{news} Fw: [usgp-dx] Release: Md. Green candidate for US House speaks out on the Russo-Georgian conflict

[Tim McKee]

----- Original Message -----

From: "Scott McLarty"
To: natlcomaffairs at green.gpus.org
Subject: [usgp-dx] Release: Md. Green candidate for US House speaks out
on the Russo-Georgian conflict
Date: Thu, 14 Aug 2008 07:20:49 +0000



Distributed by the Green Party of the United States http://www.gp.org

Gordon Clark for Congress http://www.clarkforcongress.net

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Media Contact:
David Gaines
david at clarkforcongress.net
(703) 338-3459


GORDON CLARK: RUSSO-GEORGIAN CONFLICT SHOWS BANKRUPTCY OF POST COLD-WAR
ORDER


Silver Spring, Maryland (August 13th, 2008) - The Clark for
Congress campaign issued the following statement today on the
Russo-Georgian conflict by 8th District Green Party congressional
candidate Gordon Clark:

"The brutal Russian invasion of neighboring Georgia exemplifies the
worst aspects of nation-state behavior. Yet it also demonstrates
the complete failure of our current system of international
relations, one still based largely on military alliances,
confrontation and conflict.

"The beginning of the current crisis can be marked to the end of
the Cold War. The NATO military alliance that stood against the
Soviet Union's Warsaw Pact should have been dismantled when the
Soviet Union broke up. Instead, NATO not only continued, it grew -
by accepting former members of the Warsaw Pact, a strategy that
inevitably antagonized Russia (as does our building of missile
defense systems in former Warsaw Pact nation Poland). In response,
Russia looked to protect its borders.

"At the same time, Georgia's U.S.-educated leader, President
Mikheil Saakashvili, has been regularly encouraged with words of
strong support from President Bush and other Western leaders -
words that are easily interpreted, in the current context, to be
backed by force. So, rather than attempt to resolve peacefully the
confrontation with Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia,
which has strong ethnic ties to Russia, Saakashvili launched an
ill-advised military operation there last week. A predictable (if
extreme) Russian military response followed, leaving the Georgian
president waiting for U.S. or western military support that never
materialized.

"The U.S. is utterly unable to influence Russia's behavior because
of our own government's invasion and continued occupation of Iraq,
as well as our military involvement in Afghanistan and Pakistan,
and our threats against Iran. It was painfully disturbing to watch
U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations (and former Ambassador to
Iraq and Afghanistan) Zalmay Khalilzad trying to lecture the
Russians that 'the days of overthrowing leaders by military means'
are over. He had to add the phrase '…in Europe' -- a transparent
rhetorical attempt to excuse our own invasions and regime changes.

"In a world filled with national, regional, and ethnic tensions -
and now overflowing with armaments, thanks in no small part to U.S.
weapons sales - the path to peace and stability will not come from
military action. The Russian invasion of Georgia must be strongly
condemned, but no differently than the U.S. invasion and continuing
occupation of Iraq, and U.S. threats and military action elsewhere
in the Middle East. Unless our nation turns away from our own
militarized foreign policy and toward diplomacy and peaceful
dispute resolution, other regions of the world will continue to
explode in violence - and there will be nothing that the U.S. can
do about it."


Gordon Clark, the Green Party candidate for U. S. Congress from
Maryland's 8th District, has for over twenty years been a community
activist in the peace, environmental, nonviolence, and social
justice arenas. He is a former National Executive Director of Peace
Action, the founder of Iraq Pledge of Resistance (now the National
Campaign for Nonviolent Resistance), and a former Field Director
for Public Citizen's Congress Watch.

For more information on the Clark for Congress campaign, call (301)
589-2355, email info at clarkforcongress.net, or visit
http://www.clarkforcongress.net and
http://www.myspace.com/clarkforcongress


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******************************************
Tim McKee, Manchester CT, main number cell-860-778-1304, 860-643-2282
 National Commitee member of the Green Party of the United States and is a spokesperson for the Green Party of CT.
BLOG-http://thebiggreenpicture.blogspot.com

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