That Bad Old Russian Bear

I agree, I love how the western media, not just in UK, but in my country of the USA has been trying their best to spin that Russia was the aggressor, when in fact significant military action was instigated by Georgia when it tried to level the South Ossetian capital. The Kosovo parallel is all to real no matter how arrogant the West is in saying that Kosovo is a "unique" situation (blah, blah, blah). NATO (western Europe and the US in particular) have been ignoring, poking and prodding the "Russian bear" until, at long last, the Russians had had enough. Putin told everyone that Kosovo would set a terrible precedent and lo and behold, the West is reaping what it sowed. I consider myself a Reaganite and believe me, that great man envisoned the US, Europe and ,after "glasnost", Russia pulling together to make the world a better place. I do not believe Reagan would have condoned the tearing apart of a country's territorial integrity like the West did with Serbia and giving independence to the separatist ethnic Albanians in Kosovo (there's no such thing as a Kosovar). It was only a matter of time before the Kosovo precedent would come full circle to bite the West on the rear end.

The reason that the English seem to hate the Russians is that they don't seem to like competition. The U.S. and Britain are the two largest imperialist countries in the world, albeit the latter partly lost that status many years ago. There seems to be a belief in those two countries that they are always right and the rest of the world is wrong. Russia is doing to Georgia what Britain and the U.S. have been doing for years: invading other sovereign nations and not giving a damn about what the world thinks. This is the true mark of an imperialist. Britain got rich by colonizing weak countries and stealing their resources. The U.S. got rich by employing thousands of slaves to build up their country. Obviously, slaves do not cost very much. However, there is competition. Russia is coming back as a great power and is doing what the U.S. and Britain did in Serbia, Afghanistan, and Iraq. Bush's comments about the Russian invasion of Georgia, specifically that nations do not invade other sovereign nations, is laughable. As for the vitriol coming from the British and the U.S., do not forget how much oil and gas is shipped by Russia to Western Europe. All this talk of punishing Russia for its attack on Georgia is a lot of manure peddled by Bush and Brown. Maybe the U.S. and Britain should be punished for their attacks on sovereign countries. The British still dream about their lost empire while the American empire is running its course. Western power and influence are on the wane. It is Asia that will define this century. And the Americans and the British know it. Putin knew full well when he invaded Georgia that the West would never retaliate with military force. When you have a massive nuclear arsenal, your aggressor will think twice about going on the offensive. It should be embarassing to every American and British citizen to see their leaders scolding the Russians and at the same time ignoring the atrocities committed by the U.S. and Britain in Iraq. Finally, the placement of anti-ballistic missile sites in some Eastern European countries will now leave those nations vulnerable to attack. If hostilities ever broke out between East and West, the logical response of Russia would be to take out those missiles with nuclear weapons. It is a sad world we live in when one country in particular, the U.S. is trying to dominate the whole world by trying to contain the competion. It is not going to work. Putin has won this round. Abkhazia and South Ossetia will never be a part of Georgia again, in spite of what Bush and Brown are saying. They will not risk military confrontation with Russia. Doing to Georgia what the U.S. and Britain did to Serbia.

