#39 - JRL 2008-180 - JRL Home
Date: Thu, 2 Oct 2008
From: GORDON HAHN <gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: A Final Response to Col. Hamilton (and an aside or two on Mr Worms) [re: Russo-Georgian War]

Below are probably final responses to Mr. Worms and Col. Hamilton. Before responding to Col. Hamilton’s response of Monday, Sept. 29 to my response, I would like to clarify a “point” made by Mr Worms in his last missive of Oct. 1. He claims that I “spend my time between Berkeley and St. Petersburg” in an attempt to denigrate me apparently as an out-of-touch leftist professor with at best dual loyalties and close ties to Russia. Let’s get some things straight. I am considerably more conservative than liberal, do my best to stay as faraway from Berkeley and other liberal havens, and I visit Russia once a year for a couple of weeks. My position, as I have written numerous times here and elsewhere is that not only is Georgia guilty in bringing this war about but so are Russia, the US, and the breakaway republics. I have condemned Russia’s use of irregular forces, especially Chechens led by a commander who at the time had a Russian warrant out on him, in the war. I also regard Russia’s political moves before the war as provocative and violations of international law (passports to breakaway republic citizens, the railroad troops sent to Abkhazia, the establishment of direct ties to the breakaway republics). I also regard Moscow’s recognition of the breakaway republics as independent states as provocative and unnecessary. Its justification that the West recognized Kosovo does not hold water. Moscow condemned the support for Kosovo for numerous reasons based on legal and moral logic but now is doing the same and using some of the same arguments. Two wrongs do not make a right. The Pandora’s Box that was opened in Kosovo has now been kicked over and spilt all over the floor in Georgia.

However, Georgia helped. It was also engaged in pre-war provocations including the most serious kind: military attacks on South Ossetia beginning in escalated form on July 4. Georgia’s July 4 attacks killed 3 and wounded 11 South Ossetian civilians. This prompted a temporary general mobilization by the Ossetian side. It is of interest that a new Georgian timeline produced on August 28 passes over this day, see the Georgian Foreign Ministry’s “Timeline of Russian Aggression,” August 25, 2008, http://georgiandaily.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=6625&Itemid=65. At the time, the Georgians claimed the South Ossetian side fired first on the Georgian villages of Tamarasheni and Nikozi but reported no casualties; of course, casualty claims are more verifiable than claims as to who shot first. Peacekeepers often reported that the Georgian side fired first. Also, the South Ossetian side stated that Georgian peacekeepers abandoned their posts and went over to the Georgian forces two hours before Georgian forces fired on Tskhinvali, as they apparently did on August 7. [www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1224726.html] That this occurred as US and Georgian troops were preparing for military maneuvers appeared another attempt by Saakashvili to tie the US commitment to his struggle with his separatists. A similar set of events occurred on August 1.

The above is pertinent to some of Col. Hamilton’s comments addressed below, to which I now turn directly.

I will stick to my assertion that military assistance to Georgia had an element of recklessness. It constitutes outright reckless as it has been combined with NATO expansion to Georgia and Ukraine.

Col. Hamilton merely repeats Maj. Schaefer’s point that any army needs snipers. Whether it has to be the US and Ukraine that provides them the supplies and training is another story.

More importantly, is the point (made and documented by Patrick Armstrong and later referenced by me) that the Ukraine supplied amounts of military equipment to Tbilisi beyond what Georgia’s budget could even begin to maintain. Why was this necessary and who paid for these weapons? This is recklessness. If Washington did not pay for them, I doubt it did not organize the effort. There is no reason to be engaged in this massive armament effort to an unstable quasi-democracy with grave stateness problems.

