Civilian Genocide, Dead Americans Cost Of U.S.-Russia Proxy War

By: Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet
Monday, August 11, 2008

The truth behind who is primarily responsible for the bloodshed unfolding in South Ossetia and surrounding areas has been buried by the western corporate media. Georgian forces, with a green light from NATO and the support of American and Ukrainian mercenaries, launched a brutal attack targeting civilians and Russian peacekeepers timed to coincide with the opening of the Beijing Olympics so as to temporarily deflect attention before the inevitable Russian response, by which time the global media machine kicked into high gear to smear Russia as the villains of the entire piece.

Georgia

Georgia is being used as a proxy client state through which the U.S. and NATO are advancing their geopolitical motives — to the cost of Ossetian, Georgian and Russian civilians alike caught in the middle of the carnage.
To accept such a characterization is not parroting Russian military propaganda, it is a reflection of the stone cold fact that Georgia was responsible for the first provocation - which itself amounted to a war crime - that launched the conflict.

That is not to hide from the fact that Russia’s unrelenting response continues to slaughter untold numbers of innocent people.

The initial Georgian bombardment of the provincial capital Tskhinvali was primarily directed to achieve maximum civilian casualties, with residential areas, hospitals and the university being targeted, leading to at least 1500 civilian deaths according to both western and Russian sources.

“The air and artillery bombardment left the provincial capital without water, food, electricity and gas. Horrified civilians crawled out of the basements into the streets as fighting eased, looking for supplies,” reported the Associated Press.

Reports of the initial carnage metered out by Georgian forces and the slaughter of Russian peacekeepers are difficult to find, because they have already been buried under the deluge of condemnation about Russia’s heavy-handed response.

An American man living in South Ossetia says U.S. and Georgian leaders are responsible for the violence that has killed 2,000 people in the region.

American citizen and resident of South Ossetia Joe Mestas described the war crimes he witnessed being carried out by Georgian forces, back by U.S. support, against innocent civilians. “I thought that since U.S. is supporting Georgia there would be some control over the situation in South Ossetia and that there would be a peaceful solution to the conflict. But what is happening there now it’s not just war, but war crimes. George Bush and [Georgian president] Mikhail Saakashvili should answer to the crimes that are being committed – the killing of innocent people, running over by tanks of children and women, throwing grenades into cellars where people are hiding,” Mestas said. “The war is when military fight against military. But the Georgian army is killing innocent civilians. This is genocide,” he added. A prime example of media bias in shielding Georgia from responsibility for the carnage is the fact that news outlets like the BBC continue to report that 1500 civilians have been killed in Georgia, with the obvious inference being that these are victims of the Russian onslaught. But these victims were not killed in Georgia, they were killed in Ossetia - by Georgian forces.

As the Chimes of Freedom Blog elaborates, “While the Ossetians claimed over 1000 dead the BBC neither reported this or any newsreel coming out of Ossetia showing the destruction caused by the Georgian shelling of the breakaway republic. All we are getting is one-sided reports of the destruction being caused by the Russians.”

“The BBC is giving carte blanche to the Georgian point-of-view to be aired on its services while nothing whatsoever is being heard from the Ossetian side. The BBC’s repetitive playing of a statement by George Bush, given several days ago, without balancing these against statements from the Russian side indicates where the BBC is coming from.”

Other mainstream news outlets are either aping the portrayal of Georgia, which enjoys the support of the American empire and NATO, as a poor isolated little country under brutal assault by the big bully Russia, or simply ignoring events altogether and obsessing about John Edwards’ extramarital affair.

In reality, Georgia is being used as a proxy client state through which the U.S. and NATO are advancing their geopolitical motives - to the cost of Ossetian, Georgian and Russian civilians alike caught in the middle of the carnage.

As Professor Michel Chossudovsky explains, “Georgia is an outpost of US and NATO forces, on the immediate border of the Russian Federation and within proximity of the Middle East Central Asian war theater. South Ossetia is also at the crossroads of strategic oil and gas pipeline routes.”

“Georgia does not act militarily without the assent of Washington. The Georgian head of State is a US proxy and Georgia is a de facto US protectorate.”

The price of the U.S. and NATO’s latest proxy war is already being paid with the deaths of thousands of innocent civilians - along with American mercenaries supporting Georgian forces.

According to the president of South Ossetia, Eduard Kokoity, the bodies of black men were found at the site of one battle near a school.

Russian envoy Dmitry Medoyev indicated the men may have been American mercenaries.

“In yesterday’s attack, the advancing tanks were supposedly crewed by Ukrainians. Two unidentified bodies found today are said to have black skin. Possibly they are Americans but we can’t say for sure yet. We will be able to publish the official conclusions after carrying out special tests,” Medoyev said.

