A Major War: Not Just Rumors

by Srdja Trifkovic

September 3rd, 2008 • Related • Filed Under

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The crisis in relations between the United States and Russia over Georgia heralds a particularly dangerous period in world affairs: the era of asymmetrical multipolarity. A major war between two or more major powers is more likely in this configuration than in any other model of global balance known to history.

The most stable system is bipolarity based on the doctrine of Mutual Assured Destruction (MAD), which was prevalent from the 1950s until the end of the Cold War. The awareness of both superpowers that they would inflict severe and unavoidable reciprocal damage on each other or their allies in a nuclear war was coupled with the acceptance that each had a sphere of dominance or vital interest that should not be infringed upon.

With Brest-Litovsk and the Barbarossa in mind, Stalin “intended to turn the countries conquered by Soviet armies into buffer zones to protect Russia” (Kissinger). The Western equivalent, also essentially defensive, was defined by the Truman Doctrine (1947) Proxy wars were fought in the grey zone all over the Third World, most notably in the Middle East, but they were kept localized even when a superpower was directly involved (Vietnam, Afghanistan). This model was the product of unique circumstances without an adequate historical precedent, however, which are unlikely to be repeated in the foreseeable future.

The most stable model of international relations that is both historically recurrent and structurally repeatable in the future is the balance of power system in which no single great power is either physically able or politically willing to seek hegemony. This model was prevalent from the Peace of Westphalia (1648) until Napoleon, from Waterloo until around 1900, and from Versailles until 1933. It demands a relative equilibrium between the key powers (usually five to seven) that hold each other in check and function within a recognized set of rules that has come to be known as “international law.” Wars between great powers do occur (Solferino, Crimea, Sadowa…), but they are limited in scope and intensity because the warring parties tacitly accept the fundamental legitimacy and continued existence of their opponent(s).

If one of the powers becomes markedly stronger than others and if its decision-making elite internalizes an ideology that demands or at least justifies hegemony, the inherently unstable system of asymmetrical multipolarity will develop. In all three known instances—Napoleonic France after 1799, the Kaiserreich from around 1900, and the Third Reich after 1933—the challenge could not be resolved without a major war.

The government of the United States is now acting in a manner structurally reminiscent of those three powers. Having proclaimed itself the leader of an imaginary “international community,” it goes further than any previous would-be hegemon in treating the entire world as the American sphere of interest. As I pointed out two weeks ago, the formal codification came in the National Security Strategy of September 2002, which presented the specter of open-ended political, military, and economic domination of the world by the United States acting unilaterally against “rogue states” and “potentially hostile powers” and in pursuit of an end to “destructive national rivalries.” To that end, the administration pledged “to keep military strength beyond challenge, thereby making the destabilizing arms races of other eras pointless, and limiting rivalries to trade and other pursuits of peace.”

Any attempt by a single power to keep its military strength beyond challenge is inherently destabilizing, and results—sooner or later—in the emergence of an effective counter-coalition. Napoleon finally faced one at the Völkerschlacht at Leipzig in 1813. “There is no balance of power in Europe but me and my twenty-four army corps,” the Kaiser famously boasted in 1901. Within years he was also building a high seas fleet, setting off alarm bells in London. By 1907, Wilhelmine Germany engendered a counter-coalition that prompted even traditional rivals like Britain and Russia to join forces (the latter to be replaced by the United States in 1917). And as for the most recent Griff nach der Weltmacht, by the second week of December 1941 Germany was irrevocably doomed to another defeat.

An early yet certain symptom of destabilizing asymmetry in action is the would-be hegemon’s tendency to claim an ever-widening sphere of influence or interference at the expense of his rivals. In the run-up to 1914 this was heralded by the Kruger Telegram (1896) and exemplified by the German bid to build the railway from Berlin to Baghdad (1903) and by the First Moroccan Crisis (1905). Neither Napoleon nor Hitler knew any «natural» limits, but their ambition was essentially confined to Europe. With the United States today the novelty is that this ambition is extended—literally—to the whole world. Not only the Western Hemisphere, not just the «Old Europe,» Japan, or Israel, but also Taiwan, Korea, and such unlikely places as Georgia, Estonia, Kosovo, or Bosnia, are considered vitally important. The globe itself is now effectively claimed as America’s sphere of influence, Russia’s Caucasian, European and Central Asian back yards most emphatically included.

Four weeks ago the game itself became alarmingly asymmetrical. For America it is still ideological, but for Russia it has become existential. Russia is now acting as a conservative, pre-1914 European power in seeking to protect its “near abroad.” America is acting like a global revolutionary power, whose “near abroad” is literally everywhere.

It is therefore futile for Russia to try to “manage” the crisis in a pre-1914 manner and hope for some elusive softening on the other side, because the calculus in Washington is not rational. The counter-strategy of unpredictability, exemplified by Medvedev’s recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, is an eminently rational response, however. It may yet force the remnant of sanity inside the Beltway — and especially at the Pentagon – to try and exercise some adult supervision over the bipartisan “foreign policy community” of smokers in the arsenal.

Comments

There Are 123 Responses So Far. »

1 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 3 September 2008:

It is a very scary time we live in today, especially due to a war driven American administration! Well explained, Dr. Trifkovic!!
2 Comment by Lucius on 3 September 2008:

The suggestion seems to be that the world was a better place when the Soviet Union existed.
3 Comment by yar on 3 September 2008:

There will be no wars between Russia and the US. America has little to gain and everything to lose from that kind of conflagration. However, there will certainly be more humiliations for America, until its behaviour in the world matches its economic clout. Country that contributes 23% of global economic output cannot act as if it comprises 3/4 of world economy – not for long, anyway. US economy is already clearly in decline, US military is in a slow motion collapse, US morale is eroding with every bit of bad news – and US retreat is sure to follow. Just as people were surprised by the rapid-fire disintegration of USSR, so we will all be stunned by just how hollow American Empire is, and by how rotten America itself has become. United States is still functioning but it’s running on fumes.
4 Comment by Iliya Pavlovich on 3 September 2008:

Seems that somebody at the Pentagon has gotten the hint that there is a probable and unsustainable imbalance at present and directed the McFaul to a safer port of Batumi, while the Coast Guard cutter Dallas has already made a U turn. Dr. Trifkovic clarifies with perfect precision that no such imbalance can exist – there will be an answer eslewhere.

If some of us remember the Cuban Missile Crisis, we should be more concerned about being that close to Russia’s direct and overt (let alone aggresive) opponent. In today’s world we won’t have the time to “duck and cover” as it was taught to American children in the 60s. Mutually Assured Destruction is an absolute certainty and both sides are aware of it – the Georgian pawn on a world’s chess board is not worth the Queen on either side and I remain optimistic that there is enough criticism here at home to warn various hotheads and warmongers to stay out of the Black Sea while we finish up this election 3 ring circus and get ourselves on the road to stability. As always I have to remind myself of prior elements which Dr. Trifkovic holds in his pocket like many nickels and dimes (Brest Litovsk, Wilhelmine Germany, Napoleon’s mistakes, etc. etc.). Not many of us can produce such an overview with such impact and depth.

Thank God that Putin is (seems) a reasonable man and will also practise restraint while in the same theater as the mighty Polish mine-sweeper and other vessels.
5 Comment by Arius on 3 September 2008:

Thank you again, Dr Trifkovic. You are right, that ‘the calculus in Washington is not rational’. To not respect Russia’s historic security concerns in its near abroad is clearly insanity and risks disaster.
6 Comment by Michael Averko on 3 September 2008:

Very good points.

How about the following?

When Rus territory was occupied by the Mongols, the Moscow area didn’t rebel as much as some other Rus city states. In turn, the Mongols were more lenient with Moscow. With this leniency, Moscow rebuilt itself as the major force among occupied Rus city states. This enabled Moscow to eventually lead the end of Mongol domination.

With this in mind, I respectfully maintain that there’s something reasonable to be said about pursuing a delicate diplomatic route as one builds strength (concerning the decision to recognize South Ossetain and Abkhaz indpendence).

These thoughts shouldn’t shouldn’t be confused with being a panzy. Russia did the right thing in counterattacking against the Aug. 7 Georgian government strike into South Ossetia and follow-up taking out of armed Georgian positions in Georgia.
7 Pingback by The Economic Nationalist » Blog Archive » Srdja Trifkovic on 3 September 2008:

[...] has become overused as an adjective, so let me just characterize Srdja Trifkovic as insightful and very, very smart. The crisis in relations between the United States and Russia [...]
8 Comment by Clyde Wilson on 3 September 2008:

It would be a mistake to think that American economic and morale weakness will prevent our rulers from undertaking insane actions.
9 Comment by mina on 3 September 2008:

“To not respect Russia’s historic security concerns in its near abroad is clearly insanity and risks disaster.”

So, you are saying that all of this so called ex-soviet union and Warsaw pact area joined NATO and EU to threaten Russia? From my point of view they (or we, being Estonian myself) joined all those organizations to escape direct physical and cultural threat from Russian side. Russia as a state isn’t and shouldn’t be treated as an infantile idiot who is only driven by beasty urges to “protect its habitat”. And even if Russia (rossija) is like that all the more we should not give in to them. No offence but saying “what Russia thinks as his area, IS its area”, is like giving up to any other bullying force – hoping just that you wouldn’t be next.

As I also happened in the Georgia during the war as a humanitarian worker, I find it very “amusing” that so intelligent people as I hope all of you are here, are totally unaware (or doesn’t care) that the military operations were started before Georgian (counter) attack. And provocations were part of Georgian everyday life for last at least 2 years. You can always read for example Reuters newsfeed from those days. But I guess it was comfortable to ignore them. It isn’t now, how utterly ironical.

While Russia’s so called security concerns are that people wish to be free in every sense and they are successful (all ex soviet states in EU have living standard as high as or even higher than Portugal for example). This is just too grave security threat. How on earth can you be a looser in every sense and have neighbors who are more successful than you. More democratic, more free, richer… Like some Russians always asked during occupation “but why don’t you love us…”. Well, I see that Gori, Poti and others were liberated and South-Ossetia gets its independence… being part of Russia.

What’s also interesting is that full-grown and rational people are able to ignore all their principles and ideals when they start the game “let’s hit the bad US”. That includes the part “lets support autocratic, dictatorial and ultranationalist regime just because it is against those bad Americans”.
10 Comment by yar on 3 September 2008:

Clyde,
United States would attack Iran long ago if it was capable of being “insane”. But it’s not, it’s quite scared actually to do so. America is ruled for the benefit of its monied olygarchy, and that olygarchy is not suicidal. In reality it’s obsessed with ensuring its own survival. Therefore, war with Russia is not even an option.

Today’s America may be belligerent, but tough it isn’t. All this bluster is a sign of massive weakness. Strong nations don’t huff and puff, they outline their red lines and defend them. When push ultimately comes to shove, the US will sell its allies for backet of porrige and retreat all the way to North America without a shot fired.
In fact, America will start negotiating with Russia about ceding “near abroad” to Moscow as soon as media frenzy subsides. All that Washington is thinking about right now is how to bail out of that morass without losing a face. Maybe it’s already late for that, but America’s global position is becoming untenable.
11 Comment by yar on 3 September 2008:

mina,
how do you explain that Russians went to the UN before actually moving troops into Georgia, and their pleas for ceasefire was rebuffed by the US and UK?

