US Confirms It Knew of Georgia's Plan to Attack South Ossetia
Venik
* Aug. 22nd, 2008 at 2:11 AM
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http://venik4.livejournal.com/16902.html
In its August 22 issue, the Russian business daily Kommersant published
the interview with the new US Ambassador to Russia John Beyrly. As
should have been expected of an experienced diplomat, Ambassador Beyrly
said a lot about nothing. Although he did bring up a couple of points
worth mentioning. John Beyrly is a fluent Russian speaker and the
interview was conducted in Russian.
"We see that the response by the Russian forces to the attack against
Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia was well founded," said Beyrly.
("Мы видим, что российские войска вполне обоснованно ответили на
нападение на миротворцев РФ в Южной Осетии.") Ambassador Beyrly went on
to say that it was the move into Georgia proper by the Russian forces
that the US found unacceptable.
When asked if the US supported Georgia's actions in South Ossetia,
Beyrly responded: "The fact that, to the last moment we urged the
Georgian side not to take this step, clearly shows that we did not want
for any of this to happen." ("Тот факт, что мы очень настойчиво убеждали
грузинскую сторону не идти на этот шаг, ясно говорит о том, что мы не
хотели, чтобы все это произошло.") Incidentally, a few days ago the US
Ambassador to NATO, Kurt Volkner, told the Norwegian Institute of
International Affairs: "Including the day before Georgian troops went
into South Ossetia, we said, 'don't do it, don't be drawn into a
military conflict, it's not in your interests."
Why are these statements important? A couple of reasons. First, by
saying that Russia's military response was "well founded", the US
distances itself from Saakashvili's regime. The US position seems
contradictory: on the one hand we have noisy proclamations of support
for the Georgian president and on the other hand - at least a partial
approval of Russia's military action against Georgia. There is a good
reason for all this vagueness and doublespeak on the part of the US
Department of State. And this reason is simple enough: the US knew ahead
of time that Georgia was planning to attack and did nothing to warn the
Russians.
Chances are, Russia also knew about the planned attacked. I don't mean
the exact timing and tactics, but Russia knew that the attack by Georgia
against South Ossetia was likely, if not inevitable. However, it appears
from the statements by Beyrly and Volkner that the US might have had
additional details about the planned attack. This should not be hard to
believe, considering that the US military instructors were training
Georgian soldiers and had to know the details of the planned operation.
Washington's failure to contain its puppet in Tbilisi, as well the
failure on the part of the US to warn Russia and South Ossetia, resulted
in the deaths of over a dozen Russian peacekeepers and hundreds of South
Ossetian civilians.
Avoiding responsibility and covering ass are things Americans do best.
Washington is talking tough but is afraid to ruin relations with Russia.
American economy is not doing terribly well and the US military is
already stretched to the limit. In a single day of trading at NYMEX oil
prices jumped nearly $6 and commodities headed for their biggest weekly
gain in 33 years. Most analysts cite tensions with Russia as the primary
driving force behind these gains.
The sharp increase in the oil price is particularly interesting in light
of a huge jump in crude inventories. The rule of thumb usually is that
oil prices drop as inventory grows. During the week ending August 15 the
increase of oil inventory was a whopping 9.4 million barrels, while the
forecast called for a 1.7 million-barrel increase. In other words, we
should have seen a moderate drop in oil prices and instead prices grew
rapidly.
The EU is not doing much better. As G7 is heading for recession, nobody
needs a confrontation with Russia. If you thought that Fannie May and
Freddie Mac are messing up global economy, wait until the Kremlin starts
pulling strings in the Middle East and in South America to disrupt oil
supplies. This is the kind of excitement the US economy can do without.
And so, outgoing Bush wants to appear tough on Russia to save face and
to pacify hardliners in Congress. The desire for toughness needs to be
carefully balanced with the need to maintain decent relations with
Moscow and not let the situation deteriorate into another cold war. It's
hard to be a hardliner without money.
--
Venik
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