Saakashvili the Pure
Amidst an overall useful column, former Bush administration official Paul Saunders makes the important point that Mikhail Saakashvili’s government in Tbilisi is not, in fact, as pure as the driven snow:
But the situation inside Georgia belies Saakashvili’s rhetorical commitment to freedom. Most glaring was his handling of opposition protests last fall. The State Department’s 2007 Human Rights Report, released just a few months ago, found “serious problems” with Georgia’s human rights record and notes “excessive use of force to disperse demonstrations”; “impunity of police officers”; and declining respect for freedom of speech, freedom of the press, freedom of assembly and political participation. Ana Dolidze, a democracy advocate and former chair of Georgia’s Young Lawyers Association, has described in detail how Saakashvili acted quickly after entering office to empower the executive branch at the expense of parliament and to strengthen the government by “stifling political expression, pressuring influential media and targeting vocal critics and opposition leaders” — including by using law enforcement agencies. Saakashvili is far from the morally pure democrat he would have the West believe he is.
By the same token, while Vladimir Putin’s Russia certainly falls short of norms of liberal democracy in a variety of ways, it’s hardly the greatest totalitarian dystopia known to man. Like the gambit to posit a gaping cultural void between “western” Georgia and “eastern” Russia the effort to impute a large ideological element of democracy versus dictatorship into the Russia-Georgia conflict is essentially bogus. Georgia by all accounts comes closer to the democratic ideal than does Russia, but both countries exist along the continuum flawed political systems. Georgia’s not a place like, say, Poland or the Czech Republic that’s really organized a clear post-Communist democratic politics. Russia and Georgia are fighting over land and influence, not big ideas, and as Saunders says “fighting erupted not primarily because of what the country represents but because of its government’s actions.”
39 Responses to “Saakashvili the Pure”
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August 15th, 2008 at 2:41 pm
The Neocons’ talk of “democracy” is deceitful bullshit. Putin, whatever his faults, works for his country. Saakashvili was installed by the US and works for the US.
It is not democracy when the money to get your national leader elected came from the far side of the world.
Who but two-faced Neocons could go to the other side of the world, overthrow the government of IRaq, cause the deaths of hundreds of thousands, plot to steal the oil wealth of Iraq from the people, put the people of IRaq into perpetual bondage to foreign puppets, and call that Empire “freedom”? Supported by “Democracy”?
We don’t even have freedom and democracy here in the USA. We have a a deeply corrupt oligarchy, supported by $1 Billion sham elections, and sustained by the lies of a closely held, tightly controlled news media. A country “run by the people who own it”.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:45 pm
This just makes him nearer and dearer to our current regime.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:49 pm
Oh–in other words, Saakashvili took his template for governance directly from Bush/Cheney….
BTW, Matt, if you were a wizened and world-weary foreign-policy sage like John McCain, you’d know the guy’s name is Shashkavili-cha-cha-cha!
August 15th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
So this means Georgia has to have Russia’s dick up its ass?
August 15th, 2008 at 2:57 pm
elle loco:
And when does a men ever want to be called Misha? Is that a Russian thing?
August 15th, 2008 at 3:02 pm
Matthew,
Should or shouldn’t Russia stop occupying Georgia and stop ruining Georgian cities on purpose?
August 15th, 2008 at 3:03 pm
You are probably too kind to note that the USA under Bush is not well-placed on the political continuum either. In Denver, Colorado the police have prepared cages to house demonstrators they round up at the Democratic convention.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:05 pm
Quick question: How are you in any way qualified to discuss this situation?
Really — do tell.
I know “reporting” (on this or, for that matter, any other issue, domestic or international) is out of the question, but what did you even know about Georgia or Saakashvili a week ago?
You’ve heard of “trolls”? Well, Matt, you’re a troll on this sad world event.
If I want to read an ignoramus talking out his ass I’ll go to, oh say, William Kristol or Sean Hannity. I expect more (actual knowledge, self-doubt, minimal competence) from progressives.
Next time you probably should recuse yourself on the basis of UTTER AND TOTAL IGNORANCE! (Though, yeah, I guess that threatens the noble traditon of blogging as demonstrated by Andrew Sullivan and the like.)
August 15th, 2008 at 3:08 pm
Wow, sounds a lot like Bush. No wonder there is fondness in the Bush administration for Saakashvili.
In all this, I have trouble understanding the rational basis for Saakashvili’s actions in Ossetia. But I wonder if his goal was just to place Georgia squarely in play so to speak. Raising his prominence on the world stage above his lower intrinsic level.
While it is taking a large toll, he is manipulating Bush like a marionette…
August 15th, 2008 at 3:11 pm
Score one,
Is that you Dick?
August 15th, 2008 at 3:17 pm
What accounts? Blow for blow, what is it that Shaakashvili does more democratically than Putin?
Putin was implicated in one peculiar crime against humanity that many found repugnant: being beastly to oil tycoons. And in general, he treats oil companies like dirt (recent snafu with BP?) Other than that, Misha matches Vova.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:18 pm
Putin has shown the world Bush is sans nads the remainer of his term.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:20 pm
Misha is the Russian equivalent of Mike.
And I think Matt here is giving us a much better take on this then we get in the conventional media. Saakashvili didn’t invade Ossetia, we wouldn’t have a situation where Russia has an excuse to invade Gori. We are at the point where the war is over, and Georgia lost, and now efforts should be . Let’s not pretend Georgia’s the victim when they caused the hostilities. Through Saakashvili’s actions, he may well have lost South Ossetia and Abkhazia for a lifetime, at the least. And, unfortunately, Saakashvili hasn’t learned a bit from his actions. He’s still counting on an American support that we both can’t and won’t do.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:33 pm
In the future, only people with PhDs on Russo-Georgian relations are allowed to comment.
