I know my government has been messing around there since the 1990s, picking winners and losers, making big promises and causing lots of trouble.
Keeping Russia out of their former sphere of influence was thought by Washington to be its most important goal.
Under the Bill Clinton administration, it was decided that building the BTC Pipeline across Georgia was the highest priority – to prevent Azeri gas from flowing north through Russia or south through Iran.
Under George W. Bush, it was decided that the government of Edward Shevardnadze was too close to Russia, compromising with them over Abkhazia, making deals with Gazprom, and joining the CIS, and had to go.
USAID, the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), and the rest of the regime change industry poured in tens of millions of dollars to support the groups supporting Mikhail Saakaashvili’s rise and the Rose Revolution of 2003, which installed him in power. This included a Soros front called the Liberty Institute – not to be confused with the Libertarian Institute, I assure you.
As I’m sure you all know, former President Salome Zourabichvili was born in France, not Georgia, and was just parachuted in by the new regime to take over as Finance Minister after the overthrow of 2003. She later explained that:
“These institutions were the cradle of democratization, notably the Soros Foundation. … The NGOs which gravitate around the Soros Foundation undeniably carried the revolution. However, one cannot end one’s analysis with the revolution and one clearly sees that, afterwards, the Soros Foundation and the NGOs were integrated into power.”
Soros’s business partner Kaka Bendukidze became the new economy minister. Alexander Lomaia, the director of Open Society Georgia, was made education minister. At the same time, Giga Bokeria, co-founder of the Liberty Institute, became the leader of the National Movement party in the parliament. In the name of fighting against corruption, they stayed on Soros’s payroll. Saakashvili too.
“I’m delighted by what happened in Georgia, and I take great pride in having contributed to it,” Soros told the Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe.
How y’all let her become the president of the country is a mystery. Oh yeah. All the foreign money.
I sure hope that Mr. Saakashvili’s trial was more fair than his opponents received while he was in power. And that Saakashvili is not being tortured in prison the way his regime tortured people. No human deserves to be treated in such a barbarian fashion.
Do I believe Georgia country is better off under the domination of Russia or any other significant power?
Of course not. But I do mean that American intervention is not in the interest of either country.
I’ve read that current Georgian leaders have expressed frustration that they have not been able to reach the new Trump administration to see if they can get a reset in America’s Georgia policy. Be careful what you wish for. Georgians are more likely to be better off when America does not have a Georgia policy at all than even a favorable one, with strings attached.
As far as the difficulties Georgia may face in maintaining full independence as a small country in a world of major competing powers and Georgia’s advantageous or disadvantageous geographic position relative to important resources, I could not say what your best solution must be.
I could say that at the end of the day, America will not guarantee Georgia’s independence, which is why there is no major U.S. troop presence there, and why NATO membership has not moved forward since W. Bush’s foolish declaration at Bucharest in April 2008.
Perhaps maintaining Tbilisi’s neutrality in these major contests could be the path to maintaining independence from outright control.
Even after Russia intervened to reverse Saakashvili’s attempt to forcefully reintegrate South Ossetia in 2008, Moscow did not sever the BTC, nor roll its tanks into Tblisi, thank goodness. Though Putin and Medvedev had plenty of counter-incentives, they certainly had the pretext to go that far if they had chosen to do so.
President Bush, in his lame-duck year, had already chosen not to intervene, despite the protests of then-Vice President Cheney, who insisted on strikes against Russian forces coming through the Roki tunnel, risking World War III.
Thank goodness the cool, patient wisdom of George W. Bush, relative to Cheney anyway, prevailed that day.
Surely Russia would have escalated in kind, and Tbilisi would have lost its independence to the Federation after Bush had inevitably backed down. Thank goodness it did not come to that.
Making sure the Russians continue to feel like such a move would be unnecessary and unreasonably costly would probably be the best course of action.
Of course, USAID, NED, IRI, NDI, and all the usual suspected Soros-backed groups have spent a ton to keep the current ruling party out of power. I’m sure the permanent professional protestors — analyst Brad Pearce calls their rallies an “organized labor protest by the foreign influence industry” — have some real concerns, just as I’m sure that any protestor receiving the backing of a foreign regime can only be taken so seriously by anyone else.
Again, ultimately, America is too far away and has too little to lose if Tbilisi’s status were to truly change to truly be motivated to do anything about it. When Russia came across the mountains in 2008, many Americans were terrified – they thought that our Georgia was under attack, the state between South Carolina and Florida. They either had never heard of your country, or they could not fathom why it being invaded should be top news in Colorado or Illinois. That Russia would attack America out of the blue seemed to them more plausible, at first glance, at least.
That being the case, Georgians are almost certainly better off choosing the proper course forward for their country with that in mind. Because chances are that if worse comes to worst, no one over here is coming to intervene over there.
Long live Georgia and its independence, good luck
And may liberty always remain your highest political goal.
Thank you.
Source: AntiWar.com.
