“Funny kind of independence. Funny kind of anti-imperialism.”
Whose imperialism is worse?
By seeing a narrative of western imperialism in the Caucasus, Seumas Milne tramples on the principle of democratic self-determination
Anyone familiar with my writings over the last few years will know that I share many of the premises behind the argument set out by Seumas Milne yesterday. America’s conduct of the war on terror, enthusiastically abetted by the United Kingdom, has degraded the moral authority of the west. The Iraq war was a self-interested geopolitical misadventure dishonestly presented as a security or humanitarian imperative. The willingness of Washington and London to tolerate Israel’s disproportionate military action against Lebanon in 2006 has left them wide open to the charge of hypocrisy in their response to the war in Georgia.
This is where agreement ends, for I can’t let Milne’s argument go without pointing out a couple of important errors of fact and one major error of analysis.
His first error of fact is the assertion that Georgia was part of the invasion of Iraq and therefore scarcely in a position to complain about the violation of its own sovereignty. This is plain wrong. Georgia did not deploy troops in Iraq until after the war, in August 2003, and did so under the mandate of UN Security Council Resolution 1483 (pdf), passed in May 2003 by 14 votes to nil. Its troops were also part of a force operating with the agreement of the elected government of Iraq. I opposed the war as much as anyone, but there is no basis for arguing that Georgia’s military presence in Iraq was a violation either of international law or Iraq’s sovereignty.
Milne’s second error was to repeat as fact Russia’s assertion that Georgian troops killed hundreds of civilians in their assault on Tskhinvali. There is no independent support for this claim, or for the bogus claims being made by both sides about genocide. The only authoritative independent assessment so far comes from Human Rights Watch and states the following:
A doctor at Tskhinvali Regional Hospital who was on duty from the afternoon of August 7 told Human Rights Watch that between August 6 to 12 the hospital treated 273 wounded, both military and civilians. She said her hospital was the only clinic treating the wounded in Tskhinvali. The doctor said there were more military personnel than civilians among the wounded and added that all of the wounded were later transferred to the Russian Ministry of Emergencies mobile hospitals in South and North Ossetia. As of August 13, there were no wounded left in the Tskhinvali hospital.
The doctor also said that 44 bodies had been brought to the hospital since the fighting began, of both military and civilians. The figure reflects only those killed in the city of Tskhinvali. But the doctor was adamant that the majority of people killed in the city had been brought to the hospital before being buried, because the city morgue was not functioning due to the lack of electricity in the city.
Everyone who cares about human rights – as opposed to those who use them as partisan debating points – has a responsibility to be objective and consistent in assessing claims of atrocities committed in war. It may transpire that crimes more serious than those so far unearthed by Human Rights Watch have been committed, but our conclusions should follow the evidence, not the dictates of political preference. There now needs to be a full investigation into what has happened in Georgia, and we should therefore welcome the announcement of the prosecutor of International Criminal Court that he is considering an inquiry. Anyone found guilty of violating international humanitarian law should be punished regardless of which side they belong to.
My complaint about Milne’s error of analysis concerns his attempt to make the Georgia conflict fit the anti-imperialist paradigm, which posits Georgia as a “pro-western, anti-Russian forward base” functioning at the behest of a rapacious and domineering America. The reality is that US policy towards Russia and the countries around it has been much more ambivalent and confused than Milne’s picture allows. At their first meeting, President Bush claims to have looked Vladimir Putin in the eye and the seen the soul of a man he could trust. Sources claim Bush swallowed a lot of blather from Putin about his commitment to the Russian Orthodox Church, showing what a canny manipulator of people the ex-KGB colonel is. Between Bush’s gullible religious mysticism and Dick Cheney’s admittedly hawkish instincts, the administration’s policy towards Russia has never really recovered a clear sense of direction.
In each particular detail, Milne misreads or misrepresents the evidence of a grand American plan to undermine Russia. Missile defence is a strategic error for all sorts of reasons, but it is not directed at Russia. It stems, in the short term, from an obsession with the threat of small rogue states and the misguided belief that technology can provide the solution. In the unlikely event that missile defence works, other delivery systems will evolve to counter it. Underlying this is the unipolar imperative that the US should dominate the process of military-technological change across the spectrum. They are doing it because they can – or, at least, think they can – but there is no specifically anti-Russian objective involved.