Last month, the United States, Georgia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, and Ukraine conducted Immediate Response 2008, a joint training exercise said to be in “spirit of the NATO Partnership for Peace program,” according to Blackanthem Military News. Immediate Response 2008 was held at the Vaziani Military Base in Georgia. In another report, a woman interviewed by Russia Today in Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, talked about the presence of Georgian troops with American insignias. “There are lots of bodies over there, a lot of people have been killed, mostly Ossetians, but also Georgians, they had American emblems on their forearms and they were in black uniforms,” she said.

Black uniforms are a trademark of Blackwater and DynCorp mercenaries (see Chris Hedges, America’s Holy Warriors). DynCorp’s presence in Eastern Europe is well documented, particularly in occupied Bosnia where it engaged in sex-trafficking and prostitution.

In a Friday press conference, Chairman of Russia’s State Duma Security Committee Vladimir Vasilyev said without U.S. aid, Tbilisi would have been unable to start military operation in South Ossetia. “The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America,” said Vasilyev. “In essence, the Americans have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals.”

It is entirely feasible the U.S. has “prepared the force” with mercenaries as well.

Michel Chossudovsky explores the reasoning behind Georgia’s act of provocation that launched the conflict.

US-NATO military and intelligence planners invariably examine various “scenarios” of a proposed military operation– i.e. in this case, a limited Georgian attack largely directed against civilian targets, with a view to inflicting civilian casualties.

The examination of scenarios is a routine practice. With limited military capabilities, a Georgian victory and occupation of Tskhinvali, was an impossibility from the outset. And this was known and understood to US-NATO military planners.

A humanitarian disaster rather than a military victory was an integral part of the scenario. The objective was to destroy the provincial capital, while also inflicting a significant loss of human life.

If the objective were to restore Georgian political control over the provincial government, the operation would have been undertaken in a very different fashion, with Special Forces occupying key public buildings, communications networks and provincial institutions, rather than waging an all out bombing raid on residential areas, hospitals, not to mention Tskhinvali’s University.

The Russian response was entirely predictable.

Georgia was “encouraged” by NATO and the US. Both Washington and NATO headquarters in Brussels were acutely aware of what would happen in the case of a Russian counterattack.

The question is: was this a deliberate provocation intended to trigger a Russian military response and suck the Russians into a broader military confrontation with Georgia (and allied forces) which could potentially escalate into an all out war?

With rhetoric from figures like President Bush and Condoleezza Rice becoming increasingly heated towards Russia, the potential for an escalation in tensions is readily apparent. Only the most naive would believe that the U.S. missile defense shield is anything other than a bulwark against Russian military expansion, and Russia’s response in resuming bomber patrols across the Atlantic sends a clear message.

Knowing that Americans remain completely unconvinced about the necessity of attacking Iran, have the Neo-Cons in control of the White House lit the blue touch paper for a wider war that could swing the U.S. election in favor of pro-war candidate John McCain?

Or is this merely payback for Russia lending their expertise in building Iranian nuclear reactors?

The motives will become clear in due course but what’s certain is that innocent lives will continue to be lost as the American empire lurches into its next theater of conflict and the Neo-Cons play a deadly game that could have devastating wider consequences.

Weimar Germany - Impact of World War One

World War One had a devastating impact on Germany. Throughout World War One, the people of Germany had been led to believe by their government that they were winning the war. Government propaganda had been used to great effect. When the temporarily blinded Adolf Hitler had gone into hospital in 1918 (the result of a gas attack), he, along with many German soldiers, was convinced that Germany was not only winning the war but was in the process of putting together a major military assault on Allied lines.

Only the military leaders such as Luderndorff and Hindenburg knew the true state of Germany's military plight which had become even more apparent when America had joined in the war in 1917. The success of the Luderndoff Offensive in 1918 was only paper-thin as Germany had lost many of her most able officers in battle.

Germany itself was being starved of food and all goods as a result of the British Navy's blockade of her ports in the north. With such a small coastline, the British Navy found it a relatively easy task to blockade her. German troops were poorly equipped and what food there was went to the war effort leaving the people of Germany very short of food.

In the autumn of 1918, the Allies launched a massive attack on the German lines.The German Army could not stand up to such an attack and in just a few weeks the German Army had collapsed. The euphoria of the success of the Luderndorff Offensive was quickly forgotten. Many Germans could not accept that they had lost the war. The blame was put on weak politicians rather than on military exhaustion. In the space of two months, Germany had gone from being a fighting nation to a defeated one; from a nation with a leader - Kaiser William II - to one with politicians leading the country. William II had been forced to abdicate - give up the throne. The two months of October and November 1918 are crucial in setting the scene of why Germany got off to such a bad start immediately after the war.

