THE WEST'S KOSOVO TREACHERY REPAID BY A MORE CONFIDENT BEAR

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Shamed by the loss of empire, Russia is a wounded bear we provoke at our peril

by

Stephen Glover

[Daily Mail-Monday, August 11,2008]

Incidentally, those western leaders who are now lecturing Russia over its retaliation in Georgia might ask themselves whether they are not GUILTY of a degree of HYPOCRISY given WESTERN INTERVENTION in KOSOVO and then IRAQ.

[WE AGREE!]

[The Albanian so-called FREEDOM FIGHTERS in Serbia's KOSOVO were supplied with arms and finance by GERMANY who a few years earlier had prematurely recognised their SECOND WORLD WAR ally CROATIA which precipitated the disaster in the BALKANS.]

'Russia is not the Soviet Union, and don't believe those politicians or pundits who imply she is. Her response in South Ossetia though harsh, must be judged in the context of a local dispute, and in moral terms may be as defensible as our bombing of BELGRADE, in which many INNOCENT SERBIAN civilians WERE KILLED.'

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RUSSIA has unquestionably behaved in a brutal manner in Georgia. Some people are already drawing comparisons between the events of the past few days and the Soviet Union's invasion of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968.

Here is the evidence, they say, that Russia is another version of the old Soviet Union. Whenever, her interests are threatened, Russia like the USSR before her, will respond with devastating force rather than with

REASON and DIALOGUE.

There is some truth in this analysis - but only some. 

In the FIRST PLACE, Russia may have behaved with shocking brutality, but this was in response to Georgian troops going into South Ossetia.

There was provocation. This tiny parcel of land is admittedly legally part of Georgia, but it has been

INDEPENDENT

for 15 years, and its population of 70,000 includes Russian passport holders and many sympathetic to Russia.

Warlord

For the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvill, to have ordered this incursion -seemingly in the bizarre belief the Russian Government and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin may have been distracted by the

OLYMPIC GAMES

-represents as astonishing

MISCALCULATION.

Georgia's armed forces are puny, while Russia, though a shadow of its former self is

A FORMIDABLE MILITARY POWER.

HOW

Mr Saakashvill could have imagined Putin would not respond to Georgia's sending in troops into South Ossetia is

INCOMPREHENSIBLE.

If Saakashvill expected NATO troops to come to his aid

HE WAS IN CLOUD CUCKOO LAND.

He may come across as an American educated smoothie who talks the language of democracy, but he has behaved like a crude

CAUCASUS WARLORD

who lacks even the most elementary sense of

STATECRAFT.

There is, in fact, no parallel at all between what has happened in  Hungary and Czechoslovakia.

In this instance Georgia is at least technically

THE AGGRESSOR

though Russia has responded with

DISPROPORTIONATE FORCE.

The Soviet Union's two eastern European satilites, by contrast, were trying to assert a degree of

INDEPENDENCE

from their masters in

MOSCOW

and were stamped on in a most appalling way.

Nor should we make facile comparisons between the Soviet Union in 1956 and 1968 and Russia today.

Then at the height of the Cold War, the USSR was at least the equal of the United States as a super-power, and responded from a position of strength. Russia may be able to squash tiny Georgia with ease, but she is a country that has undergone extreme psychological trauma since the

SOVIET EMPIRE

broke up nearly 20 years ago.

The new depleted Russia has watched helplessly as all her former eastern European satellites have defected to NATO or the EUROPEAN UNION.

Even Ukraine, by far the most populous of the former

SOVIET REPUBLICS

has now a pro-western government which, like Georgia, wants to join NATO and the European Union.

RUSSIA HAS FELT HERSELF INCREASINGLY ENCIRCLED BY PRO-WESTERN STATES.

Throughout this process, at any rate until recently, she has been an impotent spectator. When NATO led by the United States and Britain, decided to bomb SERBIA in 1998, and subsequently to 'liberate'

KOSOVO

Russia was unable to offer anything more than words of criticism. The inability of a erstwhile

SUPER-POWER

to provide any support for their Slav brethren in SERBIA was felt as a deep humiliation in MOSCOW.

