Schenectady Gazette, NY
Aug 24 2008
Op-ed column: The media got it wrong: Russia did not invade Georgia,
it’s the other way around
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Edwin D. Reilly Jr.
Being on vacation, I had told my editor that I wouldn’t have a new
piece for this Sunday, but something happened that changed my
mind. Whether home or away, libraries are my favorite haunt, so, while
waiting for a table at the nearby Captain’s Table, Jean and I sat on a
bench in front of the Chatham library on Cape Cod.
Sitting near us a woman on another bench and a young man on the
library steps were each typing furiously on their laptops. Could they
be within range of Wi-Fi, I wondered? So I asked the young man if he
was picking up a signal from the (closed!) library. `Why, yes,’ he
said, `this is the best time to do so, given that there is no one
inside with whom I have to share bandwidth and thus reduce response
time.’
I became conscience-stricken by such rampant assiduousness, and since
our rented cottage was a hot spot, I went back to my own laptop after
dinner, determined to tell you how the mainstream press has, by and
large, gotten the Russian battle with South Ossetia all wrong.
The impression that most Associated Press stories conveyed, and some
even in The New York Times, has been that Russia invaded part of
Georgia. But it is closer to the truth that the opposite is true. This
finally sank into my cranium when I read a column in, of all places,
the Cape Cod Times of Aug. 18, the day of this epiphany. The author,
Gwynne Dyer, an international columnist from London, wrote: `Russia
didn’t threaten Georgia; it responded to a surprise attack on South
Ossetia, a territory where there were Russian [and Georgian]
peacekeeping troops by international agreement. It has not occupied
Georgia’s capital, nor has it overthrown the government (though the
Georgians may do that themselves when they realize what a fool [their
President, Mikhail] Saakashvili has been).’
Yes, the Russians overreacted, drove deep into Georgian territory well
beyond South Ossetia, killed many people, and have started to withdraw
back into South Ossetia. But that’s as far as they will go. Fully 70
percent of the greatly depleted population of that `province,’ or
whatever it is, hold Russian citizenship and very much want to become,
like North Ossetia (to its north, obviously) one of the units of the
Russian Federation.
Now, with our forces so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is
nothing that the United States can do about this. It is certainly not
going to start a third world war, hot or cold, over it. President Bush
may or may not realize this, but surely both presidential candidates
do. But they have no recourse except to posture, saying of the
Russians, in effect, `There they go again.’
Sen. Obama suggests that the matter be referred to the U.N. Security
Council, forgetting (?) that in that venue, Russia has veto
power. Even worse, Sen. McCain, whose documented forgetfulness is that
Afghanistan lies between Iraq and Pakistan and hence the latter two
have no common border, blusters like the Great Oz behind a
curtain. And the voters are sure to look behind it.
As of 20 years ago, South Ossetia had 65,000 native Ossetians, 29,000
people who considered themselves Georgians, and practically no
`Russians.’ By now, many of each have fled the area, and most of those
left consider themselves Russian. Despite this fact, and despite the
fact that his army has been obliterated, President Mikhail Saakashvili
has vowed that `Georgia will never give up a square kilometer of its
territory.’ Essentially, it already has.
Geographic locale
But before we venture further, just what and where is this foreign
Georgia and the rebellious South Ossetia contained therein? Wikipedia
to the rescue.
The country of Georgia lies to the south of the Russian Federation
(Russia), from which it is separated by a natural boundary formed by
the Caucasus mountain range. It is a transcontinental country,
partially in Eastern Europe and partially in Southwest Asia. It is
bordered to the east by Azerbaijan, to the west by the Black Sea, to
the south by Armenia, and to the southwest by Turkey. Georgia’s area,
about 27,000 square miles, lies between that of our states of South
Carolina and West Virginia, both breakaway federal entities of our
own, the latter because it took the Union side in our Civil
War. Georgia’s population of 4.6 million is comparable to that of our
Alabama and is about half of our own Georgia.
After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of
independence as a Democratic Republic from 1918 until the Red Army’s
invasion of 1921. Georgia became part of the USSR in 1922 and did not
regain its independence until 1991, when the Soviet Union
dissolved. Georgia is currently a representative democracy and is a
member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the World
Trade Organization. To the consternation of Russia, the country seeks
to join NATO and, in the longer term, admission to the European Union.
The map of the country of Georgia looks much like a crocodile, but its
tail to the northwest and its right hind leg are, respectively, the
self-proclaimed independent republics of Abkhazia and Adjara, but no
other country other than Georgia ‘ certainly not Russia, which has
designs on the former ‘ has recognized them. Historically, there have
been dust-ups over the status of both, but they were nothing compared
to the currently raging battle over the status of South Ossetia.
South Ossetia is a region in the extreme north of Georgia, just over
the border from the Russian federal republic (oblast) of North
Ossetia. It declared itself to be the independent `Republic of South
Ossetia’ early in the 1990s. The capital of South Ossetia is
Tskhinvali, even though South Ossetia lies within the Georgian region
called Shida Kartli, whose capital is Gori.
Not recognized
The claimed independence has not been diplomatically recognized by any
member of the United Nations, which continues to regard South Ossetia
as part of Georgia. Until the armed conflict of this month, Georgia
had retained control over parts of the region’s eastern and southern
districts where it created, in April 2007, the Provisional
Administrative Entity of South Ossetia.
Barack Obama has promised me (and at least a million others) that he
will send us e-mail (or one of those hated text messages) that tell us
of his vice presidential choice. You may know who that is by the time
you read this. For his sake, I hope it is Sen. Joe Biden, the only
politician left in Washington who makes sense when he speaks of
foreign affairs. As to domestic affairs, we’ve had our fill of those.
Edwin D. Reilly Jr. lives in Niskayuna and is a regular contributor to
the Sunday Opinion section.
g/24/0824_reillyjr/