2008 August 17 | Between Asgard and the Western Paradise

Archive for August 17th, 2008

Aug 17 2008

Ирыстон, საქართველო and Россия: America’s “Free Press” strikes again

Posted by: 阿偉 in Current Events, History

Recently, those in the English-speaking world, particularly America, have been hearing about the supposed “aggression” of the Russians against the Ossetians in the Republic of Georgia. In the opening hours of the Olympic Games, the controlled American media took no time to denounce both Russian P.M. Vladimir Putin and President Dimitriy Medvedev, saying that the Russian Federation has reverted to “Stalinist” tactics.

Ethnic conflict in the region goes back to the days of the Soviet Union, where the ad-hoc Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic was created in 1918. Despite the existence of the South Ossetian Autonomous Oblast, an enclave of ethnic Ossetians within the GSSR, tensions continued to rise. South Ossetians increasingly felt sympathetic with their counterparts in North Ossetia, but the South Ossetians were not able to secede from Georgia after Georgia gained independence. In November of 2006, South Ossetians voted in a referendum regarding the region’s independence from the Republic of Georgia. An overwhelming majority of the region’s 70,000 people voted in favor of independence. Many Ossetians took Russian citizenship as Georgia refused to recognize the referendum.

The American media, however, conveniently omits historical data. Perhaps even more shocking, they also omitted stories of Georgian troops who destroyed Tskhinvali, a city of 100,000, killing over 2,000 Russian citizens. In general, the American media has been overwhelmingly and unquestioningly pro-Georgian, not even questioning the Georgian government’s censorship of “pro-Russian” sources. At a time when the same media coverage criticizes China over lack of media transparency, they hypocritcally defend Georgian media censorship. When Israel invaded Lebanon in 2006 severely damageing Lebanese civil infrastructure, and displacing approximately one million Lebanese, the media cited this as an internal affair of Israel, and claimed the act was in self-defense, and perhaps rightly so, as the Lebanese were said to have fired the first shots. When comparing these two incidents, the hypocrisy comes through even with the media’s attempts to portray the Georgians as the victims.

The media was very sympathetic to the secessionists in the Serbian region of Kosovo, and currently displays deep affections for the Tibetan secessionist movement in China. While this is a legitimate concern, one can easily apply the same logic to the case of Ossetia and their sympathies for Russia. But, Ossetia, a tiny region in the Caucasus, virtually unknown in the English-speaking world until very recently, does not have the same appeal as does Kosovo or Tibet. People may remember that the left-wing Clinton regime, in their loathing of Serbia, not only bombed the country, but devoted much airtime to vilify Slobodan Milošević. That hate and false sense of sympathy towards Kosovo lingered until the time when the US recognized Kosovo’s independence. Meanwhile, Tibet, as I alluded to before, is predominantly a non-Christian nation with “dark-skinned indegenous people” fighting a “light-skinned” super power. The Ossetians have none of this.

However, the main interest for the media and American government more than likely likes in Russia’s business partnership with Iran, which Israel sees as a threat.

If the truth could be told, Russia deployed troops into South Ossetia, an autonomous territory populated with Russians. It is the Georgians who have gone on the offensive against Russia, and Russia which is protecting their own citizens, as an eyewitness interviewed on American news reported (before being cut off by the host). This is not a conflict between Georgia and Russia, but rather between Ossetians and Georgians. The Georgians are not victims, nor are the Russians the aggressors.

This entry used information from: A Free Press? Not This Time