Yglesias’s take on the Russia-Georgia shooting war, which seems to lay large amounts of blame on Georgia, strikes me as fatuous. He begins with an oddly strained parallel:
Perhaps a closer analogy in the present-day context would be to Cuba, like Georgia a former favorite vacation destination for the great power’s elite, a country we’ve been horribly mistreating for decades for no real reason. And when you think about Cuba, you see that the vast majority of the world’s countries basically support the Cuban position vis-à-vis the American one. And yet absolutely none of them are prepared to do anything about it.
That works if you ignore the fact that Georgia is a democracy and Cuba is the very antithesis. Yglesias also recycles the Kosovo argument, which we’ll be hearing a lot more in the coming days: The U.S. and the West backed Kosovo’s independence over Russia’s objections, so who could blame Putin for being angry and throwing his weight around? Don’t believe the hype: Marko Attila Hoare refuted the Kosovo parallel last November, when the South Ossetia-Abkhazia conflicts were still only simmering.
“Americans would do well to abandon some of the moralism that infuses commentary on this,” Yglesias says, as Russia bombards civilian centers well inside undisputed Georgian territory. It’s clear this is a naked attempt by Russia to annex the secessionist regions and strangle a democratic neighbor. Complex? Yes. But unequivocal condemnation is still appropriate.
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