Col. Hamilton continues to “cling” to the view that Georgian forces did not concentrate in and around the conflict zone before Aug 7. Unfortunately, NATO’s Military Committee composed of officers from the 26 NATO countries (including Poland etc.) have concluded otherwise, assert that the Georgians were long in preparing a blitzkrieg for South Ossetia, and a German colonel seconded to, as I recall, the OSCE, and in Georgian in july, has said that he witnessed Georgian preparations for war in July. (see “Did Saakashvili Lie? - The West Begins to Doubt Georgian Leader,” Der Spiegel, September 15, 2008). In this connection refer above to the events of July, particularly the 4th thereof. What might add the claim by former Georgian Defense Minister Okruashvili that he and Saakashvili drew up war plans for South Ossetia and Abkhazia in 2005. This is immediately after Saakashvili’s first attempt to take back South Ossetia by force in 2004, the beginning of US involvement with Georgian military affairs, and the beginning of serious talk of Georgia’s entry into NATO. It seems to me that Saakashvili was intent on using his partnership with the US and NATO as a means to take back the breakaway republics by force and perhaps them in this effort, regardless of what we intended to get from the relationship.

It seems to me a bit absurd to argue that it was impossible for Georgia to mass 12,000 troops around the zone given that, as Col. Hamilton notes later in his comment, it includes 28,000 plus. The other foreign and internal deployments Col. Hamilton mentions do prove a commitment of 16,000 troops. Moreover, to the larger point of intentions, 12,000 troops are likely not necessary; as few as 8,000 might have been enough, minus a Russian intervention.

Col. Hamilton suggests that I stated that the US Embassy simply regurgitates information from the host country. I did not say that. I said that if the US Embassy was relying on other sources, then US Amb. Burns’ testimony did not reflect that. He cited only one source and did it twice: the Georgian government. He could have said the Georgian government and other sources, but he did not. This suggests US decisionmakers are relying inordinately on Georgian government sources or at least are willing to give them veracity in public, while suspecting them in private.

Col. Hamilton twice seems it sufficient to mention that I used a “Russian source” to discredit the points about which side fired first on Aug 7th and the lacking quality of Georgian democracy (which I will address below). Both of the sources cited are anti-Kremlin, pro-democracy organizations. I assume most JRL leaders know Novaya gazeta and www.kavkaz-uzel.ru, so it’s a bit risky for your credibility to be trying to discredit them for being Russian. I guess being even pro-Western Russians is blight on your reputation in certain circles. Yet somehow Col. Hamilton is willing to cite Russian sources ­ Permskie novosti - when they provide anecdotal, even unreliable data that might support his own point of view.

Col. Hamilton claims that he does not and never did claim that the Ossetians were the only ones firing. I never claimed he did claim that. He claims that there was a pattern of the Ossetians firing first. Actually, only the Georgians have reported that. The Russians, the Ossetians, and the peacekeeping force monitors and observers (which included Georgians and Western OSCE member-country officials, not just Russians and North Ossetians as most sources claim) report that in some cases, including on July 4th, the Georgians fired first. In some cases, they could not determine who fired first. See my Chronology posted on JRL on Sept 22

Col. Hamilton claims that in the New York Times September 16 article regarding tapes purporting to sound Ossetian and Russian soldiers around the Roki Tunnel on Aug 7 ushering Russian forces into South Ossetia, are described in the article as “credible by U.S. intelligence sources.” If these are the same sources that gave us the pipes from Nigeria and Iran’s abandonment of its nuclear weapons program, I would suggest that we NOT form our Russia and Georgian policies or our view of the Ossetian war based on this interpretation of these tapes.

Moreover, the New York Times article reads: “The Times provided a range of American government and military officials with copies of the independent translations for comment. They cautioned that while the conversations appeared to be from genuine cellphone intercepts, no complete or official assessment could be made without access to the entire file of cellphone audio gathered by the Georgians. They said the question of provocation and response in the conflict remained under scrutiny in Washington.” It appears, from this quote, that these officials understand that the date of the recordings is in questions still.

The New York Times’ spin on its interviews, something I suspect Col. Hamilton usually takes with many, large grains of salt, reads: “(S)enior American officials have reviewed and described as credible if not conclusive, suggest there were Russian military movements earlier than had previously been acknowledged, whether routine or hostile, into Georgian territory as tensions accelerated toward war. They also suggest the enduring limits ­ even with high-tech surveillance of critical battlefield locations ­ of penetrating the war’s thick fogs.” Even this spin is highly qualified and limits the conclusion. Yet Col. Hamiltion and PR agent Worms continue to claim to know for sure that the Russians and the Russians alone planned and started this war. Finally, in connection with this, I again note, referring to events in July and early on August that this war did not really start on Aug 7, it merely escalated from a low-intensity quasi-guerilla war of sorts to all-out war on that date.

