A look at the coverage of the Russia-Georgia conflict, which has a tendency to be overtly anti-Russia despite the fact Georgia initiated the current battles in the region

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David Lindorff, an ardent advocate for impeachment of George W. Bush and Dick Cheney, posted an article this morning detailing the media’s coverage of the current relatively small war between Russia and Georgia. He accurately stated, “This is not news. This is propaganda.”

When comparing current coverage of the conflict to the lack of media coverage of the current Iraq and Afghanistan wars, it’s hard not to question what we are reading and wonder if media is giving us the truth. In fact, a passing glance at the stories about the current Russia-Georgia conflict show a clear anti-Russian sentiment even though Georgia is responsible for igniting this bloody mess.

The U.S. and other allied powers may be intentionally making it difficult for the world to understand the history of this volatile region or the who, what, where, when, and why of the current situation.

Georgia is U.S.-backed and has been since US-educated Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili took power. Saakashvili came to power on a platform of reclaiming South Ossetia and Abkhazia for Georgia and there is no way that the U.S. could not have seen this coming.

While the U.S. called for a ceasefire in the conflict as it condemned Russia’s “disproportionate response,” the U.S. airlifted Georgian troops out of Iraq and into the combat zone. (Georgia, until the conflict began, had the third most troops of any country deployed in Iraq.)

All of this should come as no surprise if you aware of this chain of events, which Asia Times details:

As an economic crisis and lawlessness grew in Georgia in the recent past, Russian diplomacy began shifting gear in Tbilisi, encouraging the elements that stood for better relations with Moscow. Up to a point, Moscow was right in doing so. But it failed to see that from Saakashvili's perspective, as his authoritarian regime became more and more unpopular and the debris of misgovernance, corruption and venality began to accumulate, it paid to whip up xenophobia. Russia was the best target, as nothing inflames Georgian passions better than the issue of the country's integrity.

That is why Moscow protested when it began to be known that with encouragement from the United States, Tbilisi was embarking on a plan to dramatically increase its military budget 30 times. This Georgian move went side-by-side with growing US assistance in training the Georgian army. Moscow began asking a pertinent question as to who it was that Tbilisi visualized getting into a war with.

Moscow proposed that an agreement could be signed committing all protagonists to commit to non-use of force in settling differences. But Tbilisi wouldn't have such an agreement. Nor would Washington prevail on Tbilisi to accept one. Not only that, Washington closed its eyes when clandestine supplies of weapons began pouring into Tbilisi. In July, the US Department of Defense funded a military exercise with Georgia. In retrospect, the turning point came when US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Tbilisi last month.

Saakashvili drew inspiration from Rice's statements endorsing Georgia's claim for membership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and open backing of the Georgian stance in its standoff with Russia. It is a moot point whether Saakashvili unilaterally drew conclusions from Rice's diplomatic gesture or a tacit Washington-Tbilisi understanding came about.

At any rate, Saakashvili let loose the dogs of war within a month of Rice's visit to Tbilisi. And he acted with immaculate timing - when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was on summer vacation and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin had left Moscow to attend the opening ceremony of the Olympics. On balance, it is inconceivable Washington was in the dark about how Saakashvili's mind was working.

Since Saakashvili let loose, George W. Bush and policy advisers have done everything possible to conflate the conflict in a way so that it would seem like Russia is entirely responsible for the fiasco. McCain and Obama have also issued quotes that lead one to believe Russia is primarily to blame for the problems in the volatile region.

CNN and MSNBC are using an AP article that quotes President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia saying, “I have reached a decision to halt the operation to force the Georgian authorities to peace…The aggressor has been punished and has incurred very significant losses. Its armed forces are disorganized." And has made sure people are aware of the fact that Russia supports separatists in South Ossetia that have been giving Georgia trouble.

FOX News’ headline, “Georgia Reports Attacks Continue as Russia's Medvedev Orders Troop Withdrawal,” is enough to foster anti-Russian sentiments. While it works hard to maintain objectivity, if one reads the entire article, you can see such objectivity fizzle as a brief history of how Russia, as one Polish leader is quoted at the end, “has once again shown its face, its true face” unfolds without mentioning past U.S. involvement in Georgia.

The Daily Telegraph from the UK maintains the same type of coverage as FOX News. It features various accounts of the carnage in this article on the current situation, accounts that primarily focus on Russian shelling of buildings.

One intriguing paragraph is the following:

Over half an hour after Mr Medvedev gave his ceasefire order, The Daily Telegraph saw three Russian helicopters fire nine missiles at targets 25 miles north of Tbilisi. It was not immediately clear what they were shooting at.

It leads one to wonder if such an account should be published if it is not clear what really happened. But, it supports the line that Russia is the aggressor and so there’s no problem with not getting all the information before publishing it.

