Georgia in US-financed arms race for war on Abkhazia, South Ossetia, from The Tiraspol Times, independent news from Moldova.
Written by Jason Cooper.
From 11/Nov/2007.
Read the date again, please.
Got it?
Lets get to the article.
TSKHINVALI (Tiraspol Times) - Despite not being at war with anyone, for the year 2007 the military budget of Georgia is showing the highest growth rate of any country in the world, with much of it being financed openly and directly by its key military partner, the United States.
Got that?
Georgia's military budget was pretty staggering, per capita wise, and was financed by the United States.
As a result, fears run high in Tskhinvali these days.
The capital of the small Republic of South Ossetia is increasingly seen as the next target of Georgian military aggression, and many here worry that it is only a matter of time before enemy troops unleash an assault on the city.
Goodness - sky high military budget, American and Israeli military advisors (read the articles before this one) in their thousands (15,000 American soldiers in country before the attack) and no one could foresee the Georgian attack on Ossetia.
On the first day of the Olympics.
Right, well, tell me another one.
Some international analysts agree. Vicken Cheterian, a journalist and political analyst who works for the non-profit governance organization CIMERA, based in Geneva, says that "Georgia's military plans reveal its ambition to reclaim the territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia it lost in the wars of the early 1990s."
The journalist, who is a regular contributor to Le Monde Diplomatique, points out that since the "rose revolution" of 2003-04, Georgian military spending has effectively been increased by over forty times. The majority of Georgia's arms purchases are financed directly or indirectly from Washington. Salaries for Georgian soldiers have also repeatedly been paid for by American taxpayers.
Obvious facts are obvious... except for American troops in country, and the Tel Aviv and Washington politicians who green lighted the Georgian invasion.... oops, did I just say that?
They didn't know, of course - that's the story and damn those evil, invading Russians, saving the Ossetians from mass murder!
According to Cheterian, the Georgian defence ministry announced in early May 2007 that it will sharply increase its current defence budget, from 513 to 957 million lari ($304m to $567m). This escalation follows an already impressive rise in defense spending since the "Rose revolution." This means that since the arrival to power of Mikheil Saakashvili, defence spending has continued on an upward spiral.
The arms build-up is financed by the United States, he writes in the article which was published by OpenDemocracy. The money started flowing in 2002 when an eighteen-month "train and equip" program with a total budget of $64 million was started to modernize four infantry battalions and one mechanized company.
This was written in 2007.
Gosh, no one could have predicted Georgia invading Ossetia.
It just seemed that those Georgians really liked their guns - especially as they got them for free from Uncle Sammy.
Most of the military build-up is concentrated against Abkhazia and South Ossetia. A modern, NATO-compatible barracks has just been built in Senaki in western Georgia not far from Abkhazia, and another one is under construction near Gori, a half-hour driving distance from Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. According to the report, each of these bases will have the capacity to house a brigade, with a troop-strength of 3,000.
Gosh, that town of Gori, close to the Ossetian border - just a normal NATO base, not a springboard into Ossetia?
Goodness, who could have predicted Georgia attacking Ossetia - the rapid military buildup, American soldiers and Israeli mercenaries training their soldiers, and a military base right on the Ossetian border...
Who would have thunk it?
Bush and the propaganda specialists in American media bleat about how Russia is invading democracy. And goodness, democracy good, and Russia (last time I checked, it was also a democracy, right?) bad.
Oh, about that Georgian democracy:
Al Jazeera, dateline November 05, 2007:
Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian president, has refused to resign after three days of mass protests against his government.
He accused opposition leaders of organising a "campaign of lies" against him in order to weaken the Georgian state.
Popular discontent with Saakashvili grew after Irakli Okruashvili, a former defence minister, accused the president of corruption and plotting to murder a prominent Georgian businessman.
Okruashvili was arrested, but then freed on multimillion-dollar bail after he retracted his allegations.
Gosh, nothing to see here, Americans, move right along.
Democracy in Georgia is strong, and that Saka... Saki... Sake guy is good people...
And here is Georgian democracy in action, as police use water cannon, tear gas and clubs to beat up protesters.
We can't have democracy with protesting going on, for fucks sake!
That's uhhh... un-American!
And here is Georgian police storming a TV station that the democratically elected president disliked.
This is November 07, 2007:
Democracy (Georgian style)!
Fuck yeah!
And we, the Yoo Ess of Ey, must defend such fine and upstanding democratic countries! Those eeeevil Russians are against democracy - isn't it obvious here?!
It's goodness, angels, democracy Saki... Saker... Sake-guy vs Putin, evil Russia, dare I say it, communism!
