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The Withdrawal Method
August 24, 2008 |
The Russians say they’ve pulled out of Georgia. George Bush and Nicholas Sarkozy charge they didn’t pull out. All this talk of pulling out sounds like they’re arguing whether Russia knocked up Georgia.
Well something is certainly gestating in Georgia. And the Russia-Georgia love child appears to be occupation. Russia’s gradual pull out has left a string of posts along the border of South Ossetia as part of a plan to leave 2500 peacekeepers inside a security buffer zone. The zone, according to Deputy Commander Anatoly Nogovitsyn, will be 6 to 18 kilometers thick, and will effectively allow Russian troops to occupy Georgia. The Guardian reports that Russian troops were seen digging trenches 7 km. outside of the port city of Poti. Hundreds or thousands of Georgians (it depends on who you listen to) demonstrated against the presence of twenty Russian troops yesterday, shouting at them to go home. You gotta love the protest signs in English. What a publicity stunt.
The Russian security zone and beefed up peacekeeping force will certainly pour gasoline on the theories about how Russia planned all of this from the beginning. The main proponent of the master plan thesis is none other than Pavel Felgengauer. Felgengauer agues, first in Novaya gazeta and then in the Eurasian Daily Monitor, that Russia’s war against Georgia was concocted as far back as April. Why did the Russians “provoke” this war? Why Georgia’s aspirations to join Nato and geopolitical positioning, of course. Felgengauer writes,
It seems the main drive of the Russian invasion was Georgia’s aspiration to join NATO, while the separatist problem was only a pretext. Georgia occupies a key geopolitical position, and Moscow is afraid that if George joins NATO, Russia will be flushed out of Transcaucasia. The NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, last April, where Ukraine and Georgia did not get the so-called Membership Action Plan or MAP to join the Alliance but were promised eventual membership, seems to have prompted a decision to go to war.
According to Felgengauer, the goal of the Russian invasion was to knock out Georgia’s military and maintain a permanent military presence in Georgia. Medvedev and Putin must really love it when a plan comes together. It happens so rarely. Most of them time they can’t get anything right, let alone effectively rule their own country. Now the diarchy are master manipulators of not only the hotheaded Saakashvili, but the world. I can imagine Putin explaining to Medvedev his role in the whole plot like Ed Wood did to Bela Lugosi (played brilliantly by Martin Landau) in Tim Burton’s Ed Wood (1994):
Bela/Medvedev: Eddie/Vanya, what kind of movie is this?
Ed/Putin: Well, It’s about how people have two personalities. The side they show to the world, and then the secret person they hide inside.
Bela/Medvedev: (delighted) Oh, like Jekyll and Hyde! Ah, I’ve always wanted to play Jekyll and Hyde! I’m looking forward to this production.
(Ed/Putin stops typing. He pours Bela/Medvedev a drink.)
Ed/Putin: Ehh, your part’s a little different. You’re like the God that looks down on all the characters, and oversees everything.
Bela/Medvedev: I don’t understand.
Ed/Putin: Well… you control everyone’s fate. You’re like the puppetmaster.
Bela/Medvedev: (getting it) Ah, so I pull the strings!
Ed/Putin: Yeah. You pull the strings — (he suddenly gets a look) “Pull the strings”… hey, that’s pretty good!
(Ed/Putin quickly starts typing again.)
That is the real beauty the Russians. When we need them to be incompetent bunglers who are mired in perpetual backwardness, they’re there to play the part. When we need them as conniving, master plotters with their evil claws ready to “pull the strings,” they play that role too. You gotta love their dramaturgical range.
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Comments
136 Comments so far
For those who read Russian and would like to read the full dramaturgical range and laugh about it, I suggest starting here (related to the conflict) and then continuing here. It’s not just Americans who write fairy-tales about the Bear.
When we need them to be incompetent bunglers who are mired in perpetual backwardness, they’re there to play the part. When we need them as conniving, master plotters with their evil claws ready to “pull the strings,” they play that role too.
For years journalists have portrayed Bush as a bungling incompetent and evil genius simultaneously. It’s hardly surprising that journalists now slap the same template on top of Putin and Medvedev.
“For years journalists have portrayed Bush as a bungling incompetent and evil genius simultaneously.”
Well, obviously is not the same people who claim that Bush is an incompetent AND an evil genius at the same time. There are plenty of journalists, so there are plenty of opinions. In any event, I think the more common portrayal is of Bush being the incurious and not very brigh president being manipulated by Cheney, the evil genius behind the scenes.
By the way, I never bought into the idea that Bush is stupid. There is a difference between being incompetent and stupid. Also, time and again smart people make extremely stupid mistakes (Saakahsvili is the most obvious recent example).
” In any event, I think the more common portrayal is of Bush being the incurious and not very brigh president being manipulated by Cheney, the evil genius behind the scenes. ”
I’ve always thought that not only is Bush very smart, he’s really very funny as well. He was in Ireland a few years ago at an EU summit and he was in fine form, throwing out one-liners to beat the band and had everyone laughing, not at him but with him.
I think the reason that Bush is thought of as stupid is the fact that many people simply dont agree with his stands on many things, and think him stupid for not seeing their point of view and what they think is blindingly obvious. Bush is a bright guy who just happened to be convinced his main job was to deal with Islamic terrorism. History will bear out whether he was (a) nuts or (b) copped onto something the rest of us failed to see and was years ahead of his time.
”According to Felgengauer, the goal of the Russian invasion was to knock out Georgia’s military and maintain a permanent military presence in Georgia.”
I’m convinced it was a venus fly-trap operation by Russia from day one, and Georgia were caught by the balls. The Russians should not be allowed remain in Georgia proper though - good grief, who in their right mind would want them there? Hard to see who is going to make them leave however.
I think the reason that Bush is thought of as stupid is the fact that many people simply dont agree with his stands on many things…
I think it’s even worse than that: a lot of people think he is thick because of how he speaks. They hear the Texan accent and mannerisms, coupled with Bush’s poor public speaking skills, and immediately associate it with unintelligence. There have been few greater displays of mass international snobbery than those who believe Bush is stupid because he has a funny way of speaking.
Regardless of how he got into Yale, he passed his Bachelors in History as a C student scoring 77% with a grade point average of 2.35 out of a possible 4.00. By his own admission he was no great scholar, but he’s certainly no thicker than the average Joe, and he’s certainly one hell of a lot more able academically than the thousands of high-school and college drop-outs who show up at anti-war rallies and on websites pronouncing how thick Bush is. But you try to challenge anyone on this by pointing at his actual academic achievements and you’ll be met with unsupported accusations that somehow he cheated, or his father got the results manipulated, or some such nonsense.
