Georgia on my mind

I just read that John McCain says that all Americans are standing with Georgia. I, for one, am not. Not in the sense that I support Saakashvili (I do know more or less how to pronounce his name though) in his South Ossetia debacle. This whole jingoistic hysteria being fanned up against Russia is naive, simple-minded horseshit, in my humble opinion. Not only that, it's dangerous.

OK, here's my take on this Georgia mess.

Basically, the Georgian president, Saakashvili, made a major fuck-up and most likely he will be history in a very short time. And I do mean history. Despite his nonsensical claims to the contrary, Georgia has been utterly defeated and humiliated and the shit is going to eventually roll uphill in this instance, without doubt.

I guess basically he was frustrated about the ongoing South Ossetia problem, the fact that negotiations were basically dead in the water, so he opted for a military solution. One of his campaign promises was to solve this problem. Now he has gotten his little hands burned and is in some serious shit.

One can only wonder what he was thinking when he began this odd misadventure. I cannot understand how he could have imagined that the Russians would not react with brutal force to a Georgian invasion of South Ossetia.

Maybe he thought that somehow the US would pull his nuts out of the fire ... but he must have been smoking pot if that was what he was planning.

I don't know if the US put him up to this, whispered shit in his ear, made promises to him .... It's all pretty bizarre.

So, I don't know if you know the background the problem, but it goes something like this. The Ossetian people are non-Georgian. Their language is Indo-Iranian, and I believe they once were settled along the Don before being forced out centuries back. Culturally they are allegedly distinct, though the culture throughout the whole region is fairly similar in many respects. Their territory was split by Imperial Russia, the Soviets and the Georgians themselves, into North and South Ossetia. The northern half went to Russia and Georgia got the southern half.

Georgia has other enclaves of folks who are not really Georgian and pretty much hate the Georgians, sometimes for good reason. Some of the more notable enclaves include Abkhazia and a big slice of Armenia that's called Javakheti (and that most likely will be a place that Armenia and Georgia will fight over one day, but that's another story).

In any case, Georgia got South Ossetia, but when Georgia declared independence after the breakup of the USSR, the South Ossetians also immediately broke with Georgia and declared their intention to unite with North Ossetia and become a part of the Russian Federation. This precipitated a big war, which the Georgians quickly lost and South Ossetia has been a defacto self-governing state under Russia's protection ever since.

A large percentage of the South Ossetians even carry Russian passports, if that tells you anything.

The next part of the soap opera goes like this: Georgia, long weary of being kicked in the ass by the Russians for the last 200 years, declared its intention after independence of following a pro-Western stance. Not long after that, the Georgian government said that it wanted to join NATO. Of course, the Russians didn't like this idea and they have been doing everything in their power to undermine Georgia ever since.

For the Russians, this is all about NATO.

The US is more or less cynically using Georgia as a stooge in the Great Powers game. Why the US, namely George Bush, wants to keep fucking with Russia is beyond me. Perhaps it's just habit. Most likely it's just because George Bush has no fucking idea what he is doing. What a surprise.

In any case, it seems to me that we have more common interests with the Russians than we do differences. They have a lot of oil, which we want. And they have been a valuable ally for us in the war on terror, except of course that they weren't about to jump into the Iraq quagmire, but who in the fuck can blame them?

For the life of me, I can see no strategic US interest in pissing off the Russians over Ossetia. If we are going to give independence to Kosovo for some dumbass, god-only-knows-why reason, then why shouldn't South Ossetia get the same consideration?

There's just some attitude in Washington that goes like, "Hey, we need to keep fucking with the Russians because we always have and we're too stupid to do anything else."

Yes, yes, there is a big oil pipeline that goes through Georgia and I know that some are worried about it, but, hell, that oil is going to Europe for the most part, and they are not getting their drawers twisted in a huge wad about this, so why should we? I may be wrong, but it doesn't seem to me that the Russians are preparing to take over Georgia proper, in any case.

To me, it's not worth it to piss off the Russians about this, but, hey, Condi and George know so much more than we mere mortals, don't they? And what they don't know, apparently they just make up.

I knew this guy in high school who lied all the time and once my cousin turned to him and said, "That's right, Danny, just make it up as you go along ... it sounds better like that!"

I wonder what the US would have done to Georgia if we were in Russia's position? Do you think that Bush would have stopped with such a limited response? I rather think not. I think Bush would have been inclined to teach the Georgians a damn good lesson, world opinion be damned. I just got the feeling that he's that kind of a warm and fuzzy guy deep down inside.

Democracy in Georgia? Yawn. Don't insult my intelligence. Like George Bush, McCain, or practically anyone else in America really gives a shit. Not too far from Georgia as the jet airliner flies are quite a few brutal dictatorships whom we call our friends, but who happen to have lots and lots of oil. It doesn't matter that practically no one has any political rights in these countries. All that matters is that they have oil and are friendly to us ... that is, willing to sell us their oil (that's basically how we define "friendly" these days).

Territorial integrity of Georgia, a sovereign nation? That's pretty funny. First of all, it's highly questionable if places like Ossetia (or Abkhazia or Javakheti) should even be a part of Georgia in the first place. It's more or less an unfortunate accident of history that these places came under Georgian domination. Quite a few countries have these "Ossetia issues" (including Russia, China, and even France and Spain), and most of them are reluctant to address them or even acknowledge them. You know, kind of the Pandora's box thing.

One might also argue that Georgia would have a much better chance of actually functioning as a stable democracy if it would bite the bullet and jettison places like Ossetia, Abkhazia and Javakheti.

And, again, what about Kosovo and Serbia? Why is it OK for Kosovo to be free and not South Ossetia? Well, maybe because, in both cases, it pisses off Russia. That seems to be a primary foreign policy goal of the Bush Administration. Let's senselessly piss off the Ruskies. Just look at the dumbass missle defense system he ramming down everyone's throats. You know, the one that most likely won't work anyway? You know, the one that George Bush's friends and/or supporters will most likely make a fortune from building and maintaining? The one that gives Putin that supressed look of impending apoplexy whenever he discusses it? The one we agreed by treaty with the USSR that we would not build? That one.

Yes, Putin's Russia is not a perfect place. OK, OK, he's a bad man, a really, really bad man ... an evil dude, a nasty hombre. If we don't watch him carefully he might start a big war somewhere ... maybe in Iraq ... er ... I mean, in Georgia ... or some other place that Americans are really, really worried about.

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