Is that what Estonian media telling you? That Russians attacked first?

Even Americans and British agree that Georgia instigated the whole shebang. You are clearly behind the curve on this one.
12 Comment by james1 on 3 September 2008:

OSCE observers is said to confirm that Georgia launched an unprovoked attack and targeted the South Ossetian capital long before Russian forces entered the tunnel pass to enter South Ossetia.

Before people and media referenced Human Rights Watches findings as an independent human rights body which contradicted International Red Crosses findings.
Being that Human Rights Watch major financier is George Soros and affiliated with Carnegie Endowment in Russia which is also associated with the former oligarchs its not surprising there’s a bias.

A future interesting piece would be to evaluate the role of NGOs play in countries who financiers them, there political affiliations and there agenda.

Srdja Trifkovic did a good article on George Soros and his Open Society foundation in a 2004 article.
13 Comment by Paul D. Alexander on 3 September 2008:

Let’s hope, Yar, that you’re right. But these are still perilous times in which we live, so we’d better “trust in God and keep our powder dry”, to paraphrase Cromwell.
14 Comment by james1 on 3 September 2008:

@9mina

What were Estonian merceneries doing in Georgia?
15 Comment by Michael Averko on 3 September 2008:

Yar

I made that exact same point yesterday about the UN to a couple of the lead folks propagating the belief that Russia and South Ossetia provoked Georgia into attacking.

Not to be overlooked is how the Georgian military has been significantly beefed up over the past few years – combined with some prominent Georgian political figures brazenly talking about retaking Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

To my knowledge South Ossetia has no territorial claims on Georgia.
16 Comment by james1 on 3 September 2008:

If I was an ethic Russian in the Baltic’s or Ukraine especially Ukraine I would be pretty scared just know of state hired merc forces assaulting Russians to get a response from Moscow just like what happened to Germans in Danzig.

There’s supposed to be a CIA man based in Estonia that is a really hates Russia not as much as Brezinski which is probably impossible but still.
17 Comment by Michael Averko on 3 September 2008:

US Plans $1 Billion Aid Package to Georgia
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26525962/
18 Comment by yar on 3 September 2008:

mina,
do you have any verifiable statistics to back up your claim that all ex-Soviets in EU are better off than Portugal?
And if that’s true (which it isn’t, of course – only Estonia is), wasn’t this due to the Soviet investment in education, as well as the fact that Russia took upon itself all foreign debt burden of the whole USSR, and thus let Baltics to start with pristine balance sheet?

Also, if Russia is such a “loser”, then how come it has higher GDP per capita than EU members Romania and Bulgaria ( I know you’ll fall back on “oil and gas” argument, but remember that Romania and Bulgaria get EU transfers and Russia doesn’t, which should even the field), and isn’t far behind Poland and Lithuania despite starting its recovery years later? And how come such ‘free” and ‘democratic’ cesspools like Georgia and Ukraine are so far behind Russia, despite being subsidised by it? And how come this year Russia’s growth is way higher than Baltics, all of which are proving to be economic basket cases of the most embarassing kind? Take your time with the reply.

mina, when you imply that Baltics have legitimate security concerns, while at the same time calling Russian security concerns “so called”, the result will be that you will never have your security concerns settled to your satisfaction. Russia’s interests will ultimately be accomodated, great powers always get their way. The question is how? It could be done the easy way, or the hard way. If it’s done the hard way, Estonia may find itself losing its independence once again. And that’s the best case sceanrio. Isn’t it time for a little dwarf nation like yours to stop needling Russia, and then hide behind NATO’s back, – and start behaving like an adult?
19 Comment by mina on 3 September 2008:

“What were Estonian merceneries doing in Georgia?”

Let me guess – this piece of “news” you got from ITAR-TASS, RIA-novosti or some western agency quoting them.

According to Russian sources I was also part of those “”merceneries”". Working with World Vision NGO and in Refugee Registration Centre. This is the problem I’m talking about. Check your sources. Put some pictures up about our work there. http://foto.barfly.pri.ee/main.php?cmd=album

But about starting the war (I see you like to quote UN), for example already 3 moths ago 26 may 2008:
“Russia committed act of war against Georgia, says UN” http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/2032927/Russia-committed-act-of-war-against-Georgia,-says-UN.html

I won’t respond to any claims without links to sources Makes life easier and air clearer.
20 Comment by mina on 3 September 2008:

Thank you dear yar for your most valuable input. Like straight from the handbook of soviet myths and propaganda.

But before Soviet Union saved us from ourselves (1939, while allied with N8azi Germany) Estonian economy, society … was as good as or even better than Finnish for example. We can all see what it is now.
(http://www.heritage.org/Research/WorldwideFreedom/bg2060.cfm)

Yar said: „Russia’s interests will ultimately be accomodated, /…/It could be done the easy way, or the hard way”

I think I won’t humiliate and debase myself anymore by answering alogisms or arguments like the one above.
21 Comment by yar on 3 September 2008:

mina,
you already humiliated and debased yourself. You just don’t know it yet.
22 Comment by Eagle on 3 September 2008:

Small states rarely have or retain true sovereignty in the world as presently structured. Estonia may be nominally more free than it was as a Soviet republic, but it is hardly ‘free’ today. It is merely beholden to presently less intrusive (though by no means less ambitious than the Soviets) western powers who dictate its foreign policy, to worldwide economic institutions (run by those same western powers) who dictate its terms of commerce, and to a hole range of NGOs (also run by the same western powers) that dictate the dismantling of local norms and culture. While it may seem nominally more pleasant at the moment, the tracjectory for the Estonias (and the Polands, and the Croatias, and the Serbias, and the Portugals, and the Cubas, and the Mexicos) is the same: toward a centrallized world super-state not Soviet in name and style, but not entirely different than the one envisioned by Lenin. The question now is: is this trully achievable or is an overstretched western empire going to meet the same fate as its Soviet predecessor?
23 Comment by Leo on 3 September 2008:

Let’s just cut to the chase.The government of the United States is dedicated and working hard to guarantee that America will soon complete its transition to a Third World populace.It may be politically incorrect to speak this truth but I doubt this transition will make it a better or even good country.(If current trends continue,the USA will be less “white”than Brazil).The current government of Russia certainly appears to understand Russians face a demographic crisis.It has responded with pro-natalist policies,Russian and Orthodox cultural revivals and material assistance,a much saner immigration policy and a frankly aggressive appeal to Russian identity.The United States cannot defeat Russia(or Iraq,Afghanistan,Somalia,VietNam,China,Iran,etc.)We have lost vast areas of our country to crime and illegal immigration.A smart Georgian or Estonian would make his peace with Russia and deny Cheney access to the airport.A dumb Georgian would throw a “Rose Revolution”. Guess that’s no longer controversial.
24 Comment by james1 on 3 September 2008:

@18mina

Nationalist groups in countries of the former Russian empire aligned themselves with foreign Marxist groups financed by international banker Jacob Shiff to fight the white Russians and install communism in Russia in the first place.

A table made up in 1918, by Robert Wilton, correspondent of the London Times in Russia, shows at that time there were 384 commissars including 2 Negroes, 13 Russians, 15 Chinamen, 22 Armenians and more than 300 Jews. Of the latter number 264 had come from the United States since the downfall of the Imperial Government.

Russia has a surplus while the US has a growing 9 trillion dollar debt and rising which Russia holds about 3 billion.

The US is essentially bankrupt if China and Japan started to decrease its loan payments to the US it would be in sever trouble.

@17yar

Soros and his Harvard cronies instituted a forced economic system called shock therapy where Russia was to sell of its assets at fire sale prices for loan guarantees which went straight into western banks where the bought up Russia’s resources at fire sale prices decimating the economy.
Look at the major shareholders of the former Yuko’s oil company Jacob Rothschild, Henry Kissinger, etc.
25 Comment by james1 on 3 September 2008:

No one seems to mention the role international bankers play in geopolitics and foreign policy and there front men like George Soros.
The Rothschild family alone have major influence through there domination of the diamond trade through there financing of Cecil Rhodes and there major ownership of

The fact that the Bolshevik revolution in Russia was financed by some of the wealthiest international bankers, a supposed anti-capitalist system but in reality a system of control where private property is stripped and the economy is run through a central bank which they control. The whole soviet system including Stalin’s 5 year plan industrial project was financed by high interest loans from the Federal Reserve in the US.

To understand US political policy towards Russia you only have to look at Brezinski’s Grand Chessboard strategy based on a series of Bilderburg essays and speeches.
26 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 3 September 2008:

It is also worth mentioning that almost all newly “elected” presidents of the former Soviet republics studied in the USA – thus are enemy of Russia and disputable friends of their own peoples:

TOOMAS HENDRIK ILVES, President of the Republic of Estonia, studied at Columbia University and Pennsylvania University (USA),

President of the Republic of Latvia Valdis Zatlers – 6 months’ professional training in orthopedia in Yale University and Syracuse University

President of the Republic of Lithuania Valdas AdamkusIn 1960, he graduated from the Illinois Institute of Technology, with a degree in civil engineering.

President of Georgia Mikheil Saakashvili attended Columbia University in New York City and the George Washington University National Center of Law in Washington, D.C.

Serbia…. (Minister for foreign affairs Vuk Jeremic) and so on…..
27 Comment by MilesGloriosus on 3 September 2008:

George Bush has promised an additional one billion in aid to Georgia. When Cheney meets with Saakashvili on Thursday, the massive aid package will be a major highlight of their discussions.

In case Iraq won’t be his Viet Nam, Bush will have Georgia to fall back on.
28 Comment by Robert Bruce on 3 September 2008:

The Baltics, especially Estonia and Latvia, have a significant Russian minority, that if I am not mistake might become the majority in a couple generations. I wouldn’t piss off the Russian Bear with this in mind if you are truly Estonian Mina. You already have anti NATO demostrations in Ukraine, which has a Russified minority, that dominates the industrial East and South.(the only economically viable parts of Ukraine) I could see Moscow egging on trouble with its Russian minorities in the Baltics, Ukraine, and Moldova and pulling off Danzig type operations.
29 Comment by Roy Tripp on 3 September 2008:

Very worrying state of affairs, especially due to the nature of the conflict and the geopolitical complexity. I think that this conflict is a thorn in the side of the world powers who ever they are. These powers don’t have full reign on world events.
Let us not loose sight that God still has his hands on the rudder and controls all things. Oh what a struggle for the hearts, minds and most of all souls of man.
30 Comment by Bill Wilder on 3 September 2008:

Dr. Trifkovic’s point is not to promote Russian chauvinism (as some posters apparently wish to do), but to provide a warning against reckless confrontation by our gov’t. The point of the analysis, as I see it, is that because Russia is acting like an “old power” in it’s “near abroad”, it is acting on concrete, tangible and identifiable interests. If a country acts on concrete interests, then other powers (whether you wish to describe them as opponents, adversaries, competitors, etc.) can similarly identify the interests and thus identify the extent to wish those interests are complementary or competitive. That allows you to predict likely actions by other powers and devise policies that pursue interests while avoiding conflict.