The Times of the UK, owned by Rupert Murdoch, featured a similar paragraph in its coverage:

After President Medvedev's announcement of a halt to operations, however, The Times saw three attack helicopters rising suddenly from behind a hillside deep into Georgia about halfway along the road from Gori to Tbilisi. They swooped low before unleashing what appeared to be three sets of incendiary flares in the direction of Georgian farmland.

Both are suspicious because of how vaguely they are written and lead one to wonder if media outlets were intentionally trying to sow doubt in the minds of people that Russia was going to obey any sort of ceasefire.

Indeed, the Daily Mail of the UK published an opinion editorial titled, “Why puppetmaster Putin is more dangerous than ever.” Not only are we to fear Russia, but we are to fear the ex-KGB agent who enjoys power in Russia despite the fact that he is no longer the nation’s commander-in-chief.

In contrast to U.S. and U.K. media, a few other outlets have chosen to say a bit more rather than simpy parrot descriptions of Russian aggression like the U.S. or U.K. coverage of the conflict.

The Australian Broadcasting Corporation in its article on the ceasefire says in the opening sentence, “Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has called an end to the military operation in Georgia, but has stressed that in the event of Georgian attack, Russian troops will hit back.” Few outlets have chosen to cover Russia's belief that Georgia will continue the conflict.

Why might Medvedev suspect Georgia will continue its military adventure into South Ossetia?

Another province, Abkhazia, despite the calls for ceasefire, is defending itself against the Georgian onslaught. According to another press outlet accurately covering the story, the Mail & Guardian from South Africa said:

Separatists in the Black Sea region of Abkhazia, west of the main war theatre, launched a major push early on Tuesday to drive Georgian forces out of the Kodori Gorge -- the only area of the province under Georgian control.

"The operation to liberate Kodori Gorge has started," Abkhazia's self-styled foreign minister Sergei Shamba said. "Our troops are making advances. We are hoping for success."

Abkhazia has made it clear Russia is not involved in this although Russian aircraft has been reported by the U.S. and U.K. press as still being engaged in combat. (Such Russian involvement was covered previously in this article with attention given to the ambiguity of the coverage.)

Abkhazia, like South Ossetia, has claimed it is independent from Georgia, and Saakashvili, president of Georgia, has opposed such claim.

So, it’s no wonder that Russia suggests that it might have to hit Georgia again with its military might.

The U.S. and U.K press have failed to cover the continuing skirmishes without suggesting Russia is behind the fighting, which now presumably is just between Abkhazia and South Ossetia and Georgia.

Perhaps, it would be worth asking if the Heritage Foundation has been sending Ariel Cohen's assessment of the situation around to news outlets, which wrongly characterizes the situation by blaming the situation on the separatists, despite the fact that Georgia violated a ceasefire by embarking on a military adventure:

As the Olympic Games opened, the tragic and ominous conflict between Georgia and Russia erupted as well. On Thursday of last week, South Ossetian separatists, supported by Moscow, escalated their machine gun and mortar fire attacks against neighboring Georgian villages. This past Thursday and Friday, Georgia attacked the separatist capital Tskhinvali with artillery to suppress fire. Tskhinvali suffered severe damage, thus providing the pretext for Moscow's long-planned invasion of Georgia.

What does it mean when you Google "Ariel Cohen Heritage Foundation Russia Georgia" and return over 10,000 articles related to the "Georgia crisis"? I'm not big on making arguments with Google results, but I do wonder how much stock has been put in Cohen's assessment especially since it is posted on Pravda.

By being able to control the propaganda---the information being read---it’s difficult for one to grapple with the stark differences in the reports coming out of China and Russia, allies which oppose an attack on Iran and have stalled U.S. foreign policy goals in the past few years that the Bush Administration has been in power.

Is Xinhua, a news source out of China, telling the truth when it reports, “On Friday, Georgian troops began a military action against South Ossetia's forces in an attempt to re-establish control over the region”? If so, why didn’t that fact appear at the top or better, why were the first stories on the conflict from the region in the U.S. and U.K press stories of Russian aggression?

Is Pravda, a Russian news media outlet, wrong when it makes the point this article is attempting to make?

“The evidence to proof the USA’s hand behind the Georgian aggression against South Ossetia can be found in Western media. Western news agencies, Reuters, for example, have been distributing countless photographs depicting Russia’s supposed atrocities in Georgia. Such photos along with adequate headlines can be found in practically all US newspapers (The New York Times is the best example for it). All of them unanimously accuse Russia of aggression against Georgia, but they do not say a word about Georgia’s actions against civilians in S. Ossetia.”

In fact, Pravda has published several articles that are worth considering.

