Rubin on the Illegitimacy of Russia’s Georgia Invasion?and Some Spinoff Thoughts from Me
[These are just my thoughts. Please don’t think that because I’m a pastor, I think that they’re imbued with the truth of God. I’m just me and I could be wrong.]
Columnist Trudy Rubin says that she’s gotten a lot of flak for her support of the US government’s condemnation of the Russian attack on neighboring Georgia. The objections have, she says, fallen into three main categories:
Rubin opposes the Bush doctrine of buy flomax online preemption and acknowledges what she sees as errors in the US policy in Iraq. But, she asserts, “they don’t excuse Russia’s brutal behavior in Georgia or toward its other neighbors, behavior that began long before Bush took office. America’s ‘moral standing’ is irrelevant in judging Russia’s actions.” She also says that President “Saakashvili may have acted rashly, and he may have flaws as a leader, but he’s the elected president of a tiny nation next to a giant nuclear power.” achat cialis; [emphasis mine]
Satyr like creature
She goes on to write:
Russia presents itself as a champion of Ossetian self-determination. That’s absurd. Russia has brutally repressed separatist movements inside its territory, particularly in Chechnya, where Russian artillery and bombs have killed untold thousands of civilians.
This is an important point. A recent poll in the US says that a frightening percentage of Americans think that it’s okay for a portion of our country to secede any time it wants. An even higher percentage of younger Americans believe succession is fine.
This sentiment overlooks a fundamental assertion of the Founders, one that was underscored by our own Civil War: Secession or independence can only be legitimate when rooted in moral imperatives.The Declaration of Independence legitimized the US breakaway from Great Britain on the basis of “self-evident” moral principles. When the Confederate States broke away from the US, they claimed to do so on the basis of similar moral principles. They wanted freedom. But the freedom they wanted was the freedom to enslave others unencumbered by moral considerations.*
The two troublesome provinces in Georgia may want independence. But it appears that the desire has nothing to do with moral principles. That is one more factor which, for Americans conversant with their history anyway, should further delegitimize Russia’s invasion of Georgia.
And Russia, which has, at best, limited concern for other peoples’ “self-determination,” is acting solely on the desire of Vladimir Putin to in some way reconstitute the Soviet Union. As Rubin writes:
Putin has been clear about wanting to restore the Kremlin’s former empire, calling the Soviet breakup the “greatest geopolitical tragedy of the 20th century.”
Given what has happened to Georgia, other former Soviet Republics now have good reason to worry. Putin has threatened to target Russia’s nuclear weapons against Ukraine if that country continues efforts to join NATO (and a Russian general just warned that Poland could face attack over a missile-defense deal with Washington).
Russia has cut supplies of natural gas to Ukraine and waged cyberwar against Baltic states. Ukraine’s President Viktor Yushchenko believes Moscow was behind an assassination attempt by poison that nearly killed him…
So it doesn’t matter who “started” the crisis in Georgia. It has little to do with Ossetian rights and everything to do with Putin’s drive to restore Russian power. Had Saakashvili not sent troops into Ossetia, Russia would have found another excuse to attack.
Rubin, I think, is right to say that the next US president will have to evolve a common policy with the Europeans for dealing with the Russian government’s desire to keep its neighbors–and others–under its thumb.
Russia, as Rubin concedes, has every right to develop a sphere of influence via economic and diplomatic means. But Putin’s Neo-Stalinism must be confronted by the world. (Please don’t think I’m advocating a war with Russia. I’m not.)
There are several implications that ari
Related posts: Hugh mccutcheon, Derrick fisher, Ali frazier, Infants, Digg
