Russian claim said to be a lie

(Note: Below, Ron redoubles his fiery denunciation of Russia for its historical oppressions and betrayals of Georgia.)

Ron L. writes:

Not only did Russia plan this whole war, instigate the fighting, and import Chechens and Cossacks to ethnically cleans Ossetia of Georgian, but the supposed casus belli, the supposed mass murder of Ossetians in Tskhinvali, was a lie.

Will any of those carrying Moscow’s Soviet-flavored water re-evaluate their position?

Dimitri K. replies:

You asked for opinions, and I offer mine. Surely, Moscow bears its responsibility for this conflict. It is called realpolitik, and it is not always honest and decent. But what really matters for Russians, what they learned during last 15 years, that whatever they do, the West will consider them guilty anyway. If they do anything good and generous, like letting their provinces go freely, the West claims victory. When Russians want something in exchange, that is considered an aggressive move of Russian bear.

Shortly, Russia has a lot of problems. But other countries are not innocent either. However, only Russia is demonized.

August 23

Ron L. writes:

I did not notice Dimitri K’s response. He raises an interesting point but one which is historically inaccurate. Russia did not wake up one day and decide that it could do what it wanted in the Caucuses because the West would always reprimand in. The fact is that bad behavior in the region is the norm.

Georgia became “Russian” because of Muscovite perfidiousness. Georgia has been Christian nation since the 4th century, 400 years before there was a “Russ/Rhoss” and 800 years before the then pagan Rus noticed Georgia. For 800 years, the Georgia were on and off allied with the Russians against the Muslims. Then in 1795, Russia walked away during a Persian invasion, which led to the torching of Tbilisi and the death of the Georgian king. Czar Paul I (yes, the half-wit Czar who was soon replaced by his German wife Catherine the Great) was asked to decide between two claimants to the Georgian throne and promptly invaded, annexing Georgia. He then followed by trying to destroy the Georgian Orthodox Church. But that is water under the bridge.

The fact is that the dying Soviet Union backed the Abkhaz ethnic cleansing of Georgians and set up South Ossetia. Russia simply continued the Soviet policies in the region. so there was never an innocent cub here. Rather this was a continuation of a duplicitous policy by a dictatorship (Putin’s Russia) which never cleansed itself of Communism.

Russia could have worked with the European members of NATO to prevent Georgia’s inclusion peacefully. And Georgia in NATO is no more a threat to Moscow than Turkey is.

Likewise, it could have promoted a peaceful re-negotiations of borders on ethnic lines in Georgia and Ukraine. But Putin needs an external enemy to justify his dictatorship. Paranoia about the West and digging up Stalin-styled Russian nationalism and Slavophilia works too. If Russia is demonized, it is self inflicted by the KGB agents running it.

LA replies:

Pretty strong statement, Ron.

No one would mistake you for the less than passionate Brutus, as ironically described by a somewhat disappointed Cassius in Act I of Julius Caesar:

I am glad that my weak words
Have struck but thus much show of fire from Brutus.

Ron replies:

I am not certain that being compared to Marcus Junius Brutus is a good thing. Of the senators defending the Republic. I have always preferred Marcus Tullius Cicero. [LA replies: But I was saying that you are not like Brutus, or, at least, not like him in his initial cautious (though still affirmative) response to Cassius.]

Perhaps I am raging against the collapse of a unified anti-Communism which never really existed. Nonetheless, seeing conservatives support Russia under barely reconstructed Communists is infuriating. I see all too many so blinded by hatred of neoconservatives or their own opposition to elements of U.S. foreign policy, that they support any opponent of the U.S. or our allies, who is not openly killing Americans.

It is one thing to say that we have no interest in the region, or that oil is not a sufficient interest to risk diplomatic or other confrontation with Russia. It is quite another to recycle Kremlin propaganda and denounce all those who oppose Russian expansionism as “neocons,” warmonger, Russophobes or worse. I won’t even begin to speak of those who fabricate anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist fantasies, imagining that Jewish nationalists would somehow hate Russia, but love Ukraine and Estonia. I waste far too much time refuting them at Takimag, only to have them recycle the same garbage at the next post.

I am not a Russophobe. I studied Russian history and literature as an elective in high school. Dostoevsky is one of my favorite authors. I hold no grudge against the Russian people of today for 967, or the Czarist persecutions of Jews. But I do see an illness in their culture, one which demands a strong leader at all costs who will restore them to glory. This romantic and revanchist impulse, unrestrained by cleansing them of Bolshevism and taming their irredentism, is quite frightening.

