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May 29, 2002
Bill Christison
Disastrous US Foreign Policy:
Part 2, Globalization
May 28, 2002
Michael Leon
Lincoln
Brigades Memorial
Scott Lucas
Christopher Hitchens:
No Longer an Authentic
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Nelson P. Valdes
Castro,
Bioterrorism and
the State Department
Harvey Wasserman
What Does the White House Know
About Atomic Terror?
Norman Madarasz
France,
Brazil, the Politics
of the World Cup
May 27, 2002
Dave Marsh
Why I Voted for Nader:
Ticketmaster's Stranglehold
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Robert Fisk
The Coming
Firestorm:
Bush's Crazed Remarks
May 26, 2002
Alexander Cockburn
Diary of a Northwest Trip:
Why Reds Live Longer
May 25, 2002
Chris Floyd
General
Principles:
Unmasking Colin Powell
Gavin Keeney
All Politics is Local? The Unbearable
Lightness of NGO's
Jeffrey St. Clair
A Hero
of Our Time:
Stephen Jay Gould
May 24, 2002
Edward Hammond
Documents Prove Pentagon Violated
Bioweapons Act
Mark Weisbrot
Bush
Administration Scandals:
Beginning of the End?
Feingold / Corzine
Halt Executions Nationwide
Bill Christison
Former
CIA Analyst:
Big Changes Needed in
US Intelligence Agencies
May 23, 2002
Dean Baker
Attack of the Clowns:
The Real Bush is Back
Susan Abulhawa
Israel
and South Africa:
Apartheid's Accidental Prophecy
Uri Avnery
Sharon the Great Reformer?
Behzad Yaghmaian
Travails
of a Middle Eastern Migrant: Accosted at the Border
May 22, 2002
Brian J. Foley
Dick Cheney's Obscenity
Gavin Keeney
Bete Noire
Enron & the Great Game
Fran Shor
Follow the Money
Bush, bin Laden & Carlyle
May 21, 2002
George Monbiot
Riddle
of the Spores:
The FBI and Anthrax
Yulie Khromchenko
Displaced Reality:
Impressions from Jenin
Bernard Weiner
Kenny
Boy to Bush:
"Welcome to the Club"
Ron Jacobs
Confusing the Face
of the Enemy
Gary Leupp
"War
on Terrorism" in Yemen
May 20, 2002
Rep. Ron Paul
Say No to Military Draft
Dave Marsh
Music Monopolies
Jordy Cummings
Israel, Jews and the Left
Francis Boyle
In Defense
of a Divestment
Campaign Against Israel
Christian Salmon
The Bulldozer War
Edward Said
Crisis for
American Jews
May 19, 2002
Philip Farruggio
Where's Twain's Protector Government
Now?
Norman Madarasz
Canada,
NAFTA and Kyoto
May 18, 2002
M.G. Piety
Economic Fiction:
From Here to Annuity?
Michael Colby
Bush Fiddled
While
New York Burned
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May
29, 2002
"Train
and Equip" for What?
Georgia and the "War on
Terrorism"
by Gary Leupp
Tucked under the Caucasus Mountains linking Europe
and Asia, Georgia boasts a culture over 2400 years old. On occasion
it has played a major role in world affairs; its most famous
son, Iosif Djugashvili (Joseph Stalin) helped shape the twentieth
century. Yet it, and its five million inhabitants, are remote
from the consciousness of most Americans, even as it begins to
play host to the U.S. war machine (deployed, ostensibly, to combat
"terrorism" in the Pankisi Gorge). The main body of
U.S. forces began arriving on May 19, to refurbish two Soviet-era
bases for indefinite American use and to implement "Operation
Train and Equip." We should ask--as we should about the
U.S. troops in the Philippines and Yemen--why are they there?
Georgia under
Shevardnadze
First, some background. Georgia obtained
its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991, and soon developed
into "one of the most combat--ridden and anarchic places
on the planetdominated by the overriding influences of an underground
economy (i.e., black market) and organized crime" (San
Francisco Chronicle, March 10). The ethnic strife afflicting
much of the whole former Soviet bloc-from the Balkans to Nagorno-Karabakh-broke
out here as well; the provinces of Abkhazia in the northwest
along the Black Sea, Adzharia (a region adjoining Turkey), South
Ossetia, and ethnically Armenian Akhalkalaki region all demanded
autonomy or independence.
