Liberty Maven

Much has been argued on both sides of the recent Georgian – Russian conflict. Over at a favorite read of mine Antiwar.com Justin Raimondo calls great attention to the fact that Georgia attacked South Ossetia first. He also points out that Georgian President Saakashvili didn’t exactly come to power democratically no matter what is said on the matter. He is the foil for the current anti-Russian “narrative” from the main stream media in the US.

Both the Russians and Georgians make “information warfare” claims of each other. It seems to me both of their claims are true. Georgia attacked South Ossetia for their goal of independence. Russia used that attack as an excuse to wage all out war with Georgia. A curious interview occurred on the FOX News channel where a 12 year old girl (and her mother) both had harsh words for Georgia for bombing South Ossetia. It was almost as if Vladimir Putin himself controlled puppet strings attached to the girl and her mother. The truth we may never know, but it is a perfect example of the word warfare inherent in this conflict.

Even if Georgia had not initiated this attack it seems that Russia would have found some other excuse to invade/attack Georgia. In fact Ron Paul voiced his own concern for such chaos back in 2002 in an interview with Bill Moyers.

The perfect measured and calm perspective on the blame game in this conflict comes from Daniel Hannan in the UK’s Telegraph.

…prejudice is part of the human condition. We all feel sympathetic to peoples and nations to whom we are tied by history and culture. Heaven knows, it is difficult for any Telegraph writer to disregard the paper’s 150-year-old support for anti-Russian national movements in the Caucasus. The last thing I want is for an emboldened Vladimir Putin – and this war removes any doubt about who is running Russia – to start proclaiming himself the defender of Russians in the Baltic States. Nor is it easy to be sanguine about the Kremlin’s anti-British attitudes, nor its bullying of its neighbours, nor its authoritarianism. (Though Saakashvili is no saint either. He came to power through a coup in 2004, and then awarded himself a Saddam-like score of 96 per cent in an ex post facto election. Like Putin, he knows that a sense of national crisis can bolster an autocratic regime: that is part of the problem on both sides.)

But we ought at least to try to cleave to the principle that the chief factor in determining the status of a territory should be the will of its inhabitants, and that democracy should ultimately trump considerations of geography, history or the convenience of neighbouring states.

Wars throughout history are waged to affect some kind of change. Unfortunately for the warmongers most of the time that intended change is not realized. The world is always at war, cold and hot wars. Lucky for us that most of the time we are in a period of cease fire cold war. People claim they are worried about the cold war making a come back. It seems to me it never left.