Putin's Winning Hand:

Once the Atlantic Alliance is shattered, America's lifeline to the world is
kaput

By Mike Whitney

16/08/08 "ICH" -- - There are no military installations in the city of
Tskhinvali. In fact, there are no military targets at all. It is an
industrial center consisting of lumber mills, manufacturing plants and
residential areas. It is also the home to 30,000 South Ossetians. When
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered the city to be bombed by
warplanes and shelled by heavy artillery last Thursday, he knew that he
would be killing hundreds of civilians in their homes and neighborhoods. But
he ordered the bombing anyway.

There was no "Battle of Tskhinvali"; that's another fiction. A battle
implies that there is an opposing force that is resisting or fighting back.
That's not the case here. The Georgian army entered the city unopposed;
after all, how can unarmed civilians stop armed units. Most of the
townspeople had already fled across the border into Russia or hid in their
basements while the tanks and armored vehicles rumbled bye firing at
anything that moved.

What took place in South Ossetia last Thursday, was not an invasion or a
siege; it was a massacre. The people had no way to defend themselves against
a fully-equiped modern army. It was a war crime.

In less than 24 hours, the Russian army was deployed to the war zone where
it chased the Georgian army away without a fight. Journalist Michael Binyon
put it like this, "The attack was short, sharp and deadly---enough to send
the Georgians fleeing in humiliating panic." Indeed, the Georgians left in
such haste that many of their weapons were left behind. It was a complete
rout; another black-eye for the US and Israeli advisers who trained the
clatter of thugs they call the Georgian army. Soon vendors on the streets of
Tskhinvali will be hawking weapons that were left behind with a mocking
sign: "Georgia Army M-16; Never used, dropped once."

By the time the army was driven out, the downtown area was in engulfed in
flames and the bodies of those who had been killed by sniper-fire were
strewn along the streets and sidewalks. Many of people who stayed behind
were simply too old or infirm to leave. Instead, they huddled in their
basements waiting for the shelling to stop. It was a bloodbath. The city's
only hospital was deliberately targeted and destroyed; another war crime. By
day's end, over 2,000 people were killed in an operation that was clearly
engineered with the assistance of the Bush White House. Bush regards
Saakashvilli as his main client in the region; they are friends. He is
America's cat's paw in the Caucasus. Saakashvilli's assignment is to try to
get Putin to overreact militarily and demonstrate to European allies that
Russia still poses a threat to their national security. Fortunately, many
Europeans see through the ruse and know that the trouble originates in
Washington.

For the most part, Americans are still in the dark about what really
happened last weekend. There's a great video circulating on the Internet by
a Russian citizen that has been living in USA for the last 10 years. He sums
up the role of the US media with great precision. He says, "The western
media--especially CNN--is feeding you complete horseshit. Russia did not
invade Georgia first." The youtube can be seen here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c26Q-qxDEA

The coverage of the western media has been abysmal. Nearly every article and
TV news segment begins with accusations of Russian aggression concealing the
fact that the Georgian Army bombarded and invaded the capital of South
Ossetia one full day before the first Russian even tank crossed the border.
By the time the Russians arrived, the city was already in a shambles and
thousands were dead.

These facts are not in dispute by those who followed the developments as
they took place. Now the media is revising the facts to manage public
perceptions, just as they did with the fictional WMD in Iraq. Many people
think that the media learned its lesson after they were exposed for using
bogus information in the lead up to the war in Iraq. But that is not true.
The corporate media--especially FOX News, CNN and PBS (the smug,
liberal-sounding channel)---continue to operate like the propaganda arm of
the Pentagon. Its disgraceful.

In a 2006 referendum, 99%% of South Ossetians said they supported
independence from Georgia. The voter turnout was 95%% and the balloting was
monitored by 34 international observers from the west. No one has challenged
the results. The province has been under the protection of Russian and
Georgian peacekeepers since 1992 and has been a de facto independent state
ever since. If Putin applied the same standard as Bush did in Kosovo, he
would unilaterally declare South Ossetia independent from Georgia and then
thumb his nose at the UN. (Sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander) But
Putin and newly-elected Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have taken a
conciliatory attitude towards the international community and tried to
resolve the issue through diplomatic channels. So far, they have conducted
themselves with restraint and avoided any confrontation.

Still, Russia's operation in South Ossetia has ignited a firestorm in the US
political establishment and Democrats and Republicans alike are demanding
that Russia be "taught a lesson". Condoleeza Rice flew to Tbilisi on Friday
and ordered Russian combat troops to withdraw from Georgia immediately.
Saakashvili topped off Rice's comments by saying that the Russian troops
were "cold-blooded killers" and "barbarians". So much for reconciliation.

