Today's Stories

March 5 - 7, 2010

James Ridgeway
The Terrible Case of Jamie Scott

March 4, 2010

Paul Craig Roberts
Is the Recovery Real?

Dave Lindorff
Executing Handcuffed Afghan Kids?

Conn Hallinan
Obama's Landmine Betrayal

Steven Higgs
"A Massive, Toxicological Experiment with Our Children"

Frank Green
Drones Club Meets in San Diego

Ron Jacobs
Of Course Narcs Are Crooked ...

Christopher Brauchli
Trial by Confusion

Don Monkerud
Who Runs America?

Roberto Rodriguez The Politics of the Census: Masking Identities or Counting the Indigenous?

Raymond J. Lawrence
The Brave New World of Sexual Addiction

Website of the Day
Mining Nicaragua

March 3, 2010

Norman Finkelstein
Truth and Consequences in Gaza

Bill Quigley
Mercenaries Circling Haiti

Franklin C. Spinney
Eisenhower's Nightmare Arrives

Dean Baker
The Power of Stupidity: Economic Policy and Unemployment

Mike Whitney
We Need Bigger Deficits

Raed Jarrar /
Erik Leaver
Sliding Backwards on Iraq

Adam Federman
To Drill or Not to Drill

Joshua Frank
The EPA's Coal Ash Whitewash

Will Parrish / Darwin Bond-Graham
"WE Make the Crisis"

Matt Siegfried
The Ganja Games

Website of the Day
Sea Lion Defense Brigade

March 2, 2010

Patrick Cockburn
Uproar Before Iraqi Elections

Tricia Shapiro
Mountain Injustice

Gareth Porter
Defying the U. S.

Paul Craig Roberts
A Religion Divided Against Itself

Ellen Brown
IMF-Style Austerity Comes to America

David Macaray
Labor and the Democrats: What Does $400 Million Buy You These Days?

Stewart J. Lawrence
Is Obama Already a Lame Duck?

Shamus Cooke
How Obamacare Kills Real Health Care Reform

Udi Aloni /
Ofer Neiman
What Israel Fears

Binoy Kampmark
Australia's History Wars

Stephen Soldz
The Battle Over Informed Consent

Website of the Day
What to Do About Tactical Nuclear Weapons

March 1, 2010

Ralph Nader
Whatever Happened to "We the People"?

Will Parrish /
Darwin Bond-Graham
Who Runs the University of California?

Mike Whitney
The Case Against Bernanke and Greenspan

Diana Johnstone
The Fall of Greece

Jayne Lyn Stahl
A Refuge for Cowards: the Senate Extends the Patriot Act

Vijay Prashad
It's Love! India and Saudi Arabia Embrace

Paul Buhle Organizing Against Empire: Where Left and Right Meet ... Amicably

Robert Jensen
Getting Rid of Hope and Faith

Marga Tojo Gonzales
Will Capitalism Absorb the World Social Forum?

Website of the Day
The Decline of the Israeli Right?

February 26 - 28, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
Feed Pete Peterson to the Whales

Alison Weir
Media Reporting on Israel: All in the Family

Will Parrish /
Darwin Bond-Graham
DiFi and Blum: a Marriage Marinated in Money

Jason Hribal
How Orky and Kasatka Almost Sank Sea World

Saul Landau /
Nelson P. Valdes
The Pentagon: Gargantua's Mouth

Mark Weisbrot
The Debt is Not the Threat

Alan Farago
The Potemkin Village Economy

Suzan Mazur
Peer Review as Censorship: an Interview with Historian David Noble

Martha Rosenberg
Talking with Gail Collins About the Women's Rights Movement

Ray McGovern
A "Good" Terrorist Captured by Iran

Rannie Amiri
Egypt's Nuclear Option

Dave Lindorff
The Accidental Patient

Ramzy Baroud
Challenging History

David Macaray
Union Politics for Grown-Ups

Jared Ritvo
The Life and Death Struggle of the Yanomami

Missy Beattie
The Indefatigable Cindy Sheehan

Brian McKenna
Zinn and the Art of History

Don Santina
Don't Mourn, Go Green

Binoy Kampmark
Deadly Purchases

M.G. Piety
Frozen in Time: Does Figure Skating Have a Future?

Michael Dickinson Art as Defensive Weapon

Charles R. Larson
Learning to Live

Ben Sonnenberg
"24 City:" a Remarkable Chinese Film

David Yearsley
Sex in the Name of Christ

Poets' Basement
Edward Beatty

Website of the Weekend
A Tribute to Howard Zinn

February 25, 2010

Jason Hribal
Orca Resistance at Sea World

Clancy Sigal
No, in Anger: Liberals Have Lost Their Thunder

Tariq Ali
The Assault on Illhem

Jonathan Cook
Ethan Bronner and Conflicts of Interest

Mike Whitney
The War on Toyota: Is It All Politics?

Peter Lee
China's New Iran Strategy

Russell Mokhiber Prosecuting Bush for War Crimes

Deepak Tripathi Charlie Wilson's Legacy

Norman Solomon
War Politics

Phillip Doe
Colorado's Weed War Swindle

Website of the Day
Once There Was a Senator of Conscience ...

