russia was right after all

this summer we witnessed a war between russia and the tiny former soviet republic of georgia. the u.s. media portrayed this as russian aggression against a small, defenseless country, and proof that russia was still the evil empire that it was back when it was the soviet union. well it turns out russia did not start the war. the man who was georgia’s ambassador to russia until they ended diplomatic relations this summer, erosi kitsmarishvili, has revealed the truth about this affair, something i have been wondering about for months. i did not trust either the russian or the georgian side of the story, and they both seemed like liars, but at first i thought that the georgian side, as told by georgian president mikhail saakashvili, was much more plausible than the russian side of the story.

south ossetia and abkhazia are both regions of georgia populated by ethnic minorities, ossetians and abkhazians rather than georgians. ever since a war in the early 1990s after the soviet union collapsed, a war in which georgia fought against south ossetians and abkhazians, they have been wanting to become independent from georgia so they can unify with russia, because the people there are afraid of georgians and want protection from russia, a country they view as their protector and ally. after that war, russian peacekeeping troops were sent into those 2 breakaway regions to protect the civilian populations from georgian aggression. however, those 2 regions were still officially part of the nation of georgia, although they had their own separate governments and were not under the authority of the georgian government. south ossetia and abkhazia were all ready de facto independent countries ever since that war in the early 90s, and their status as part of the nation of georgia was only a technicality. this is similar to the kurds in northern iraq: they gained independence from the iraqi government of saddam hussein in the early 90s after the united states invaded iraq in the first gulf war to liberate kuwait. the kurds had their own government in northern iraq and saddam hussein had no authority or power there. after the united states invaded iraq again in 2003 and overthrew saddam hussein, the kurds continued to have their own de facto independent nation of kurdistan in northern iraq, and to this day they are still not under the authority of iraq’s central government. kurdistan being part of iraq is just a formal technicality, and the current iraqi central government has no more authority there than saddam hussein did.

anyway, the president of georgia had been wanting for years to reconquer south ossetia and abkhazia, and put them back under the authority of the georgian central government. russia, on the other hand, still had peacekeeping troops there to protect the civilian population. the georgian president, mikhail saakashvili, made one of the worst miscalculations in military history when he decided to invade and conquer the 2 breakaway provinces. russia does not take too kindly to its troops being attacked, and the civilians in both provinces were already strongly pro-russia and anti-georgia. being attacked by the georgian military reinforced the views of the civilians there even more, and the russian military decided that it would not let some puny, insignificant country like georgia get away with killing its peacekeeping troops and conquering people who were under russian protection.

naturally, russia did a bit of overkill with their military response, completely destroying the georgian military and advancing their troops well into georgia proper. advancing their troops into georgia proper, to positions near the georgian capital of tbilisi, was a show of strength meant to demonstrate russia’s complete military superiority, and how russia could easily conquer all of georgia if they really wanted to, but russia decided against such a move. this show of strength was meant to completely demoralize the georgians and make them realize they had absolutely no chance of defeating the russian military or retaking the breakaway provinces of south ossetia and abkhazia.

in the end, the result was a lot of innocent people on both sides being killed, and plenty of atrocities on both sides. but the war was instigated by the georgian president mikhail saakashvili, who is hardly a democratic hero. he is more of an oppressive despot, although he did win office through a democratic election. then again, russian president dimitry medvedev and russian prime minister vladimir putin both were democratically elected as well. naturally, none of these elections was entirely democratic, and both russia and georgia have some problems with freedom of speech, freedom of the press, and clean elections. both countries are full of corruption. neither country is led by people who are heroic or morally good in any sense.

