There Is No Excuse For What Is Happening In Georgia
I blogged on this just yesterday, but I can’t state strongly enough that what Russia is doing in Georgia is completely unacceptable. Georgia has now withdrawn its troops from South Ossetia and called for a ceasefire, and not only does Russia refuse to recognize it, it is assaulting Georgian cities with ground forces and air strikes:
Russian tanks and troops moved through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advanced on the city of Gori in central Georgia on Sunday night, for the first time directly assaulting a Georgian city with ground forces after three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said.
Georgian tanks were dug into positions outside Gori and planning to defend the city, said Shota Utiashvili, an official in Georgia’s interior ministry. He said the city of Gori was coming under artillery and tank fire. There was no immediate comment from Russia.
A senior Western diplomat said it was unclear whether Russia intended a full invasion of Georgia. “They seem to have gone beyond the logical stopping point” to retake the separatist regions, he said.
The Bush administration said Sunday that it would seek a United Nations Security Council resolution condemning Russian military actions in Georgia. And in a heated exchange with his Russian counterpart at the United Nations, Zalmay Khalilzad, the American ambassador, accused the Kremlin of seeking to oust Georgia’s pro-Western president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
A column of Russian forces was also seeking Sunday night to enter Georgian territory from Abkhazia, another separatist enclave to the west, and Abkhaz fighters were massed at the boundary line, an Abkhaz official said in an interview.
The advance appeared to answer the question on which the conflict had been pivoting: Would Russia simply occupy the two separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, or would it push into Georgia, raising the possibility of a full-scale invasion?
A full-scale invasion MUST result in a wholesale denunciation of Russia, if it occurs. That means using whatever is available, short of military force: resolutions, sanctions, and withdrawal of diplomats. Half-hearted measures because we ‘need’ Russia to support us with our Iranian policy, or because we need Russia’s oil supplies to keep prices declining (in fact, Russia is threatening a major oil pipeline), simply will not do. What support is Russia giving us, anyway? It is because of Russia and China that we have not been more forceful with Iran’s nuclear ambitions.
Putin’s Russia looks more and more like the Soviet bear, as I blogged yesterday. When Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, the world united in opposition. No one expects ground troops from the West to get involved in a hot war with Russia, but the very least we can do is use every diplomatic and financial tool at our disposal. For those who think I exaggerate Russia’s aggression, consider the following:
Meanwhile, there [sic] the US clashed with Russia at the United Nations Security Council, accusing it of seeking “regime change” in Georgia.
The US ambassador to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, quoted Russia’s foreign minister saying Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili “must go”.
He asked his Russian counterpart, Vitaly Churkin: “Is the goal of the Russian Federation to change the leadership of Georgia?”
Mr Churkin did not directly answer the question, but said there were leaders who had “become an obstacle”.
Does anyone doubt the import of that remark?…And here is a rarity for me – quoting both the Huffington Post and Zbigniew Brzezinski with approval:
Nathan Gardels: What is the world to make of Russia’s invasion of Georgia?
Zbigniew Brzezinski: Fundamentally at stake is what kind of role Russia will play in the new international system. Unfortunately, Putin is putting Russia on a course that is ominously similar to Stalin’s and Hitler’s in the late 1930s. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has correctly drawn an analogy between Putin’s “justification” for dismembering Georgia — because of the Russians in South Ossetia — to Hitler’s tactics vis a vis Czechoslovakia to “free” the Sudeten Deutsch.
Even more ominous is the analogy of what Putin is doing vis-a-vis Georgia to what Stalin did vis-a-vis Finland: subverting by use of force the sovereignty of a small democratic neighbor. In effect, morally and strategically, Georgia is the Finland of our day
The question the international community now confronts is how to respond to a Russia that engages in the blatant use of force with larger imperial designs in mind: to reintegrate the former Soviet space under the Kremlin’s control and to cut Western access to the Caspian Sea and Central Asia by gaining control over the Baku/ Ceyhan pipeline that runs through Georgia.
