Brown or Miliband or Cameron? No thanks

We hear that Miliband won’t change the fortunes of New Labour, but then people have twigged that it’s a band of people stuck in a groove, not any one individual. So Cameron to the rescue? Not after his intervention in Georgia when he demonstrated his foreign policy credentials. We’re on a hiding to nothing.
NATO meets today to discuss the “crisis”. The assumption is it’s all of Russia’s making and Miliband is on his way to say so.. George Monbiot in the Guardian (19/8/2008) sums up the problem when he asks what America’s global defence system has to do with the price of eggs. Georgia has been persuades it wants to join NATO. Poland, the Czech Republic and other neighbouring states are being lined up as missile sites. Russia has made the point that those countries housing the U.S. missile defence system will be targets for their nuclear missiles. That includes the U.K. Monbiot points out that the trouble spots are supposed to be Iran and North Korea, so how will the defence system address that?
So well done everyone, we’ve succeeded in recreating the cold war. We fell for U.S. nonsense in supporting them in Iraq, we follow the rhetoric into Iran. Now we’re swallowing this one hook, line and sinker.


The following is from the Socialist Labour Party:
What is happening in the Caucasus?
“The conflict between South Ossetia and Georgia is in effect a conflict between Russia and the United States. It is a conflict that has been building for some time.
To understand recent developments it is crucial to put it in context.
Since the dissolution of the Soviet Union both South Ossetia and Abkhazia, who were opposed to the break-up, have exercised self-rule. While many of the east European states fell under the economic and political control of the United States, these two areas, and similarly Belarus, did not; preferring to maintain their close relationship with Russia. Indeed in 1996 Belarus and Russia formed ‘the Union of Sovereign Republics.’
In contrast to this the United States, through the National Endowment for Democracy and other agencies, was creating and funding the so-called ‘colour revolutions’ in the Ukraine (the Orange Revolution) and Georgia (the Rose Revolution), which brought to power governments favourable to the US and governments that would open up their economies to the IMF and World Bank and oversee the wholesale privatisation of their state-run industries and the introduction of ‘free market’ economic measures. Moreover this strategy brought pro-US regimes onto Russia’s doorstep with the added threat to Russia being the stationing of US missile bases in Poland and the Czech Republic and the urging by the Bush administration for both the Ukraine and Georgia to become members of NATO.
The US strategy of isolating and encircling Russia has been ongoing since 1991 with the ultimate aim being the destruction of an independent Russia and gaining access to its massive natural resources, particularly oil and gas.
On 31st July this year the German daily newspaper Junge Welt (jungewelt.de) ran an interview with Phillip Corwin who was the highest ranking United Nations civilian official in Yugoslavia during the 1990s. In the interview he was asked why the United States wanted to destroy Yugoslavia. This is his reply:
“I think the main reason for the destruction of Yugoslavia was the ambition of NATO to move eastward. Although the Cold War had ended, the Cold Warriors were still in power. Washington still felt Russia was its biggest threat because it had so many nuclear weapons, and Washington wanted to move up to the borders of the former Soviet Union. (jungewelt.de 31st July 2008).
The Georgian attack on South Ossetia was part of the US/NATO strategy of moving towards the Russian border. Georgia is a US client state. Its President, Mikheil Saakashvili, is Harvard educated and a former employee of the New York law firm Patterson, Belknap, Webb and Tyler. The Georgian army is armed and trained by the US.
It is inconceivable that Georgia took military action without the approval of the United States.
One month before Georgia launched its attack the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, visited Tbilisi and met with President Saakashvili and issued a provocative statement denouncing Russia and giving US backing for Georgia’s NATO membership.
What the Bush administration thought Russia’s response to the Georgian aggression would be is not known. But for the first time Russia militarily hit back at the US foreign policy strategy and immediately was accused by President Bush of ‘not respecting the sovereignty of nations.’ One wonders whether to laugh or cry at such hypocrisy.
Nevertheless, the announcement that US troops are being sent to the region, under the guise of ‘humanitarian aid’ only emphasises that this whole US strategy carries with it the inherent threat of further conflicts and the unthinkable prospect of a nuclear war.”

Declaration of the Georgian Peace Committee.
Once more Georgia was launched into a situation of chaos and bloodshed. A new fratricidal war exploded with renewed strength on Georgian soil.
To our great disappointment, the alerts of the Georgian Peace Committee and of progressive personalities of Georgia on the pernicious character of the militarization of the country and on the danger of a pro-fascist and nationalist policy had no effect.
The authorities of Georgia once again organized a bloody war,feeling the support of some western countries and of regional and international organizations. It will take decades to cleanse the shame poured by the current holders of the power over the Georgian people.
The Georgian army–armed and trained by U.S. instructors and using also U.S. armaments–subjected the city of Tskhinvali to a barbaric destruction. The bombings killed Ossetian civilians, our brothers and sisters, children, women and elderly people. Over 2,000 inhabitants of Tskhinvali and of its surroundings died.
Hundreds of civilians of Georgian nationality also died, both in the conflict zone as well as on the entire territory of Georgia.
The Georgian Peace Committee expresses its deep condolences to the relatives and friends of those who have perished.
The entire responsibility for this fratricidal war, for thousands of children, women and elderly dead people, for the inhabitants of South Ossetia and of Georgia falls exclusively on the current President, on the Parliament and on the Government of Georgia.
The irresponsibility and the adventurism of the Saakashvili regime have no limits. The President of Georgia and his team, undoubtedly, are criminals and must be held responsible.
The Georgian Peace Committee declares and asks broad public opinion not to identify the current Georgian leadership with the people of Georgia, with the Georgian nation, and appeals to all to support the Georgian people in the struggle against the criminal regime of Saakashvili.
We appeal to all the political forces of Georgia, the social movements and the people of Georgia to unite in order to free the country from the Russian-phobic and pro-fascist anti popular regime of Saakashvili!
Tbilisi, Aug. 11, 2008
Georgian Peace Committee
0182. Apt. 2, quarter 8, house 10, massif 3, Tbilisi, Georgia
Tel: ++ 995 93 761363 Fax/Tel: ++ 995 32 731516
There was comment that we kept our eye off the Russians while looking at the centres of terrorism made out to be in Islamic countries. It wasn’t Russia we should have been watching it was the U.S. So who out of Brown, Miliband and Cameron is the biggest idiot? You decide, you vote. Have you reopened that old shelter? You might be needing it with any of them.

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