Speaking of this escalation, I have already addressed some issues regarding ethnic cleansing in my response to Mr. Worms, in which I noted the problem of separating the spreading of fires from so0called willful destruction called ethnic cleansing. Col. Hamilton speaks of HRW’s (www.hrw.org/doc/?t=europe) “credible reports” on 16 and 21 September. However, I will quote another:

“Zalina insists that we all sit down at the table on her terrace. She has managed find something to offer us, although she has had no flour for a long time and no oil. But on the table are things from better times: homemade cheese with holes, fruit from the garden, nuts and homemade wine. She chatters away. ‘All the houses were untouched on 10 August, only the school was burning. But after that it really got going and there seems to be no end. I am really sorry that all those Georgians have lost their houses. Many of them were good, simple people who absolutely did not want war. Their sons mostly worked in Tskhinvali. But I can understand the arsonists too. During the first war, in the nineties, Georgians burnt many of the Ossetian houses. Then everything went quiet, of course. But recently, when the Georgian police erected their posts in the area, they really tormented people from the Ossetian villages. To get from town to town you had to go through these checkpoints and they stopped all food bought in Tskhinvali, saying it was smuggled goods and that everything had to be bought in Georgia. They asked all sorts of questions and searched our things. This made life unbearable for so many people. I think that if there had been no Georgian police checkpoints and no harassment, there would have been no pillage and arson. There's a village not far from here, Archnetti, where Georgians and Ossetians still live side by side quite peacefully’" (http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/09/29/russia19891.htm)

Notice the word ‘arsonists.’ It’s a long way from perhaps ethnically motivated local (perhaps Ossetian) arsonists to a hard and fast conclusion of an orchestrated Russian campaign of ethnic cleansing. I continue to suspect the mere spreading of fires originally set by combat explains a part of what is being called ethnic cleansing. To be sure, there were some isolated cases of random destruction, perhaps a handful of wanton murders. Whether this amounts to “ethnic cleansing” or just troops running amuck and taking revenge is another story. As noted in my response to Worms and the sources I provided there, the Georgians were engaged in the same exact activities, but no one calls it ethnic cleansing. On this score, I wonder how often Col. Hamilton accepts without reservation HRW and other NGO reports on atrocities allegedly committed by Western troops in Iraq and Afghanistan.

What, incidentally, is the bombing of the overwhelming ethnic Ossetian city of Tskhinvali and Ossetian villages with notoriously inaccurate Grad artillery systems, if burning, say, ten houses are arson attacked in each of, say, ten Georgian village is ethnic cleansing? If the former is not ethnic cleansing, then why not? Oddly, it is not regarded as ethnic cleansing by HRW, other NGOs, the US, or NATO, even though Georgian forces have committed atrocities against Ossetians on numerous occasions over the last three centuries and as recently as 16 years ago. I think these organizations and their people are often willing to report and believe “credible reports” that are not so credible when it comes to some forces as opposed to others having allegedly committed atrocities. I would put the US and Russia at the top of their ‘list of suspects’ in this regard. The use of the term ‘ethnic cleansing’ is often arbitrary. It is useful for mobilizing Western and other liberals, invoking the image of ‘hate crimes,’ etc. Unfortunately, political correctness, requires that ‘ethnic cleansing’ and ‘hate crimes be applied in one direction, first of all and most readily to European, especially the former colonial or imperial states. Less attention is devoted such events when they appear to have been perpetrated by non-Europeans and smaller states and nations. When the latter engage in ethnic cleansing, then it is the former colonial powers that are to blame for the colonial legacy problems that ‘produced’ interethnic animosities and for any contemporary unwillingness, ironically enough, to intervene.