The Georgian Republic's first president,
Zviad Gamsakhurdia (of dissident "anticommunist" credentials)
approved Georgia's entry into the Commonwealth of Independent
States (CIS) and the continuation of a Russian military presence.
(The neighboring Russian Federation currently maintains three
bases on Georgian soil.) Unable to contain the secessionist movements,
he was deposed in a military coup in 1992 after Abkhazian guerrillas
(with some Russian support) defeated government forces, achieving
de facto independence of this region of some 150,000
to 300,000 people. Gamsakhuria was succeeded by Eduard Shevardnadze,
and died under suspicious circumstances a year later.
A former Foreign Minister of the defunct
USSR, Shevardnadze used his nomenklatura connections to
rise to power--as did so many erstwhile "communists"
in the former Soviet republics (Le monde diplomatique,
December 1998). The moral and ideological bankruptcy of that
late Soviet elite is apparent in his record since; Shevardnadze
has cultivated a power base among nationalists (compare Slobodan
Milosevic). In Georgia, these tend to rally around the Georgian
Orthodox Church as the crux of their identity politics. Having
postured as a "Marxist--Leninist" for decades, attaining
high posts in the Soviet regime, Shevardnadze now not only promotes
gangster capitalism, and enthusiastically hosts NATO exercises,
but also poses as a true son of the Georgian Orthodox Church,
peppering talks with references to "the Lord" whom,
he avers, has saved him from two assassination attempts.
This conversion to Orthodoxy has been
accompanied by a strategic alliance with ultra--nationalist thugs
who have targeted religious minorities. The British Helsinki
Human Rights Group has documented instances of government complicity
in the actions of religious extremists' against Protestant groups.
Human Rights Watch has also documented instances of persecution
of religious minorities. It also reports judicial torture, and
harassment of reporters and dissidents, and declares that the
regime has been marked by "widespread corruption among senior
government officials closely linked to" Shevardnadze himself.
His re-election in 2000, they find, "was marred by irregularities."
Last September the Parliamentary Assembly
of the Council of Europe adopted a highly critical resolution
regarding Georgia's failure to honor commitments to human rights
it had formally undertaken in 1999. The resolution expressed
"deep concern on allegations of ill--treatment or torture
of detainees in police custody and pre--trial detention, cases
of arbitrary arrests and detentions, violation of rights under
police arrest or in pre--trial detention--in particular the right
to consult a lawyer and the right to communicate with the family--complaints
on violation of procedural rights, cases of intimidation, violation
of the right to privacy, phone taping, etc." It expressed
alarm at "the behaviour of police and other law enforcement
bodies anddisproportionate violence used by security forces against
peaceful demonstrators," and voiced strong concern about
"repeated cases of violence by Orthodox extremists against
believers of minority religious groups such as Jehovah's Witnesses
and Baptists." In its annual Country Reports on Human
Rights Practices, the U.S. State Department has also
noted evidence of torture, police abuses and religious persecution
in Georgia. But the current administration has cultivated cordial
ties with Shevardnadze, facilitated in part by a close relationship
between the Georgian and James Baker, once Bush Senior's secretary
of state and Shevardnadze's diplomatic counterpart when the latter
spoke for the USSR.
Geopolitics,
Oil Pipelines, and
"the War on Terror"
Shevardnadze, in power since 1992, and
now in his second term as president, retains few sentimental
ties to the multinational union he once served. Instead, he has
continuously sought to distance Georgia from Russia and to attach
it instead to the U.S. camp. He contends that Russia exploits
secessionist sentiments in his country--to weaken Georgia, pressure
Tbilisi to remain in the CIS, and reduce the prospect that Georgia
will negotiate a pipeline construction project that will funnel
Caspian Sea oil to the Mediterranean bypassing Russian territory.
He has plainly stated his desire to use U.S. forces as a counterweight
to the Russian presence.
