Ray O. Light Newsletter #50
Revolutionary Organization of Labor, USA
October-November, 2008
The Georgia-Russia Conflict, the U.S. Presidential Election and the Decline of the U.S. Empire
Introduction: “We are all Georgians.”
A few weeks before the Republican National Convention that was
scheduled to nominate him as its candidate for President of the USA,
John McCain declared in an opinion column in The Wall Street Journal
on the Georgia-Russia conflict that “we are all Georgians.” The central
theme of the Republican Convention, as evidenced by the hundreds of
identical, well produced placards repeatedly flashed by the rich, white
delegates, turned out to be “Country First.” One could legitimately
ask: was McCain running for President of Georgia and was the Republican
Party promoting Georgia as the country that the people of the USA
should be putting “first?!”
Of course, the many loud and seemingly spontaneous chants of “USA, USA”
served to dispel any notion that McCain and the Republicans were
putting Georgia “first!” Indeed, the content of the Republican
Convention, with its poisonous great nation chauvinism reflected in its
“Country First” placards, was reminiscent of the fascist “America
First” movement of 1940 and even more of its German Nazi sponsors.
Why, then, did McCain so dramatically declare his identity with the
small and somewhat obscure former Soviet republic of Georgia? The
answer to this question is largely to be found in the other chant which
filled the Republican convention hall most often during that week:
“Drill, baby, drill!” This slogan, especially given its irrationality
from the standpoint of representing no lowering of home heating oil or
gasoline prices and real ecological danger to the USA, underscores the
tremendous strategic importance of oil and natural gas for the
maintenance of the crumbling U.S. Empire. And Georgia provides a vital
alternative territory for oil and natural gas pipelines over which to
transport these precious energy sources from the resource rich former
Central Asian Soviet Republics to the West, without crossing Russian territory.
Keeping Georgia in the camp of U.S. imperialism is thus key to keeping
Russia from attaining an ever more prominent position in relation to
the European Union economies based on its own vast oil and natural gas
reserves as well as on its strategic relationship to the tremendous oil
and natural gas deposits in Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan, and
Uzbekistan. In the 1990’s, this Caspian Sea Basin was viewed as the
most promising new source of oil and gas. And western energy firms,
including Chevron, BP, Shell and Exxon-Mobil wanted to get their hands
on these fields. However, the Caspian is landlocked and all existing
pipelines passed through Russia and were hooked into Soviet-era supply
systems. It was U.S. President, Democrat Bill Clinton, who conceived of
turning Georgia into an energy corridor, bypassing Russia altogether.
The biggest achievement of this plan has been the construction of the
BTC pipeline from Baku in Azerbaijan to Tbilisi in Georgia to Ceyhan in
Turkey.
The new Georgian energy corridor passed through or near several major
conflict zones, including the Russian-backed breakaway states of
Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In this light, Clinton converted the
Georgian army into “a military proxy of the United States, equipped and
trained by the Department of Defense.” (“Putin’s Ruthless Gambit,”
Michael Klare, 9-5-08) It is no wonder that, in 2008, the tiny country
of Georgia had more occupation troops in Iraq than any country in the
so-called “coalition of the willing” other than the USA and Great
Britain.
Continued U.S. domination of the Georgian government today is vital to
holding back Russia from asserting itself as one of the key regional
powers in the important region of Europe on the basis of its huge oil
revenues in this period of swollen oil prices and profits. Furthermore,
if Russia is able to flex its economic muscle, the imperialist powers
of Western Europe, including France and Germany, will also be much more
independent of U.S. imperialism – economically, politically and
militarily. Thus, Georgia is a key to defense of U.S. imperialist hegemony, to defense of the U.S. Empire.
A pro-U.S. imperialism Georgian government, hostile to and aggressive
against Russia is in line with the Bush Doctrine, enunciated at West
Point in June of 2002, that the USA would allow for no “peer
competitor” even at the regional level.
Georgia’s Unprovoked Attack on South Ossetia and Russia’s Response
On August 7, 2008, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a U.S.
educated lawyer, sent the Georgian military to invade South Ossetia and
attack its capital city, Tskhinvali. More than 1400 civilians were
killed by the U.S. trained Georgian troops in Tskhinvali and hundreds
more were wounded. Prime Minister Putin and Russia’s current President,
Dimitri Medvedev, refused to accept this Georgian and U.S. aggression.
Russian troops moved into Georgia, handily defeated the Georgian
military and occupied much of the area of the two former Soviet
autonomous regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both regions have
declared their independence and quickly received Russian recognition.
