Georgian troops launched an aerial bombardment and ground attack on its separatist province of South Ossetia on Thursday. South Ossetians want to join up with their ethnic brethren in North Ossetia, an autonomous republic within the Russian Federation. Seeing this as an act of aggression Russia launched bombing raids against Georgia, vowing to defend its citizens. More than half of South Ossetia's citizens are said to have taken up Moscow's offer of a Russian passport. Pepe Escobar believes that "the hypocrisy of the international community knows no bounds for if the West forced the issue of Kosovar independence then the independence of South Ossetia should also be on the cards."
BioPepe Escobar, born in Brazil is the roving correspondent for Asia Times and an analyst for The Real News Network. He's been a foreign correspondent since 1985, based in London, Milan, Los Angeles, Paris, Singapore, and Bangkok. Since the late 1990s, he has specialized in covering the arc from the Middle East to Central Asia, including the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. He has made frequent visits to Iran and is the author of Globalistan and also Red Zone Blues: A Snapshot of Baghdad During the Surge both published by Nimble Books in 2007. Comments from Registered Members | (Register or log in to make your comment.) | shawjh 2008-08-30
Dear louis44: "get a grip"? "ignorence..."? At least I know how to spell ignorance! | jellay 2008-08-22
*This eliminates the value of the de jure sovereignty of Georgia that has been overstressed and gives credence to the idea for a united Ossetian Autonomous Republic within a multiethnic Russia as a real solution to the crisis of the Ossetian
people. However, the extreme tension in the region is a flame fanned rapidly by the presence of US operations and cannot be extinguished until it abandons the quest for Eurasian domination. | jellay 2008-08-22
Most of the analysts, including this one, completely ignore history, which is important in understanding the views of the major players. Ossetia was divided into North and South (and given to the Russian and Georgian repulics) by USSR authorities when no actual borders existed. Ossetians fought Georgians during the Russian Civil War. In 1990, South Ossetia seceded from Georgia (and requested to join Russia and North Ossetia) as soon as it seceded from the USSR.
While I accept that Russia has an agenda in this conflict and is partially to blame, the question of South Ossetia is not a question of Georgian sovereignty. Georgia received control of South Ossetia de jure. The fact that two other regions (Ajaria and Abkhzia) seceded from Georgia in the 1990's (all initially W/O any support from Russia) underlines Georgia's instability as a country that resulted from intangible administrative boundaries inherited from the breakup of the USSR. This eliminates the value of the de jure soverei | Antoshik 2008-08-19
I apologize, it is Abhazia, spelled through A. not through O as appears in my earlier post. | Antoshik 2008-08-19
There is several corrections that need to be made:
1) South Osetian citizens are not largely ethnic Russians as your report suggests, but ethnic Osetians most of whom were issued Russian passports in the course of their 16 year long de facto independence. The same situation is in Obhazia, where ethnic Russians comprise something around 20% of the population. On the question of the death toll caused by the initial Georgian invasion, the most recent numbers suggest somewhere between 200 to 300 civilian casualties as opposed to 2000 which is repeatedly circulated by Russian media. Nonetheless the number of refugees that fled to Russia from S.Osetia is precise which is around 35 thousand people.
Also on the side line, the number of Georgians who subsequently fled in the face of the on-coming Russian forces tolled at around 100 thousand.
Personally i believe it was a badly orchestrated provocation on behalf of Georgians, but the numbers of people affected as a result speaks in thei | Shel_TR 2008-08-18
Asperin: "I said to myself, 'if the Jewish media...' ". There are plenty of racist websites that would accept your viewpoints. Go there. Your racism is entirely unwanted here. | Shel_TR 2008-08-18
mandula: "Blinkers"? Not sure why it is that discussing information that Pepe failed to disclose qualifies me for that accusation. I'm looking for an analysis of the overall situation. Without that, any policy decisions are doomed to fail. Debate, properly constructed, requires marshalling valid arguments for all sides so that reviewers can make educated choices. If you wish to terminate one side of the debate in order to facilitate your pre-determined conclusion, be my guest... | Shel_TR 2008-08-18
arch_stanton: Interesting response to my post. So, you're suggesting that, instead of succinctly pointing-out Pablo's clear failings, I should "provide a thought-out response to the issues raised with evidence". In the 200 words we're allowed for posts, what evidence would you need? Are you denying that Russia is actively fomenting Ossetian secessionism? Really, anybody with any worldliness should know they are. And my point that Russia has escalated the issue is entirely self-obvious. Is it good/bad? I wouldn't even try to begin a facile argument like that. The point is that Russia is in it -- up-to-their-necks! But Pablo repeatedly, wilfully, ignores that. As I say, the U.S. is culpable. But to blame the U.S. EXCLUSIVELY is lame. Yawn.... | Fyyre 2008-08-17
What are you listening to in the background, Pepe? | Tezar 2008-08-17
There has been a lot of garbage flying around the news recently, particularly a lot from English speaking media (all major US and British ones). I would like to ask - why did this happen? Pretty much anyone in the sane mind knows that it is all lies, but they still try to convinve us that black is white.