In brief, the stakes are very significant. At stake is access to oil as that resource grows ever more scarce and expensive and how a major power conducts itself in our newly interdepedent world, conduct that should be based on accomodation and consensus, not on brute force.
If Georgia is subverted, not only will the West be cut off from the Caspian Sea and Central Asia. We can logically anticipate that Putin, if not resisted, will use the same tactics toward the Ukraine. Putin has already made public threats against Ukraine.
Gardels: What, if anything, can the West do to contain this revived Russian behavior?
Brzezinski: Not only the West, but the rest of the international community, must make it clear that this kind of behavior will result in ostracism and economic and financial penalties. Ultimately, if Russia continues on this course, it must face isolation in the international community — a longer range risk to its own well-being.
Make no mistake – if Russia doesn’t back off, this will get very serious indeed…
UPDATE 9:28 p.m.: Echoes of the Soviet past in the clumsy propaganda efforts of Russia, as well:
In Beijing, administration officials traveling with President Bush stepped up their pressure on Russia. “We would be particularly troubled if these attacks are continuing now as the Georgians are pulling back,” said Jim Jeffrey, deputy national security adviser. “We have made it clear to the Russians that if the disproportionate and dangerous escalation on the Russian side continues, that this will have a significant long-term impact on U.S.-Russian relations.”
…But such statements appeared to be having little impact on Russia. In a conversation with Georgia’s foreign minister, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov replied “What bombings?” when asked to halt raids on the military factory in the capital, which was struck twice Sunday, in the morning and evening. The conversation was described by a Georgian source who heard the exchange.
The blast from the second strike on the military factory reverberated across the capital, as did the buzz of bombers. The government evacuated the Defense Ministry on Sunday, fearing it could be hit. Lavrov earlier warned the government here that any facility used to support its military operations could be hit.
Georgian officials said Russian planes are flying 50 to 60 missions over Georgia a day.
In Russia, where public opinion is inflamed against Georgia, state television has aired almost no reports that military action and airstrikes on Georgia proper continue.
Another reminder that there is no real freedom of the press in modern Russia, either…
The way I see it, there is no excuse for the United States being involved in this at all. Two countries are shooting at each other on the opposite side of the planet. I’m amazed that, even after the debacle in Iraq, the American chattering class still hasn’t realized that we have neither the right nor the authority to dictate to other countries how sovereignty works.
Not to mention that, given our imperial adventures all over the place – including in Kosovo, which is a reasonably good analog of this situation – it’s downright laughable to pretend that the American government wouldn’t react in exactly the same way if this were happening on our border.
It’s absolutely appalling to me that you can write (with a straight face?) disapprovingly of Russia’s “aggression” and quote an article in which the United States government opposes Russia’s goal of “regime change”. Good God, man, it’s like no one has any perspective at all. What have we been spending our blood and treasure on in Iraq? Or Afghanistan? Let me be as clear as I possibly can be here: you and the rest of the Iraq war cheerleaders have exactly zero credibility at this moment. Putin and Medvedev have clearly been taking notes over the last couple decades, and now I wish folks like the Bush administration and the Washington Post editorial board would at least have the basic decency to be ashamed at seeing the reflection of their own saber-rattling belligerence.
I realize I’m flooding your comments, but I have one more thing lest you think I take this carnage lightly. I don’t. A lot of innocent people are dying over a pissing contest. But that’s the point: for more than 50 years, the United States has been committed to an official policy of interfering freely in the affairs of sovereign nations. When you have spent decades treating human lives like pieces on a checkerboard, you have no absolutely no authority to berate other governments for doing the same. There are a lot of Russians, Ossetians, and Georgians dying needlessly over a war that was provoked by the West, initiated by Georgia’s maniac president, and desperately hoped-for by the Russians.
If there is anything good that comes from this, I would hope it would be a realization by everyone that NATO expansion is both ludicrous and dangerous. I would also hope we all learn a lesson about the immorality of the imperialist games the West, Russia, and China have been playing for more than a half century, but I’m not holding my breath on that one.
