Georgia on my mind

It turns out that the Georgian government - despite talking democracy - has become somewhat authoritarian and did double cross Russia on a deal that allowed Russians soldiers to help prevent the Georgian government from taking control of two of its provinces. The Georgian government also double crossed the United States, in that we never would have OKed the effort to take the two rebel provinces by military force and may have committed atrocities against Russian-speaking residents of South Ossetia (or allowed other to do so). But Russia - who had clearly been planning for such a situation - another authoritarian government - did respond in a "disproportionate" manner - to quote Secretary Rice, who is correct about this - disabling the Georgian military, clearly attempting to install a pro-Russian government, allowing paramilitary death squads to terrorize Georgian, cutting Georgia in half, and threatening to occupy the capital city, Tablisi (a city that Stephanie's father visited before she was born).

(And one side or the other - with civilians and death squads - may have massacred older people who tried to defend their houses.)

The irony for the U.S. government in general and the Bush Administration in particular is clear. Just as "Poppy" Bush egged on the Shiites in Iraq, to rebel against the Iraqi government, and then, when they did, was unable to help them, so "W"'s administration has encouraged Georgia to join NATO - even though this would put a NATO country right on Russia's border (even if they wouldn't have OKed the South Ossetia action - and even though - when they took this to a logical extension - we haven't been able to do much to support them. Georgia was a big contributor of troops to the Iraq war coalition - in a clear effort to curry favor with the United States - and then we quickly ferried these handful of troops back home. Of course, we can't do anything militarily about the Russian invasion of Georgia because we have so many troops and so much money tied up in Iraq and Afghanistan - even though oil is again an issue here (though this area was historically in the Russian/Soviet sphere of influence). And Russian officials clearly cited the Bush Doctrine - a kind of preemptive war doctrine - as an excuse to invade Georgia - comparing (and belittling) Iraqi government massacres of Shiites with Georgian massacres of South Ossetians. This is even though both Russia and China have recently consistently tried - in the U.N. Security Council - to block efforts to support breakaway regions (like South Ossetia) - lest the logic of that be used to support Chechnya in Russia or Tibet or Taiwan (ostensibly in China).

Russian officials - who turned Soviet among other things in calling Georgia's president a "lunatic" - even joined their soldiers in mocking the U.S.-Iraq war connection. They said that retreating Georgian troops may have learned how to run away from their U.S. colleagues in Iraq.

Tactically, there is also apparently a connectoin, as Russian generals planning the Georgian invasion apparently studied carefully the U.S. military actions in the first Gulf war and against Russia's Serbian allies in the former Yugoslavia.

Much of U.S. government officials' rhetoric - although not that from Senator McCain or Senator Biden - has been restrained. But - in the long run - our encouraging former Soviet bloc countries and even Russia's immediate neighbors to join NATO and install missile defense systems may have made these countries less - rather than more - safe from undue Russian influence, if the moves trigger - somewhat understandably - a defensive reaction on the part of Russia.

-- Perry