Byzantine Blog

A Flea On the Bear’s Butt

If someone awarded you with the presidency over the small country like Georgia, the first thing you would probably do would be to take the world map and see where your glorious fief lies.

A single glance at the geographic position of this tiny fiefdom situated at the bottom left corner below Russia, like a flea on the bear’s butt, would be sufficient for every normal person to start the thought process along the lines: I sure hope Russia doesn’t sneeze any time soon, because if it does, there will be no Georgia left. In fact, I sure hope Iran doesn’t fart and Turkey doesn’t burp, because in either case, I’m bound to lose the country.

After comparing your measly 69 thousand square kilometers (marked in red on the map) to Russia’s 17,075,400 square kilometres of landmass alone, and your population of 4,4 million to 142,893,540 of Russians in Russia, after learning that Russia (in butt of which your fief sits), is the largest country in the world, covering almost twice the territory of the next-largest country, Canada, being a healthy, sane person, you would then go to take a look at some other facts, to find out how nice to Russia you actually need to be if you’re going to keep your fief and your people alive and well.

You would then learn that up to one million of those 4,4 million of your serfs are in fact living and working in Russia, and sending their Russia-earned moneys back to your fiefdom -- up to 2 billion dollars a year -- and it’s precisely that money that keeps your fiefdom alive, since it represents your country’s entire “state budget.” Sooner or later you would have to discover that all of your bite-size country with long and harsh winters is being heated and lit by the Russian gas and electricity. Inevitably, you’d also find out that the only thing your fiefdom exports is wine, mineral water and scrap metal and guess where? That’s right, to Russia.

On top of everything, three provinces in your country are populated with Russians who don’t accept or recognize your eminent rule, who are ready and willing to fight you any day and who want to secede parts of your fiefdom and adjoin them to Mother Russia.

I’d say: No matter what you do, you better be VERY VERY NICE to Russia. You don’t have to love Russians, you may even hate them, but you have to respect them and, above all, never - ever! - anger Russia or give it a reason to even cough in your direction, ‘cause it might wipe you off that map in a Moscow minute.

Puppet Theatre

In order to think like that, all you have to be is sane. Georgia’s president Mikhail Saakashvili obviously isn’t.

Although everyone would want you to believe he is a “pro-Western, reformist democrat” who defeated Georgia’s evil communist regime in 2003 with nothing but “a long-stemmed rose in his hand” (I honestly doubt I have ever heard anything more idiotic), the truth is Mikhail Saakashvili is just another overly ambitious dumb pawn in the hands of western power centers, brought to power on the strings of yet another rainbow-colored “revolution” orchestrated and directed by NATO and the West, with the goal to reduce, weaken, squeeze-in and ultimately destroy Russia.

In other words, Mikhail Saakashvili is a mere puppet, just like Ukraine’s Yushchenko, just like the Czech Vaclav Havel, like Askar Akayev of Kyrgyzstan, or the mixed bag of “democratic coalition” and Soros' “Otpor” that tricked Serbian President Milosevic out of power, abducting and handing him over to the criminal kangaroo court in the Hague, like a common street bum few months later.

The exact same scenes you have seen in Czechoslovakia in the 1989 during their “velvet revolution” were replayed in Belgrade in 2000, in Georgia in 2003 and in Ukraine in 2004 (and attempted in Belarus in 2006). The same thorny roses were carried from Prague to Belgrade and Georgia, from the barrels of Czech riot police guns’ to the barrels of Serbian and Georgian riot police guns’. Those same roses turned into tulips in Kyrgyzstan and back to roses again in Georgia, the velvet-texture used in Czechoslovakia became an orange color in Ukraine and a shape of fist in Serbia... Same scenario, same puppeteers, same goal and means, different fake symbols, different actors and spots on the map.

And if anyone out there still believes it is possible to change ANY regime in the world by carrying the long-stemmed roses in your hands, try carrying those roses through the western countries, take a look at Hungary today (despite the mainstream media sweeping it under the rug, the violent protests in Hungary have not ceased after almost a month with no result, since the man they have been trying to oust is already a western puppet), or just remember protests in Seattle during the WTO conference. Yeah, it’s the roses that have done it elsewhere.

Biting Bear’s Behind

It turns out that when certain puppets get too much steam blown up their derrieres, they lose their head and compass and start thinking they really are important, even omnipotent. So, on September 27, 2006, Mikhail Saakashvili, believing he’s so immense he can actually slap Russia around, arrested four Russian military officers stationed in Georgia and charged them with spying. Attacking, arresting, detaining and trying official army members of another state, who did not wander in and attack your country, is generally considered the second most explosive and provocative thing one can do to start a war, after actually shooting the targets across the border. And this is what Saakashvili chose to do.

