- 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.
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