The West Would Be Wise to Stay Out Of Georgia

CounterPunch
Weekend Edition
August 9 / 10, 2008

The West Would Be Wise to Stay Out
Plucky Little Georgia?
By MARK ALMOND


For many people the sight of Russian tanks streaming across a border in August has uncanny echoes of Prague 1968. That cold war reflex is natural enough, but after two decades of Russian retreat from those bastions it is misleading. Not every development in the former Soviet Union is a replay of Soviet history. Unlike in eastern Europe, for instance, today in breakaway states such as South Ossetia or Abkhazia, Russian troops are popular. Vladimir Putin's picture is more widely displayed than that of the South Ossetian president, the former Soviet wrestling champion Eduard Kokoity. The Russians are seen as protectors against a repeat of ethnic cleansing by Georgians.

Devoted to achieving Nato entry for Georgia, Saakashvili has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan - and so clearly felt he had American backing. The streets of the Georgian capital are plastered with posters of George W Bush alongside his Georgian protege. George W Bush avenue leads to Tbilisi airport. But he has ignored Kissinger's dictum: "Great powers don't commit suicide for their allies." Perhaps his neoconservative allies in Washington have forgotten it, too. Let's hope not.

Like Galtieri in 1982, Saakashvili faces a domestic economic crisis and public disillusionment. In the years since the so-called Rose revolution, the cronyism and poverty that characterised the Shevardnadze era have not gone away. Allegations of corruption and favouritism towards his mother's clan, together with claims of election fraud, led to mass demonstrations against Saakashvili last November. His ruthless security forces - trained, equipped and subsidised by the west - thrashed the protesters. Lashing out at the Georgians' common enemy in South Ossetia would certainly rally them around the president, at least in the short term.

Western geopolitical commentators stick to cold war simplicities about Russia bullying plucky little Georgia. However, anyone familiar with the Caucasus knows that the state bleating about its victim status at the hands of a bigger neighbour can be just as nasty to its smaller subjects. Small nationalisms are rarely sweet-natured.

Please read the entire article at:

http://www.counterpunch.org/almond08092008.html

Georgia declares emergency after street battles
By Margarita Antidze and Niko Mchedlishvili
November 7, 2007

TBILISI (Reuters) - Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili on Wednesday declared a 15-day countrywide state of emergency after sending in riot police to battle protestors and special forces stormed a leading opposition TV station.

Prime Minister Zurab Nogaideli said authorities had prevented a coup. Economic Development Minister Georgy Arveladze said that all independent television news programs would be stopped during the 15-day state of emergency.

Riot police used tear gas and water cannon on unarmed demonstrators. Special forces troops wielding automatic weapons stormed the country's main opposition television channel, Imedi, which was then taken off air.

"We cannot let our country become the stage for dirty geo-political escapades by other countries," Saakashvili told the nation in a television broadcast. "Our democracy needs the firm hand of the authorities."

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSL0739373520071107

View the slideshow of the cops breaking up anti-government demonstrations at:

http://www.reuters.com/news/pictures/articleslideshow?articleId=USL0739373520071107&channelName=topNews#a=1

:rofl::rofl::rofl:

Bush would back! I can't help but think that Bush wants to be this kind of a leader himself, and that's why he supports these kind of people. Don't get me wrong I disagree with the violence going on over there, but Georgia started the mess, and now Russia is going to teach them a lesson. Bush got Putin ticked off earlier this year with the missile defense system he wants to put in on Russia's border, and now Putin is taking things to an extreme in a show of power.

I remember back in the 60's during the Cuban missile threat, I was in the sixth grade. My dad was in the Air Force and we were living in Texas at the time. The whole country was upset over the idea of Russia putting missiles in Cuba, right next door to us. We stood up to them, and many feared it would be World war III. I don't think any super power is going to let another supper power put missiles or bases on their borders and not react to the threat implied. We have a bunch of crazy idiots running things in this world, and that goes for the U.S., and it scares me to think what can happen because two idiots want to play games with each other!

Bush invaded Iraq, now Russia, according to Bush, has invaded Georgia, it's all insane!

after which the Georgian's named the other major road leading to ruin.

There was a time when a lot of Americans thought that the Monroe Doctrine went too far, getting the US involved in the whole western hemisphere. Republicans led the isolationist movement, not wanting to get involved in either World War, and protesting vigorously that Democrats led the US into "foreign wars". Only acts of war by the Germans in 1916 and Japan in 1941 shut them up and allowed American troops to actually leave American territory.

It would be nice to return to a simpler day when the United States was not involved in every conflict that breaks out in any spot on the globe. That shouldn't rule out third-part diplomacy though, bringing warring parties together and urging them to dial back on the violence and talk things out.

Nobody sane wants a major war with a giant neighbor like Russia, not for the sake of the Ukraine or Georgia. Both of those nations want to join NATO, but leaders in Paris and Berlin and other capitals are now understanding that if they were allowed into NATO and such a situation as currently happening were to happen, all of Europe could be dragged into the war. It would be a repeat of World War One in some respects.

That's a second volume I hope is never written.