Not only has his “court” ordered four Russian officers to be held in detention for two months “during the investigation” (!), instead of immediately expelling them, Georgian police has also surrounded Russian military Headquarters in the capital Tbilisi, saying “another Russian officer they want to question is sheltering inside.” So, what they did is no less then laying an armed siege on Russian military Headquarters.

As far as I know, Saakashvili has not been subjected to a cranial lobotomy at any point in his life, but this whole episode certainly suggests some such radical procedure was performed on his brain recently.

Bit by a flea, the Bear reached behind to scratch the sore spot. Russia has put its troops in Georgia on high alert, recalled its ambassador to Tbilisi and has begun a partial evacuation of its staff from Georgia. The first two Russian emergencies ministry planes with about 100 people on board - including the ambassador - left Tbilisi on September 29. Moscow has also advised Russians not to visit Georgia, and stopped issuing visas to Georgian nationals.

Yelling back at it from its tail-end, the Flea Saakashvili accused Russia of “hysteria” over his intelligent and diplomatic moves of biting Russia’s behind. Someone much smarter and with entire brain must’ve told him to immediately end whatever he started, or he’s bound to be farted off the map, because on October 2 Saakashvili decided to drop the “investigation,” detention, trials and siege-insanity and released the Russian officers.

Rude Awakening

Although he quickly realized he has to end the charade, being a raving lunatic, Georgia’s Saakashvili thought it would be super-cool if he would humiliate Russia further. So he stripped four Russian officers of their military garb, dressed them in civilian clothing and made them carry their personal belongings in small plastic bags while parading them in front of cameras and media, where Russian officers, handcuffed and under police escort, were forced to listen the ceremonious reading of the deportation notice. Instead of handing them over to Russian officials, Saakashvili took abducted Russian officers from jail and turned them to European Union’s Organisation for Security and Co-operation (OSCE) workers, actually to Karel De Gucht - the foreign minister of Belgium (!). The four were then taken in an OSCE vehicle to the Tbilisi airport, where a Russian Emergencies Ministry plane was waiting for them.

Saakashvili’s perverted little game was cut short almost as soon as it started. Russia has severed all transportation links with Georgia, including commercial flights and train services, and has cut off all postal links and mail services with Georgia. Russian police started taking a better look at the large Georgian diaspora in Moscow, checking their “businesses” and restaurants and deporting illegal Georgian residents from Russia. Washington Post cites a hostess in a Georgian restaurant in central Moscow saying: “They should have gone after the bandits a long time ago.”

All this, of course, is nothing but the Bear stretching up and yawning -- it could get lot worse, and soon. Denouncing Georgia’s brazen move of arresting Russian military officers as “state terrorism involving hostage-taking,” Russian President Vladimir Putin posed a very important question Saakashvili better know how to answer: “These people think that under the roof of their foreign sponsors they can feel comfortable and secure. Is it really so?” Flea Saakashvili also needs to figure out where is the gas for his country going to come from in a month or so, and will his arrogance and OSCE’s good wishes be sufficient to warm up Georgian homes and hearths this winter.

While thinking about heat and electricity, Saakashvili should also look for ways to get those $2 billion a year from NATO or EU, or whomever, because he’s certainly going to start missing the money his country was receiving from Russia any day now. Empty state treasury, empty banks, social and pension funds won’t get filled with European smiles and western mainstream media’s crocodile tears. Perhaps the French and Californians could buy Saakashvili’s moldy wine, and Austrians and Brits would go for his mineral water, instead of Russians...

The fact Flea Saakashvili thinks “enough is enough” after taking such pleasure in spitting on the hand that feeds him, and the fact Belgian foreign minister feels that “neighbors should get along” is hardly going to help impoverished Georgia, desperately dependent on Russia’s goodwill, to remain stable, peaceful and prosperous while acting as if they are the ones whose mercy is keeping Russia alive.

When Georgians who are as pro-western and pro-NATO as Saakashvili are shocked with their leader’s “lack of diplomacy,” i.e. idiocy, the time must be ripe for Saakashvili to look for the missing part of his brain. Or he could find a first-grade teacher who’ll kindly show him his fiefdom on the world maps and teach him few facts about the parasitic “economy” his country has been surviving on for the past century or so. If that doesn’t cure his present delusions, the cold, darkness and poverty will.

Not so Trivial

A quick trivia quiz: Which Georgian is most likely to be cited as the most infamous one?

Answer: Joseph Vissarionovich Dzhugashvili, better know as Joseph Stalin.