Remembering 2008 Georgian Aggression Against South Ossetia

by Stephen Lendman (stephenlendman.org - Home - Stephen Lendman)

In 2003, US-orchestrated "Rose Revolution" installed fascist puppet Mikhail Saakashvili in power.

Georgia became a police state, popular opposition crushed by assassinations, mass arrests, detentions, torture, closing an opposition television station, and suspending civil liberties.

On August 7, 2008, Georgia launched naked aggression against the breakaway South Ossestian province, Saakashvili acting in cahoots with Washington.

Invasion was strategically timed. Then President Dmitry Medvedev was on vacation. Then Prime Minister Vladimir Putin was in Beijing during its summer olympic games, the event dominating world news.

After around 1,700 of its nationals were killed, including 12 of its peacekeepers, Russia intervened responsibly, routing invading Georgian forces in five days. 

Washington, its Western allies and media scoundrels wrongfully accused it of aggression.

In his book "The Grand Chessboard," the late Zgigniew Brzezinski explained Eurasia's geopolitical importance - calling it "the center of world power extending from Germany and Poland in the East through Russia and China to the Pacific and including the Middle East and the Indian subcontinent," adding:

"The most immediate (US) task is to make certain that no state or combination of states gains the capacity to expel the United States from Eurasia or even to diminish significantly its decisive arbitration role." 

Dominating that part of the world and its vast energy and other resources is Washington's goal, its military strength along with NATO and Israel its principal tools.

Beginning on August 7, 2008, S. Ossetia became a Eurasian great game battleground. Russia accused US-dominated NATO of encouraging Georgia to attack the province, calling its invasion undisguised aggression accompanied by propaganda war.

Russia was wrongfully blamed for intervening to protect its nationals, at the time Dick Cheney saying its "aggression (sic) must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community."

An EU statement was similar, expressing its "commitment to the sovereignty and the territorial integrity of Georgia," irresponsibly criticizing Russia, ignoring Saakashvili's aggression.

After five days of fighting, Medvedev halted Moscow's military action, saying the goal of providing security for South Ossetian civilians and Russian peacekeepers was accomplished.

At the same time, he ordered the quelling of "any emerging hotbeds of resistance or any (further) aggressive actions."

Media scoundrels disgracefully compared Russia's responsible (five-day) intervention to Hitler's swallowing of Czechoslovakia and Poland.

Saakashvili accused Moscow of his own naked aggression, his campaign orchestrated in Washington, supported by Bush/Cheney, part of their anti-Russia strategy.

The Wall Street Journal called Putin, prime minister at the time, "Vladimir Bonaparte," claiming Georgia was "the first stop for Eurasia's new imperialist."

The Journal and other media scoundrels bellowed that the West must draw a line at Georgia, urging NATO intervention.

US relations with Moscow eased under Obama before reaching an all-time post-Cold War low - following Washington's coup d'etat in Ukraine, installing illegitimate Nazi-infested putschists in power.

Bipartisan congressional action and unrelenting media hostility toward Russia since Trump took office made things worse than ever - heightening the risk of East/West confrontation by accident or design.

VISIT MY NEW WEB SITE: stephenlendman.org (Home - Stephen Lendman). Contact at lendmanstephen@sbcglobal.net.

My newest book as editor and contributor is titled "Flashpoint in Ukraine: How the US Drive for Hegemony Risks WW III."

http://www.claritypress.com/LendmanIII.html

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