Russia @ MindSay

            Alexander Solzhenitsyn died last month.  The world is diminished by his leaving. 

I read Gulag Archipelago several years ago.  Now I’m wondering if I should read some more works by this interesting man.  Here’s an excerpt from an article by George Friedman of Stratfor.  For a little background, Solzhenitsyn was exiled from the Soviet Union after he won the Nobel Prize for Literature.  Conservatives hailed him as an enemy of communism.  Liberals hailed him as a champion of human rights.

“When he reached Vermont, the reality of who Solzhenitsyn was slowly sank in. Conservatives realized that while he certainly was an enemy of communism and despised Western liberals who made apologies for the Soviets, he also despised Western capitalism just as much. Liberals realized that Solzhenitsyn hated Soviet oppression, but that he also despised their obsession with individual rights, such as the right to unlimited free expression. Solzhenitsyn was nothing like anyone had thought, and he went from being the heroic intellectual to a tiresome crank in no time. Solzhenitsyn attacked the idea that the alternative to communism had to be secular, individualist humanism. He had a much different alternative in mind.

Solzhenitsyn saw the basic problem that humanity faced as being rooted in the French Enlightenment and modern science. Both identify the world with nature, and nature with matter. If humans are part of nature, they themselves are material. If humans are material, then what is the realm of God and of spirit? And if there is no room for God and spirituality, then what keeps humans from sinking into bestiality? For Solzhenitsyn, Stalin was impossible without Lenin's praise of materialism, and Lenin was impossible without the Enlightenment.

From Solzhenitsyn's point of view, Western capitalism and liberalism are in their own way as horrible as Stalinism. Adam Smith saw man as primarily pursuing economic ends. Economic man seeks to maximize his wealth. Solzhenitsyn tried to make the case that this is the most pointless life conceivable. He was not objecting to either property or wealth, but to the idea that the pursuit of wealth is the primary purpose of a human being, and that the purpose of society is to free humans to this end.

Solzhenitsyn made the case -- hardly unique to him -- that the pursuit of wealth as an end in itself left humans empty shells. He once noted Blaise Pascal's aphorism that humans are so endlessly busy so that they can forget that they are going to die -- the point being that we all die, and that how we die is determined by how we live. For Solzhenitsyn, the American pursuit of economic well being was a disease destroying the Western soul.

He viewed freedom of expression in the same way. For Americans, the right to express oneself transcends the content of the expression. That you speak matters more than what you say. To Solzhenitsyn, the same principle that turned humans into obsessive pursuers of wealth turned them into vapid purveyors of shallow ideas. Materialism led to individualism, and individualism led to a culture devoid of spirit. The freedom of the West, according to Solzhenitsyn, produced a horrifying culture of intellectual self-indulgence, licentiousness and spiritual poverty. In a contemporary context, the hedge fund coupled with The Daily Show constituted the bankruptcy of the West.

To have been present when he once addressed a Harvard commencement! On the one side, Harvard Law and Business School graduates -- the embodiment of economic man. On the other side, the School of Arts and Sciences, the embodiment of free expression. Both greeted their heroic resister, only to have him reveal himself to be religious, patriotic and totally contemptuous of the Vatican of self-esteem, Harvard.”

            You gotta like this guy.

           

 

 

           

Obama's campaign has been all about change or the talk of change. That's why I was shocked when I learned that he had selected Joe Biden as his running mate. It's the same Joe Biden who voted for the Iraq war and who voted for the Patriot Act. Biden was supposedly chosen for his foreign policy experience. However, how can he be a foreign policy expert when he says this?

"For the last seven years, this administration has failed to face the biggest forces shaping this century: the emergence of Russia, China and India as great powers; the spread of lethal weapons; the shortage of secure supplies of energy, food and water; the challenge of climate change; and the resurgence of fundamentalism in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the real central front against terrorism.

"In recent days, we've once again seen the consequences of this neglect with Russia's challenge to the free and democratic country of Georgia. Barack Obama and I will end this neglect. We will hold Russia accountable for its actions, and we'll help the people of Georgia rebuild."

  That's very neocon of you, Joe. We know these guys aren't dumb, but they must think we are. Both parties have pushed the talking point of "evil" Russia attacking "defenseless" Georgia. Georgia is the one who started the whole stinking mess in the first place!

Norway: Russia to cut all military ties with NATO

By BJOERN H. AMLAND
Associated Press Writer
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/feedarticle/7741471

OSLO, Norway (AP) - Russia has informed Norway that it plans to suspend all military ties with NATO, Norway's Defense Ministry said Wednesday, a day after the military alliance urged Moscow to withdraw its forces from Georgia.

NATO foreign ministers said Tuesday they would make further ties with Russia dependent on Moscow making good on a pledge to pull its troops back to pre-conflict positions in Georgia. However, they stopped short of calling an immediate halt to all cooperation.

The Nordic country's embassy in Moscow received a telephone call from ``a well-placed official in the Russian Ministry of Defense,'' who said Moscow plans ``to freeze all military cooperation with NATO and allied countries,'' Espen Barth Eide, state secretary with the Norwegian ministry said.

Eide told The Associated Press that the Russian official notified Norway it will receive a written note about this soon. He said Norwegian diplomats in Moscow would meet Russian officials on Thursday morning to clarify the implications of the freeze.