You are stretching Mr Tanner. If you think that the British ‘hate’ Russians you clearly have not been reading the talkboards, most commentators on which appear to think that the sun shines from Putin’s colon. You clearly have not been to the Russian orthodox churches in London and elsewhere, bought products from the numerous Russian shops, nor have you seen the many Russians who live in Britain. They even own football clubs you know! If you want another perspective, I suggest the self-parody that is Russia Today (sky TV 512). Have you thought for a moment that maybe those cartoons and articles are not some knee-jerk hate but actually have some truth, however unpalatable you may find it? The British press have used this (badly) as a stalking horse to get other issues off their chest but the coverage has not been as one-eyed as you suggest. Not even close. I doubt very much that Putin cares about the western media nearly as much as media commentators suggest he does, but the comment pages are the end-point of this whole, ‘no one likes us we don’t care,’ attitude. I don’t think Putin has exactly gone out of his way to seek popularity. Of course the voices of the people on the ground do not matter. Are you blind? This is a superpower media war – the people stopped mattering a very long time ago. We are into picking powers now nothing else. That applies to Russia and others. Comparisons with Kosovo are not as exact as you suggest in this article, Saakashvili is no Milosevic by any stretch of the imagination. Where the situations seague together is in debates regarding the sanctity (or not) of territorial integrity and sovereignty. It is no doubt difficult to try and uphold these principles following the Kosovo episode, especially by those most involved. Indeed Mr Tanner one aspect you could have mentioned is the flip-side of Russia’s take on Kosovo. Surely Russia was ‘involved’ in Kosovo, albeit at a distance of 4,000 miles. That is, it is unclear where Russian support for Serbia now comes from given that Russian foreign policy has shifted away from territorial integrity being respected. It would be interesting to know if Moscow talked this through with Belgrade. If Georgia’s borders are not inviolable surely Serbia’s are not inviolable? Or is that an equivalence we are less keen on? Moreover, Kosovo was not exactly the first case where it has been demonstrated that sovereignty and territorial integrity are merely as good as a state's ability to preserve them from disintegrating. Kosovo is just the most recent, and given its geography, most debated. I can not deny Kosovo has given Russia plenty of food for arguing its power play over South Ossetia. If the principle of cutting a region from a state which is (justifiably or otherwise) perceived by that region as oppressive, can be applied in Kosovo, why not in Ossetia? That then leads though to questions of why such support for the principle in Ossetia but not for Chechnya? Well why Kosovo but not Palestine then? Of course it is rank hypocrisy but you can not seriously tell me that is exclusive to NATO countries? Indeed one really interesting point that has also been massively under covered in the media is that after a week of war-deaths and rampage, the UN could not issue a ceasefire resolution because, it would seem, wording could not be agreed! Clearly they need a standard template or something saying 'separate and stop shooting.’ The UN has proved itself useless and it is fortunate that the EU was capable of performing the UN's role far better than the UN itself. In the end, whatever the rows and debates, I can only hope that all military aggression will come to a rapid end, and that the people of Georgia (whatever their future) will no longer have to suffer the intrigues of international relations. For what it is worth Mr Tanner I think your instincts are correct and that separation in both Kosovo and Ossetia is, in the long run, best. I just don’t like the present terms in either case. And as to Iraq – I was ambivalent then and remain ambivalent about action there. But Iraq was a state, rightly or wrongly, held by every intelligence agency around the world to be a threat. That includes UN figures. Russia has invaded a country for not much more than daring to look West. Your surprisingly lazy moral equivalence is not wise. There is much to say about Iraq, but it is not as relevant to Georgia as you want it to be. It is not nice when the media make issues like war into a stalking horse for other gripes – you should not stoop to that level however great the temptation. Best of luck to you.

Didn’t we – by which I mean the US, Britain and NATO, do much the same in Kosovo as the Russians are doing in South Ossetia, ie override the doctrine that nations have a right to do whatever they want within their national borders on the grounds that a higher principle of human rights was involved? Yes, but in the case of Russia the human rights argument is obviously bogus.

You're right on one thing. UK has no right to lecture Russia on morality here as any trace of morality from US and UK vanished when they join in the strikes against Serbia. The similarities between Ossetia and Kosovo don't exist because Kosovo was majority Serbian until after WW2 when Serbs were stopped from returning and great numbers of Albanians were allowed in to settle there making Albanians the majority. The systematic ethnic cleansing of remaining Serbs started to take place and the high birth rate of Albanians was taking place for decades and so we ended up with majority Albanians there. Does this give them the right to secede? Do we reward this behaviour by tearing a chunk of Serbia out to give to Albanians? How about the Muslims is the UK. A majority Muslim area in England would have the same right to secede from simply because they won't come under British rule any more. It might happen in a few years. Are you going to apply the same principle there? South Ossetia was always populated by Russians. They did not expel any Georgians to make them the majority there. Big difference.