In October 1918, Germany's naval command at Kiel decided to take on the might of the British Navy which was blockading Germany's northern ports and starving out the nation. British submarines patrolled off the north German coast and such a mission would have been all but suicidal. The sailors of Kiel mutinied rather than go on such a mission. Officers were killed and naval boats were taken over. This one incident seemed to have been the catalyst that sparked off total anger in Germany. The navy had been the Kaiser's, and therefore, Germany's pride and joy and here were the sailors rebelling against authority. The army was not sent to crush this mutiny as the Kaiser and his government could not trust that they would not join the sailors.

In fact, demonstrations took place all over Germany and those who worked went on strike. Soldiers did join the protests.

By early November 1918, many cities had been taken over by workers' and soldiers' councils. This was very similar to what had happened in Russia during the communist take over of 1917 and politicians were fearful of another communist takeover in Germany itself.

The leading party in Germany's Reichstag (Parliament), was the Social Democrat Party. It was lead by Friedrich Ebert and the party pleaded with the Kaiser to abdicate to save Germany from mayhem. On November 9th, the Social Democrats announced that the Kaiser had abdicated - at that particular time he had not. But there was a general strike in Berlin at that time and the Social Democrats feared that extremists would take over and anarchy would occur. The Social Democrats announced that Germany was now a republic (lead by a civilian government and not by a monarch), and that the country would be run by the Reichstag. On the following day, the Kaiser fled to Holland and on November 11th, 1918, an armistice was declared.

Food shortages in Germany itself had pushed many civilians to the brink of starvation. Farmers were short of labourers to bring in the harvest as young men had been drafted into the military. By 1918, Germany was producing only 50% of the milk it had done before the war. By the winter of 1917, the supply of potatoes had run out and the only real alternative was turnips. This is why the winter of 1916 to 1917 is known as the "Turnip Winter". Turnips were used as animal foodstuff and the thought of eating them repelled many as they were the food of cows, pigs etc. Lack of food had seriously weakened the ability of people to fight off disease. Flu had a terrible impact on Germans as the people had little bodily strength to fight the illness. It is thought that nearly 750,000 died of a combination of flu and starvation - this figure included mainly civilians but it also included soldiers who had survived the horror of war, returned to Germany and had died of the disease.

By Christmas 1918, Germany was at peace with regards to the war. The Armistice held out - though Germany was incapable of fighting anyway. However, the shock of defeat combined with the state of Germany caused the new government lead by Ebert to inherit many problems.

Friedrich Ebert

The most obvious was Ebert's inability to control Berlin. Such was the violence and chaos in Germany's capital city between the German Communists and the Freikorps and army, that the government moved to the nearest large city which was 'peaceful' and set up government there. This was the city of Weimar. Hence the name of Germany from 1919 to 1933. However, how could Ebert's government appear strong when it had fled its own capital?

Ebert had inherited a far worse problem. Many soldiers had returned from the war with their weapons. Their retreat had been so haphazard that there had been no formal disarming of soldiers. Germany was littered with weapons. Soldiers had been greatly angered by the defeat and they blamed the government - which happened to be Ebert's. These men could not be disarmed nor were they loyal to the government. They were potentially a serious source of trouble. Ironically, it was not Ebert's fault that Germany had lost the war. The incompetence of the military leaders was forgotten and the government of the time of the Armistice was blamed.

Also Germany had lost 2 million men in the war. These were the core of Germany's work force and Germany's industrial base could not recover without them. Therefore, it seemed that in December 1918, Germany was condemned to economic weakness.

Communism had also taken a hold in Germany - and this group, known as the Spartacists, were determined to bring down Ebert and set up a communist style government in Berlin.

The war had brought :

• economic disaster to Germany
• a serious loss of man power near total disrespect for the government
• many thousands of armed and disillusioned former soldiers roaming the streets
• a civilian population traumatized by the impact of the war
• This was all before the anger that was to occur in Germany over the Treaty of Versailles.

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The Failures of the League of Nations

While the League of Nations could celebrate its successes, the League had every reason to examine its failures and where it went wrong. These failures, especially in the 1930’s, cruelly exposed the weaknesses of the League of Nations and played a part in the outbreak of World War Two in 1939. During the 1920’s the failures of the League of Nations were essentially small-scale and did not threaten world peace. However they did set a marker – that the League of Nations could not solve problems if the protagonists did not ‘play the game’.

Article 11 of the League’s Covenant stated: "Any war or threat of war is a matter of concern to the whole League and the League shall take action that may safeguard peace."

Therefore, any conflict between nations, which ended in war and the victory of one state over another, had to be viewed as a failure by the League.

