left behind for others to deal with. The Frat Boy and his puppeteer have done their work. They don’t see their administration as a failure if only because they managed to enact the social agenda they wanted, albeit with some setbacks such as the Social Security debacle.
George w. Bush meant it when, during his first term, he addressed a black-tie dinner and described the guests as “his base” calling them “the haves and the have-mores.” To these people, this top sliver of American society, the Bush years have been grand indeed.
So, what’s the connection between George w. Bush, Dick Cheney and South Ossetia? The White House has relentlessly pressured NATO to expand to the very borders of Russia. It was France and Germany that balked at admitting Georgia into the Alliance. America has encouraged Georgian adventurism and defiance of Russia, even backing a thug like Saakashvili (shown with Bush above) while he violently suppressed dissent in his country.
Georgia was no place for clumsy meddling. The Ossetia issue has been around since at least 1922 when the South Ossetia Autonomous region came into being. In fact the Russians have been backing Ossetian autonomy since the reign of Catherine the Great. Since 1925 there has been a movement to unite South and North Ossetia. Georgia moved on South Ossetia in 1989 declaring it no longer autonomous and trying to force assimilation by measures such as declaring Georgian the official language. Fighting between the Ossetians and Georgians has been an on and off reality since 1991.
When America, despite the wishes of the Europeans, moved to consolidate its influence with Georgia, it emboldened Saakashvili to the point where he thought he could execute a coup de main while everyone was distracted with the Beijing Olympics.
America’s puerile foreign policy has played a direct role in the current fighting and has been reflected in Condoleeza Rice calling for Russia but not Georgia to withdraw entirely from Ossetia. Her rank stupidity and complete disregard for the historical realities at play in Ossetia has been nothing short of breathtaking.
We can only hope that we’ll see a new face of America after the November elections.
August 8, 2008
Georgian strongman president Mikhail Saakashvili is pleading for American intervention against the Russian incursion into South Ossetia.
Saakashvili gambled that he could roll up the Ossetian separatists and drive Russian peacekeepers out of the breakaway province but opened up a hornets’ nest instead. The Georgian president escalated tensions by bombarding the Ossetian capital with rockets, artillery, tank fire and aerial bombardment.
Moscow, instead of retreating has retaliated with its own airstrikes and has sent tank columns pouring into Ossetia in support of the separatists. Cossacks from North Ossetia are likewise heading south to help oppose the Georgian forces.
The situation somewhat resembles the Kosovo problem. Ossetians are ethnically different than Georgians and, like the Kosovor Albanians, have been attacked by the larger, parent state. Where NATO intervened on behalf of the Kosovors against the Slavik Serbs while Russia had to sit by and watch, this time it’s the Slavik Russians coming to the aid of the Ossetians while the West, taken by surprise, has been sidelined, at least for now.
The idea of a direct Russian-American military showdown over Ossetia seems improbable but, then again, there’s always the Cheney wild card.
August 8, 2008
August 8, 2008
This one sounds hard to believe. McClatchy news service reports that the Iraqi and American governments are nearing completion of a status of forces agreement that provides for the withdrawal of all US combat troops by 2011:
“The tactical team is finished and it’s a closed deal, but remember that we’ve been through this before and every time we close a deal it’s reopened,” said a senior [Iraqi] official who’s been participating in the talks.
The official said that the deal, once completed, would be perhaps the most restrictive agreement the United States had with a country where it had troops.
“We’ve seen all the status of forces agreements with other countries,” the official said. “This is the best that the Americans have conceded.”
The official asked not to be identified because the deal is still being negotiated.
Another official, Ali al Adeeb, a senior member of Prime Minister Nouri al Maliki’s Dawa party, said he’d been briefed on the negotiations and he confirmed the details.
The latest deal is said to also provide for the withdrawal of all US forces from Iraqi cities by next July. It sounds remarkably similar to the British withdrawal of its forces from Basra last year in preparation of their departure from Iraq.
What remains to be seen is whether the United States actually abandons its plans to nearly double the number of American military bases in Iraq from the existing 32 to a total of 60. The Pentagon has long identified a strategic need for a major, permanent military presence in the Persian Gulf region from which it can dominate the Middle East oil fields. Leaving Iraq would also relieve Iran of the pressures of strong American forces in Iraq on one border and Afghanistan on the other side. If the US proceeds with the expansion of its Iraqi bases it will be pretty obvious that it has no real intention of leaving anytime soon and certainly not by 2011.