My brother is one such person who will pronounce Bush as being completely thick, airily dismiss his academic achievements as proof of nothing, and instead refer to some gaff he made while public speaking. The habit of the British (and other Europeans) to look down their long, long noses at Americans for their supposed lack of intelligence and sophistication goes back a long way.
And yes, I can well believe Bush is very funny in person: I thought the “now watch this drive” quip was highly amusing, and his detractors’ outrage over it even more so.
I certainly agree that Bush is not only not stupid, but actually fairly smart. His SAT score, after all, was a respectable 1,206 (lower than Gore’s 1355, but higher than mosts). It’s much better for a president to be smart, but you don’t have to be of exceptionally high intelligence to be a good president. Supposedly some of the least successful presidents were also among the most intelligent ones.
“I think the reason that Bush is thought of as stupid is the fact that many people simply dont agree with his stands on many things, and think him stupid for not seeing their point of view and what they think is blindingly obvious.”
Ger, I don’t quite agree with that. For example, nobody is probably disliked even more than Bush, but nobody claims he’s stupid. It’s not just a matter of political opinions or ideology. In the US for example, Democrats loved to hate Gingrinch, but all of them acknowledge that he’s smart. Republicans hated Clinton but never claimed he lacks brain power. On the other hand, some people, either because of their inarticulateness or lack of intellectual curiosity (both things apply to Bush) seem much less intelligent than they are.
Tim, from what I was told, Lyndon Johnson had a heavy Texas accent (unlike Bush he had real Texan roots), but he also did give the impression of being stupid.
“There have been few greater displays of mass international snobbery than those who believe Bush is stupid because he has a funny way of speaking.”
Gorbachev.
“his actual academic achievements”
A C student?
“Most of them time they can’t get anything right, let alone effectively rule their own country.”
Why do you think so? Wasn’t Medvedev elected with big majority? Isn’t Putin loved by the nation? They reached their goals.
A C student?
My brother got 3rd class honours from Cardiff University. Bush was a C student at Yale.
Yes: actual academic achievements.
I don’t think Bush is dumb, but being a C student at Yale is not hard. Flunking out of those places is very, very difficult.
I suspect Russian SVR and GRU had deeply, deeply infiltrated Georgian military and such intelligence apparatus as they had. They actively mis-led the Georgian High Command to believe they could take South Ossetia militarily and Moscow would or ‘could’ not respond.
That, combined with an almost touching mis-placed faith that the USA/NATO would back up its ‘democracy and freedom’ PR with actual action, led Saakashvili to the shitheap he’s in now.
I agree it was a fly-tap, but the fly went willingly to land on it. This is why the Russians - in this land of signing-&-stamping documents and meticulous-if-pointless-legality - are correct to take the view that they’ve acted lawfully under international law and in accordance with the peace-keeping mandate they had; even with respect to the current military placement in Georgia ‘proper’ at the moment.
And of course, the independence declarations of Abkhazia and South Ossetia recall East Timor and Austrialia’s armed presence there, as a good international law precedent for what Russia is doing currently. Those MGIMO boys doing a fine job for the Moscow White House I’d say…
“I suspect Russian SVR and GRU had deeply, deeply infiltrated Georgian military and such intelligence apparatus as they had.”
I think this is the most logical explanation of events. Even without such infilitration, it doesn’t require a military genius to see that if there is going to be military conflict in the fSU, its most likely flashpoint is S. Ossetia, given that Saakashvili already tried it once.
”I don’t think Bush is dumb, but being a C student at Yale is not hard. Flunking out of those places is very, very difficult.”
A C is a weird grade. Its like a 2-0 win in football. It can be a rock-solid result from a bright person who spent the year getting laid and drunk and just about turned up for exams, or its a result of a hard 4 years labour from a diligent student who just isnt all that smart and has to learn off everything.
I’m suprised to hear its hard to flunk out of Yale though. Over here if you dont get a C in everything each year you’re knocked out for a year, minimum. And dont forget this is Ireland, and ya’ll know how dumb we are.
”Ger, I don’t quite agree with that. For example, nobody is probably disliked even more than Bush, but nobody claims he’s stupid. It’s not just a matter of political opinions or ideology.”
Kolya, I hate to say it, but people DO think he’s stupid. In New Zealand, where I spent a year, our lab (a huge one) had little A4-sheet posters on the walls with Bush quips and slips, and he really was a laughing stock there, and when I attempted to argue otherwise I was laughed out the door too. I think hatred of him has led people to hasty conclusions on his intellect. Now if this was Ireland I’d say something, but the brooding, moody Kiwis are no thicks or slouches and they were utterly convinced he was pleb who happened to have the biggest job in the world.
I’m suprised to hear its hard to flunk out of Yale though.
It’s not just hard. It’s downright impossible. At least it is now. I don’t know how it was when Bush went there. I assume that grades were more “objective” then. The Ivy Leagues, as are most big universities, are notorious for grade inflation. They want to keep a 100% graduation rating and parents/students want to make sure they get something for their money. This isn’t just at private schools like Yale, but at public institutions. Much of university education has been turned into a commodity relationship. Students/parents feel that if they pay, they should get a desired grade in return, or at least the right to negotiate it when they feel appropriate. And university administration and faculty tend to go along for many reasons. For faculty at big universities it’s because they don’t want to be bothered. I know a professor that tells his TAs to not give anything lower than a B. I know another that doesn’t flunk anyone as long as they turn in an exam no matter what the content is. Faculty aren’t promoted to teach but to publish. At research institutions, teaching is not a factor for tenure or raises. To tell you the truth, I don’t blame the faculty’s behavior.
For the administration its all about the money and image (both are connected): tuition and most importantly alumni donations. There is all sorts of indirect pressure to make the university student friendly. It should come as no surprise that most top university administrators try to run the institutions along a business model.
This is why I guess many UCLA students feel they can protest getting an A-, which most don’t deserve in the first place. After all, they are all going to be doctors and lawyers and can’t have even A- mess up their transcripts. Grade inflation at least at UCLA has been elevated from a phenomena to a culture.
Am I going senile at 53? I don’t know how this happened, but when I wrote:
”Ger, I don’t quite agree with that. For example, nobody is probably disliked even more than Bush, but nobody claims he’s stupid. It’s not just a matter of political opinions or ideology.”