There is a problem here, Ryan.
These are not two random countries, engaged in a border dispute.
This is the Former Soviet Union. And, not to put too fine a point on it, Russia seems intent on re-establishing its hegemony over this former Soviet Republic.
Are you really OK with Russian tanks rolling through Tbilisi? If so, how about Kiev? Or Tallinn?
In the latter case, you don’t even get a choice: the former Soviet Republic of Estonia is now a member of NATO, and we are committed, by treaty obligation, to defend its territorial integrity.
All that said, having frittered away their international credibility, over the past 7 years, this Administration has very few options — political, diplomatic, or military — to do anything about it. Ineffectual blustering is probably worse than doing nothing at all.
And so we express “grave concern”:
http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/08/11/us_voices_grave_concern_on_russia/
Also, this is the latest of many articles I’ve read that refers to Russia’s actions as “retaliation”.
No, I’m not “okay” with Russian tanks rolling through Tbilisi. But I’m not “okay” with US troops in Iraq or Kosovo, either. This claim that somehow we have some authority to tell Russia where their hegemony is allowed to extend and where it’s not, however, is a claim we are unable to make with any moral or intellectual support, as we have been extending ours into their backyard for quite a while now. Ideally, this is what international institutions like the UN are designed to handle – but we have spent that past few decades undermining the UN’s credibility to the point where there isn’t exactly a lot for us to say right here.
That said, a couple things:
1. There’s a rush to use the word “Soviet” in a lot of commentary. That’s pretty inexact. Russian hegemony over their near-abroad and a rebirth of the Soviet Union are separable things.
2. This is pretty damning evidence that the expansion of NATO to places like Estonia is utterly insane. Of course, we are now obligated to stand by some former Soviet republics, but we should think very carefully about how badly we want to provoke Russia by adding more (like, say, Georgia).
Ryan, let me merely state that your Howard Zinn-like view of the United States is disappointing and full of self-loathing. I don’t recognize the America you are talking about…or rather, I recognize it is a cartoon drawn by the far left. In the real world, serious observers both left and right are gravely concerned at this blatant attempt to dethrone a democratically elected government over a manufactured provocation…
And Iraq is not analogous, nor is Afghanistan. Afghanistan allowed the 9/11 attackers sanctuary, and was warned to turn them over. Surely everyone agrees 9/11 was a sufficient precondition for war. In Iraq, it is true that we probably should not have invaded – but we were given the authority to do so, by both the United Nations and the US Congress, recent rewriting of history notwithstanding. In neither case were we attempting to install puppet regimes in the manner of the old Soviet Union.
Mark, I wonder if you actually understand the region or the countries involved at all. Georgia’s government is roughly as democratically elected as Hussein’s Baathist government was in Iraq. Saakashvili runs a one-party state in which he was elected with 96% of the vote. He is a dictator according to every definition of that word that is the least bit sensible. Not only that, but he’s a reckless and foolish dictator who instigated a war with Russia over land populated by people who seem to prefer Russian rule to Georgian. To characterize his actions as anything other than manifestly stupid is giving him entirely too much credit.
Whether any other nations are analogous is a question we’re not going to be able to agree on so long as you persist in the fantasy that the United States is some kind of virtuous demigod and Russia is a scurrilous ne’er-do-well. In the real world, where nation-states engage in self-interested behavior (or what their leaders believe to be self-interested behavior), neither of those characterizations is the least bit true. I will be the first to say that Russia’s response has been completely out of proportion, but they are responding rationally to a series of actions:
1. Increasing US/Western encroachment on their sphere of influence. Only the most doe-eyed commentator could see the ever-eastern expansion of NATO and the recognition of Kosovo and not expect Russia to act in its own defense. This is a fairly straightforward application of the Monroe Doctrine and the Roosevelt Corollary, and it’s just as brutal as one would expect from the history of those particular pieces of foreign policy.