To encourage al Maliki to cement a withdrawal deal, Muqtada al Sadr is now offering to disband his Mahdi Army militia once a fixed withdrawal date is set. There could also be an enormous amount of intrigue lurking behind that promise.
August 8, 2008
Posted by MoS under
Ossetia
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The Guardian reports that Russian forces have invaded Georgia in support of the breakaway Ossetia rebels. The situation is confused but Georgia has admitted attacking two military convoys that had come from Russia and were heading toward the capital:
Whatever the precise battle details, it was clear that a serious conflict had broken out only hours after President Saakashvili promised a unilateral Georgian ceasefire and offered South Ossetia the chance of broad autonomy within Georgia. The number of casualties was unclear but likely to be high.
All eyes were on Russia and its peacekeeping contingent in the area, which Georgia accuses of supporting the separatists. The Russian peacekeepers said the Georgians were targeting their positions and they had lost some men. In Moscow, Russia’s security council was due to meet in an emergency session today.
Georgian forces appear to have the upper hand and the element of surprise at the moment but they could soon find themselves fighting on two fronts, as another separatist region, the Black Sea enclave of Abkhazia, announced its troops were moving towards the Georgian border. Cossaks from Russia said they were also ready to go to the aid of the South Ossetians, many of whom have Russian citizenship.
In Tskhinvali, Kokoity was meeting Teymuraz Mamsurov, the leader of North Ossetia, which is just over the border in Russia. The North Ossetians have also promised help to their South Ossetian brethren.
Mamsurov said a convoy of lorries carrying humanitarian aid from his region was attacked by Georgian war planes during the night.
Georgian forces shelled the capital of South Ossetia, Tskhinvali, in an act seen by experts as a deliberate provocation intended to humiliate Russia and timed to coincide with the opening of the Beijing Olympics when world attention was distracted. The Georgians seem to be gambling that they can quickly overrun the 1,000-strong Russian force in the breakawa region but Moscow now seems determined to push back with reinforcements.
The Globe and Mail reports that the Georgian shelling hit a barracks being used by Russian peacekeepers, killing 10 and wounding 30. Georgia also claims at least one of the Russian convoys it is attacking is made up of tanks, not trucks.
August 8, 2008
Seven years into the faltering war in Afghanistan, US Defense Secretary Robert Gates has a new idea – more of the same.
Seven years.
Washington, apparently flummoxed by how poorly that miserable conflict has been going, has decided the solution might be to double the size of the Afghan National Army and a quiet absorption of NATO forces under direct American command.
What’s that you say, NATO being transformed into America’s Foreign Legion? Bingo!
For the past gloriously successful seven years, we Infidels have been arrayed in two groups – the strictly American, Operation Enduring Freedom (or something jingoistic like that), and the International Security Assistance Force, ISAF, under the auspices of NATO, or whatever members Brussels can scrape up to send troops to Afghanistan. ISAF has operated under NATO command with the top jobs rotating among the participating nations – i.e. Britain, Canada, the Netherlands, etc.
Gates wants to put an end to that with a unified command. In terms of military science, unifying the command makes sense, in fact it’s long overdue. Five years overdue at least. Back when the White House decided to pull a big hunk of its forces out of Afghanistan so it could play in the sandbox of Iraq, the OEF/ISAF forces should have been restructured. A bit late now.
There are serious problems with Gates’ latest proposal. The first is that he’s not proposing to put the OEF American forces under NATO command. He wants the NATO/ISAF force to enlist with the American force. What’s wrong with that is that Britain, Canada and the Dutch have a much different point of view on how the Afghan conflict should be fought. We’re not on the same page with the bomb’em, shell’em, obliterate’em Americans. That, of course, would be resolved once we started marching to the Pentagon’s tune.
Another problem is that this would damage the already weakened and wobbly NATO alliance. It would be superseded by a de facto “coalition of the willing” a lot like the one that really didn’t work out very well in Iraq. The potential ramifications of that could reach far beyond Afghanistan. On the other hand, it would give some of the NATO members now reluctantly in Afghanistan a perfect excuse to leave. They only signed on to serve under NATO command, not the Pentagon’s. Oh dear.
