GEORGIA LETS NOT GO

To most Americans, Georgia means Atlanta and maybe the busiest airport in the world but in the last few days, Georgia has been center stage with not only both presidential candidates bidding for the spotlight, but Bush and Company using all the old political rhetoric. Certainly this part of the world ranks very high in the lack of understanding by Americans. It is one of those places that is so often described as "over there" and until the present, has been of no real importance to the average American. To even attempt to understand the region, you must go back and look at it historically, and when you do, you find it was part of the Persian, Greek and Roman Empire; was overrun by the Mongols in the 13th century, followed by the Ottoman Empire and became part of Russia in the early 19th century. It had a brief period of independence after the Russian Revolution but once again became part of Russia in 1921. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the son of a well-known Georgian family, whose father was one of Georgia’s most famous writers, became president. Gamsakhurdia as a youth led protests against the Soviets, was jailed and then released and began his schooling. He earned a PHD and MD and was also known as a writer. Soon after his election as Georgia’s first democratically elected president, he was caught by a coup that plunged the country in 3 years of civil war. In 95 Eduard Shevardnadze returned to Georgia and was elected president. At this time, the two regions so much in the news today, South Ossetia and Abkhazia were fighting with local separatists and gained a de-facto independence. Shevardnadze was re-elected in 2000 only to lose in another coup, known as the Rose Revolution and Mikheil Saakashvili became president.
Georgia has had a stormy history to say the least, and although Saakashvili is seen as a duly elected president, he does have a history of suppression of the press as well as arresting those that would demonstrate. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have looked to Russia for protection and it would seem that Saakashvili was the first to provoke the Russians when he moved troops to the two regions. On a recent trip to Georgia, Sec. Rice told Saakashvili that "we always fight for our friends" and whether she meant support for Georgia’s membership to NATO or was she sending a veiled message to Putin, we will probably never know. In either case, if Saakashvili thought the US would have a face off with the Bear, he is far too stupid to be president of anything. It ‘ain’t going to happen’ and I would guess that South Ossetia would now be part of Russia. Both McCain and Obama of course must now make political rhetoric and it was the ideal time for McCain to espouse his knowledge of foreign policy but when he said it is not acceptable in the 21st century for a country to invade a sovereign nation, I though I was going to fall off the sofa. Of course had Russia been smarter they would have simply accused Georgia of having WOMD’S, and then it would have been ok. But we all know that Russia has always lacked finesse, they simply send in the tanks. They also found out that by sending in the tanks to Afghanistan, it could be very expensive and cause political upheaval just as the U.S. is finding out in Iraq.
To say the least, it is a complicated question and does not have a simple answer but one thing that is not the answer, is committing troops to another war. The high water mark for this country in the world was WWII and the few years after with the rebuilding of both Europe and Japan. Germany and Japan, our enemies, in this struggle are now two of the most advanced countries in the world with a higher standard of living than the U.S. History has proven Vietnam to be a tragic mistake and it will say the same about Iraq. I just returned form a month in Vietnam and it is a booming economy, people are busy, friendly and there was no anti-American sentiment, as well as no feeling of "North vs. South". Perhaps in the years to come that will happen in Iraq but at what price? At any rate, whoever is the next president he will have his hands full and I predict that within two years that either will be unpopular. There is no way that the problems we now face, thanks to the 8 Bush years will be solved. Certainly the war in Iraq will be over, as well as Afghanistan but once again, at what price?