- The controversy over the Georgian surprise military
attacks on South Ossetia and Abkhazia on 8.8.08 makes a closer look at
the controversial Georgian President and his puppet masters important.
An examination shows 41 year old Mikhail Saakashvili to be a ruthless
and corrupt totalitarian who is tied to not only the US NATO
establishment, but also to the Israeli military and intelligence
establishment. The famous 'Rose Revolution of November 2003 that
forced the ageing Edouard Shevardnadze from power and swept the then
36 year old US university graduate into power was run and financed by
the US State Department, the Soros Foundations, and agencies tied to
the Pentagon and US intelligence community.
-
- Mihkail Saakashvili was deliberately placed in power
in one of the most sophisticated US regime change operations, using
ostensibly private NGOs (Non Governmental Organizations) to create an
atmosphere of popular protest against the existing regime of former
Soviet Foreign Minister Edouard Shevardnadze, who was no longer useful
to Washington when he began to make a deal with Moscow over energy
pipelines and privatizations.
-
- Saakashvili was brought to power in a US-engineered
coup run on the ground by US-funded NGO's, in an application of a new
method of US destabilization of regimes it considered hostile to its
foreign policy agenda. The November 24 2003 Wall Street Journal
explicitly credited the toppling of Shevardnadze's regime to the
operations of "a raft of non-governmental organizations . . .
supported by American and other Western foundations." These NGOs, said
the Journal, had "spawned a class of young, English-speaking
intellectuals hungry for pro-Western reforms" who were instrumental
laying the groundwork for a bloodless coup.
-
- Coup by NGO
-
- But there is more. The NGOs were coordinated by the
US Ambassador to Georgia, Richard Miles, who had just arrived in
Tbilisi fresh from success in orchestrating the CIA-backed toppling of
Slobodan Milosevic in Belgrade, using the same NGOs. Miles, who is
believed to be an undercover intelligence specialist, supervised the
Saakashvili coup.
-
- It involved US billionaire George Soros' Open
Society Georgia Foundation. It involved the Washington-based Freedom
House whose chairman was former CIA chief James Woolsey. It involved
generous financing from the US Congress-financed National Endowment
for Democracy, an agency created by Ronald Reagan in the 1980's to "do
privately what the CIA used to do," namely coups against regimes the
US Government finds unfriendly.
-
- George Soros' foundations have been forced to leave
numerous eastern European countries including Russia as well as China
after the 1989 student Tiananmen Square uprising. Soros is also the
financier together with the US State Department of the Human Rights
Watch, a US- based and run propaganda arm of the entire NGO apparatus
of regime coups such as Georgia and Ukraine's 2004 Orange Revolution.
Some analysts believe Soros is a high-level operative of the US State
Department or intelligence services using his private foundations as
cover.
-
- The US State Department funded the Georgia Liberty
Institute headed by Saakashvili, US approved candidate to succeed the
no-longer cooperative Shevardnadze. The Liberty Institute in turn
created "Kmara!" which translates "Enough!" According to a BBC report
at the time, Kmara! Was organized in spring of 2003 when Saakashvili
along with hand-picked Georgia student activists were paid by the
Soros Foundation to go to Belgrade to learn from the US-financed Otpor
activists that toppled Milosevic. They were trained in Gene Sharp's
"non-violence as a method of warfare" by the Belgrade Center for
Nonviolent Resistance.
-
- Saakashvili as mafioso
President
-
- Once he was in place in January 2004 as Georgia's
new President, Saakashvili proceeded to pack the regime with his
cronies and kinsmen. The death of Zurab Zhvania, his prime minister in
February, 2005, remains a mystery. The official version-poisoning by
faulty gas heater-was adopted by American FBI investigators within two
weeks of the killing. That has never seemed credible to those familiar
with Georgia's gangland slayings, crime, and other manifestations of
social decay. Zhvania's death was followed closely by a functionary of
the Premier's apparat, Georgi Khelashvili, who allegedly shot himself
the day after his chief's demise. The head of Zhvania's research staff
was later found dead as well.
-
- Figures allied with Saakashvili reportedly had a
hand in the premier's death. Russian journalist Marina Perevozkina
quoted Gia Khurashvili, a Georgian economist. Prior to the fatal
incident, Mr. Khurashvili had published an article in Resonans
newspaper opposing the privatization and sale of Georgia's main gas
pipeline. Ten days before the prime minister's body was found,
Khurashvili was attacked and his editor-in-chief-citing pressure from
'security service' figures he refused to name-issued him a
warning.
-
- The late premier's position on the pipeline issue
was believed the direct reason for the murder of Zhvania. Zhvania's
brother, Georgi, also told Perevozkina that not long before Zhvania's
death he received a warning that someone was preparing to kill his
brother. Saakashvili was reportedly livid when the US State Department
invited Zhvania to Washington to win a Freedom Medal from the US
Government's National Democratic Institute. Saakashvili tolerates no
rivals for power it seems.