``It is our understanding that other NATO countries will receive similar notes,'' Eide said. The ministry said the Russian official is known to the embassy, but Norway declined to provide a name or any further identifying information.

A Kremlin official declined to comment on the report, and the Russian ambassador to NATO did not reply to messages left on his cell phone. But the Interfax news agency, citing what it called a military-diplomatic source in Moscow whom it did not identify, reported that Russia is reviewing its 2008 military cooperation plans with NATO.

Officials at NATO headquarters in Brussels said Moscow had not informed the alliance it was taking such a step.

Washington described the reported move as unfortunate.

``If this indeed is the case, it would be unfortunate. We need to work with Russia on a range of security issues, but we are obviously very concerned about Russian behavior in Georgia,'' U.S. State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

Under a 2002 agreement that set up the NATO-Russia Council, the former Cold War foes began several cooperation projects. They include occasional participation of Russian warships in NATO counterterrorism patrols in the Mediterranean Sea, sharing expertise to combat heroin trafficking out of Afghanistan and developing battlefield anti-missile technology.

Last week, Russia's ambassador to NATO Dia is reviewing its 2008 military cooperation plans as a result of NATO's decision to suspend meetings of the NATO-Russia Council.

Eide said he hoped NATO and Moscow would get back on track with dialogue and cooperation but said that Russia would first have to comply with a cease-fire in Georgia.

``I regret the situation has come to this,'' he said.

The hostilities between Russia and Georgia began earlier this month when Georgia cracked down on South Ossetia. The region is internationally recognized as being within Georgian borders but leans toward Moscow and regards itself as independent. Russia answered by sending its troops and tanks across the Georgian border.

By John J. Kruzel

American Forces Press Service

 

Aug. 18, 2008 - The U.S. military has delivered $2 million worth of humanitarian aid to Georgia in an ongoing effort to relieve the war-torn former Soviet republic that came under Russian attack 10 days ago. In addition to 130 tons of airlifted cargo, U.S. European Command has granted the Georgian government in Tblisi access to a $1.2 million stockpile of disaster relief and medical supplies stored in Georgia.

 

"We are going to continue to flow in assistance," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said today. "We have been over the weekend, and we will continue this week."

 

More than 700 pallets sent by the U.S. have consisted of thousands of blankets, sheets, sleeping bags, and hundreds of cots. Another 40 pallets have contained medical supplies like sutures, needles, syringes, catheters and gauze, Whitman said.

 

But despite the steady flow of supplies, there remains a shortage of food, bedding, tents and other supplies in Georgia, where an estimated 80,000 people are displaced, according to U.S. Agency for International Development figures.

 

"There is a real need, and we're trying to fill that need and alleviate the suffering," Whitman said.

 

Sustained flights by American C-17 Globemaster III aircraft departing from Charleston, S.C., will deliver food over the next several days, in addition to twice-daily deliveries by C-130 Hercules planes leaving Germany with other supplies.

 

Meanwhile, a C-9 Nightingale is expected to land in Georgia today carrying humanitarian aid, and a C-17 will deliver a shipment of forklifts to aid distribution efforts.

 

Whitman said fewer than 125 U.S. military personnel are on the ground involved in the relief mission.

 

Deliveries from U.S. aircraft are handed off to personnel from about 6 non-governmental organizations responsible for delivering the supplies in Georgia, Whitman said. There have been no reports of significant problems with distribution, he added.

 

Meanwhile, the U.S. is looking at other options for sustaining the humanitarian operation, including sending naval vessels to the area, Whitman said. The State Department is working necessary agreements to achieve passage through the straits of Turkey and elsewhere, he added.

 

"Surface vessels give us the capability to provide larger amounts of relief supplies because they can obviously carry more, and they also give you platform to operate off of; they give you aerial assets, vertical lift, those kind of things," he said.

 

Fighting that began in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia on Aug. 8 broadened to include Russian attacks on other parts of the country, including Abkhazia, another heavily separatist region. As clashes escalated, the conflict fueled fears internationally that Moscow would attempt to depose the democratically elected government in Georgia and that Russian aggression could spread to other parts of the region.

 

Russian President Dmitriy Medvedev on Aug. 16 signed a French-brokered peace deal, a move that came a day after Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili endorsed the agreement. The plan includes a drawdown of military forces to pre-escalation levels.

 

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed to Europe today reportedly to talk with NATO allies about what message the U.S. and its allies should send to Russia about the military intervention.

 

Meanwhile, a host of international partners have contributed to the U.S.-led humanitarian mission in Georgia, Whitman said.

 

"There is broad international support for the relief efforts," he said.

Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.

Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.

Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.

Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America's lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.

Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight – Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end.

Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush.

True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"?

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?

When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces, whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed in breaking away?

Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda of the neocons, many of whom viscerally detest Russia?

That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany.

When Moscow pulled the Red Army out of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states, and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do?

American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are now NATO members.

Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet.

When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?

The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs. A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand.

We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and tried to repeat it in Belarus.

Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.

Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan, where Europe had opted out of the Cold War after Moscow installed those SS-20 missiles east of the Elbe. And Europe had abandoned NATO, told us to go home and become subservient to Moscow.

How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian behavior?

For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost – in Tbilisi.

August 16, 2008