[R-G] A Shattered Myth in Georgia

[Anthony Fenton]

http://counterpunch.org/cooney08132008.html

August 13, 2008
"Now America and the EU are Spitting on Us!"
A Shattered Myth in Georgia

By BRENDAN COONEY

The glass shards littering the towns of Georgia are the pieces of a  
shattered illusion.

Surprisingly, there are still people in the world who think that the  
United States believes in fighting oppression, and that it will put  
itself on the line to defend democracy and the little guy.

At first, the quotes from angry Georgians are startling.

Pyotr Bezhov, a man fleeing the violence on Sunday, told a New York  
Times reporter, "The biggest problem here is you, your country. You  
said that the Soviets were an evil empire, but it's you that are the  
empire."

Retreating troops spoke not of the brutality of their Russian  
attackers – that was expected – but of their betrayal at the hands of  
the Americans.
"Over the past few years, I lived in a democratic society," Major  
Georgi, a retreating Georgian soldier, told The New York Times. "I was  
happy. And now America and the European Union are spitting on us."

"Where are our friends?" said another exhausted soldier.

Georgia was a country that loved the United States. The road from the  
airport was named George W. Bush Street. Pictures of Bush hung on the  
walls of homes. Desperate for allies in its terrorizing war, the  
United States trained the Georgian military and became its best  
friend. After Britain, Georgia sent the largest number of troops to  
support the U.S. occupation of Iraq.

Maybe it was folly for the Georgians to believe the United States  
would put its muscle where its mouth was, but they did believe.

Since believing in fictions is part of what makes us human, one can  
hardly blame East Europeans, who suffered the yoke of Russian rule for  
so long, for being blinded by pro-United States sentiment.

Still, it is sometimes hard to believe that anyone takes seriously the  
myth that the United States fights for self-determination when it has  
invaded more countries and killed more civilians than any other nation  
in the past 50 years.

This week Bush said that the Russian offensive was "unacceptable in  
the 21st century." Does Bush have a different calendar from the rest  
of us? In what century did his invasions occur?

What was the principle under which he finds it unacceptable? That it  
wasn't bloody enough, or that the occupation is not yet total? That  
Putin has not yet hanged Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili for  
his alleged crimes?

It's a good thing for Putin that Bush has already set the course of  
the 21st century. Bush's aggression offers him a ready analogy: "Of  
course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying  
several Shiite villages," Putin said. "And the incumbent Georgian  
leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly  
people and children with tanks, who burned civilians alive in their  
sheds — these leaders must be taken under protection."

None of Putin's charges has yet been confirmed, although scattered  
reports of Georgian aggression in South Ossetia have started to  
trickle in. If true, we'll want to know more about what prompted  
Saakashvili's cockamamie attack. Russian leaders have also suggested  
Georgia got the green light from the United States, another  
insinuation yet to be confirmed.

It's too early to draw conclusions, but it would be hard to believe  
Saakashvili got his swagger from anywhere other than his ex-best bud,  
Bush, who once thrilled thousands of Georgians by jigging to one of  
their folk songs. As good as Saakashvili's English is, it's not  
surprising he was unable to see through the fake Texas accent of the  
paper tiger.

When you believe fervently in a myth, you discard anything that  
contradicts it. You forget that the United States recently smashed the  
territorial integrity of Afghanistan and Iraq and now wants to do the  
same in Iran. You might remember that it attacked Iraq in 1991  
ostensibly for the sake of Kuwait's territorial integrity. But you  
forget that it exercises this rationale only with weak countries,  
never with strong. It allows Chinese abuses in Tibet, and will stand  
idly by while Russia invades Georgia and massacres people for years in  
Chechnya.

A bully does not stand up to other bullies. Russia knows it can do  
what it wants on its block while another bully stamps its foot at the  
other end of the street.

It finally makes sense that Georgian anger is the anger of a burst  
bubble. These people are starting to see that they believed in a myth.

"It was just interesting to me that here we are, trying to promote  
peace and harmony, and we're witnessing a conflict take place," said  
Bush Monday, while he was still playing grab-ass with the athletes in  
Beijing. The first sitting U.S. president to attend an Olympics on  
foreign soil, Bush returned to the White House to deliver the  
following words with a straight face:

"The Russian government must respect Georgia's territorial integrity  
and sovereignty."

The Georgians no longer believe. Does anyone?

Ah yes, many of us here at home still do. The Times on Sunday  
published an op-ed by William Kristol describing the "aggressive  
powers" of the world without even a self-reflexive twitch, not even a  
nod at the most aggressive power of them all. It's like Parisians used  
to say about the ugly Eiffel Tower when it first went up—the only time  
you can't see it is when you're inside it.

Brendan Cooney is an anthropologist living in New York City. He can be  
reached at: itmighthavehappened at yahoo.com