Mark Ames:That Was No Small War in Georgia -- It Was the Beginning of the End of the American Empire

[laststeamtrain]

That Was No Small War in Georgia -- It Was the Beginning of the End of the American Empire

By Mark Ames, Radar. Posted December 13, 2008.

(This article was published in the final issue of Radar magazine, which was bought out and shuttered just as this issue went to print. This is the first online publication of this article. It has been updated by the author.)

Tskhinvali, South Ossetia -- On the sunny afternoon of August 14, a Russian army colonel named Igor Konashenko is standing triumphantly at a street corner at the northern edge of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, his forearm bandaged from a minor battle injury. The spot marks the furthest point of the Georgian army's advance before it was summarily crushed by the Russians a few days earlier. "Twelve Georgian battalions invaded Tskhinvali, backed by columns of tanks, armored personal carriers, jets, and helicopters," he says, happily waving at the wreckage, craters, and bombed-out buildings around us. "You see how well they fought, with all their great American training -- they abandoned their tanks in the heat of the battle and fled."

Konashenko pulls a green compass out of his shirt pocket and opens it. It's a U.S. military model. "This is a little trophy -- a gift from one of my soldiers," he says. "Everything that the Georgians left behind, I mean everything, was American. All the guns, grenades, uniforms, boots, food rations -- they just left it all. Our boys stuffed themselves on the food," he adds slyly. "It was tasty." The booty, according to Konashenko, also included 65 intact tanks outfitted with the latest NATO and American (as well as Israeli) technology.

Technically, we are standing within the borders of Georgia, which over the last five years has gone from being an ally to the United States to a neocon proxy regime. But there are no Georgians to be seen in this breakaway region -- not unless you count the bloated corpses still lying in the dirt roads. Most of the 70,000 or so people who live in South Ossetia never liked the idea of being part of Georgia. During the violent land scramble that occurred after the collapse of the Soviet Union, the South Ossetians found themselves cut off from their ethnic kin in North Ossetia, which remained part of Russia. The Russians, who've had a small peacekeeping force here since 1992, managed to keep the brewing conflicts on ice for the last 15 years. But in the meantime, the positions of everyone involved hardened. The Georgians weren't happy about the idea of losing a big chunk of territory. The Ossetians, an ethnic Persian tribe, were more adamant than ever about joining Russia, their traditional ally and protector.

The tense but relatively stable situation blew up late in the evening of August 7, when on the order of president Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's army swept into South Ossetia, leveling much of Tskhinvali and surrounding villages and sending some 30,000 refugees fleeing north into Russia. Within hours, Russia's de facto czar Vladimir Putin counterattacked -- some say he'd set a trap -- and by the end of that long weekend the Georgians were in panicked retreat. The Russian army then pushed straight through South Ossetia and deep into Georgia proper, halting less than an hour's drive from Saakashvili's luxurious palace. All around me is evidence of a rout. A Georgian T-72 tank turret is wedged into the side of a local university building, projecting from the concrete like a cookie pressed into ice cream. Fifty yards away you can see the remains of the vehicle that the orphaned turret originally was part of: just a few charred parts around a hole in the street, and a section of tread lying flat on the sidewalk. Russian tanks now patrol the city unopposed, each one as loud as an Einstrzende Neubauten concert, clouding the air with leaded exhaust as they rumble past us.

But listening to Colonel Konashenko, it becomes clear to me that I'm looking at more than just the smoldering remains of battle in an obscure regional war: This spot is ground zero for an epic historical shift. The dead tanks are American-upgraded, as are the spent 40mm grenade shells that one spetznaz soldier shows me. The bloated bodies on the ground are American-trained Georgian soldiers who have been stripped of their American-issue uniforms. And yet, there is no American cavalry on the way. For years now, everyone from Pat Buchanan to hybrid-powered hippies have been warning that America would suddenly find itself on a historical downslope from having been too reckless, too profligate, and too arrogant as an unopposed superpower. Even decent patriotic folk were starting to worry that America was suffering from a classic case of Celebrity Personality Disorder, becoming a nation of Tom Cruise party-dicks dancing in our socks over every corner and every culture in the world, lip-synching about freedom as we plunged headfirst into as much risky business as we could mismanage. And now, bleeding money from endless wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, we're a sick giant hooked on ever-pricier doses of oil paid for with a currency few people want anymore. In the history books of the future, I would wager that this very spot in Tskhinvali will be remembered as both the geographic highwater mark of the American empire, and the place where it all started to fall apart.

