ATLAS EXCLUSIVE: NIDRA POLLER, "DIVINE REALITY"

Nidra Poller, American expat living in not so gay Paree, weighs in on the European's view of Russia's invasion into Georgia. It is all so ....inconvenient it seems. *sigh* (/sarc tag off)  How does Poller live in that morally bankrupt hell hole? (Photo placard reads: "Europe Wake Up")

DIVINE REALITY

Paris 14 August 2008

Nidra Poller

The last time breaking news looked like a movie was 9/11. That should be a tipoff. The mega-apocalypse WTC film was a real jihad attack on U.S. soil and Russian tanks rumbling into Georgia is the intrusion of naked reality in a presidential campaign that pits a lithe young Democrat floating on a cloud of mythology against a grizzly veteran whose wings were clipped in a real war.

The deceivingly small-scale Russo-Georgian conflict, supposedly resolved by exquisite European diplomacy, reminds us that a sudden outburst of military brutality can threaten the integrity of a sovereign nation in the space of a few short days.  It will come as no surprise to learn that near unanimous public opinion in France blames the uppity Georgian president Sakaashvili for foolishly provoking a big, strong, heavily armed bully who has no scruples about striking back 100 to 1. French media—customarily hostile to the government-- looked on with benign neutrality as Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner went into peacemaking action, followed by President Sarkozy’s one-day negotiation of a theoretical cease fire agreement. French officials and commentators studiously refrained from casting blame on Russia and, paradoxically, dismissed President Bush as a lame duck sitting on the sidelines.

Newscasts in the opening days of the conflict were deliberately confusing. Tanks and soldiers were not identified, burning buildings were not located, early Russian claims of 2,000 casualties in Southern Ossetia were indiscriminately relayed, separatist claims of the two disputed regions were taken at face value. However, as the violence intensifies and Russian forces display utter disregard for the terms of the cease fire, reports from French journalists on the ground, visibly shocked by what they are seeing, have become more precise. Though the French president intervened in his role as acting president of the EU, the East-West fissure immediately widened, with former Soviet satellites insisting on unambiguous recognition of Georgia’s territorial integrity.

The question is what can Europeans—united or divided—do about it? Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says the world can forget about Georgia’s territorial integrity. The French, absorbed by August vacations and inflated hopes for Olympic medals, would prefer to forget about Georgia altogether.  Scenes of distressed refugees lugging mattresses were upstaged by the tears of former Olympic swimming champion Laure Manadou--a has-been at the age of 21--and the joys of gold medalists Steeve Guenot and Alain Bernard.

Prestigious print media, busy raking “Micha” over the coals for his ill-fated, impulsive adventure, have shown no interest in geopolitical analysis of the conflict. There is nothing comparable to Melik Kaylan’s incisive exposé of Georgia ‘s strategic importance as a vital node on the East-West North-South axis ( “Welcome Back to the Great Game”  Wall Street Journal )

The outbreak of old-fashioned war, just weeks after Barack Hussein Obama made a whirlwind foreign tour to show he knows his way around, clarifies the hope he inspires in European voters, who would give him a dictator’s +80% score. They are dying to replace the detested Bush with this kinder, more humane, articulate emblem of diversity who will bring America back into the club of urbane civilized nations epitomized by Europe. When know-it-all Europeans are finally called upon to take leadership in dealing with troubles in their own backyard, all they have to offer is one-size-fits-all negotiations:  nobody is to blame, both armies should return to their previous positions, international peacekeepers will move in, and hopefully the whole thing will slip back into the shadows.

This is the kinder more humane approach we are invited to adopt. It is based on an appealing bookish worldview that arranges messy reality into a static three-dimensional text in which the outcome of every action is totally obvious because it can be read on the following page. In the imaginary world of peace campers, hindsight is foresight. No threat is real unless it has already materialized—Saddam Hussein’s Iraq in 2003, Ahmadinejad’s Iran today—and once it does materialize it becomes the fault of George W. Bush and the Zionists.  George W. Bush was supposed to know in advance about 9/11 but no one told us last month to beware of Russian tanks on the make.

Waving Tibetan flags is a lot easier than getting involved in a mess in the Caucasus. While Georgian civilians cry their hearts out the Dalai Lama tours French pagodas dispensing Buddhist teachings and reminding the world of human rights violations in Tibet. His visit is exploited by lightweights as a water pistol to spit in China’s eye and a sash to beat the French president. Sarkozy has been treated as an unscrupulous coward because he didn’t boycott the opening ceremony of the evil Chinese Olympics and now, to avoid offending the unforgiveable Chinese, he is not meeting with the saintly monk. Would anyone dream of doing a hatchet job on the old bonze? In Le Monde for example? Would a snooty journalist ask why the old spiritual pinup is pulling at the sleeve of China’s kimono right smack in the middle of the Beijing Olympics? What could he expect but more repression? You don’t anger the Chinese dragon unless you’ve got a magic sword in your belt!   

 

Above and beyond the choice of a president, American voters will be choosing between the illusion of international harmony –if only we all talk and listen to each other-- and the reality of hostile powers that must be met with military force. Europe, especially France, has been a standing reproach to the American use of military might. And the Democratic Party has used this European scolding as leverage. Today we have a graphic illustration of the world as it is and the results that can be expected from dreaming it out of reality.

 

Comments

[pastorius]

Russia has been controlling the flow of oil being exported into Europe through Georgian pipelines, as I understand it.

This is going to be a hell of a lot more than inconvenient for the Euros once they start getting a load of what's really going on.

Russia wants Europe to be on their side in helping to prevent an attack on Iran. That's my opinion.

[Davod]

Europe is full of Socialists and outright communists. France still has a good spattering of Communists. I wouldn't be surprised if they are cheering Russia's new fond blood lust.

I was just reading an article on the fighting on the French German border in WWII. The front had moved past Strassbourg when the Germans counter attacked as part of the Battle of The Bulge. De Gaulle committed French divisions to Strassbourg because he did not want to give any French land back to the Germans. He forced Eisenhower to keep the US committed to Strassbourg (Threatened to stop the Fench railways from transporting war materials) even though he wanted to shorten the defence line.

However, the moment the situation was more settled (but still precarious) De Gaulle had to rush three divisions back to Paris defend against a Communist takeover.

[Sebaneau]

Anti-Americanism has always existed in France as a way to settle internal scores. Former President Ch'Iraq used it as a diversion from his unwillingness to renounce Socialist plunder and destruction.
There have always been official propagandists for Muscovite imperialism, even on the Right and even at the time of the USSR. One of Moscows's most notorious apologists, a Georgian collaborationist called Zurabishvili, has even become a member of the Académie Française under her husband's name of Carrère d'Encausse.

Now, Putin's overt institutionalized racism has seduced a nationalistic right which had formerly denounced the USSR and never fell for its propaganda.
The nationalistic right's betrayal of anti-Communism began with the Serbolshevik proxy aggression against Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1992: it found in hatred for the Bosniak victims and support for the Serb mass murderers --of whom it knew even less than about the United States-- a way to vent their fear and hatred for the Muslims.
The French government, which would ruthlessly censor any criticism of the very real Muslim invasion in France, was itself an accomplice of the Serbian aggression, and such racism escaped censorship.