Russia,Georgia,South Ossetia and Oil
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Ossetian Website Link
- www.ossetians.com
Excellent information in English on the region, its history and people.
Truth is War's First Casualty
South Ossetia? Where's That?
There is something especially unsettling about the war I am now watching unfold in Georgia on my TV screen here in America. Bombs, burning buildings, tanks, wounded children, soldiers in the streets. It is all sadly familiar except for the name of the place where it started, South Ossetia. Where??? Never heard of it. It seems South Ossetia is a small province with a population of around 70,000 people( not even the equivalent of a medium size American city) who claim independent nationhood. When the Soviet Union broke up and Georgia became an independent nation, Georgia claimed South Ossetia as part of its territory.South Ossetia, which has been part of the Russian Empire since the early nineteenth century, said no-way to Georgia, and declared independence. It's a little confusing to outsiders though, because a large percentage of South Ossetians carry Russian passports and the country's currency is the Russian ruble. I guess every little nation needs a big protector and the South Ossetians obviously like the Russians better than the Georgians. Oh, BTW didn't Stalin come from Georgia?
Just to confuse things more, there is also a North Ossetia, which shares language and cultural roots with South Ossetia and which is part of Russia still, so you can see the pickle the South Ossetians were in when Georgia claimed their territory. The international community has tiptoed around the situation since the early nineties by not officially recognizing the Republic of South Ossetia, but by unofficially doing business with it. That is until Georgia decided to play hardball and send in the troops on August 7,2008. Why they did that, on the eve of the Olympics is hard to fathom. I've been trying to figure out ever since just what is going on and I bet you have too. It's hard to tell the players without a scorecard.
Cold War Memories
On TV and YouTube, I watched American equpped and trained Georgian forces wreck havoc in South Ossetia. When Russian tanks and warplanes invaded " to protect Russian citizens" and then went on to march well into Georgia proper, I had a knee-jerk reaction based on my American, Cold-War childhood. I well remember all those "duck and cover" drills we had in school in preparation for the atomic bomb we were told the Russians might drop on us. Those of you born in the seventies and eighties may remember when the Berlin wall came down. I remember when it went up. I remember the Cuban missile crisis. I remember Krushchev at the United Nations pounding his shoe on the table and shouting at the West " We will bury you". Funny how all that came back to haunt me as I watched events unfold in Georgia like a cobra watching a mongoose.
Georgia's President Saakshvili pleaded for help on TV from the West, appearing out of nowhere to issue statements to the media. I knew nothing about him before this conflict, but he seems to have been ordered up by Central Casting as the perfect guy to appeal to Americans. He went to law school here and speaks excellent English. But like the rest of the cast of characters he seems to be speaking out of both sides of his mouth. The United States has been training and equpping his army. He's visited Washington three times in the past year. I don't trust him. Something about him bothers me. He has the eyes of a thug and an air of desperation about him. On top of that, he's a big pal of George Bush,our inept President, who I suspect is just using him to needle the Russians.
The Bigger Picture
The penny dropped when BP announced it was shutting down the gas and oil pipelines that ran through Georgia a few days ago. Now I get it. This war is not about territory or citizenship or people. Oh no, this war is about oil and geo-political power. BP knows what the real story is and knows this is not going to be settled in a day or two. Those pipelines go through Georgia to Turkey to the Medeterranean and bypass Russia to carry oil to the West. Guess what Europe-- it could be a cold winter for you. In today's world, oil is more precious than gold.
So now the Europeans get it. France's Sarkozy rushed into the fray to broker an agreement which the Russians promptly ignored and the Georgians promptly complained about.So now we have Condi Rice in the act. At least she speaks Russian. She and the French and President Bush are threatening to kick Russia out of the G8 and the World Trade Organization--Big deal. Do you think Russia cares? I doubt it. Who needs the WTO if you control all that oil? What ever happened to the South Ossetians? They seem to have gotten lost in the sauce. Step aside little guys, the big boys are going at it. Get out of the way--you too Georgia. You're a little guy too. This is between the USA, EU, and Russia now. Pawn to King four, your move.