In terms of misreporting by HRW in its apparent rush to report breaking news and perhaps due to its eagerness to incriminate Moscow, HRW’s early reporting on alleged Russian use of cluster bombs in Gori turned out to be inaccurate, and it belatedly acknowledged this after these first reports poisoned public opinion towards Russia on this score. It turned out that it was in fact Georgia that used cluster bombs - (Lisa Schlein, “Human Rights Watch Says Both Russia, Georgia Used Cluster Bombs,” Voice of America, September 1, 2008). Georgia has acknowledged its use of said, while Russia has denied using cluster bombs and may ultimately be exonerated fully (see “HRW Continues False Accusations Against Russia.” Moon of Alabama www.moonofalabama.org/2008/09/hrw-continues-f.html, September 2, 2008). No matter the public now thinks the Russians certainly used the cluster bombs, and the Georgians never did. First reports stick and often reflect direction of the news agency’s or NGO’s bias. Some good behind-the-scenes PR work (disinformation feeding) may have been done here as well.

We have seen (You Tube, but not on CNN or FOX) the indiscriminate firing of automatic weapons by Georgian soldiers from their APCs on residential housing. This raises the question: What would have happened if the city had not been evacuated and the Georgians had won the war, occupied the region, etc.? Quite often in these interethnic (and other) wars, both or all sides engage in war crimes: see Yugoslavia, Iraq etc. The loser is often mistaken as the morally superior, when in reality he simply did not get the chance to seize as much territory and kill as many civilians. I know this is not politically correct, but it reality. I also know that some human rights organizations have noted Russian efforts to stop Ossetian looting and burning (See, for example, Tanya Lokshina (chair of the NGO Demos, and a member of Human Rights Watch), “South Ossetia: Tskhinvali’s Apocalypse,” Open Democracy, 31 August 2008, www.opendemocracy.net). This hardly suggests that the Russians “orchestrated” a campaign of ethnic cleansing. It shows that like the Georgians, there was a lot of anger, thirst for revenge, and ethnic hatred, perhaps but not an orchestrated ethnic cleansing or genocide campaign. Yes, I agree and have always stated that the Ossetian and then Russian repeat of the claim of a Georgian ‘genocide campaign was absurd. I think the claims of orchestrated ethnic cleansing on the part of either side at this point can only be regarded as cynical.

Col. Hamilton either was confused, did not wrote clearly, or something worse occurred when he wrote: “Professor Hahn also disputes my assertion that the Georgians did not intentionally cause heavy civilian casualties, noting that the internationally accepted casualty figure (from the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights) for Tskhinvali has been raised to 133, which he states is ‘nearly twice as high as Georgian civilian casualties.’ Actually, the Georgian government lists a total of 364 casualties from the war, 194 of which are civilians. These numbers are based upon human remains received by the Georgian Health Ministry, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Defense. Since foreign embassies, international media and NGOs have full access to Georgia and the Georgian government’s institutions and facilities, these numbers must be held to be reasonably accurate. This is in contrast to the figures published by the Russian and South Ossetian governments, which cannot be independently verified and are thus highly suspect. My point was not that Georgian military operations produced no civilian casualties; it was that there was no orchestrated attempt on the part of Georgia to commit “genocide” in South Ossetia.”

First, there clearly was intentional Georgian targeting of Ossetian residences and citizens. The use of notoriously inaccurate Grad artillery systems on a residential city is a decision to hit civilians. One can see You Tube and the human rights NGO Memorial’s report I cite in my response to Mr Worms a few days ago. Hopefully accidental, was the destruction Tskhinvali’s synagogue and Jewish center reported by the World Jewish Congress.

Second, when discussing my number of 133 Georgian “civilian casualties” that I note, Col Hamilton switches to “casualties” numbering 194 Georgian civilians. Of course, casualties include both killed and wounded. I have not seen a figure higher than 69 Georgian civilians killed, this is approximately half of 133 Ossetian killed. Moreover, these numbers are official Georgian figures which Col. Hamilton, like Amb Burns on other issues, is willing to rely on. Does he know whether Western NGOs or governments have checked their veracity? HRW has not and will not because it is not its remit (see the comment of Rachel Denber, deputy director for Europe and Central Asia at HRW, “Russia: Report on Civilian Casualties in South Ossetia,” JRL, 25 September 2008, Item #23).

