No offense, but Georgia’s interests are just none of my affair. It’s such a long way from here. 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. …
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.
I guess having the intelligence agencies pulling us, once again, into the war morass, is a good thing for this country because it enhances our economic performance! Of course, wars on the boarders of Russia are just the thing to make the world much more safe and radiation free, aren’t they. Who is thinking up these plans? They ought to be introduced to a tree with the connecting rope. Why are we getting lead down the primrose path by these psychopaths? When will we stop them?