The Russians care about Bush proposing Georgia for membership in NATO. They care about having ICBM;s trained on them from Poland, They care about gaining strategic control of the supply of oil from both Russia and Iran into Eastern as well as Western Europe. They want their empire back. That's what's going on here folks. The big boys are playing power politics and as usual, it is the little guys on the ground who are getting hurt. And I'm not sure where the big oil companies fit into this yet, but they are around somewhere.
OIl is the new gold. Russia is back and Georgia is just the first round. Look out Ukraine, Hungary,Poland, Romania, Estonia, Latvia, and all those other places with elastic borders that have been marched over and re-arranged by the empires of the world in centuries past. Here we go again. The alpha dogs are fighting. The testosterone is flowing. The United States is militarily strung out in Iraq and Afghanistan( the place that broke the Soviets) and we not only have the most incompetent President in our short history running the show, we are in the middle of an economic downturn and national election cycle--our most vulnerable time. But never fear, the boys will get their team together. NATO will add a few new members and some more bases will be built in Eastern Europe. The French and the Germans will be our new best friends and our "special relationship" with the Brits will enter a new warm and cozy phase. Bye bye Osama, hello Vladimir and all the Russias.
Everything old is new again. This is beginning to feel llike the Cold War all over, but with hot bombs. I don't for a minute believe that the Russians are going to leave Georgia. Do you? Keep your eye on those pipelines. I can't help remembering that this is the part of the world that provided the spark for both World Wars I and II. Please, not again. We all know too well that it is a zero sum game. They've got the bomb. We've got the bomb. Let's not go there again. I'm too old to "duck and cover."
We better work this out, because if we don't, in the immortal words of Tom Lehrer(see video below): "We Will All Go Together When We Go."
We Will All Go Together When We Go
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Comments
Only one of many mistakes by the current administration, I'm afraid. Thanks for stopping by, Ralph. Always good to see you:-)
Yes robie2, Stalin came from Georgia. Good to see another Tom Lehrer fan here. I put Send In The Marines on my last hub.
Hi CJ --We are having a veritable Tom Lehrer fest, aren't we:-) Showing our age<sigh> Thanks for stopping by.
there were already American mercenaries in Georgia provoking this "war".
probably true, vrajavala. I know that the Georgian army was trained and equipped by the USA--at taxpayer expense, I might add. Prolly that's why the Georgian Prez was dumb enough to risk Russian wrath by invading.....he thought Bush had his back. Now he knows what we knew all along LOL.
As you stated in this Hub, the eastern European front has always been in transition. In older times, it was the pathway to the orient; today, it is the pathway to oil. This region has always been the transition between East and West, bearing the onslaught of both. In this way, nothing has changed.
My mother grew up in a town that was part of Poland one day, part of Russia another. She says she is Polish, but her language is more Russian than not. It's complex.
Eastern Europe has been a hotbed for centuries. Oil is only the newest carrot on the stick.
Thanks, Robie2, I was looking forward to this Hub.
Hi ST-- I'm having a hard time wrapping my mind around all the doublespeak that seems to be going on in this situation and cannot even hazard a guess at who is victim and who victimizer but these people don't mess around-- the brutality on both sides is awful.
I saw on TV that there are 100,000 Georgians living in the United States. I find it ironic that Russians and Georgians were demonstrating together yesterday outside the United Nations in New York against the war. Evidently here, they all live together in the same Brooklyn neighborhood and get along famously.
We and the Russians have a long history of mutual distrust. Eastern Europe may have been a hotbed for centuries, but we are a global village today and what happens in Georgia may not stay in Georgia. I'd hate to go back to having the threat of nuclear holocost over our heads.
Robie2, when I left my comment I neglected to say something important to you, which is, thank you for summarizing this incomprehensible conflict as it is unfolding today. I'd been watching the news, reading the papers, and listening to the radio, but I wasn't making much sense out of what I was taking in. Your Hub helped clear up some confusion, although I realize there is plenty more confusion to come (as you so eloquently state in your comment to mine).