Gates is clearly on to that little sticking point. It came through in the astonishingly contradictory explanation proffered by the Pentagon spokesman as reported in The New York Times:
“General McKiernan is in the best possible position to most efficiently and effectively deploy all of the resources to the benefit of the overall mission,” said Geoff Morrell, the Pentagon press secretary. “This creates one commander in country and in charge of all forces, and establishes a structure to deploy them as best suits the mission and to improve synchronization among all military assets.”
In the months ahead, NATO and the United States will nevertheless continue to pursue somewhat different missions in Afghanistan, Pentagon officials said, and the new command structure will not result in a merger of the two missions [yeah, right].
Pentagon policy makers said one goal of the command restructuring would be to allow the movement of American and allied troops — including the British, Canadian and Dutch soldiers who participate in a full range of combat missions — to support one another in a more seamless fashion. It remains unclear if the change will persuade the militaries operating under restrictions to take on additional battlefield responsibilities.
The command reorganization implies that an American officer will be in charge of the NATO and American missions for the foreseeable future.
Now expanding the Afghan National Army probably makes sense but only if it’s done in conjunction with a top-down housecleaning of the Kabul and provincial governments. Not much point in building a bigger army to serve the feckless and corrupt Karzai government. If the ANA is to have any hope of surviving as a national institution after we’re gone (and I presume we’ll all be gone at some point, right?) then the country has to purge its troublesome warlords. Until they’re gone, stripped of their powers, the Kabul administration can never truly govern as a national government. And, until Kabul stands as a viable, national government, the size of the Afghan National Army is essentially irrelevant. Without a strong, central government the Afghan National Army will remain at risk of dissolving into the traditional, ethnic militias once we take our leave. Take a look at what happened to the previous Afghan National Army when the Soviets pulled out.
The ultimate flaw in Gates’ proposal is that it’s a purely military response to a situation that has no military solution. It’s so fraught with gaps and pitfalls that, in the long run, it could do vastly more damage than good – to the United States, to NATO and to Afghanistan.
August 6, 2008
It’s true. An awful lot of the good ones, the best ones are gone. In fairness so are a lot of the bad ones although there always seem to be plenty of newcomers to take their places.
One of the good ones now gone was once known as George Carlin. As that great Canadian blog MetaBall reminds us, Carlin had a good eye for what was coming:
“…There is another take on this whole save the planet thing, from an excerpt from “The Planet is Fine” by George Carlin, God bless his lovely soul. (Warning profanity) “We’re so self-important. So self-important. Everybody’s going to save something now. Save the trees, save the bees, save the whales, save those snails. And the greatest arrogance of all: save the planet. What? Are these fucking people kidding me? Save the planet, we don’t even know how to take care of ourselves yet. We haven’t learned how to care for one another, we’re gonna save the fucking planet?
“The planet has been through a lot worse than us. Been through all kinds of things worse than us. Been through earthquakes, volcanoes, plate tectonics, continental drift, solar flares, sun spots, magnetic storms, the magnetic reversal of the poles…hundreds of thousands of years of bombardment by comets and asteroids and meteors, worldwide floods, tidal waves, worldwide fires, erosion, cosmic rays, recurring ice ages…And we think some plastic bags, and some aluminium cans are going to make a difference? The planet…the planet…the planet isn’t going anywhere. WE ARE!
“We’re going away. Pack your shit, folks. We’re going away.”
I guess George just jumped the line and got there ahead of us.
http://metaball.ca/2008/ball_Jul-08/0708_04.html
August 6, 2008
Posted by MoS under
McCain
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Poor old, very old, John McCain has done it again, right on schedule. He just made a public appearance, wife Cindy at his side, when he told the assembled crowd he was urging her to enter the Sturgess bike rally Miss Buffalo Chip Beauty Pageant. McCain quipped she could be a first – an American First Lady and Miss Buffalo Chip. Seems McCain’s handlers didn’t tell him the pageant is a topless contest.
To take your mind off Cindy’s plight, here’s a little McCain “straight talk” from BraveNewFilms.org:
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