Russia unleashed
By Messenger staff
Wednesday, November 26
Europe has made pragmatic decision. Instead of confronting Russia, it has decided to preserve a form of dialogue with it.
Europe has taken the decision to treat Russia as a patient with a mental disorder. Russia has the fixed ideas, maniacal inclinations and many other symptoms familiar to psychiatrists who work with such patients, whose treatment requires a very specific approach. The first step in treating such a patient when they have hostages - his own people and neighbours - is to gain his confidence, demonstrating that you will not harm him and trying to recast the contact in the form of dialogue. The patient agrees to communicate with a psychologist/doctor/police officer/anybody but one person, who according to the patient, is to be blamed for all his problems.
In medicine, this is called the maniacal idee fixe. Moscow is ready to speak with anyone else but becomes extremely aggressive regarding the Georgian authorities and the country as a whole. The Kremlin still threatens its neighbour with the same rhetoric as it did before the August invasion, and there is speculation about a possible repetition of it this Spring. Doctors are tolerant and ready to cope with many violations by the patient, because it is big, aggressive, merciless, unpredictable and difficult to treat. But meanwhile Moscow has invaded the territory of a sovereign state, created and recognized two “independent countries” there, introduced armed occupation forces to these ‘independent states’ (approximately every fourth person in the Tskhinvali region today is a Russian soldier) and started talking about the security of these ‘new borders’ and of Europe as a whole. Moscow has also openly shown that it does not intend to follow all the points of the Medvedev –Sarkozy plan, as it is obliged to do. The recent shooting at the Saakashvili – Kaczynski convoy demonstrated Russia’s “firm position” and its Foreign Minister confirmed this position by advising the Georgian President not to invite his guests onto the territory of a “foreign country”, seemingly oblivious to the fact that treating South Ossetia as a foreign country is a grand demonstration of chronically delusional behaviour.
If the Kremlin were considered healthy, the international community would have treated it as a criminal for violating international law so arrogantly and openly, but if we agree it has mental problems European leaders can accept this behaviour as excusable at this stage. Furthermore they can try and build the patient’s confidence by buying into its fantasies, inquiring into who took the first shot. Maybe it was Misha (Saakashvili) who took this step and by pushing away a crazy aggressor trying to enter his country provoked the aggressiveness of the patient. So that’s all right then, it was rationality’s fault for provoking unreason, the sane people must somehow be the ones to blame. Thus is the position of Europe, although Europe itself does not believe a word of this.
WE REPEAT for those who do not understand: The Kremlin does not care for either Abkhazians or South Ossetians (or even Russia’s North Ossetians, as the Beslan tragedy proved, when almost three hundred children were killed while solders stormed a terrorist-captured school). All it wants is to punish Georgia for its Western orientation. The destruction of Georgia is not yet over, because Western attempts to treat the maniac have simply encouraged it. Now it threatens Georgia in the South Caucasus, it threatens Europe with its Iskander missiles, threatens the new US administration, threatens NATO. Russians and their separatist proxies continually shoot their weapons all around both the occupied territories, ignoring the presence of EU observers. If the Georgians respond, a full scale retaliation could follow at any moment, as the few statements on the subject the Russian media are allowed to make confirm. Not only Georgia but Azerbaijan is also named as a possible target of Moscow’s further aggression.
The patient shouts, screams hysterically, swears, tries to threaten everybody (mainly the ones it has already taken hostage) and speaks about “spheres of influence and interests,” as if the rest of the world is deluded and only it is right, the classic definition of a psychopath. Most politicians and analysts here in Georgia share the opinion that keeping the patient in isolation increases the danger of alienating it. But if we let the patient get away with anything, what sort of world will be left to live in?
Europe has taken the decision to treat Russia as a patient with a mental disorder. Russia has the fixed ideas, maniacal inclinations and many other symptoms familiar to psychiatrists who work with such patients, whose treatment requires a very specific approach. The first step in treating such a patient when they have hostages - his own people and neighbours - is to gain his confidence, demonstrating that you will not harm him and trying to recast the contact in the form of dialogue. The patient agrees to communicate with a psychologist/doctor/police officer/anybody but one person, who according to the patient, is to be blamed for all his problems.
In medicine, this is called the maniacal idee fixe. Moscow is ready to speak with anyone else but becomes extremely aggressive regarding the Georgian authorities and the country as a whole. The Kremlin still threatens its neighbour with the same rhetoric as it did before the August invasion, and there is speculation about a possible repetition of it this Spring. Doctors are tolerant and ready to cope with many violations by the patient, because it is big, aggressive, merciless, unpredictable and difficult to treat. But meanwhile Moscow has invaded the territory of a sovereign state, created and recognized two “independent countries” there, introduced armed occupation forces to these ‘independent states’ (approximately every fourth person in the Tskhinvali region today is a Russian soldier) and started talking about the security of these ‘new borders’ and of Europe as a whole. Moscow has also openly shown that it does not intend to follow all the points of the Medvedev –Sarkozy plan, as it is obliged to do. The recent shooting at the Saakashvili – Kaczynski convoy demonstrated Russia’s “firm position” and its Foreign Minister confirmed this position by advising the Georgian President not to invite his guests onto the territory of a “foreign country”, seemingly oblivious to the fact that treating South Ossetia as a foreign country is a grand demonstration of chronically delusional behaviour.
If the Kremlin were considered healthy, the international community would have treated it as a criminal for violating international law so arrogantly and openly, but if we agree it has mental problems European leaders can accept this behaviour as excusable at this stage. Furthermore they can try and build the patient’s confidence by buying into its fantasies, inquiring into who took the first shot. Maybe it was Misha (Saakashvili) who took this step and by pushing away a crazy aggressor trying to enter his country provoked the aggressiveness of the patient. So that’s all right then, it was rationality’s fault for provoking unreason, the sane people must somehow be the ones to blame. Thus is the position of Europe, although Europe itself does not believe a word of this.
WE REPEAT for those who do not understand: The Kremlin does not care for either Abkhazians or South Ossetians (or even Russia’s North Ossetians, as the Beslan tragedy proved, when almost three hundred children were killed while solders stormed a terrorist-captured school). All it wants is to punish Georgia for its Western orientation. The destruction of Georgia is not yet over, because Western attempts to treat the maniac have simply encouraged it. Now it threatens Georgia in the South Caucasus, it threatens Europe with its Iskander missiles, threatens the new US administration, threatens NATO. Russians and their separatist proxies continually shoot their weapons all around both the occupied territories, ignoring the presence of EU observers. If the Georgians respond, a full scale retaliation could follow at any moment, as the few statements on the subject the Russian media are allowed to make confirm. Not only Georgia but Azerbaijan is also named as a possible target of Moscow’s further aggression.
The patient shouts, screams hysterically, swears, tries to threaten everybody (mainly the ones it has already taken hostage) and speaks about “spheres of influence and interests,” as if the rest of the world is deluded and only it is right, the classic definition of a psychopath. Most politicians and analysts here in Georgia share the opinion that keeping the patient in isolation increases the danger of alienating it. But if we let the patient get away with anything, what sort of world will be left to live in?