George Handlery about the week that was. Courses in terrorism might lead to pacifism. Accepting Jihad or being a racist. Sanctions should not anger the aggressor. The dangers of overreaction and under reacting. Atrocities pay. Are we in a process of strategic re-alignment? Fact and fiction: are only the rich getting richer?
 
1. Here a hilarious but also revealing tidbit from a small booklet “Die letzten Tage Europas/The Last Days of Europe” by H. M. Broder. Germany’s Minister of Justice, Brigitte Zypries finds it mistaken to prosecute individuals for having attended terrorist training camps. She feels that someone who participates in the program might react with a personal decision to renounce violence. (Such a person might even become a Quaker.) Later she altered her position. One should only punish those who take the course in order to become subsequently active. Broder concludes that, apparently, “one cannot know at the outset whether someone lets himself be trained as a terrorist because the Berlitz course in Esperanto at home was filled or because he simply wishes to measure up to his mother-in-law.” The sanctions for participation in terrorist training are therefore limited. An exception seems to be possible if someone enrolling sends Ms Zypries an affidavit. It should affirm that the enrollee not only wants training in terrorism but also intends to put the skills to be gained to practical use. No wonder that the book got the title it has.
 
2. Something comes to mind now that “the last days” have been mentioned. Public and private utterances show that, regardless of the context, certain circles resent the discussion of the Jihad. One reason is that in the two hundred and fifty years since the Enlightenment we were taught that politics and religion belong in separate spheres. Suggesting that for some, it is not so disturbs the worldview held by some of us. The more so since it is part of our secular religion’s dogma that we are alike. If religion is voluntarily politicized then we have identified a difference that should not be. The subject would elicit a more realistic reaction if a further prejudice would not stand in its way. In case the Jihadists would be berserk Scandinavians the phenomena would seem to be safer to discuss. (This ignores the fact that “insulted” Nordics would not express their dissent with violent means while radical Muslims are unlikely to limit themselves to critical letters to the Editor.)
 
3. Discreetly, it is being suggested that counter-measures and reactions to Georgia are to be of a sort that will not anger Russia. Absurdly, this self-created inhibition implies that strong aggressors (real or alleged) should only be criticized with their consent. Concurrently, this kind of squeamishness teaches the aggressor that he is to claim early, possibly before the fact, the status of the insulted party. It creates a welcome opportunity to become confused in the case of those who do not like clear-cut cases if these result in tough going.  Thereby the claimed victim status becomes protection against having to impose effective sanctions on the impostor.
 
4. Georgia is not “the case,” it is only a symptom. Therefore the trouble might be greater than we care to admit.
 
5. Reacting to Russia’s handling of Georgia sheds light on another inhibition. Suggestively we are asked, “are we overreacting to the crisis?” The question is made to imply that the dangerous error of exaggeration is being committed. No, in fact we are systematically under reacting. Here we should realize that it is exactly this manicured response that is the most dangerous one among our alternatives. How come that the mistake which we love to make is our typical response? The case is similar to the abuse of cold medicine that combats symptoms. We search for palliatives to counter-act an event that is firmly embedded in an unfolding reality.
 
6. Moscow’s hegemonial action in Georgia sent a message. Indeed, the message was intended and calculated by Moscow. The question is what we will learn from the un-coded smoke signals we have seen rising.
 
7. One reaction makes the demonstration of Russian might and its methods in Georgia to turn out to be the source of our luck. The 2007 cyber war against Estonia (another uppity ex-dependency of the USSR/Russia) hit a relatively qualified country to defend itself. The example of Estonia’s predicament has nudged NATO and its member states. The early warning prompted the creation structures and procedures to prevent the collapse of their communications, banking and industry through implementing counter measures.
 
8. Under the heading “reactions” there are also those that welcome Russia’s performance as a “peace enforcer.” An example is Assad as reported in the Isvestia newspaper of July 20. Visiting to negotiate cooperation and protection against “‘democratization’” as a piece puts it (August 21), Syria’s dictator found that Russia’s role in Georgia had been “entirely lawful.” She is “responsible for peace” in the Caucasus and, therefore, she had to “make order” there. He also discovered evidence of the cold war being reignited, of “anti-Russian” reactions (vast anti-Russian conspiracy?) and of dishonesty in the light of the Kosovo analogy.
 
9. Disproportionate as they were, Russia’s making order in Georgia by smashing it created a new strategic reality. Some of it corresponds to the Kremlin’s wishes. However, the intervention also revised the image Russia attempted to project and unmasked the illusions some of us (the writer is explicitly included) tried to nurture. The case that there is a new Russia became wobbly. Putin’s Russia has brought back the Soviet past that some of us had tried very hard to forget. A strategic re-alignment might be the result.
 
10. A consequence of Russia’s Georgian show is the instantaneous solution of US-Polish differences surrounding the missile defenses to be created against nuclear attacks by rogue states. Russia protests the missiles and lets it be known that with this Poland has become a target for her. The real threat to Russia of the ten defensive missiles when her offensive rocket forces dispose over thousands is negligible. Therefore, the real threat to Russian-Western relations will be as great as Russia chooses to make it. In this political and not security reasons will be decisive.
 
11. A crucial detail of the “Georgia business” tends to get lost in the selective reporting of the event. Not accidentally, this writer is alert to the matter that is easily repressed by most of us. The reason has to do with the conditioning that unusual backgrounds can give us. A policy of systematic atrocities against conquered enemy populations is part of the way some countries fight their wars. Russia is one of them. Mass rape, looting, the destruction of property can uproot conquered populations that are located in disputed territory. Well-planned spontaneous indiscriminate violence, if applied with stern vigor, produces high returns. It might make the victims submissive, demoralized and ultimately acquiescent when the conqueror imposes his system upon them. (As a child, I could witness this method indirectly. The “indirectly” has a good reason: two Soviet officers had been assigned to the protection of our mansion in 1945.) Also in this respect the WW2 past is – as referred to in last week’s report – still a component of the way wars are waged. Here a further link to the present might be pointed out. Especially the Serbian side resorted to this proven strategy in the wars that partitioned Yugoslavia. This policy, not the fighting in itself, is what made the conflicts of separation especially costly in human lives and livelihoods.
 
12. Slogans distort reality. Therefore, they are accepted to concoct a substitute world. A good thing about catchphrases is that we may lean on their distorting pretense without having to think on our own. Take the famous one that begins with “the rich are getting richer.” Yes, the rich are getting richer. So do the poor. Yet, while this happens, the poor are globally losing something. No, do not expect to encounter here an updated paraphrase of Marx’ famous “their chains” because it “sounds good.” What the poor are really losing is their share expressed in percentages of the world’s population. This ignored and in some cases, denied process raises a crucial question. In some instances, it is likely to provoke a pre-fabricated response designed to prevent the bubble carrying the jingle from bursting. The question to ponder is, whether making the rich poorer would help materially the destitute to escape poverty. Our experience gathered in the economic realm suggests the contrary. Meanwhile, instituting a government capable of such radical redistribution implies the surrender of freedom. As so often in comparable cases, the sacrifice would be ultimately made in exchange for nothing.