Category: Main Issues

Much controversy was created with former Soviet Republic of Georgia’s surprise military attacks on Russian peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The ill-devised attack, authorized by Georgia‘s adventurous President Saakashvili, has effectively triggered an irreversible process that may cost him his career and Georgia‘s territorial integrity.

The 8.8.08 attack broke centuries-old tradition of friendship and alliance with the Russian Uncle to the north, instigating a strong popular backlash in Russian public and governmental circles. Except for Pres. Saakashvili, no Georgian official has ever actively worked to weaken his country’s ties with Russia and actively sought to “integrate” it with the oil interests of the West.

In turn, he earned the status of being a strong U.S. ally in the Caucasus. But the inexperienced Georgian grossly miscalculated the extent of the Russian response, on the one hand, and the lame-duck posture adopted by his neo-con masters in the West, on the other.

On Aug 29, F. William Engdahl, the author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press), and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca), and a contributing writer of Online Journal wrote: “An examination shows 41-year-old Mikheil Saakashvili to be a ruthless and corrupt totalitarian who is tied to not only the US NATO establishment, but also to the Israeli military and intelligence establishment. The famous ‘Rose Revolution of November 2003 that forced the aging Edouard Shevardnadze from power and swept the then 36-year-old US university graduate into power was run and financed by the US State Department, the Soros Foundations, and agencies tied to the Pentagon and US intelligence community.”

On September 1, in an article titled “The ‘Stupidest Guy on the Planet’ Has Lots of Company,” John Taylor of www.antiwar.com, wrote: “Saakashvili acted with such remarkable stupidity and miscalculation that a 38-inch yardstick is needed to measure his foolishness against other famously bad decisions … Did Saakashvili really think the Russians would stand idly by and let him pound their forces in South Ossetia? That the U.S., Israel, or the North Atlantic Treaty Organization would come to his aid? Or that Georgia‘s army could hold off the Russians?”

Unmasking the real face of certain NGO’s, Engdahl added: “But there is more. The NGOs were coordinated by the US Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, who had just arrived in Tbilisi fresh from success in orchestrating the CIA-backed toppling of Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, using the same NGOs. Miles, who is believed to be an undercover intelligence specialist, supervised the Saakashvili coup. It involved US billionaire George Soros’ Open Society Georgia Foundation, the Washington-based Freedom House whose chairman was former CIA chief James Woolsey, and generous financing from the US Congress-financed National Endowment for Democracy, an agency created by Ronald Reagan in the 1980s to °do privately what the CIA used to do,° namely coups against regimes the US government finds unfriendly.”

Further bringing Saakashvili’s real persona to light, Engdahl reported: “Since coming to power in 2004 with US aid, Saakashvili has led a policy of large-scale arrests, imprisonment, torture and deepened corruption. Saakashvili has presided over the creation of a de facto one-party state, with a dummy opposition occupying a tiny portion of seats in the parliament, and this public servant is building a Ceaucescu-style palace for himself on the outskirts of Tbilisi. According to the magazine, Civil Georgia (Mar. 22, 2004), until 2005, the salaries of Saakashvili and many of his ministers were reportedly paid by the NGO network of New York-based currency speculator Soros — along with the United Nations Development Program.”

Taylor added: “On an official visit to Israel, Saakashvili proclaimed that the Georgians were ‘the Jews of our time’ and compared Russian President Putin’s anti-Georgian policies to the anti-Semitic decrees of the 18th-century Russian Empress Catherine the Great. He also asserted that his model when refounding the Georgian state was Israel‘s first prime minister, David Ben-Gurion. And Saakashvili did not hesitate to take his case directly to Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations in New York: ‘We need to establish relations with the U.S. Jewish community because you understand better than many in this country the international repercussions with the rest of the world.… I want your help in having better relations with the United States….’”

One wonders if the world Jewry can fathom Saakashvili’s adventurous politics as a “Jew of our time.” By masquerading as a “Jew” of the Caucasus, Saakashvili has certainly brought liabilities to the Jewish quest for healthy relations with Russia and other countries. That’s why the Israeli military specialists and advisers in Georgia “were reluctant to upset the Russians. They need President Putin’s support at the UN to get stronger anti-nuclear sanctions on Iran.”

Engdahl ominously noted that “With Russia openly backing and training the indigenous military in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to maintain Russian presence in the region, especially since the US-backed pro-NATO Saakashvili regime took power in 2004, the Caucasus is rapidly coming to resemble Spain in the Civil War from 1936-1939, where the Soviet Union, Nazi Germany and others poured money and weapons and volunteers into Spain in a devastating war that was a precursor to the Second World War.”

By his misguided military move against Russia, Saakashvili has de facto triggered a counter-“Rose Revolution” process. The process which already yielded Russia‘s trashing of Georgia‘s army may soon bring reversal of fortunes both for him and his masters in Washington and elsewhere.

As for Saakashvili’s Azeri counter-part Pres. Ilham Aliev of Azerbaijan, it is yet to be seen if the junior Aliev has learned from his colleague’s experience to tone down his belligerent rhetoric against Armenia.