Meanwhile, the U.S. and NATO have, in
the post--Soviet period, sought to disengage Georgia from the
CIS and Russian influence, and to solidify ties with Georgia
through NATO's "Partnership for Peace" program. In
1997, Javier Solana, Secretary--General of NATO, told a Washington
conference on NATO enlargement that Europe could not be fully
secure without bringing the Caucasus into its security zone,
and that has been the official line ever since. This mentality
may be changing, as Moscow formalizes its loose affiliation with
NATO. But the issue is really oil, not "security."
The principal U.S. interest in Georgia since the dissolution
of the Soviet Union has been in its strategic position straddling
the Caucasian isthmus; the oil fields underneath and bordering
the Caspian Sea, principally in Azerbaijan, are thought to hold
10% of the world's oil and natural gas reserves, worth maybe
$5 trillion. U.S. and British corporations have been negotiating
with Georgia to route oil through its territory to the Mediterranean
port of Ceyhan in NATO member Turkey.
Washington insiders like Zbigniew Brzezinski,
Lloyd Bentsen, John Sununu and Dick Cheney have all visited the
region to lobby on behalf of U.S. oil companies for the construction
of Georgian pipelines. (An alternative plan, promoted by French
interests, involves a pipeline to the Indian Ocean via Iran.
German capital, meanwhile, seems inclined to favor more Russian
pipeline construction.) After Vladimir Putin succeeded Boris
Yeltsin as Russian president in 2001 and began encouraging Central
Asian governments to renege on deals signed with U.S. oil companies
in 1999, former FBI Director Louis Freeh and CIA Director George
Tenet made emergency trips to the region. Oil is clearly the
key issue in U.S.--Georgian relations, and in the inter-imperialist
rivalries intensifying in the post-Cold War Caucasus.
But since September 11, the Bush administration
has found another reason to focus on Georgia. The country, it
tells us, has unwittingly sponsored "terrorism" by
tolerating the presence of al-Qaeda (or pro-al-Qaeda groups)
in the Pankisi Gorge. This canyon, 21 miles by air from the capital
of Tbilisi, and adjoining the breakaway Russian republic of Chechnya,
is itself peopled by some 15,000, mostly members of the Kist
people (Muslims, closely related to Chechens, who speak both
Georgian and a Chechen dialect). About 7000 Chechen refugees
from Russia, mostly women and children, currently reside here.
(Interestingly, Shedvardnadze until recently denied their presence.)
Miscellaneous bandits and drug--traffickers have also made the
gorge their home, and according to US and Russian intelligence
reports, it has served as a refuge for "terrorist"
Chechen rebels responsible for attacks on Russian forces in Russia
itself. Moscow has long contended that the rebels are affiliated
with al-Qaeda (and indeed, Chechens have been apprehended by
US and other "Coalition forces" in Afghanistan). Since
September 11, the US has accepted the Russian claim, while toning
down censure of Russian human rights violations in the region.
(Recall that Clinton once publicly chastised former President
Yeltsin about the Russian bombing of civilians in Chechnya; don't
expect more of that criticism anytime soon.)
The putative terrorist presence is associated
(in Georgia as in the Philippines) with Muslim communities. The
Adzharians are by and large Muslims; so are the Chechens and
a minority of the South Ossetians. Officially, 11% of Georgia's
population professes Islam (although some Muslim sources place
the figure at 16%); and in recent years, missionaries from Saudi
Arabia, preaching the Wahhabi sect version of fundamentalist
Islam favored by Osama bin Laden, have been active in the country.
US officials have intimated that such missions, especially in
the Pankisi Gorge, serve as a cover for al-Qaeda organizing.
Local officials have downplayed such charges, although according
to Georgian security minister Valery Khaburzania, Arab militants
involved in the Chechen uprising in Russia have used the area
as a base since 2000. Meanwhile, four men have been arrested
for attempting to sell enriched uranium in the Black Sea port
of Batumi, in Adzharia, perhaps to "a terrorist group or
country classified by the US as a rogue state" (Guardian,
July 25, 2001).