"Yes, but in the case of Russia the human rights argument is obviously bogus." And in the case of Kosovo, it's was *all* about human rights, right? Double standards, if you ask me...

Yes, but in the case of Russia the human rights argument is obviously bogus. Ronzer u 4got to say whos rights! In your point of view, only the people who pleases to UK and US have the right of selfdetermination!? Ossetians and abhazians are garbage for you? They don't have the right to chose with whom they want to live because Bush and Browny don't want.They created Kosova, there will be now more kosavas.

`Yes, but in the case of Russia the human rights argument is obviously bogus' Hmmm! 2000 South Ossetians murdered in one night. I think that is a Human Rights question. Thank God Russia is there to Fight for Freedom, Democracy and for innocent civillians. We all know that England and America gave the green light to the Georgians, (on the night of the Olympic Opening Ceremony) just like they gave the go ahead for the ethnic cleansing of 350,000 Serbians from the Krajina region of Croatia.

I thought I was going mad....

Peggy - Kosovo did not have a Serb majority at any time in the twentieth century. You should check your facts. Michael - The NATO intervention in Kosovo was mainly about preventing another humanitarian catastrophe on the scale of Bosnia. You can hardly say the same thing about Russia's recent behaviour in Georgia. Alex - The US and UK didn't give the green light for ethnic cleansing in Serbia. The defeat of the Republika Srpska Krajina was vital to end the war in Bosnia. Remember what happened in Srebrenica - a bit worse than what happened to the Serbs in Krajina, no?

ronzer, i belive that you belong to a group of people that got "youngest state in the world" recently. since you know the feeling, why not letting ossetians and abkhazians feel the same? speaking oppenly, i wouldn let neither kosovo, nor south ossetia or abhkazia gain independence with out agreement with central government... if international law still exists... if not, face the world where stronger makes rules, and where law no longer exist.

i dont think we english hate russia , the average man on the street couldnt care less. Of course, the man on the street doesn't have the loudest voice, these days that belongs to the liberal media elites whose opinion is usually the polar opposite of everyone elses.

Ronzer, The Serbs were a slight majority before WW2 and that's a fact. They were driven out by the Nazis and Albanians and prevented to go back after the war by Tito. Maybe you should get to know what happened around that time a little better. Let's say that they weren't a majority at all ever, but were they ever only 10%? When did Albanians become 90% and Serbs only 10% in Kosovo? So then, who was ethnically cleansed from Kosovo? Please spare me the humanitarian disaster argument. It's a well known fact that NATO bombed to drive the Serbs out so that they can take control of Kosovo with pretence that Albanians needed another country. All those inflated figures of the dead is just that,inflated. Tell me where the mass graves are and who is in them. Propaganda is a wonderful tool to use in war. The first casualty of war is the truth and Kosovo was no different.

2000 Ossetian civilians were killed in one night? That is what Russian propaganda says in order to justify the invasion of a sovereign state. Please, check the Human Rights Watch report on the issue according to which civilian casualties were 44 in Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital. A recent example of Russian "humanity and respect to human rights": http://www.truthnews.net/world/2008080106.htm http://jurist.law.pitt.edu/hotline/2008/08/russian-attacks-in-georgia-show-need.php I was trying to follow Serbian media coverage on the issue. It is obvious that unfortunately Serbs are ready to support their "big brother" blindly and are desperately trying to justify their actions. That's the reason why this kind of "alternative" articles appear to be quoted on different web-sites. In the mainstream Balkan media, it is obvious that they just "copy-paste" Russian sources (maybe someone has also to remind them that there is no longer such a notion as an independent Russian media and it is just a tool of the Putin regime). Before you believe in Russian propaganda, please, remember the western media coverage of the Balkan wars during Milosevic and the monster they have created from Serbs and Serbia. Again, Russian actions in Georgia show that the "big brother" does not care less about the minor Slav "sibling" when it comes to its own “strategic” interests (in this case controlling the Caucasus and the alternative pipelines from the Caspian). After Russian dismemberment of its neighboring Georgia, Serbs were deprived the last hope of getting Kosovo back.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/15/AR2008081503319.html

Why does the complacent MT expect his fellow-Londoners to feel benevolent towards a country that sends assassins over here to bump off its enemies with radioactive materials, without the slightest concern for exposing ordinary working people to the materials in the process? Silly controversialism.

