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,
