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“August 2008 conflict was a proxy Russia-US war”
Published: 30 September, 2009, 12:07
Edited: 01 October, 2009, 12:01
Georgia, Vaziani : A US soldier interacts with Georgian soldiers during a joint NATO-Georgia military training exercise 30km outside Tbilisi at the Vaziani base on May 25, 2009 (AFP Photo / Nina Shlamova)
(50.6Mb) embed videoTAGS: Conflict, Military, NATO, Georgia, Russia, Interview, Politics, USA
The Georgian army which took part in the August 2008 conflict in South Ossetia was created, trained and supplied by Americans, says professor and author Stephen Cohen.
“I hope Barack Obama learned from the Georgian war that it is dangerous and it has to stop, but he is being given different advice. It is important to understand the struggle. Some people were telling Obama: ‘Look how the Russians invaded Georgia, how bad and dangerous they are. We have to get NATO to Ukraine and Georgia right away.’ Never forget that there was a powerful, powerful lobby in Washington to put NATO in Ukraine and Georgia – and that lobby has to be defeated,” Stephen Cohen says.
In an interview with RT’s Sophie Shevardnadze Stephen Cohen and Katrina Vanden Heuvel, editor and publisher of The Nation magazine, also touched upon the issues of NATO eastward expansion, America’s position on anti-missile defence shield in Eastern Europe and the difference between the Russian and American stance on Iran.
Washington can’t say to Moscow “let’s get tough with Iran,” Stephen Cohen says, because Russia has a geopolitical situation that America doesn’t have.
“There are 20 to 25 million Muslim citizens in Russia and Iran has never done anything to agitate Russian Muslims against the Russian government,” Stephen Cohen adds. “Russia is being encircled by NATO bases and Iran is one country that is not a candidate for NATO membership – but getting this through to Washington is almost impossible.”
30.09.2009, 11:58
2 comments
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Russia should talk, watch its wallet, and keep the gunpowder dry. Until someone explains the role of MPRI Inc. in training special ops in Georgia prior to Georgian blitz, there is little to talk about. The same company organized, trained and equipped Croatian army to implement Operation Storm in Croatia, August 1995. That resulted in nearly entire Serb population of Krajina region to be driven out of the country. And in the massive looting of their homes, farms, livestock, cars, agricultural equipment, businesses. That operation was a success for MPRI, while the Clean Field failed. Russia did not have any illusions on the role of MPRI, and was ready for the repeat of Krajina. The population of South Ossetia was much more fortunate then the Serbian population of Krajina. Those refugees are still not allowed to return to Croatia, in spite of the make-believe openness in Croatia. Every returnee knows that he/she can be put in prison on a whim of local authorities. And those local Croatian authorities are just insuring that the Serbs not come back in any meaningful numbers. And if EU and US think that Krajina is just forgotten, they need to think again. The evil, once unleashed, cannot be easily put in the bottle.
Of course USA supported and trained and equipped Georgia. Unfortunately, that is what we do -- support tin-pot dictators. Saakashvili is conforming to the mold, after all. I was shocked last year when I read eye-witness reports say that Americans were involved in the shooting as well as the training. Not shocked that we were in another war, but that we were involved in shooting at Russians, for crying out loud. It was not enough that we were already bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan; no, the criminal lunatics in the Bush administration wanted to start up another war in the Caucasus - with the Russians on the other side. What scares me is that some of the same people, or ones who think the same way, are still in the Obama administration. They have swayed his opinion to the "dark side". Even with its faults, I hope this report makes it to Obama and he reads at least the summary. Maybe he will reconsider the hawkish advice coming from his paranoid advisors. The report probably won't be discussed on USA teevee news, because it would be too embarrassing to admit that the stories about "evil Russia invading another innocent country" were all wrong. (I wonder if the EU report states that the first people killed were Russian peacekeepers.)
The Russian Federation and the U. S. A. should try to leave the past in the past and work as partners to effect a better and more just world. Our two countries can complement each other and make things better for all concerned.