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The Puppet Masters Behind Georgia President Saakashvili
By F. William Engdahl
21/08/08 "ICH"
-- - 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.
© 2008 F. William Engdahl
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