As befits an imperialist power, Russian President Medvedev, the former
chief of Gazprom, the world’s largest natural gas supplier, outlined a
five point foreign policy. “Among its tenets were claims that Russia
would protect Russia and their business interests ‘wherever they may
be’ and that Moscow claimed ‘privileged interests’ in the traditional
sphere of influence around its borders. Of course, he emphasized that
Russia rejects the notion of U.S. primacy in the current world order.”
(Time/CNN, 9-4-08)
These events have served to undermine western confidence in Georgia as
a reliable energy corridor alternative to the Russian pipelines. For
its own big power objectives, and in line with U.S. imperialism, the
European Union had announced plans for a $10 billion dollar natural gas
pipeline from the Caspian, to be called Nabucco, that would run from
Austria to Turkey linking up with an expanded South Caucasus gas
pipeline that already extends from Azerbaijan through Georgia to
Erzurum in Turkey. The Nabucco pipeline has been intended to reduce
Europe’s reliance on Russian natural gas. It has thus been supported by
the Bush regime, attempting to maintain its hegemonic position in
relation to Western Europe. In the aftermath of the recent warfare in
South Ossetia and Georgia, both the BTC and South Caucasus pipelines
are within range of the Russian army, clearly strengthening Russia’s
economic position vis-à-vis the oil starved powers of Western
Europe, as well as U.S. imperialism.
Economic and Political Motives for the Georgian Attack
Saakashvili’s Motive: As Professor Jose Maria Sison, founding
Chairman of the Communist Party of the Philippines, stated, “It is very
clear that Georgia would not have gone on its military adventure
without backing from the US … Emboldened by US and NATO support and the
US promise of NATO membership for Georgia, Saakashvili has long
undertaken provocations against Russia and angled for the fortification
of Georgia as a base of US military and economic power… To stay in
power, he has been subservient to and dependent on US imperialism and
has frenziedly drummed up Georgian nationalism against other
nationalities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia … autonomous regions within
the Georgia Soviet Socialist Republic in the Soviet era.”* (Quoted in
May-August 2008 special issue of Liberation International)
* Even bourgeois experts
grudgingly admitted that the Soviet Union, under Lenin-Stalin
leadership had done an outstanding job in dealing with the nationality
question there. For example, in his textbook, “A History of the Modern
World,” R.R. Palmer wrote: “… the U.S.S.R. within the framework of the
over-all Soviet system seemed to have found a constructive solution to
its nationalities question, and is the best example afforded by the
twentieth century of a multinational state.”
Michael T. Klare, a U.S. bourgeois expert on energy politics, points
out that Georgian “President Mikheil Saakashvili was not content to
play the relatively modest role of pipeline protector. Instead, he
sought to pursue a megalomaniacal fantasy of recapturing the breakaway
regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia with American help.” It is
certainly possible that Saakashvili was trying to use his almost
unprecedentedly close relationship with the Bush Regime and the McCain Campaign to consolidate his Georgian state rule at the expense of the peoples of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.
McCain’s Motive: But even more striking is the fact that Randy
Scheunemann, chief foreign policy advisor to John McCain’s Presidential
campaign, simultaneously served as key political consultant to none
other than Mikheil Saakashvili(!) for an eighteen month period leading
up to the Georgian attack on South Ossetia! So the McCain Campaign has
had an unprecedentedly close relationship to the Saakashvili government
in Georgia. During this period Scheunemann’s two man consulting firm
was paid almost three times as much by the Georgian President as he was
paid by U.S. presidential candidate McCain! “We are all Georgians,”
indeed!!
We should not forget that the breakout of hostilities in the Georgian
region provided the backdrop for McCain’s Republican Party Convention
focus on “the dangerous world we are living in.” This also led to
McCain’s first lead over Democrat Obama in the presidential campaign
polls!!! So the McCain Presidential campaign had a strong motive and a
strong connection to Saakashvili that could also account for the
provocative Georgian attack on South Ossetia which produced the Russian
backlash.