I meant:
CHENEY is probably disliked even more than Bush, but nobody claims CHENEY is stupid. It’s not just a matter of political opinions or ideology.”
You are right, Ger, plenty of people think Bush is stupid. Sorry about my mistake. It totally messed up what I was trying to say.
(BTW, the universtiy grades of both Gore and Kerry were mediocre too. In those days, though, it was somewhat harder to get higher grades. A “C” in the 1960 or 70s was worth a bit more than in the 90s.)
“I’m suprised to hear its hard to flunk out of Yale though. Over here if you dont get a C in everything each year you’re knocked out for a year, minimum. And dont forget this is Ireland, and ya’ll know how dumb we are.”
People flunking out is bad for university business and image.
“I know a professor that tells his TAs to not give anything lower than a B.”
I was told to grade on an A-B-C bell curve. Nobody was given less than a C, ever.
BTW, here’s Gordon Hahn’s reply to the Felgy piece from today’s JRL.
Date: Sat, 23 Aug 2008
From: GORDON HAHN
Subject: Comment on Felgenhauer.
I would like to respond to Felgenhauer’s piece which I responded to earlier but focusing on what was presented in Paul Goble’s breakdwon of the piece reprinted on JRL last week.
The only potentially damning text in Felgenhauer’s piece is the following:
“By August a considerable proportion of Black Sea Fleet ships were ready for a protracted combat voyage, Ground Troops, Airborne Troops, and Marine permanent-readiness units were ready to move, and in the course of the Kavkaz-2008 exercises that ended on 2 August, one week before the war, Air Force, Navy, and Army forces completed their final readiness check in a locality close to the Georgian border. At same time, by early August the Railroad Troops in Abkhazia had completed the repair of the railroad used to move up to the Inguri River tanks, heavy equipment, and supplies for the approximately 10,000-strong grouping that invaded western Georgia without any excuse or formal reason.”
First of all, Felgenhauer delivers his
information as if it was some kind of secret
mobilization for war. In fact, almost all of his details were announced by the Russian Ground Forces on July 15. The announcement included the following: “In connection with the worsening situation in the zones of the Georgian-Abkhaz and Georgian-Ossetian conflicts, issues regarding the participation of the okrug’s troops in special peace enforcement operations in zones of armed conflict are being worked on as well. Approximately 8,000 troops have been put in into action for ther exercises.” It seems that this was a clear signal being sent to the American-Georgian exercise that began on the same day as the Russian exercies. The Georgian side then began to make provocative statements and undertake even more provocative actions, including calling on the West to stand up to Russia and then firing and digging in fortifications in South Ossetia with American troops still near the region and possibly still on the ground in Georgia. Thus, another interpretation that needs to be tested is that the American-led exercises were seen as an opportunity by Saakashvili to challenge Russian forces and force the issue in South Ossetia with American troops available to step in, even hoping to draw them in on Georgia’s side. But he miscalculated American resolve to back his gambit.
Certain other specifics are not documented and seem to be given a spin that when read closely seem to have little substance behind them. For example, one wonders what is so sinister with the fact that, quoting Felgenhauer, “permanent-readiness units were ready to move.”
What kind of “protracted voyage” is required by the Black Sea Fleet in an operation in which it remained within the Black Sea and and that was unlikely to be long as Russia limited its objectives. And the operation apparently did have limited objectives (Russian army did not seek to take Tbilisi, Georgian casualties and damage was minimal, etc.). Felgenhauer’s statement that “in the course of the Kavkaz-2008 exercises that ended on 2 August, one week before the war, Air Force, Navy, and Army forces completed their final readiness check in a locality close to the Georgian border” does not necessarily mean much. The 58th Army is based in Vladikavkaz, North Ossetia - hardly a long distance from South Ossetia - and was moving around obviously during the maneuvers. It is odd that the author knows they were near the border, but cannot tell us exactly where they were. In short, there appears to be some hype here as well as statements lacking documentation. Who would make radical changes to policy based on this? The last six words are of course most revealing, since Felgenhauer appears to be stating that an all night Grad artillery barrage on a residential city and the killing of 18 Russian soldiers is not sufficient cause for Russia to make its incursion.
I have already commented on the shaky grounds
under Felgenhauer’s analogy with the Dagestan
1999 etc, so I will not do so again here. It is worth reiterating, however, that Russia would have had to have contingency plans for a possible Georgian incursion, especially as Saakashvili was refusing to reject the use of force and was conducting recon flights. Moreover, Georgian troops were now being ‘trained and eqipped’ by the U.S. and NATO and some 2,000 troops were getting some experience in Iraq. Given the escalation in the tit-for-tat attacks from August 1, the Russians would have been wise to move troops into closer proximity to the breakaway republics, and the military exercises held in the North Caucasus would have given them to cover to do so. Their own satellite images might have tipped them to some of the Georgians’ own preparations, providing the motive to be prepared. If so, to do otherwise would have been negligent.
It can be argued that the Russians, having stated in their new foreign policy doctrine that they place the UN and international law above all, might have done better to make a noisy announcement at the UN. Then again, if the Russians were making the kind of preparations on a scale Felgenhauer is claiming, U.S. satellites would have even more easily caught those than the Russians would have seen the Georgian preparations. Why did the U.S. not intervene by calling a UN meeting or demanding that one side or both back off?
Those who are willing to immediately regard
Felgenhauer’s article as documented proof of
Russia’s guilt for the whole affair, might want to take a look at the end of Brian Whitmore’s RFERL article, which like Goble’s, was distributing Felgenhauer’s article in order to shape public opinion and policymaking in DC. To feign balance, he noted at the end of the article another observer’s query as to why on the eve of such a major gambit by Moscow, Medvedev would be in Samara (or Saratov?), Putin would be in China, and commander of the 58th army that led the invasion was on vacation? A Russian paper recently added that Security Council Secretary Nikolai Patrushev was also not in Moscow. This is a curious way to run a war. Email command and control?
I continue to be astonished how many Western
scholars are prepared to believe only one side of the story and refuse to consider other points of view and other possibilities. Numerous security scholars who never heard of Ossetia before are demanding a rush to judgement and sharp changes in Western policy toward Russia without a careful weighing of the facts. Just as Western media and government have bought Saakashvili’s line - hook, line and sinker - and ignored the victims of Tskhinvali, they have advertised every piece of anti-Russian analysis and rushed to Tbilisi offering all manner of new military assistance.