2. The Georgian attack on their territory. Let us not forget that Georgia started this. It was reckless and idiotic, but it was done. When you say that this isn’t analogous to Afghanistan, I wonder how you really define the situations in question. Saakashvili launched an attack on Russian soil, and Putin/Medvedev have responded by fighting back and perhaps seeking what we’ve taken to calling “regime change”. That seems somewhat similar to Afghanistan to me.
As for my Howard Zinn-like self-loathing, that’s a pretty tired response. If you think I oppose US imperialism because I don’t love my country, I have no idea what you think I have to gain by being so outspoken in my opposition.
Andrew Sullivan is excellent and slightly less reactionary than I am:
http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_dish/2008/08/those-plucky-ge.html
Ryan
You oppose a fanatsy US imperialism but not actual Russian imperialism.
The leader of Georgia is a dictator but the leaders of Russians are rational. I bet you would have thought the Poles were fools in 1939.
Self loathing is right.
We owe the Baltic States because we did nothing for 50 years while they were under brutal Soviet control. It seems pretty clear that letting the Baltics join NATO was very wise, or otherwise, Russia would be sending tanks there too.
The proper response should be immediate dispatch of 1000-2000 US troops and a squadron of fighters to each of the Baltics. A trip wire to reassure them that we won’t abandon them again.
If the Russians want to tangle with the US, fine. They won’t though. Bullies are the same on the playground as in power politics.
Bob, I oppose all imperialism. I’m merely pointing out that Russia is not acting in some kind of insane and unpredictable fashion. They are acting like an imperial power, which we have been doing for just as long as they have. The United States government has tacitly endorsed a world order governed by hegemonic control of proxy states by being its chief practitioner. For someone to have supported the Iraq War (not to mention Vietnam or virtually the entirety of Reagan/Clinton foreign policy) and then bemoan the dastardly Russians is more than a little rich, if you ask me.
As for the rest, you immediately lose all arguments in which you compare someone to Hitler. It’s a rule. As for the rest, it’s neocon belligerent fantasy. If you think the right choice is to play a game of brinkmanship with Russia over Georgia, I guess we can put that as one of the options on the table just to see how many votes it gets.
As for sending US troops to the Baltics to engage in a turf war with Russia… let’s just say that doesn’t sound like fantasy imperialism to me.
Bob:
In thinking about this more, I suspect that one of the disconnects between us is that you assume there are good guys and bad guys. I would dispute the claim that any actor here is more virtuous than any of the others. Saakashvili started this, the Russians have flown off the handle (which they were simply looking for an excuse to do), and the West has zero credibility because we (especially the US) have spent so much time, energy, and money doing things that are roughly equivalent to what the Russians are doing now. Foreign policy is no place to go in search of angels, which is why liberal internationalism and neoconservative moralism have both proven to be such ineffective guides for human action.
Ryan
You wouldn’t recognize imperialism if it punched you. The Baltic States want US help. Because the alternative is Russian rule or domination at least.
My suggestion is just a way to cement our help. I thought it went without saying that it would be with their approval and request.
And yes, there are good guys and bad guys in the world. We are the good guys. There are others but without us, there would be a lot fewer good guys.
Yes, you are exactly like Howard Zinn.
Ryan, you criticize Bob thusly:
“I suspect that one of the disconnects between us is that you assume there are good guys and bad guys.”
And you want to get on a high horse and say we have no moral standing, when you abdicate yours willfully?
You play the moral equivalence game beautifully. You have truly learned well, Chomsky…oh, sorry, Ryan…
But Ryan, in all seriousness, are you an isolationist? I’m asking an honest question…
Ah, well…the reason I asked if you are an isolationist is because under your theory of the use of U.S. military power, we had no business being involved in the European theater of WWII, either (comment #1: The way I see it, there is no excuse for the United States being involved in this at all. Two countries are shooting at each other on the opposite side of the planet.)…after all, it was Japan that attacked us – but then again, maybe we shouldn’t have been at war with Japan, either, since you apparently would have given the Taliban a pass (comment #2: It’s absolutely appalling to me that you can write (with a straight face?) disapprovingly of Russia’s “aggression” and quote an article in which the United States government opposes Russia’s goal of “regime change”. Good God, man, it’s like no one has any perspective at all. What have we been spending our blood and treasure on in Iraq? Or Afghanistan?)