but the georgian president proved himself to be a lousy ally to the united states with his complete failure in the war he started. what’s more, the georgian president is close friends with john mccain and american neoconservatives, and he was counting on them for support. john mccain presumptuously said “we are all georgians now,” claiming to speak for all americans. well it turns out john mccain was dead wrong. morally speaking, georgia is even worse than russia, and from a strategic standpoint, it would be much more valuable for the united states to ally itself with a big, strong, important country like russia than to ally with a tiny, insignificant, powerless country like georgia. russia has nuclear weapons and they are vital in dealing with iran and north korea as well as in combating terrorism and the potential for nuclear weapons to fall into the wrong hands. russia has huge amounts of natural resources, especially the fossil fuels that we are so dependent upon nowadays. russia has lately been showing off its support for cuba and venezuela, and threatening us if we deploy a missile defense shield in eastern europe. i say it is time to end this silly hostility towards russia and help russia modernize and become a prosperous democratic ally to us and to europe. i think we should let russia join the european union and nato. if russia were to join the european union and nato, it would permanently change things and transform russia into a pro-western democracy and a dependable ally for the united states. just look at the relationship between france and germany. for centuries, the french and the germans (who were called prussians before prussia expanded to become germany) were bitter enemies, constantly at war with each other. france and great britain were also staunch enemies for centuries. but starting with world war 1, france and the united kingdom (which was previously great britain) became staunch allies. germany and france were bitter enemies up until the end of world war 2, and then germany was divided and conquered by the victors of world war 2. it has not been until recently that france and germany have come to terms and become allies, but nowadays, those 2 nations are the closest pair of allies in the world, showing that nations really can overcome long-standing differences. in the 1990s, the united states and russia were on very good terms and were allies, and president bill clinton of the united states was best friends with president boris yeltsin of russia. bill clinton and boris yeltsin were like BFFs (best friends forever). it is rather tragic that this budding friendship between the united states and russia came to a close after george w. bush took office. sure, george w. bush got along with vladimir putin at first, but this did not last very long, because the russians realized that the neoconservatives in america wanted complete world domination with the united states as the undisputed sole superpower in the world, and the united states was turning russia’s neighbors (such as georgia and ukraine) against russia. just as the united states has for many years tried to control all the countries in north, south, and central america, russia has always tried to control its neighbors, especially the former soviet republics. if we condemn russian imperialism without acknowledging our own imperialism here in the western hemisphere, that is pure hypocrisy. when russia lends support to our current enemies in the western hemisphere such as cuba and venezuela, they are really just doing the same thing we have been doing to them, except nowhere near as badly. our foreign policy has been to threaten the national security of what is today the 3rd most powerful country in the world, russia, (after the united states and china). the russians react to threats to their national security the exact same way we amerians do. they are no different from us. we should put aside our petty differences and work together. the united states cannot rule the world as a single superpower, but if we combine forces with the other most powerful nations on earth, we will be much more powerful and much better able to deal with whatever problems occur anywhere in the world. we have been doing this with china, and our relations with the chinese are better than ever, despite all the evils of the chinese government and how awfully the chinese government treats its own people. if we can be allies with china, then why on earth can’t we be allies with russia, a country that is much less evil than china? russia, unlike china, is actually a democracy, and their human rights record, while bad, is nowhere near as horrible as china’s. and why can’t we be friends with all the nations of the americas, including current enemies like cuba and venezuela? if we can have diplomatic relations with communist nations like china and vietnam, and if we were able to have diplomatic relations with the soviet union and soviet satellite states back during the cold war, why must we stubbornly remain enemies with cuba and venezuela? it does not make any logical sense. if we really want to rule the western hemisphere, we should put aside our differences with the few nations that refuse our hegemony, and have friendly relations with their leaders, treating them with respect and like equals, not like inferiors who must obey our commands or else. the whole point of things like the war on terror is for all the nations of the world to work together and cooperate towards a common goal, which, in the case of the war on terror, is defeating all the terrorists and eliminating them from the face of this globe. how can we achieve victory in things like the war on terror if we constantly fight with other nations and refuse to cooperate with them, when stuff like the war on terror requires close international cooperation? in the case of russia, we need the russians and the russians need us. the 2 world wars and the cold war showed the foolishness of nations fighting against one another... wars by definition involve the mass slaughter of innocent people, all because of the silly, petty differences of the leaders of the nations of the world. we won both world wars and the cold war, but that is no guarantee that we will win wars we fight in the future. we are not doing terribly well in the war on terror that is going on right now, for instance. the only way to defeat the terrorists is to work together with all the other nations of the world, including nations that we have historically been enemies with. anyone who opposes working together with other nations is basically advocating letting the terrorists win.

just yesterday, india suffered a major terrorist attack. the indian government seems to be rather inept at combating terrorism and at intelligence operations. obviously we need much closer cooperation with india, in order to help them deal with situations like this. this is just one example of a nation we need better cooperation with. india’s neighbor and long-time enemy, pakistan, is also a nation we need much more cooperation with. pakistan is perhaps the world’s biggest breeding ground for terrorism, despite being an ally of the united states, and osama bin laden and the top al qaeda leadership is believed to be hiding out inside pakistan. it is likely that pakistanis were responsible for the terrorist attacks in india. we need to work together with pakistan to eliminate the terrorists in their country. the pakistani government is most likely going to be cooperative; the current president of pakistan had his wife benazir bhutto assassinated by terrorists less than a year ago. i am sure he is out for revenge, and luckily the people who killed his wife are the same people we are after: al qaeda and the taliban. another way to help solve this problem of terrorism in that part of the world would be to help india and pakistan achieve peace with each other and sign a treaty that would finally resolve all of their long-standing disputes. international cooperation is really the key to defeating terrorism.

and as for georgia, we should certainly continue to cooperate with them. georgia might not be a perfect country, and they might have started a stupid war this summer that backfired on them horribly, but they are our friends, and we should not completely abandon them. yes, it turns out russia was telling the truth about the war and georgia was lying, but we need to cooperate with all the nations, even ones led by murderous liars like mikhail saakashvili. once we have all the nations of the world cooperating with us, we can help to overthrow bad leaders in other countries and replace them with better ones, and we will have plenty of cooperation and not get stuck doing it unilaterally. with the cooperation of russia, china, japan, and south korea, we could probably overthrow the government of north korea, and reunify korea into a single country, led by the pro-western democratic government of south korea. when george bush, sr. invaded kuwait to push saddam hussein’s iraqi occupation forces out, he had the rest of the world supporting him. that is why the first gulf war went so much better than the second one that we are fighting now. this time around, the rest of the world opposes our war in iraq, and the few nations who do support us are still almost all unwilling to help us out in any meaningful way. only the united kingdom has really helped us out significantly in that war. that is part of why the war in iraq has been such a fiasco. of course, there was also tremendous mismanagement under donald rumsfeld, and the war was never justified in the first place, since they kept changing the justifications for the war once each one they were using turned out to be false. there were no weapons of mass destruction, saddam hussein was not a threat to us in any way, and we completely failed to understand all of the tensions between sunnis, shiites, and minority religions or between arabs, kurds, and other ethnic groups. it is a war that was based on lies, that was horribly mismanaged, and that barack obama is going to have to end, with the help of dubya’s 2nd defense secretary, bob gates, who will be staying on to work for obama. and in the case of georgia, our government gave georgia mixed signals that they misinterpreted as a green light to invade south ossetia and abkhazia. we need to be much more careful about the signals we give to other countries and not accidentally green-light any foolish military misadventures. of course, the war between georgia and russia was not really our fault, because mikhail saakashvili is completely insane. but in a way it is sort of our fault, because we are the ones who put him in power in the first place (and by we i mean the united states government that we elected).