Perhaps some of our international Hubbers and visitors can explain what we Americans interpret as doublespeak. And perhaps they can shed some light on the history of mutual distrust. We and the Russians have a long history of mutual distrust, as you point out, but Russia's bordering nations have that same history, although with more immediacy.
Warmest regards, Sally
Thanks for the return visit, ST. I'm glad this helped make sense of things for you--I'm not sure it did the same for me--maybe your mother could help us understand the doublespeak better:-)
Well done hub and a big help - Sadly with Russia killing in Georga for oil, China killing in the Sudan for oil, don't even get me started on us and Iraq - Exon just made 12 billion profit in one Quarter (not year) - drilling in Alaska and off our coasts - Enron gaming the grid - Bin Laden attacking us for buying so much arab oil - At what point to we just declair that the oil companies have won, we all work for them - burn the constition and accept that the oil companies run our political system? Oh, don't get me started on Obama now saying he will allow drilling in Alaska and off shore - this sucks.
Hi Stevenschenck-- thanks for your comment. Big oil, Big pharma, Big money and power....the apha dogs are gonna do it their way.......or maybe a mushroom cloud will take us all our after all.....cheery thought:-)
GREAT HUB
Thanks starcatch:-)
robie2 -
Great Hub. I was not aware of how all of these incidents globally fit together in the big picture. Thank you for laying this all out. I will now follow what is actually happening, with better understanding.
Write On!
Thanks, Write On-- glad you liked it. We Americans tend to oversimplify these things and the media doesn't help. This is a complicated geo-political situation and all the players have their own axes to grind--but on the ground ordinary people are suffering as they always to--check out the videos I included.
Great hub. We are in a very uneasy time and it has only gotten worse with this.
Thanks, rdelp, for your comment. The world does seem quite uneasy right now. There is a lot going on, to say the least.:-)
Trust, for me is giving in to fear and wonder. Wonder where this will lead, is nothing ever not connected to something worse, is everything always part of a bigger conspiracy, do we ever expect to hear the truth from our leaders, and fear we may not ever really know anything.
I am very glad you wrote this interesting piece...I learned from you, who gives trusted information!! =))
You're right about one thing, everything old is new. The power brokers have always done this and always will. Us little guys can rail against it, blah blah, but that doesn't change anything. As long as there's a concept of wealth (privelege and power) some humans are gonna be willing to do dirtier things to get it than others. You see it small scale with stuff like MLM scams and spam, you see it large scale like the things you talk about in this hub.
The only thing great diplomats do is buy their particular generation some time before the fighting gets hot again. Seems like it's been an awfully long time since there's been any great diplomates anywhere.
Hi Marisue and Shadesbreath and thanks for your insightful observations, both of you. Marisue, truth is a movable feast in any conflict. It all depends on whose ox is being gored, so to speak. One of the wonders of the internet is that it makes it possible to get information from many different sources, but it doesn't make it any easier to find the truth:-)
Shadesbreath I certainly hope there are some great diplomats around somewhere these days because I think their services are going to be needed.
I miss Tom Lehrer! OK, you are correct that our long-ingrained knee-jerk reaction is to blame Russia and weep over poor little Georgia.
I weep for both people, because I know many Russians and I love the people and the culture & history. I don't know any Georgians but I must assume they are pretty decent people as well.
That said, I think Georgia either was coaxed into doing a stupid thing in sending troops to South Ossetia, or they blundered badly based upon a wink and a nod they received from someone in power here in the U.S.
I have no idea if it was George Bush, but I do believe that John McCain has a hand in this. I would also think that someone like Dick Cheney might have said a word or two. Anything to get our minds off Iraq and other dubious policies the current administration has baked up in the oven of scorn and hatred.
Personally I want the U.S. to build a coalition for strong diplomatic action to get the Russian forces out of Georgia, and then I would expect to see the disputes over Abkhazan and South Ossetia settled. Maybe the north & south portions could unite, become independent, and then life could go on.
The borders as they exist now are the Internationally recognized frontiers of Georgia, but as we all know, those can and have been changed to fit the realities of change. If they need to change, then we had best either lead the way or get out of the way, as I said in my hub on this subject.
