Ukraine War Day #826: Gruzia The Designated Second Front? – Part I

Dear Readers:

Yesterday was an exciting time for the Parliament of the nation of Gruzia (=”Georgia“). For those who have not been getting the memos: The ruling Party, “Georgian Dream” has passed a law requiring Non-Governmental Organizations (NGO’s) which receive more than 20% of their funding from abroad, to disclose this fact, along with their donors. The purpose of this rather tepid law: Trying to do at least something about all those pesky NGO’s trying to foment a coup and bring Saakashvili’s Party back into power. That’s the gist.

After the law was passed, as if on cue, the Opposition movement, lavishly financed by foreign NGO’s, launched massive streets demonstrations to protest against the law, which they say is sponsored by Russia and helps Russia. This has been going on for a couple of weeks now. The President of Gruzia, who supports NATO and the Opposition, vetoed the law, just like she said she would; however, yesterday the Parliament overrode her veto. The Opps walked out and joined the street protesters. Parliamentary Speaker Shalva Papuashvili yelled after them: “You are getting your orders from abroad [e.g., from the United States], and you are operating on behalf of a foreign government!” No shit, Shalva!

Uncle Sam Wants You to Die For America!

Let’s break this down some more and list the Dramatis personae of this burgeoning political crisis. There is obviously a huge split between the government, led by Prime Minister Irakly Kobakhidze, versus the nation’s President, Salome Zurabichvili. To jump to the chase: Kobakhidze doesn’t want to go to war against Russia, on NATO’s behest; whereas Zurabichvili wants to do precisely that. Simplified, but not overly simplified.

Salome: Putting the “bich” back into Zurabichvili.

Kobakhidze: Was the 5th Beatle before he went into politics.

So, what is really at stake here? Well, the West would like to enlist Gruzian assistance in the Ukrainian war, by helpfully opening up a second front against Russia. This would occur when Gruzia, say, attacks its former enclaves of Abkhazia and/or South Ossetia, and engages Russian troops. Were this to happen, Russia would be forced to move at least some of its reserves to the Caucasus region, leaving sections of the Ukrainian front bare. The NATO plan is as simple as that. Meanwhile, Gruzia’s government has been able to resist Western pressure to join in the sanctions war against Russia; but this new demand is even worse, because they are being asked to sacrifice their young men against Russian soldiers.

To help us understand all of this even better, I have this piece by reporters Ivan Grachov and Grigory Kubatian.

Twisting The Screws

Kakha Kaladze is the Mayor of Tbilisi (the capital city) and also happens to be the General Secretary of the ruling political party, “Georgian Dream”. His Party has attempted, over the years, to steer a tricky course between Russia and NATO. They are not actually pro-Russian, as their opponents accuse them: In theory, they would eventually like to join the EU and NATO; but, in practice, they know this is impossible. This particular political party is led by rather smart people who understand exactly what is going on, and how NATO wants to use them as a disposable toy, just like Ukraine.

Kaladze: “Gruzia is experiencing very strong pressures with the goal of getting us to join the sanctions against Russia. They also want us to open up a Second Front in the war. Come on, now, they have the Baltic countries, let them open a second front against Russia. But just leave us, Gruzia, in peace. The people of Gruzia ought to know who loves us, and who is our enemy. An enemy is the one who tries to spark a Color Revolution.”

Kakha Kaladze: “Know thine enemy.”

Kaladze went on, in his widely quoted speech, to demand a list of exactly which nations are trying to sponsor this Color Revolution: “We just don’t need to be Ukrainized,” he concluded.

People wonder, where does Kakha get off, being so blunt. The answer is: He used to be, in his youth, a legendary football player in Kiev’s Dinamo team. He knows Ukraine like the back of his hand. And Ukraine knows him, too. For this reason, his warning of “Ukrainization” sounds especially weighty.

Prime Minister Kobakhidze has an even better reason to be so blunt with his words: He has received literal death threats from EU functionaries! In the Mafia-type style of “would be a shame if somefin wuz to happen to ya…” Kobakhidze told the story how an EU Commissar (whom he did not name) hinted darkly to him: “You saw what happened to Fico…”

Instead of running away crying like a little baby, Kobakhidze went public with the threat: “Even by the usual standards of these unending threats and blackmail [on the part of the West], this particular threat was astounding! Here is how it happened: I was on the telephone with one of the EU Commissars, who was ticking off on his fingers a whole list of all the bad things that our Western partners were planning to do to Gruzia, and then at the end he said, You saw what happened to Fico, so you need to be very careful…. And we know, from our own preliminary sources, that the assassination attempt against Fico has traces which lead back to the Special Services of one particular country which is especially tightly connected to the Global Party of War, as we call it. And this Party is ready to do anything, in order to bring about chaos within Gruzia.”

Olivér Várhelyi: “Fico was supposed to be sleeping with the fishes…”

Some people might think that Kobakhidze is exaggerating. If only he were. On that very same day, Euro-Commissar Olivér Várhelyi, who is responsible for EU enlargement, admitted that he was the guy who was speaking on the phone with Kobakhidze that day; and that he did indeed mention Fico’s name in the course of that conversation. But he tried to pass it off as something more benign, like, “Hey, Hercules, no need to complicate the situation by resisting Western recommendations.”

Among the “Western recommendations” which the Georgian Dream Party is resisting is the “recommendation” to keep their hands off of foreign NGO’s. The law requiring accountability of NGO’s was actually a very mild law, such as many countries have, and was even modeled on the equivalent American law: It doesn’t ban foreign-funded NGO’s, it just asks them to reveal the sources of their funding. It’s called the “Transparency Law”.

Well, transparency is the very last thing that these organizations want. NGO’s are the key resource of NATO’s “soft power”, which allows them to manipulate foreign countries, by manipulating popular opinion. The NGO’s are also manned by small armies of paid foreign agents, many of them violent thugs who just loves them some kung-fu street-fighting. The so-called “political Opposition” in Gruzia consists of these “grant-eaters”, as the Russians call them. They can mostly be lumped together as followers of ex-President Saakashvili. Funded by American and European money, they are virulently pro-Western and pro-NATO. This current campaign they see as their final battle to return to power. But first they have to carry out a coup, using the usual time-worn methods of Color Revolution.

So, what is the balance of forces? At their peak, these Opps were able gather up to 150,000 people in an impressively massive street demonstration against the Transparency Law. Gruzian police successfully kept order in the streets, and thankfully no blood was shed. The ranks of the protesters were beefed up by mercenaries returning home from the war in Ukraine just for this purpose. Dignitaries from the three Baltic states, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania, joined the protesters and even led the columns back to the main square; after which they all delivered fiery speeches from the pulpit to the NATO faithful.

[to be continued]