Even if Russia planned an attack and staged a
provocation, it might be worth considering fo at least a few seconds on mainastram media and in the corridors of power that Saakashvili and the West provoked Russia with misguided plans to expand NATO along Russia’s entire western and perhaps southern border. The European security settlement made at the end of the Cold War was broken by the West in the mid-1990s and for fifteen years it has willfully expanded the military alliance and taken numerous other steps ignoring Russian concerns and interests. If the West could break that settlement, if the West can intervene with humanitarian operations against sovereign states or agree to the break up of sovereign states when it deems it is in its interests, then why cannot Russia?
The expansion of NATO is especially pernicious because it is forcing states with major ’stateness problems’ to make a decisioeither to be left outside of the ’security zone’ or by entering it to risk provoking greater secessionist tendencies and reliance on Russia among pro-Russian populations (Ossetians, Abkhaz, Russians in eastern Ukraine and Crimea). Russia is using this to block expansion of NATO. Moscow knows the alliance rightly is reluctant to take in states with ’stateness problems’ and built in potential for conflict with foreign states, especially Russia.
It’s a Catch-22 for everybody and it has been
since the idea of expanding NATO without Russia emerged. Once expansion began it could not end until it reached Russia’s entire western border.
Who should be left in the no man’s land if the alliance stopped before that? And where would steps left out turn? This is the very dilemma that is being forced upon the peoples within Georgia and Ukraine. As a reuslt, the West and Russia are exacerbating interethnic tensions in these states, turning Oset against Georgian, Georgian against Oset, Ukrainian against Russian, Russian against Georgian, etc. It is simply painful to hear these villagers talk about how Oset, Georgian, and Russian lived side by side…until now. This was the kind of disaster NATO expansion was bound to lead to sooner or later, as I have been arguing for well over a decade.
Western pundits and policymakers can keep
searching and propagating supposed smoking guns supposedly proving that Russia alone is to blame. They might even find their smoking gun, but that will hardly be the point. The question is: Who loaded the gun? Here there is enough blame to go around for everyone.
Dr. Gordon M. Hahn - Senior Researcher, Monterey Terrorism Research and Education Program and Visiting Assistant Professor, Graduate School of International Policy Studies, Monterey Institute of International Studies, Monterey, California; Senior Researcher, Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies (CETIS), Akribis Group; and Analyst/Consultant, Russia Other Points of View – Russia Media Watch, http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com. Dr Hahn is
author of two well-received books, Russia’s
Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007) and Russia’s Revolution From Above (Transaction,
2002), and numerous articles on Russian politics.
“I know a professor that tells his TAs to not give anything lower than a B.”
I was told to grade on an A-B-C bell curve. Nobody was given less than a C, ever.”
That is shocking, and also what Sean said as well -incredible. Now dont think for one second Ireland is a bastion of academic greatness - it sure isnt. But as I was telling ye I was lecturing last year (and had done it part-time before) and I can tell you we do give Ds, Es, Fs and No Grades, no problem at all. We do have facilities and staff to help students who are struggling (indeed I still do that, I get hauled in to help hopeless cases get a ‘D’ to pass)and everything is stacked in favour of the student, but if they fail on the day, they’re gone, and thats it. I’m not being a smartarse here, but are Arts degree/essay style exams a bit different? I mean in our case I ask on a paper for example
(1) Explain the SAR of acetylcholine
(2) Give an account of an extraction/instrumental analysis technique for the detection of cocaine and its metabolites
The answers are very concise, or should be. They’ll write bit of waffle, who hasnt done it, but there are is a very clear answer and if the kids havent got it, they get marked down and if they’ve done really badly they’ll get no marks. How can you make a ‘C’ out of something thats just not there??
”To tell you the truth, I don’t blame the faculty’s behavior.”
Ireland is heading in this research direction as well. You want research money in Ireland? No problem. You want money to teach? No, sorry. Its the big state ethos at the moment, the ‘Knowledge Economy’ (which really means our manufacturing attractiveness is gone up in smoke!!) The world is very soon going to be flooded with papers written in the Land of the Paddies.
As I wrote, a “C” in the 60s and 70s is not the same as a “C” in the 90s. Kerry, while at Yale, received at least three Ds as final grades (Geology, History and… Political Science.)
http://www.insidepolitics.org/heard/heard32300.html
Do you want to be the Yale professor that flunks the son of a President, also vice-President, head of the CIA, etc? I think I would give the “never do-well” as Ronald Reagan characterized George W, a passing grade. If I was especially ambitious, I would spot him a few hundred points on his SAT’s as well. Even the much maligned CIA could pull this off.
“I’m not being a smartarse here, but are Arts degree/essay style exams a bit different?”
In my case, it was for an undergrad Medical Ethics class. If I were objective, I would have failed over half the class. They were awful.
The main proponent of the master plan thesis is none other than Pavel Felgengauer. Felgengauer agues, first in Novaya gazeta and then in the Eurasian Daily Monitor, that Russia’s war against Georgia was concocted as far back as April.
…
According to Felgengauer, the goal of the Russian invasion was to knock out Georgia’s military and maintain a permanent military presence in Georgia. Medvedev and Putin must really love it when a plan comes together. It happens so rarely. Most of them time they can’t get anything right, let alone effectively rule their own country.
I’ve often thought of it as the “Pinky and the Brain” school of political analysis… “What are we going to do tonight, Vovka?, huh?” “Same thing we do every night, Dima. Try to take over the world.” People like Felgengauer just watched too much Animaniacs.
FelgenHauer.
The guy is a complete prostitute, you know.
I’ll have to take your word for it.
“Courtappointedrussiafriendlius?”
The ‘right kind’ of media loves people like Felgenhauer as they think because he is from ‘over there’, that somehow his analysis carries more weight or is more credible than one done by a homeboy. The fact that he quite often mimics the western pov doesn’t seem to matter.
So, nothing new there.
As to much more interesting stuff, the Russians are putting their efforts on WTO accession on the ‘back burner’ (is that some kind of barbecue one finds in a dacha?) and aren’t worried about the Russia’s observer status(?) continuing either (http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/aug/25/georgia.russia).
Quite frank talk by the russkies then, i.e. “what is the point if it means nothing?”. If this were a relationship, Russia is the one who puts out and is lookin’ fur luv, NATO is the one keeping the zip firmly up and the belt tight.
