Can Anyone Stop Russia
Is this the beginning of the end for the former Soviet republics? Will they be taken back one by one? Is it starting with Georgia? The Europeans are not making any moves to stop the bombing in south Georgia and if they don't which country will be next...Ukraine, Poland, Chekoslovakia or maybe even Germany? I believe this to be a huge crisis and this time I don't think the Americans can or should do much about it. This is strictly Europe's problem.
Is this the beginning of the third world war? What is the end game?
Labels: News, World Events
posted by Rositta @ Monday, August 11, 2008
7 Comments:
i read this post to sarge. we both agree with you. ww3??? sigh.
hugs, bee
xoxoxoxoxoxo
Rositta, this is also my fear..hsblujfe
ha! Well no wonder I had to do word verification 3 times. Apparently I put it at the end of my comment instead of where it belongs.lol
I agree Rositta, and it's a frightening thing to think.
This is an unsettling time but the one thing that gets overlooked is that the Georgians themselves bear some responsibility.
The BBC in Britain, at least, reported this evening accounts from South Ossetian refugees in Russia of mass shootings by Georgian troops last Thursday and grenades being thrown into basements where people were sheltering.
This is such a troubled region where hatreds run long and deep. Chechnya itself is nearby as is Beslan in North Ossetia where hundreds of children were killed in 2004.
I have read various articles on this and I have to say I do not see a "good guys" and "bad guys" situation here. It all looks pretty bad to me.
Will Europe do anything ? Definitely not ! We have hardly any armies of note with the possible exception of the British and French. America also seems unlikely to intervene as it is well occupied elsewhere.
All in all it is sorry situation where the innocents suffer the most and the leaders on all sides trade insults over the airwaves.
Having said all of the above, Russian expansion may become an issue in the coming years.
Luis, Georgia is being "punished" for wanting to align itself more with the west ie. U.S. I heard they are taking Russia to the world court for human rights abuses and say they can prove it. I also heard today that Poland signed a pact with the U.S. for the missile defense system on Polish soil. I have said for years that to underestimate the "sleeping bear" would be a mistake. Germany and France will do nothing, they depend too heavily on the oil and gas from Russia and it will come back to bite them, just my view mind you ...
Rositta, I can totally see Georgia is now being pusished at least in part for Saakashvili's alignment to the West. I am also sure that Russia would like to punish others including Ukraine and some of the Baltic States. I accept what you are saying about the big picture and the direction Russia is taking.
My only doubt is the timing of this conflict. Putin was in Beijing, Medvedev on holiday.
In the Caucuses, at least, I don't see many "good guys". I could go on about all the horrible conflicts in that region and the peoples who have variously suffered from Armenians, Azerbaijanis, Turks, Georgians and Russians too. While they have all suffered they are all to varying extents guilty of perpetrating attrocities too. It really is a troubled area.
I largely accept your views on the direction of Russia in terms of a kind of "neo-imperialism". I just don't think this conflict is a clear illustration of that, at least in its cause.
You may have seen that Mikhail Gorbachev went on Larry King. Mr. Gorbachev is hardly an arch Putinist but said of the Georgian assualt last week:
"This was the use of sophisticated weapons against a small town, against a sleeping people. This was a barbaric assault"
I may be wrong of course (not least as I am only relying on the media and not my own observations from being there) but it seems there is blame on both sides. That said, there is such a thing as proportionality and Russia as a powerful country should be proportionate in its response. The longer this goes on the less proportinate it gets. The use of "irregulars" by Russia in Georgia is of grave concern. They basically seem to be bandits and murderers.
I think the original cause of this conflict becomes increasingly irrelevant the longer this goes on. Using the bear analogy, one lesson smaller neighbours to Russia could draw (which I saw on the BBC somewhere) is "Don't punch a bear on the nose unless it is tied down first". Unfortunately for Georgia this bear is not tied down and is wild in its response.
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