Isolationism is, of course, your right to espouse, which I can only assume you do, pending your answer, but I think it’s pretty clearly a foolish hope that a country with the economic and military might of the United States can pursue an isolationist course in the 21st century.
Having said that, I’m curious as to why every government official I have seen, left or right, American or otherwise (with the predictable exception of Mikhael Gorbachev and other ex-Soviet officials) has seen Russia’s blatant provocations and power grab clearly, while only lefty bloggers and political pundits seem to not notice. Now, I would never DREAM of accusing a bestselling NY Times author and former constitutional lawyer like Glenn Greenwald, for example, of knee-jerk opposition to American foreign policy…NEVER, NEVER, NEVER! Still, it is curious that you can predict on what side of an issue the prominent lefty blogs will land before you ever even click the link, no?
Then again, I’m sure you’ll say the same about the right, and probably correctly…but I have made a point in my multiple posts so far to highlight Democratic voices as well as Republicans, Carter and Clinton officials as well as Reagan and Bush(es), as well as European voices. I have seen near-unanimity from anyone in any position of authority….
Mark, all of your responses to Ryan have been either ad hominem attacks (calling him Howard Zinn or Noam Chomsky or isolationist, all of which you use as epithets) or arguments from authority (almost all elected officials agree with me, so there), without actually addressing much of the substance of what he’s saying. And when you do address the substance, you either make gross assumptions (that Ryan wouldn’t have wanted us to be involved in WWII) or completely misinterpret what he said (you say he would have given the Taliban a pass, when he doesn’t specifically say that he would have preferred we not go into Afghanistan; only that our being there doesn’t leave us that much room for criticism when another country unilaterally invades without a mandate because of what they see as their own national interests).
I understand that you and yours agree with him, and that’s fine. But please, at least make an honest attempt to address what he’s saying, because so far, your tries have been embarrassing.
I’m not allowed to try to analyze Ryan’s statements and say that he appears to be an isolationist? I think that’s a fair interpretation of his remarks…as for ad hominem, he was the one who started barking about people having zero moral authority. As far as my arguments from authority, my point was merely that it’s quite remarkable that virtually ALL government officials worldwide that are not Russians are in agreement, is it not?
Well, okay: let’s see. We’ll take some of Ryan’s arguments at face value…Georgia is not democratic. That’s not true…we shouldn’t bait Russia by supporting freedom at its doorstep. That’s a matter of opinion, but one I certainly highly disagree with. This is just a little border skirmish with no broader international implications that we should stay out of….well, that’s certainly been disproved by world reaction. Georgia brought it on itself through its provocations…that ignores the opinion of world diplomats and government officials who see Russia as the one who has provoked Georgia endlessly…
What other points do you want me to address?
Mark, first of all, you can’t “honestly” ask me if I’m an “isolationist” because you aren’t interested in a serious conversation about it. You employ the same double standard that neoconservatives everywhere do: either you’re for dispatching US troops to every hot spot on the planet or you don’t really care about the world at all. It never occurs to you that I think a prudent and responsible foreign policy would engage with the world by respecting the rights, cultures, and prerogatives of the individual nations themselves.
What I am, and I don’t particularly see a lot of value in labels like this, is probably closer to a realist. Russia invaded Georgia because Saakashvili launched an (extremely ill-advised) attack on Russian territory. This is not materially different from our government’s actions in Afghanistan. I suppose you believe there’s no moral equivalence for some reason, although I’m not sure how you could come to that conclusion if you bothered to assess the situation objectively. Instead, you reflexively assume that whatever the United States does is for the good of all mankind rather than simply a manifestation of our governement’s view of our own best strategic interests. That said, while it doesn’t particularly matter for the purposes of this discussion, I didn’t oppose our actions in Afghanistan. That particular nation made itself a clear and present danger to our national security and needed to be dealt with. But if I were a member of the Russian government and Saakashvili started opening fire on my territory, I might well come to the exact same conclusion.
