Where Are the Marchers for Peace?

From the desk of Martin Helme on Sun, 2008-08-10 21:52

I wonder is there the slimmest of chance to see millions of exalted young people passionately marching for peace in Georgia… It shouldn't be too much of an effort. All they have to do is brush the dust off from the "not in our name", "no blood for oil", "war is not the answer", etc placards, paste Vladimir Putin’s and Dmitri Medvedev’s faces over Bush’s or Blair’s on the "worst ever", "mass murderer" and "real terrorist" placards and voila! ready to march for peace. Preferably in millions, preferably in Moscow, to ram the message through to Putin and Medvedev.

I am also wondering, will we hear of passionate peace activists, who are determined to go and chain themselves to Georgian government buildings and other such sites to offer human shield against malicious and deliberate bombing by Russian planes on civilian targets. Anyone? Also, it would be refreshing to see similar sense of outrage and hysteria on the part of western media that we witness when American planes hit a "wedding party", armed to their teeth, when reporting bombings of apartment buildings and markets by Russian air forces in Georgia. I cannot help but notice a certain lack of urgency in underlining such reports. Plus, has anyone warned already that the Russian military invasion of its tiny neighbor is bound to stir up anti-Russian sentiment and create a groundswell for Georgians to recruit young people to their cause? When will the Russians catch their first English citizen who has grown a beard, converted to Georgian Christianity and adopted the name Johnadze Smithinashvili?

Ah, who am I kidding? It is one thing to march against the country that liberated half of Europe and kept it that way for the following 50 years. It is quite another to march against a nation that enslaved half of Europe and kept it under a bloody slavery for 50 years. I can see the morally bankrupt relativist lefty loonies massing to the streets to protest the overthrow of a regional warmonger who managed to kill at least half a million of his own citizens in a few decades. It takes no courage to stand up against that, only vast amounts of ignorance and selfadoration. To stand up against real threats and serious challenges, however – well, most people pass the chance.

Everyone knew how hollow and hypocritical were the mass demonstrations for Saddam and peace, against Bush and war. But I would like to rub it under their nose anyway, given the chance.

Maps # 4

Submitted by marcfrans on Tue, 2008-08-12 20:34.

@ Atlanticist

Thank you for having enabled me to make my points, without having to engage Akira in a kabuki dance. Victor D Hanson made the same points - and some more - with his usual inimitable style and eloquence.   Let's face it, we both admire VDH, the 'uncharacteristic' Californian and historian of the classical world of ancient Greece and Rome.

 

Furhermore, considering western leftism and Kappertism, and 'rightists' like Akira, Kapitein Andre, Monarchist, Amst...etc..., let's face it that we all are going to hang, not together, but separately. 

MAPS # 3

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Tue, 2008-08-12 19:14.

@ marcfrans

 

You "misunderestimate" me if you believe for one moment that I "do not wish to burn [my] fingers getting involved in a fight with an apologiser for the new (old KGB) tsar in Russia", and your good self. On the contrary, I had hoped that my guarded response to your post would have encouraged Akira to take the initiative and respond to it himself. Clearly, on this occasion, my instincts were less than perfect. I can't be expected to get it right everytime, can I?

 

Allow me to directly address two of your questions.

 

Q1: Is there any GOOD reason for any GOOD government leader to fear NATO?

 

A: None that I can see.

 

 

Q2: Does every invasion have to be judged on its own merits and/or demerits?

 

A: I opposed the Russian invasion of Afghanistan, but supported the invasion of that country (and the invasion of Iraq) by the US. Does that answer your question?

 

Finally, you want to know where I stand on the Georgia/ Ossetia/ Russia issue? Well, not for the first time will I cut to the chase by answering such a question by proxy - and not for the first time do I quote a VDH article to do so.

 

see: http://www.victorhanson.com/articles/hanson081208.html

 

ps: Gordon-the-blank  seems to me to be the best epithet to describe our current P.M. Will that suffice?

maps # 2

Submitted by marcfrans on Tue, 2008-08-12 17:51.

