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Clear and present danger

Wednesday, 13th August 2008

The Spectator on the conflict in Georgia

Russia’s actions in the past week should not have taken anyone by surprise. The fact that they did illustrates just how gravely in denial the free world now is about the threats that it faces. Before 9/11, all too few people could imagine a terrorist attack on a Western city killing thousands — even though Osama bin Laden had declared war on the United States in 1996. In much the same way, too few contemplated the bloody reality of Russian tanks rolling across an internationally recognised border, despite the clear signals sent by Vladimir Putin’s increasingly bellicose actions in recent years.

The Russian propaganda machine and its useful idiots have been busy claiming that Georgia was the aggressor, and that Russia was only acting to protect the people of South Ossetia. Let us be clear: South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another separatist enclave, have a right to self-determination. But it is as naive to accept that Russia’s actions were driven by concern for the people of these regions as it is to think that al-Qa’eda is primarily motivated by the absence of a Palestinian state.

Moscow has for many years rejected the presence of impartial international peacekeepers in either of these regions, preferring instead to rely on a predominantly Russian Commonwealth of Independent States force which has done little, if anything, to curb criminality or to stop cross-border violence. It was clumsy of Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian president, to respond so forcibly to attacks by South Ossetian separatists, who are trained, equipped and, in reality, controlled by Moscow — thus giving the Russians the pretext they wanted to act. But walking into a trap is not the same as being the aggressor.

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Graemeh

August 14th, 2008 4:15pm

Are any of the 300K Georgians that were expelled (ethnicaly cleansed) when the two regions broke away going to be allowed a vote on their future?

Ian C

August 15th, 2008 12:19pm

Well said.

BG

August 15th, 2008 11:27pm

The 'west' could have, had it wanted to, given Georgia a lot more support in terms on international recognition and visible support over the last few years than it chose to. Only Bush made a point of paying a well publicised visit, but even this has so far largely been supported by hot air. As for the EU, I think it would prefer that Georgia did not exist. Call me cynical, but 2 unrelated facts made me wonder about America's true motives in Georgia: 1) within hours of the Russian invasion, all personal from the US army base were evacuated, which could be interpreted as a green light to Putin & 2) The poles signed up to the much debated missile defense shield before the end of the week...
I really hope I'm just letting cynicism get the better of me, but only time will tell.

Alexander

August 16th, 2008 2:29am

While I fully agree that the West needs to wake up, we also need to remember that it was our politicians who set the precident for large, powerful states carving up their weaker neighbors when we seized Kosovo and set up a new state there, refusing to allow a referendum on secession in the Serb-populated north, nor made any effort to stop the KLA from systematically ethnically cleansing the Albanian dominated south of every ethnic minority -- Serb, Croat, Slavic Moslem or Gypsie.

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