The cat and mouse game between Russia and Georgia

The first territorial conflict with Russia since the end of the Cold War. It is slowly gaining the headlines amid the hype surrounding the Olympics. The CNN actually drew a formal link between the two events by showing a Russian and a Georgian athlete embracing each other during the Games. And just like this, CNN reluctantly switched from the Olympics, watched all over the world, to the Russia-Georgia conflict, which does not get the same amount of advertising revenue. Surely, many people around the world have never heard of South Ossetia or Abkhazia. Ironically, the sea of the disinterested and ignorant seems to include Wolf Blitzer, the senior CNN correspondent, charged with conducting the role with the Georgian President Saakashvili today (August 10, 2008).

He seemed to confuse the two territories during the interview, asking Saakashvili about 'south Abkhasia' instead of 'south Ossetia', and interrupting him constantly to ask irrelevant questions. Finally, he top beating around the bush pretending that the viewers are interesting to know what is happening in Georgia and got to the point, asking Saakashvili whether it is true that two thousand Americans are living or travelling in Georgia at the moment. Indeed, what are the measures his government intends to take to secure the safety of Americans in Georgia? Pity the President seemed to have other preoccupations at the moment. Though this seems like an abhorrent question to ask of a man whose country and very capital, Tbilisi, is under an attack from the Russian army, that was not all coming from Blitzer, who also inquired whether the President believes that the Georgian army is as powerful as the Russian. I wonder wheather and when he checked the basic statistics: Georgia's population stands at four million whereas that of Russian at over one hundred and fourty million.

At the same time that I watched the CNN question the Geogrian president, the Russian president declared that he does not wish to talk to his Georgian counterpart. As Russia's ambassador to the UN pointed out, what would they have to discuss at this juncture?! I don't know, but how about Russia's bombarment of the Tbilisi international airport (half an hour after the French Foreign Minister landed in Tbilisi)? How about Georgian's offer for immediate cease fire? How about Russia's bombing of Georgian civilian targets, which Russia's UN ambassador denied with foam coming out of his mouth and employing less that diplomatic Russian terms? (Pity that the UN translators do not dare to translate word for word, giving the rest of the world the impression that those sent by Russia do no speak in the language of a local bouncer at a night club). How about Russia's demand of the UN to withdraw observers from the region? How about Russia's deployment of the marine forces via the Black Sea (resisted by Ukraine), which according to the same infamous ambassador to the UN, does not amount to a military blocade?

Or how about Russian president refusing to talk to his Georgian counterpart? Of course, instead of Medvedev or Putin (sorry, the character play is still confusing) picking up the phone to talk to Saakashvili, Russia continues to bombard Georgia, which, anyways, it sees as an extension of its own backyard. At the UN, it almost said so in a long-winded explanation about the 'historical' roots of the conflict going back to 1991. The reference to 1991 is not circumstantial - this is when the referendum on the idependence of Georgia took place. Today, 17 years later, Russia's ambassador the UN referred to this event as a 'historic mistake', yet this has probably missed the ears of many observers who are unaware of the significance of this reference.

In a kind of childish logic "you took my toys first", Moscow is pointing the finger in the direction of Georgia for starting the conflict. It is a funny logic given that south Ossetia's government is led by a illiterate (and here I do not mean figuratively, but literally - a man who knows neither how to write nor how to read) was put in place by the Russian government to stir up problems in lieu of Georgia's accession to NATO. And, by the way, this top secret came out yesterday from an interview with a French MP. The Russian reasoning on the order of events which have unfolded in Ossetia has failed not on one, but on two occasions. Speaking on the point of ending violance, the Russians are demanding that Georgia withdraw from South Ossetia before they can consider a cease-fire (i.e. stop bombing Georgian civilian targets). The thing is, it has withdrawn.

The arrogant and racist as-ever Russia is letting its true colours show once again. On the occasion of the extraordinary Security Council session it asked of Georgia and (in the brakets of the US), what it should do given the role of the former in Iraq, Afghanistan and the Balkans? The implications being: if you can mess in other country's playgound's, why can't we mess in yours? True, why can't they? It is not like the European Union, at the footsteps of which all this is taking place, will do anything. China is busy with the Olympics, and can't give a damn anyways. "Hello, US, are you ready for Cold War, part II?"