MoPress

Category: gmoses

  • Russia Goes for Two Georgia States

    By Greg Moses

    OpEdNews

    The UK Sunday Times reports that the Russian Federation’s incursion into the Georgia state of South Ossetia has been matched by a similar operation in Abkhazia, another Georgian state. In this second operation, reports are more clear that Russia is acting in concert with the breakaway leaders.

    In the case of South Ossetia there is reason to believe that the majority of people are more sympathetic to the Russian forces than to the Georgian forces that provoked Russia, but if there have also been coordinated military operations, I have not seen them so clearly reported. In both cases, therefore, it appears that Russia has struck in places where it enjoys popular favor, or at least local judgment that Russia is the lesser evil.

    While these moves are no doubt embarrassing to the American-trained and equipped Georgian Army, a more ominous geopolitical concern will likely point in the direction of the Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) pipeline which crosses Georgia to the south of the breakaway states. Once again, we could be presented with an oil war.

    A survey of cable news and financial networks on Friday indicated that the American propaganda network was caught flatfooted by the Russian actions. But we should probably anticipate a speedy recovery. Who knows what the official line will be next week, but very likely it will converge on language posted at the State Department web site: “The United States supports the territorial integrity of Georgia,” meaning that the breakaway states will be considered outlaws of a kind.

    So long as Russian incursions remain confined to the breakaway states of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, voices of peace might consider replying to the official line by pointing out that the peoples of both breakaway states have already established “de facto” autonomy. Fighting Russia in these cases would mean fighting also against the preferences — perhaps they are grudging preferences — of the people in the area.

    In the case of Abkhazia, ethnic cleansing of Georgians has apparently already taken place. But in the case of South Ossetia, there are living risks that Georgians in some villages may be endangered by ethnic cleansing. For this reason, voices of peace may consider supporting Georgian military defenses in those areas.

    These are comments based on quick studies of internet materials, designed more to focus discussion than to present an expert conclusion. Nevertheless, they don’t fall very far from what historian Mark Almond argued in a CounterPunch article when he asked: “If westerners readily conceded non-Russian republics’ right to secede from the USSR in 1991, what is the logic of insisting that non-Georgians must remain inside a microempire which happens to be pro-western?”

  • Independence in South Ossetia or World War III?

    By Greg Moses

    DissidentVoice

    Considering the grave implications of the battle that has broken out over South Ossetia, it was puzzling to see the sparse coverage on Friday’s cable news and financial networks. On the other hand, maybe this is good news. The imperial position has not been prepped. Before waiting on next week’s lineup of Pentagon consultants dragged back from vacation, we the people have maybe 24 hours to make up our own minds.

    My contribution toward a people-centered solution: concede independence to the breakaway republic of Tskhinval. Here’s why.

    According to background materials available on the internet, some of which have already been broadcast as news, it appears that South Ossetia has long enjoyed a relatively autonomous position, even under Soviet rule. North Ossetia is part of the Russian Federation, so South Ossetians are kin to Russians. Reports claim that most South Ossetians hold citizenship in the Russian Federation, and that 99 percent of South Ossetians favored independence from Georgia in a 2006 referendum.

    On Nov. 12, 2006, South Ossetians aligned with the breakaway republic of Tskhinval, re-elected their independent president, Eduard Kokoity. But this is only half the story.

    As Irina Kelekhsayeva reports for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting (IWPR), on the same day that Kokoity was re-elected in Tskhinval, there was a parallel election among a cluster of ethnic Georgian villages in the region, resulting in the confirmation of Dmitry Sanakoyev as the “alternative president” of an “alternative administrative unit” created by Georgia’s central government. South Ossetia has two Presidents, but Kokoity usually gets called the “de facto” one (CRS No. 392 17-May-07).

    Although Russia had agreed to withdraw its military bases from Georgia, reports continued to hint that weapons from Russia were continuing to flow into Tskhinval. Meanwhile, from the other side, Georgia got lots of help from the USA and achieved the highest growth rate of military spending in the world. Says the 2008 yearbook from the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute (SIPRI): “Georgia in particular had a very high level of military spending in comparison to the size of its economy.”

    On both sides, the arms built up and up. On the ground, people of the region did their best to live under the tensions of dual Russian-Georgian peacekeeping forces, who periodically blocked and unblocked travel along key roads. Last week, in an effort to unfreeze the frozen conflict, the Georgian Army rolled into the region from the South. The Russian Federation countered with a swift and surprising attack from the North.

    Already, voices in the USA, echoing the policy posted at the State Department web site, talk about a need to maintain the “integrity” of the border that keeps South Ossetia clearly within the domain of Georgia. This is the position to rethink.