I caught this in the British press:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/britain-urges-russia-to-retain-nato-links-908231.html
Absolutely hilarious. AC-DC or what?
More thoughtful (though it doesn’t make up for the paper’s cretinous and cringe-worthy Russia correspondent Luke Harding):
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/25/georgia.russia
Still, NATO can always start another little war which it can ‘win’ (at least in the media) when it (yet) again comes to the question of its credibility…
NATO, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing!
(Though I do prefer Edwin Starr’s ‘25 Miles’.
In the Felgenhaur - Wilson Pickett! I feel a song coming on!
BTW, what do you all think of Alexander Nekrasov? He seems to be popping up more and more in the western media, though I guess this has to do with him being a ‘former Kremlin insider’…is that the Kremlin’s equivalent of the west using ‘former ambassadors’ and others to say what governments mean publicly but ‘unofficially’? Even Lipman sounds vaguely normal… Strange days, or is that People are strange?
Do you want to be the Yale professor that flunks the son of a President, also vice-President, head of the CIA, etc?
George W. Bush was at Yale from 1964-1968. His father was director of CIA from 1976 to 1977, served as vice-president from 1981-1989, and president from 1989-1993.
What’s going on with my writing? I just noticed that I wrote:
“Tim, from what I was told, Lyndon Johnson had a heavy Texas accent (unlike Bush he had real Texan roots), but he also did give the impression of being stupid.”
when I meant to say:
“Lyndon Johnson had a heavy Texas accent (unlike Bush he had real Texan roots), but he did NOT give the impression of being stupid.”
“Do you want to be the Yale professor that flunks the son of a President, also vice-President, head of the CIA, etc?
George W. Bush was at Yale from 1964-1968. His father was director of CIA from 1976 to 1977, served as vice-president from 1981-1989, and president from 1989-1993.”
Tim, I’m surprised at your naivete. Don’t you know that although the CIA is replete with fools, since 1959 the agency has an ultra-secret (but rather limited) time machine that accurately predicts the names of future CIA directors 20 years in advance.
I stand corrected, Tim. George W’s dad was probably only a Texas millionaire Congressman, at the time. I still think someone spotted him 200 points on his SAT’s. This good ol boy, after all, doesn’t read newspapers. He could have hired a stand-in to take his test.
I still think someone spotted him 200 points on his SAT’s. This good ol boy, after all, doesn’t read newspapers. He could have hired a stand-in to take his test.
Remember when I said:
But you try to challenge anyone on this by pointing at his actual academic achievements and you’ll be met with unsupported accusations that somehow he cheated, or his father got the results manipulated, or some such nonsense.?
I think I may have been onto somthing.
”This good ol boy, after all, doesn’t read newspapers.”
I gave up buying them years ago. I’ll buy them on special days, eg the day after the Olympics opening ceremony, or during the football World Cup, but 99% of the time newspapers are a total waste of time - nearly everything is crap and opinion. If newspapers were restricted to strictly printing facts only, they’d reduce in size by 90% and save a few rain forests in the process. Sunday papers especially are a write-off of a day better spent gardening or doing something constructive.
Hey Aleks, thanks for the link of Jonathan Steele’s piece. I guess I liked it because I’ve been saying some of those things right from the start. I agree with most of what he wrote, although I don’t give much credence to the notion than the US knew much about Georgia’s attack (not that he actually thinks that, but he contemplates the possibility) and that I think that Russians are too hung up about NATO.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/25/georgia.russia
“Courtappointedrussiafriendlius?”
It is an honorable and venerable Roman name. Many great patricians, some with ties to the Emperor himself, have been Courtappointedrussiafriendlii. Read your Suetonius.
That Steele piece was pretty good, albeit written in bombastic Guardianese.
Man, I wish my last name was Steele. You can’t get much more macho than that without being named Doom.
Kolya,
It certainly is one small piece of clarity. It really is ‘hysteria’ (and also a great album by Def Leppard).
It’s very hard to believe that the US ‘didn’t know’, but if they didn’t, then their intel is at minimum criminally incompetent and shows that it has real weaknesses. Then again, a B52 flew transcontinentally with live nukes by accident only a few months back.
I do get the feeling that there is a base fear in this article that the US will drag Europe into some sort of conflict (non-military I mean), particularly resentment that Russia is the EU’s neighbor, not the US’. I think this is probably mirrored in the EU. What it does say (at least to men) is that the US has too much say in ‘european’ issues and that it shows the very real cracks in EU-US relationship and that the US is actually damaging its relationship with the US in this way.
I am trying to keep tabs on counter moves by Russia, so apart from the already posted ‘NATO up yours’ and ‘WTO, we’d rather have YMCA (or possibly Boney M)’, two recent events have struck me as possibly due to russian influence.
1: The Kyrgz Republic has officially requested that the US quits Manas airbase. This will make ISAF operations in Afghanistan logistically a lot more complicated…and more expensive;
2: Talk of Russia killing the ‘land bridge’ to Afghanistan that they offered NATO a few months back. It would have significantly improved NATO’s ability to build up reserves and logistics thus aiding a much more rapid response (vehicular) than is currently available (lack of helicopters);
3: The Afghans have suddenly announced they want to revise the terms of the agreement that regulates the conditions of foreign troops in the ’stan. We know that Russia has the largest diplomatic presence there but hear very little…
The BBC world service is now saying that the Russians are aiding ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7581282.stm
I can’t see the Russians ignoring this one. They have long complained that the OSCE has consistently overstepped its original mandate and supporting color revolutions. Russia wants the revised. Might they threaten to quit the OSCE too? And if we go there, there are several other bodies on the list such as the ECHR. The un-ratified EU-Russia energy pact is just a memory. Russia does not need to threaten energy supplies to rattle the EU.
Tim gets so defensive any time anybody insults Bush, I suspect they must be dating. Is it true? That would be cool.
On further reflection, I think the Kremlin are being deliberately AC-DC - I care, I don’t care, but the main message being that they are so fed up with broken promises from the west, double speak and hypocrisy, that there is the possibility that they might do some things just out of spite.
In a way, it is quite chinese of the Kremlin.
As Putin is running the show, I have no doubt that he is operating as clinically as a spy can, showing that if the ‘West’ chooses to punish Russia, they can expect asymmetry and tangling in response, not just simple move and counter move on a fixed board.
Is it WMD luv CC?