Regarding ethnics of SO - it is OSSETIAN. Not Georgian, not Russian. But most of the Ossetians live in Russia. So practically, Russia is the closest connected country to the conflict. | louis44 2008-08-16
Shawjh. Read your comments and get a grip. Pepes analysis, is as objective as your ignorence... | shawjh 2008-08-13
Dear president, after reading your comments of 8-13 and 8-12, I can tell that you're about as objective on this issue as Pepe..... | president 2008-08-13
Shawjh, "Russian peacekeepers" is not a term that Pepe invented. There were actually Russian forces in that region for peacekeeping purpose since the last conflict. Did you think that all peacekeepers must be American? Russian send his own troops for peacekeeping purposes whenever it sees fit. Ofcourse whether they actually peace keep or there is other agenda we don't know, but they are called "peacekeepers". | antarchi 2008-08-13
'99 percent of the population of South Ossetia is ethnically Russian'
Pepe - this is just rubbish, and it doesn't help people understand the complexity of the region and the situation. 90% of the population may have Russian citizenship, but they are certainly not ethnically Russian - and that is important. The Russians offered the S. Ossetians (and Abkhazians) citizenship in an obvious bid to reinforce their own power in the region (and in a foresighted attempt to justify any future military invasion). The Ossetians and Abkhaz mostly accepted the offer, because they were left with little other choice while the so-called international community refused to recognise their independence.
So yes - this may be a geo-strategic game, and yes the West is certainly involved in an completely disreputable way. But not to recognise the Russians' strategic game in all of this is only giving half the story.
(for census statistics from pre-independence days, see http://en.wikipedia.org/ | shawjh 2008-08-13
Pepe, this report lost credibility with me when you used the term "Russian peacekeepers". I doubt that this is an unbiased bit of reporting. I am disappointed. | Asperin 2008-08-12
I said to myself, "if the Jewish media is saying Russia attacked Georgia first, then is the other way around"... But had to research because life is not that black and white, and on many points, factors, connections, leads toward Georgia being the oppressor. A BONUS: Kabbalism on the date, 08-08-08, these Talmudic thugs just wont rest with their genocide. | mandula 2008-08-12
Shell! were you born with blinkers or did you develop them to qualify as basic requirement to join the Bush Club… | gegenwarst 2008-08-12
Excellent analysis Pepe! It is obvious the dynamic duo Putin-Medvedev are cleverly moving their pieces in the strategic chessboard. Very important to learn that Mr. Brzezinski was deeply involved in the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan (BTC) pipeline project, hence it is "understandable” his reaction towards Russia's military response in Georgia. The real losers in this ongoing drama are the Bush administration, NATO and the Zionist regime, since they financed, trained and advised Georgia's military but the results in the field were extremely disappointing. As a result of Georgia's military fiasco, Western nations should better get used to the idea that the Russian Federation will start exerting considerable influence on how energy resources in the Caucasus and Central Asia region are going to be managed in the coming future. | arch_stanton 2008-08-12
Hey Shel. Before you go flaming someone for "agenda-promotion," "arrogance," and all those other cute generalizations in your reply, you might want to provide a thought-out response to the issues raised with evidence to support your criticisms. Failing that, you'd be advised to go back to AM talk radio or somewhere else that has a stomach for trolling. | Shel_TR 2008-08-12
What a surprise! Pablo Escobar takes a complex geopolitical situation, and assigns 100% of the blame to one party! And surprise, surprise (again) the party to which he assigns blame is the U.S. Of course, he fails to mention Russia's activism for Ossetian secession from Georgia, and he fails to blame Russia's escalation of an internal matter to super-power level. Admittedly, the U.S. IS blameworthy, but it's not alone -- there's plenty of blame to go around! Pablo's unipolar view, whereby the U.S., and ONLY the U.S., is repeatedly singled-out, hardly qualifies as an objective, complete analysis. In reality, it is merely agenda-promotion masquerading as analysis. It is pure arrogance. Pablo: Try applying some critical thought to your analyses. Really. Though it's found in top-flight journalism, it's clearly absent from yours. |