Speaking of biased coverage, lets go now to Russia Blog, shall we?
Now that the artillery smoke has lifted and Sarkozy and Medvedev’s 6 point ceasefire plan is imposed on Georgia, it’s time to figure out: what the hell happened between last Thursday and now?
Gary Brecher has the most elegant, if undeniably sociopathic, explanation:
1. The Georgians started it.
2. They lost.
3. What a beautiful little war!
Except, there was more than one war; and which one you were following depended on where you lived.
The US media covered the Russian invasion of Georgia and its airstrikes on Gori, while the Russian media covered the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia and its attacks on Tskhinvali, its capital. And there was no overlap.
This article gets bonus points by referencing the war nerd.
For example, on all of last night’s three major CNN news shows - the Election Center, Anderson Cooper 360, and Lou Dobbs Tonight - there was no more than one mention of Ossetia itself, of any Georgian atrocities or Ossetian refugees. It was all pictures of the aftermath of Russian raids on Gori, Russian tanks rolling into Georgia, with captions like “Russia invades”. Yet, as CNN itself reports in a paragraph buried on its website, “up to 100,000 people are thought to have been displaced by the violence, which has left South Ossetia’s capital of Tskhinvali in ruins”.
100,000 people fleeing for their lives, and Ossetian capital looking like Dresden in 1945, in a war that Georgia started with a sudden artillery barrage of Ossetian civilian targets - towns, villages, cities?
Not important.
Russia is evil is the meme!
Oh, and who started the war again?
Why, Russia of course - how could it be otherwise?
What is troubling is the US media’s willingness to similarly tow the party line, but in the absence of any of the coercive measures, such as the state censorship, that the Russian press endures. There have been no William Dunbars on CNN, despite the fact that every report I’ve seen on the channel yesterday had been framed as “Russian invasion”, with endless clips of Saakashvili alleging Russian crimes etc, in a loop of totally pro-Georgian coverage. Georgia is a key US ally, the 3rd largest troop contingent in Iraq, and occupies a strategic, oil rich zone.
Hmm, back up there fella.
Georgia has the 3rd largest US troop contingent in the world?
Maybe Sake... Saker... Saakashvili (oooof! finally!) was counting on this fact to cow Russia and prevent them from coming to the aid of Ossetian civilians - the plan was to murder enough of them so that the rest would be scared and run off to Russia.
See, Ossetia would be part of Georgia again, and with Ossetians fled (or dead) no more problems!
What a brilliant plan!
My, what other (shitty little) country in the Middle East had a similar plan in 1948 - how did it work out again?
My, my - this is such a brilliant plan, it just smells neocon-ish to me (the fact that Georgia's defense minister is Israeli just screams this, doesn't it?).
To the uninformed viewer, it was Russia, not Georgia, which used the cover of the Olympic games to invade; in reality, they both did. In addition, there have been several mentions of Georgia as a fledgling democracy, but no mention of Saakashvili’s recent crackdown on the media and civil society.
Imagine this - American news not telling the truth and indeed lying blatantly?
The sky is red, the Earth is flat and Russia started this war.
And how’s this for hysteria, from CNN’s breathless hack Ed Henry reporting live from the White House on Monday night:
“…What’s really going on is that Russia is trying essentially to reconstitute the old soviet union.bring back the old spheres of influence. if you take over Georgia today, what’s next? Could they then move into the Ukraine (sic), could they take over the Czech Republic? These are awful options that are on the table, but theres a fear that if they start here and are not stopped, what happens next?”
My, my... my.
Lets take a look at the map.
Please. Seriously. A world map.
Take a blue marker.
Mark USA in blue.
Then mark Germany, France, Holland, Belgium in blue (that's in Europe - take your time, Yanks - use google if needed).
Now mark Poland, Czech Republic blue too.
Turkey is blue too.
Now mark Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Kazakhstan, Iraq, Pakistan, Tajikistan blue also (use google again - no shame, had to do it myself).
Those are the countries that are allies of the neocons - err, uhhh, sorry, "freedom" and "free market forces".
Most of them have military bases with American troops and bombers on them.
Now take a red pencil.
Mark Russia as red.
See that red blob on the map?
That's the evil, expansionist Russia - see how the red blob is trying to take over the world?
According to CNN, what will come next after Georgia - will they attack Czech Republic?
The map indeed shows the red Russia blob threatening the small, teeny, tiny, blue areas controlled by the USA around the globe...
That should be obvious to anybody who has done this little red and blue marker exercise!