Dick Cheney’s Motive: Other U.S. imperialist motives for
provoking the conflict between Georgia and Russia involve the sinister
and powerful U.S. vice president, Dick Cheney. Cheney rarely makes
public statements even in the USA; and he rarely makes programmatic
speeches on foreign affairs. Yet, in the aftermath of the Russian
military-political victory in Georgia, Cheney visited Georgia (as well
as Ukraine and Azerbaijan) and announced a $1 billion dollar aid
package for reconstruction of Georgia, a thirty fold increase in aid at
one jump! (Only Israel and Egypt get more U.S. “aid” in any given year
than Georgia will receive this year.) Signaling clearly the Bush
Regime’s priorities, Cheney held his first meetings of the trip in oil
rich Baku with representatives of two international oil companies, BP
of Azerbaijan and Chevron. Cheney then attempted to rally the support
of the EU countries against Russia. Interestingly, on the same day as
Cheney was visiting the countries of the former Soviet Union, back in
the USA, the first Halliburton Company top official was convicted of
corruption charges for multimillion dollar bribes and kickbacks
arranged with Nigerian government officials involving a billion dollar
oil infrastructure construction contract in that oil rich country in
Africa. Much of the corruption the Halliburton official admitted and
was convicted for took place while Dick Cheney was the CEO of
Halliburton! So it was certainly convenient that Vice President Cheney
could wrap himself in the U.S. flag in a conflict with Russia at this
moment when his legal status may well be in question!*
* Cheney’s Halliburton has
been the company that received the largest no-bid contracts for
rebuilding Iraq, many of them even before U.S. imperialism had used its
war machine to destroy Iraq! As many returning U.S. military personnel
have reported, for them Iraq is Halliburton/KBR; and, while
these soldiers were being paid by U.S. taxpayers they were actually
employed by Halliburton/KBR, helping to produce its obscene war profits
that saved Cheney’s giant corporation from bankruptcy. Scheunemann is
the former Director of the Project for a New American Century – a
neoconservative think tank that engineered the war in Iraq. After
working on the McCain campaign in 2000, he then headed the “Committee
for the Liberation of Iraq” which championed the U.S. invasion. Quite a
team!
Bush’s Motive: Of course, George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are
“joined at the hip.” However, as the Commander in Chief, Bush in his
own right is now experiencing the lowest ratings of any U.S. President
since polling began and is often being described as the worst President
in U.S. history. This political situation has been driven by the
conjunction of Bush’s failed war policies with the growing economic
crisis, featuring massive home mortgage foreclosures and the subsequent
crisis in consumer credit.*
* This was already occurring
prior to the current rapidly unfolding economic collapse that over the
past week or so has seen several of the biggest financial services
corporations in the USA dissolve or be swallowed up whole, prior to
Bush and Congress projecting the biggest corporate bail-outs in U.S.
history.
In this regard it is noteworthy that Bush’s Secretary of State
Condoleezza Rice met with Saakashvili on July 9th, promising, among
other things, strong U.S. backing for Georgia’s “fast track” entry into
NATO, and that Bush’s key political strategist, Karl Rove, met with
Saakashvili as well in the weeks leading up to Georgia’s provocative
invasion of South Ossetia. Furthermore, immediately prior to Georgia’s
attack on South Ossetia, the U.S. and Georgian military forces had been
involved in joint military exercises that included U.S. Army, Marine
and National Guard troops. And following Russia’s counterattack, the
U.S. military transported the two thousand Georgian troops stationed in
Iraq back to Georgia in an effort to shore up their forces.
Taking a “tough stand” against Russia, after provoking Russia to take
military action, driving toward a major war, even an inter-imperialist
war with Russia, may well be a useful vehicle for U.S. imperialism to
use in order to maintain “stability and order” in an increasingly
impoverished and divided U.S. society.
The tough stand on Russia is in keeping with the saber rattling that
the Bush Regime has continually promoted with its military incursions
into Pakistan without the knowledge and permission of its Pakistani
government ally, and with regard to Iran, as U.S. imperialism seeks to
widen a war it cannot win in Iraq and in Afghanistan. In fact,
Saakashvili’s attack on South Ossetia, in an effort to consolidate the
Georgian regime, may well have been an integral part of a Bush-led
strategic plan to attack Iran. UPI reported that “a secret agreement
between Georgia and Israel had earmarked two military airfields in the
south of Georgia for use by Israeli fighter-bombers in a potential
preemptive strike against Iran.”*
* Note the key role that
Senator Joseph Lieberman, the chief political representative of the
U.S.-Israeli alliance is playing not only in the U.S. presidential
election but in the promotion of the “hard line” stance against Russia
on the question of Georgian “sovereignty.” Recall also the
nightmarishly humorous singing of “Bomb-bomb-bomb, bomb-bomb Iran” by
Lieberman’s presidential candidate, John McCain.