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[mediaman007]

1. Just like Russia in Afghanistan, we've run out of money.

This guy is probably right. I don't think Americans have any stomach for more war. We certainly can't pay for one. Giving the Russians our technology ranks right up there with letting the Chinese have that airplane full of electronic gizmos back in 2001.

Nice bookends to the worst president ever.

[Peace Patriot]

2. It's a good theory with much to recommend it, although future historical conclusions

are hard to anticipate, partly because much time and many events occur between now and 'then.' I tend to think, a hundred years from now, the entire 20th century will be summed up by one event: men venturing into space and walking on the moon.

And maybe the 21st century will be summed up by the failure of the U.S. to venture further, with human beings on board, and the paucity of its funding of any exploration, 'manned' or otherwise, while dimwitted, asshole politicians utterly wasted U.S. resources on mass murder for oil and stuffing theirs and their corporate pals' pockets. And maybe the historical judgment will be add something about the remarkable people who landed human surrogate machines on Mars, probed and photographed the solar system, finding evidence of the elements of life in numerous places, pointed an orbiting telescope at the distant universe and kept the 'manned' program going, despite cutbacks and disasters.

It's hard to anticipate what future humans will consider important. A hundred years from now, we may finally be in contact with intelligent critters from another solar system. Looking back, Earthlings will say, "Why didn't those myopic humans of the 20th-21st centuries try harder? SETI had to be privately funded!"

OR, maybe we will be known for the extraordinary progress of human rights over the 20th century, into the 21st, when progress nearly came to a halt with the Bushwhacks and their enchantment with the sheiks of araby (the repression of women) and torture.

OR, maybe I'm suffering a bit of myopia myself, in concentrating too much on the U.S. as the focus of future history, which brings me to the point I wanted to make: There was another event that is, to my mind, a pivotal one with regard to the U.S. Empire, and that is the people of Venezuela peacefully and decisively turning back the Bush-supported, violent military coup against the Chavez government in 2002. That extraordinary event was the harbinger of a complete revolt of the people of South America against U.S. rule. Now there are leftist (majoritysist) governments, with goals of Latin American sovereignty and social justice, all over the continent--in Venezuela, Bolivia, Ecuador, Argentina, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Chile, with this revolt spreading swiftly into Central America, with the election of the Sandinistas in Nicaragua, the election in Guatemala of their first progressive government, ever--a government in sympathy with the social justice goals of the Bolivarian revolution that started in Venezuela--a still wobbly revolt in Honduras, and the likelihood that leftists will win in the El Salvador elections early next year, and in the next election in Mexico. (There is a great possibility that Peru will go leftist as well, and an outside possibility in Colombia, that fascist/death squad bastion.)

Now these governments have formed UNASUR--the new South American 'Common Market'--sans the U.S. UNASUR's very first action was to fully back the leftist government of Bolivia (and its first ever indigenous president, Evo Morales) against the U.S.-funded and organized fascist coup attempt this September. Never, in the history of the western hemisphere, has Latin America been better poised to completely throw off U.S. domination. And it all started in Caracas, when tens of thousands of Venezuelans poured out of their hovels to surround Miraflores Palace, to demand, a) the restoration of their Constitution (which the Bushwhack fascists had entirely suspended), and b) the return of their kidnapped president.

You can watch this revolution in the Irish filmmakers' documentary, "The Revolution Will Not Be Televised" (available at YouTube and at www.axisoflogic.com). The filmmakers were in Miraflores Palace as it occurred.

South Americans turning back a U.S.-supported fascist coup? Unheard of! And, of course, the Bushwhacks and Exxon Mobil, terrified by that event, have been calling Chavez a "dictator" ever since, even as country after country has elected Chavez allies (and Venezuelans have re-elected Chavez). The U.S. 'lost' Latin America that day, and the western hemisphere has been changed forever. Latin America was the place where the U.S. tried out various methods of becoming an Evil Empire, at various points in the history of the 20th-21st centuries--including methods of preventing democracy from arising there, and killing it if it did, military techniques for torturing and killing dissenters (throwing them out of airplanes, etc.), draconian economic theories, and methods of creating slave labor by another name, with benign-sounding terms and institutions ("free market," the World Bank) for rape of the environment and looting of all social programs, and, finally, use of the U.S. "war on drugs" to fund the worst elements of Latin American society, and to slaughter union leaders, small peasant farmers, political leftists, human rights workers and others by the thousands (on-going in Colombia, but gradually being evicted from the rest of the continent), as well as using this militaristic "war on drugs" to start all-out wars (as occurred this year, in the almost-war between Colombia/US and Ecuador/Venezuela).