Great hub, Robie2! I expect to see more about this in the near future!
Hi Chef....I miss Tom Lehrer too--amazing how he stands the test of time, isn't it? Here's another one for you:-)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pklr0UD9eSo
As for your hope for strong diplomatic action--don't hold your breath on the Bushies and Western Europe being able to agree on anything. I also smell a neo-con adgenda here in my more paranoid moments and wonder what Dick Cheney and Paul Wolfowitz have been up to. Keep your eye on those pipelines and on Iran. I think Cheney & Co would love to invade before Bush's term is up. Hope I am wrong.
A military crisis certainly strengthens McCain's candidacy and he seems to be taking full advantage of the current situation. I'm not usually much on conspiracy theories but I can't help wondering about all those Bilderburger and Tri-Lateral Commission theories as I watch this unfold.
Oh well--back to Tom Lehrer. You can find all his stuff on YouTube--helps pass the time before Armageddon:-) Thanks for the great comment and I look forward to hearing more from you too.
I was on my second day of my vacation when I heard the news! Your article is very comprehensive, as there is a lot I didn't know about the conflict. Thanks for writing this!
Thanks for reading it,VS :-)
Great Job Robie, if anyone wants to know the actual war situation in Georgia, they should read this. Excellent. If Georgia had treated S. Ossetians fairly, they wouldn't want to be separated. The UN should find out and see what they want and do it accordingly.
This is a hub about very cruel reality of two nations trapped in the middle of the strategic oil conflict of some world superpowers. Victims of such bloody and cruel disputes - war are only innocent people. How very sad! Robie, you used only a few words, still you more than perfectly described a background of the situation in Russia, Georgia, South Ossetia. Very good!
thanks solarshigles. I'm glad you liked this hub. I guess I wrote it to relieve my own shock at the time at seeing what was going on. And, of course it's never the simple "bad Russia, Good Georgia" scenario that gets handed out by the government and the press. It's more complicated than that. It is sad that it is always the innocent who suffer in war and actually, nobody wins--the pictures and news reports were so graphic.
Well, oil is the new gold and this isn't the only war being fought over it
What an excellent hub, robie. You put this confusing conflict into terms that can actually be understood by someone like me, which I greatly appreciate. I winced when Palin chirped that of course we'd have to go to war with Russia w/Georgia in NATO as if she was RSVPing to a G8 Tupperware party or something. In some ways I think today's political climate is much more frightening and unstable than the Cold War when we learned to duck, put our heads between our legs, and kiss our asses good-bye! Thank you!
Thanks pg-- what scares me is the over-simplificatiion and media spin on this--notice that just in the few weeks since I wrote this hub, the conflict has mophed into "Russia bad, Georgia,good" and guess where Cheney was during the RNC-- in Georgia talking to BP and other oil companies. What do you think is really going on here? Whatever it is, it is the big guys who do the posturing and the little peoplle on the ground who do the suffering. it sucks!
You know, it bothers me, that "what do you think is really going on here" question. During the last Cold War, when you and I and lots of other people of a certain age were doing the duck and cover drills, what we heard again and again in school was that what distinguished America from all the other nations on earth was our access to the truth. We were told that all the Russians ever got was state propaganda, but we got the real deal. It seems those days are over, and I often wonder if nations aren't irrelevant now to some degree--if it isn't all about corporate agendas globally: big oil, big pharma, big finance. It seems they carve the globe up as they see fit and leaders of nations just work for them. That's a dark view in a dark moment but it feels that way sometimes.
Very interesting hub - great job. I grew up in the sixties and remember all the "duck & cover" also. My wife is Russian and they view S.O. as part of Russia.
David
oh yes..I remember when we used to duck and cover too as if my school desk was going to cover me in case of a nuclear attack.
One of John McCain'st top foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann is a lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia and on the day McCain spoke to President Mikheil Saakashvili, Randy Scheunemann signed a $200,000 contract to continue to provide strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.We are all Georgians indeed!oh yes..I remember when we used to duck and cover too as if my school desk was going to cover me in case of a nuclear attack.