The first crisis the League had to face was in north Italy In 1919, Italian nationalists, angered that the "Big Three" had, in their opinion, broken promises to Italy at the Treaty of Versailles, captured the small port of Fiume. The Treaty of Versailles had given this port to Yugoslavia. For 15 months, an Italian nationalist called d’Annunzio governed Fiume. The newly created League did nothing. The situation was solved by the Italian government who could not accept that d’Annunzio was seemingly more popular than they were – so they bombarded the port of Fiume and enforced a surrender. In all this the League played no part despite the fact that it had just been set up with the specific task of maintaining peace.

The next crisis the League faced was at Teschen, which was a small town between Poland and Czechoslovakia. Its main importance was that it had valuable coalmines there, which both the Poles and the Czechs wanted. As both were newly created nations, both wanted to make their respective economies as strong as possible and the acquisition of rich coal mines would certainly help in this respect.

In January 1919, Polish and Czech troops fought in the streets of Teschen. Many died. The League was called on to help and decided that the bulk of the town should go to Poland while Czechoslovakia should have one of Teschen’s suburbs. This suburb contained the most valuable coalmines and the Poles refused to accept this decision. Though no more wholesale violence took place, the two countries continued to argue over the issue for the next twenty years.

Many years before 1920, Vilna had been taken over by Russia. Historically, Vilna had been the capital of Lithuania when the state had existed in the Middle Ages. After World War One, Lithuania had been re-established and Vilna seemed the natural choice for its capital.

However, by 1920, 30% of the population was from Poland with Lithuanians only making up 2% of the city’s population. In 1920, the Poles seized Vilna. Lithuania asked for League help but the Poles could not be persuaded to leave the city. Vilna stayed in Polish hands until the outbreak of World War Two. The use of force by the Poles had won.

In 1920, Poland invaded land held by the Russians. The Poles quickly overwhelmed the Russian army and made a swift advance into Russia. By 1921, the Russians had no choice but to sign the Treaty of Riga, which handed over to Poland nearly 80,000 square kilometers of Russian land. This one treaty all but doubled the size of Poland.

What did the League do about this violation of another country by Poland?

The answer is simple – nothing. Russia by 1919 was communist and this "plague from the East" was greatly feared by the West. In fact, Britain, France and America sent troops to attack Russia after the League had been set up. Winston Churchill, the British War Minister, stated openly that the plan was to strangle Communist Russia at birth. Once again, to outsiders, it seemed as if League members were selecting which countries were acceptable and ones that were not. The Allied invasion of Russia was a failure and it only served to make Communist Russia even more antagonistic to the West.

The Treaty of Versailles had ordered Weimar Germany to pay reparations for war damages. These could either be paid in money or in kind (goods to the value of a set amount). In 1922, the Germans failed to pay an installment. They claimed that they simply could not rather than did not want to. The Allies refused to accept this and the anti-German feeling at this time was still strong. Both the French and the Belgium’s believed that some form of strong action was needed to ‘teach Germany a lesson’.

In 1923, contrary to League rules, the French and the Belgium’s invaded the Ruhr – Germany’s most important industrial zone. Within Europe, France was seen as a senior League member – like Britain – and the anti-German feeling that was felt throughout Europe allowed both France and Belgium to break their own rules as were introduced by the League. Here were two League members clearly breaking League rules and nothing was done about it.

For the League to enforce its will, it needed the support of its major backers in Europe, Britain and France. Yet France was one of the invaders and Britain was a major supporter of her. To other nations, it seemed that if you wanted to break League rules, you could. Few countries criticised what France and Belgium did. But the example they set for others in future years was obvious. The League clearly failed on this occasion, primarily because it was seen to be involved in breaking its own rules.

The border between Italy and Albania was far from clear and the Treaty of Versailles had never really addressed this issue. It was a constant source of irritation between both nations.

In 1923, a mixed nationality survey team was sent out to settle the issue. Whilst travelling to the disputed area, the Italian section of the survey team became separated from the main party. The five Italians were shot by gunmen who had been in hiding.

Italy accused Greece of planning the whole incident and demanded payment of a large fine. Greece refused to pay up. In response, the Italians sent its navy to the Greek island of Corfu and bombarded the coastline. Greece appealed to the League for help but Italy, lead by Benito Mussolini, persuaded the League via the Conference of Ambassadors, to fine Greece 50 million lire.

To follow up this success, Mussolini invited the Yugoslavian government to discuss ownership of Fiume. The Treaty of Versailles had given Fiume to Yugoslavia but with the evidence of a bombarded Corfu, the Yugoslavs handed over the port to Italy with little problem.

All of these failures were secondary to the two major ones in the 1930’s. What they did show the world was that the League could not enforce a settlement if it did not have the ability to do so and dictators were keen to exploit this where they could. Prior to the troubles experienced in Western Europe in the 1930’s, the League had to deal with two major problems and it fell down on both – Manchuria and Abyssinia.

source:© 2000-2008 historylearningsite.co.uk