Newsmaker

So last week I went to The Cornell International Affairs Review’s (CIAR) panel discussion on the conflict in Georgia that erupted when Russia moved into Georgia’s separatist South Ossetian and Abkhazian regions. The speakers were Eastern European expert Valerie Bunce (You should take her post-communist transitions class) and Irakli Kakabadze, a visiting scholar and participant in Georgia’s independence movement, known as the “Rose Revolution.”

What shocked me was how biased the US media coverage was. Georgia is one of Bush’s closest allies and, as Bunce explained, one of the only places in the world that likes him. The fact is that this conflict was not all Russia’s fault. The US helped provoke this, and the Georgian president helped provoke this. At the end of the day, Russia did invade a sovereign nation and that is bad. Russia’s doing this was ultimately stupid because, as both Bunce and Kakabadze pointed, out Russia has over 80 potential separatist regions.

This talk was a strong reminder of the dangers of basing a state upon ethnic or religious affiliation instead of intellectual understandings of freedoms and rights.

Here is a bullet point summary of what I learned:

• From Bunce
  • This conflict is not local but the US and Russia pissing each other off
  • The started when Georgia sent forces to the separatist regions to defeat militants
  • Georgia is tied closely to Bush and Cheney, and they were pressured to act
  • Saakashvili knows he couldn’t keep these territories, but provoked the war to package their loss in a politically beneficial way
  • The Russians invaded because they were pissed off at the West and think NATO is trying to destroy their national sovereignty
  • Putin just needed to show he still has regional sovereignty
  • Saakashvili wanted to keep power and save face as did Putin; so this staged violence helped both of them
• From Kakabadze
  • Saakashvili has abandoned democracy and has embraced Bush’s neoconservative world view…oh and McCain’s comments were stupid and unhelpful
  • Saakashvili had come to power in the democratic Rose Revolution, but as Lord Acton said, “absolute power corrupts absolutely”
  • Saakashvili wants to join NATO because war is profitable…The Military Industrial Complex
  • “How did America produce both Bob Dylan and George Bush?”
  • The US stopped giving civil society support, but instead sent lots of guns and guns tend to get used to kill people
  • We should create peace zones, which the European Union Secures
    • It will protect the West’s oil pipelines
    • It will prevent NATO’s reach and make Russia feel safe
  • We need more UN, fewer police states