Category Archives: Georgian War

Remember that little war between Russia and Georgia last year?  You know the one that sparked the endless playground debate of who started it?  Which ramped the rhetoric of a New Cold War to an all time high?  Well, that little war could have become a very big one according to Ronald D. Asmus in A Little War That Shook the World: Georgia, Russia and the Future of the West. In his review of the book for Bloomberg, James Neuger reports:

“Several senior White House staffers” urged “at least some consideration of limited military options,” such as bombing the mountain tunnel that served as Russia’s main supply line.

Luckily, cooler heads in the Oval Office prevailed. Namely, George W. Bush, of all people, who put the kibosh on the idea.

Four days after the war started on Aug. 7, 2008, Bush cut off the discussion. A top-level White House meeting produced ..read more

Andy Garcia has been cast to play President Mikheil Saakashvili in the upcoming film Georgia.  I just hope that Garcia’s audition required to see how he looked chewing on his tie.

The film, directed by Renny Harlin, will revolve around the last year’s war between the Caucasian nation and Russia.  Though war remains extremely politically charged on both sides, the film promises to “not take sides” reports the Telegraph.  I have no idea how that will be possible considering that its executive producer is Papuna Davitaia, a pro-Saakashvili MP.  Nevertheless, Michael Flannigan, one of the film’s other executive producers, told Georgian TV: “Our main concern was to show war as a bad thing.  We had an opportunity to make a really anti-war film.”  We’ll see about that.  My prediction is that war will be shown to be a “bad thing” only when the Russians are involved.  But who knows?  I do ..read more

In the last few weeks, Georgia has sprung back into the news.  Protesters are calling for Saakashvili to resign as more and more people have become disillusioned with the six year old Rose Revolution. Russia is threatening to pull out of a NATO meeting to protest military training exercises outside of Tbilisi, while some are speculating that Russia’s own military exercises near South Ossetia might signal that it’s ready to occupy the Caucasian country if political tensions escalate or if they’re provoked.

Georgian officials are claiming to have prevented one possible provocation this past week when they stopped 20 Nashi activists from “provoking incidents” at the Georgian-South Ossetian demarcation line.  The Georgian MVD detained Aleksander Kuznetsov, a Nashi commissar who claimed during his recorded interrogation that he was seeking to get to Tbilisi to hold a Nashi action to support of the opposition. Keznetsov’s detention has infuriated Russian officials.  Andrei Nesterenko, ..read more

Updated: Trailer with subtitles.

For those who are still confused as to the correct narrative of the Georgian War last August, Pervyi kanal will be broadcasting a TV movie called “Olympus Inferno” on 29 March to set the record straight in high action packed, melodrama form.

The film revolves around Michael, a US entomologist (played by Israeli actor Henry David), and Zhenia, a female Russian journalist (starring Polina Filonenko) who stumble upon evidence that Georgia started the war while using nocturnal cameras to record the fluttering of rare night butterflies. Their discovery gives them a cause higher than rare lepidopterans.  Natural science is quickly abandoned as the two haul ass to the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali to present their damning evidence to the world.  But not so fast, like any good action-love drama the two must claw, scrape, and screw their way past evil Georgians, ducking a butt-load of explosions and ..read more

There are two new articles of note that concern the Georgian War and the low intensity media war against Russia.  The first is Neal Ascherson’s “A Chance to Join the World” in the London Review of Books on the present and future of Abkhazia. The second is Mark Ames’ “Editorial Malpractice” or more aptly named on the Exiled site, “Freddy Gets Fingered: How I Busted the Washington Post’s Op-ed Page Editor.” Therein Ames unmasks WaPo‘s “incessant demonization [of Russian and Putin] puts more weight on ideology than on journalistic professionalism–or simple fact-checking.”

In regard to Ascherson’s article, the big question is the future of now defacto 120 mile coastal strip called Abkhazia.  Rejoining a nationalist fueled Georgia set on asserting its “sovereign territorial integrity” by force is out of the question.  There appears to be little desire to formally attach to Russia though being its client is inescapable and in many ..read more