But the reality is, Russia could not prevail in armed conflict with the United States and, I believe, it does not wish to provoke a direct conflict with the US. Indeed, I doubt it really wishes conflict except to the extent unavoidable to what it deems its necessary interests.

So lets spare us romantic notions about Russian power and instead recognize what Dr. Trifkovic is saying, that our country should also act on concrete interests rather than a desire for overweening power, masquerading as “promoting freedom.”
31 Comment by Lucius on 3 September 2008:

I agree with Mina, and I’m frankly embarrassed at the way she was addressed.

It’s depressing to watch the armchair geo-strategists here lecture the citizens of the former Soviet republics that they would be better off if we did not provide them the help they were asking for and that we had the power to offer; or even worse, to watch some make the argument that ultimately, life is not better now in the ex-Soviet republics than it was in Soviet times. (Good Lord, what a ridiculous statement!)

To my mind it makes little sense to look for peace in a balance of power between the US and Russia. The latter is a country run mafia-style by the former KGB, the very people whose boots were on the necks of the former Soviet republics just 20 years ago. Difficult to imagine peace in that sphere of influence. Does anyone here consider Transnistria a place of peace and prosperity?

There’s no way of foreseeing with fatalistic certainty that Russia will recover the power it once had. Moscow was a backwater once. It may very well be a backwater again.

Finally, for what it’s worth, I agree with Mina that Moscow is clearly ultimately responsible for the war in Georgia. I’m astonished that we have such a blind spot to the Russians’ deliberate creation of an impossible situation in South Ossetia over the past 15 years. When a mouse is caught in a mousetrap after taking the bait, do you hold the mouse responsible, or the man who set the trap?
32 Comment by james1 on 3 September 2008:

@26Robert Bruce

Germans didn’t provoke what happened in Danzig Polish communists slaughtered 5000 German civilians to get a response from Germany.

The German foreign office publishes a pamphlet documenting the crime and protested to the international community but the fell on deaf ears.

In that regards I can see a Danzig like scenario happening in the Ukraine.

OSCE officials confirm that Georgia launched an unprovoked attack on South Ossetia with aerial bombardments on civilian areas before Russian troops and tanks entered the tunnel pass into South Ossetia.
33 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 3 September 2008:

This is to add to some very good comments:

YEREVAN, September 3 (RIA Novosti) – Heads of the security councils of a post-Soviet security bloc have backed a Russian proposal to impose an arms embargo on Georgia….

The Collective Security Treaty Organization is a security grouping comprising Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Russia, Uzbekistan, and Tajikistan.

“We know that a number of countries had been supplying arms to Georgia and Saakashvili, and that the country’s military budget had increased by more than 30 times. It is clear that they were preparing for it [military conflict].”…

China and the other members of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) voiced their support last month for Russia’s actions in regard to Georgia and South Ossetia following the recent conflict.

The security bloc, seen as a counterweight to NATO’s influence in Eurasia, comprises China, Russia, and four Central Asian states – Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. ..

…”We cannot but be concerned that humanitarian aid [to Georgia] is delivered by [NATO] warships equipped with modern weapons,” Patrushev said. …
===
AND
… Nicaragua recognizes South Ossetia, Abkhazia
34 Comment by james1 on 3 September 2008:

@29Lucius

http://ossetians.com/eng/news.php?newsid=27&f=3&PHPSESSID=c2bff7c3d4b68c25a2a73a4050f34041
35 Comment by yar on 3 September 2008:

Lucius, everything was backwater once, and nothing can be predicted with fatalistic certainty, except death and taxes.
What’s your point?
(Just please avoid “boot on a throat” propagandstic outbursts. If Russians treated Baltics the way Americans treated Vietnamsese or Iraqis, then you might have a point. Otherwise you sound a bit histerical and not at all fair. And since Baltics eagerly participate in occupation of Iraq, what moral right do they have to feel like victims of foreign occupation? None. ).

PS. Don’t be embarassed for mina’s reception. Considering that pretty much all of mina’s info was either wrong or deceptive, that windbag got rather generous treatment.
36 Comment by Michael Averko on 3 September 2008:

Re: Number 29

“Does anyone here consider Transnistria a place of peace and prosperity?”

****

Better than Moldova, which explains in part why it prefers independence.

On the matter of comparing “peace and prosperity” how about Albania and Kosovo?

Regarding the other comments:

Saakashvili is to blame for the recent conflict. Russia first pursued peaceful diplomacy at the UN. The UK and US rejected that option. After the Russian counterattack, the US and UK changed their position.

The Russians didn’t invent the conflict between the Georgians vis-a-vis the Abkhaz and South Ossetians. They were accepted as peacekeepers because the Russians got along better with the adversaries than the belligerants did with themselves. In addition, they’re the regional power in the Caucasus.
37 Comment by Walter Hallstein on 3 September 2008:

I suspect that a counter to NATO will be formed very shortly, SCO is just a counter to EU but I suspect a NATO counter is in the works and this new Cold War II will have a totally different outcome then the first Cold War.

So all those little independent countries, or so-called democracies (Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc.), which were forced apart from their bigger stable entities, were made weak by US projected force (economic and military via proxy armies, via the well proven divide and conquer principle) at the expense of weaker sovereign countries will be undone once again. It appears that the US has not learned anything from history, since Germany has attempted to redraw borders in Europe before and it has paid dearly for it, but yet today without firing a single shot it has managed to re-create what Hitler failed to create or what he wanted to create the Third Reich. Of course this was all accomplished with US help, but the US wanted to create a much greater Empire. Fortunately both the EU as well as US attempt a global Empire will be a short lived abomination. The double standards used and exercised today by the US and EU will come home to roost, in do time.

What we seen in the last 28 years is the undoing of the results of WWI and WWII, the culprits of WWI were Austrian Hungarian Empire and Germany, in WWII it was Nazi Germany, and more recently it is the US that is busy redrawing borders in Europe, the US has undone everything that was achieved at the end of WWI and WWII. A bipolar World was preferred to that of a unipolar world. Today’s events almost appears as a resurgent Nazi Germany has been reawakened from a long slumber, the former allies against Nazi’s are now the new enemies and the Nazi, Fascist states, and their respectful collaborators are now democracies fighting to achieve or preserve freedom, sovereignty and territorial integrity (all subjective just like at the time of Nazi Germanys rise to power). At the end of WWI we had the League of Nations which was replaced by the UN at the end of WWII; I believe we will see a third world organization, at the end of this new Cold War. The US will be relegated to the role being played by Germany today and all those poor little former Nazi states will be destroyed for the third time in short history (last 100 years).

Very scary period of time we all live in and judging by candidates for the office of the president of the US, the 2008 election will accelerate the fall of the US and collapse of EU and NATO, which should have been mothballed long ago, when the other relic of the Cold War was disbanded, the Warsaw Pact. We all know that the US failed to use this period of time to stabilize the world for the overall good of the whole world and mankind, shame, they chose to destabilize the world and create chaos for selfish reasons disguised as noble and benevolent fighter for freedom and democracy, the results are clear, it was a sham, it is hypocrisy.

So yes a major war is a possibility since most people in the so-called western world, seem to be blind and deaf. How can some justify the United States attacking Grenada or Nicaragua or Panama or Iraq or Serbia yet condemn the Russian involvement in Georgia? While major US news outlets may be comfortable wearing blinders that let them see only wrongdoing by others, the rest of the world views the outrage from Bush and the neocons over Russia as a stunning double standard.
38 Comment by niko on 4 September 2008:

“Asymmetrical multipolarity”, so that’s like two tough guys at a bar, both recognize their mutual toughness and decide its not worth the fight. But as soon as one is deemed as less tough, ‘POW’ right in the KISSA!!

So Russia’s weakness will ensure its eventual clobbering.
39 Comment by jack bailey on 4 September 2008:

what is most amusing about Russofobia of the Estonians, Latvians etc. is that they are not against socialism or even communism at all. As long as they can be anti Russian while hoping to eventually start a world war with Russia to feed their injured national psyche. What can be sicker than that?
40 Comment by Michael Averko on 4 September 2008:

The pro-Bolshe Russian Civil War era Latvian riflemen as a case in point.
41 Comment by james1 on 4 September 2008:

St Petersburg was a swamp before Russia turned it into the magnificent city that it is.

Here’s a video of Tom Lantos promising Kosovo independence in 89 addressing a group of Kosovo Albanians in Kosovo.

http://xrl.us/bgdmb

Is it smart for the US to appoint people with historic ethnic hatred of Russia? Brezinski a strong Polish nationalist and Jewish Neocon’s and other senior non Neocon Jewish political figures like Madeline Albright and Richard Holbroke although Holbroke might be in trouble with the Karadzic’s trail in the Hague if the truth is revealed.
42 Comment by CM Collins on 4 September 2008:

“If one of the powers becomes markedly stronger than others and if its decision-making elite internalizes an ideology that demands or at least justifies hegemony, the inherently unstable system of asymmetrical multipolarity will develop. In all three known instances—Napoleonic France after 1799, the Kaiserreich from around 1900, and the Third Reich after 1933—the challenge could not be resolved without a major war.

“The government of the United States is now acting in a manner structurally reminiscent of those three powers. Having proclaimed itself the leader of an imaginary “international community,” it goes further than any previous would-be hegemon in treating the entire world as the American sphere of interest….”

This is an extremely valuable statement of the problem. How unfortunate only one presidential candidate, Ron Paul, demonstrated even an awareness of the knowledge of history, human nature, and the current political situation that this essay demonstrates. We literally could die for electing the apparent lightweights we are currently considering. I pray that they are merely apparent lightweights, dumbing it down, and that behind them their factions contain committees or departments with such knowledge, and that at least a few wise advisors might sneak into positions of influence. To that end, it is best not to vote in this election, so that such potential advisors might be armed with this argument: “Sir, I grant that you have succeeded to the most powerful elective office in the world, but I beg you not to take it as a personal mandate. After all, less than a plurality even bothered to vote for you….”
43 Comment by james1 on 4 September 2008:

I think the role of these NGO’s should be investigated and monitored. This was most evident in the former Yugoslavia.

Even in the US after the revolutionary war British influence and involvement in there internal affairs did not dissipate although they did not have NGO’s back then.

I heard the before the non-Russian Bolshevik revolution in Russia relations between Russia and the US were very good. I know Czar Alexander helped finance Lincoln during the civil war and an advisor to one of the US presidents help set up the academy of science in the Russia during Peter the Greats reign.
44 Comment by Lucius on 4 September 2008:

@james1
Yes, Russia used to do beautiful things and was great. It hasn’t been great since 1917.

@ Boba
I don’t know where you get your news. The SCO did not support the Russian action–a humiliation for Russia.

@yar
“If Russians treated Baltics the way Americans treated Vietnamsese or Iraqis, then you might have a point.” Remember the iron curtain?

@Averko
Transnistria better than Moldova? You clearly have no idea what’s going on over there.

