GEORGIA: What to do now that we've revealed no trump?

Duly Noted: Slogans Distort Reality | The Brussels Journal

George Handlery's twelve comments in his "the week that was" are right on concerning the West's squeamish reaction to Russia's invasion of its sovereign neighbor Georgia ...

3. Discreetly, it is being suggested that counter-measures and reactions to Georgia are to be of a sort that will not anger Russia. Absurdly, this self-created inhibition implies that strong aggressors (real or alleged) should only be criticized with their consent.

Concurrently, this kind of squeamishness teaches the aggressor that he is to claim early, possibly before the fact, the status of the insulted party.

It creates a welcome opportunity to become confused in the case of those who do not like clear-cut cases if these result in tough going. Thereby the claimed victim status becomes protection against having to impose effective sanctions on the impostor.

[...]

5. Reacting to Russia’s handling of Georgia sheds light on another inhibition. Suggestively we are asked, “are we overreacting to the crisis?” The question is made to imply that the dangerous error of exaggeration is being committed.

No, in fact we are systematically under reacting. Here we should realize that it is exactly this manicured response that is the most dangerous one among our alternatives.

How come that the mistake which we love to make is our typical response? The case is similar to the abuse of cold medicine that combats symptoms. We search for palliatives to counter-act an event that is firmly embedded in an unfolding reality.

6. Moscow’s hegemonial action in Georgia sent a message. Indeed, the message was intended and calculated by Moscow. The question is what we will learn from the un-coded smoke signals we have seen rising.

This is classic championship chess only in the deadly game of geopolitical oneupmanship ... our opponent makes his move and slaps the switch on the game clock, only the West is not aware the clock is ticking. In this case Russia takes our non-response response as weakness and confusion.

Sadly, that is exactly what it is! The world's bleeding heart do-gooders have defeated us before we can even get our of the gate!

11. A crucial detail of the “Georgia business” tends to get lost in the selective reporting of the event.

Not accidentally, this writer is alert to the matter that is easily repressed by most of us. The reason has to do with the conditioning that [normal] backgrounds can give us.

A policy of systematic atrocities against conquered enemy populations is part of the way some countries fight their wars. Russia is one of them. Mass rape, looting, the destruction of property can uproot conquered populations that are located in disputed territory. Well-planned spontaneous indiscriminate violence, if applied with stern vigor, produces high returns. [HT: Pankukas] It might make the victims submissive, demoralized and ultimately acquiescent when the conqueror imposes his system upon them.

Woe to those whose courage fails them when a clear and present threat is pointed at their hearts!

Geopolitics, Georgia, Russia