Just a song before I go

Updated I will take a moment to make two related observations about the Georgia-Russia war, with perhaps more to follow (no promises):

At the very top, though, I want to note on my own behalf that some people were surprised by the outbreak of hostilities. Some others weren't. But to the comments:

First, South Ossetia is a breakaway province of Georgia which has been striving to be unified with North Ossetia (and therefore become part of Russia) for some time. Many of the people there are ethnic Russians and think of themselves as Russian rather than Georgian. It has been de facto self-governing since the 1990s.

However, when the USSR broke apart, the borders of Georgia were established based on the borders of the Georgian SSR, of which South Ossetia was part. South Ossetia has never been independent and as far as I'm aware, no nation on Earth recognizes its independence from Georgia, not even Russia.

For that reason, it is just wrong to describe the initial Georgian assault, as some have, as an "invasion." This does not in any way - nor is it intended to - justify or defend the fact that the Georgian assault apparently involved heavy and perhaps indiscriminate shelling of civilian areas, causing hundreds of casualties. It is, rather, the rejection of a bias demonstrated by too many supposedly progressive bloggers.

That bias is the second point. I also reject the contention by some among that same number that the Russian invasion - and yes, that was an invasion - of Georgia was a "humanitarian rescue" or "simply" a protective measure for ethnic Russians. More broadly and more bluntly, I reject the contention that drives that assertion, the usually-implicit but sometimes-explicit conviction among some that in any conflict, a side which has US support is by definition "the bad guy."

A clear example of what I mean was provided by Richard at American Leftist:

The Russians have won a decisive victory in Georgia, one that will probably lead to the removal of the Georgian president by either the Russians or the Georgian populace. It is a huge defeat for the US, NATO and Israel. They sought to transform Georgia into a sort of Israel of the Caucasus, a country that would enforce the edicts of the US throughout the region.

The Russians have mercilessly exposed this lunatic scheme, and no amount of belligerent bleating by Bush and Cheney can revive it. From a tactical standpoint, it is a positive development for the global left. A US military outpost of the "war on terror" has been overrun, an outpost created for the actual purpose of extending the reach of a neoliberal capitalist order with global aspirations.

He went on to say the crisis "has exposed the hyperaggressiveness of US foreign policy" [emphasis added]. Earlier he had insisted that Georgia "invaded" South Ossetia and the Russians "responded" to "protect Russian citizens."

Note first that Richard, a vociferous (and well-informed) opponent of the Iraq war approves of overthrowing foreign governments so long as he gets to decide the targets. And exactly how Georgia was going to be capable of "enforc[ing] the edicts of the US throughout the region" is a mystery to me and I suspect would be to Richard, too, if he came out from behind his sloganeering.

But the point I really wanted to make was that describing a massive invasion that has destroyed and seized military bases, occupied cities, blockaded port facilities, and effectively divided Georgia in half as a "protective response" for Russians in South Ossetia is outrageous. That becomes even truer when it's considered that Colonel-General Anatoly Nagovitsin, deputy head of Russia's general staff, declared the purpose of the invasion was "to weaken the military potential" of Georgia. What's more, Russia has hinted - in fact done more than hinted - that the ultimate intention is to absorb South Ossetia and perhaps the other breakaway region of Abkhazia. Consider statements from Russian officials over the past few days:

- Sergei Ivanov, Russia's deputy prime minister, declared "We recognize the sovereignty of Georgia ... but territorial integrity, it's another matter."

- Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov said "One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity."

- Russian president Dmitry Medvedev said it's "unlikely" that Abkhazia and South Ossetia could remain part of Georgia.

- In a statement issued after meeting with representatives of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, who had gone to Moscow seeking formal recognition of their self-declared republics, Medvedev declared that Russia will act to "guarantee" any decision the two regions make about their future - as if there was some question as to what that decision would be and, it could well be noted, an option apparently not available to Chechnya.