U.S. officials have suggested that, since
the bombing of Afghanistan began October 7, al-Qaeda forces from
that country have taken refuge in the Pankisi Gorge. Philip Remler,
U.S. charge d'affaires in Georgia, told Georgian media in February
that dozens of mujahidin, in contact with Khattab, an
Arab commander of Chechen rebels and contact of bin Laden, had
fled there. The U.S. State Department's Patterns of Global
Terrorism Report released May 21 says that Georgia as well
as Azerbaijan "contended with international mujahidin using
Georgia as a conduit for financial and logistic support for the
mujahidin and Chechen fighters" in 2001. But of course,
the mujahidin veterans of the anti-Soviet war in Afghanistan
were largely a creation of the CIA, which recruited 30,000 Muslim
"holy warriors" from the ends of the earth to bleed
the U.S.'s superpower rival in the eighties. That some of them
(with or without bin Laden connections), should wind up in Georgia
should surprise nobody.
Is There Really
an al-Qaeda Threat
in the Pankisi Gorge?
But if such is the case, top military
officials seemed clueless about it in a Department of Defense
briefing on February 27. General Peter Pace, Vice Chairman of
the Joint Chiefs of Staff, and Victoria Clarke, Assistant Secretary
of Defense for Public Affairs responded to reporters' questions
as follows, according to the official transcript:
Q: General,
what specifically do you see as the concern in the Pankisi Gorge
area? And do you believe that al Qaeda is taking weapons there?
And if you can just elaborate on what that situation--
Pace:
As you know, we are tracking terrorist organizations worldwide.
I believe the secretary said there's al Qaeda representation
in at least 60 countries that we know of. So I would not focus
in on one particular area as a particular concern. We're trying;
as best we can, to find the linkages worldwide and work with
friendly governments worldwide to assist them in their own internal
security problems.
Q:
But why Georgia?
Pace:
Georgia right now is very much--the two things I've told you
about. One is the helicopters [UH--1 Huey helicopters provided
in October], and two is working with that government to see if
there is training and equipping that we can do with them that
will assist them to become more proficient inside their own borders
with their own security forces to take care of their own problems.
Q:
Right. But what's your terrorism concern there? Why are you concerned
about it in terms of the war on terrorism?
Pace:
I did not say I was concerned.
Clarke:
We are concerned that the al Qaeda alone has cells in 50 or 60
countries around the world.
Q:
But now wait a minute, wait a minute--If there's no concern about
terrorism in this region, what is the concern, then?
Pace:
I answered the gentleman's question about what my concern was,
because I didn't say -- because I didn't say I had a concern.
Q:
I mean, you talked about the helicopters. There's no concern
about --
Pace:
No, no, we are--
Q:
--terrorism in that particular region?
Pace:
Please. We are concerned about terrorism worldwide, and we spend
an enormous amount of energy trying to track the linkages with
al-Qaeda and the other terrorist networks worldwide. I cannot
get into specifics of what we know about terrorist networks in
specific countries. That would be inappropriate for me to do
from this stand. Clearly anywhere there are terrorists in the
world, we are concerned. But I cannot quantify
that for you from this platform.
Q:
Do you believe it's possible that members of al Qaeda have gone
to the region? And is there any link between Chechnya and al
Qaeda?
Pace:
It is possible, and that is possible.
Q:
Well, then wait a minute. Could you elaborate on that ---- That's
a great soundbite.
Pace:
I cannot.
Q:
Until recently, Shevardnadze denied that there were any Chechens
on his soil, and as I understood it, U.S. officials believed
approximately the same thing. What has changed your mind? How
recently has your mind been changed? I mean is there anything
you can give us? I mean, you make it sound like Georgia's just
another country, like England. But you happen to be sending helicopters
there.
Clarke:
I'll try two things. One, we have had a military-to-military
relationship and ongoing activities with Georgia well before
September 11th. Secondly, we have, as we said, been focused very
hard on the fact that al Qaeda has cells in 50 or 60 different
countries around the world. There have been some indications
of connections ---- some connections of al Qaeda in that country.
But going beyond that saying there have been some connections
is not appropriate.
Q:
You just said there were some connections, didn't you? I mean--I
don't mean to confuse--
Clarke:
That's what I'm saying. We--it's not appropriate for us to go
into any great detail about what we know. But we have said repeatedly,
it is important to go after the terrorists wherever they are.
