Last update - 09:08 17/08/2008
                
Not the good guys vs. the bad guys

By Gideon Levy

Haaretz

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1012186.html

TBILISI- The weekend edition of The Georgian Times left no room for doubt.
The weekly, which is published in English and edited entirely by women,
enlisted in the cause with all its might: "For Georgia and
victory," "Georgia alone in stand-off with Russia," and "Europe learned
nothing from Hitler's crimes" screamed the paper's front-page headlines.
When the cannons are roaring in this spectacular Caucasian country, as in
almost every country, everything serves a melodramatic purpose and
self-criticism falls silent.

But one does not have to be a propagandizing Georgian newspaper to paint
this new war in stark black and white. After all, the West and Israel are
doing it, too: Georgia, a tiny democracy, dear to the West and darling of
the U.S., is facing off against the aggressive, conquering, bullying
Russian bear, not to mention the new Nazi. Good guys versus bad guys, David
versus Goliath, "Adolf Putin" versus the freedom fighters.

It has been years since we have had a war in which it is so clear to
spectators in the West who constitute the Children of Light and who
constitute the Children of Darkness.

It is a matter of propaganda. The U.S. president's remarks on Friday that
the world would not accept bullying and intimidation could only raise a
bitter smile.

George W. Bush talking about bullying? The U.S. president talking about
intimidation? Who set off to two bullying wars this decade? Who tried to
solve problems and replace regimes through intimidation if not our friend
in the White House? Which power spilled more blood this decade? Russia
or "the leader of the free world"?

For the West, everything goes, from placing missiles on Polish soil to
discussing Georgia's joining NATO. But Russia is not even allowed to
respond?

After a few days on the frontline in Gori, the picture that emerges is
complex and far from unilateral. The first question is, as usual, who
started it. Georgian minister Temur Yakobashvili, of course, has a ready
and clear-cut response: the Russians. The separatists provoked, Russia
invaded. But even as he expresses himself in fluent Hebrew - "either you
get screwed or you screw" - one is not easily convinced that this is simply
an innocent country that found itself the victim of a fire-breathing giant.

Yakobashvili, the Jewish minister of "reintegration," another white-washed
term for occupation, is responsible in the name of his government for two
controversial regions, Abkhazia and South Ossetia. He ignores the fact that
the inhabitants of these areas do not want to be part of his country.

The two maps of these regions hanging in his office do not change this. He
also blurs the fact that about a week ago his country sent troops into
South Ossetia, most of whose inhabitants are Russian citizens, a move
Moscow could not help but consider a provocation.

Encouraged by Western sympathy for their president, the Georgians thought
they could do anything and that Russia would remain indifferent. But then
came the surprise: Russia responded with force.

This is also how Israel responded to another provocation - the killing and
abduction of Israeli soldiers by Hezbollah. This is how countries,
including freer and more democratic ones than Russia, respond to
provocations.

It is disconcerting to see Russian tanks rumbling along the main road from
Gori to Tbilisi as if they owned the place, but this is the way things
happen in a bullying world. Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili should
have known that.

When the cannons fall silent, perhaps in his country, too, the tough
questions will be raised: why and for what.

The hundreds of refugees who gathered last Wednesday in the square in front
of the parliament on Rustaveli Boulevard poured out their wrath not only on
Moscow, but also on their adventure-seeking president who suffers from
hubris.

The Cold War is back. It returned suddenly, after Russia already lost. The
question remains as to whether a single-power world is more peaceful than a
polarized world. In two decades of sole American hegemony we have not seen
less war and bloodshed - even if the world is considered "freer."

This is something worth remembering. It should also be remembered that those
who rent out their power and skills to others end up paying a price: Israel
might pay a heavy price for the drones and training by Israel Ziv and Gal
Hirsch, our new mercenaries in Georgia. The next time President Shimon
Peres meets Vladimir Putin and asks him to stop arming Hezbollah, Putin,
the enemy of the new world, will respond with a reasoned response.

There are no good guys and bad guys, but only bad and violent guys, some
more and some less. In the backyard of a Europe in the process of
unification, something happened that must be corrected through diplomatic
means alone.

It is unlikely that the war has ended, but meanwhile let us not fall again
into a deceptive trap just because Saakashvili speaks better English than
Putin.
-- 
Facts are sacred ... but comment is free