So while I certainly don't buy the paranoid rantings found on a couple of wingnut sites claiming that Russia "has been planning this for years," do spare me the claims that there was anything "humanitarian" about this or that Russia was not taking advantage of an opportunity to advance its own selfish interests or that it's driven by such interests any less than the US is.

Finally, thinking of what "taking advantage of an opportunity" entailed brings me back to Richard's post, wherein he says the events are a "positive development for the global left." Well, I say that describing the Russian invasion, which multiplied civilian casualties, generated thousands of refugees, unleashed ethnic cleansing by ethnic Ossetians against ethnic Georgians, and involved shelling cities - including the use of cluster bombs - in such terms is utterly appalling.

I find nothing positive in ever-higher piles of bodies or ever-more crowded refugee centers. And I refuse - utterly refuse - to regard human lives from the "tactical standpoint" of geopolitical analysis or to join in the yes-and-no, us-and-them, light-side-and-dark-side, style of argument, one best suited for two-year olds, in which all too many - including Richard here - engage.

Note well: This has nothing to do with whether or not South Ossetia (or Abkhazia) should be part of Georgia or part of Russia or independent. Certainly people are free to argue the people of those regions should be able to choose their own path; certainly they are free to argue that all peoples should be able to do so. That is an entirely honorable and defensible position, albeit one rarely applied evenhandedly.

But that is not what I'm seeing being argued. What's being argued is that the justice, even the morality, of a conflict can be decided in advance based solely on who backs who. Deciding in advance of events who's right and who's wrong, dividing the world into white hats and black hats, angels and demons, may be comforting, it may relieve the stress of ambiguity, but it does not reflect the real world and just as importantly it will not create "positive development[s] for the global left."

In the wake of the first Gulf War, I wrote in response to a criticism of my analysis of that war, that I believe

[t]hat humanity cannot be conveniently divided into our friends, the victimized innocents, and our foes, the venal infidels. That war does not bring peace, that hatreds do not produce love, that a river of blood, no matter how thick, deep, wide, or red, does not, cannot, will not mark the path to justice. ...

Having at long last dumped the fantasy that war is a grand, glorious, and honorable adventure, having finally dumped what Wilfred Owen called “The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est/Pro patria mori,” it’s time - it’s well past time - that we dumped our remaining fantasy that we can slash and burn our way to peace and justice.

Learning that lesson, now that would be "a positive development for the global left."

Footnote: Human Rights Watch has on its home page several reports from its observers in Georgia, including in South Ossetia. In those reports, both Georgian and Russian forces are charged with indiscriminate attacks on civilian areas. But what I wanted to mention was something I found interesting in one report:

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.... 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.

And then there was this, from another:

A doctor at the Java hospital told Human Rights Watch that on August 9 and 10 the hospital treated about 50 wounded (both military and civilians), and on August 8 had already treated 60 (also military and civilians)....

The doctor also said that five bodies were delivered to the hospital between August 8 and 11, all military personnel and South Ossetian volunteer militias from outside of Java. Representatives of Java town administration told Human Rights Watch that over the last four days, four people were killed in the town. The administration initially said that all of the casualties were civilians, but later clarified that in fact three of the dead were members of the militias, and one of them, a woman, was a civilian.

Taken together, that's 53 killed and 383 wounded, the majority of them military personnel. Which would surely seem to support the assertion in an NPR report from South Ossetia that Russian claims of over 2000 killed in the initial Georgian assault were seriously inflated - and therefore (I'm saying this, not NPR) that it's early claim that that's what provoked the invasion is seriously doubtful.

Except to some, of course.

Updated with a clarification: Vladimir Putin has obviously been itching for an excuse to do precisely what he did. As Kevin Drum of the Washington Monthly pointed out,

You don't think Russia was able to mount a highly precise counterattack within 24 hours just by coincidence, do you?

So when I referred to the idea that Russia had been "planning this for years" as wingnut paranoia, I did not mean there was no planning on the Russian side for such an opening. I was rather referring to the claims by some that the entire crisis was engineered by Russia, which somehow tricked or induced Georgia to launch the assault on South Ossetia in order to create the excuse for the Russian invasion.