Annals of Outrageous Russian Hypocrisy: Even I Can't Believe THIS One . . . But it's True!
Filed under: Georgia
"Georgia and some of its Western partners tried, in great haste . . . in the space of a few hours, to accuse us of aggression against Georgia," First Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin told Vesti-24 television.
I rarely if ever write in the first person, so I should be able to create a bit of extra emphasis by choosing to do so now. I've spent a lot of time watching Russia, but the above quotation from Reuters today takes the cake as the single most outrageous, unhinged and outright crazy statement I've ever heard come out of that benighted, pathetic, yet terribly dangerous country. It's an insult to my intelligence just to see it there in print. I'm sorry for insulting yours by putting it up there (an apology and a first person -- this post is truly one in a million!).
Apparently, Mr. Karasin is unaware of how his own government reacted when Georgia had the temerity to complain about Russian warplanes invading its airspace and huge missiles being dropped on its territory. Apparently, he thinks that Russia admitted the possibility that a Russian plane could have been involved, but called for an fair-minded investigation to see whether some other cause might be found.
To say the least, that's not what happened. Within literally seconds of Georgia's complaint being announced, without undertaking any kind of investigation whatsoever, not only did Russian authorities deny any possibility of involvement, they immediately accused Georgia of attacking itself to make Russia look bad, just as they accused Alexander Litvinenko of poisoning himself. Subsequently, an international review commission has found these statements to be total fabrications and held Russia accountable for the attack. The only reason the U.N. Security Council hasn't formally voted a censure against Russia is that Russia has used its veto to block the vote, obstructing the will of the entire rest of the planet.
Moreover, Mr. Karasin apparently wants us to believe that if Georgian planes did this to Russia, the Kremlin would call for calm investigation before attempting to place blame on anyone (to understand how just-plain-demented that is, recall that many in the Russian government at first tried to blame NATO sabotage for the sinking of the Kursk submarine by purely Russian malfeasance; recall too how Russians conducted pogroms against Georgians when the country dared to protest an attempt by Russia to foment a coup d'etat against its elected president, including issuing edicts to round up Georgian children based on their last names).
Even though I have a lot of experience watching Russia, it's just amazing to me that Russians still think they can get away with this kind of garbage, just the same things they tried in Soviet times, the same things that destroyed the USSR utterly. It would be funny if so many lives were not on the line. Mr. Karasin has got so used to spewing out any kind of nonsense for the lemming-like, isolated and ignorant people of Russia to swallow whole that, just as in Soviet times, he's lost the ability to perceive that he can't expect the people of other countries to behave similarly. Apparently, "The Emperor's New Clothes" is not a story that gets much read in Russia.
It's understandable, perhaps, that Russians are disappointed to find the world will not sit idly by and give Russia the chance to become a new threat to world security, since that's the only way Russia can achieve its goal. But how can any thinking people believe that Russia is entitled to the benefit of any doubt given the manner in which it has conducted itself over the past few years, or that anyone would fall for such a ridiculous line of sewage? Only a truly deluded person, totally detached from reality, could possibly think so. And it seems that is what we confront where Russia is concerned. La-la land.
Except that it's not. What we confront is an Evil Empire. Russia is engaged in a conscious plan to destabilize and conquer Georgia by first fomenting unrest in Georgia's breakaway republics (even while claiming that Russia's own breakaway regions, like Chechnya, must remain part of Russia). In doing so, it prevents Georgia from joining NATO and creates the necessary conditions for Russian intervention to "save" Georgia from itself.
And if we don't stop it, to the extent Russia is able, we'll be next on the menu. Thankfully, it's still the same old arrogant, insular, ignorant, ham-handed Russia that destroyed itself countless times in the past, so the task isn't that daunting, not if we will role up our sleeves and get to work. The benefits will accrue not only to ourselves, but to the people of Russia as well. It seems that, once again, we're their only hope.
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