Motive of the U.S. Military-Industrial Complex: To the extent
that the corporations that make most of their profits from the
production of machines of war, from jet engines to bullets, can be
classified as the driving force in the U.S. military-industrial
complex, as distinct from the Executive Branch and Congresspeople over
whom they exercise so much influence and control, these corporations
have also had a huge stake in provoking warfare between Georgia and
Russia. Certainly, one reason the U.S. may have provoked this war, is
reflected in the title of a Wall Street Journal article of
8/16/08, “Attack on Georgia Gives Boost to Big U.S. Weapons Programs.”
As the article points out, “Defense Secretary Robert Gates has spent
much of the year attempting to rein in some of the military’s most
expensive and ambitious weapons systems – like the $143 million F-22
Raptor jet – because he thinks they are unsuitable for the lightly
armed and hard to find militias, warlords and terrorist groups the U.S.
faces in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has been opposed by an array of
political interests and defense companies that want to preserve these
multibillion dollar programs and the jobs they create. … If the
conflict in Georgia continues and intensifies it could make it easier
for defense companies to insure the long term funding of their
big-ticket items.”
Of course, in the current U.S. environment, which includes rapidly
growing unemployment, as well as serving the “defense contractors”
insatiable drive for profit at any human cost, such a stimulus for war
contracts becomes more palatable if not attractive to the increasingly
desperate general U.S. population.
Republican Admission of Guilt
According to Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican congressman from
California, U.S. intelligence confirmed that Georgia started the latest
military actions in South Ossetia and that Russia’s position in the
conflict was correct. “The Russians are right! We’re wrong! Georgia
started it; the Russians ended it.” Ominously, Congressman Rohrabacher
said that the situation reminded him of the Tonkin Gulf incident, used
by the USA as a pretext for beginning its war in Vietnam. A month after
the events, the Bush Regime’s Assistant Secretary of State Dan Fried
lamely testified that U.S. intelligence was still working on an exact
chronology of events, i.e. trying to get the facts to fit their man
Saakashvili’s version of events. Fried admitted that the Bush
Administration had repeatedly warned the Georgians against beginning
military actions against Russia and was unable to explain why Georgia
chose to ignore the advice. Nonetheless, Fried insisted that it was in
U.S. interests to support Georgia even if it considers the country’s
actions “foolish.”
Obama and McCain Both More of the Same
Along with “third party” candidates, including Ralph Nader and Cynthia
McKinney, the Green Party candidate who is receiving critical support
from the Revolutionary Organization of Labor, USA, Texas Republican
Congressman Ron Paul has exposed the fact that the Republican and
Democratic candidates for President and Vice President have almost
identical positions on all the important questions – including those
involving war and peace in Iraq and Afghanistan.* Now we can add to
this list their positions on the Georgia-Russia conflict.
* Incredibly, Obama has
accepted the McCain-promoted “surge” in Iraq as “successful beyond our
wildest dreams,” when the reality of the surge is far more problematic
for U.S. imperialism. Likewise, McCain has been forced to take a more
aggressive stand on the need for more U.S. troops in Afghanistan and
for unilateral U.S. military incursions into “sovereign” Pakistan
because of Obama’s promotion of this naked imperialist aggression.
Democratic presidential candidate, Barack Obama, gained that nomination
largely on the basis of his early opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq.
Nevertheless, despite the fact that the Republican Bush Regime and
Republican presidential candidate McCain have their bloody hands all
over the recent violent events in Georgia and that it has, in addition,
been a setback for U.S. imperialism, Obama has uttered not one word of
criticism of Bush’s man Saakashvili, nor of Saakashvili’s cozy
relationship to the McCain campaign!! Like McCain and the Bush Regime,
Obama has placed all blame for the Georgian violence on Russia and has
called for Russian peacekeepers to be replaced by “a genuine
international peace-keeping force.”
Contrary to the statements of Republican Congressman Rohrabacher and of
Bush’s Assistant Secretary of State, Obama has insisted that “there is
no possible justification for these [Russian] attacks.” Obama has
threatened multilateral and bilateral arrangements with Russia,
including the idea of blocking Russia’s entry into the World Trade
Organization. He has raised the specter of undermining or blocking the
2014 Winter Olympics scheduled to take place in Sochi on the Black Sea.
Like McCain and the Bush Regime, Obama is promoting the placement of
Georgia on the “fast track” to NATO membership. This, in effect, would
represent a declaration of war against Russia. McCain’s running-mate,
Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin, in her support for the admission of
Georgia (and the Ukraine) to NATO, has pointed out its implications;
namely, “…the U.S. should be prepared to go to war if Russia invades
Georgia again.” (Wall Street Journal, 9-12-08)
Of course, there should be no surprise that the Democratic Party
candidates as well as the Republican Party candidates are so similar
since they are vying for the right to be the number one defender of the
crumbling U.S. Empire.
