One of the rare moments the Tundra Tabloids gives the Helsingin Sanomat a bit of praise. In today’s edition of the paper, they published an op-ed by Husein Muhammed, an administrative assistant at the Finnish Institute of International Affairs (UPI).
It pretty much repeats what the TT has already stated about the “peace movement’s” total falling off the radar screen where the Russian invasion of Georgia is concerned.
TT: “They are nowhere to be seen, because it’s Russia doing the invading, not the US.”
So here is Husein’s op-ed (online subscription only) that I translated from the original Finnish version.
WHY IS THE PEACE MOVEMENT QUIET ABOUT THE GEORGIAN SITUATION?
When the USA attacked Saddam Hussein’s oppressive dictatorship in the spring of 2003 in Iraq, anti-war demonstrations in the west gathered hundreds of thousands of people. The International peace movement has protested against the U.S. attack which includes this past five year anniversary of the war. Also, the execution of the dictator was vocally protested as well.
Most likely, at least in part, due to the opinion of the anti-war public, the Bush administration has not extended its attack on Iraq’s neighbours Iran and Syria that it considers to be rogue states.
Russia invaded Georgia in August of this year, and continues to keep a hold -contrary to international law- the Georgian state’s two provinces that declared independence, as well as other parts of the country as a “buffer zone” to these provinces.
Russian attacks also killed civilians and destroyed the Georgian infrastructure. Ethnic cleansing has also been reported in the Russian Occupied Territories.
During the whole period of the war in Georgia, the peace movement has not made a sound in Western Europe or in the United States in favour of peace. This raises a number of questions of the status, and the motives of the people in the Western peace movement:
–Where has the peace movement gone?
–Why was the movement active about Iraq, but not about the Georgian war?
–Was the Iraq issue, more about the United States than about the war itself?
If the answer to the last question is yes, did the peace movement fail to condemn the Russian invasion simply because the USA condemned it?!
Husein Muhammed
University lecturer, Helsinki,
He has a blog,which contains also some of his (older) comments and interviews.
//huseinm.blogspot.com/
I will respectfully point out that Georgia attacked first with what appears to be a plan very similar to Croatia’s US backed ‘Storm’ ethnic cleansing of 250,000 Serbs from the Krajina. The US has been arming and training on the ground in Georgia and must have known about the attack. Russia was aware that the attack was coming and was ready, and thank God, stopped it. For that you blame Russia?
Russia has been convinced since the bombing of Yugoslavia that the strategy of the US is to bring about the breakup of the Russian Federation. Note that the US supported the Chechen Islamic jihad against Russia with arms, uniforms, etc, through Georgia. The US government even hosted and protected Chechen terrorists with outstanding arrest warrants. After the breakup of the USSR the US promised that NATO would not expand east; what happened to that promise to Russia?
After Serbia, Ukraine, and Georgia, the latest colored revolution attempt was in Armenia, a poor country that has been thrown into turmoil (as though it has not suffered enough). The West has been attempting to break Armenia away from Russia, like the aforementioned three countries. Armenia is sandwiched between two enemy Muslim countries and has only survived with the might of Russia at its back. Without Russia, Armenia will not last a month; Turkey and Azerbaijan will destroy it. Even then the West will tilt to Turkey and Azerbaijan (as it has consistently in the past) for access to oil and to bring down a Russian ally. Duplicitous Georgia, already committing cultural genocide against Armenians within its borders, will makeup for the loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia by biting off a piece of Armenia. All this is obvious if you actually know the region.
The problem is that Westerners don’t know that they don’t know. At least you are starting to wake up to the Islamic threat but you keep falling back into old habits like Russophobia. The Islamic jihad is depending on the West being split against itself and will use one side against the other. They can’t believe their luck that the West has driven Russia away from the Western alliance and further into anti-West alliances.
The West must realize that without Russia the battle to defeat the Islamic jihad is already lost. You can’t win the fight against the Islamic jihad with your right hand while stabbing yourself in the back with your left hand.
Please let me remind you, that regardless of whether Georgia “attacked first”, they were operating on their own soil, as much as Russia operates in Chechnya.
I believe that you protest too much. Russia has been playing a duplicious role in ensuring its own back yard is safe from Islamists, but helping others out to ensure the US and its allies are kept off guard.
As for Georgia allowing jihadis safe passage to Chechnya to do battle against Russia, that’s simply not true. Georgia turned back a Finnish jihadi at the Georgian border, he did not make it in.
As for Chechnya, you would have to supply credible links to validate your story. Incredible claims must be backed up by ioncredible proof.