Edwards Infidelity Trumps Georgia War

By Cernig

Unbe-fricking-leivable! I am now officially disgusted with America's insular and navel-gazing punditry. En masse and on a bipartisan basis the media, commentators and bloggers have decided that the Edwards Affair story is more important than events in South Ossetia. What happened, folks, did your minds cloud over at contemplation of events beyond these hallowed shores?

Maybe someone can enlighten me as to why the story of yet another politician who ran as a Loyal Family Man but was unable twice to gain the highest of offfices being revealed as a lying hypocrite unable to keep it in his pants is remotely as newsworthy as a full-on war between one of the world's great powers and a nation which is a vocal ally of the USA. Because I admit I'm utterly perplexed by the allocation of priorities here.

Thankfully, there are a few people with their eye on the main event. Robert Farley for one. American Footprints for another. But if you want actual mainstream coverage right now, you're better turning to UK outlets. They don't care a rat's ass for Edward's infidelity.

Despite the rightwing Bush cheerleaders, who never met an anti-Russian leader they didn't like, trying to paint the South Ossetian conflict as a David vs Goliath conflict with Russia doing all the Evil Empire stirring of war by proxy (hang on, isn't South Ossetia the David to Georgia's Goliath too?) and Georgia being a freedom-loving harassed democracy, the Georgians were undoubtably the first State actor to fire shots at another this time around - and Russia has a CIS mandated peacekeeping role in the disputed region. Now, the Georgian president is calling for a ceasefire and at the same time asking his parliament to institute martial law. So much for his freedom loving rhetoric of yesterday, designed to play to the Bush administration's ears.

But let's remember the real reason the Bushies love Georgia. Oil. From the DoE website:

The western route for early oil from Azerbaijan goes from Baku to the Georgian port of Supsa on the Black Sea, and several other proposed pipeline routes, including the proposed Baku-Ceyhan route to the Turkish Mediterranean coast, also pass through Georgia. Both pipeline routes pass near several regions of Georgia that have been the site of separatist struggles in Abkhazia (northwest Georgia) and Ossetia (north central Georgia).

... A coup attempt in 1998 led the chairman of the National Independence Party to call for the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) or the United States to station a military contingent in Georgia to protect Caspian oil transport. In December 1998, representatives from the GUUAM Group (Georgia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Azerbaijan, Moldova) held talks about setting up a special peacekeeping force to protect the oil export pipelines. Proposals were made to work with NATO to set up this force within the framework of the Partnership for Peace Program, which was established by NATO to strengthen ties with former Eastern Bloc and former Soviet states.

Un-amazingly, few have mentioned Cheney's obsession - black gold - in their analysis of the reasons behind American backing for Georgia in it's confrontation with its far larger neighbour.

Comments

[SusanUnPC]

Good for you! I could not believe that i could not find reports yesterday on CNN, MSNBC or even Fox News, except very brief, in passing, reports.

I turned to BBC World News radio for real coverage.

This is a true crisis that offers a test for the presidential candidates. It is vital that this crisis receive the utmost attention in the media.

[Mair]

All world does not know the truth. Please rescue my children. We die for famine in cellars. Go here and learn(find out) the truth about that as the Georgians scoff at us! http: // southosetia.wordpress.com

[Frank]

n Western Georgia, in Kutaisi, the groups from Western Ukraine and Pribaltic fashists are generated which have changed clothes in the Russian form and have received the Russian weapon. Many cities of Western Georgia are now left by the Georgian armies and police, and Russia does not want to begin occupation actually of Georgia, therefore there complete anarhy, the population is given to itself and is without protection.
Under the information of the military journalists, USA by hands óêðàèíöåâ and Balts is prepared grandiose provocation - by(with) mass atrocities among the local population under a kind of the Russian militarians.

All of them, certainly, speak Russian also white, so the Georgian population will not distinguish them from Russian. With these European "misters" a video and photoequipment for record "of «Russian" atrocities.
THE PROVOCATIONS ARE POSSIBLE(PROBABLE) In the NEAR FUTURE!

Georgia is need help! Rescue country from Saakashvili!!!

[Lewis]

Good evening, ladies and gentlemans. but it is not so good evening. There is a smell of gunpowder in the world air. There is a war in South Osetia.
This war began in the darkness of 8 of August of this year.
All of us knows about horrors and vio;ences of this war - about crashed techics, about killed civilians, about executed injured soldiers.... But! There are many voices all over the world about "human rights" But if i don`t understand something, if there are very strange human rights. In the massmedia there is an opinion, that russian soldiers make many violences in Osetia.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) - a foreign comitee - asks war sides to stop flood of desinformation, but it shows, that it isn`t consider russian information truth. And it nobody says about Georgia. What is the matter? This is not so truth, when one side beat the other in the information war!