Incidentally, those western leaders who are now lecturing Russia over its retaliation in Georgia might ask themselves whether they are not GUILTY of a DEGREE of HYPOCRISY given WESTERN INTERVENTION in KOSOVO and then IRAQ

-in neither of which countries were there any western

'Kith and Kin'

to be defended.

The West, led by America has taken to fighting

'humanitarian'

wars in the name of

DEMOCRACY

[While AMERICA and BRITAIN have almost DESTROYED their once TRUE DEMOCRACY at HOME.]

Russia is engaged in an old-fashioned conflict in its own backyard.

the country has regained a degree of confidence since the Nineties when she was dependent on repeated western financial handouts, and driven by the Yeltsin government's own economic mismanagement to the verge of bankruptcy. revenues from newly developed oil and gas fields have helped to boost its economy.

RUSSIA IS NO LONGER A BASKET CASE.

If one man is responsible for the recovery in the country's international standing, it is the former KGB officer Vladimir Putin.  To many western eyes he seems a brutish throwback to the old Soviet Union, whose demise he has openly mourned.  To most Russians he is the embodiment of their country's newfound determination

NOT TO BE PUSHED AROUND.

That is why he has been spearheaded by Mr Putin rather than the recently elected President, Dmitry Medvedev, will almost certainly make him more popular still.

Contempt

Of course, a resurgent Russia is presenting the West with many more problems than she did in the Nineties.  The Putin Government has treated dissidents inside and outside Russia with the utmost ruthlessness.  There is little doubt that it was somehow involved in the poisoning in London of the former KGB agent Alexander Litvinenko in November 2006.  these are not the activities of a civilised regime.

On the commercial front the Russian Government has behaved with equal contempt for the

RULE OF LAW.

The British Oil Company BP is effectively being eased out of its joint stake in the gigantic Kovykta oilfield by Russian authorities.  They have simply refused to renew the visas of BP's senior British personnel in Russia. A similar tactic was used against Shell in 2006.

Most worrying for the West, Europe's growing dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies leaves it potentially open to blackmail.  Injanuary 2006, Moscow shut off some of Ukrain's gas after a row about prices. 

MIGHT IT ONE DAY DO THE SAME TO THE WEST OVER SOME POLITICAL DISPUTE?

Paranoid

Some analysts think that Russia wants to suborn Georgia so as to gain control of the pipeline from Azerbaijan to Turkey, which passes through Georgia. 

LETS HOPE A CEASEFIRE WILL HOLD

and that Russian does nothing to justify the predictions of those who says she wishes to

DOMINATE GEORGIA.

No one could plausibly pretend that modern Russia is a pluralist, a fully democratic country with a healthy respect for the

RULE OF LAW

as well as

INDEPENDENT INSTITUTIONS

 and a

FREE PRESS.

She is slightly brutish, only half civilised and much reduced country, asserting herself after the shock of losing an empire and superpower status almost overnight. Not surprisingly, given the westernisation of her former satellites, and the hegemony of her former rival the

UNITED STATES

she has developed some paranoid tendencies.

BUT NONE OF THIS MAKES HER A LOOMING THREAT TO THE SECURITY OF THE WEST

or reopens the

COLD WAR.

RUSSIA is NOT the SOVIET UNION.

and don't believe those politicians or pundits who imply

THAT SHE IS.

Her response in South Ossetia though harsh, must be judged in the context of a

LOCAL DISPUTE

and in moral terms may be defensible as

OUR BOMBING of BELGRADE

in which

MANY INNOCENT SERBIAN CIVILIANS WERE KILLED

WE CAN PERSIST IN SEEING RUSSIA AS A BEAR IF WE LIKE, BUT SHE IS A CAGED ONE AS WELL AS SOMEWHAT WOUNDED AND THERE IS NOTHING TO BE GAINED FROM POKING STICKS THROUGH HER BARS

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[Each underlined word has a separate bulletin]

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[Font Altered-Bolding & Underlining Used-Comments in Brackets]

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[President Putin -a Patriot or Gordon Brown a deceitful so-called  Democrat - a Traitor-which would you prefer?]

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AUGUST-2008

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