Now, on to the rest:
I will grant you up front that Georgia is democratic. So was Baathist Iraq. They hold elections in which people vote, even if people are given exactly one choice of candidate for whom to vote. But this of course lays bare the fundamental weakness of democracy promotion as an end in itself. Georgia’s government is not actually accountable to its citizens, nor is it the sort of liberal Western democracy we like to imagine when we talk about “The Spread of Democracy”. If you want to claim that Georgia deserves our help because it is member of some community of virtuous governments while Russia is not, you’re going to need more than simply “People in Georgia are allowed to vote (for one guy, who can’t lose).”
“Supporting freedom at [Russia's] doorstep” is more than a little loaded. I’ll grant it, in that I know how you feel about me describing US foreign policy as imperialism, but let’s just be clear that your underlying assumptions are highly questionable here. As I pointed out above, Georgia is not especially free by our standards. Nor is Russia especially un-free. These are two countries that are troubled by a common Soviet past working out long-standing tensions. How that is a matter of serious importance to our national security is something you’re going to have to explain very slowly and carefully to me, because I fail to see the link.
Your other points are arguments from authority. There’s no there there. I fail to see how “world reaction” can be demonstrative evidence that this war has broad international implications. Not to mention that I find it convenient for you to deploy liberal internationalist arguments when they suit you and ignore them when they don’t (see, as has been mentioned repeatedly, Iraq). I also don’t see how opinion can establish whether Georgia brought this on itself – they either did or they didn’t, so which is it? My understanding of the facts is that Georgian forces entered South Ossetia. You may correct me if you believe that is false (although it isn’t).
One last point: of course you can predict what the lefty/paleoconservative blogs are going to say in a situation like this, and of course you can predict what the mainstream/liberal internationalist/neoconservative consensus is going to say. This is pretty well-traveled ground, and there is no shame in being consistent to the point of predictability. What is shameful is being consistently wrong. We can and do disagree about whether the forces of the foreign policy consensus are wrong, but let’s at least take note that it’s not the lefties and paleocons who turned the 20th century into a bloodbath (even setting aside Hitler, who you and yours apparently believe was a good friend of mine), nor did they support the invasion of Iraq, and nor do they think it’s responsible to provoke Russia, China, and Iran into war.
Ryan, ever hear of Stalin and Mao. I think they were lefties. A little blood on their hands.
I am curious though, who do you think turned the “20th century into a bloodbath”?
Georgia is no Switzerland.
But, seriously, Ryan, you do your argument no credit by comparing it to Baathist Iraq.
Saakashvili won the last Presidential election with barely 53% of the vote. Western election observers credited the election as being fair, despite some irregularities,
So, rather than pretending that Georgia is a tin-pot dictatorship, why don’t you draw the obvious conclusion that, democracies, too, can act recklessly and aggressively?
Bob, that’s pretty unfair. If you’re going to equate the American left and paleocons with Stalin and Mao, there’s not a lot of room for us to talk here. I will gladly grant you that Stalin and Mao bear a whole lot of responsibility for the bloodshed of the 20th century, but I think it’s a bit of a stretch to go from there to a blanket indictment of all progressive criticism of US foreign policy. That is, unless you want to me blame conservative bloggers for Hitler and Mussolini, which seems equally irresponsible.
That said, I’ll answer your question. The 20th century was a bloodbath for two big reasons: brutal totalitarian regimes and the proxy-war gamesmanship of the US and the Soviet Union. The latter, with its emphasis on bringing moral order (or the United States’ and Soviet Union’s versions of moral order) to the international community, is what has birthed both liberal internationalism and neoconservatism. To be fair to the liberals, they at least can claim to be the brain children of containment rather than rollback – which makes them slightly less foolish, I guess, but still the sorts of people who thought Vietnam was a great place to go to war over.
