Curly’s Corner Shop, the blog!

Russians look to occupy and control Georgia

This looks for all intents and purposes like a full scale invasion, subjugation, and occupation, whilst the West meekly sat back and offered platitudes to the people and President of Georgia. The Great Bear has it’s claws out and the oligarchs and oil barons, along with Putin and Medvedev will be looking forward to controlling yet another strategically important pipeline to Western Europe. I have been writing about the threat posed by Gazprom for the past eighteen months, and the speculative actions of Russian ‘biznizzmen’ in the oils futures markets have helped to destabilise and charge up the price of crude oils, gas and energy supplies and delivery systems. The Russians are gradually gaining an economic stranglehold over Western Europe strengthened and enboldened by our weak willed appeasement towards their imperialistic expansion.

We sit here in South Shields wondering what all of the fuss is about, declaring to our children that it has nothing to do with us, yet nothing could be further from the truth. We will know only too well the power of Gazprom owned Centrica (the owner of British Gas) when the bills are dropping on our doormats next March, yet we will not compare our financial pain and misery with that of the people of Georgia, one of our allies, when they have lost their government, lost their independence, lost their fight, and are once more “protected” by the great Russian empire of Putin. We are now playing Russia in the same way as politicians played Germany in the early 1930s, never believing that Hitler had any inclination to expand his policies beyond Germany’s borders, this is a very dangerous game and the West’s own credibility and security is now under increasing threat.

Samizdata’s Perry de Haviland has an excellent post reflecting this mood and picking up the thoughts of Marko Hoare;

This is not a case of Moscow supporting the right of national majorities to secede – the Abkhaz have no majority, not even a plurality, in Abkhazia. Nor is it a case of Moscow supporting the right of autonomous entities of the former Soviet Union to secede – Moscow has extended the same support to the separatists of Transnistria, which enjoyed no autonomous status in the USSR, while denying the right to secede of the Chechen Republic. This is simply a case of naked Russian imperialist expansionism. It is Georgia which is fighting to establish its independence, and Georgia which deserves our support. Georgia is a staunch ally of the West; the third largest contributor of troops to the allied coalition in Iraq. A Russian defeat of Georgia would be a tremendous setback for the West’s credibility and moral standing; it would increase Russian control of our energy supplies and encourage further Russian acts of aggression in the former Soviet Union.

We cannot afford to back down before this act of Russian imperialist aggression. We should defend Georgia with all the means at our disposal. We should send troops to bolster her. We should threaten Russia with sanctions. Heroic Georgia is fighting our fight; she is defending the freedom and security of democratic Europe.

Like Perry, I too endorse these comments, and wish that South Shields MP and Foreign Secretary David Miliband would stop playing internal politics with the Labour Party and start being an effective advocate for European security, British interests, freedom and democracy and protection for those whom we count as our friends. Some rudimentary forthought two years ago may have succeeded in seeing British oil, gas, and energy interests better equipped to take on the might of Gazprom.

What an unfortunate time for the Foreign Secretary to take a holiday.

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