First they do it in Latin America, then they do it elsewhere, including here. Latin America has been the laboratory for U.S. global corporate predator domination of the world. And that is no longer the case in most of South America declined being lab rats. They have successfully fought back with, among other things, transparent vote counting (which we have lost here).

Democracy may be on its death bed in the U.S.A., but it is alive and well in South America--one of the grander ironies of the 21st century, and possibly a turning point in the history of the world.

[Joe Chi Minh]

6. I suspect the second historical perspective you propose is as correct as your first one

could scarcely be further from the mark.

".... men venturing into space and walking on the moon"! How has mankind benefited from that? In the context of the cosmos, to describe it even as "one small step for mankind" seems the grossest of exaggerations. "Piffling" doesn't begin to cover it. And that's leaving aside the absolute moral vacuity behind all the ballyhoo.

But your second thesis, with the definitive, comprehensive discrediting of the phony (not merely false) economic philosophy of the far right, now that could augur a Brave New World, worthy of the description, as you suggest. Men are not going to become angels overnight, but our most "bent" worldly leaders are going to find it devilishly difficult, in future, to "con" their fellow human-beings on the basis of that most transparently farcical "philosophy" of the likes of Friedman, Rand (and their guru "Gekko"), that greed is good.

Adam Smith, mind you, will not be discredited along with them, but quite the contrary. He will finally be vindicated, since he evidently believed in a mixed economy and justly proportionate income tax. Now that smacks of Scandinavian-style Socialism!

Anyone for dominoes?

[Peace Patriot]

10. I actually believe that it's possible that future humans, say a hundred years from now,

may well figure that the entirety of human history to 1969 is summed up by that walk on the moon--our first adventure off our home planet--and they may be very puzzled as to what held us up getting to Mars and the potentially habitable moons of Jupiter and Saturn. Really, it's a big, big, BIG universe out there, and we're stuck here fighting bloody wars about oil, with the majority of the population opposed to it (including nearly 60% of the American people--Feb '03, all polls), and the powerless, demoralized majority watching as the rich steal them blind unto the 7th generation. The future may have an entirely different perspective on our activities than we can anticipate, and may revile us as hopeless, hapless stupidos, who couldn't get off planet Earth again for more than half a century after walking on the moon, and wasted all our resources on fighting.

The discovery of hyper-drive, or contact with "others" not of the Earth, or just the human race finally growing up, may put human history into a perspective that we, as a whole, can't see now.

[Joe Chi Minh]

12. Well, each one to his own opinion, of course. We're clearly at opposite ends of a spectrum

here, in terms of historical perspectives, current and future.

[Diclotican]

16. KCabotDullesMarxIII

KCabotDullesMarxIII

To be fair here.. Adam Smith, was indeed very clear about that even the "free marked" was something to be scared off, and he wanted also control mechanics who could keep an aye of how the marked worked, and that "Baron capitalism" could not survive for long... A whole chapter in his famous book are a dire warning about what this type of capitalism would do of havoc to the country who believed in that type of economical politic.. But it is largely forgotten and forget. And nothing you learn at school, specially in university and so on...

And to the Scandinavian Style of socialism, I doubt you could call it socialism anymore.. But in all tree country who is seen as Scandinavia, the State, or the government do have a large part of control in the economy, and have some power when the economy is sagging, or in trouble.. (Scandinavia are only Sweden Denmark and Norway Norden on the other hand is Iceland, Denmark, Sweden Norway and Finland).

And, it have something with the history in all this country too. The GOVERNMENT or the STATE at least have always had some control, and could keep an aye of what to do and what not to do, even that it sometimes fail miserable.. But the last 100 year Norway, Sweden and Denmark have going from being one of the poorest part of the world, to be one of the richest.. And if we just manage to keep this and not play around to much, we can still be rich far into the future.. It is always a gamble, but we have been luckily to have politicians who have been safe, and who have not played to much around.. And we have NOT been going to war for more than 200 year, if you don't count the 5 year Norway and Denmark was occupied by Germany.. It cost going to war, and it is far more easy to make friends.. Something the US might have to learn soon?