Gerald M. from Dallas writes:

I see Ron L. has worked himself into a froth about Ruskie mistreatment of Georgia. He seems to be outraged that the rest of us aren’t gnashing our teeth, wearing sackcloth and ashes, or calling for Putin’s head on a spit. This makes us—in his eyes—water-carriers for, or bootlickers of, the resurgent Bolsheviks.

Uh-huh.

What Ron L. hasn’t done is show why the United States should get involved in a war between Russia and a country which was a part of Russia for longer than the entire American southwest has been part of our country.

August 24

Mark Jaws is a Dionysian fellow, and for once I’m posting an unexpurgated version of one of his comments that normally I would expurgate..

Mark Jaws writes:

I find myself being too pro-Russkie these days, and I am not sure whether I like it or not. Perhaps it is my Slavic heritage or the fact that some of the hottest women I have seen in Virginia are Russian. Or maybe it is because I have a Masters Degree in Strategic Intelligence in Russian area studies and I know how many times Russia has been invaded and that it is natural for the Russians to feel a little upset at NATO encirclement. Or perhaps it is because I speak Russian and I enjoy the music. I even admit that I relished the trouncing the Russians gave the Islamic fighters in Chechnya. I even enjoy seeing a white political leader such as Putin not having to bow and worship at the altar of suicidal PC. I can’t put my finger on it, but I do know when I saw Anna Kournikova for the first time the Cold War melted away.

I know the Georgians are a pretty good lot, but for the reasons cited above I am not going to lose any sleep over Russia’s invasion.

Oleg writes:

To say that Russia planned this war on Georgia is an absolute lie. First of all, last time I checked it was Medvedev and not Putin who was running Russia. Not only does Ron come across as a raging Russophobe, but his obsession with Putin and his supposed dictatorship really defies all reason. [LA replies: While I do not have a formed opinion in this debate and am in the middle, I must say that Oleg’s bland statement that Medvedev, not Putin, is in charge does not enhance Oleg’s credibility and authority on this subject.]

First, if anyone thought that Russia had planned this war, their response in the first 24 hours is proof enough, that the Russian military’s high command really had no idea what the hell they were doing. Anyone and everyone was scrambled into South Osettia to stop the Georgian invasion. Had Medvedev planned for this counter-attack on Georgia, I’m pretty sure he would not be sending in BMPs ahead of tanks into Tskhinvali. Well over 50 Russian peacekeepers were killed by Georgians when their BMPs came up against Georgian tanks and were simply obliterated.

Secondly, no Cossacks or Chechens were sent into South Ossettia to ethnically cleanse Georgians. The Cossacks were only able to agree on assisting the Russian Army, something like 2 or 3 days after the fighting began. Then it took them another several days actually to meet in the Krasnodar region—these Cossacks had to come from all over the USSR, they included Crimean Cossacks, Zaporozhiyin Cossacks, Don Cossacks, Ural Cossacks and a few other groups—and even then they had decided upon defending ABKHAZIA. Not South Ossettia. In regards to the Chechens, there does not exist a Chechen brigade or division which is separate from the Russian Armed Forces. There is a special forces group called “Vostok” which is comprised of some of the Chechen guerillas who fought against Russia in 1996 and others from 1999, but it is not exclusively Chechen.

Just finally concerning Ron’s first post, the killing of over two thousand Ossettians was not a lie. There was extensive Russian TV coverage of Tskhinvali during the Georgian raid, and the reporters from both NTV and Vesti, were pointing out that there were at least several hundred dead in the many apartment blocks that had collapsed. One NTV reporter was even lucky to survive himself, but several other journalists were killed when their bomb shelter was crushed by the falling floors of the apartment they were in.

Moving on to Ron’s second post, bad behaviour by Russians in the Caucasus has not been the norm. Starting from the 10th century,—which was when Russia as a nation accepted Christianity—the Christian peoples around the Black Sea have tried to look out for one another when faced by attacks from Muslims. Even going back 400 years before, when the Slavs and other Turkic ethnic groups were still pagans, there was still a sort of will to oppose the spread of Persia and the Arabs. Anyway it really shows that Ron’s education of Russian history really comes down to one elective of Russian history which he studied in high school. The Slavs are thought by most Russian scholars to have originated in the area around Kiev. They would surely have known who the Georgians were around the time that the Georgians had accepted Christianity. The Slavs who stayed in that area of Kiev took on the name of the Rus, the others that moved West became known as Poles, and the ones that sacked Byzantium and moved south became the Yugoslavs. But the point is that Eastern Slavs, or Russians, however you want to call them, have a history with the Caucasus that stretches back nearly 2000 years. I would say that for the vast majority of that time, their relations with the peoples of the Caucasus—including the Georgians—have been very amicable.