Jacques, I apologize. Saakashvili won his initial election with 96% of the vote. Clearly there have been some improvements since then. I note also that Georgia (and Russia too!) scores a 7 for “fully democratic” on the Polity index. My objection to the claim of Georgia’s democratic credentials is withdrawn.
I will fully support your corrected version of “democracies, too, can act recklessly and aggressively.” In fact, recent allegations seem to offer some confirmation for the idea that the Bush administration warned Saakashvili against this particular course of action. “Reckless” is a particularly apt word.
Well, I’ve been out all day, as I stated in my post earlier. Ryan, I’m relieved to see that you did support the war in Afghanistan – it was not clear to me (all kidding aside) from your earlier posts – so I see that you are not a complete isolationist. However, I do think you fail to see how dangerous it is to appease (yes, appease) Russia because it doesn’t like free voices on its ‘near borders’. Note that I’m not calling you, personally, an appeaser – but I’m seeing a lot of that from lefty sources (not lefty sources with any real power, but blowhard bloggers who THINK they have power – and no, that’s not me, I know that I have no power at all, and I’m not nearly as smart as I was ten years ago – the sad truth of aging!).
It is, indeed, primarily Stalin, Mao, and Hitler who were responsible for the vast, vast loss of life in the 20th century do to idiotic things like war and ideology. The worst you can lay at the feat of the United States, even under the most left-wing interpretation, is the bomb (yes, massive civilian casualties), the firebombing of Tokyo and some German cities, and Vietnam. Now, I don’t want to suggest that this loss of life that can conceivably be laid at the feet of the U.S. (and I would argue strenuously against the first two and perhaps even the third being put on the U.S. ledger) is small or inconsequential – but it pales next to the literally tens of millions who lost their lives at the hands of the Big 3 tyrants. No one can convince me otherwise for the plain reason that the facts are indisputably on my side on this one, and I’ll provide figures if you need convincing. I’ll agree with you that it is unfair to put the American left or European left in the same boat as Stalin and Mao, nor should the right be in the same boat as Hitler and Mussolini. All of the above are extremist examples of both tendencies, and though many Americans supported Russia for far too long under Stalin, almost all eventually came around to seeing what a monster he was.
I’ll thank you to not question my ability to argue seriously when you come around throwing accusations about how any supporter of the Iraq War has ‘zero moral authority’. When you start an argument belligerently, you can’t expect a calm discussion. I’m ready to debate anything in civilized terms, and you can go a long way towards helping that by respecting your opponents.
You are one of the few people I know who still talks about ‘neocons’ (you should read the new Fareed Zakaria piece, where he notes that the former influence on Bush’s foreign policy commonly placed under the neocon rubric has been completely eclipsed, by the way), so, since you feel I am a neocon, but I’ve never considered myself one, I’ll tell you that (a) I do support Israel’s right to exist, meaning I oppose Hamas, Iran, Hezbollah, and others who do not do so, and (b) I do tend to be a hawk. So if that makes me a neocon, guilty as charged, but I would say it makes me smart. You say to-may-to, I say to-mah-to…
So, do I think the United States is some pristine, omniscient, God-like presence on the world stage? No, I do not…we are a nation with many stains on our past and present…but I also believe our country has been responsible for far more good in the world than evil. I also believe that the vast majority of our leaders, right and left, have been men of good will. I cannot say the same about Vladimir Putin, and I seriously doubt you can, either…
Let’s get one more thing clear – Godwin’s Law is being vastly abused by you to shut down honest debate. Godwin’s Law was a humorous attempt to show how flame wars on the Usenet quickly escalated into ridiculous shouting matches. The fact that I comment that Russia’s recent behavior is very reminiscent of Germany’s in 1937, as many, many people, including high European diplomats, noted publicly, is not a suitable invocation of Godwin’s Law. Nor does the fact that I made the comment on the Internet enter into it. If I called YOU Hitler-like, that would be one thing…but to call Putin Hitler-like is merely to confirm that I possess the power of observation…
“Do to” above obviously is “due to”, and “feat” is “feet” – my facilities aren’t THAT decrepit, yet!…
My facilities or faculties? Oh, my, I better quit while I’m behind…
Ryan wrote:
I really think this point needs to be driven home.