The role of the US in the so-called “colour revolutions” has been hugely exaggerated. In the case of Ukraine, for example, there was outside “interference” from both east and west. In the case of assistance form America and Europe, this involved training political parties and NGOs in the latest techniques of open and democratic campaigning. In the case of Russia, assistance came in the form of an attempt to rig the ballot, to say nothing of the suspicion that they also tried to murder the opposition candidate. You be the judge of what is legitimate here. The fact is that Saakashvili and Yushchenko came to power because the people of Georgia and Ukraine wanted them.
Finally, on Nato enlargement, the running on this has been made predominantly by countries that want to join, with the US and other Nato members following behind at variable rates of hesitancy. Until last week, many US policy makers were unsure that incorporating Georgia and Ukraine would be worth the bother. The fact that they are both still outside is a consequence of precisely the deference towards Russian concerns Milne says is lacking.
Missing from all of this is any hint that the views of the people of Georgia or other post-Soviet countries, apart from Russia, count for anything. Integration into western institutions is not being foisted on anyone; it is being chosen willingly in almost every country that enjoys the freedom to decide for itself. I understand why many Russians resent that fact, but that cannot be an excuse for imposing their will by force. It must be the apex principle of a democratic Europe that every country has the right to decide its own external relations in accordance with its own interests. Without that, we are back to the Europe of Metternich and Bismarck, if not Ribbentrop and Molotov.
Milne concludes by advancing the bizarre notion that Georgia’s independence can only be guaranteed by accepting a status of neutrality; in other words, by subordinating its own will to that of Russia. Funny kind of independence. Funny kind of anti-imperialism.
johng said,
August 17, 2008 at 5:30 pm
From advocating nuclear strikes the AWL has now moved into the camp of ignoring ethnic cleansing. Shame on you. Are you aware that in the early 1990’s hundreds of thousands of Ostettians fled to north Ostettia (ie were ethnically cleansed). No. Because you couldn’t care less could you? They are just pieces on a chequerboard to you. They hardly exist as human beings. What a bunch of scum you people are.
modernityblog said,
August 17, 2008 at 5:41 pm
again, the AWL did not, they did not advocate a nuclear strike as any half way competent reading of their articles would reveal.
Clark makes some interesting points about the mischaracterisation of events by Milne.
I haven’t read the CiF comments yet, but I expect he’ll be called a Neo-con, Zionist war monger, lackey of Bush/Brown/Blair, etc as a lot of modern day “anti-imperialists” can be very touchy when told that their crude view of the world isn’t quite right, or terribly sound, but we’ll see.
tim said,
August 17, 2008 at 5:54 pm
JohnG,
Milne’s been caught out here making up figures for dead civilians.
Care to admit you did the same?
tim said,
August 17, 2008 at 6:02 pm
On Friday the Georgian regime invaded South Ossetia with troops killing Russian peace keepers, killing thousands and thousands
Comment by johng — 10 August, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
Idiot.
Fuckwit propagandist.
modernityblog said,
August 17, 2008 at 6:14 pm
surprisingly few real cranks on that CiF thread, only one ranting about “Zionists”, a few on about Neo-cons and one about “New World Order”
by current Guardian standards, very mild, still they’ve been moderating with greater rigour for a while
PS: Tim, I doubt JohnG can count either, looking at his poor reading skills
lpcn said,
August 17, 2008 at 6:54 pm
JohnG cannot even be bothered to learn to spell the name of the region for which he claims to care so much, the illiterate fool. Forget that in the same period ethnic Georgians were forced out of Ossetia and Abkhazia (where they comprised half the population. Instead JohnG takes sides in tribal blood feuds and eggs on the rapists of Chechnya. Neither Washington nor Moscow eh? JohnG, a pustulant boil on a Stalinist arse.
Renegade Eye said,
August 17, 2008 at 6:58 pm
Actual both the left and right, see the recent events in Cold War tainted glasses.
Why talk of self determination, without developed resources? What difference does it make if say Kosovo is a nation, if they rely on Serbia’s economy still?
My blog for some reason has a hard time to attract the UK left into discussions. The UK left talks amongst itself too much.