PEPE ESCOBAR, SENIOR ANALYST: If you believe the very, very loud hordes of Russian-haters in the US—politicians, lobbyists, corporate media—we are back to the Cold War, and the Russian bear is behaving like the invasion of Hungary in '56 and Czechoslovakia in '68. Well, this is absolute rubbish. To understand the real story, let's take a look at the map. Georgia is a strategic so-called democracy in the Caucasus since the 2003 US-engineered Rose Revolution. It wants to be part of NATO, it provides the US with 2,000 troops in Iraq, it wants to be part of US missile defense shield, and it hosts a stretch of the BTC pipeline, the Baku-to-Ceyhan pipeline in Turkey. Basically, it's a US client state in the middle of the Caucasus. Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, unpopular at home, implicated in monstrous corruption scandals, thought the Beijing Olympics gave him a fabulous opening to solve the problems Georgia has with separatist South Ossetia, since 1989, for that matter. So he staged a surprise invasion supported by the US. If we look at the map, we see that North Ossetia is in Russia and South Ossetia is in Georgia. Only 82,000 people. They don't want independence; they want to unite with North Ossetia. The last referendum in the region was in November 2006. Ninety-one percent of attendance. Ninety-nine percent, they voted for union with North Ossetia and Russia. And the referendum was totally ignored by Georgia, the US, and in Europe. Once Saakashvili decided to attack South Ossetia last week, he was applying Pentagon tactics. US troops had just finished teaching Georgians how to ethnically cleanse an area. That was part of the so-called, I quote, "Georgian-US Immediate Response 2008 Military Exercises." This whole thing ended less than two weeks ago, on July 31. Saakashvili's game was to smash South Ossetia. In fact, his troops killed more than 2,000 civilians, destroyed the capital, Tskhinvali, killed 10 Russian peacekeepers, at least, provoked an exodus of 35,000 people to North Ossetia. He wanted to profit from the spotlight being on the Olympics, of course, but he also had to solve two huge problems: NATO does not accept states involved in territorial disputes, and the Bush administration, key supporters of Georgia, is on the way out. The Russians saw this for what it was, a search-and-destroy mission, ethnic cleansing, and a huge provocation to boot. After all, Russian citizens were killed—99 percent of the population of South Ossetia is ethnically Russian. For the Russians, this is exactly what the West said was happening in the former Yugoslavia in the 1990s, and they saw it, the Russians, as a test-run for the breakup of the Russian Caucasus. Does that all remind us of Kosovo? Yes, it does. But Ossetia is not Kosovo, as the Russians are the first to tell us. The hypocrisy of this so-called international community knows no bounds. If the US and Europe actually forced the independence of Kosovo, they should have to admit that the independence of South Ossetia and the other separatist Georgian province, Abkhazia, is also in the cards. And then there's oil and pipelines. That's where the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline fits in. The pipeline is just one factor in a much, much bigger picture. And that's the attempt sponsored by the US, and joined by many other former Soviet satellites, to cripple all traces of Russian influence, economic, politic, diplomatic, military, not only in the Caucasus, but in Central Asia as well. To believe that Russia would accept any of this is to live in Fantasy Land like US corporate media, or Brzezinski, for that matter, former national security advisor to Jimmy Carter, an informal advisor to Barack Obama. The McCain campaign is infested with Rusophobia. McCain wants to expel Russia from the G8. But Brzezinski may be even more dangerous. This is the guy who gave the Soviets their Vietnam in Afghanistan, facilitating the rebirth of radical jihadist Islam. Brzezinski's the godfather of al-Qaeda. Brzezinski now says that the Russian invasion of Georgia—and he forgets to say that it was Georgia that attacked South Ossetia first—is like Stalin's attack on Finland. Well, we should not forget that Brzezinski himself negotiated the BTC pipeline in Baku in the mid-'90s. The Russians will not bomb his pipeline as it has been reported—not a single confirmation in the Russian press or international agencies. What the Russians want is to teach Saakashvili a lesson. In essence, George Bush, enjoying his swimming competitions in Beijing, is not in a position to say anything to Vladimir Putin. What Putin is more or less saying to the US and to Europe is that South Ossetia should do what the population of South Ossetia wants: independence from Georgia, a new referendum, union with North Ossetia, which is the ethnic twin of South Ossetia on the northern side of the Caucasus Mountains. Saakashvili, well, he can scream in English on CNN as much as he wants. He's already being blamed by the Georgian opposition for his reckless adventure. He was also blamed because he ignored that US badly needs Russia to solve the Iranian nuclear dossier. And he's being blamed because he ignored that Europe is in the middle of a very complex negotiation with Russia for access to Russian gas—Europe depends on Russian gas. As for Russian hawks with a Cold War mentality, and there are plenty, Dick Cheney said that Russia's actions in Georgia, I quote, "must not go unanswered." Well, maybe he should take Putin for some quality quail hunting. DISCLAIMER:Please note that TRNN transcripts are typed from a recording of the program; The Real News Network cannot guarantee their complete accuracy. |
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