The Reality Behind Western
Propaganda Regarding War In Georgia
By Damian Lataan
12/08/08 "ICH"
-- - For many the war in Georgia may have seemed as
though it came from nowhere; as if it just suddenly erupted
without any warning. And, if one were to believe what the
pro-western mainstream media are telling us, one could be
forgiven for believing that it did. The US and their western
allies have taken full advantage of this anomaly and turned it
to their advantage for propaganda purposes. They have been busy
telling the world that the Georgians have been overwhelmed by
the Russian ‘bully boys’ to their north when in reality the
Russians were and are merely reacting to the murderous bully boy
tactics of the Georgian army and their supporting band of US and
Israeli mercenary thugs that ruthlessly attacked the civilian
population of south Ossetia in an effort to force them to give
up their demands for autonomy.
In fact the tensions in and around Georgia, once part of the
Soviet Union, have been simmering for years.
The Georgian state is made up of many ethnic groupings many of
whom feel more comfortable being part of Russia than having to
be subservient to Georgia. Over the years, since the collapse of
the Soviet Union and the birth of present day Georgia in 1991,
two regions of Georgia in particular, South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, have evolved, against the wishes of the central
Georgian government, into semi-autonomous regions whose status
has been protected and supported by Russia. This has caused
massive resentment from the Georgians who insist that these
regions come entirely under Georgian control.
Every now and then the undercurrent of
animosities between the Georgians and the Russians over these
two regions well up to the surface and become a source of
potential conflict. In the past Russia, simply by twitching
a military muscle, which, if push really came to shove, could
flatten Georgia in a flash, usually has seen an end to any
further serious posturing by the Georgians.
As well as the existence of these animosities, the old Cold War
animosities that existed between the US and her western allies
and the Russians still linger on long after what most people
believed was an end to the Cold War in 1991. As the War on
Terrorism replaced the Cold War as a vehicle for US imperialism
in its projection of hegemony into a resources-rich region of
our world, so some of those resentments have re-emerged as the
new political battles for increasingly diminishing resources
intensify. The old East-West polarisations of the post-Second
World War are actually beginning to replicate themselves almost
as it was in the Cold War days. The all-important difference
this time, however, is the new places where the East meets the
West – and Georgia is one of those places.
Georgia has recently been making strong moves to become part of
NATO and has ambitions to become part of the EU. Russia is not very
keen, and, given that the US would like to put their
anti-missile shield system into NATO countries to protect them
from the so-called threat of Iranian nuclear weapons,
understandably so, to limit the number of NATO nations it has on
its doorstep. As a result of Georgian aspirations about becoming
part of NATO, the Georgians have become close allies of the US
and the West and also of Israel who have ties to the small but
influential Jewish community in Georgia with some of those
members having close links to Israel being in the Georgian
government including Georgia’s Integration Minister Temur
Yakobashvili.
It was because of their strong relationship with the US that the
Georgians considered it safe to have another go at asserting its
will over the breakaway regions in the belief that the Russians
wouldn’t dare to counter any Georgian moves against South
Ossetia with Russian military action and, if they did, the US
and the West would immediately come to their aid in the event of
a Russian backlash against Georgian moves into South Ossetia.
Certainly, Georgia would not have made any such move into South
Ossetia without the backing of the US. It now seems, though,
that both the US and Georgia have badly misjudged the Russian
reaction and the US are unable to move. If they do, it will be
the first time that the US and Russia have ever directly
confronted each other in face to face open warfare – and we all
know where that would eventually lead. As it is, American
‘advisors’ (mercenaries), have in all likelihood been in combat
with Russian troops in this conflict as have
Israeli ‘instructors’ (mercenaries).
The US and, to a lesser extent, the Israelis have painted
themselves into a corner. Neither can afford to upset the
Russians too much because they need Russian support over their
stance on Iran’s so-called nuclear weapons program. Open
hostility toward Russia, a veto-wielding power in the UN
Security Council, would mean the end of UN support for any moves
toward a UN endorsement of further sanctions against Iran. While
Israel could pre-emptively attack Iran and would get support
from the US in doing so, without UN supported sanctions in place
there could be no reasonable casus belli for such an attack.
(With sanctions in place, Israel could always claim that
sanctions aren’t working and attack anyway.)But if the UN were
to deny sanctions because of a Russian veto this would be
tantamount to the Russians saying it does not believe the
Iranians need to have sanctions against them because they do not
have a weapons program and, since nobody would know better than
the Russians about what programs the Iranians do have in place,
they are, after all, the main suppliers of the Iranian nuclear
equipment, then bang goes any casus belli the Israelis might
feel they can use.
The geo-political reality, as we can see, is a far cry from the
propaganda and rhetoric the US and their western allies are
trying to put out in the mainstream media. And in this day and
age of blogs and the internet which is often nowadays keeping
one step ahead of the mainstream media, the propaganda and
rhetoric is becoming increasingly more transparent in its
blatancy.
Damian Lataan is an aeronautical Engineer and
Historian.
http://lataan.blogspot.com/
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