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The Forum > Article Comments > US-backed Georgia pokes the Russian bear > Comments

US-backed Georgia pokes the Russian bear : Comments

By Tony Kevin, published 22/8/2008

The anti-Russian US media reports on Georgia feed public opinion and favour Republican John McCain.

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This is an article by a well-known Russian defence analyst on the recent Georgia situation. Makes very interesting reading and sheds new light on the subject.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pavel_Felgenhauer

http://www.robertamsterdam.com/2008/08/pavel_felgenhauer_on_russias_p.htm
Posted by Froggie, Sunday, 24 August 2008 7:21:04 PM
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Randall Scheunemann - among other things he was associated with PNAC, an advisor to Rumsfeld, associate of Ahmad Chalabi and now McCain's foreign Policy aide.

He is also a lobbyist for something called The Caspian Alliance (strangely, not much info available on them).

An interesting guy - he's also a lobbyist for the Republic of Georgia.

"On April 17, 2008, McCain spoke on the phone with Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili about Russian efforts to gain leverage over two of Georgia's troubled provinces. That same day, McCain issued a public statement condemning Russia and expressing strong support for the Georgian position. Also on that same day, Georgia signed a new, $200,000 lobbying contract with Scheunemann's firm, Orion Strategies.

In mid-July 2008, The Sunday Times linked Scheunemann to Stephen Payne, a lobbyist covertly filmed as he offered to arrange meetings with Vice President Dick Cheney, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, and others, in exchange for donations to the George W. Bush Presidential Library. Payne said Scheunemann had been "working with me on my payroll for five of the last eight years." "

Interesting how some things are connected in ways you wouldn't imagine.
Posted by wobbles, Monday, 25 August 2008 1:52:53 AM
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Wobbles, the Caspian Alliance is one of the lobbying companies associated with Scheunemann’s boss Stephen Payne, who is himself in trouble in the US over political funding and “Cash-for-Access” scandals.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/us_and_americas/article4364429.ece


When the USSR collapsed the “oligarchs” pillaged, raped and plundered the Russian economy and Putin’s first promise was to go after them. His second promise was to go after the Chechen rebels, which he fulfilled with a little help from Bush.
Putin’s deal with the US was to stay out of Iraq if America would stay out of the Caspian. We backed off, the Chechen rebels fell and we went into Iraq instead.
Now we are getting the Georgians to "test" Putin by going after Ossetia, a Georgian enclave gone independent but aligned with Russia.

Despite the popular media suggestion of Putin’s failure by taking the bait, and the subsequent changes in Poland and NATO, I think the US has overplayed their hand and exposed some scandals that may damage McCain’s chances of electoral victory.

Meanwhile, BP may now be pulling out of the area and the (in)famous Haliburton-Brown-Root pipeline from T'Blisi through Turkey may not go ahead. Oops! That wasn't supposed to happen was it?

I suspect Putin’s not done yet and there will be more to come.

I think there’s some good local background perspective this assessment.
http://www.shoutwire.com/comments/185712/Georgian–Ossetian_Conflict_
Posted by rache, Monday, 25 August 2008 11:02:29 AM
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Paul.L,

I think you might be underestimating the effect of 50+ years of Soviet-era propaganda there (the USSR continually shrieked about everything being a fascist plot to allow Germany to reunify solely so as to destroy the Union). The average Russian (also previously Poles, Ukrainian's & Czech's) have a very inflated opinion of the animosity between Germany and Russia as a consequence and a very real apprehension of the consequences of reunification. Given that Poland & Czechoslovakia (& now the Ukraine if Merkel is to be believed) have seen fit to ally with Germany, they are presumably under no illusion of the messages being sent to their ex-Soviet brethren by their having so done. Similarly, I doubt Germany is under any illusion as to the effect of this on Russia.

I think it might pay to look a little deeper into why the Russian's put so much emphasis on the Great Patriotic War, it affected them far more dramatically than is being portrayed in the media. If they view the situation as a return to German imperialism, then all bets are off (it is a possibility, Czechoslovakia, Poland and now oil from the Caucasus... You know the history & so do they).

Wobbles/Rache

As to this being just another step in the NeoCon world plan, yes companies are out to make money and they do employ lobby groups. What of it? I don't like it, don't agree with it, but I certainly don't see it as some deep, dark, mysterious plan/conspiracy. All it is is the richest 1% of America seeking to ensure that they remain the richest 1% of America, the Oligarchs are trying desperately to prevent it, so that they can have the money. Yes, wars are fought over oil (they are also fought over steel, the single most important determinant of who wins actually), what of it? People who look to make money out of wars are scum (rich scum, but scum nonetheless), they have always been around and always will be.
Posted by Haganah Bet, Monday, 25 August 2008 4:51:31 PM
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Haganah Bet

‘…the DEMOCRACIES that have grown in the ex-Soviet States that are seeking to align themselves with NATO (the only real alternative to subjugation to the Russian Federation) have done so in order to ensure their own safety’

If you do a Google search of opinion polls regarding attitudes to NATO in former Soviet States, there are vastly varying degrees of support. Some, like Lithuania and Poland have majority support. In others, like the Ukraine and Belarus, support is in the minority. In the Czech Republic, which has been a NATO member since 1999, support for NATO has actually fallen.

Also, despite Angele Merkel's recent pronouncements on admitting Georgia to NATO, only about one-quarter of Germans support the move due to understabable nervousness about being dragged into Georgia's regional conflicts.

You might also be interested in this response by NATO Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, to a 2006 poll referendum in South Ossetia (with a 95% voter turnout), which revealed that 99% wanted independence:

‘On behalf of NATO, I join other international leaders in rejecting the so-called 'referendum' and 'elections' conducted in the South Ossetia/Tskhinvali region of Georgia... Such actions serve no purpose other than to exacerbate tensions in the South Caucasus region.’ [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetian_independence_referendum,_2006]

So much for democracy.

Military/trade pacts and alliances are the international equivalent of male gangs and female cliques. They pretend to be about friendship and co-operation, but they are really about bullying, exclusion and homogeneity.

Once these international pacts and alliances form, they are locked into continually having to extend their power to protect their turf against other international pacts and alliances. As a result, they end up creating the very dangers they profess to be protecting their members from.
Posted by SJF, Tuesday, 26 August 2008 9:58:24 AM
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Haganah Bet,

There's a subtle but significant difference between opportunists making money out of conflict and deliberately creating conflict as a way of making money.

The point I was trying to make is that there is much more to this story than the sudden and unexpected "invasion-conflict-withdrawal" scenario that we are given. It goes back a long way - and includes aspects of previous Balkan and Chechen conflicts and global oil politics generally.
Posted by wobbles, Tuesday, 26 August 2008 10:56:40 AM
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