    Most ominous for peace lovers is the presence of the Caspian pipeline that runs near the Georgia capital of Tbilisi, just south of South Ossetia. This is the same pipeline that is now in flames in Turkey from a reported attack by the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), another “separatist” group that analysts will no doubt consider when evaluating any concession to the South Ossetia “separatists.”

    On the Russian side, there are similar considerations of geopolitical posturing. Some analysts say an objective of the Russian incursion this week will be to strengthen the Russian influence over terms of conflict resolution. The Russian gambit may also work to keep Georgia out of NATO forever.

    Which brings me to the tentative, people-centered solution: In consideration of the longstanding “de facto” independence of Tskhinvali, the boundary of Georgia’s “integrity” should be rethought to exclude that portion of South Ossetia known as the breakaway republic. The “Georgian villages”, on the other hand, should be allowed to reunite.

    No doubt, a certain kind of geopolitical logic will not shirk the prospect of drawing Russia into a protracted war with Georgia. As the Georgian arms buildup comes from USA aid and manufacturers, geopolitical ambitions will still be whetted by profit. But if we think about geopolitical peace that respects traditions of autonomy and self-definition, then the people of South Ossetia deserve a defensive retreat of the Georgian Army to concede the independence of the breakaway republic of Tskhinvali.

    Peace for South Ossetia means relinquishing hardline claims that it falls within the “sovereign” borders of Georgia. If Georgia concedes quickly, then world opinion can next focus on the immediate withdrawal of Russian troops, whose stated purpose for invading Tskhinvali will have vanished.

    In the above, tentative suggestion, I have tried to apply a people-centered, rather than a bloc- or state-centered strategy of peace. This is a deliberate attempt to think outside of the Cold War box. In the event that people of the world are prepared to think and act with independence, we may find something in our future besides World War III.

    Further Reading:

  • An Associated Press report attributes US interests in Georgia to the Caspian pipeline. However a quick check of a map seems to indicate that the pipeline runs well south of South Ossetia, a fact strangely missing from the AP report. “Georgia as a whole means quite a lot,” says a strategist to the AP. No doubt. But if the pipeline is going to draw our thoughts to the region, then what would be the point of prolonging the conflict over a small northern province of Georgia, when US oil interests lie further south?
  • Michel Chossudovsky explored the impact of the Caspian pipeline during the bombing of Lebanon in 2006:

    The Ceyhan-Tblisi-Baku (BTC) pipeline totally bypasses the territory of the Russian Federation. It transits through the former Soviet republics of Azerbaijan and Georgia, both of which have become US “protectorates”, firmly integrated into a military alliance with the US and NATO. Moreover, both Azerbaijan and Georgia have longstanding military cooperation agreements with Israel.

  • The US State Department position: The United States supports the territorial integrity of Georgia and a peaceful resolution of the separatist conflict in South Ossetia. Note how the State Department’s own account of the conflict points to provocations against the Ossetians by the Georgia authorities:

    The cessation of hostilities brought on by the Sochi Agreement held fast into 2004. At that point, Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze had been replaced by Mikheil Saakashvili, who expressed a renewed interest in reintegrating Georgia’s separatist regions. In keeping with this policy, the Georgian Government placed a special emphasis on the regulation and monitoring of trade within and through South Ossetia, closing down a particularly large South Ossetian market which had been used for unregulated trade. South Ossetian forces retaliated by closing highways and detaining Georgian troops within South Ossetian borders. Tensions between the sides escalated, and exchanges of mortar fire in late July and August 2004 killed dozens.

  • Recent trends in military expenditure (SIPRI): Military spending is rising rapidly in the South Caucasus — Armenia, Azerbaijan and Georgia — largely due to the region’s three ‘frozen’ conflicts and the involvement of external actors. The rises have been made possible by economic upswings largely based on oil and gas revenues.
  • Ossetians.Com: In this labor of love by an Ossetian expatriate living in Canada, we can see how the local experience of Ossetians appears to be more aggravated by Georgian than Russian dominion.
  • In any event, there is always a question of minority populations, whose rights should be respected. Here is a 2005 report:

    Residents of villages in the Didi and Patara Liakhvi districts, point to continuing instances of suspected kidnapping and torture of Georgians, as well as an increasing number of complaints about discrimination, as indicators of what life under an autonomous South Ossetia would be like.

  • Notable Ossetians: Akhmet Tsalikov (Tsalykkaty) (1882-1928) Founder of the theory of Islamic socialism. A book by Tsalikov, published in Prague in 1926, appears to be available in Serbian: Brat na brata : roman iz revoliutsionnoi’ zhizni Kavkaza

  • Listen to Jane: Readers Respond to 'The Spirit of Youth'

    Thanks for seeing that there is something else to write about regarding Chicago than Obama and the Reverend Wright.