And when does a men ever want to be called Misha? Is that a Russian thing?
Yes it is a Russian thing. My parents call me Misha.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:08 pm
Jeez, Matt, but the Russians knocked out a Digital Dolby theatre!
August 15th, 2008 at 4:29 pm
While Georgia and Russia both live somewhere along the regime type continuum, one important thing to note is that Georgia is at least moving in the right direction while Russia is moving in the wrong direction. Georgia is trying to join NATO and the EU and has (had) the third largest troop contingent in Iraq. Russia, on the other had, is trying to supersede the OSCE, blocking sanctions against Zimbabwe on the UN security council, considering using Cuba as a stop over for its airforce, etc. And though this isn’t some good versus evil morality play, Russia probably saw a good opportunity to stick it to the west by attacking a pretty much powerless neighbor. This doesn’t mean that this is the first step towards Russian hegemony, but it does expose the difficulties for the US, post-Iraq, in dealing with other aggressive nations.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Almost every male nickname in Russian has a feminine ending, Misha, Kolya, Sasha, Petya, Alyosha, Dima, Slava, Lyova, Volodya, to name a few.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:32 pm
Nah, Little Misha, in the future only people who have some vague fucking clue as to what they’re talking about and aren’t merely engaging in knee-jerk postures (be they anti-Obama, pro-Russia or anything else) will speak under the auspices of media entities that aspire to seriousness — or so we can only dream.
Also, you might want to do some research on a time when American journalists were, you know, actual journalists.
As opposed to pontificating, twentysomething, prepschool lefties regurgitating their girlfriend’s views on education or, oh, giving their own moronic ignorant fan-boy takes on the NBA or rhapsodizing about how HBO’s ‘The Wire’ really showed them where the black inner-city it at or now, God forbid, explaining how we should all view Putin’s actions.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:04 pm
Score one,
Considering how much people who you would think do “have some vague fucking clue” got things completely wrong in the past 7 years, I’ll take my chances with the pontificating twenty something lefties.
It is nice hear you passionately criticize people who write blogs. It would be even nicer if were equally critical of people who, you know, are actually running the country.
August 15th, 2008 at 6:20 pm
I know “reporting” (on this or, for that matter, any other issue, domestic or international) is out of the question, but what did you even know about Georgia or Saakashvili a week ago?
What did you know?
I could have identified the name, Saakashvili (without knowing how to pronounce it. I understood in a vague way that he wanted to move his country into a NATO orbit and that Russia opposed it. I could identify this country on a map (probably) and for that reason thought this was a silly and impossible notion. That probably puts me in about the top 1/2 of one percent on American knowledge of Georgia, and just from your obnoxious tone and inability to have a point probably way ahead of you.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:20 pm
“Matt here is giving us a much better take on this then we get in the conventional media.”
And Justin Raimondo at Antiwar.com beat him to it by, oh, two years (that would be two years Matt was out of college), writing about this likely outcome back in 2006.
But Matt hates libertarians, so here we are.
“Georgia is at least moving in the right direction while Russia is moving in the wrong direction. Georgia is trying to join NATO and the EU and has (had) the third largest troop contingent in Iraq.”
And you think these steps are “moving in the right direction”? Interesting…
What is happening is that Georgia is becoming a US “client state” run by neocons for neocons. That is not “moving in the right direction”. Russia is fighting back against being marginalized by the US.
Get a clue.
August 15th, 2008 at 11:46 pm
Russian support for mafia states in Transdniestria, Abkhazia and S. Ossetia is rotten to the core. Let’s stop pretending that because Saakashvili isn’t Mother Theresa that Georgia and Eastern Europe deserve being treated like Iraq.
August 16th, 2008 at 12:44 am
Oh, Russian support for Muslim Mafia states is the issue?
Hmmmm… Where have I heard similar references?
Oh, yes, - Kosovo. Albania.
And who did the US support there? The Muslim Mafia.
Put a sock in it.
August 16th, 2008 at 1:30 am
Re: Almost every male nickname in Russian has a feminine ending, Misha, Kolya, Sasha, Petya, Alyosha, Dima, Slava, Lyova, Volodya, to name a few.
They only look feminine because they end in -a. when adjectives are used with them they take masculine endings.
Re: I could have identified the name, Saakashvili (without knowing how to pronounce it.
Excatly like it’s spelled, every letter pronounxced: Sa-a-kash-vi-li. Georgian is written with its own alphabet (derived once upon a time from Greek, though it looks nothing like Greek now). Georgian names are transliterated phonetically, even when the result looks impossible to pronounce.
Re: What is happening is that Georgia is becoming a US “client state” run by neocons for neocons.
which explains why Georgia is so eager to join the EU since that is the Neocons’ favorite international organization, right up there with the UN. Good grief, the foolish Left’s assumption that everything revolves abound the US (but widershins, that is for ill) is as absurd as the foolish Right’s belief that everything revoves around the US for good. Can everyone please allow the Georgians, and all other 192 nations on the planet, the simple respect of having their own politics for their own purposes, which don’t necessarily involve us 24-7?
August 16th, 2008 at 4:06 am
How d’yall like these apples?
Saakashvili may be put on trial in Russia, say prosecutors
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29005
November 3rd, 2008 at 9:38 pm
seriously, I prefer the point rather than power leveling
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