Georgian media has stated that Tbilisi is currently “actively working” to reestablish diplomatic ties with Moscow, which were cut by the previous regime in August 2008 after Georgia was humiliated in a disastrous five-day conflict with Russia. Even while it might not seem significant to outside onlookers, this is a seismic occurrence that clearly illustrates the remarkable speed and scope of the US Empire’s self-inflicted downfall.
Washington has spent a great deal of time and resources trying to turn Georgia against Russia over several decades. Tbilisi and its large neighbor share strong and cohesive cultural, economic, and historical links. A sizable portion of the populace still views Joseph Stalin as a local hero, and nostalgia for the Soviet Union is pervasive today. Although there is widespread support for EU and NATO membership as well as Euro-Atlantic integration, recent events have caused many Georgians to reevaluate their nation’s ties to the West.
The ruling Georgian Dream has maintained civil coexistence with Moscow while deepening Western ties ever since gaining office in 2012. Since the start of the proxy war in Ukraine, global pressure to place sanctions on Russia and provide weapons to Kiev has continuously increased, making this a delicate dance. In this context, there have appeared to be several conspiracies to topple the current government and replace it with one that is more aggressive.
Legislation mandating foreign-funded NGOs, of whom there are over 25,000 in Tbilisi, to dismantle the threat of a coup by Georgian Dream’s enemies both domestically and internationally, has been passed. Its gestation resulted in a contentious confrontation with the US and EU, which concluded with parliamentarians who supported the measure receiving Washington’s penalty and the possibility of future action. Georgians encountered the toxic reality of their relationship with the West along the way. They also didn’t enjoy it.
“Foreign aid”
Reports from the modern media on the Maidan “revolution” in Ukraine in 2014 either downplayed or disregarded the clear role played by the West in stoking it, or they dismissed the idea as “conspiracy theory” or Russian “disinformation.” Western journalists have been even more strident in their denial of any and all indications that the insurgent uprising in Kiev was anything other than a massively, if not universally, popular grassroots public movement since the start of the proxy battle.
However, it wasn’t so long ago that the Empire openly boasted of its involvement in planning “color revolutions” across the former Soviet Union, Maidan being unquestionably the last of them. In 2005, intelligence cutout USAID released a glossy magazine, Democracy Rising, describing in detail how Washington was behind a surge of revolutionary turmoil in Georgia, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Ukraine, Yugoslavia, and elsewhere throughout the first years of the 21st century.
Two years earlier, longstanding Georgian leader Eduard Shevardnadze was overthrown by the Washington-sponsored “Rose Revolution” and replaced with a close associate of George Soros, selected Mikheil Saakashvili, who was schooled in the United States. Since Tbilisi’s independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, Shevardnadze has enthusiastically acted as an obedient agent of the Empire, allowing his nation to be extensively privatized for the benefit of Western investors and subject to widespread social and political infiltration by groups supported by the US and Europe.
In a cruel twist of fate, Shevardnadze’s downfall was ultimately caused by his submission. Washington and Brussels took advantage of this opening to set the groundwork for his downfall by providing funding to persons and groups that would act as shock troops during the “Rose Revolution”. For example, Democracy Rising discloses that in 1999 US funding “aided Georgians in developing and garnering support for a Freedom of Information Law, which the government enacted.” This enabled media and non-governmental organizations with Western funding “to scrutinize government expenditures, [and] compel the dismissal of an unscrupulous minister.”
To further wage war against their country, the US funded the training of “lawyers, judges, journalists, members of parliament, NGOs, political party leaders, and others.” “Give people a sense that they should regulate the government” was the stated goal of this generous donation. “The Rose Revolution was the climax of these efforts,” according to Democracy Rising. Exit polls funded by the United States indicated that the official results of the November 2003 election in Tbilisi, which indicated a coalition of pro-Shevardnadze parties had won, were rigged.
The parliament building in Tbilisi was suddenly crowded with anti-government protestors from all around the nation, who were transported there on busses that Washington had funded. Weeks of nationwide protests organized by NGOs and activist organizations funded by the US culminated on November 23 when demonstrators stormed parliament while waving roses. Shevardnadze stepped down the very following day. “Without foreign assistance, I’m not sure we would have been able to achieve what we did without bloodshed,” said a recipient of Western assistance in Democracy Rising.