In 1795 Russia was stretched out over half the world. It had conflicts going on in Central Asia, American Russia, and rising tensions with the Turks. Georgians blaming the Russians for not helping them defend themselves against the Persians, would make as much sense as the Serbs blaming the Russians for not defending them against Westerners bombing the bejeezus out of them in 1999. Czar Paul I did not annex Georgia, several disunited Georgian kingdoms had already joined Russia, all that changed were various legal rights which allowed him to put Russian troops into those areas. The Georgian people themselves were in full support of Russia and there was no popular uprising against the Czar. Furthermore, no attempts were made at destroying the Georgian Orthodox Church. And if Ron knew what he was talking about he would realize that one Orthodox Church being officially taken in by the Patriarchate of another, does not constitute destruction. It’s decided on by a council of all Christian Patriarchates, not by the Moscow Patriarchate, and definitely not by the ruler of a country.

Moving on, the Soviet Union—I think Ron means Russia, as no Soviet Union existed in 1993—did not back Abhazia in its war against Georgia. It was giving diplomatic support for Abhazia and showing the Georgian government to be two faced, in that Russia did not declare war on Georgia when Georgia decided to secede from the Soviet Union. But eventually, in 1994, it came out on the side of the Georgians and stopped the Abhazians from marching on Tbilisi itself. Also, what exactly does Ron mean when he states that Russia were continuing Soviet policies in the region.

Finally, it was impossible for Russia peacefully to negotiate with NATO or with Georgia on not expanding NATO further east, when Sakashvilli was hell bent on getting his way. It shows that the regime which is in power now in Georgia, is completely ignoring the realistic geopolitical situtation in the region. I also think a lot can be said when Sakashvilli, in a state of panic after seeing jets flying over Gori, suddenly breaks from Georgian and starts yelling in English, while his bodyguards and a few other non-government types all start yelling in Russian.

Just finally in regards to Ron’s second response, Stalin was a Georgian and was not actively promoting Slavophilia. He was a Lenin-styled Communist through and through, and punished Slavs just as cruelly as he punished any other ethnic group in the USSR. Putin is the complete opposite of Stalin, he is no Communist, and if anyting, ideologically and philosophically he is far more in line with the Czars who ran Russia. BTW, if I had a dollar for every ex-KGB agent, and every FSB agent, that actually believed in Communism, or even socialism….well I’d be flat broke. The KGB was connected with national pride, not with political allegiance.

Dimitri K. writes:

It is interesting to see how the same historical event, depending on the pre-disposition of the author, can be seen very differently. Regarding Russia and Georgia, I don’t know if Paul was half-witted or no, or maybe Russians deliberately faught with bent bayonets because of theit ugly nature, but Georgia definitely was better off in Russia than in Turkey. Russia then had to fight in Northen Caucasus with Chechens in order to have a pass to Georgia, because Chechens lived to the North from Georgia. Now it seems that Russia would be much better off by leaving Georgians to their fate.

After Russian Revolution, Georgian Socialists proclaimed their republic, which then joined USSR. That was very common at that time: many independent republics, some of them inside Russia and populated by ethnic Russians, were created at that time. All was later recaptured by Red Army, except Baltic states in the west which were occuped by Germans. However, Bolsheviks divided USSR into national republics, many of which had never existed before. The boundaries of republics were drawn rather voluntary by Bolsheviks. Because Stalin was himself Georgian, that republic got kind of preferential treatment in the USSR. Georgians had large authonomy and and in Russia they had completely same rights as Russians.

After breakup of the Soviet Union, the West immediately acknowledged all new states, obviously because they wanted to decrease Russia as much as possible. However, for population of those lands it was not all so obvious. Russia started that strange policy with Georgia, which I personally don’t approve off. In my opinion, the Tsar would rather support Georgians against tribes that lived to the north from that country. Post-Soviet Russia did the opposite. However, they definitely have the right to do so.

Don’t forget that the boundaries of all those independent states were drawn by Communists rather than voluntarily, without considering any possibility of future division. For example, Khrushev being a Ukranian himself, presented Crimea to Ukraine as a kind of a gift. At that time, nobody cared, but now that silly gift causes problems. And there are many other problems of that sort. The view that there somehow always naturally existed independent countries with pre-defined boundaries, occupied by Russians, and then those countries liberated themselves, is complete nonsence. It is promoted for political reasons, however.

Posted by Lawrence Auster at August 18, 2008 10:42 PM | Send