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language

[leftstreet]

3. Great article, well worth reading.

Thanks for posting it.

[acmavm]

4. Good. It's time our fricking 'Empire' died. They always do. BUT I certainly

hope that the Russians and Chinese have the good sense not to think that we're totally weak and defenseless and that Obama will be a push-over. That would be a mistake.

[TankLV]

5. Wrong Georgia - I'm not interested at this moment in time...

bye

[IndianaGreen]

7. Iraq and Afghanistan is where America's slide into oblivion began

We went after the Taleban instead of chasing Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda in the same manner Israel went after the people responsible for the Munich massacre. We attacked Iraq with the same morality, or lack thereof, exhibited by the Wehrmacht when it invaded Poland.

Af the end of the Cold War we refused Russia a Marshall Plan to put them back on their feet. Instead, we gave them the shock and awe of neoliberal policies which have destroyed the social fabric of the nation and created a new class of capitalist oligarchs. We have done nothing but antagonize and provoke Russia. Our "missile defense" that Bush has sold to Eastern European lapdogs as a defence against Iranian missiles is nothing more than a dagger at the heart of Russia. It has nothing to do with missile defence, and much to do with paying off the corrupt regimes that replaced the old communist guard in Poland and elsewhere.

[BrklynLiberal]

9. A war there is where the USSR lost its economic stability ...The US govt should have known

that a war there would never be worth what it would cost..in lives or in money.

[Diclotican]

18. IndianaGreen

IndianaGreen

The building of this Missile program that mr Bush wanted to build in a country like Poland, who have a _long_ history of been enemies of Russia is off course a very good provocation to the Russian. Who answer with putting nuclear weapon in the enclave of Kalinigrad.. They might even start their own little "son of star wars program" to at least be at the same playing level as US.. With the help of China, who Russia have been very friendly with the last years they might build a system who could possible make the "Star wars" program of US something they can hit back if threatened..

If the reason to have this missile program was to defend against Iranian, and North Korean missiles who could possible attack US,it would be reasonable to build it in the area who the missiles are, and not to put a whole system at the border with Russia, who have a long history of been attached from the border of Poland.. If mr Bush himself have not read some history of Russia, at least Rice, who was "expert of soviet" in the days, should have understand some of the "Mechanic" the Russian have when provoked at this level.. The Neo-Cons claim she is one of the brightest in her generation.. To me she look more like a arrogant little woman who in practice terms have not a single clue and is just plain wrong for the most of times...

Once, right after the cold war ended and the russians opened, it was easy to believe that in a few years time Russia should be like the rest of Europe.. I was coming to age in the 1990s, and I do remember that in the first 5-6 year it was believed that the Eastern block should in very few year be like us, rich, prosperous and peacefully.. We had no clue what was cocking under the fabric did we?.. And many in the east believed it to, that in a few year time the whole former Eastern block should be like the Western part.. They to got it wrong.. In some country the industry output is still far lower than it was before the cold war ended.. In some part of East Europe, the industry output is like zero.. And they have to get handout from the rest of Europe, specially the Western part..

Russia Will rice, and how we act to that fact is something we have to make a grasp to. I hope we can be friends, good friends with Russia.. It is far better to be friends with Russia, than to be enemies.. War is costly... And peace is prosperly..

Hopefully Europe as a large would manage to get together and work to make our continent a rich, prosperity, and peacefully continent.. And for the sake of it, Europe do not want to be like US, militaristic and violent.. Europe have had enough wars in their past, and want peace. This is something you can find on every single political faction from Ural to Ireland.. How to do it is an another thing maybe, but Europe as a whole want to keep us out of US war, and if have to go to war spend as little as possible to it.. That is one of the reason we in Europe sees to dragging their feet when it came to send troops to Afghanistan - and to send troops to Iraq as mr Bush once wanted.. Iraq ARE his war, and are US responsibility regardless of what is been told public..

Diclotican

[BrklynLiberal]

8. Hubris always takes its toll eventually.

[exboyfil]

11. We missed a golden opportunity after the Soviet Union fell

To disentangle ourselves from our foreign committments. The entire purpose of Nato was to to check Soviet expansion. When they were gone we should have scrapped Nato and pulled out of Germany. It was complete idiocy to continue to expand Nato into Eastern Europe. Why should we give the Russians provocation for nationalism? Now is the situation is FUBAR, and we have made committments to fledgling democracies like the former Soviet satellites and former Soviet countries that we can no way keep.

