Posted by Benjamin on: 08.11.2008 /
No doubt most if not all of you have been following the escalating military clashes between Russia and Georgia since Thursday of last week. President George W. Bush was quoted today as saying
I’ve expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia.”
What–is he stressed about because American corporations won’t be getting the contracts to replace all the arms which get used up or destroyed in this conflict?!?
Ok, maybe that was uncalled for. But seriously, I find it really frightening, at one level, to see the apparent lack of *ability* for self reflection in this quote–mostly because it speaks to the larger, more widespread inability of the nation with the largest, most powerful military in recorded history to self-reflect. I’m completely mystified as to what it could possible even *mean* to talk about proportion or the lack thereof when you have such enormous stockpiles of nuclear weapons, of land mines, of cluster weapons, of bullets, of missiles, and so forth, and are in the process of using them so gratuitously all over the world. Not to mention when you spend 3 trillion dollars on a war of aggression with a smallish middle eastern nation while 30,000 people starve to death every day.
Am I wrong? Your thoughts?
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Comment by: David H
1 08/11/08 11:55 AM | Comment Link |One of the things I talked to others about after the Iraq invasion was the likelihood other nations would use our logic to justify their own acts of aggression. These days, every time there is a preemptive attack against an enemy we here the spoke-people for the aggressor nation echoing our words. I heard the Russian ambassador to the UN saying to an NPR reporter: Would would you do to protect your citizens who are facing attacks in a foreign nation.
Sure, this same language has been used since the first cave man picked up a rock and smashed in the head of the Cro-Magnon sleeping next to him. But in the past we called it propaganda and rejected such logic. Now we use the same propaganda and logic. That makes it hard to argue with everyone else in the world.
Comment by: martin gugino
2 08/11/08 5:09 PM | Comment Link |The powerful are not stupid. They hope we are.
Comment by: martin gugino
3 08/12/08 1:45 PM | Comment Link |Noam Chomsky objects to the Quaker phrase “speak truth to power”. He says the powerful know the truth. You should speak truth to those who are interested in overturning injustice, not those who perpetuate it.
Comment by: David H
4 08/12/08 4:54 PM | Comment Link |Chomsky makes an interesting point. To be rich or powerful probably indicates, in many cases, a vested interest in injustice (or, at least, inequity).
Comment by: Benjamin
5 08/12/08 9:18 PM | Comment Link |Wow.
do you think? That’s … hard. Sounds like something that crazy old Jesus might say.
Comment by: David H
6 08/13/08 9:33 AM | Comment Link |Being rich and powerful are both about hoarding resources. I have more and that, by definition, means someone has less. The mosaic economic system for Israel was intended to stop or slow the unbalancing on the money and property side by forcing people to periodically return property to original owners (can’t become a land baron) and prohibiting loans at interest (fewer foreclosures). That it seems never to have been followed may speak volumes about the innate human need to hoard resources.
Hoarding power, often related to money, is far less tangible and far more difficult to prevent. Just ask King George W.
Comment by: joe
7 08/17/08 4:55 PM | Comment Link |I think there is something weird going on. Didn’t the Russians claim that there was an ethnic massacre in part of Georgia?
I’m not saying we should believe the Russians - yet how come nobody has seriously investigated the allegations before committing themselves to everlasting friendship with the Georgians? Does being a democracy mean that the allegations can be dismissed out of hand?
Isn’t there also a little contradiction in the Russian position - given their ongoing conflict in Chechnya? Also, apparently following the army comes an irregular force of militia who do most of the damage.
I don’t think we’re hearing the full story.
Comment by: David H
8 08/18/08 12:15 PM | Comment Link |Accounts I have read suggest problems on both sides. The Georgian president made re-unification with dissident parts of Georgia a key part of his campaign. The one separatist area (S. Ossetia) is firmly in Moscow’s pocket and Russian troops have been posted there for years as “peacekeepers”, though almost everyone knows they are military observers. The other has simply turned to Russia for support. Georgia triggered this incident by moving it’s military to try and retake S. Ossetia. Russian “peacekeepers”, a misnomer if ever there was one, were then used as the excuse from the Kremlin for the massive retaliatory strike meant to “protect Russian citizens” even though it involved punitive bombing and shelling of cities outside of S. Ossetia.
In all likelihood both sides have done some bad things. But the real issue is that Georgia seems to be the first battleground between the west and resurgent Russia. This initial clash appears to be a test by Russia to see how the west can or will respond.