Yes, the US is hypocritical. Yes, the war in Iraq is a debacle and an injustice. Etc. etc. Let’s not exaggerate the US’s shortcomings and Russia’s virtues, however.
45 Comment by CM Collins on 4 September 2008:

My apologies for my presumption: that last should read, “It’s my own personal belief that it is best not to vote….”
46 Comment by Roobit on 4 September 2008:

41james1

The problem is of course that the US is Russia’s existential enemy (due to several factors, some are already described in this article, such as the fact that the US is a ideological power. Worse it is a bankrupt ideological power).

All nations on Russian periphery depend on Russia economically in one way or the other (for example Georgia has no foreign income whatsoever except for aid and money sent home by migrants, 67% of this comes from Russia); but their “elites” are often American puppets. The only way I see this situation resolving itself is if Russia starts using its economic muscle there where it has most leverage.

In case of the US – Russia should minimize relations with the US: expel US companies (in some cases, the results would be catastrophic. for Ford, which has all sorts of troubles in the domestic market, Russia is now the most important foreign market, it’s place would be instantly taken by other competitors, stop US “NGOs”, block any US participation in energy or other projects. Ideally stop selling oil for US dollars. Plus it should do everything US is doing now – supply weapons to patriots in Afghanistan and Iraq (and ensure that crusade for democracy comes to the bloody end), block NATO transit and air corridors, form alliances with anyone who opposes the US and its closest vassals.
47 Comment by Maie Kark on 4 September 2008:

@24 Boba,
Not only have these present leaders of the former Soviet Baltic republics studied in the US, in most cases like T. Ilves they were brought up in America. They come from exile communities and had never lived in their respective countries before. That’s why they do not have a whole lot in common with the people who actually lived there. They do not know the local circumstances too well and cannot understand or speak Russian which the local population normally could. They are filled with rabid nationalism and are anti-Russian per definition – of which some good examples were provided even here: @29 Lucius: “Moscow was a backwater once. It may very well be a backwater again.” “The latter is a country run mafia-style by the former KGB, the very people whose boots were on the necks of the former Soviet republics just 20 years ago.”
You could also have mentioned Poland’s Donald Tusk and Latvia’s former president and ‘grand lady’ Vaira Vike-Freiberga.

@26 Robert Bruce
“The Baltics, especially Estonia and Latvia, have a significant Russian minority, that if I am not mistaken might become the majority in a couple generations.”
As far as Estonia is concerned, I do not think that is the case. The percentage of Russians is not that high. Much more probable with Latvia, though…

@36 Jack Bailey
I fully agree. Well said. In Soviet times many of these Baltics were better communists than Russians themselves.

@38 james
“St Petersburg was a swamp before Russia turned it into the magnificent city that it is.”
It was Swedish at that time. 
48 Comment by Roobit on 4 September 2008:

36Walter Hallstein

So all those little independent countries, or so-called democracies (Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia, Kosovo, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Czech Republic, Slovakia, etc.)

Actually, I think we should not mix those states together. For example, Estonia is a totally rabid artificial ethnic statelet (and is not a democracy as you cannot be a democracy and deny one third of your population civil rights essentially because of their wrong ethnicity or genotype or whatever). Estonia is more ideologically Nazi than Nazi Germany ever was. On the other hand, Slovakia and Czech Republic (both of course products of WWI, spin-offs from great once great empire) are totally adequate nations. It is true that Czech Republic has democratic deficiency (not that I think that democracy is of any value by itself or is in any way better than absolute monarchy) like when to prevent people from organizing referendum on American radar installations (75% of population oppose the US and their own government on that question) the parliament passes a law that prohibits referendums or rather only allows them with parliamentary permission, i.e. when the issue is pre-approved by the parliament. On the other hand, Czech Republic and Slovakia (or Hungary) are certainly not comparable to or with Estonia or to, extreme case, Georgia.
49 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 4 September 2008:

Lucius,

you are confusing Soviet Union with Russia.

Re. # 42 RE: The SCO did support Russian action in S.O. but you cannot read it in the western media. They did not support the independence of S.O. and Abhazia….
==
http://article.wn.com/view/2008/08/29/Russia_wins_support_from_China_Central_Asian_nations/

RUSSIA today won support from China and Central Asian states in its standoff with the West over the Georgia conflict as the European Union said it was weighing sanctions against Moscow. Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev said he hoped the “united position” of a summit of Central Asian nations would “serve as a serious signal to those who try to turn black into white.” The West has strongly condemned Russia’s military offensive in Georgia this month and Medvedev’s decision to recognise the…
50 Trackback by www.buzzflash.net on 4 September 2008:

A Major War: Not Just Rumors: by Srdja Trifkovic…

The crisis in relations between the United States and Russia over Georgia heralds a particularly dangerous period in world affairs: the era of asymmetrical multipolarity. A major war between two or more major powers is more likely in this configuration…
51 Comment by Michael Kenny on 4 September 2008:

A good analysis, but be careful of pushing the 1914 parallel too far. There will not be “some silly little thing in the Balkans (Baltic/ Caucasus)”, precisely because history never exactly repeats itself. Essentially, the world is “re-Europeanising” after 65 “American” years and, naturally, that looks very like the late Victorian world which Europe dominated. The other point to bear in mind is that all the countries involved are now democracies. They cannot, as in 1914, just wave the flag and expect the little people to line up to get themselves killed.

For that reason, I don’t think that Europe will be involved in any war, although the US, now a mortally wounded dinosaur, might well be tempted towards some last, desperate folly, particularly since Israel’s existence rests entirely on American brute force and given the Israel Lobby’s stranglehold on US public life.

The world is certainly going to be a very dangerous place between now and the definitive collpase of the US, which could easily take another 4 or 5 years (6 years elapsed between Gorbachev’s appointment and the fall of the Soviet Union).
52 Comment by Lucius on 4 September 2008:

@ Boba

Don’t read Russian propaganda, read the actual SCO declaration.

http://www.sectsco.org/news_detail.asp?id=2360&LanguageID=2
53 Comment by Grumpy Old Man on 4 September 2008:

Aside from the ethnic conspiracy theories from the usual suspects, these comboxes have focused on nose-thumbing between pro- and anti-Russian commenters.

I must be naïve, but the point for me is not the merits of Russia vs. Latvia &c., but the fate of the United States in all this. Like Rome in Mesopotamia, the U.S. has bitten off more than it can chew. Cheney is still yammering about Georgia joining NATO, McCain has employed a Georgian lobbyist as his policy adviser, and Obama, perhaps to dispel his effete, inexperienced image, has stepped back into the NATO-expansion line.

Just as Rome overstretched herself invading Mesopotamia, the U.S. will be overstretched if she tries to assert herself too boldly in the Black Sea.

Georgia has an extraordinary culture, stretching back, like the Basques’, to Neolithic Europe, but is irrelevant to the safety and prosperity of the United States. Russia is reasserting herself in her neighborhood; so be it.

Dr. Trifkovic is wise to point out the dangers of an asymmetry of power in a multipolar world. One might add, a world where the balance is shifting is even more dangerous. The sooner we adjust our ends to our means, the better off we’ll be.

Not. Gonna. Happen.
54 Comment by jack bailey on 4 September 2008:

Christopher Hitchens has an article in 6 points on why “Ossetia isn’t Kosovo” on his site dated August 18th. This article badly needs a rebuttal. I wish someone at the Chronicles would take some time to answer it. One casuistry that gets me the most is how Putin is supporting the president of Zimbabwe!. Somebody please write an answer to this jackass.
55 Comment by MilesGloriosus on 4 September 2008:

@Lucius & Mina:

Let me speak politely plainly: I don’t want to send my sons and daughters to die for Estonia. Forgive me if I sound insensitive, but charity really does begin at home; and if our “leaders” really do care about these statelets, let them send their own children.
56 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 4 September 2008:

Re. # 50
Lucius,

It was not a Russian source that I cited at # 47. It was the one of the World News Agency.
However, here is the point 3 from the SCO declaration that you had mentioned at # 50:

… 3. The member states of the SCO express their deep concern in connection with the recent tension around the issue of South Ossetia, and call on the relevant parties to resolve existing problems in a peaceful way through dialogue, to make efforts for reconciliation and facilitation of negotiations.
The member states of the SCO welcome the approval on 12 August 2008 in Moscow of the six principles of settling the conflict in South Ossetia, and support the active role of Russia in promoting peace and cooperation in the region. …
57 Comment by MilesGloriosus on 4 September 2008:

Jack Bailey wrote:

“As long as they[Latvians and Estonians] can be anti Russian while hoping to eventually start a world war with Russia to feed their injured national psyche. What can be sicker than that?”

That’s easy: The leaders of our once great nation buying into it or using it as a subterfuge to advance their own treasonous ends. All one has to do is watch either of the major party conventions to see how dangerously ludicrous leadership at the top has become. Monty Python could never do farce better.
58 Comment by Lucius on 4 September 2008:

@ Boba

In other words, the SCO did not support the invasion.

Great article here by Thierry Wolton in Le Monde:
http://www.lemonde.fr/archives/article/2008/09/03/lourd-heritage-sovietique-par-thierry-wolton_1090988_0.html

Use Babelfish to translate if you don’t read French.
59 Comment by james1 on 4 September 2008:

Dr. Trifkovic I watched a clip of the BBC documentary Death of Yugoslavia on YouTube and it made out that the Bosnian president was kidnapped by Serb forces in 91/92 is this true?

How many of the Baltic states leaders are members of the CFR and the Trilateral commission?

@42Lucius

That’s because it hasn’t been properly Russian since 1917. The same pattern of ethnic percentage in Russia can be found in the former soviet states after WW2.

@52jack bailey

Christopher Hitchens is a former Marxist communist supporter who supports Jewish causes like the war in Iraq. During the 90’s he backed the Bosnian Muslims over the Serbs.

Putin doesn’t Zimbabwe he didn’t support further sanctions because it would have the same effect as it had on Iraq.

Ari Ben-Menashe a former Mossad agent is employed by Mugabe. He is the one that produced the fake video of the head of Mugabe’s opposition of conspiring to kill him.

I agree with him Ossetia is not Kosovo. It does not ship 75% of Afghan heroine into Europe, sex trafficking, major organised crime into Europe, etc.
60 Comment by Walter Hallstein on 4 September 2008:

#46 Roobit,

Czech Republic and Slovakia belong together. These countries were used as excuse by Nazi Germany to project their power deep into central Europe, and a pretext the attack its immediate neighbors Poland, a precedent was needed. Gee almost identical to some precedents being created today.

History repeats itself, same players more less, very few changes, but the end results is identical to current events, at least in the Balkans.

At the beginning of WWI Croatia, Slovenia, Bosnia were parts of Austrian Hungarian Empire, Macedonia was part of Serbia. Croatian, Slovenians, and Bosnian Muslims all fought on the Austrian Hungarian side along with Germany. Serbia and Montenegro were the only independent countries on the territory that was once Yugoslavia.

During of WWII, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany annexed Kosovo on behalf of ethnic Albanians. Independent Nazi puppet state Croatia was created by Nazi Germany. Croatians were the staunchest Nazi’s of any other country in Europe (Baltic countries are not on the same planet when it comes to murdering). Bosnia Muslims, ethnic Albanians were also fighting on the side of the Nazi Germany, they were all part of volunteer brigades.