[IndianaGreen]

13. And since Bosnia, NATO has been exposed for what it always was...

an agent of American imperialist aggression!

[Diclotican]

17. IndianaGreen

IndianaGreen

I think the nature of NATO have changed drastically for what it once was. Defend against the big "ugly" Siberian Bear who was the evil itself... (not that I believe it..) After the USSR was fallen, and the new Russian country want to make their way, the neo-liberal system who was put in place ruined millions, and was in some way also killing of Russia as we know it.. But after 2000 we have seen a resurrecting of Russia as never before.. And the neo-liberal and the neo-cons are scared as hell about the possibility that Russia once again can raise from the ashes and go their own way this time.. The neoliberal system THEY wanted Russia to have, have in many ways played wrong, and even that they do got some horrible rich, most of the russians was not been par of this, but rather on the losers end, poor dirt poor..

NATO as we know it will survive for a long time regardless of what will came, but I hope the nature of NATO could change from what is is today, to a more defensive alliance, who is to defend their member states, and not to attack others.. Before 1999 the whole concept of NATO going into country like Afghanistan was almost stupid even to think about.. And now NATO are in Afghanistan, with no easy exit out in reach.. In fact I fear NATO could be stuck in Afghanistan for the last 10 year or so.. Much thank to your clown in charge mr Bush..

Diclotican

Sorry my bad english, not my native language.

[IndianaGreen]

19. If NATO gets stuck in Afghanistan for 10 years, it might mean the end of NATO

The end of NATO will be a good thing for the world.

[Diclotican]

21. IndianaGreen

IndianaGreen

Maybe, but then what with the collective security in Europe.. We need an collective security apparatuses in Europe, to safeguard our selfs because of our history... It is not _that_ long ago, that our neighborhood was a pretty dangerous place in the world, with a lot of national pride who falsely was wort going to war over... NATO have with all its fault be one of the few things in the past, that everyone in the alliance could agree about.. And that the rest of the continent wanted to be a part of, specially the eastern block... Even that it means piss off Russia big time. And they have not forgot the promise mr Herbert Walker Bush sr and Clinton was given the then president of Russia (both Gorbatsjov and Jelstin) that NATO should not go into Eastern Europe..

Hopefully the afghan adventure can be over some times in the future and NATO could go back to what it was doing before 1999.. Be an alliance who was defensive, and where the overall importance was, to defend all member states against enemies - in Europe if necessary.. Hey even Russia could be part of NATO, even that it would mean that the whole concept of NATO as an defensive alliance against Russia would pass.. When the top generals in 1994 talked about Russia coming in to the alliance it was meet with deep shock and awe in Brussels.. Russia would possible never be part of NATO, but we could definitely need a far better working condition with Russia..

[bhikkhu]

14. Very interesting article, with caveats

According to Wiki and tradition, the South Ossetians are Sarmatian ( http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia ) not Persian, from the Alan tribe that migrated there during the upheavals in the time of the Mongolian Empire. The history is really fascinating, and one aspect is the centuries old aspect of Georgian overlordship and Ossetian resistance. It reminds me of the the slavery episode in this country. Why should one group consider itself the natural lords of another? It seems to fill some persistent (and obnoxious) psychological niche or need.

The Russians have traditionally been "protectors" of the Ossetians, but in a pretty calculating manner. I think the way the conflict has been framed on all sides has been disappointing, as it is in this article. If the Ossetians are an ethnic or cultural group which simply wants to manage itself and be the slaves or servants of no one, then why does the US supply their wishful overlords with weapons? Why does the UN have nothing to say, and lack even a policy to guide opinion? Why, as they are invaded, is the only country to lift a finger the one that is so little deserving of trust? Why are whole articles written about the conflict in terms of Russian power, US decline, UN waffling, etc, without any background on Ossetia itself, and sometimes not even the mention of the name?

The immediate resolution has probably been the best case out of many possible disastrous cases. I don't imagine it would be very long lasting, but the world is full of such tenuous, unofficial, and generally more invisible groups. Without considering politics or sides at all, I wish them the best.

[natrat]

15. radar magazine bought out and shuttered-that says it all

[14thColony]

20. Mostest bestest quote in the whole article, by Lieutenant Colonel Andrei Bobrun

"We're not trying to annex this land. What the fuck do I need Georgia for?"

Now that's just plain funny no matter who you are.