Al-Qaeda alone has cells in 50 or 60 countries around the world.
And there have been--where there is information on some connections.
Beyond that, we're just not prepared to go.
Most Georgians, for their part, seem
as little concerned about al-Qaeda terrorist threats as (the
apparently poorly coached and flustered) General Pace. An opinion
poll conducted by the Georgian Opinion Research Business International
(GORBI), published February 28, showed that only 8.9 percent
of respondents believe that terrorists from Afghanistan are residing
in the Pankisi area, while 44 percent believe that high-ranking
Georgian officials are involved in criminal activities in
the gorge (Eurasia Insight, May 24)! Some officials echo
the popular skepticism. Otar Peterashvili, the agent in charge
of surveillance of the Pankisi Gorge for six years, told Cox
News Service March 25, "We haven't noticed an influx of
foreigners since the war in Afghanistan began. We believe that
the few people that are here aren't looking to stay in Georgia,
but are on their way to someplace else, probably Chechnya."
Khaburzania stated in April that while people "connected,
maybe not directly, but indirectly, with terrorist organizations
like al Qaeda" had been in the gorge for two years, they
came from Chechnya, not Afghanistan: "There was no influx
after September."
Georgian Defense Minister Tevzadze told
reporters, following a meeting with his U.S. counterpart Donald
Rumsfeld May 7, that while he could not rule out that some al--Qaeda
fighters might be hiding in the gorge, "for me personally,
it is very difficult to believe in that, because to come from
Afghanistan to that part of Georgia, they need to [cross] at
least six or seven countries." Zakto Kinkladze, a member
of the Georgian parliament representing the Akhmeta region (including
Pankisi Gorge) stated that only five or six Arabs remained in
the Pankisi Gorge; most, he declared, had left after U.S. interest
in the area became apparent late last year. The Washington
Post (April 28) quoted the administrator of Duisi, the largest
village in Pankisi, as saying that Arabs had financed a new brick
mosque, set up a health clinic, and taught children to read and
write Arabic; they were "peaceful people, not connected
with any terrorism." On March 20, Altangil Turkiashvili,
regional police chief in the town of Akhmeta, near Duisi, told
the Guardian, "We haven't seen a single international
terrorist here," but only "some Wahhabites" who
had come to build mosques.
Some have suggested that such statements
merely reflect the hesitation of local authorities to tackle
a serious problem. The Boston Globe reported March 2 that
"the U.S. is pressuring [Georgia] to act, [but] Georgian
officials are clearly reluctant to stir up armed militants in
an area thick with civilians and just 150 miles from the capital."
But as of early March, Time Magazine reported that not
only Georgian officials, but U.S. officials as well, believed
there were only "about a dozen Arab extremists based in
the area, believed to be long--time volunteers with a militant
Chechen faction (rather than stragglers from Afghanistan)."
For some reason Washington's estimate rose to "10-80"
by mid-March, when U.S. authorities alleged that some of them
had arrived in the area recently. This "came as something
of a surprise" to Defense Minister David Tevzadze, according
to Time, but on May 21, Khaburdzania stated that up to
100 Arab and 700 Chechen fighters were hiding in the gorge (Civil
Georgia online magazine, May 22). Despite these mounting
(and possibly contrived) figures, Georgian officials, according
to the March 19 Los Angeles Times, continued to "play
down any serious or immediate terrorist threat emanating from
the Pankisi Gorge."
The "Train
and Equip" Program and
Regional Security
On November 5, Shevardnadze met President
Bush in the White House, and agreed to a plan to send U.S. troops
to train Georgians to (at least ostensibly) fight al-Qaeda-linked
forces in the Pankisi Gorge. (Before the month was out, both
President Gloria Macapagal Arroyo of the Philippines and President
Ali Abdullah Saleh of Yemen also visited the White House agreed
to similar aid packages involving US forces assigned to "train"
local forces in "anti-terrorism.") Some sort of military
assistance package had been discussed well before September 11;
Elmer Guy White, Eurasian branch head of the Joint Chiefs of
Staff, stated that "Train and Equip" was "a natural
expansion of the ongoing security cooperation between Georgia
and United States." In October, a 40-man U.S. "assessment
team" had been sent to Georgia to plan the deployment of
U.S. forces to train 2000 of Georgia's best soldiers. Shevardnadze
called this military presence "a very important factor for
strengthening and developing Georgian statehood."