Beginning of 1980 after the collapse of USSR and after reunification of Germany, the German politicians decided to formulate the destruction of Yugoslavia, thus under Germany guidance (lies and propaganda the US was duped) and via US might, Yugoslavia was destroyed (using IMF, to weaken Yugoslavia’s economy), which led directly to premeditated civil wars of the 1990’s. The same ethnic groups that were once used by Austrian Hungarian Empire against Serbia, and the same ethnic groups that were used against Serbia in WWII were ready once again to do what their master wanted them to do, attack Serbia destroy Yugoslavia.

The world has slept trough the reality and the covert destruction and map redrawing of the Balkans, the bridge from east to West had to be secured, thus Kosovo annexation, for the second time in modern history, it was first done by fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, second time it was US turn to annex Kosovo on behalf of freedom loving terrorists. The US has successfully used terrorists against USSR in Afghanistan, and Serbs in Bosnia, and Serbs in Kosovo. This reality will not sustained much longer, but knowing that Serbs could wait up to five hundred years for justice, this little setback is just that a temporary setback.

Montenegro is to Serbia what Ukraine is to Russia. Yet this matter didn’t stop the US and EU to force a divorce between Serbia and Montenegro. The same scenarios that were used to during WWII by Nazi Germany to pit ethnic groups against USSR are now being used against Russia; history repeats itself, with very few changes in the scenarios.

NATO needs to be mothballed for the overall good of Europe and the rest of the world; EU needs to be reorganized where Germany and France are made members with no major influence. The victims of German aggression in WWI and WWII, those countries need to be major players in EU, keeping potential culprits from repeating their ambitions (Italy, Germany and Turkey). The fascist and Nazi collaborating countries need to be isolated or prevented from being influenced by Germany, Italy. UK and the US do not belong in EU or NATO. UK has caused enough damage in the world that will last thousand years. The US has repeated the mistakes the British Empire made once before. Both UK and the US have not learned anything from history. When Warsaw Pact dissolved NATO should have dissolved, and none of the civil wars in the Balkans or on the territory of former USSR would have taken place, missed opportunity to move forward in a positive way.
61 Comment by jack bailey on 4 September 2008:

I know very well who Hitchens is and one could say who cares what he thinks. But this article is so over the top that someone’s got to answer it! There is so many misconceptions packed into this article. American public, Republicans and those who don’t know better rely on Hitchens to set them in political correctness. That is why someone qualified should take his time and answer this article. These neocons act the way they do because they do not get called on it most of the time.
62 Comment by Michael Averko on 4 September 2008:

Re 42

I clearly do have a good idea of what’s going on over there. Moldova is considered the poorest part of Europe. A venue recently called it the most depressing place as well. Not so Russia friendly sources have acknowledged why Pridnestrovie (Trans-Dniester) doesn’t seek to be part of Moldova.

———————————————————————————–

Some info. on Georgian-Israeli ties:

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/2008-164.cfm#1

Ditto Jewish involvement vis-a-vis the FSU:

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson

It’s suggested that Saaki propped the Israeli ties as a means of getting better support among key American politicos.
63 Comment by Michael Averko on 4 September 2008:

Let me add (from my last post currently awaiting moderation) that ethnic tensions between Pridnestrovie’s Moldovan and Slavic communities are nowhere near as pronounced as the ones found in other disputed former Communist bloc territories. In addition, there’s no mass movement among ethnic Moldovans in Pridnestrovie to go against Pridnestrovie in its dispute with Moldova.
64 Comment by Roobit on 4 September 2008:

62Walter Hallstein

“Czech Republic and Slovakia belong together. These countries were used as excuse by Nazi Germany to project their power deep into central Europe, and a pretext the attack its immediate neighbors Poland, a precedent was needed. Gee almost identical to some precedents being created today.

History repeats itself, same players more less, very few changes, but the end results is identical to current events, at least in the Balkans.”

Well, I agree that they belong together but they are now together – inside the EU. What I was saying (and i am not going to write a detailed missive as my recent posts disappeared/were censored/are awaiting moderation (in alcohol consumption I assume) is that these are still fairly balanced countries. They are in a different league than Estonia or Georgia. And yes, I also believe that they should be together, that the Austrian Empire should have never been broken (a view shared by many Czechs) and could have transformed into some sort of (Danubian) Federation. Nonetheless today’s Slovakia, either its people or its government, has no desire to sacrifice itself for the glory of Washington, neocons or, let’ say, the Zionist cause or some other abstraction. Slovaks do not seek historic revenge. Slovaks and Czechs are two nations everyone can live with and live together. This is certainly not the case with today’s ethnostatelets in the Baltics or with (most extreme example) Georgia
65 Comment by Roobit on 4 September 2008:

@38 james
“St Petersburg was a swamp before Russia turned it into the magnificent city that it is.”
It was Swedish at that time. 

Actually it was only formally Swedish for 86 years, between the year 1617 and 1703 when Sweden gained Russian territory up to today’s fortress of Schliesselburg (Novgorodian Russian Oreshek, Swedish Nöteborg, German Schlüsselburg).
66 Comment by Alex on 4 September 2008:

Well done, Dr Trifkovic! It is terrifying to think that one’s own country could have become the Second Reich. I say Second because I hope that we have not gone to the insanity of the Third.
67 Comment by Andrei Vidal on 4 September 2008:

Brilliant article as usual by Dr. Trifkovic. Some of the comments are however quite frankly ridiculous, such as “Estonia is more ideologically Nazi than Nazi Germany ever was.” I hope that “Germans didn’t provoke what happened in Danzig Polish communists slaughtered 5000 German civilians to get a response from Germany.” was an analogy or a joke.

I also find it odd that because “President of the Republic of Latvia Valdis Zatlers – 6 months’ professional training in orthopedia in Yale University and Syracuse University” he has become an enemy of Russia and disputably an enemy of his own people.
68 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 4 September 2008:

Anybody know of Mr. Hallstein’s pedigree?

He is throwing about a lot of accusations that are not supported by pre WWI & WWII documentation.

Further, he now blames Germany, again, for fostering discord in Europe.

Considering that Germany is still, today, an occupied country (mostly USA and its overlords AIPAC and Israel) where any new president and chancellor IMMEDIATELY pays homage to Israel and USA upon taking office, it would be absolutely wrong to assume that Germany today has a foreign policy independent of that of USrael. They try a little now and then in agreement with France, such as ‘delaying’ Georgia’s admission to NATO.

For crying out loud, 8,000 people are dragged through the court system there every year for simply asking public questions about questionable occurrences during WWII.

That is not a sign or action of an independent government.

H.F. Wolff
69 Comment by yar on 4 September 2008:

Decent analysis from STRATFOR ( although the fact that the word “China” is not mentioned once, substracts from it quality).

http://www.marketoracle.co.uk/Article6084.html
70 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 4 September 2008:

yar,

Thanks for pointing out the analysis in STRATFOR.

I found it fascinating! One forgets at one’s peril that chess is a favourite game of the Russians. The mental discipline required to play it successfully is astounding and this is reflected in the tactics employed by the Russians.

Perhaps not ‘check-mate’, but an interesting game is afoot.

H.F. Wolff
71 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 4 September 2008:

Well I don’t know about everybody else here, but I have chosen to ignore all Western sources of news, and rely on RT — Russia Today — broadcast in Northern Virginia on air channel 56. It is probably propaganda, but nevertheless, it’s much fairer than CNN, BBC, France 2, Deutsche Welle and the Jew York networks. All of which arrange their stories in the same order.

RT’s coverage of the Georgia brawl was remarkably fair, as well as detailed. In essence 3 Orthodox peoples settled a border dispute which had been caused by the pock-marked Djugashvili fellow back in the 1920s. The fight was the righting of an old wrong wherein the Ossetians will be reunited. The only drawback I can see is that our maps will become outdated. Oh yes, and the stupid idiot preppies in Foggy Bottom will whine about Ivan the Bear. Boo hoo! Diddums!

It’s high time our hapless foreign policy wonks keep their big noses out of everybody’s business. 20 years of provocation and sabre-rattling will not be long ignored.
72 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 4 September 2008:

@66

Walter Hallstein was a Eurocrat who died in 1982. There’s a French website that uses hi name.
73 Comment by james1 on 4 September 2008:

@69Etienne Gervaise

Psych-op interns were brought in to cover the Kosovo war by CNN so that shows you there independence and fairness.

Its obvious western policy is to cause instability and forment regional wars inside Russia like they did with the Bolsheviks or the model and strategy they used against Milosevic.
NATO will be brought in to restore the peace and Caspian oil pipelines will be built from Dagestan to western oil firms to pay for the reconstruction.
74 Comment by yar on 4 September 2008:

H. F. Wolff,
anytime, man…

Russians are good at chess, but not as good as they were. The rest of the world is catching up.

Having said that, with the opposing players being Bush and Cheney, even lobotomized parakeet can pass for a genius.

Russians better learn not to overplay their hand, though. In 1979 Zbigniew Brzezinski – Carter’s chief henchman and self-proclaimed “global chess grand master” – “lured” USSR into Afghanistan through US support for jihadis (he later boasted about it in an interview for Nouvel Observateur). We all know how well that idiocy worked out. America is still paying for it, and there is no end in sight. In fact the situation is deteriorating fast.

It seems to me that Putin gets it. First thing that Russians have said after break-up with NATO a week ago was that they wouldn’t impede NATO’s transit to Afghanistan through Russian territory. They are right. As somebody smarter than me have said, “Never interfere when your enemy is busy hanging himself”.
75 Comment by niko on 4 September 2008:

Germany doesn’t have a separate foreign policy agenda? I wonder why KLA captured Serbian soldiers ended up in Germany?
76 Comment by Georgios on 4 September 2008:

Srdja Trifkovic’s analysis is excellent.

Let’s not intimidate Estonians and Latvians. It’s a mistake to just ignore peoples’ collective feelings. The Baltics together with Poland have a historical and geographical background which makes them almost natural enemies to Russia. It would be a mistake to ignore their feelings or to interpret them as if they were arising just from US influence. Though we all have to hope that some day such feelings would disappear from planet earth, for the time being we have to respect them, just like any other national feelings.

But it would be a bigger mistake to misinterpret reality according to such feelings. And reality suggests that today the West has clearly lost its moral advantage of Cold War time. It was that moral advantage which enabled victory in Cold War. America’s behaviour around the world today made words like “democracy”, “freedom”, “peace” etc. sound ridiculous in the lips of Bush & Co., just like communist slang was ridiculous in the lips of Soviet leaders. It’s a pity for the West and its values.

Russia would be one of the winners out of this US moral and political collapse but not the only one. Russia does not have the potential to become again a world superpower, but it becomes gradually a major regional power. In this process, the most interesting thing would be to see what happens if the US really installs their antimissile system in Poland…
77 Comment by yar on 4 September 2008:

“Peaceful, innocent” Georgians mowing down Ossetians (video):

http://exiledonline.com/war-nerd-skin-valley-video/

PS. Estonian apologists should pay particular attention. This ain’t “russian propaganda”.
78 Comment by james1 on 5 September 2008:

@73niko

Western governments have been training and sponcering international Islamic militants for decades especially in Bosnia in 92.