PS Poemless, just to show I read your dairy: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2swTcpLQPDQ&feature=related
More people should cover this song.
Man, I wish my last name was Steele.
Just think of the porn career you could have. Your debut film could be When in Bone . . . Starring Chrisius Maximus Steele
“‘Man, I wish my last name was Steele.’
Just think of the porn career you could have. Your debut film could be When in Bone . . . Starring Chrisius Maximus Steele”
So Chris is just another sleazy careeist! It’s all clear now: he replied to all those ads simply as a career move.
The BBC world service is now saying that the Russians are aiding ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia:
This doesn’t surprise me. It’s been implied since the first reports of looting. My only question is whether Mr. Stubb can tell the difference between S. Ossetian militias and Russian soldiers. Perhaps it doesn’t matter.
It makes me wonder what exactly Kokoity meant when he said that there won’t be any more Georgian enclaves in S. Ossetia. Perhaps he meant Georgian civilians too.
So Chris is just another sleazy careeist! It’s all clear now: he replied to all those ads simply as a career move.
It also explains why when we met in LA he said that he had all these auditions.
“In New Zealand, where I spent a year, our lab (a huge one) had little A4-sheet posters on the walls with Bush quips and slips, and he really was a laughing stock there, and when I attempted to argue otherwise I was laughed out the door too.”
I seem to remember seeing something somewhere that indicated New Zealand to be one of the most anti-american countries in the world. Can’t seem to find a link though, so maybe my memory is a bit off. It wouldn’t surprise me though, I mean, how many Americans are even aware a country called New Zealand even exists. It’s not like they produce anything of note, good or bad, other than being the background to the LOTR series. That has to be aggravating from their end.
Having a background in the engineering field, generally it’s been my experience that intellect is inversely proportional to social prowess and public speaking. As such, I have never seen Bush’s mangling of the English language as a indication of his intelligence. Some people’s brains are just not wired to be able to put their thoughts into words succinctly. As other’s here are well aware, I have a very difficult time wrangling my hair-brained thoughts into coherent sentences. Speaking is even worse because I don’t have the luxury of time to work out what I want to say through trial and error.
I was able to grade as I saw fit as a TA. Even flunked one kid for plagiarism. But then I was at a land-grant institution and my adviser took a hands off approach. I think I only saw him 6 times during the 3.5 years of my graduate career, one of which was my thesis defense. I think he was surprised as I was when I graduated.
If Russia secretly goads Georgia into an unnecessary war in an empty forest, does it make a sound?
If Russia secretly goads Georgia into an unnecessary war in an empty forest, does it make a sound?
Only if the Western media is there to record it.
“Only if the Western media is there to record it.”
Funny — that’s what they said during my porn anuditons.
“It’s not like they produce anything of note, good or bad, other than being the background to the LOTR series.”
Anything of note of which you have heard. The world in your head != the world.
The most anti-American Western country is probably Greece, for obvious reasons. New Zealand is more anti-France.
“It’s not like they produce anything of note, good or bad, other than being the background to the LOTR series.”
Anything of note of which you have heard. The world in your head != the world.”
Chris - yes, they have a big problem with France alright. Just mention the French to Kiwis and their eyes roll to heaven. The Rainbow Warrior hasnt been forgotten there, nor the conduct of the French afterwards.
“Chris - yes, they have a big problem with France alright. Just mention the French to Kiwis and their eyes roll to heaven. The Rainbow Warrior hasnt been forgotten there, nor the conduct of the French afterwards.”
The attitude is shared by the Aussies, isn’t it?
Come to think of it, isn’t the anti-US attitude in large part because the US aided France in the Rainbow Warrior incident?
”Chris - yes, they have a big problem with France alright. Just mention the French to Kiwis and their eyes roll to heaven. The Rainbow Warrior hasnt been forgotten there, nor the conduct of the French afterwards.”
The attitude is shared by the Aussies, isn’t it?
Come to think of it, isn’t the anti-US attitude in large part because the US aided France in the Rainbow Warrior incident?”
I think the Kiwi anti-Americanism now is down to the war in Iraq really - there’s a liberal (Labour) governement there now led by leftie (but toughie) Helen Clarke, who has been vociferous in her criticism of the US and has worked hard at a recent free trade agreement with China. Kiwis like plucky characters and I think are proud that Clarke has criticised the Americans unreservedly, ignoring the usual Kiwi tendency not to annoy countries that they export heavily to. As for the Warrior, its hard to blame the Kiwis for being angry - a foreign intelligence service commited murder in Auckland Harbour and then got away with it by threatening to block NZ exports to the EU, which would have ruined the country at a time of great economic hardship in NZ. NZ was basically groped then bitch slapped by France for complaining about the grope. As for Clarke, I’ve always thought she was cool - but its nearly election time there and Kiwis I think are just tired of her and are being lured by the opposition’s promises of tax-cuts (Kiwis are not mean, but they are pretty frugal!)
You’d be suprised but until about 2 years ago most Aussies were behind the US in Iraq. But they eventually began to believe that Howard was Bush’s bitch and he was hammered in the last election, replaced by the very liberal Paul Rudd. The Aussies are very nationalistic and have a major colonial chip on their shoulder - its not for nothing they spend kazillions getting medals at the Olympics - they feel it validates them as a nation. To be honest they’re the least liked of all the nations down that part of the world - they’re kind of the USA of that region.
“…they’re kind of the USA of that region.” Both countries have more in common with each other than they have with any other countries. They are also historically probably a better ally than Britain. I believe Austrailia has fought with the US in every conflict during the 20th century, including that little foray into Arkhangelsk.
Has anyone seen this yet, it seems to turn the whole story line of the Georgia conflict on its head:
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/08/the-truth-about-1.php
Totten is a straight shooter, but he does not have the background to know if what he is being told is truth. I don’t know anything about Worms or Goltz, so I can’t say if they have an axe to grind. Here is a bit from the article:
“Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.”
“The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994.”
This is the first time I ever heard this.
The link doesn’t work, not for me anyway.
Goltz does have an agenda. I used to copyedit him. He is much better than Felgy though.
Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994.
The origin of the conflict will never be identified. At this point to blame one side or the other is only a declaration of where you stand. The beginning of the conflict is more like a dog obsessively chasing its tail. At some point you wonder if the dog is chasing the tail or the tail is chasing the dog. If commentators would dig in the Russian news a few weeks before the big war happened, they will find that the Georgians and Ossetians had been taking potshots at each other throughout July.
