World Opinion Favors Russia - Winning the Media War

Even Americans are saying, “Thank you Russia for standing up to the crackpots in control of our government.” As much as the corporate elitist media in the west blathers and carries on with lies and obfuscation about the events in Georgia and South Ossetia, as much as they try to cover up the facts and the truth and the war crimes committed by their puppet state, Georgia, they have failed to convince the world community.

Photo: World Opinion Favors Russia - Winning the Media War

Their all too numerous outlets are pummeling the world community with distortions, trying to shove the castor oil of the empire down our collective throats, but the gag reflex is well intact and their lies remain unpalatable. The empire is used to and expects everyone to jump when told to and to believe what they hear and read. They don’t expect and can’t understand when someone or some country tells them to back off with their egotistical, haughty, self important orders or pronouncements. But their “orders” and pronouncements have become irrelevant. We are again living in a multicolor world.

Comments from the World Community

In a recent Internet tally asking respondents who they favor, 75.8% were in favor of Russia and only 24.2% in favor of Georgia. Some American respondents actually came right out and thanked Russia for standing up to their government, referring to their government as “crackpots“ and “lunatics.”

One respondent said that South Ossetia and Abkhazia should become independent and the west lives under double standards. Another wrote, “the Abkhaz, Ossetian and Adjarian people will never agree to live under Georgian arrogant oppression.”

Yet another respondent said, “This is NATO's prime moment to show that it as an organization is not yet obsolete.” Of course we heard this when Yugoslavia was bombed too. In another comment he said, “I literally laughed out loud when President Bush made his speech toward Russia about how ‘bullying is unacceptable in foreign policy in the 21st century.’"

A respondent who considers himself a Republican wrote, “There is no reason that we should be antagonizing them on their border. It scares me that this oilman president will take us into another war with a much more deadly foe over an oil pipeline through Georgia. I am a registered Republican, but enough is enough. Impeach George Bush, if he gets us involved in the Russo-Georgian war.”

Some notable and succinct quotes from another:

"I feel like I am living in the bizarro world. Do you people not realize that Georgia started the conflict. Do you people not realize that Georgia attacked civilians and peacekeeping troops in an INTERNATIONAL ZONE. Do you not realize that the news media has been caught showing footage of the destroyed cities in Ossetia (destroyed by Georgians) and claims it is Gori and Russian aftermath. Do you not realize that the Caucasus Region is an oil pipeline area. Do you not realize that the US armed and trained the Georgians.”

“Georgia’s president is the new Hitler. He is invading areas and his lies are so incredibly manipulative. The American Media is really showing stupidity here in hopes for new cold war ratings. Neo-cons and globalists are thrilled because now Russia has taken its eye off of the Iran situation."

Another poll taken in Greece yielded the following results:

Who is responsible for the war:

1. Georgia who started the attack and the US who encouraged them

(77.86%, or 3559 votes)

2. The Russians

(3.22 %, 147 votes)

3. All of them

(15.99 % , 731 votes)

4. I don't know

(2.93 %, 134 votes)

South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away from Georgia in the 1990s when Georgia itself broke away from the Soviet Union. Saaskashvili was determined not only to reincorporate them into Georgia again, entirely against the will of their inhabitants, but to punish them for wanting to be independent. There are no military installations or targets in the city of Tskhinvali, none whatsoever. It is an industrial center, with quiet civilian residential areas. It was the home to 30,000 South Ossetians.

When Saakashvili ordered the city to be bombed by warplanes and shelled by heavy artillery, he knew that he would be killing hundreds of civilians in their homes and neighborhoods. But he was determined to have what he wanted and ordered the bombing anyway. What took place in South Ossetia was not merely an invasion or a siege, it was a bloody massacre, a genocide. The people had no way to defend themselves against a fully equipped modern army. It was a war crime and the world community is fully aware of that fact despite the best efforts of the western corporate media to conveniently omit reporting on the crime.

By the time the Georgians along with their American and Israeli enablers were driven out, the city’s downtown area was in engulfed in flames and strewn along streets and sidewalks were the bodies of those who had been killed by sniper fire. Those who did not flee and stayed behind were simply too old, handicapped or infirm to leave. They had to seek shelter in basements waiting for the shelling to stop. It was a bloodbath. The city's only hospital was deliberately targeted and destroyed, another war crime. Over 2,000 people were killed in an operationthat was clearly engineered with the full knowledge, planning and assistance of the Bush White House.

An independence referendum was held in 2006: 99% of South Ossetians said they wanted independence from Georgia. The voter turnout was 95% and the balloting was monitored by 34 international observers from the west. No one has challenged the results. The province has been under the protection of Russian and Georgian peacekeepers since 1992, and has been a de facto independent state ever since.

If Russia applied the same standard as Bush did in Kosovo, he would unilaterally declare South Ossetia independent from Georgia and then thumb his nose at the empire and anyone else objecting.

The representative of Russia to NATO, Dmitry Rogozin, was quite blunt in announcing some home truths. "If we all respect the territorial integrity of Serbia in regards to its Kosovo province, then we are also going to honor the territorial integrity of Georgia. But if someone doesn't respect Serbia's territorial integrity and sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija, then they better shut up about the territorial integrity of Georgia", Rogozin said.

Meanwhile it is absurd to listen to Bush, Rice and Gates jump up and down about borders, territorial integrity and sovereignty when they have shown no respect for any international laws, treaties or agreements they have made. Borders and sovereignty are only concepts they talk about when convenient for their interests. Hypocritically they speak of “bullying” and of the 21^st Century as one where nations don’t go around invading other nations…while they themselves have done so seemingly with impunity and certainly with the complete disapproval of the world community.

Lisa KARPOVA

PRAVDA.Ru