One of John McCain'st top foreign policy advisor Randy Scheunemann is a lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia and on the day McCain spoke to President Mikheil Saakashvili, Randy Scheunemann signed a $200,000 contract to continue to provide strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.We are all Georgians indeed!By Hook and Crook!! We MUST be frequent emailers to our congressman. You have made so many good points...let's put it where it counts...in their EMAIL box...weekly!! Let's shove it down their throats, like they do ours with their lies and under the bed deals.
I'm mad too,Eddie...that needs to be our attitude. They knew we were ignoring them. Let's show Congress and Washington the giant "we, the people" have awakened. Susan, you should write another hub and every time we do...we should email it with the button at the bottom of our hub, to our congressman Put their name in the email, as "copy to" and let them know we're publishing their name and response or lack of... =)) Shove back, America!!
I wonder if Saakshivili is a plant? Is he our spy? What's up with him? Is Georgia our next conflict, to poke at Russia from there? What is the big overall plan??? I'm with you, Robie2, there is much more to this.
Zero sum, scarey math.
Thanks Glycodoc Susan and Marisue for your very interesting comments.....I'm glad I'm not the only one who remembers the duck and cover days. I hope we never return to that fear of nuclear confrontation, but things are looking kinda dicey.
I'm very cynical about this whole Russia Georgia thing--all about power and oil and we the little people getting screwed. Marisue, I'm not sure I think writing letters to Congress will do much good. They're on the take too, it seems. We live in exciting times, no doubt about it.
LOL Sure it's all about oil!
All Caucasus soaks in oil. Did you know that Azerbaijan (which has a border with Georgia) produced more than a half of World oil production at the beginning of 20th century?
But not only oil. You mentioned Cuban crisis. You remember how you felt, right? Now they feel pretty much the same in Moscow, when US and NATO build bases, install missiles, and train troops in countries at the Russian border. No wander they acted as soon as opportunity presented itself.
Which brings me to Saakashvili, and I fully agree to you this guy is a crook. I don't have the numbers, but I do think he was installed there on American money. Georgians were always friends with Russians, and they are still friends. Well, most of them, except those trained and paid for by Bush.
Most of the countries in Caucasus that joined Russian empire were forced to do so. Georgia joined voluntary. For hundreds years our nations lived as best friends, rain or shine. And this bloody idiot, tricked into this by your bloody idiot, started a war!
No Robie, it's not only about oil. It's about people. I don't really know what my point is, other then it hurts me a lot...
Misha-- thank you so much for such an informed comment. Your last sentence, especially, I found very moving. It is true--people are the only really important part.... and in the long run we are all just people.
I'm glad you share my feelings about Saakashvili. Most people I have encountered do not. I had a visceral, gut reaction to him when i saw him on TV. My feeling is not based on knowledge only gut feeling--and his masters, Bush Cheney and Co. are no better....a gang of theives IMHO Bush is a bully and of course I understand that the Russians don't want to be surrounded by ICBM's and a bunch of new NATO members. That said, Vladimir Putin is a pretty scary dude too.
What saddens and frightens me is the suffering of innocents and the possibility of a return to the Cold War mentality on both sides. I don't want to see the world divided up again in fear. I don't want to see children hiding under their desks again in fear of a Russian nuclear attack( or maybe in Russia you were hiding under your desks in fear of Americans) The very idea sickens me. I remember it all too well.
In the long run there are no villains or heroes--only people--and you are right-- it is all, always about the people.
I've read that this Georgia relationship is quite planned, will we ever get past the Cheney/Bush secrets? Are they truly that evil?? What is the benefit to them? How rich must they become? This is quite maddening. I think there needs to be a full disclosure as to why and how we're involved with Georgia of all places?? Why make an enemy out of Russia? Not that we could be best buddies, but surely we could be on good talking terms -- are we really motivated to stir the batter and cook up another war?
This amazes me.
Ralph Deeds says:
17 months ago
We made a mistake by meddling in Russia's back yard at the behest of the international oil companies, IMHO. Good hub!