Russia was the main financier of the Northern Alliance to fight the Taliban which in turn gathered intel and gave them to the Russians which Russia gave to EU and US like the June/July 2001 plot to hijack an airliner and crash it into a building hosting world leaders during the IMF/World Bank meeting in Italy.
Russia even gave the US specific info of the 9/11 terror attacks a month before.

The day before 9/11 the leader of the Northern Alliance is killed by a suicide bomber in Afghanistan and the US props up Hamid Karzia a former Taliban commander and a consultant for a CIA front oil company who had dealings with the Taliban.

Although not confirmed is that US military planes are shipping Afghan heroine to the KLA to be distributed in Europe.
79 Comment by james1 on 5 September 2008:

Srdja Trifkovic have you ever been to the Nickola Tesla museum in Belgrade?

Unrelated to this topic but I did not know Nickola Tesla was a Serbian born in Belgrade I believe.

Saw a video on YouTube from a link on rense.com and if its true what is attributed to him then he is one of the greatest thinkers and inventors of all time.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gt8Y93k0pB0

Anyone have any info on this man.

Russia has a fancy new weapon.
http://english.pravda.ru/science/tech/04-09-2008/106296-electromagnetic_super_weapon-0
80 Comment by metamars on 5 September 2008:

james1 asked about Tesla:

Scalar waves are said to be sufficiently understood by Konstantin Meyl that they can be readily reproduced by the Tesla coil devices that you can obtain from him. He also claims to have made progress understanding them theoretically.
See http://www.meyl.eu/go/index.php?dir=10_Home&page=1&sublevel=0 . There are demonstrations on Google video.

As for weaponized uses of scalar waves, I’m afraid I believe that they are long in development by both US/UK and Russia. However, getting verifiable, public data looks impossible, so you can’t dismiss the possibility that it’s just hokum.

Related (perhaps ) :
Russian material scientist Podkletnov has claimed that he created a gravity beam device, capable of smashing 4 inches of concrete. His lab was in a secure building in Russia, Podkletnov is now in Finland, and is looking for 80 million euros for peaceful application of his discovery. I sent an email to co-author Italian theoretical physicist Modanese, asking him if he’d personally witnessed gravity effects in the Podkletnov/Modanese paper, but got no answer.

NASA tested a Podkletnov type device, but aborted the test at 200 rpm, instead of the targetted 5,000 rpm, and called it a failure. High school physics tells us that centripetal force goes as the square of velocity, so they only ran the thing at .16%. Gee, they were trying real hard to get to the bottom of things – at least publicly – weren’t they?

Descriptions of electrogravitic research by US and UK firms were fairly public in the 1950’s. Now, there’s nothing that you can hang your hat on about what became of those researches. Apparently, these were taken deep black. You can read about the public reports of decades gone by in “Secrets of Antigravity Propulsion – Tesla, UFOs andClassified Aerospace Technology” by LaViolette. LaViolette has said that the US ALREADY has an anti-missile technology that utilizes beam weapons. LaViolette may have some unpopular ideas regarding pulsars, but a paper of his that was suppressed from arxiv.org had no less a physicist than Nobel laureate Hans Bethe speak up for, on his behalf. Professor Panagiotis Pappas a physicist at the Technical Education Institute in Piraeus, Greece has publicly stated that “LaViolette deserves two Nobel prizes for his M-L relation finding alone.” (OK, he was probably exaggerating. One prize per discovery….). LaViolette’s educational background is B.S. physics from Carnegie Mellon, Ph.D. systems theory from Portland State University.

IOW, he’s a serious scientist, even if he works in fringe areas. See, also, the following, wherein he derives the electron orbital quantization of the hydrogen atom, using results from his subquantum kinetics, and not standard quantum mechanics: http://etheric.com/Downloads/nucleon.html

Finally, I heard Charles R. Smith talk about advanced US fighters that can shoot down other fighters using some kind of phased array device. No missile necessary. I haven’t even heard of this from any other quarters.

Good luck getting any hard data on any of this, except, I believe, Meyl’s device, which you should be able to generate on your own. Tesla was a genius, but apparently the powers that be are so afraid of negative possibilites arising from his work (not without some justification, I might add), that positive and life-promoting applications are being suppressed, also.

I think….

Ironically, if reports of exotic, over-unity applications are true, these may inevitably become public as a result of efforts to stave off economic collapse that may follow from oil wars that the US loses.
81 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 5 September 2008:

73 Niko:

Germany certainly does not have a foreign affairs policy in serious opposition to the masters in Washington and Israel.

In minor things they can do as they see fit to appease the masses… Call it ‘window dressing’. In agreement with France these policies may even appear independent to the casual observer.

Germany is still occupied territory and has NOT signed a peace treaty with anybody.

If you know otherwise I’d be pleased if you were to refer me to your sources.

Always willing to be educated / corrected.

Yar:

When the USA waltzed into Afghanistan I commented to my wife about this stupidity and pointed out the results of British and Russian expeditions into that rock pile.

For the incursion into Irak I said “I wonder how they (coalition of the willing and stupid) will end this, based on the fact that that country is made up of 3 tribes that hate each other’s guts. Any idiot can start a war.”

I agree with you completely here, when it comes to strategic planning the neocons in Washington are mental midgets compared to Putin.

I also think that Putin has little interest in foreign adventures… He’s busy re-building infrastructure and the armed forces… that’s what I’d do considering the saber rattling by the west. But it is in his genes to use any opportunity that presents itself to tweak the tiger’s tail (NATO / USrael) if that can be done with minimal risk to Russia.

H.F. Wolff
82 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 5 September 2008:

On NIKOLA TESLA – Serb and one of the brightest scientists in the world:

http://www.teslasociety.com/biography.htm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikola_Tesla
83 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 5 September 2008:

On NIKOLA TESLA – Serb and one of the brightest scientists in the world:

http://www.teslasociety.com/biography.htm
84 Comment by james1 on 5 September 2008:

@79metamars

It was speculated at one time America had bombs that could knock out electrical equipment until they were used in one of the wars I think it might be Iraq.

There’s been much speculation of countries developing ethnic genetic weapons specifically Israel.

@80H.F. Wolff

I think people forget how bad Russia was during the 90’s Harvard shock therapy economic model imposed on Russia left as many as 3 million people dead, state assists were sold on the cheap to western aligned oligarchs much of it’s educated work force fled Russia during the 90’s and has a sever population problem.

Only now is Russia’s birth rate increasing, economy and infrastructure improving it definitely does not want a war.
Western pundits and press have been promoting this New Cold War scenario for years now the first book called the New Cold War came out in 2000 mere month since Putin came to power.
85 Comment by MilesGloriosus on 5 September 2008:

James wrote:

“NATO will be brought in to restore the peace and Caspian oil pipelines will be built from Dagestan to western oil firms to pay for the reconstruction.”

I’m a conservative through and through and have always been a strong believer in the free market. But, under the current circumstances I’m forced to ask myself that if oil is so important that we’re prepared to start WW3 to continue its free flow, isn’t it too risky to continue to leave this valuable commodity in the hands of private ownership? In other words, albeit nationalized companies seldom work efficiently, wouldn’t it still be better to nationalize the oil companies?

Tangentially, if it’s conservatives suddenly chanting “No, blood for oil!”, not even the neo-cons would be blind enough to see how counterproductive continuing to play their treasonous hand would be.
86 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 5 September 2008:

@71 James1

I remember all too well the CNN coverage of the Serbia bombing. CNN is utterly seamless in its “infotainment.”

For example: The FDA just approved some new drug to treat nuttiness… This section of the news is brought to you by Merck. Today in Bosnia …. this section of the news is brought to you by Lockheed Martin makers of the F-?? fighter bomber. And now the stock market report brought to you by Dow Jones, publishers of the Wall Street Journal. Special interests anyone?

RT includes massive amounts of culture in its 4 hour news cycle, something that cheers the hearts of Chronicles readers.

Hopefully the Chechens figured out that when Ivan gets mean, he’s no pussy. The theater hostage event pretty much came down to we may lose some of ours, but we’ll grease all of yours.
87 Comment by james1 on 5 September 2008:

@83MilesGloriosus

Nationalising the major oil company like Gazprom in Russia is not a bad idea.

Gazprom oil profits have been used to build projects in Russia like the Sochi 2014 Olympics.

The US needs to nationalise its Federal Reserve which is not owned by the US government but by international bankers primarily based in London.

The Rothschild family alone through its financing of the British Empire have huge influence in the world by far the richest family in the world.

The problem with the US is that an international oligarchy influences its domestic and foreign policy financing Universities, politicians, buy up the media and create think tanks and research groups to influence government and civilian opinion and run organisations like CFR which nearly all presidents and most senators are members of.

Before Putin prosecuted him Khoderkovsky was the wealthiest man in Russia CEO of Yukos but was only a front man for Jacob Rothschild in London who bought up Russia’s oil reserves on the cheap. He avoided paying billions of dollars worth of taxes through his Menatep Bank based in the Isle of Man a tax haven.

The best example is George Soros a Rothschild international front man schooled at the London School of Economics who ran anti-Serb media and organisations during the Balkans wars and secured deals to buy up mining companies in Kosovo.
He organised and financed the revolutions in Serbia, Ukraine and Georgia and runs NGO’s like Open Society and the major financier of Human Rights Watch, Transparency International and MoveOn.org and probably a dozen other organisations I don’t know about.
88 Comment by Boba on 5 September 2008:

The Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO) which includes Russia and six of its neighbouring countries – Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan – backed Russia’s actions in South Ossetia and condemned Georgia’s aggression in a joint statement issued on Thursday.

http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29953
89 Comment by Mark Higdon on 5 September 2008:

For over a year now, I have said the following:

1) If a major economic meltdown were to occur within two months of the 2008 election, that might be sufficient grounds for the Bush administration to declare martial law and cancel the election.
2) If another terrorist attack (9/11/01 or worse) were to occur within two months of the 2008 election, that might be sufficient grounds for the Bush administration to declare martial law and cancel the election.
3) If both 1 and 2 were to occur within two months of the election, all my money is on the table betting that the Bush administration will declare martial law and cancel the election.

In view of recent developments, I add the following:

4) If the US becomes involved in another major shooting war (Iraq or greater) within two months of the 2008 election, that might be sufficient grounds for the Bush administration to declare martial law and cancel the election.
5) If any combination of 1, 2 and 4 were to occur within two months of the election, all my money, etc.
90 Comment by Walter Hallstein on 5 September 2008:

There few scenarios that will most likely play out after the U.S. elections. One such scenario will be that Russia, China, India, Brazil, and few other smaller nations may form a counter to NATO military force, which is no longer a defensive organization but in fact an offensive and which is being used for enforcing U.S. and EU political agenda around the world. But the most disturbing is that U.S. and its immediate so-called allies (or satellite countries) are bent on surrounding Russia with military basis (there are 700 plus U.S. military basis around the world today). What does a peace loving democracy need so many military bases around the world, and coincidently or not surrounding Russia?

