Becuase Everything Else Sucks

What’s Really Going on with the Russian/Georgian Conflict?

By Manila Ryce
Published Thursday, August 14th, 2008, 4:24 am
Filed under: World: Asia, World: Europe, Videos: News, Videos: Political, Economic, Videos, World Issues, US Politics

Pepe Escobar of The Real News is always a breath of fresh air in the shitty world of corporate media.

WPvideo 1.10

Georgia is a strategic client state of the US, and the primary energy hub in the region to supply the West. To circumvent Russia and Iran, Bill Clinton established the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline carrying a million barrels of oil a day westwards through Georgia during his presidency. As our thirst for oil has grown under the Bush administration, so too has our economic and military support, along with hostilities against our imperial control.

This is not about Russia wanting to suppressing Georgian independence, but about American dominance over oil and natural gas through yet another US-backed puppet. Russia still sees the “missile defense system” planned to be installed in Eastern Europe as nothing less than an act of aggression, and for good reason. It’s absurd to believe the official story that such a system has anything to do with defending poor little Europe from the aggressive superpower which is Iran. No, the Russians understand fully that the purpose of the “missile defense system” is to provide first-strike capabilities against them.

US expansion is rapidly turning former communist states into Western military bases right up to the Russian border, so as a reaction to US and NATO aggression the Russians are rebuilding their military machine and nuclear capabilities. With the bipartisan desire to preemptively attack Iran with the help of Israel, a nation which just can’t wait to shoot its nuclear load, this energy war could easily turn into a nuclear war. The world’s major consumers of energy are located far away from the sources of that energy, meaning that the empires of the US, Russia, Europe, and China will expand and continue to come into greater conflict as the need to tighten their control grows stronger.

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9 Responses to “What’s Really Going on with the Russian/Georgian Conflict?”

  1. Following up on this…
    http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/14/poland.us.missile.shield/

    We may not be the spitting image of Germany moving into Poland, but it probably looks worse than that to Russia.

    CurMei
    08/14/08 at 12:34 pm

  2. Good stuff. I hate the bias in the corporate Western media so much, they make it so hard to understand the socio-economic reasons for conflicts, even when it’s quite simple, as if conflicts just arise because people get bored of not fighting. But let’s not start waving Russian flags here, this isn’t some soccer game.

    Bernie
    08/14/08 at 12:46 pm

  3. So, this has nothing to do what so ever with Russia wanting to exert control back over the countries it abused to no end for decades that are breaking away and creating economic ties with the West?

    This also forced the Russians to use their words, “punish”, Georgia by invading their country?

    I mean yeah, certainly US/EU would like control of that energy, so would Russia, but it is dumb to excuse their actions.

    nittany
    08/14/08 at 1:53 pm

  4. @ nittany,

    You are correct. That’s why I said this is not a soccer game - these are systems of power vying for control, they are not operating from principles.

    Bernie
    08/14/08 at 2:16 pm

  5. First, lets understand that US-backed Georgia invaded South Ossetia. This was a provoked attack. Secondly, who’s excusing anyone’s actions nittany? What phrase would you prefer I preface every sentence with so readers don’t come to your conclusion?

    Manila Ryce
    08/14/08 at 2:19 pm

  6. I don’t think that anyone made the argument that we should excuse any actions of Russia - just that there is more than one or two sides to this story and US expansion is a big part of what’s at play.

    This analyst is probably pretty dead on with what went down - two days before it happened:
    http://www.reuters.com/article/asiaCrisis/idUSLE696364

    CurMei
    08/14/08 at 2:21 pm

  7. From what I read, it came off to me as if Russia was only reacting to Western aggression.

    nittany
    08/14/08 at 4:14 pm

  8. That’s still different than someone excusing the actions… did you read that someone made excuses for Russia, or that Russia was reacting to “Western aggression”?

    Technically, Georgia is kind of southwest of Russia and they moved their troops in, and that was what Russia reacted to, so it was “western” aggression.

    However, I know what you mean.

    I think that Russia is reacting to Western aggression, it is just indirect at this point, and the Georgians are getting caught in the middle.

    One person’s view, though.

    I don’t excuse Russia anymore than I excuse the US… for what that’s worth. More just describing what’s happening at this point.

    CurMei
    08/14/08 at 4:26 pm

  9. Just to make a case-study in hypocrisy, we can compare this to Israel’s 2006 invasion of Lebanon. The justification for this was that it was a response to Hizbullah’s capture of Israeli soldiers, and the “punishment” for this was tremendous and devastating. Granted, Hizbullah is not the government, and the motivations for the kidnapping were completely different than the motivations for the invasion of S. Ossetia, but we understand from principle that a massive “punishment” is not something to be excused.

    Bernie
    08/14/08 at 4:45 pm

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