Alex - The US and UK didn't give the green light for ethnic cleansing in Serbia. The defeat of the Republika Srpska Krajina was vital to end the war in Bosnia. Remember what happened in Srebrenica - a bit worse than what happened to the Serbs in Krajina, no? My friend the sccenario that was plannad for Ossetia was the same as croatian in Krajna! The same authors only the place was different.The same fast actions as planned by US only this time didn't work...I was under russian occupation almost all my life.I want to tell U that russians can not be hypocrites as US-UK are.They will never strike first but if u started you're in trouble. US gave absolutely the green light to this massacre and OSCE new about this one day before but they didn't tell to russians..and i guess you know why.English never loved russians and may be u know why to...they have been the biggest rival in Europe and the brithish lion has the teeth to small for this bear.How many times in the past the UK-US have tried to seize at least a piece of land(intervention in siberia with the americans after revolution, war in Crimea, far east again with the americans) .The glory of your empire has fallen. And u can nothing to do.

Comparisons with Kosovo are not as exact as you suggest in this article, Saakashvili is no Milosevic by any stretch of the imagination Let me say U that I'm agree with You...this man is much more cinic and cruel than Milosevic. And CNN ,BBC, SKy news show him as a hero.Have U seen how he is chewing his tie? There is a big mental problem and the »the democrtatic and just west« is looking for a new »democratic« president in Georgia...I don't think that tis site is not pro-american,after all here is the american money to...

I don't think it's at all true to say "why do the English hate the Russians so much?" Perhaps - and none of these facts are mentioned in your blog - the cumulative actions of Putin and his KGB cronies are stirring a deep sense of unease in all relatively democratic societies. First there was Chechnya (round II, 1999) when Putin's forces levelled a city (Grozny) with artillery fire based on the idea that the Chechens had planted bombs in Moscow apartment buildings, a notion widely discredited. Then there has been the dismantling of Russia's nascent free media, the arrest and imprisonment of businessmen who dared to fund opposition political parties, the steady drip-drip-drip of assassinations of Putin's critics, people who claim that the heirs of Stalin's secret police, Putin's KGB were in actual fact responsible for much of the killing and nearly all the political and economic blackmail that has brought Russia to where it is today. Perhaps the main reason why Putin's regime is so unpopular in the UK is due to a rather famous murder committed in London more than a year ago involving a rare radioactive substance. After a lengthy investigation, Scotland Yard believes it found it's man. He's a "former" KGB member who is now a Russian MP. Like the murders of so many of Putin's critics and opponents, the Russian authorities are not pro-actively seized with solving this one. Go figure.

It's very amusing how this article spins the issue of Russian military involvement on foreign soil into British hatred of Russia, and how readers spin it even further into UK/US imperialism. Sorry, but you will have to do much better than that. The reason why western press is hostile to Russia's involvement is because it flies in the face of Russia's vehemently stated foreign policy of non-intervention. It exposes the extreme hypocrisy of Russia's stance on Kosovo, and its condemntation of other countries. Yes, you are all very right in pointing out the parallels between South Ossetia and Kosovo, unfortunately, your conclusions are skewed. The US and other western countries are not preaching one thing and doing another; they freely admit it is ok to override the doctrine of territorial integrity in special humanitarian cases of genocide and ethnic cleansing. It is Russia that claims the extreme position of respecting territorial integrity over all else, then blatantly uses the humanitarian argument to intervene in Georgia. At least the west doctrinally supports its actions, while Russia is preaching one thing, then using the western line as a pretext to do whatever is convenient for them. Under those conditions, even if Russia is justified, nobody should be surprised or offended when western press see Russia's arguments as hollow and opportunistic, perhaps even done out of spite in retalliation for Kosovo. And it is quite backward to accuse the west of hypocrisy over kosovo, when it is Russia that's acting inconsistently, and after the fact. The question this article should pose is, why does Russia hate the US/UK so much? Why when the west invades they are evil imperialist bastards, but anything that Russia does is virtuous and for the good of all mankind? You don't have to agree with Kosovo independence, but let's not exaggerate the crimes of one side and completely justify the crimes of the other side either, let's be balanced and consistent in our opinions no matter which country is commiting the act.