GEORGIA’S UNDEMOCRACY

Georgia’s democracy and elections, Col Hamilton says I cited Novaya Gazeta, the nasty “Russian newspaper.” In fact cited it and OSCE reports. Col. Hamilton then cherry picks a quote from an OSCE report on “the concrete and substantial progress” of Georgian elections. This is the stock phrase that the OSCE uses when for political reasons it needs to downplay the level of violations highlighted in the more substantive part of its reports. In one of those more substantive parts on Saakashvili’s 2008 re-election, the OSCE report found that 33 percent of the presidential ballot was counted incorrectly. This was regarded by the OSCE as an improvement over Saakashvili’s first election to the presidency.

I would encourage seeing the final OSCE / ODIHR report on Georgia’s 2008 parliamentary elections at www.osce.org/documents/odihr/2008/09/32898_en.pdf. This was summed up in Michael Stott, “Stuffed ballots, biased campaign tainted Georgia vote: OSCE,” Reuters, September 9, 2008. An excerpt: “Ballot-box stuffing, beatings of opposition activists, biased news coverage and government officials campaigning for President Mikheil Saakashvili's party tainted Georgia's parliamentary elections this year, Europe's main election watchdog said on Tuesday. The United States praised Georgia as a "courageous young democracy" after its brief war with Russia last month; but the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe's (OSCE) ODIHR arm said there were many significant shortcomings in a May 21 election, when Saakashvili's party won a big majority….Its final report was significantly tougher than the monitors' initial report, which described election day as calm and generally positive, although with some shortcomings..”

In this regard, see also the links to the OSCE, You Tube and much else that Patrick Armstrong included in his response to Col. Hamilton “Some Truths Regarding Georgia” in the September 22 or 23 edition of JRL, Item #28. I’d like to add to all this that Saakashvili just last week, I believe, closed another opposition television station. There is no longer a nationwide independent television station in Georgia. When the Russians did such things it got quite a bit of coverage. On this re: Geargia ­ a deafening silence.

I would encourage those who can read Russian to read the Novaya Gazeta articles on the Georgian elections as well. Remember this “Russian newspaper” was Anna Politkovskaya’s home, and there are many more Anna Politkovskayas at Novaya. On occasion they engage in something other than the kind of reporting that paints the worst possible picture of Russia that is so well received by people of Col. Hamilton’s “mindset”…..most of the time.

Finally, Col. Hamilton seems to think that every time I or apparently anyone else mentions the deficiencies in Georgia’s political system, we are obliged to spend at least part of that space condemning yet again Russia’s political system. I have done the latter elsewhere in writing and much more than Col. Hamilton has, I am sure. I have written long articles on Russia’s “stealth authoritarianism”, on Russia’s rollback of democracy and federalism, and problems with Russia’s actions in the North Caucasus. However, unlike Col. Hamilton’s colleagues at CSIS, I have not exaggerated the nature of Russian authoritarianism, denied the negative effect of NATO expansion on Russian democracy and westernization, and I have not denied the rise of jihadism within the Chechen separatist movement or hidden from view its rather ugly aspects, including declaring jihad on the US, GB and Israel (Tel Aviv ceased its arms supplies to Tbilisi only a week before the Ossetian war).

In short, I have no dog in this fight, Mr. Worms and Col. Hamilton. Can you say the same?

Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D.

Senior Researcher

Terrorism Research and Education Program

Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of International Policy Studies

Monterey Institute for International Studies

Senior Researcher Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies

Akribis Group

23 Metro Drive, Suite 500

San Jose, CA 95110

Dr. Hahn is author of two well-received books, Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007) and Russia’s Revolution From Above, 1985-2000 (Transaction Publishers, 2002) as well as numerous articles in academic journals and English and Russian language print and electronic media. He has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities, as well as Saint Petersburg State University, Russia as a Fulbright Scholar and has been a fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Hoover Institution.