According to the USAID booklet, a large number of US-trained and funded assets in Georgia that were crucial to the “Rose Revolution” later rose to positions of authority in Saakashvili’s administration. Before being elected mayor of Tbilisi, one, Zurab Chiaberashvili, served as chair of the Central Election Commission of Tbilisi from 2003 to 2004. Democracy Rising cited him as saying:
“With US support, new leaders emerged…[The US] assisted the righteous people in toppling an evil and dishonest regime.With [this support], civil actors came to life, and we were able to communicate with each other like a practiced soccer squad when it mattered most.
“Exhibitions of volition”
Foreign Policy, the official journal of the Empire, acknowledged that the outcomes of the “Rose Revolution” were “terribly disappointing.” “Elite corruption still continued apace,” and “wide-ranging change never really materialized.” In truth, Saakashvili’s reign was harsh and autocratic in many aspects, unlike Shevardnadze’s. He was neither more democratic nor less authoritarian than his predecessor. Many unanswered questions surround his possible involvement in a number of mysterious killings, his ordering of security agencies to kill opponents, and his personal order for jails to become politicized hotspots for rape and torture.
Saakashvili’s continued support of his nation’s economic rape and plunder, and more importantly, the escalation of Tbilisi’s anti-Russian agitation both domestically and globally, meant that the Empire could overlook all of this. This battle culminated in tragedy in August 2008 when civilian positions in the separatist territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia were shelled by Georgian forces, encouraged by the US. Moscow stepped in to firmly protect the two. In later fights, hundreds were murdered and up to 200,000 residents were displaced.
When dissident writer Mark Ames visited the battle sites in December of that year, he saw “the first ruins of America’s imperial decline” as well as “an epic historical shift.” Russia’s military decisively defeated the Georgian army, which the US had spent years training, arming, and even clothing. There was also “no American cavalry on the way.” Because of his firsthand knowledge, Ames dubbed that year’s conflict outbreak “the day America’s empire died.”
In 2002, Ames had already gone to Georgia to cover the entry of US military advisors into the nation. “At the time, the American empire was riding high,” the journalist writes. The world’s most powerful nation since Rome, according to a column published in TIME magazine in honor of George W. Bush’s inauguration. Washington was thus in a position to “re-shape norms, alter expectations and create new realities” through “unapologetic and implacable demonstrations of will.”
One such daring “demonstration of will” was the US military’s incursion into Georgia. The purpose of the military advisors’ deployment was supposedly to equip Tbilisi’s soldiers to fight “terrorism”. As Ames stated, the true intention was to train them “for key imperial outsourcing duties.” It was anticipated that “Georgia would deliver greater returns at a fraction of the cost—what Mumbai call centers did for Delta Airlines—for the American Empire.” Washington’s “strategic control of the untapped oil in the region” would likewise be secured by this action.
What’s in it for Georgia? “Nobody would dare to f*** with them, because f***ing with them would be f***ing with us,” stated Moscow. However, Saakashvili’s close friendship with the West proved to be absolutely insignificant in the end. Furthermore, Russia became “drunk on its victory and the possibilities that it might imply” as a result of the blitzkrieg’s success:
For us, it’s now concluded. That’s evident in real life. However, years will pass before the political elite in America even starts to realize this.The United States of America, in decline, is reacting hysterically, woofing and shrieking and throwing a tantrum, anxious to show that it still has fangs. We have entered a hazardous time in history. In the meantime, Russia has become as successful as a Hollywood speedballer.With any luck, we’ll make it through the embarrassing descent…without doing too much harm to the rest of the planet or ourselves.
The Maidan coup glaringly demonstrated that the Empire had not learned from the 2008 conflict, and Ames’s hope that US politicians and public alike could bear Washington’s “humiliating decline” “without causing too much damage to ourselves or the rest of the world” proved to be misplaced. Now that it has been clearly defeated on the eastern steppe of Ukraine, the West is openly considering direct engagement in the proxy war as a way to come to terms with the disintegration of its long-running attempts to incorporate Moscow’s “near abroad.” God be with all of us.