Peggy, Evidently you are one of those people who have never been to Bosnia, where there are many, many ,mass graves. I served in the NATO peace effort in BiH in 2001 and have in some cases seen for myself. Like so many people, you simply hate the idea that Serbia attempted to build a "Greater Serbia" and that Serbian nationalism DID create this ideology. Greater Serbia was to be built on the graves of countless Bosnian Muslims, 98% of which were civilians. But don't worry about the mass graves, what about the rape camps, the hundreds of accounts of brutality and murder? Ohhh, all lies, right? Please..for me, read Laura Silber's "Yugoslavia Death of a Nation", or "Love Thy Neighbor" by Peter Maas, PLEASE read it. IT's what happened. It doesn't matter that you hate the fact that Serbs acted in this way, and committed the worst acts of genocide since WW2, which you seem to like to talk about. Have you ever been to the Balkans Peggy, do you speak Serbo-Croat? You certainly write with an authority and "grasp" of the situation as though you've spent a great deal of time there, but somehow, I don't think that's the case, but just for you, (maybe you can find someone who can translate for you) "Jebes Zemlju Koja Bosnu Nema"...

end the means by which one side engages in ethnic cleansing and possibly genocide, insert an international 'peacekeeping' or stabilisation force, pour in money, men and materiel and then... ensure that no territorial changes occur. Simple. This was not done in Kosovo; as vile as many of neo-imperialist Russia's actions may be in the caucasus, please tell me why the South Ossetians cannot demand the same treatment and status as the Kosovars?

It's funny everytime you see an AK47/74/103/101/etc. in action...you see a part of the world in conflict. And it's also funny how everytime you see a terrorist suspect, you also see an AK47/74/103/101/etc. in action. It's so funny even the other side statrs loving it...

Let's be sometimes unreasonably simple in the riddle of explicitly complicated matters.

True enough, the British establishment has hated the Russians and Serbs for a very long time, even aiding and abetting the long Ottoman Turkish oppression of Eastern Europe. What the world does not know (and refuses to believe) is that the entire Western establishment (governments, newspapers, magazines, broadcast media, etc.) is jerked around by the monied elite of the sort documented in Eustace Mullins' "Secrets of the Federal Reserve". Meyer Amschel Bauer (Baron Rothschild's) manifesto of 1743 is still being fulfilled in chillingly fine detail if one but looks around. As for you animus toward Serbs and their increasingly dismal plight in Kosovo, you show your moral abandon, Mr. Tanner, when you ignore the massive ethnic cleansing of Serbs from their home territories under NATO agression, our continued threats to their people for no reason other than that they don't happen to welcome U.S. State Dept. dicta (as in northern Kosovo and the Republika Srpska) and now the final coup de gras with the installation of a World Bank official as Serbia's prime minister. The war crimes of the civilian bombings (train at Grdelica, the Belgrade hospital, the factories, the school, the nursing home, the refugee column ... even the Chinese embassy), these don't count, so they? As Pope wrote, might makes right, doesn't it? So why even remember Robert Burns? After all, we have all we need in that guru of gurus, Gen. Wesley Clark, who thought it'd do no harm to order the British commander, Sir Michael Jackson, to attack the Russians in 1999. I suppose that was because of Putin, too, wasn't it?