-
- Saakashvili, who cleverly marketed himself as
"anti-corruption," appointed several of his family members to
lucrative posts in government, giving one of his brothers a position
as chief adviser on domestic issues to the Baku-Ceyhan Pipeline
project, backed by British Petroleum and other oil
multinationals.
-
- Since coming to power in 2004 with US aid,
Saakashvili has led a policy of mass-scale arrests, imprisonment,
torture and deepened corruption. Saakashvili has presided over the
creation of a de facto one-party state, with a dummy opposition
occupying a tiny portion of seats in the parliament, and this public
servant is building a Ceaucescu-style palace for himself on the
outskirts of Tbilisi. According to the magazine, Civil Georgia (Mar.
22, 2004) until 2005, the salaries of Saakashvili and many of his
ministers were reportedly paid by the NGO network of New York-based
currency speculator Soros- along with the United Nations Development
Program.
-
- Israel US military train
Georgian military
-
- The current military assault on South Ossetia and
Abkhazia, in violation of Saakashvili's pledge to seek a diplomatic
not military solution to the territorial disputes, is backed by US and
Israeli military "advisers." Israel's Haaretz newspaper reported that
on August 10, Georgian Minister of Reintegration, Temur Yakobshvili,
"praised the Israel Defense Forces for its role in training Georgian
troops and said Israel should be proud of its military might, in an
interview with Army Radio. 'Israel should be proud of its military
which trained Georgian soldiers,' Yakobashvili told Army Radio in
Hebrew, referring to a private Israeli group Georgia had
hired."
-
- One of the targets of Russian bombs near Tbilisi
was, according to IsraelNN.com, "a Georgian military plant in which
Israeli experts are upgrading jet fighters for the Georgian military
Russian fighter jets bombed runways inside the plant, located near
Tbilisi, where Israeli security firm Elbit is in charge of upgrading
Georgian SU-25 jets."
-
- Israeli Foreign Minister and candidate to succeed
ousted Israeli Prime Minister, Olmert, Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni,
proclaimed on August 10 that "Israel recognizes Georgia's territorial
integrity," code for saying it backs Georgia's attempt to take South
Ossetia and Abkhazia.
-
- The reported 1,000 Israeli military advisers in
Georgia were not alone. On July 15, the Reuters news wire carried the
following report: "VAZIANI, Georgia - One thousand U.S. troops began a
military training exercise called "Immediate Response 2008," in
Georgia on Tuesday against a backdrop of growing friction between
Georgia and neighboring Russia. The two-week exercise was taking place
at the Vaziani military base near the capital Tbilisi, which was a
Russian air force base until Russian forces withdrew at the start of
this decade under a European arms reduction agreement... Georgia has a
2,000-strong contingent supporting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and
Washington provides training and equipment to the Georgian military.
The United States is an ally of Georgia and has irritated Russia by
backing Tbilisi's bid to join the NATO military alliance... "The main
purpose of these exercises is to increase the cooperation and
partnership between U.S. and Georgian forces," Brig. Gen. William B.
Garrett, commander of the U.S. military's Southern European Task
Force, told reporters."
-
- With Russia openly backing and training the
indigenous military in South Ossetia and Abkhazia to maintain Russian
presence in the region, especially since the US-backed pro-NATO
Saakashvili regime took power in 2004, the Caucasus is rapidly coming
to resemble Spain in the Civil War from 1936-1939 where the Soviet
Union, Nazi Germany and others poured money and weapons and volunteers
into Spain in a devastating war that was a precursor to the Second
World War.
-
- In a curious footnote to the actual launch of
military fighting on the opening day of the Olympics when Putin,
George W. Bush and many world leaders were in Beijing far away, is a
report in IsraelNN.com by Gl Ronen, stating that "The Georgian move
against South Ossetia was motivated by political considerations having
to do with Israel and Iran, according to Nfc. Georgian President
Mikheil Saakashvili decided to assert control over the breakaway
region in order to force Israel to reconsider its decision to cut back
its support for Georgia's military."
-
- Ronen added, "Russian and Georgian media reported
several days ago that Israel decided to stop its support for Georgia
after Moscow made it clear to Jerusalem and Washington that Russia
would respond to continued aid for Georgia by selling advanced
anti-aircraft systems to Syria and Iran." Israel plans to get oil and
gas from the Baku- Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from the Caspian.
-
- Although as of this writing Russian President
Medvedev has announced Russia is halting its military response against
Georgian targets, the situation is anything but stable. The insistence
of Washington in bringing Georgia into its geopolitical sphere and
backing an unstable regime around Mikhail Saakashvili may well have
been the straw which broke the Russian camel's patience if not his
back.
-
- Whether oil pipeline disputes or Russian challenges
to Israel are the proximate trigger for Saakashvili's dangerous game,
it is clear that the volatile Georgian and his puppet masters may have
entered a game where no one will be able to control the
outcome.
-
-
-
- * F. William Engdahl is a Global Research Associate
and is author of
- A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and
the New World Order (Pluto Press) and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden
Agenda of Genetic Manipulation www.globalresearch.ca. He may be
reached through his website,
- www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.
|