In late February, the U.S. announced
that about 200 Special Forces would be dispatched to the Pankisi
Gorge, along with eight helicopters gifted the Tbilisi regime,
in the Train and Equip program. The operation, it was announced,
would last twenty-one months, train 1500-2000 local troops, and
cost $64 million. It produced immediate opposition from Russian
legislators and from Russian Foreign Minister Igor Ivanov, who
said the move would complicate the security situation in the
region. Many in Russia as well as Georgia expressed fears that
the U.S. might launch attacks on Iraq and/or Iran from Georgian
soil. (Georgian Foreign Minister Irakly Menagarishvili has pooh-poohed
such suggestions.) Nevertheless, Russian President Vladimir Putin
supported the action, and said it was "no tragedy"
for Russian interests, following on the heels of U.S. military
action in Central Asia and the construction of American military
bases in former Soviet republics such as Uzbekistan, Tajikistan
and Kyrgystan. He received, in exchange for his support, U.S.
acceptance of Russia's brutal suppression of the Chechen independence
movement--as a legitimate response to "terrorism."
(Recent reports suggest that his friendship with the Bush administration
might lead to Russian acceptance of the planned U.S. attack on
Iraq as well.)
Russia would, in addition, like to join
the U.S. and Georgia in suppressing "terrorism" in
the Pankisi Gorge. The head of the Duma Council Committee on
Foreign Affairs, Dmitri Ragozin, has said that the person suspected
in the attack, attributed to Chechen separatists, that killed
42 on May 9 in Kaspiisk, Dagestan, is hiding in the gorge. "Russia,"
he told Interfax, "has a moral right to launch anti-terrorist
operation in Pankisi like the United States did after the September
11 attacks in Afghanistan." But Georgian authorities, with
U.S. encouragement, have resisted any further deployment of Russian
forces in the country. Tamara Pataraia of the Caucasian Institute
for Peace, Democracy and Development, says, "The U.S. talk
about the Pankisi Gorge is Washington's way of telling the Russians
not to enter, that Georgia will take care of it" (AP, May
19). Thus while the security threat to Russia in the gorge would
seem to greatly exceed any threat to the U.S. originating in
that quarter, the Russians are obliged to stand aside while their
historic rival moves in to occupy former Soviet military facilities
and consolidate military ties with Georgian forces who see the
Russians as allies of local separatists and potential future
enemies.
The first U.S. troops arrived March 13
to little fanfare, receiving scant attention in the mainstream
U.S. press. Fifty Green Berets from Fort Carson, Colorado, followed
on May 19; CNN announced that they would "instruct Georgian
units in light infantry tactics, platoon-level offensive and
defensive operations and airmobile tactics," and teach "lifesaving,
radio operation, land navigation, marksmanship, movement techniques,
squad and platoon tactics, and human rights." AP reported
they were there to teach Georgians "mountain fighting, urban
combat and other skills." They were not there, mission
commander Lt. Col. Robert M. Waltemeyer emphasized, to engage
any "terrorists" in Georgia. "We have not now
nor do we plan to survey or go near Pankisi," he said. "My
job is [only] to train and equip." (One has to wonder, in
any case, how "urban combat" training is relevant to
the suppression of terrorists in the Pankisi Gorge.)
While the very preparations for "Train
and Equip" probably prompted the departure of al-Qaeda elements
from the area, any "terrorist" presence in the region
has also been reduced by Russian and Georgian action since March.
The Russians announced the death of Commander Khattab in Chechnya
in April. On April 28, Georgian Interior Ministry troops captured
three men identified as al-Qaeda members in the Pankisi Gorge.
So why are the U.S. forces in Georgia?
