Carlton Meyer, “The Conquest of the Republic of Georgia in 2003” (Tales of the American Empire, May 2020)
One of a series of films by former US Marine Corps member Carlton Meyer on US political and military interference and intervention in various nations around the world over the past 100 years or so, this short piece is a timely survey of the history of the Republic of Georgia in the Caucasus region between Europe and Asia since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991. Georgia had been part of the Soviet Union since the early 1920s at least – Soviet leader Josef Stalin had been part-Georgian, part-Ossetian, a fact that will become important later – and even before then, had been part of the Russian empire from 1801 to 1917. After the Soviet Union dissolved, Georgia became an independent republic and at this point the United States became interested in drawing the country away from the Russian orbit into its sphere of influence, mainly through the use of soft power in the form of non-government organisations (NGOs) masquerading as charities and humanitarian groups. The US State Department groomed one Mikheil Saakashvili as a future leader, enrolling him at Columbia Law School and then at The George Washington University, later sending him back to Georgia with a huge pot of money. Saakashvili later entered parliament in the late 1990s. After serving as Justice Minister under President Eduard Shevardnadze, Saakashvili quit the government and Shevardnadze’s party, formed his own party and campaigned in the country’s parliamentary elections in November 2003. Saakashvili claimed his party had won the elections and led mass protests and demonstrations that culminated in the resignation of Shevardnadze as President. The coup came to be known as the Rose Revolution, and is the US conquest of Georgia as described in the title of the video.
Through maps and archival news reels, a hilarious FOX television news interview with two Ossetian-American citizens, and with voice-over narration by Meyer himself, the video covers not only Saakashvili’s rise to power (in the process exposing him as a US-groomed stooge) but also US military infiltration of Georgia’s armed forces and police, paving the way for Saakashvili’s invasion of South Ossetia in August 2008. Russian forces assisted South Ossetian forces in throwing back the invading Georgians in a 5-day war but not before about 350 people were killed and over 1,500 injured. Civilians in the contested territory clearly knew who was to blame, as demonstrated in the FOX television news interview with a teenage girl and her aunt, in which both blamed President Saakashvili for starting the war and praised Russia’s role in ending it, causing their host to hastily end the interview and cut to an ad break. The war and a number of political scandals, including the mysterious death of Prime Minister Zurab Zhvania in 2005 and a prison scandal in which prisoners were beaten and sodomised in 2012, dented Saakashvili’s reputation and the President left Georgia in 2013. Criminal charges were filed against him by the Georgian Prosecutor in 2014.
Despite Saakashvili having left Georgia (to resurface in Ukraine in 2014, taking up, then losing, then regaining Ukrainian citizenship in the years following), the video states the country is still very much under the thumb of its US masters. Georgia continues to supply cannon fodder to assist the US in invading foreign countries and subjugating local populations in countries as far apart as Kosovo, Iraq and Afghanistan. The US and Israel continue to supply training to Georgia’s military and security forces. A biological warfare research facility operates in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, often to the detriment of the health of communities in the facility’s immediate vicinity. The US continues to dangle the prospect of NATO membership in front of Georgians even though the country does not fulfill the requirements of NATO membership or those for EU membership. Significant border issues exist between Georgia and its neighbours including Russia.
Far from gaining true independence and security in its neighbourhood, Georgia has given away both to pursue dreams and promises that the US and the EU have no intention of fulfilling.