    I seem to be reading a lot about women in the early twentieth century this week, just by chance. First, Ida Tarbell in a new book on her muckracking classic about Standard Oil, then Jeanette Rankin in a book called “Human Smoke” by Nicholson Baker, and now Jane Addams in your piece. And they did all this without a whole lot of power (in western civ terms, naturally). And we can’t seem to get anywhere near their principles and successes a century later.

    Also can’t believe it’s been 40 years since we lost Dr. King.

    Best to you.

    Catherine Podojil
    Cleveland Heights, Ohio

    *****************

    You should get this piece into every newspaper in the UK (including the tabloid) and the right wing press in France , the disregard for the need of children there is so extreme that it is frightening. I grew up with freedom and spaces to play with my friends and I can easily understand that children without space for play just become crazy ! Putting them in jail as a result is just adding insult to injury but nobody seems to care, they are more concerned about getting their kids in the right schools so they will be able to get the best of life!

    Best regards,
    A Reader from Finland

    ****************

    Yeah. Sad to say how true your comments. But this seems to be part of a larger effort – conspiratorial or not – to break down the common connections between people and the idea of a common good. Now, everything is privatized and segregated. Where once kids played in open fields and unclaimed land, now ever atom seemed owned by somebody and play areas are deliniated by entrance fees, security guards and fences.

    The line between tyranny and revolution is a fine one. You want people working so hard they don’t have time to think and, in case they do, they are given circuses to distract them, ideas are dumbed down, words go missing. But if too many people are hungry and not working, that’s the tinderbox. The time when TV loses its matrix magic. The economic horizon seems to indicate the possibility of that state of affairs is coming. But then again, maybe not. Maybe this is just a new, slumming dark age, what the ancient Indian scriptures, the Vedas, call Kali Yuga, the age of darkness, confusion and declining spirituality.

    What we don’t understand is that on the 7th day, God didn’t just rest, He played.

    (Well, God plays all the time but it made a good line, don’t you think?)

    Regards,

    A Reader from Toronto Canada

  • 'The Stupid Experiment'

    Recalling Jane Addams’ lost classic, The Spirit of Youth and the City Streets

    By Greg Moses

    CounterPunch

    Chicago is bleeding, and the Mayor has called the citizens to action: “I don’t want people to wait for Mayor Daley to call a meeting. I want you to call a meeting in your home with your children and loved ones. I want you to go next door and talk to those children next door. I want the parents of the block to say ‘This block will be free of violence.’ Suddenly, all voices converge upon the insight that if nobody else actually provides time or space for youthful thrills, the gun industry will.

    Ninety nine years ago Jane Addams wrote about “the stupid experiment” of American life that she saw all around her in Chicago. The adult world had thrown together a city based on round-the-clock work. Impressive piles of cash were daily stacked and sorted. In the hustle-built streets meanwhile stood all the children dropped and stranded by a colossal shift of economic priorities. Stranded youth were symptom to a deeper cause, argued Addams. In modern life the whole spirit of youth has been exiled and detained.

    “This stupid experiment of organizing work and failing to organize play has, of course, brought about a fine revenge,” wrote Addams in 1909, pre-dating by a full decade the better known thesis of Freud’s Civilization and its Discontents. Adults were damming up their own “sweet fountains” of pleasure, “but almost worse than the restrictive measures is our apparent belief that the city has no obligation in the matter, an assumption upon which the modern city turns over to commercialism practically all the provisions for public recreation.”

    Public recreation? “Only in the modern city have men concluded that it is no longer necessary for the municipality to provide for the insatiable desire for play.” SWAT teams and jobs programs are what headlines call for today; more “restrictive measures” and “organizing work.” According to the Addams formula, these can only add up to another “fine revenge.”

    Cromwell’s Puritan dictatorship stripped communal life of adornment and joy, recalls Addams. Then the liquor stores stepped in. As a result, people in the modern Anglo city work to make money, then spend their money buying liquor.

    Young women in this new economy could be turned into one of two things: working hands by day or working bodies by night. Bitches or hos. Missing everywhere now was joy. And the young men under this new regime? Well, there was one sanctioned public endeavor that would guarantee them some hope of adventure. Didn’t Addams virtually predict a century of war?

    As the pleasure intensity of adult play grew, so did the distance between adult society and children. Is the Playboy mansion the kind of place one brings actual boys? Communal festivals used to be different, argues Addams, where adults and children could dance together. If children obviously get lost in this new industrialized strandedness, adults also fail to find refreshment from an authentic “spirit of youth.”

    Everyone fails to listen to the one voice capable of instructing Socrates. It was Diotima, recalls Addams, who said that love is an attempt to give birth to beauty. There is an essential lesson here for any republic that wants to be something besides ugly. When we have come to a crisis where men chase killer kids with SWAT teams and jobs, it may be time to follow the example of Socrates. There is a woman here talking about city-centered love and joy. Shut up and learn.