The Real Goals
of "Train and Equip"
The Georgian troops trained by the U.S.
will probably, as planned, be sent into the gorge at some point
to engage some "enemies" connected, perhaps quite tenuously,
with al-Qaeda. The U.S. will decide the schedule; Tevzadze says
it will occur "when my American colleagues say that my forces
are ready" (Financial Times, March 22). But mainstream
journalists have indicated that "Train and Equip" has
other goals. The Christian Science Monitor reported March
17 that the training program had "more to do with stabilizing
the still--weak former Soviet republic and furthering a NATO
foothold in the Caucasus than in directly enlisting Georgian
forces in the US--led antiterrorism campaign." These U.S.
objectives dovetail with those of the Shevardnadze regime; on
March 22, Julie Guyot of MSNBC reported that Tbilisi sought to
use U.S. troops as a counterweight to Russian influence in the
country. "Whether or not Taliban--trained fighters are in
the Pankisi," she wrote, "the hope here is that the
U.S. military will succeed in strengthening Georgia's domestic
security and stability by ridding the Gorge of its criminal element,
and more importantly by shifting the balance of power to Tbilisi
from Moscow." Georgi Khutsishvili, director of Tbilisi's
International Center on Conflict and Negotiation, noted, "American
military advisers are not going to help us fight corruption.
They are not going to help strengthen law and order. They are
only going to help Shevardnadze consolidate his power" (Washington
Times, March 25).
But, again: it's all about oil. The Los
Angeles Times reported March 19: "[Georgian officials]
see the U.S. program as designed to avert possible future threats,
to prop up the weak and corrupt Georgian state in a region of
U.S. oil interests and to strengthen America's foothold in the
Caucasus." Kakha Katcitadze, a senior advisor to the Georgian
government, stresses the oil pipeline issue. He told The Observer
in mid--May that the situation in the gorge did not, in fact,
create "vital dangers for Georgia There are some problems
in Pankisi, but I think it is mostly a social issue. I am not
so worried about it. Anti--terrorism is not the only reason for
the relationship between the United States and Georgia. Georgia
is also the shortest route between the [oil reserves] of the
Caspian Sea and Turkey." The Observer (May 12), also
citing Katcitadze, matter-of-factly noted this most fundamental
element: "American training helps protect the pipeline
-- and its steady supply of oil to Western cars. BP recently
sent a risk analyst to the area to explore opportunities for
expansion. 'The pipelines will of course benefit from the military
presence,' said a BP spokeswoman. 'It is in British interests
that the pipeline works. BP is a major sponsor,' Katcitadze said.
'The British military has been giving the Georgian army English
language courses, for years, he added.'"
"Train and Equip" is ostensibly
designed to enhance Georgia's security from "terrorism."
The less advertised but more crucial goal is to produce the optimal
environment for Anglo--American corporate interests, particular
those of the oil companies. Key to both is the cozy relationship
between Washington and Eduard Shevardnadze. That connection is
unlikely to improve the lot of Georgia's people; Abkhazians and
other ethnic minorities have particular reason to worry. "That
Georgia brings in military units from one or another country,"
Abkhazian leader Anri Dzhergenia told a reporter, "that
is its own business. But when this is done to solve our dispute,
then we see this very negatively" (Reuters, March 19). The
Chechens of Duisi interviewed by U.S. reporters are described
as "unfriendly;" suspicious, like the Abkhazians, that
U.S. forces will be used against them (Time, April 1).
In conclusion, "Train and Equip,"
or the Georgia chapter in the "war on terrorism," seems
likely to augment the power of a corrupt dictator; prepare his
forces to launch campaigns not only in the Pankisi Gorge but
in Abkhazia, South Ossetia and elsewhere; enhance Georgia's ties
with NATO and pave the way for a long--term U.S. military presence;
strengthen the hands of those promoting the Baku--Ceyhan pipeline;
irritate the Russian legislature and military, if not President
Putin; and complicate the security situation in a highly unstable
region. Even if, in the near future, it results in the establishment
of firm state authority in Pankisi, and the apprehension or annihilation
of a few Arabs or Chechens with some sort of link to al--Qaeda,
it is unlikely to reduce the level of terror in the world, which
for the most part emanates from other, more familiar, venues.
Gary Leupp
is an an associate professor, Department of History, Tufts University
and coordinator, Asian Studies Program
He can be reached at: gleupp@tufts.edu
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