Posted on August 25, 2008 - by Venik

Saakashvili Finally Loses It

Ever since Georgia launched its military operation against South Ossetia, killing Russian peacekeepers and hundreds of its own civilians, many have been asking the same question: has Saakashvili gone stark raving mad? It’s now official: yes. In his latest interview to Financial Times, Saakashvili revealed dark depths of madness that made even Putin shudder:

“The first thing that happened was that the Russian tanks came in,” Mr Saakashvili told the Financial Times during a late night interview in his office. He added: “From our point of view [the Georgian military] was responding to a Russian invasion.”

Mr Saakashvili’s claims could not be independently verified.

However, on the night of August 7, when Georgian forces began their rocket and artillery barrage of Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, Brigadier General Mamuka Kurashvili, the chief of Georgian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, went on Georgian television to say Georgia’s “power-wielding bodies” had “decided to restore constitutional order” in the breakaway region.

Mr Saakashvili denies ever using those words. He said his forces moved to slow a Russian advance into Georgia in order to “confront them for three days and to wake up the world”.

General Kurashvili also did not mention Russian armour…

In Mr Saakashvili’s version, he is blameless for the resulting crisis that has destroyed much of the Georgian military…

…”In terms of trying to remove me, the Russians have grossly miscalculated. If you attack a democratic country and say that your main target is the president, it doesn’t make the president weaker,” said Mr Saakashvili.

(Source: Saakashvili lays blame for crisis firmly on Russia, by Jan Cienski, Financial Times, August 25, 2008)

So far we have seen Saakashvili rolling in dirt in Gori, as he was trying to evade an imaginary Russian helicopter; we’ve seen him chewing on his necktie as he was preparing to deliver a speech to journalists in Tbilisi; we’ve seen Saakashvili accuse Gorbachev on Larry King Live of being a KGB propaganda agent; and, of course, who can forget Saakashvili’s televised PR appearances in his Tbilisi office decorated with EU and US flags.

Needless to say, by denying the history of what happened in South Ossetia on August 7-8, Saakashvili compromises the ceasefire agreement and everyone who stood behind it, including Sarkozy and Rice. If the Kremlin wishes so, it can easily portray Saakashvili’s latest statements as yet another reason why Russian peacekeepers need protection from the Tbilisi madman.

I am afraid I wasted a whole lot of time trying to analyze Georgia’s tactics and strategy in this war. It would seem that the war in Georgia will be best explained not by military analysts but by psychiatrists. As if Saakashvili’s brutal aggression and humiliating defeat were not enough embarrassment for the US and the EU, it now appears that for the past four years NATO has been arming and training an army led by a certifiable nutcase. I just can’t wait to see Dr. Rice and Sarkozy spin that one.

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