Kuri Näkk wrote:FrankTrollman wrote:It is very weird to me that people consider it a political issue whether or not the South Osetia war of 1991-1992 occurred. I am totally down with people having political opions on who was most wrong or what should have happened. But the fact that it did happen is not, or at least should not be a political issue. This is like moon landing denialism.
Nobody has denied that violent conflicts occurred. Call them wars if you like. Such conflicts took place in many areas of former USSR after its collapse. Georgian government was able to insert control on some areas and failed in others like Abkhazia. They failed largely because Russia actively supported the other side. Not out of some sympathy for Caucasian ethnic minorities: Russia mercilessly crushed all similar separatist movements within
their borders. I should say 'attempted to crush' because Russian government actually failed in some cases, like Chechenia. These breakaway regions declared independence but were not recognized by the world community. Russia resumed their attack on the Chechens in 1999 and crushed them. Do you consider it an attack on Georgia? No? Then why do you think that Georgia attacked Russia in 2008 when it tried to crush the rebels in South Ossetia? Is it because the South Ossetian rebels were Russian puppets? Are you one of those people who thinks that Russia can do whatever it wants in the former republics of USSR and any attempt of these states to counter the efforts is violation of Russia's inalienable rights and aggression against them? Also, it is undeniable fact that Russia intervened immediately in the 2008 conflict and attacked Georgians in South Ossetia and elsewhere on the territory of Georgia. In short, your recollection that Georgia attacked Russia is complete bullshit.
Your claim that Georgians wanted a large scale conflict with Russia is ludicrous. Are you really suggesting that Georgians were so stupid to think that US with no significant military presence in the area could have done anything against determined invasion by Russia? Georgians were fed up with the situation and hoped to catch Russia off guard but fell into trap. The speed and scale of the Russian invasion came as a complete shock to Georgians and it strongly suggests that it was all pre-planned. Later they begged for military help because Russians just scared shit out of them and unlike the West they do not believe that Russia will abide any agreement without credible military threat.
The Western leadership failed. Not because they did not support the Georgian government in their ill-conceived attempt to establish control in South Ossetia. They failed because they did not adequately support Georgia against Russian direct aggression. Sarkozy negotiate peace but the West did virtually nothing to ensure that the Russia actually kept the terms (it did not). Among other things Russia has de facto annexed the areas. Despite this the West very quickly returned to business as usual. Actually more than that: recall, for instance, the Obama’s so called ‘restart’. As the consequence, the Putin and his cronies were emboldened and felt secure enough to launch their aggression in Ukraine when their friend was toppled there.
These claims are so absurd that I'm going to have to go back to the beginning to some core concepts because your whole worldview is
epistemologically bullshit.
First of all, there is no
principle by which we support one group's desire for a border over another's. There has never been one, and there's never going to be one. Woodrow Wilson
thought he had a good idea going with the right of nations to self determination, but that turned out to be horse pucky because there are too many nations, they are all way too intermingled, and each person's identity is a fluid and changeable thing. The people in Osetia do not want to be in Georgia, and the people in Tiblisi want Georgia to include South Osetia, and there are more people in Tiblisi than in South Osetia, so if you count both groups' votes it is democratically determined that South Osetia is part of Georgia, and if you only count the votes of South Osetians it is democratically determined that it is not.
And there is
no principle by which to choose one or the other. Vietnam is separate from China because we only count the will of Vietnamese on that matter (despite there being more Chinese), but the Confederated States of America are included in the United States of America because we count the voices of the people all over the US. Why? Because reasons. Reasons that have
nothing to do with any guiding principles about whether it is right for one group of people to have to abide by the will of another. We choose to support the majority's will to dominate or the minority's will to rebel on an ad hoc basis based on other considerations entirely.
The fact that Russia supports some groups of secessionists in countries near to its borders and mercilessly crushes other groups of secessionists inside its borders is not some sort of gotcha. It's not hypocrisy. It's just how things work. It's how things always work for every country. There are secessionists all over the world, and you support some, condemn others, and give zero shits one way or the other about the rest. And so does everyone else, they just have a different list than you do.
As for Georgia falling into a "trap" set by Russia, that's a joke, right? Russia is a major power, the second most powerful army in the world. It would be
very strange if they couldn't respond to a military situation on their border. Russia was known to support the South Osetians in their position as a defacto-independent state, and had peacekeeper soldiers in South Osetia. Once they had been fired upon, what kind of blithering idiot do you have to be to think that Russia wouldn't respond in force? Sure, they might decide for diplomatic reasons to brush it off, but if they have no particular love for the government of the country involved, they are well within their rights to bomb Tiblisi. And it was bizarre and foolish of saakashvili to expect any other outcome.
But let's get to the West in this.
No. The West didn't "fail" in the Second South Osetia War, because it had no
goals in the Second South Osetia War. You might as well accuse Colombia or South Africa of having failed in the Second South Osetia War. It was a minor war in between two countries outside their sphere of influence and the result was pretty much the status quo ante-bellum. South Osetia had defacto independence in 1992, 16 years later the Russo-Georgia war merely
confirmed it.
Basically you're committing and recommitting a category error over and over again. You think that just because
you want Georgia to control South Osetia that it is somehow
morally important that this happen. But it's not. No one outside that area actually gives two shits about whether South Osetia is ruled from Tbilisi or Moscow or subject to self rule. It just. Doesn't. Matter. The only thing that matters is realpolitik. And the realpolitik of the situation is that Russia had troops in South Osetia to "keep the peace" and Georgia sent in their own troops to break the peace. And the fact that Georgians were
surprised that Russia's army is much larger, more powerful, and better organized than their own is just fucking sad.
-Username17