Here is what Kommersant reported on 4 August:
“Напомним, ситуация в непризнанной республике обострилась 1 августа, когда как со стороны Грузии так и со стороны Южной Осетии начались взаимные перестрелки. В итоге к 4 августа потери обоих сторон составили шесть человек погибших и около 20 раненых. Южноосетинские военные заявили утром 4 августа, что им удалось нанести “серьезный ущерб” грузинской стороне.”
As far as Georgian peacekeepers being fired upon, I found one reference to that, from KomPrav of all places, but there is no reason to prioritize that incident over any of the others.
Correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I know the peacekeepers were a trinational group of Ossetians, Russians and Georgians.
Moscow has formally recognised Abkhazia and South Ossetiya as independent:
http://www.rte.ie/news/2008/0826/georgia.html
I betcha they’re partying.
Makes sense Sean. The link seems to work only part of the time. Seems to be getting a lot of traffic today, might work better latter tonight.
Wanted to post one more section, to get people’s thoughts:
“On the evening of the 7th, the Ossetians launch an all-out barrage focused on Georgian villages, not on Georgian positions. Remember, these Georgian villages inside South Ossetia – the Georgians have mostly evacuated those villages, and three of them are completely pulverized. That evening, the 7th, the president gets information that a large Russian column is on the move. Later that evening, somebody sees those vehicles emerging from the Roki tunnel [into Georgia from Russia]. Then a little bit later, somebody else sees them. That’s three confirmations. It was time to act.
“What they had in the area was peacekeeping stuff, not stuff for fighting a war. They had to stop that column, and they had to stop it for two reasons. It’s a pretty steep valley. If they could stop the Russians there, they would be stuck in the tunnel and they couldn’t send the rest of their army through. So they did two things. The first thing they did, and it happened at roughly the same time, they tried to get through [South Ossetian capital] Tskhinvali, and that’s when everybody says Saakashvili started the war. It wasn’t about taking Ossetia back, it was about fighting their way through that town to get onto that road to slow the Russian advance. The second thing they did, they dropped a team of paratroopers to destroy a bridge. They got wiped out, but first they managed to destroy the bridge and about 15 Russian vehicles.
“The Georgians will tell you that they estimate that these two actions together slowed the Russian advance by 24 to 48 hours. That is what the world considered to be Misha’s game. And you know why the world considers that? Because here in South Ossetia was the head of the peacekeeping troops. He hasn’t been in Iraq, he’s a peace keeper What have they been told for the last four years? They lived in a failed state, then there was the Rose Revolution – it wasn’t perfect but, damn, now there’s electricity, there’s jobs, roads have been fixed – and what the Georgians have had drummed into them is that Georgia is now a constitutional state, a state of law and order. And everybody here knows that Ossetia is a gangster’s smuggler’s paradise. The whole world knows it, but here they know it particularly well. The peacekeepers had a military objective, and the first rule of warfare when you’re talking to the media is not to reveal to your enemy what you’re going to do. So they weren’t going to blather into a microphone and say well, actually, I’m trying to go through Tskhinvali in order to stop the Russians. So what did he say instead? I’m here to restore constitutional order in South Ossetia. And that’s it. With that, Georgia lost the propaganda war and the world believes Saakashvili started it. And the rest of the story…you know.”
“Let me make a couple of comments,” Goltz said.
“That,” Worms said, “to the best of my knowledge, is all true.”
“Let’s just start at the ass end,” Goltz said to me. “This is your first time to the lands of the former Soviet Union?”
“Yes,” I said.
“The restoration of constitutional order,” he said, “may sound just like a rhetorical flourish with no echo in the American mindset. What it means in the post-Soviet mindset is what Boris Yeltsin was doing in Chechnya. This was the stupidest phrase this guy possibly could have used. That’s why people want to lynch him.”
Yes, Chris. There were Georgian peacekeepers too. I read somewhere (don’t remember where) that the Russian peacekeepers guessed sommething serious was about to happen when the Georgians disappeared.
Jason, I’m purposefully writing this before checking out Totten’s site. I’ve visited his blog several times in the past and came to the conclusion that he’s not very reliable. I get the impression that besides cultivating the image of the macho independent reporter/writer, he does attempt to write honestly. He’s badly hampered, though, by three things: (1)he has a strongly held but limited point of view, (2) his knowledge is rather superficial, and (3) he’s too gullible and impressionable. That third one is, in my opinion, his main weakness. Although sometimes he professes some skepticism about this or that, he all too willingly believes what his handlers or guides tell him.
(Let me say again, I have not read any of his Georgia related stuff.)
Days ago, shortly after the Russian troops occupied Tskinvali, I read a couple reports of journalists who were stuck there during the Georgian attack. One of the common threads in their narrative is that while the Ossetians were holding on they started to believe that Russia decided to abandon them. The Russian troops came much later than the Ossetians thought should come.
In other words, while the Georgians (and others) claimed that all this was pre-planned because the Russians were so quick in their deployment, the Ossetians thought that they were destined to fight the Georgians on their own and then were somewhat upset at the slowness of the advance of the Russian troops.
I would also like to call your attention to the fact that this version of events is in complete contradiction to everything the Georgians said up to the attack on Tskhinvali. There was not a word about Russian troops, but a lot about “restoring constitutional order.” Read Saak’s speech.
I doubt Boney M could be tempted to come back and play another peace concert. Or, they might be partying like it is 1999.
As for recognition, most ‘analysts’ got it wrong, including the russian ones who made it in to the western media. I did comment that the Russians might do it out of ’spite’ and not to underestimate the calculating hand of Putin, but I didn’t really expect it either.
That’s another substantial white rabbit out of the Putin hat then.
All eyes on Azerbaidjan. There’s a rumor that the Azeris are going to start diverting their energy supplies via the russian pipeline network as BTC is ‘not secure’ - which is of course denied by the Azeris. It will be interesting to see whether they start cancelling some of their military contracts and start distancing themselves from NATO, more specifically the US and Turkey.
The more I come to think of it, what if Saakashvili had been successful? Could you then imagine the Azeris taking the cue and retaking Ngorno-Karabakh with the western media peddling stories of armenian ‘provocation’ whilst Azeri troops are slaughtering the Armenians left, right and center (as they are wont to do)? As unlikely as it could have been (armos being the hardcore soldiers that they are and having the ultimate secret weapon, Cher), it is a quite, quite disturbing idea.