Particularly, Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey has been writing up a slew of opinion editorials that attempt to highlight “the truth” of the matter. Each article makes points that are tough to refute.

Illuminating a divide that existed between Georgia and Russia since Saakashvili took power, Hinchey writes:

The Russian Foreign Ministry has been issuing daily reports about the escalating tension in the area, and while Moscow has bent over backwards to find a peaceful and mutually acceptable solution, the Western media have consistently ignored the story while Georgia has consistently snubbed all efforts towards peace, while carrying out cowardly underhanded and treacherous attacks such as we have seen today.

Hinchey opens another article stating:

If the people of the world are being asked to judge the actions of the Russian Federation through press reports based on the information that is presented to them, then it would be a good idea to begin from a viewpoint whereby the international media presents the truth and not some half-baked subjective attempt to package the story in a way that is hostile to Moscow.

In closing, I wish to draw attention to three articles that I think get this struggle right. By that I mean these articles accurately cover the situation.

Right now, Americans are tuned in to the Olympics largely uninterested in this conflict (I presume). And why should they?

Particular outbreaks in past years in Lebanon and the Gaza strip didn’t lead to the public stopping their lives to get informed. Situations in Zimbabwe and Kenya didn’t spark public outcry. While people were outraged about Burma, that uproar has died down as a prime backer in the aggression in the region, China, shows the world how it can host the Olympics so well.

So, if people wish to really understand the conflict, here’s three articles I suggest they tune in to: Justin Zaimondo’s coverage on Antiwar.com (who predicted this war, albeit a small one, would happen), this article by Ann Talbot over at WSWS.com, and this article posted on Pravda by Timothy Bancroft-Hinchey, which I will post in full below.

Taking the words of the illustrious King of Spain, in his imbecillic retort to President Hugo Chavez, we use them not as a response to a diatribe but rather, a just retort to an imbecile. President George W. Bush, why don’t you shut up?

President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? In your statement on Monday regarding the legitimate actions of the Russian Federation in Georgia, you failed to mention once the war crimes perpetrated by Georgian military forces, which American advisors support, against Russian and Ossetian civilians. Kinda embarrassing, eh?

President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Your faithful ally, Mikhail Saakashvili, was announcing a ceasefire deal while his troops, with your advisors, were massing on Ossetia’s border, which they crossed under cover of night and destroyed Tskhinvali, targeting civilian structures just like your forces did in Iraq. Kinda humanitarian, eh?

President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? The military forces of your faithful ally, Georgia, supported by American advisors, while on a mission as peacekeepers in Ossetia, were ordered to open fire on Russian peacekeeping forces in the same team. Kinda noble, eh?

President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Your American transport aircraft gave a ride home to thousands of Georgian soldiers from Iraq directly into the combat zone. Did your boys wish them good luck as they stepped off the aircraft? I can almost hear it, “Give ‘em Hell!” Kinda friendly, eh?

President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? How do you account for the fact that among the Georgian soldiers fleeing the fighting yesterday you could clearly hear officers using American English giving orders to “Get back inside” and how do you account for the fact that there are reports of American soldiers among the Georgian casualties? Kinda odd, eh?

President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Do you really think anyone gives any importance whatsoever to your words after 8 years of your criminal and murderous regime and policies? Do you really believe you have any moral ground whatsoever and do you really imagine there is a single human being anywhere on this planet who does not stick up his middle finger every time you appear on a TV screen? Kinda makes ya’ll think, eh?

Do you really believe you have the right to give any opinion or advice after Abu Ghraib? After Guantanamo? After the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens? After the torture by CIA operatives? Kinda difficult, eh?

Do you really believe you have any right to make a statement on any point of international law after your trumped-up charges against Iraq and the subsequent criminal invasion? Like spittin’ into the wind, right?

President Bush,

Why don’t you shut up? Suppose Russia for instance declares that Georgia has weapons of mass destruction? And that Russia knows where these WMD are, namely in Tblisi and Poti and north, south, east and west of there? And that it must be true because there is “magnificent foreign intelligence” such as satellite photos of milk powder factories and baby cereals producing chemical weapons and which are currently being “driven around the country in vehicles”? Suppose Russia declares for instance that “Saakashvili stiffed the world” and it is “time for regime change”?

Nice and simple, isn’t it, President Bush?

So, why don’t you shut up? Oh and by the way, send some more of your military advisors to Georgia, they are doing a sterling job. And they look all funny down the night sight, all green. Hahaha!

Thank you, That would be all.

Authors Bio:
Kevin Gosztola is managing editor of Shadowproof Press. He also produces and co-hosts the weekly podcast, "Unauthorized Disclosure." He was an editor for OpEdNews.com