A reader writes
I think you are generally correct in your assessment about the situation in Georgia, especially on the point that America plainly lacks the moral authority and credibility to seriously deride the Russian position. But you ended your latest post with a cheap shot. You say:
Maybe we should start complaining when as many Georgians have perished as Iraqis – and when Putin throws thousands of innocent Georgians into torture chambers.
I get the point as it concerns the moral and even practical bankruptcy of the Cheney Gang. But this lingers into territory where I’m not sure you want to be.
I know you don’t want to cast aside the real, existing humanitarian suffering going on in Georgia (both for Georgians and Ossetians, as this superb analysis shows). So why insinuate that said suffering is tangential to the issue, even if it is intentionally over the top to prove a larger geopolitical point?
Instead, we should start complaining immediately when any Georgians have perished at the hands of Putin’s criminal negligence and blatant disregard for human life, whilst at the same time giving not an inch to Bush and Cheney’s own hubris and disregard for human dignity. Of course, America’s past actions have been morally reprehensible on face, with the practical corollary that this makes our current geopolitical leverage vis a vis Russia next to impossible. But Russia is its own agent, and with the profoundly authoritarian Putin (to say nothing of the corrupt and generally incompetent Saakashvili) still controlling Russia’s policies, proper humanitarian outrage remains our most credible weapon, even if its language is sometimes hijacked for the whims of tyrants.
Another is blunter:
That’s a ghastly thing to write. Our own national sins and failures do not excuse Russian violence and aggression, nor do they relieve us of the obligation to condemn or oppose such immoral acts. It is one thing to embrace geopolitical realism, to recognize that even tacitly encouraging the Georgians was a catastrophic mistake, to acknowledge that this sort of Russian response was to be expected, and to resolve that prudence and caution dictate a measured reaction that carefully considers our interests and the price of intervention. It is quite another to conclude that American misconduct ought to grant carte blanche to other powers to follow suit, or that no violation of human rights is worth condemning until it exceeds our own. There is a middle course here; one need not advocate intervention to recognize Russian brutality.
Points taken. And readers sure can point out Russia’s excesses. But Bush cannot without answering to his own war crimes. What Russia is doing is reprehensible, but it also reveals the deep problem of moral legitimacy that the Bush administration has fostered. If the world – not without reason – suspects that America went to war under false pretense, and has trashed the Geneva Accords, then our capacity to rally world opinion on a matter like Georgia is compromised. The impact on America’s entire support for human rights and international law of the past eight years is only beginning to sink in. But it’s real. And it’s why the only way to regain it is to elect someone who opposed the war and who will end torture for good.
(Photo: A Georgian man checks the pulse of a body after they were hit by a Russian shell in Stalin square, on August 12, 2008 in Gori, Georgia. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an end to the military operations against Georgia, which had been widely condemned by the internationally community. Following their sustained incursion into the disputed Georgia region of South Ossetia, Russian troops have been given orders to withdraw. By Uriel Sinai/Getty Images.)
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