This is a story of U.S. expansionism, rather than Russian aggression

The war in the Caucasus is the product of American imperialism and not just local conflicts, and is likely to be only a foretaste of future events

(24 August 2008)

The outcome of six lugubri and bloody days of war in the Caucasus has triggered the nauseating hypocrisy of Western politicians and the media subservient to them. While commentators thundered against Russian imperialism and the brutal disproportion of the reaction, the vice president of the United States Dick Cheney, faithfully echoed by Gordon Brown and David Miliband, said that "the Russian aggression must not remain unanswered." George Bush has denounced Russia for having "invaded a neighbor sovereign state" and threatened "a democratic government." Such action, he insisted, "in the twenty-first century is unacceptable."

These are appropriate for the leaders of those governments which in 2003 invaded and occupied - along with Georgia, look at the case - the sovereign state of Iraq under a false pretext, causing hundreds of thousands of victims? Or the two governments in the summer of 2006 have blocked a ceasefire while Israel pulverized the infrastructure of Lebanon and killing more than a thousand civilians as retaliation for the capture of five soldiers ol'uccisione?

After all this indignation at the attack Russian is almost hard to remember that Georgia was to unleash the war last Thursday brutally attacking South Ossetia to "restore constitutional order", in other words the domain over a which has never controlled by the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor, in the midst of all this outrage at the bombings Russians, there was something more than brief references to atrocities committed by Georgian forces against the inhabitants of the capital Tskhinvali. Several hundred civilians have been killed in Tskhinvali from the Georgian troops. Among the dead there are also some Russian soldiers who were operating under a peace agreement dating back to the nineties. "I saw a Georgian soldier pulling a grenade in a basement full of women and children," he told journalists Tuesday, a resident of Tskhinvali, Saramat Tskhovredov.

Perhaps because Georgia is what Jim Murphy, the British minister for European Affairs, called it "a nice little democracy." Be ', will be small and beautiful, but is the current president, Mikheil Saakashvili, his predecessor who rose to power after a coup d'état supported by the West, the most recent of which was graciously called "Revolution of rose. " Saakashvili then was anointed president with 96% of the votes first to establish what the International Crisis Group has recently established a government "increasingly authoritarian" and that last November has brutally repressed the opposition, dissent and independent media . In these cases "democratic" seems to mean simply "pro-western."

The dispute sull'Ossezia old South - and sull'Abchazia, the other disputed region of Georgia - is an inevitable consequence of the collapse of the Soviet Union. As in the case of Yugoslavia, minorities were more or less satisfied to live by one side or the other of an internal border, whose very presence did not influence on their lives, they feel differently when they are on the wrong side of a boundary between two nations.

Negotiate a solution to problems of this type is already difficult in any circumstance. But aggiungeteci the United States, their tireless promotion of Georgia as an outpost pro-Western and anti-Russian in the region, their efforts to bring Georgia into NATO, the passage through the Georgian territory of a crucial oil pipeline and aimed at weakening the control Russian energy supplies. Aggiungeteci recognition, sponsored by the United States, the independence of Kosovo - whose status had been explicitly linked to that by Russia of South and dell'Abchazia. Add all this and understand that the conflict was only a matter of time.

The involvement of the CIA in Georgia has been strong since the days of the Soviet collapse. But with the Bush administration the country has become in fact a satellite of the United States. The Georgian armed forces are equipped and trained by the United States and Israel. Georgia is one for consistency on the third military contingent in Iraq: hence the need for aircraft of the United States lists 800 Georgian troops home to fight against the Russians. The bonds of Saakashvili with the neo-conservatives in Washington are particularly close, the company chaired by lobbying adviser for foreign policy of Republican candidate John McCain, Randy Scheunemann, has received nearly 900,000 U.S. dollars from the Government of Georgia from 2004.

But under the conflict of last week there was also the most extensive and explicit intention of the Bush administration to impose global hegemony of the United States and preventing regional threats, especially those represented by a recovery in Russia. This goal was expressed for the first time when Cheney was defense secretary under Bush's father, but his real impact is felt only when Russia began to recover from disintegration of the nineties.

In the last decade, the relentless eastward expansion of NATO has led the western military alliance to press against the boundaries of Russia and to penetrate in-Soviet territory. In Eastern Europe and Central Asia have appeared in American military bases and the U.S. have helped to establish an anti-Russian government after another through a series of colored revolutions. Now the Bush administration is preparing to install in Eastern Europe a system of anti-missile defense clearly aimed against Russia.

The reflection and common sense tell us that this is not the history of Russian aggression, but the expansion of the imperialist United States and an increasingly encirclement of Russia by a potentially hostile force. It should not surprise that Russia has become stronger has used the pasty dell'Ossezia to limit quell'espansione. More difficult to understand is why Saakashvili has launched an attack last week and because his friends in Washington have encouraged.

If so, the consequences were spectacular, with a high human cost. And despite Bush on Wednesday tried to speak strongly, the war also exposed the limits of U.S. power in the region. As long as you respected the independence of Georgia - and the best option here is that of neutrality - should not be a bad thing. The domination of the unipolar world has limited space for true self-determination, and the return of some counterweight to be welcomed. But the new brings with it the dangers. If Georgia had been a member of NATO, the conflict this week would have risked an escalation far more serious. You would see good in the case of Ukraine, who yesterday offered material for a future confrontation when his pro-Western president has threatened to restrict the movement of Russian ships based in Sevastopol, in Crimea. With the return of conflict between major powers, South Ossetia is probably only a taste of what will be.