See this.
paul fauvet said,
August 17, 2008 at 7:35 pm
JohnG, the largest ethnic cleansing in Georgia took place during the Abkhazia war in 1992, when around 200,000 ethnic Georgians were driven from their homes in the breakaway region.
No doubt this was front page news in Socialist Worker at the time, and the SWP mobilised mass demonstrations in protest out side the Russian embassy.
The Russians and their assorted echo chambers have been claiming that not merely ethnic cleansing, but genocide took place in South Ossetia on 7-8 August. The figures from Human Rights Watch show that up as nonsense. The Russians lied shamelessly about casualty figures, and the British ultra-left eagerly lapped it all up.
Over the past week or so, Ossetian militiamen have been torching Georgian villages in South Ossetia. They also tagged along behind the Russian invasion, and were responsible for looting in Gori. They couldn’t do that, of course, without the acquiescence of the Russian army.
Now we have a ceasefire, but the Russians still haven’t withdrawn, and now we hear they want a “security zone” 10 kilometres wide all around South Ossetia – in other words, another large slice of Georgian territory will slip out of Georgian control.
Defending Georgia from aggression does not imply political support for the Georgian government. Is this really so difficult to grasp? In the 1930s, the left denounced the Italian fascist onslaught against Ethiopia, but nobody imagined this meant that socialist had become fans of the Emperor Haile Selassie.
modernityblog said,
August 17, 2008 at 8:09 pm
it seems that much of this present conflict was engineered by the Russian leadership from the handing out of passports to the earlier spates with Georgians (in 2006 and before) and recent military manoeuvres on the border
clearly, the Russian leadership wish to reassert themselves and make it clear to any neighbouring states that they fall within their sphere of influence, this conflict has wider ramifications and the lessons will not be lost on the Ukraine and others.
tim said,
August 17, 2008 at 8:11 pm
But most of the ultra left weren’t stupid enough to put their names to the Russian hyperbole.
JohnG not only did that,but multiplied the death figures further.
Is he really an educated man?
modernityblog said,
August 17, 2008 at 8:50 pm
oh come on, go easy on JohnG, he’s as well educated as any English Royal
then again they ain’t too bright either, given private tutors and the best education that money can buy? they still turn out like dunces
Hmm, could they be related? Honourable John?
Jim Denham said,
August 17, 2008 at 10:01 pm
John ‘G’: you really are either an out-an-ot liar, or a fuckin’ hysteric:
1/ Where have either I personally, or the AWL as a whole, *advocated* “a nuclear strike”…chapter and verse, please.
2/ Where have i advocated “ethnic cleanising”…again: chapter and verse, please.
…Father John G. Coughlin: I must warn you that if you fail to justify those foul allegations, I will call you for what you are…
Juvenile Dwarf said,
August 17, 2008 at 10:13 pm
Denham – you’re a racist cretin. Why don’t you just come clean and admit that NATO gives you a stiffy?
Jim Denham said,
August 17, 2008 at 10:28 pm
Dwarf: you’re a wanker. I don’t have to justify myself to a cretin like you, because you don’t even understand the a-b-c’s
charliethechulo said,
August 17, 2008 at 11:06 pm
…and what he is,Jim, is (as per# 12, above)…
a little ol’ nutter.
lpcn said,
August 18, 2008 at 8:43 am
Presumably Juvenile Dwarf, who abhors NATO, abhored the Warsaw Pact with equal or even greater vigour, as it was a ‘treaty’ imposed on subject states by a degenerated (and imperialist) workers’ state.
Thought not.
If Juvenile Dwarf is a reliable indicator of the quality of current SWP cadre, we are in for very entertaining times indeed.
lpcn said,
August 18, 2008 at 8:51 am
Oops – I’ll try the finished version:
Presumably Juvenile Dwarf, who abhors NATO, a treaty freely signed by the popularly elected governments of sovereign states, abhored the Warsaw Pact with equal or even greater vigour, as it was a ‘treaty’ imposed on subject states by the non-elected government of a degenerated (and imperialist) workers’ state.
Thought not.
If Juvenile Dwarf is a reliable indicator of the quality of current SWP cadre, we are in for very entertaining times indeed.