The Current U.S. Economic Crisis and the Drive to Inter-Imperialist War
In the June 2008 issue of The Hightower Lowdown, the top fifteen
donors to the campaigns of McCain and Obama (and Hillary Clinton) were
listed. Not surprisingly, their lists were largely the same. All were
dominated by Wall Street financial and banking interests (including a
few that have disappeared in the past few weeks!). For example, at that
time, Goldman Sachs was the number one contributor to Obama, number two
among Clinton backers and number six on McCain’s gift list. Merrill
Lynch was number one on McCain’s list and number fifteen on Clinton’s
list. Morgan Stanley was fourth for Clinton, seventh for McCain and
twelfth for Obama. And Lehman Brothers was seventh for both Obama and
Clinton and tenth on McCain’s list.
Now, the whole parasitic U.S. economy is coming crashing down. The
subprime mortgage crisis has precipitated a wider mortgage crisis as
one and one-half million home foreclosures last year are expected to be
exceeded by approximately two and one-half million home losses this
year. There is no bail-out for the millions of homeless and destitute.
Meanwhile, the crisis has continued to widen. Fannie Mae and Freddie
Mac, private firms underwritten by the U.S. government because their
mission has allegedly been to spread home ownership, had all their
risky business paid off or covered by the taxpayers in the past few
weeks, potentially to the tune of $200 billion dollars!
Three of the top five investment banks have failed this year, including
two in the past week! Bear Stearns was basically given as a gift by the
U.S. government to Morgan Stanley in March. Lehman Brothers was allowed
to go into bankruptcy this week while Merrill Lynch was sold to Bank of
America. Also, in the past week or so, AIG, the largest private
insurance company, received an $85 billion dollar bail-out from Bush
and the Democratic-controlled Congress.
The largesse of the biggest Wall Street banks and financial
institutions toward the two major parties’ presidential candidates has
been well rewarded over the years as these companies have ripped off
the people, while the people, through their taxes, have underwritten
any risk the financial fat cats incurred. The fat cats owned the
profits and the people own the losses, thanks to the
Democratic-Republican political duopoly in power.
The fact that both the Democratic and the Republican Party are owned by
the financial oligarchs can be clearly shown by the pronouncements of
Obama and McCain on the financial/economic crisis. Neither candidate
has any idea what to do about the economic crisis other than to bail
out the biggest corporations and banks.
Meanwhile, the USA is the biggest debtor country in the world. The U.S.
dollar has dropped precipitously in value against the euro, the pound,
in relation to gold, etc. The tremendous increase in the price of
gasoline in the USA over the past six months is largely connected to
this fact. Indeed, if or when the Chinese sovereign wealth fund, and
the Saudi and United Arab Emirates’ sovereign wealth funds and others
are able to get out from under the dollar, the U.S. economy will be in
a tailspin the likes of which we have never seen.
U.S. imperialism’s military setbacks in Iraq and Afghanistan, its
military overextension and increasing isolation, and the recent setback
to U.S. imperialist economic and military interests in Georgia indicate
that its days of being the hegemonic imperialist power in the world are
coming to an end.
War production to stimulate the economy in crisis, military
mobilization, threats of war and wars against U.S. imperialism’s
creditors, including its partner-rivals, as well as continuing wars
against the oppressed peoples fighting for their national liberation
from the enslavement of colonialism and neo-colonialism are the future
of the U.S. imperialist empire as it moves off of the center stage of
contemporary history.
The international working class and the oppressed peoples should have
no illusions that an Obama-Biden presidency will represent anything
different than a McCain-Palin presidency – except that Obama-Biden may
have the qualifications to keep U.S. imperialism afloat atop the
peoples of the world a little longer. Afghanistan, Iraq, the
Philippines, Colombia and now Georgia await the new U.S. president,
whether McCain or Obama. Political and military aggression, occupation,
quagmires, defeats and much more blood on their hands await U.S.
imperialism and those who remain its allies and supporters.
The communist and anti-imperialist forces of the world, including those
of us in the USA itself, will be challenged to combat the brutal,
bestial U.S. imperialists in the death throes of the U.S. Empire. The
struggle for the unity of the international working class and the
oppressed peoples in the struggle for world socialism is the
orientation that provides the only path to a healthy future for
humanity.
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