The fault lines of history for the next decades are finally now falling into place. It’s just great to be around when all this is going on!
Heh. I like how Goltz is playing tour guide for the rube.
”As unlikely as it could have been (armos being the hardcore soldiers that they are and having the ultimate secret weapon, Cher), it is a quite, quite disturbing idea.”
Cher could empty pubs early in Ireland. Which means basically she’s the ultimate ultimate total WMD.
Pardon my ignorance, who is this Goltz guy?
Alexander Goltz is a writer on military manners. He’s pretty likeable in person.
Thanks, Chris. If you know his work, how do you assess it? Fair and balanced (not Fox News “fair and balanced”)? Trustworthy? Too biased?
Kolya, I agree completely with your characterization of Totten. His posts on Serbia were a bit frustrating. This post seems to be pretty much just a transcript of what he was told by his guides, there wasn’t much room in it for his bias to show through.
So Chris, would you say that Goltz is trustworthy? Is he susceptible to Georgian propaganda?
If there was some truth to this narrative of events, it seems that the Georgians would have presented it to the world/UN by now. Maybe they have, and I just haven’t been paying attention. Kolya, I do remember reading about those accounts of the South Ossetians complaining that the Russian’s had forsaken them in the first days of the conflict, but I took it as them thinking that the Russians didn’t have the spine to stand up to the Georgians and/or care about them enough to come to their rescue.
If the account is mostly true, I have to hand it to Putin and his military advisers, they pulled of very clever military campaign to separate Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia. Not something I ever imagined the Russian intelligence/military organizations were capable of doing. Always assumed they were all about brute force and no planning.
Did the Russians really initially ‘forsake’ the ossetians or were they just providing Saakashvili with plenty rope to hang himself?
Is it not possible that an instant response by Russia could have been too easily spun away? By waiting, Russia provided the western media the undoubted facts about Georgia’s intentions that directly contradicted Georgia’s own statements about bring ‘order and peace to the territories’.
Russia may have ‘lost’ the PR war (well, it is still going on so it may be too early to really say), but I think this shows that they did land some very heavy and effective blows, even taking an not insignificant military by not responding immediately.
And the response of the rest of the world (i.e. not the ‘International Community’ which is often used interchangeably with ‘the West’??? We’ve been told that the world condemns russian actions, but where are the quotes, the tv broadcasts by other world leaders in Asia, South America, Africa?
On second thoughts, it is also interesting to see that Russia has actually kept the PR initiative (at a Russia-West level) by rolling out over the last few days one-by-one announcements that it is not really bothered with the G8, then the WTO, then NATO cooperation etc. It has denied western leaders some really easy empty rhetoric leaving them to scrabble around with threats of an undefined nature. I think the Russians are playing the PR game in their own way, a bit of west with a bit of east.
I wonder what they will come up with at the next YMCA meeting - I mean SCO meeting.
“Thanks, Chris. If you know his work, how do you assess it? Fair and balanced (not Fox News “fair and balanced”)? Trustworthy? Too biased?”
I USED to know his work. I thought it was OK, taking my paltry knowledge of the subject matter into account — I don’t know anything about military matters, so whatever. He wasn’t nearly as strident and ridiculous as Felgenhaur (FWIW I’ve been told they hate each other). I ran into him a few times at the Russia Journal when he came in to pick up his pay and we exchanged a few words now and then on the landing, and he seemed like a nice guy. I can’t judge his competency on this particular matter, except that I think he’s wrong.
The thing is, the bread and butter for Felgy and him is that they have a largely Western audience. Let’s face it — Felgy’s stuff is written for JRL. That doesn’t mean that everything they say is wrong. What it does mean is that they’ve been passed through the acceptability filter. If they didn’t write that way, they wouldn’t have an audience. It’s a bit like Kagarlitsky — there are lots of leftwing writers in Russia, but he’s the only one who writes like a Western leftist (he talks about “neoliberalism” and “world systems theory” and says nice thing about Trotsky and so forth), so he’s the only one that gets printed. Thus, they serve the role of the native guide who says what we think he should say.
I thought this bit from the Onion was pretty funny:
U.S. Advises Allies Not To Border Russia
August 25, 2008 | Issue 44•35
WASHINGTON—Following Russia’s controversial military excursions into neighboring Georgia, the Bush administration made its most direct commitment to the U.S.’s Eastern European allies to date by “strongly advising” those countries not to border Russia under any circumstance. “The United States stands by its allies, but will not be able to defend our friends in the region if they continue to share geographical lines with Russia,” Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said at a Monday press conference. “We also recommend that those nations who may not border Russia but were once a part of the USSR immediately cease and desist from having had that history with the Soviet Union.” Rice later pledged financial aid to the victims of devastating flooding in the West African nation of Togo, effective upon the country first meeting the stipulation of removing itself from under water.
C-M ‘If they didn’t write that way, they wouldn’t have an audience.’
I profoundly agree except you can add for many journalists “a career”. This brake on real freedom of the press is very widespread. It is not usually that a censor says “say this dont say that” it is that if you step outside the narrative that is acceptable to owners of media and the government you get put into quarantine with no job. If you have a mortgage and children etc this is not a joke.
I am lucky writing for a small niche outfit and am old and useless but even I get the red pencil if I suggest too often that Russia might have a point of view. This very quickly becomes “anti Americanism” .
In addition instructions do go down the line to the main media on certain selected subjects. There was a serious and obvious attempt to bury the fact that Saakashvili tried to take of S O by force. The Litvinenko, Anna Politskaya and in Lebanon Hariri assassination cases were typical. A real hurricane of bias swept over the nominated “baddies” Putin, Syria whoever. There is currently a clear campaign to smother the fact that under the Moscow Accords of August the 12th the Russians are almost certainly entitled to be where they are in Georgia. Watch the weazle words of the diplomats and note the silence of experienced journalists who understand what’s good for them.
The very experienced and reputable “satirical” magazine Le canard Enchainé says that US personnel helped in the attack on 7/8 quoting sources in French intelligence. The also say they “advised “ it. No one has picked this up and run with it. I have translated it and sent to JRL. I am not hopeful. Incidentally it looks as if the very successful operation Storm in 1995 when the Yugoslav army was routed by a surprise attack by the Croatians advised and helped by US personnel was the model for Saakashvili. It completely transformed the war. The details of how it was planned make interesting reading.
The counter balance to all this is the internet which sets up a countervailing pressure on journalists not to write stuff that is too ridiculously biased.