Continuing with the article:
On distinct occasions, I noticed straight factual inaccuracies. For example, both Campbell Brown and Lou Dobbs consistently asked why Russia was refusing to agree to international demands for a cease fire, when in fact Russia had convened the UN Security Council for just such a ceasefire last week, only to be rebuffed by the United States. As an AP story from August 9th, and quoted in Mark Ames’s excellent article for The Nation, put it:
“At the request of Russia, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency session in New York but failed to reach consensus early Friday on a Russian-drafted statement.
The council concluded it was at a stalemate after the United States, Britain and some other members backed the Georgians in rejecting a phrase in the three-sentence draft statement that would have required both sides “to renounce the use of force,” council diplomats said.”
Lets re-read this again, as this is mind boggling.
The evil, sadistic, satan spawned Russians wanted a peace treaty that would reject the use of force to resolve the political crisis in Ossetia (and Abkhazia).
The Georgians, backed to the hilt by the forces of "freedom", "democracy" and "free markets", rejected this insane, ridiculous demand for peace - you see, Georgia backed by USA and its allies failed this time, but damn, they want to try again!
"Democracy" is on the march around the world (go team blue!)
In addition, there have also been no mentions of Kosovo, despite the fact that Russia widely sees the West’s sponsorship of Kosovo breaking from Serbia as a precedent for Ossetia breaking from Georgia.
Kosovo breaking apart from Yugoslavia (Serbia) is good - democracy is on the march!
Ossetia breaking away from Georgia is bad - when the Ossetian people voted to become independent and/or join the Russian Federation, that vote was for communism, fascism and anti-semitism and well... that kind of voting is un-American (Kosovo good, Ossetia bad, bad, bad).
Even more unnervingly, are we in fact witnessing the crystallisation of a ‘CNN effect’? On both Lou Dobbs and the Election Centre, Obama was criticised for not taking a strong enough stance on Russia in the wake of its invasion. Here is a sample quote from Campbell Brown from yesterday’s programme:
“John McCain…saw an opportunity here. He was quick to condemn Russia, he’s been keeping up the sort of steady drum beat. Obama a little more cautious, at least initially, in his statements. He’s since toughened up his stance. Should he have come out stronger right from the get-go?”
Yes, you are not mistaken: that was the word ‘drum-beat’, as in ‘drum-beat to war‘, used in a positive way, by a news host.
I applaud the American media for trying to involve America into yet another war.
Iran is not enough - we want, nay, demand three wars at once - one against Russia!
To protect the "democratic" Georgia from evil, sadistic, murderous Russia.
Seriously - irony taking a break here-
"that was the word ‘drum-beat’, as in ‘drum-beat to war‘, used in a positive way, by a news host"
Doesn't it give you chills reading this?
Apparently the lesson learned from the whole Iraq bang bang is that propaganda works, Americans are stupid (or apathetic - or both!) and the bigger the lie, the better it works!
4 comments:
nice work; great research.
So many lies. I've now begun reviewing all of the history that was taught to me in American schools only to find I've been constantly lied to. You must put forth so much effort to find the truth amongst the lies. Everything would be so much easier if they'd just TELL THE TRUTH.
1: Glad you have your internet up and running
1a: too bad you're still overtly abusing that privilege.
2: highly entertaining article you've written here...
2b: now you know why it took so long for you to GET your internet connection back... it's a conspiracy I tell ya! damn republicans!!!
3: what? say it ain't so! American backed ethnic cleansing for profit? no! I don't believe it! Nothing in American history can validate this viewpoint!!!
3a: bullocks!
AmericanGoy wrote:
"Apparently the lesson learned from the whole Iraq bang bang is that propaganda works, Americans are stupid (or apathetic - or both!)"
What frustrates me is that the people who do tend to get out and protest the most are left-wingers.
They'll attack Bush and the other White gentiles (rightly so), but because they're infected with 'political correctness' they have to ignore that 600lb gorilla in the room which is zionist jews of course. So in the long run their protests make no difference at all.
Can't risk getting themselves accused of being an anti-semite or a 'neo-nazi' now can they?
I heard Sean Hannity repeat the fiction today that Russia was the attacker and Georgia "the attacked".
The neo-cons aren't even trying to rewrite history in this instance, they are lying about it from the start.
Note to all: Georgia moved on a breakaway province called Osseita that borders Russia, Russia then moved in and stopped them----and then went into Georgia to do a little damage as a reminder to not try this again. Georgia started this fight during the Olympics because they thought they'd get away with it. They did not.
Dont let the neo-cons cast Russians as the initial aggressors. They were not in this instance.
Post a Comment