U.S.-RUSSIA FIGHT
SHARPENS . . .OIL FUELS GEORGIA WAR
Russian and U.S.-backed Georgian forces have
killed thousands of civilians as they battle for oil routes and political
dominance in the republic of Georgia that was part of the southern region of the
former Soviet Union. (Georgia broke away from Russia after 1991.) Fighting began
on August 8 when Georgia launched an offensive to regain control of the South
Ossetia region from pro-Russian separatists. Moscow responded by sending in
troops and tanks and shelling cities.
“War started today,” Russian
premier Putin boasted to George Bush at the Beijing Olympics (Bloomberg,
8/08/08). Bush, leader of “the world’s sole superpower,” could
only mutter feebly about “supporting Georgia’s territorial
integrity.” A day later, 4,000 Russian troops landed in Abkhazia, another
breakaway Georgian province. Russia’s Black Sea fleet steamed to the
Georgian coast threatening a blockade.
RUSSIA COULD GRAB MAJOR
U.S. PIPELINE
Putin’s moves in Georgia endanger the
centerpiece of U.S. rulers’ efforts to counter Russia’s expanding
energy-based imperialism. The new U.S.- and British-financed Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan
(BTC) oil pipeline, one of the world’s largest, runs through Georgia,
skirting South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Opened in 2006, operated by British
Petroleum, and owned partly by Chevron, it carries more than one million barrels
of Caspian crude per day to Western Europe and the U.S. through the Turkish port
of Ceyhan on the Mediterrean (see map).
Strategists in the Clinton administration
chose the BTC route in order to bypass Russia and Iran. Its Ceyhan terminus sits
conveniently close to the U.S. Air Force’s vast base at Incirlik, Turkey.
But the U.S. has nevertheless proven supremely incapable of protecting its BTC
lifeline. Russian troops reportedly fired on it in Georgia. And Kurdish rebels
in Turkey had shut it down temporarily a week before by setting it on
fire.
GEORGIA’S EMBATTLED PRESIDENT TOOL OF LIBERAL
U.S. BOSSES
The fighting in Georgia is one for control of
the world’s energy resources. U.S. rulers’ struggle to control
Georgia is aimed at preventing their Russian rivals from replacing the U.S. as
the world’s main energy controller. But oil and gas are only part —
though a very big part — of an even larger conflict between U.S. and
Russian rulers over political and military control of the former Soviet nations
now outside Russia.
Expanding NATO throughout the former Soviet
bloc and installing a shield of nuclear missiles there, aimed at Russia as well
as at Iran, are vital U.S. goals. But ever since they boosted the anti-Soviet
“Solidarity” movement in Poland in the 1980s, U.S. rulers, lacking a
military home field advantage, have focused on buying elections in the
region.
Billionaire swindler and Rockefeller ally
George Soros has led the charge, bankrolling anti-Russian, pro-U.S. “color
revolutions” in the old Soviet sphere. Its aim was to oust pro-Russian
governments in Georgia (its banner was Rose) and in the Ukraine (Orange). Soros
helped engineer Mikhail Saakashvili’s 2003 defeat of Georgian president
and ex-Soviet Politburo member Eduard Shevardnadze. “It’s generally
accepted public opinion here that Mr. Soros is the person who planned
Shevardnadze’s overthrow,” the Toronto Globe and Mail said at the
time (11/26/03). The Kremlin responded to these U.S. “victories” by
curtailing gas supplies to Ukraine and Georgia, which hastened the present
crisis.
The U.S. liberal establishment molded
Saakashvili. He graduated from Columbia Law School and practiced at the
prestigious Wall Street firm Patterson Belknap, which counts the Rockefeller
Foundation as a top client. Soros personally presented Saakashvili with his Open
Society Award. Consequently, Georgia under Saakashvili proved a staunch U.S.
ally, until the Russian onslaught. Georgia just recalled 1,000 troops it had
aiding the U.S. in Iraq back to its new home fronts.
NEXT PRESIDENT WILL HAVE TO
RESTORE DRAFT
U.S. rulers understand that two-bit proxies
like Georgia can’t ultimately prevail in global conflicts with rising
powers like Russia (or China). And with the shortcomings of their present
“volunteer” military — who enlisted mostly because of economic
hardship — U.S. rulers won’t be able to intervene to protect their
interests. Therefore, they will need a draft, which will likely begin in the
form of a “National Service,” part of which will lead especially
working-class youth into the military.
A May 5 report issued jointly by the liberal
Brookings Institution and the Army War College concluded that the “impact
of fighting long wars using an all-volunteer force needs to be looked at more
closely.” Both Obama and McCain will restore a “National
Service” draft because, if they don’t, they will be as powerless
against emerging imperialist rivals as is Bush.
Desperate for wider wars, U.S. rulers bombard
the youth they will soon draft with dead-end, pro-capitalist patriotism. Russian
bosses use Nazi-like nationalism, while Georgian misleaders count on meaningless
racism and“ethnicity.” It’s all a trap. The only way out of
the profit system’s endless wars is a mass communist-led revolution of the
working class. This is Progressive Labor Party’s goal.
Capitalism inevitably leads to wars. PLP
organizes workers, students and soldiers to
turn these wars into a revolution for communism
-- the dictatorship of the proletariat. This
fight requires a mass Red Army led by the communist
PLP.