War on terror, after 9/11 was a U.S. creation to be used as an excuse to project its military force without causing concern to other super powers (even tough the U.S. considers itself the only super power) such as Russia, China, India and Brazil. The U.S. has said all along after the collapse of the USSR that it is the sole super power left after the end of the Cold War. Intoxicated by its new role in the world the U.S. has pursued imperialistic policy in order to secure its new role, and all rivals would be attack (economically or via proxy army, terrorists, freedom fighters) and their roles and power diminished. After all it has been very clear, and no secret that the U.S. trained and armed many terrorist groups around the globe and has used them against peace loving nations to strip them of sovereignty. It all started 1980 in Afghanistan (el Quida, Taliban), moved to the Balkans (KLA), then Chechnya, and now operates pretty much throughout the world, destabilizing nations and creating excuses for U.S. intervention and justification for the so-called missile shield. It has adopted a self destructive scenario which will lead to its own demise of its own doing. No Empire from the past or a nation on earth today can sustain such military ambitions. Knowing that there was no military power from the past or present capable of controlling the whole world the U.S. political leaders should have taken a different course after the collapse of the USSR, again a missed opportunity.
91 Comment by Walter Hallstein on 5 September 2008:

@ H.F. Wolff

How does a German national today explain this bit of travesty and hypocritical point of view, of current German political elite knowing historically that Germany was involved for the second time in less then one hundred years in annexing Kosovo away from Serbia on behalf of ethnic Albanians, and against International Laws and Treaties that guarantee sovereignty (at least for some countries)? How does a German national explain or justify that Nazi Germany was directly responsible for the creation of the Nazi puppet state of Croatia in 1939 and then again by a German Foreign Minister Hans-Dietrich Genscher a former Nazi in 1991/92 after the reunification of Germany? Now we have yet anther German politician that dares to mention International Law, it is brazen and unbelievable, and I guess anything is possible…in a German mind a Nazi German could be more Jewish then the Jew, if such scenario is required for furthering Germanys interests, and let’s not forget the motto “…people will believe a big lie sooner than a little one…”, one more great contribution to the world from Nazi Germany.

[…]

Earlier, Steinmeier said his country would continue to support Serbia on its path toward the EU.

“Germany will formulate its stance on this over the next few weeks, but we have recognized an independent Kosovo, and we would not have done that had we believed that decision ran counter to international law,” Steinmeier told journalists.

The German minister said that “the moment had come for Serbia to look forward to the future, not only backwards” and to reward the pro-European powers in Serbia for the “courage”, as he put it, that they had displayed in the election campaign and during talks on forming a new government.

[…]

http://www.b92.net/eng/news/politics-article.php?yyyy=2008&mm=09&dd=05&nav_id=53244
92 Comment by Scott P. Richert on 6 September 2008:

@Mark Higdon (86):

I’ve been hearing these claims that martial law was coming for 12 years now. First, Clinton was going to do it in 1996, until the Republicans put up Dole and reassured his election. Then he was going to do it in 2000 so he wouldn’t have to leave office. Then Bush was going to do it in 2004 to avoid a repeat of 2000.

I think the possibility of it happening in 2008 is just about equal to the reality of it happening in 1996, 2000, and 2004. There’s simply no need. Whichever party wins, the same establishment remains in power.
93 Comment by Mark Higdon on 6 September 2008:

“I’ve been hearing these claims that martial law was coming for 12 years now.”

Perhaps so, Scott, but not from me until now. And as you say, it’s not likely to happen. After all, my forecast is contingent upon a most unlikely “perfect storm.”
94 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 6 September 2008:

Mr. Hallstein,

I agree with your thinking as described in your post #87, the salient point of which, for this debate, is:

“Intoxicated by its new role in the world the U.S. has pursued imperialistic policy in order to secure its new role, and all rivals would be attack (economically or via proxy army, terrorists, freedom fighters) and their roles and power diminished.”

To which I might add, again, that Germany is still an occupied country whose foreign policy is dictated by Washington / Usrael.

What you claim in #88 may very well be true (I don’t know and your writing seems rather disjointed to me) but the driving force behind it is as stated earlier. Nothing you have written indicates otherwise. BTW what was the political status of Kosovo and Serbia prior to WWI?

Germany at the present time is a judicial and political cess pool, with the ruling class working against the best interests of the nation, aided and abetted (coerced, black mailed and threatened?) by the USA politicos and Usrael.

8000 people are prosecuted every year in Germany for asking embarrassing (for Israel) questions. I understand that 15,000 are in prison for this “offense”. The people responsible for this travesty of justice and human rights (where is Amnesty International when you need them???) are the ones you are blaming for the new German foreign policy adventures. I don’t have a problem with your assertion on this but again, the driving force is external to Germany.

You have a penchant of quoting out-of-context ie. “The big Lie.” I have perused Mein Kampf and there is a lot more to this than what is quoted by people with hidden agendas. In essence Hitler was stating that “The Big Lie” was the method used by “the chosen few” to propagate their agenda. They do.

H.F. Wolff
95 Comment by Walter Hallstein on 6 September 2008:

Most nations that have recognized Kosovo as an independent country are or had Nazi pasts or had a Fascist past or were collaborating countries of both respectfully, these facts are irrefutable. (See http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/gc.64.html) What does this mean for the rest of the world? It means that someone wants to undo the result of WWII and change the future of the political landscape of not only Europe but the world, imposing its will on the world; it also means that Europe and former allies of two great wars, meanly U.S., UK have accepted or prefer the Nazi plans for Europe and are or have been involved in execution of Nazi plan for Europe in the last 28 years, all one has to do is look at the map of Europe today and the map of Europe envisioned by Nazis to see how close the results on the ground today are to that of the Nazi plans from the past, it is frightening and baffling that two allies U.S. and UK would chose Nazi over the alternative, a form of democracy that most of the world has since accepted to a varying degree. Each state has its own idea of what democracy means to them, and how to develop it further and integrated into the world. But now it is very clear why some politicians in the U.S. and UK have discussed and are discussing the idea that perhaps U.S. and UK fought on the wrong side in WWII, and have discussed the alternative results, that would explain the embracing of Nazism and Imperialism repackaged as freedom loving democracy bent on defending human rights and subjective self determination for its immediate gang of countries or its members.

We are hading to a confrontation between East and West, once again, instigated by new and resurgent Germany especially after the reunification in 1980 and unfortunately I believe this time U.S. and UK will be on the losing side of history for accepting German initiated policies for Europe and the World, while Russia, China, India, and Brazil, and others will be on the wining side of this new confrontation, that I am sure off. I believe this time Germany will be isolated properly so there will be no forth chance for resurrection of the Nazi past in any form what so ever, there will be no more Vatican setup rat lines to save the Nazi leadership.

I am not the only person that believes that re-Nazification has taken place in Europe since 1945 slowly at first and it accelerated during 1980’s and into the 1990’s. (See http://www.freenations.freeuk.com/news-2008-07-26.html)
96 Comment by Lucius on 6 September 2008:

I take back what I said earlier about Saakashvili starting the war after Russia’s provocation. In fact, Russia started the war.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/08/the-truth-about-1.php
97 Comment by bud on 7 September 2008:

Mr. Trifkovic,
What is your interpretation on the recent events in which Tomislav Nikolic resigned as the head of the Radicals, albanian government in Pristina announced that it would not use force trying to keep the Serbian parts of Kocobo from separating? Has every political party in Serbia “thrown in the towel” and is willing to let Kocobo go, regardless of their rhetoric, since it appears that the deal has been struck in partitioning the Kocobo and Metohia?
98 Comment by Michael Averko on 7 September 2008:

BS!

Why did Russia first go to the UN asking for a ceasefire and witrhdrawal of the attacking Georgian forces before counterattacking? Why did the American and British governments refuse that request?

Your source is misreading a legitimate Russian military contingency plan, given Georgian government behavior leading up to Aug. 7.
99 Comment by james1 on 7 September 2008:

@91H.F. Wolff

You should be commenting more Canada which has the Human Rights Commission and the majority of it’s media is owned by Israel Asper.

Some books in Canada are banned there and anyone who distributes them are burned and fined by the Canadian government for the expense of burning there books.

Usually white nationalist publications or books critical of Jews although they didn’t mind selling and promoting the book Hitlers Willing Executioners where it’s thesis is that Germans have a Jew hating genetic composition to there character.
100 Comment by james1 on 7 September 2008:

Reasons why South Ossetia is definetlynot Kosovo . Thank god.

http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/hague/news.htm
101 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 7 September 2008:

95 James1,

I did, as you suggest, a year or two ago on a Canadian web site http://www.vivelecanada.ca/.

It degenerated into name-calling (which I do not partake in) hence my admonition “Name calling is the final refuge of the out-argued scoundrel”.

In another blog in another post I opined that all western governments are bought-and-paid for, bribed, brow-beaten, threatened with financial or physical harm to family or friends, and Canada is no different regardless of the government of the day. As evidence I simply point out that as soon as a western politician is elected, be it president, prime minister, chancellor, senator, etc. they immediately kowtow and pay homage to AIPAC in the USA or their reps in Isreal, Germany, France, Canada, etc. UNFAILINGLY.

Fortunately in Canada one Ezra Levant lawyer, Macleans Magazine, and Mark Steyn author & columnist, have been hauled before the Canadian and/or provincial Human Rights Commissions (yes you can be judged by multiple commissions for the same “offense”!!!) and raked over the coals as it were. The complaints were lodged by an Islamist’s group, in one instance by law students of Osgoode law school in Toronto, Ontario, no less.

Ezra Levant has a website where he takes these “Human Rights Commissions” rightfully to task and sheds light into the incestuous and UNLAWFUL activities thereof but, for a lawyer he plays a little fast and loose with his logic. I find it poetic justice that Jews and Jewish groups fight each other over complaints filed by Islamists, enabled by laws that were passed because of those same Jewish groups. Couldn’t happen to a nicer bunch of people. It sounds convoluted, I know.

Canadian politicians are becoming aware of this judging by the letters received by constituents from their federal representatives. Will things change/improve? I doubt it based on my knowledge of how political parties function.

H.F. Wolff
102 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 7 September 2008:

Further to my #98 post:

Canadians by-and-large are not free speechers of conviction, even though this is guaranteed by the constitution of 1982 and the Canadian Bill of Rights from the 1960’s I think. Every time I see/hear a politico sound off on how free Canada is I feel like throwing up. My friends don’t want to hear about it…

Usually free speech advocates heavily qualify their quest by repeating the old saw that you can’t yell “fire” in a filled theatre, and that “racists” should not be allowed to spew…

To which my reply is “yes you can if there is a real fire”, and that “lies are best fought by telling the truth, not by jailing the truth tellers”.

The true North is not so Free.

H.F. Wolff
103 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 7 September 2008:

The Serbian Front in the War Over the Caucasus

Having failed to occupy South Ossetia – the region which has never belonged to Georgia and is predominantly populated by Russian citizens – with the hands of Saakashvili’s fascist-style commando, the US and the EU have decided to change their tactic. Washington and Brussels have realized that today’s’ Russia is profoundly different from the country it used to be 15 years ago. It is clear that now it is ready to use its military might to protect its national interests and, moreover, can swiftly rout an army modeled on those of NATO, armed by weapons supplied by various countries from Germany to Albany, and generously funded from by the West (which has poured several billion dollars into the Georgian army).