There are some people (I would call them ‘neocons’, except that Mark tells us that term is obsolete), who operate under the presumption that, just because some country is a democracy, it follows that their shit doesn’t stink.
This leads to some really bad policy prescriptions, as we have seen in the pronouncements from some quarters on this Georgia-Russia conflict (I’ll remind you that, according to John McCain, the answer is to fast-track Georgia’s admission into NATO), but in other instances as well, over the past seven years.
The world is too complicated and, frankly, too dangerous a place for such simple-minded ‘good-guys vs. bad guys’ analyses. One might hope that this conflict would serve as something of an object lesson, but I’m afraid that the neocons (or whatever it is that they are called these days) have precious little ability to learn from their mistakes.
But the world is also too dangerous a place to not believe in bad guys – and Putin is one of them. What neocon, Jacques, was involved in this conflict? Perle and Wolfowitz are long gone. Cheney had no role other than a public statement or two, and John McCain has never before been accused of being a neocon, to my knowledge.
Furthermore, you’re attacking strawmen in claiming that there is anyone who is claiming that America’s sh..er, poop, doesn’t stink. What does that have to do with anything? Ryan recently gave us a view of the world without good guys and bad guys, where the massive bloodshed of the 20th century is blamed on U.S./Soviet tension in the Cold War(!) without any acknowledgment of WWI, WWII, the Great Famine and Great Terror of Stalin, or the Cultural Revolution of Mao. This is what an analysis of history looks like when you remove the idea that there are bad guys – with the possible exception of the United States.
No, as I’ve said elsewhere, we have plenty of stains in our past and present – but there ARE bad guys out there, and you don’t have to whitewash America to believe that. If there has been an oversimplification on one side of this conflict, painting Georgia as the hero and Russia as the villain, you oversimplify on the other hand by ignoring the fact that Putin is indisputably up to no good in order to get in a cheap shot at neocons (I still can’t for the life of me see one possible reason to bring neocons into this conversation)…
Mark,
Let us stipulate that Putin is a “bad guy.”
Is he bad like Stalin or Hitler? No. Osama bin Laden? No.
But he is
1) an authoritarian
2) determined to maximize Russia’s power and influence in the world
Note that these two are not necessarily correlated. I could perfectly well imagine a Russian leader with Putin’s troublesome foreign policy, but who didn’t go around having newspaper reporters killed, and political opponents jailed on trumped-up corruption charges. You’d call such a person a “populist demagogue” and he’d still be a “bad guy” in your book, but he’d be a different sort of bad guy.
So, by itself, the “bad guy” designation doesn’t tell you much — or at least not much that is helpful — about how to deal with them. Instead, dividing the world into good guys and bad guys, and building a foreign policy around that division, just leads to an unending series of bad decisions.
John McCain’s longstanding proposal to throw Russia out of the G8 is a case in point. So is his current proposal to fast-track Georgia’s membership in NATO. Or his Iran policy, or … I could go on, but I think you get the idea.
In fairness to the benighted Senator from Arizona, it seems that Barack Obama has now also endorsed NATO membership for Georgia.
Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaargh!
Well, I won’t split hairs – I think we’re actually pretty close on this issue.
As to NATO for Georgia, in my mind, the jury is still out. I see good arguments for and good arguments against…but for practical purposes, Putin has pretty much killed that idea, because of the ‘conditions on the ground’ – i.e., Russia is now so entrenched that we’d have a damn hard time fulfilling our treaty obligations if we had to…
My apologies to Ryan: I just was rereading some old comments on this thread and he did mention that one of the big reasons the 20th century was a bloodbath was brutal totalitarian regimes. I completely missed that the first time and it caused me to mischaracterize his comments, not once, but twice. Haven’t heard from Ryan in a couple of days, but if you read this, Ryan, my mistake…sorry for the unfair statements made as a consequence…