@ Atlanticist

1) Yeah, I can understand that you do not want to burn your fingers by getting involved in a fight with an apologiser for the new (old KGB) tsar in Russia - sounds a bit like NATO's contemporary 'courage' in defense of democracy - and that you resort to that old funny stalwart of John Cleese in Fawlty Towers. But, at least  I had hoped that you would have filled in the blanks concerning Gordon-the-... (me not being that familiar with the current British political scene).

Now, let's accept for a moment, just hypothetically (because I don't really), that NATO's intervention in Kosovo was 'unjustified'.  How can that justify Russian invasion of Georgia?   Doesn't every invasion have to be judged on its own merits and/or demerits?   So, we can safely say that in Akira we have someone who:

--  firstly, judges military actions not on the basis of the stated and/or unstated (real or imagined) purposes/intentions of such actions, but on the basis of who it is that is acting militarily, and

-- secondly, does not seem to follow clear (morally acceptable) criteria in judging the actors involved.

Sounds pretty much like the character of Putin himself, doesn't it?

2) I must say that George the Texan brush-clearer did not (at least visibly) distinguish himself in all of this.   When he said, years ago, that he had looked into Putin's eyes etc...I thought "Oh God, oh no!" and I had visions of a Republican 'Jimmy Carter' (who expressed himself "surprised" when the soviets invaded Afghanistan).  McCain, by contrast, claimed that he could only see in Putin's eyes the three letters KGB.   Could it be that only 'old' people can have distant memories of important events in the past (coupled with short-term memory loss of yesterday's trivia)? We need a the-buck-stops-here Harry Truman again (with no highschool diploma from rural Missouri), but might get an Obama from the south side of Chicago (via, Indonesia, Hawaii, naive-left academia etc..).

Maps

Submitted by marcfrans on Tue, 2008-08-12 04:39.

@ Atlanticist

I have looked at the map of Ireland, and I notice that there are quite a lot of NATO countries in its neighborhood, including the mighty forces of Sarko and of Gordon-the-...(fill in the blanks, will you).  Ireland being a small NONmember country must be really scared?.  Not to mention the Swiss.  They are surrounded on ALL sides by NATO (except for the short border with Austria). 

But, now I remember, that NATO is a defensive organisation against unnamed 'bad characters'.  As a defensive organisation, and with the French having a political voice in its deliberations, it is virtually impossible for it to act together, unless..... perhaps...the atrocities of bad characters are too much for even postmodern West-Europeans to stomach.  

So, what do you say, is there any GOOD reason for any GOOD government leader to fear NATO? 

re: Marchers for Peace aka In Front of Your Nose

Submitted by Atlanticist911 on Tue, 2008-08-12 01:26.

"We are all capable of believing things which we know to be untrue, and then, when we are finally proved wrong, impudently twisting the facts so as to show that we were right. Intellectually, it is possible to carry on this process for an indefinite time: the only check on it is that sooner or later a false belief bumps up against solid reality, usually on a battlefield".

 

From George Orwell's 1946 essay, "In Front of Your Nose".

I'm sure the left has already convinced itself

Submitted by Rob the Ugly American on Mon, 2008-08-11 03:17.

this is somehow all Bush's fault. And besides this is Russia's 'sphere of influence' or some such nonsense. Russia was feeling threatened by tiny Georgia, and as if its a teenage girl (or your average Islamic terrorist) we really have to try to understand how all this affects its self-esteem. If only we showed it the proper respect and worked hard at bucking up its opinion of itself, it would embrace us with open arms...

They are still trying to Free Tibet.......

Submitted by onecent on Sun, 2008-08-10 23:15.

Your basic little vacuous latte sipping cafe lefty has zero interest in Georgia's plight. It would mean serious intervention and liberal weenies would never support that because in their idiotic universe of moral equivalences western governments that intervene against thugs are equally as evil. We are talking about the same fools, especially their parents, that have had "Free Tibet" bumperstickers fading for decades on their cars as a symbol of their useless and phoney support.  It makes them feel virtuous while doing nothing to liberate anyone.

The Taliban was driven from Afghanistan and Hussien and his homicidal next in line sons are dead and gone, it's not the locals that are unhappy with that, it's the western liberal left. Too bad they can't be separated from the rest of us in the West so they can surrender to whatever thug forces that they refuse to meet with force.