Please read:
http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1593
104 Comment by Andrei Vidal on 7 September 2008:

To Boba,

South Ossetia was an ancient Georgian Principality where the Ossetians (Alans) settled from the north as they were escaping the attacks of the Mongols. The Georgians were the natives; indeed, along with the Basques, Georgians are the most ancient peoples of Europe. Georgians were still about 30% of the population of South Ossetia prior to this war. Ossetians, like Albanians in Kosovo, are the numeric majority but are not natives, and like Kosovo for Serbs, South Ossetia is ancient Georgian territory. Also like Kosovo from Serbia, South Ossetia was seperated from Georgia by the Communists. Stalin was half Ossetian (and Tito was half Croat).

As for the rout, Georgian troops were trained for Iraq-style police actions, not heavy combat – and the trained ones were in Iraq, not Georgia.
105 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 7 September 2008:

Well now it’s official. Russia Today reports Mr Yevgeny Satanovsky says we (the USA) have a 50-50 chance of bombing Iran. Apart from the fact that his surname seems reamrkably creepy, he is the boss od the Russian Jewish Federarion, he seemed to gloat over dropping names like Neocon Cheney, and “neocons in Washington.” Paleos are getting noticed in the fromer Redland, but the prophet is without honor in his own country.

RT is an offshoot of Novosti. The website streams the stories.

http://www.russiatoday.com/en
106 Comment by Walter Hallstein on 8 September 2008:

http://news.serbianunity.net/2008/09/08/9149/

In anticipation of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s recognition of the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, President Bush said “Georgia’s territorial integrity and borders must command the same respect as every other nation’s.”

Critics of Russia’s action include Sens. Barack Obama, Joseph Biden and Joseph Lieberman; Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice; former United Nations Ambassador Richard Holbrooke; and many others in the bipartisan establishment.

Among the specific criticisms are Russia’s violation of the sovereign territory of Georgia, a fledgling democracy and a member of the United Nations; a disproportionate response to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili’s attempt to settle South Ossetia’s status by force, including Russian military operations well outside of South Ossetia; and Moscow’s tardiness in withdrawing its forces under a deal brokered by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.

Evidently irony is not much appreciated in Washington. It seems critics have forgotten President Bush’s recognition of the independence of Kosovo, a province of democratic, U.N. member Serbia. President Bush’s reference to “every other nation” whose “territorial integrity and borders must command the same respect” apparently has at least this one exception. If he can violate the United Nations Charter and the Helsinki Final Act, which guarantee sovereign borders, what right does he have to accuse others of doing the same?

If Moscow stepped over the line in its crushing military response to Mr. Saakashvili’s offensive, what do we call 78 straight days of NATO’s bombing throughout Serbia, destroying most of that country’s civilian infrastructure? If Russia is to be faulted for imperfect implementation of the Sarkozy agreement, what can be said about Washington’s violation of U.N. Security Council Resolution 1244, which ended the 1999 Kosovo war and reaffirms Serbian sovereignty in the province?

[...]
107 Comment by james1 on 8 September 2008:

@105Walter Hallstein

What about Israel’s bombing of Lebanon that was way more disproportionate whole regions of Lebanon were completely levelled and towards the end of the war when hostilities were over Israel dropped cluster bomb pellets as they were leaving.

There are still 1 million unexploded cluster bomb pellets in Lebanon.

The above mentioned critics and mass media fully supported Israel’s incursion into Lebanon.
108 Comment by james1 on 8 September 2008:

@104Etienne Gervaise

I’m curious how Jews in Iran feel about Israeli or pro-Israeli groups and individuals pushing for war with Iran.

Are they planning a mass exodus as soon as hostilities start?
109 Comment by Boba on 8 September 2008:

Re: #103

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/bdffd9a6-7b71-11dd-b839-000077b07658.html

…”..The contractors – MPRI and American Systems, both based in Virginia – recruited a 15-man team of former special forces soldiers to train the Georgians at the Vashlijvari special forces base on the outskirts of Tbilisi, part of a programme run by the US defence department.

MPRI was hired by the Pentagon in 1995 to train the Croatian military prior to their invasion of the ethnically-Serbian Krajina region, which led to the displacement of 200,000 refugees and was one of the worst incidents of ethnic cleansing in the Balkan wars. MPRI denies any wrongdoing.

US training of the Georgian army is a big flashpoint between Washington and Moscow. Mr Putin said on CNN on August 29: “It is not just that the American side could not restrain the Georgian leadership from this criminal act [of intervening in South Ossetia]. The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army.”

The first phase of the special forces training was held between January and April this year, concentrating on “basic special forces skills” said an American Systems employee interviewed by phone from the US army’s Fort Bragg. …”
110 Comment by james1 on 8 September 2008:

@109Boba

Good comment I did not know the US trained Croatian troops prior to Krajina I thought they just gave Croat forces logistical info.

If that is true then the US is complicite inwar crimes.
http://www.slobodan-milosevic.org/news/b92080406.htm
111 Comment by james1 on 8 September 2008:

@111Etienne Gervaise

The guy who owned the world trade centre is an Isreali named Silverstein

Only link I could find on the topic.
http://www.realjewnews.com/?p=238

I also heard there was a remarkably low death toll for jews working in WTC.

I heard the same thing that there was an instant messaging system operated by an Israeli company that sent messages to employees prior to the attacks.

I know about 2 years ago Israel encouraged Iranian jews to immigrate to Israel but most declinned the offer.
112 Comment by Paul Bergeron on 8 September 2008:

@43James1:
“Even in the US after the revolutionary war British influence and involvement in there internal affairs did not dissipate although they did not have NGO’s back then.

I heard the before the non-Russian Bolshevik revolution in Russia relations between Russia and the US were very good. I know Czar Alexander helped finance Lincoln during the civil war and an advisor to one of the US presidents help set up the academy of science in the Russia during Peter the Greats reign.”

Czar Alexander may have emancipated the serfs, but he did not choose wisely by befriending America’s original tyrant. The British magazine Punch stated it well in 1863:

Abe: “Imperial Son of Nicholas the Great. We [air] in the same fix, I calculate. You with the Poles, with the Southern rebels I, Who spurn my rule and my revenge defy.”

Alex: “Vengeance is mine, old man; see where it falls, Behold yon hearths laid waste, and ruined walls, Yon gibbets, where the struggling patriot hangs, While my brave myrmidons enjoy his pangs.”
113 Comment by james1 on 9 September 2008:

Western media at its finest.

http://english.pravda.ru/world/americas/09-09-2008/106329-CNN_Georgia_South_Ossetia-0

Not suprising as CNN brought in Psych-ops interms to cover the 99 Kosovo war at it’s headquarters in Atlanta.

Also note that all the US media barons are members of CFR.
114 Comment by Trifkovic on 10 September 2008:

Paul Bergeron:
“an advisor to one of the US presidents help set up the academy of science in Russia during Peter the Great’s reign”
– not likely, unless the advisor in question had a time machine: Peter died in 1725
115 Comment by james1 on 10 September 2008:

@Paul Bergeron

Is Czar Alexander the one who abdicated his throne?

The fact that Lincoln introduced the green back and was killed by John Wilkes Booth who some believe was working on behalf of international bankers because of this I can see why Alexander abdicated.

@Trifkovic
Actually Paul Bergeron was referencing what I said in an earlier comment so I’m at fault here although I did hear that advisor to one of the US presidents help set up the academy of science in Russia under one of the Czars. I assumed it was Peter as he is the one who reformed Russia.
116 Comment by Boba Borojevic on 12 September 2008:

New Nuremberg Awaiting War Criminals:
a Photographic Report

http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1606
117 Comment by james1 on 12 September 2008:

It was an advisor under Lincoln or policies initiated under Lincoln that carried on after his death who helped develop Russia’s rail road network.
Not sure about the academy of science though.

@116Boba Borojevic

Good weblink its the first actual pictures I’ve seen of South Ossetia.
It would be interesting to see the evidence presented specifically the use of foreign mercenaries used although the western mass media won’t cover it like the Milosevic trail which was a huge embarrassment for the West.
118 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 13 September 2008:

116Boba Borojevic:

The propagation of falsehoods continues…

The web site you refer to has, near the bottom, a claim to the effect that the crimes committed by Georgia (in the recent skirmish) are possibly only exceeded by those of the Nazis in WWII.

Whenever I read such a statement, and these occur often even in books or literature where the subject matter at hand is totally unrelated to questionable occurrences of WWII, I discount the entire work/opinion piece.

Someone who comments on current affairs had better learn history from more reliable sources than the MSM, Hollywood, a favourite comic book, or Soviet propaganda.

The author of the opinion piece clearly shows his bias, which I suppose is a good thing under the circumstances; but intellectual integrity would demand that the author list the excesses of Mao in China and Lenin in the USSR, which exceeded those of which the Germans are only accused but not convicted, by an order of magnitude.

Now then, someone please mention the Nuernberg Trials which have been completely discounted by several of USA Supreme Court Justices.

H.F. Wolff
119 Comment by james1 on 13 September 2008:

@118H.F. Wolff

I think he was referring to aggression against Russia.

Even George Soros human Rights Watch had to admit that Georgian forces used cluster bombs.

There have been many alligations leveled against Russia which have either proven to be false .

Footage of South Ossetian ruined by Georgian forces and images of Georgian forces shelling South Ossetia were shown with western vioce over as Russian aggression.Now thats western mass media propaganda.
120 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 13 September 2008:

@111 james

I read that there used to be 80,000 Jews in Iran, but that number has declined to around 30 thou. There are 10 times that many Christians. I guess Iran is a big country, but we are spoon-fed two minutes hate about some ayatollah or Mr Ahmedinejad thus totally ignoring the minorities. Azeris seem to get the stinging end of the lash most of all.

When the Great Adversary has armies on both sides, who can blame Iran for wanting nukes? We did not go after North Korea for that reason, who wants to instigate a holocaust?

Maybe McCain.
121 Comment by Etienne Gervaise on 13 September 2008:

@116 Boba

That website will infect your computer with a malicious trojan. DON’T GO THERE!
122 Comment by james1 on 13 September 2008:

@118H.F. Wolff

Who ran soviet propaganda during WW2?
He wasn’t Russian you could probably guess what ethnicity he was.
His statements and Nurenmburg trail testamonies are used as evidence of the Holocaust.
Are you willing to dispute thee Holocaust?

@120Etienne Gervaise

During the 50’s Mossad agents would conduct terrorist operations against Jews in Arab countries to encourage them to immigrate to Israel.

Actually it is said the term Jew is a bad biblical translation which should really be Judean meaning one who resided in the Judea one of the two states of ancient Isreal.

So Jesus was actually a Judean as he resided in Judea so not all ancient Isrealites were Judeans or Jews.

I didn’t have a problem with the website but I am running AVG which is supposed to filter these problems.
123 Comment by H.F. Wolff on 13 September 2008:

122james1

“Are you willing to dispute thee Holocaust?”

Moi?

Surely thou jest?

I merely have 1/2 dozen or so questions which either get edited out from my post, or cause ad hominim attacks.

Of course never ONE verifiable scientific or forensic substantiation is offered in argument.

H.F. Wolff

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