Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili's 'Calculated Gamble' -- A War News Updates Commentary

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili

WNU Editor: The L.A. Times is the first major news outlet that is starting to analyze what brought about this war ..... and what it is finding reflects badly on Georgia, especially it's decision to reassert its authority in South Osssetia by invading it in the matter that it did.

From L.A. Times:

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, a U.S.-trained attorney regarded by Washington as a pro-democracy wunderkind, has made a political career of brinkmanship with neighboring Russia. This time, he may have overplayed his hand.

Saakashvili helped oust former Soviet Foreign Minister and Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze in the so-called Rose Revolution in 2003 and became Europe's youngest president the following January at the age of 36. He has been jousting with Moscow ever since over control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, two pro-Russian regions of his country.

A lover of Georgian wine and Western culture, Saakashvili is described as supremely confident and even autocratic. He moved troops into disputed South Ossetia last week as a new Russian president presided in Moscow, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and President Bush visited Beijing, and much of the world's attention was focused on the Summer Olympics. Georgian forces came under overwhelming air and ground attack and were quickly repelled.

Read more ....

My Comment

The open comments section for this L.A. article is overflowing. I cannot say that I am surprised.

Georgia President Mikheil Saakashvili failed in not only understanding the Russian Government .... but he also failed in understanding the average Russian citizen. When I was in Moscow visiting relatives the first time (in 1992) I was struck by the remarks that my uncles and cousins were making on how "black people" were taking over Moscow. That they run the Mafia, they owned all the shops, and were also sexually exploiting poor and young Russian women, etc. etc. etc.

This did not make any sense to me. I came from a high school that was half African America, one of my business partners is from Haiti, and two of my best friends are from Barbados. But when I looked around in Moscow, I did not see one "black" person. When I mentioned this, they started to point out to me the people that they were talking about. It was then that I realized that for Russians "blacks" are people from the Caucasus. When I went the following week to St. Petersburg .... Vladimir Putin's home town .... I was exposed to the same comments and remarks again.

Bottom line .... Russians regard people from the Caucasus in low regard.

Fast forward to last week, the Russian population are exposed to a man from the Caucasus having the audacity to invade a province with "Russian" citizens. Not only invading the province .... but first unleashing a rocket barrage on the provincial capital and its citizens. Seeing those images in an endless loop on T.V. pushed everyone over the edge.

Because of the security/war situation in Chechnya, and with the heavy security presence in North Ossetia (because of the school massacre in Beslan), the soldiers were already there to react to what people in Russia were perceiving as genocide.

The Georgians never had a chance, and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili should have also realized that. But he did not.

Watching him on television right now .... I do not think he realizes how close he came to losing it all. That if it was not for the intervention of Russians friends and allies in the West, the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi will be under bombardment right now.