A lot has been going on between Georgia and Russia in Ossetia as of late. I think it has left most Americans confused or uninterested. I think it has left most radicals and progressives wondering who, if anyone, to support or condemn.
This is an inter-imperialist conflict with no good guys to rally behind. As one might guess, the USA is heavily involved. Thus, it is our duty to expose and attack the US role in the conflict. (This is not because the US is “worse” than any other side but because we are the US and it is our imperialists we need to critique and toss out.)
First some background:
- Ossetia is a region inhabited mostly by ethnic Persians.
-When Georgian SSR became Georgia, the region of Ossetia was split: 1/2 in Russia and 1/2 in Georgia.
-Ossetian citizens wanted self rule from the increasingly conservative right-wing Georgian government.
- In 1992 Ossetia and Georgia had a civil war, and finally a cease fire.
- Georgia recently started an ethnic cleansing of Ossetian Persians.
-Russia invaded Georgia on the grounds of stopping ethnic cleansing.
-Since Georgia committed troops to Operation Enduring Freedom in Iraq, and are trying to join NATO, they have become US allies.
-The American media is demonizing Russia and overlooking Georgian ethnic cleansing.
-The USA is directly involved by supplying military transports to airlift Georgian troops back to Georgia to fight.
-Abkhazia is another "breakaway" separatist autonomous region in Georgia. -In 1992 and 1993, the Abkhaz people began an ethnic cleansing and expulsion of ethnic Georgians in Abkhazia, and Russia and America help to make a peace treaty that would allow the Abkhaz people the most autonomy possible inside Georgian borders.
-As the Ossetian situation exploded, the Abkhazian cease fire deteriorated.
Some further basics:
- Some of the most important resources in the world are along the southern tier of Russia: the Caspian Sea oil and the natural gas of Kazakstan.
- The U.S. has tried for half a century to peel that strip of countries from Soviet/Russian influence, and gain control of it.
- Russia has (similarly) sought to control the oil fields tightly since the start of the 1900s.
- These resources are landlocked. To get to markets they need to travel by pipeline: either over Russia, or Iran, or over Georgia to Turkey.
-The U.S. seeks to disrupt Russia's pipe lines (i.e. unrest in Chechnya). And Russia seeks to disrupt the U.S. pipeline from Baku to Ceyhan via Georgia and parts of Turkish Kurdistan.
-Both Russia and the U.S. have been leaning on, arming, financing, and promoting various clients along the pipeline routes.
(thanx Harjit & Nick 7G)
