America-Hold your head in shame

I couldn't let the overnight news from Georgia go without some comment.

Quite how the United States can stand and lecture the world about its democratic conduct is quite beyond me when it executes a man,twenty years after the alleged crime,with a conviction based on some rather flimsy evidence.

Troy Davis was put to death by lethal injection at a prison in central Georgia for the murder of a police officer in 1989.

The execution was delayed by more than four hours as the Supreme Court considered whether to issue a stay.

Since Davis's conviction, seven of nine witnesses have changed or recanted their testimony, some have said they were coerced by police to testify against him and some say another man committed the crime.On top of that no physical evidence linked Davis to the killing.

The mere fact that the Supreme Court took so long to decide coupled with this being the fourth time that Davis had been scheduled to die makes the practice in itself inhumane.

Added to that the condemned man's final death scene proclaiming his innocence,the crowds outside the prison in a state where executions barley make the news anymore,and the whole spectacle becomes one more associated with the middle ages.

We do a lot of things wrong in the UK but one area we can hold our heads up high is the fact that we abolished Capital Punishment in the 1960's.

America,you should hold your head in shame

What are Russia's concerns

Watching President Medvedev's interview with Bridget Kendall on the BBC last night and seeing his comment piece in this morning's Ft,it is pretty clear that whatever the motivations behind the conflict,Russia will not be stepping back.The incense of justice that the Russian's have over the treatment of people that they feel an affinity to through race is overwhelming.

Last night Medvedev spoke of 17 years of injustice and the genocide being threatened by the Georgians that led to the intervention

Can you imagine what it was like for the Abkhaz people to have their university in Sukhumi closed down by the Tbilisi government on the grounds that they allegedly had no proper language or history or culture and so did not need a university? The newly independent Georgia inflicted a vicious war on its minority nations, displacing thousands of people and sowing seeds of discontent that could only grow. These were tinderboxes, right on Russia’s doorstep, which Russian peacekeepers strove to keep from igniting.

he says in the FT.

Of course what we are not clear about is whether this policy extends to other displaced Russian people.If it does then the countries of Ukraine,Belarus and Estonia need to be on their guard.

A new cold war? I don't think we are at that point but the West must work with Russia to solve its problems and concerns.Sending Dick Cheney to the Black Sea is not the solution.It threatens a military intervention that can never happen.Similarly David Miliband's trip to Kiev is simply going to provide greater provocation to the Russian federation.

Mere chocolate soldiers pandering to the bear

Now here is one viewpoint on the Georgia Russian conflict.

Moscow’s blitzkrieg in Georgia is more than a military campaign. It is designed to empower Russia’s diplomatic strategy, which seeks to make the European Union (EU) the West’s chief representative in future negotiations with Russia. Quite naturally the Kremlin wants to escape the logic of U.S. and NATO policy, which is to contain Russia within her national borders. Meanwhile, the European Union is an entirely different animal: toothless, utopian and ready to please.

According to the piece written by J. R. Nyquist,President Medvedev summoned his ambassadors to a meeting on the 15th July when he told them

“Russia is indeed stronger and able to assume greater responsibility for solving problems on a regional and global scale.” You see, the Cold War was not an American victory. Medvedev reminded his colleagues that they had “survived the Cold War.” And now Russia is prepared to establish “a new equilibrium.”

But it's the EC which comes in for the most criticism

Today the European Union confronts Russia in the same way Neville Chamberlain confronted Hitler in 1938; being outwitted and tricked in the ceasefire negotiations, there is no possible outcome other than appeasement. The Russians insist that their troops be accepted as peacekeepers in Georgia. The French mediators allow this. And so, the stipulated withdrawal of combatants therefore does not apply to the Russian troops. Under this ceasefire agreement Moscow can claim – in a strictly legal sense – that Russian troops can stay in Georgia indefinitely. President Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin are laughing at the French while observing international law. Meanwhile, occupied Georgia is looted and burned; Georgian ships are sunk and the Georgian capital is strangled.

Only time will tell

The first shots

There is a lot in the papers today analysing the events of the past week in the Caucasus.

It is worth reading the Sunday Times though in particular.

Mark Franchetti's report looks at how the conflict started and the events of 1st August.On that date he reveals there was an explosion

believed to have been planted by South Ossetian separatists sympathetic to Russia, Five Georgian policemen were injured, one severely. That night Georgian forces struck back. There was a furious firefight that left six South Ossetian rebels dead

It now appears that the events could well have been pre planned by the Russians

It now appears that August 1 was a well-prepared “provocation” – one of the Kremlin’s favourite tactics. Pavel Felgengauer, a Moscow authority on military affairs, claimed in Novaya Gazeta that the plan was for the “Ossetians to intentionally provoke the Georgians” so that “any response, harsh or soft, would be used as an occasion for the attack”. At last Russia was going to teach the Georgians a lesson. Moscow’s relations with the tiny nation of 5m had begun to deteriorate when Mikhail Saakashvili swept to power nearly five years ago.

Saakashvili had been swept to power ona tide of Georgian nationalism and had promised the electorate that he would

bring South Ossetia and Abkhazia, another pro-Russian separatist region flanking the Black Sea, back under Tbilisi’s control.

Whether this was a Russian provoked beginning that now seems to be on the point of re igniting the Cold War,only time will tell