Regarding mass media, I was amazed that, while Tskinvali looked like a moonscape with virtually every building damaged or in ruins (roofs missing, burned out, blacked by flames, windows missing - even the frames, etc), and the BBC send its correspondent to the Georgian town of Gori to report on a couple of slightly-cracked panes of glass from a shop front, as if there is a serious comparison for damage. You see worse in British inner city run down shopping precincts than you did in Gori. And then you have CNN passing off images of the devastation of Tskinvali as Russian attacks on Gori. Literally unbelievable. It is disingenuous, biased, and misleading reporting like this by the BBC and CNN that helps fuel the Slavophobia in the other media outlets who feed on the scraps.

I wonder how bad and for how long Kosovo has to be for Mr. Tanner to change his mind that NATO 'plastic' bombing was good? Sure, it is a paradise for everyone who isn't albanian, a perfect EU candidate territory then... As for bigotry and racism against Russia, well firstly it is limited politico-media driven. Most people have no particular strong opinion about Russia, they're too busy trying to cope with gas/oil price rises and inflation from their governments incompetent handling of the economy. I doubt that anything in Georgia is going to make them better off. Part of the reason could be that Russia has exposed all the weaknesses of the euro-atlantic 'relationship' in such a blatant manner. For all NATO's wars over its 'credibility' (yes, in 1999 NATO did actually say that it's credibility was at stake), it is shown to be a creature of the night, the living dead. Something that has no place in this world and should have been packed away in the early 1990's. Well, the West got integration with Russia by destroying its economy through mass privatization (to stop the commies coming back) and now moans it can't punish Russia like in the good old days. The West made their own bed but don't want to sleep in it. The west's sleep deprivation will have to be satisfied. Russia has long been pushing for a strategic agreement with the EU, but the EU and the US (allies) have stymied such a plan when they could have had it on their terms. It is too late now to dictate to Russia. The West threw away its chances in the 1990s by not doing anything. After all, it 'won' the Cold War...

Brian, you seem to speak from a very biased point of view. Are you by any chance connected to either Croats of Bosnian Muslims? If you were in Bosnia and have seen all the suffering, I am very surprised that you don't mention about the Serbian suffering and ethnic cleansing. One does not need to have been there to know. There are many reports which have come out of the region. I have read quite a bit about that war and have seen for myself the lies portrayed to the world as the truth. Perhaps reputable people like John Pilger, Noam Chomsky and General Lewis MacKenzie in your opinion speak lies too. You seem to be so fixated on the suffering of the Muslims but totally ignore that Muslims have commited horrible crimes against the Serbs. The Croats have done the same. Please don't tell me that you belive that two sides (Muslims and Croats) have someohow experienced genocide from one side only. The Serbs must indeed be super men to have been able to conquer them. It simply is not logical. The Muslims received quite bit of help from the Arab world. Weapons and men and the Croats received help from Mr. Clinton. Now both of these sides were well armed and helped from outside but somehow the Serbs managed to inflict that much damage to them. I suggest you stop the tried and now failed propaganda that CNN used and read articles and books written by the reputable people I mentioned before. Nobody is buying that stuff any more.

I watched many news of BBC and CNN that was cut on air because the journalists or the people sayed the truth"Georgia attacked us" you can watch videos on youtube like the video (12Years Old Girl Tells the truth about South Ossetia) watch it you want regret. The yanks(usa) has no enemys anymore after fall of iraq they thinked "We are the Kings" but Putin had other plans ; ) America is loosing power and want to rise as mutch as it can via PROPAGANDA! they dont talk anymore about losses in iraq and the losses in afghanistan they keep it in secret.... if the campain would be succesfull would they keep it in Secret? Like a General Sayed: "When a lion that has been badly hurt understands that he is gonna die he starts to scratch his wounds "

The english dislike the Russians for two reason- THE RUSSIANS HAVE MORE, AND THE ENGLISH HAVE A 'SHORT MAN' COMPLEX. I think that Ireland, Scotland should have more?