In the comments section to my post on the Pentagon’s propaganda, Marcelo pointed me to this post in ConsortiumNews.com about how Bush and the American media are screaming about Russia’s invasion of Georgia is pretty interesting.
Apparently, context is everything. So, the United States attacking Grenada or Nicaragua or Panama or Iraq or Serbia is justified even if the reasons sometimes don’t hold water or don’t hold up before the United Nations, The Hague or other institutions of international law.
However, when Russia attacks Georgia in a border dispute over Georgia’s determination to throttle secession movements in two semi-autonomous regions, everyone must agree that Georgia’s sovereignty is sacrosanct and Russia must be condemned.
U.S. newspapers, such as the New York Times, see nothing risible about publishing a statement from President George W. Bush declaring that “Georgia is a sovereign nation and its territorial integrity must be respected.â€
No one points out that Bush should have zero standing enunciating such a principle. Iraq also was a sovereign nation, but Bush invaded it under false pretenses, demolished its army, overthrew its government and then conducted a lengthy military occupation resulting in hundreds of thousands of deaths.
I wasn’t aware of all of the background to the South Ossetia War but this Wikipedia article contains some interesting information.
If anybody gives credance to anything that bush says, they ott be neutered!I’m truly embarrassed to live in country ruled by someone like this deuce . The future doesn’t look too brite either!
Did Russia not learn anything from US propeganda?
They should have played the WMD card to get the rest of the western world onside.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7863e71a-689e-11dd-a4e5-0000779fd18c.html?nclick_check=1
A little more truth about the Georgia/Russian conflict (as opposed to what virtually all Aussie media have been saying). – this one from the Financial Times.
“No one points out that Bush should have zero standing enunciating such a principle.”
Its like with wikipedia. They are supposed to aviod “original research” in their, non-editorial, articles; which means that in order for them to print a critical subjective statement like yours, it would have to be made by someone prominent. The Times has been lambasted by people of pretty all political persuasions.
Newspapers are corporations. More close to home than this making them supportive of capitalism, is this making them worry about their profit margins. The more people read them, the more money they make. The most profitable route for them is the one which satisfies the most people enough to get them to purchase the product. In this equation, it is a bad idea to go out of your way to offend lots of people.
Regarding Russia, my impression is that regardless of what the country’s policies toward its neighbors ideally ought to be; we ought to be avioding confrontation with Russia over its treatment of its sattelites. Getting Russia riled up could be costly for us, and increased aggravation could just make it an even worse neighbor. I think the best course of action here would be for us to try to mediate calm in the region through respect of all sides and the encouragement of peaceful compromises.
Adding to that a bit, I don’t think we can really positively influence Russian decision making around this issue that much through a confrontational stance. They are willing to use military force, we aren’t. Their economy is safe from effective sanction. Embarrassment would cut both ways and isn’t that effective.
Jared, I think getting Russia riled up is EXACTLY what the industrial-military complex wants. A return of the Cold War means more budget, more jobs, more power. It also means they can go back to invading any country they like on the pretext of “saving them from Communism” and then negotiate resources deals in return from corrupt leaders of poor countries. The Cold War was good for the IMC. It was also good for the world in a crazy way. The Internet and a great deal of computing R&D came out of the military Cold War.
That comment reminds me of the song by The Dead Kennedy’s, Kinky Sex Makes The World Go Around, where the US Secretary of State rings the PM of England and suggests a fake war( aka Wag The Dog) to create jobs for the homeless and get youth of the streets, makes the corporations money and of cours gets lots of press for the politicians.
Great song you should listen to it. As current now as it was in 80’s when it was released.
“Jared, I think getting Russia riled up is EXACTLY what the industrial-military complex wants. A return of the Cold War means more budget, more jobs, more power. It also means they can go back to invading any country they like on the pretext of “saving them from Communism†and then negotiate resources deals in return from corrupt leaders of poor countries. The Cold War was good for the IMC. It was also good for the world in a crazy way. The Internet and a great deal of computing R&D came out of the military Cold War.”
Well, interesting points about the Cold War.
Among the various criticisms i’ve heard against Putin’s government, I haven’t yet heard it be called communist. There is a communist party in Russia; it is the largest opposition party and got about 12% of the vote in 07. Putin’s party United Russia has a cordial relationship with the communists.
You talk about what the industrial military complex wants, but what about the industrial commercial complex? More guns come at the expense of more butter, so shouldn’t walmart, stop & shop, microsoft, etc all be pushing for peace?
Nope. What they want is OBEDIENCE.
This is how it works (and I’m pulling most of this from books I’ve read such as LEGACY OF ASHES and CONFESSIONS OF AN ECONOMIC HITMAN as well as Chomsky, Pilger, Monbiot, etc).
American corporations (and therefore the American governemnt) wants two things:
1. countries that will buy the USA’s exports and services, and
2. countries that will sell cheap labour and cheap natural resources.
So here’s how it works.
The IMF and the World Bank go into third world countries and say “give us what we want” (which include – your oil, your labour, borrow money from us to buy services from our large multinationals, etc).
If they say “no”, then the CIA gets involved, declares the country “communist” or harbouring “terrorists” or whatever. The CIA then finances the military of that country to revolt against the proper government / king and says “we’ll look after you”. Once the new military junta has taken control, the US declares them friendly and all is good until, usually a decade or two later, the junta gets sick of America telling them what to do, and they say “fuck you”.
Then America declares THAT leader corrupt or whatever and overthrow him, and the cycle repeats itself.
This is what American corporations want, not peace. CONTROL and PROFIT.