Saakashvili's hyperbolic rhetoric was followed by a surprise announcement
from Poland that they had approved Bush's plans for deploying the Missile
Defense Shield in Eastern Europe. The system is supposed to defend Europe
from the possibility of attacks from so-called "rogue states" like Iran, but
the Kremlin knows that it is intended to neutralize their nuclear arsenal.
Political analyst William Engdahl explains the importance of the proposed
system in his recent article, "Missile Defense: Washington and Poland just
moved the World closer to War":

"The signing now insures an escalation of tensions between Russia and NATO
and a new Cold War arms race in full force. It is important for readers to
understand...the ability of one of two opposing sides to put anti-missile
missiles to within 90 miles of the territory of the other in even a
primitive first-generation anti-missile missile array gives that side
virtual victory in a nuclear balance of power and forces the other to
consider unconditional surrender or to pre-emptively react by launching its
nuclear strike before 2012."

The new "shield" will be integrated into the larger US nuclear weapons
system placing the world's most lethal weapons just a few hundred miles from
Russia's capital. It is a clear threat to Russia's national security and it
must be opposed at all cost. It is no different than nuclear weapons in
Cuba. The timing of the announcement is particularly troubling as it only
adds to the tensions between the two superpowers.

President Medvedev made this statement after hearing of Poland's decision:
"This decision clearly demonstrates everything we have said recently. The
deployment of new anti-missile forces in Europe is aimed at the Russian
Federation."

It was President Ronald Reagan, the darling of the neoconservatives, who
decided to remove short-range nuclear weapons from the European theater.
Now, ironically, it is his ideological heir, George W. Bush, who is on track
to restart the Cold War by putting a high-tech nuclear system on Russia's
perimeter. The younger Bush has already broken his father's commitment to
Mikail Gorbachev to never expand NATO beyond Germany. Presently, Bush is
pushing to gain NATO membership for two former-Soviet states; Ukraine and
Georgia. If they are approved, then any future dispute with Russia will pit
the United States and Europe against Moscow. It's no wonder Putin is trying
to derail the process.

The Bush administration has been planning for a confrontation with Russia
for more than a year. In fact, Raw Story reported on operations that were
conducted by the military on July 14, 2008 which were probably a dress
rehearsal for the current conflict. According to Raw Story:

"US troops on Monday (July 14) began military exercises near the Russian
border in ex-Soviet Ukraine and were poised to launch them in Georgia, amid
tense relations between Moscow and Washington. A ceremony inaugurating the
Sea Breeze-2008 NATO exercise was held off Ukraine's Black Sea coast against
anti-NATO protests and a hostile reaction from officials in Russia. Sea
Breeze-2008...includes forces from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Britain,
Canada, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Macedonia and
Turkey...'The US-Georgia joint exercises will be held at the Vaziani
military base' less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Russian border
with a total of 1,650 servicemen taking part."

So, it appears the Bush administration, working in conjunction with the
Pentagon, did have contingency plans for dealing with a flare-up with
Georgia. The real question is whether or not they planned to initiate those
hostilities to advance their own regional agenda? No one knows for sure.

Now that Georgia's American-trained army has been humiliated in front of the
world, Bush is trying desperately to save face by demanding that Russia
allow the US Air force to deliver humanitarian aid via C-17 military
aircraft to the tens of thousands of Georgians who were displaced in the
fighting. It is worth noting that, as yet, Bush has never delivered as much
as a bag of rice to the 2 million Iraqi refugees living in Jordan and Syria
due to his war in Iraq. Bush's magnanimity is not only suspect, it also
creates real problems for Putin who will have to decide whether the offer is
sincere or just a ploy to open up the ports and airfields so that more
weaponry and ordnance can be delivered. As Barry Grey suggests in his
article "Bush Dispatches US Military forces to Georgia" the humanitarian
operation could be a scam:

"This is a formula for an injection of US military and naval forces into
Georgia of indeterminate scope and duration. It will certainly involve the
presence of hundreds if not thousands of uniformed US military personnel on
the ground, and a substantial number of warships in the region. The US is
introducing this military force into a situation that remains highly
unstable and combustible, raising the possibility of a direct military clash
between the United States and Russia."

Grey is right, but what choice does Putin have? His task is to avoid a
military confrontation with the United States while demonstrating to his
Europeon partners that their future lies with Russia not America. That's the
real goal. To achieve that, he needs to expose Bush as reckless, petulant,
and incapable of being a responsible steward of the global system. Maybe
Putin will have to back-down at some point and swallow his pride; it makes
no difference. What matters, is the endgame; showing that Russia is strong
and dependable and will provide its European allies with oil and natural gas
in a businesslike manner. That's the winning hand. Meanwhile, the United
States will be forced to take a long-overdue look in the mirror and revisit
its strategy for perennial war. Unfortunately, once the Atlantic Alliance is
shattered; America's lifeline to the world is kaput.

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20535.htm