The Phone Call Tells Me So

The New York Times tells us this morning (Sept. 16) that Georgian diplomats have been passing around phone intercepts (a Georgian NSA? Does that mean a Georgian FISA debate? A Georgian Echelon?) showing Russian troop movements a day before Saakashvili's mortar attack on South Ossetia. So this is a surprise? The Russians were waiting for the "Pleikus are like streetcars" moment, and Saakashvili gave it to them. It's no surprise that Putin and Medvedev are acting like the proud, wounded nation who will give no quarter. What's more surprising is that both of them talk not like tough-minded realists, but like drunks at a bar who want to goad NATO and the U.S. as much as they want their version of justice in the Caucus republics. Maybe they learned their winning diplomatic style from Saakashvili.

Imperialism and Seven-League Boots

At the end of the day, Georgia's "ownership" of South Ossetia or Russia's "dominance" of Georgia doesn't matter, except insofar as citizens of any nation respond best to home-grown jingoism that makes their dominance of others feel good. Certainly works for us, eh? But now we have open war in Georgia at the start of the Olympics in Beijing. (Notice how the Soviet Union waited until the Suez Crisis of 1956 to invade Hungary, and global student protests in 1968 to invade Czechoslovakia? The Kremlin loves diversionary tactics, whether under socialist or authoritarian management.)
Yes, Saakashvili is a jerk. So are Medvedev and Putin. All three are popular precisely because they go to war in the name of the Motherland. The numerous stories at antiwar.com can help you sort out the claims from both sides.
There are some rather stupid progressive groups in the U.S. and Europe who would like to see the U.S. as the primary hand in all this, because the Pentagon wants to expand bases in Georgia. As Bob Anderson from Stop the War Machine points out, the U.S. is becoming such a minor player, such a paper tiger, that other nations can take the role of lead imperialist without consulting us one way or another. And it is our job in the peace community to say that Russians and Georgians are equally wrong in exploiting each others' territority, and that it is time to call in the UN to resolve border disputes before this spirals further out of control.