The International Poli(tical)ce Force… are we siding with Georgia or blindly opposing Russia?
By 
Shan-ul-Hai •
August 12, 2008
Recently, Russian forces intervened to help control the violence in neighboring Georgia, much to the anger of the international community. The US and the EU have condemned Russia’s “invasion” of a sovereign nation, saying that Georgia should be allowed to handle its own problems in its own way. Apparently, international intervention is no longer acceptable.
Am I the only person who sees the hypocrisy here? In the last few years, the US has had military presences in Yugoslavia (and later Bosnia, Croatia, and Serbia/Kosovo), West Germany, South Korea, Japan, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kuwait, Turkey, Somalia, and Nicaragua, and those are just the places with a high enough profile so that I can name them off the top of my head. All of those nations were sovereign when the US entered, and plenty of them (Yugoslavia, Bosnia, Japan, Afghanistan, Somalia, Nicaragua) were initially hostile to the American presence. I’m not saying that we were wrong to enter any of those conflicts (except maybe Iraq), but why is it that it’s unacceptable for Russia to send peacekeeping forces into neighboring territories when we do it on a regular basis?
Sure, I understand that this is a case where Russia is siding with an independence movement that is fighting against an internationally recognized government. But isn’t that what we did when we helped “liberate” Kosovo from Serbia? We were siding with a movement that the Serbian government considered a terrorist organization. I still think that we were right to help the Kosovar people… but in order to do it, we had to invade Serbia’s internationally-recognized borders. Why is it that Russia can’t cross Georgian borders in an attempt to help the Abkhazian independence movement?
The UN has always promoted self-determination for war-torn regions like the former Yugoslavia. That’s why Bosnia, Croatia, Macedonia, Albania, Serbia, and Kosovo are now independent of one another, like they always should have been. Because of the independence, ethnic violence has declined substantially in that area. So why can’t we apply the same sort of principle to areas like Georgia? What about Palestine and Kashmir? What about Rwanda and Eritrea? Why is it that they don’t deserve the same sort of self-determination that we gave to Kosovo?
The US had a vested interest in the downfall of Yugoslavia… in that conflict, the last remnants of Soviet Communist influence in Europe were crushed. If we gave the Azkhabians the right to democratically choose their own fate, however, we would actually be siding with Russia. We’d piss off Israel if we started a self-determination ballot in Palestine and we’d piss of India if we did the same thing in Kashmir. And the people in Rwanda and Eritrea are too poor and black to warrant any concern.
The sad part is that we didn’t even hear much about this conflict until the Russians got involved. We didn’t hear about Rwanda and Eritrea until after the fact. And when I did hear about it in the news, I heard the politicians’ response before I heard the actual facts.
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I don’t really have a side on this issue, but I did want to point this out. You say “I still think that we were right to help the Kosovar people… but in order to do it, we had to invade Serbia’s internationally-recognized borders. Why is it that Russia can’t cross Georgian borders in an attempt to help the Abkhazian independence movement?”
“We” (as in the U.S.) didn’t invade Serbia, “We” (as in the U.N. did). Same with many of the examples you mentioned. That makes it a much different scenario than the Russian example here.
I see your points here. But in some of those cases we entered those countries to fight a rebel group against the internationally recognized government (Afghanistan) or we were attacked first (Japan). The US also did not send troops into Kosovo this year when Kosovo declared independence and Serbia opposed it. Overall though I see what you are saying and there is legitimacy to it.
Most importantly though, Russia is being extremely hypocritical. They were against Kosovo’s independence, they are against Chechnayan independence. They just said they have the right to attack Poland because Poland has agreed to allow US missile defense systems. Russia’s policy seems to be extremely hypocritical, especially as they deny that the US has a right to influence CIS nations but Russia has the duty to interefer!
I don’t think you quite have all of your facts straight regarding Russia’s role in this conflict.
see http://www.economist.com/opinion/displayStory.cfm?source=hptextfeature&story_id=11920701
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