February 24, 2010

Ashley Smith
Haiti and the Aid Racket

Mike Whitney
Geithner's Gotta Go

Garerth Porter
The Real Objective of the Marja Offensive

Joe Bageant
Round Midnight: the American Disease

Shamus Cooke
The Plot to Kill Social Security

Al Benchich
GM's Northern Strategy: Go Non-Union

Harvey Wasserman
The Nuclear Lobby's $645 Million Con Job

Jim Goodman
Promises, Promises: the Fairy Tale of GM Crops

Ron Jacobs
The Hollow Man Reaches His Omega Point

Stewart J. Lawrence
Sarah Palin: All Pump, No Caribou

Tom Clifford
Bribes, Corruption and the Pandur APC

Website of the Day
Blackwater and the "South Park" Alias

February 23, 2010

Uri Avnery
The Dubai Hit

Paul Craig Roberts
The Last Flight of Joe Stack

William P. O'Connor
The Story of Pvt. Hargrove

Steven Higgs
Evan Bayh, the Hoosier Drama Queen

Marshall Auerback / L. Randall Wray
War on Goldman Sachs

Jeff Sher
Health Care as Political Theater

Carl Finamore
Inside Organizing and Outside Representation

Dave Lindorff
Rampage in Philly

Benjamin Dangl
Beer Globalization in Latin America

Anthony Papa
Why Gov. Paterson Should be Applauded for Hiring Former Drug Dealer

Bob Sommer
Bringing the War Home

Robert Bryce
The Melting Case for Cap-and-Trade

Website of the Day
Sibel Edmonds Has Named Names: Why Isn't the Media Reporting It?

February 22, 2010

Vincent Navarro
Fascism is Alive and Well in Spain
The Case of Judge Garzon

Michael Neumann
Israel and Its Neighbors
Leveling the Playing Field

Marc Weisbrot
Hillary Clinton's War Whoop

Richard Neville
Mocked When She Flew to Baghdad

P. Sainath
ABC of Media: Advertising, Bollywood and Corporate Power

Christopher Ketcham
The Joe Stack Manifesto

Marc Catone
The Vatican's Top Ten Album List

February 19 - 21, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
From God to Gaia to Obama's Nuclear Apocalypse

Bill Quigley
Living Under Green Plastic: Voices of Haiti's Homeless

Joshua Frank /
Jeffrey St. Clair
The Case of Briana Waters

Joan Roelofs
Bases of Empire

Paul Craig Roberts
Looting Social Security

Peter Lee
Iran's Natural Gas Game

Gareth Porter
Jailed Taliban Leader Still a Pakistani Asset

Saul Landau /
Nelson P. Valdes
The Defense Elephant in America's Living Room

Mark Schuller
Passing the "Riot Test" in Haiti

Rev. William E. Alberts
The Sacrifice of Haiti

Thomas M. Power
A Hard-Headed Look at Biomass

John Ross
Dead Man Walking in California

Nicola Nasser
Violent Days in Iraq

Rannie Amiri
The Shia Crescent Revisited

Ramzy Baroud
Trial Balloons for War

David Macaray
Iraq's Labor Unions

M. Shahid Alam
Accidental Parallels?

George Wuerthner
A New Round of National Monuments? a Guide to Obama's Short List

Missy Beattie
Cheney's Baby: a Monster Named Torture

Adam Turl
The Wal-Mart Counter-Revolution

Dave Lindorff
Grumpy, White Terrorists in Cars and Planes

Alan Cabal
The Austin Kamikaze

Farzana Versey
The Halal Question

M. G. Piety
The Lonely Sport: What's Killing Figure Skating?

Charles R. Larson
The Fog of War: DeLillo's "Point Omega"

Kim Nicolini
"35 Shots of Rum:" An Intimate Look at Ordinary Life

David Yearsley
The Night of the Living Deadheads

Lorenzo Wolff
Music, Lyrics and the Void Between Us

Poets' Basement
Michelle Askin

Website of the Weekend
Dresden: The Revenger's Tragedy

February 18, 2010

Sasan Fayazmanesh
A Dangerous Liaison: the Iranian Greens and the West

Nadia Hijab
Jerusalem's Battle of the Graves

David Rosen
Sinner Men

Jayne Lyn Stahl
A Tale of Two Cities

Ralph Nader
King Obesity

Dean Baker
Dysfunctional Democracy

Christopher Brauchli
The Politics of Forgetfulness

Charlotte Laws
Hard Times in Vegas

Dave Lindorff
The Battle for Marjah: Why the US has Already Lost

Harvey Wasserman
The Atomic Abyss

Bouthaina Shaaban
The Decade of the Victory for Freedom and Justice in Palestine

Katya Rodriguez
Tug of War in El Salvador

Website of the Day
Inside Obama's Energy Budget

February 17, 2010

Michael Hudson
Wall Street Moves in for the Kill

Karl Grossman
Obama Goes Nuclear

Nirmal Ghosh
The Tiger's Call

Dean Baker
The Savvy Mr. Blankfein

Russell Mokhiber
The Corporate Hijacking of the Martin Luther King, Jr. Memorial

John V. Walsh
Elie Wiesel's Ignoble Recruits

Martin Lukacs
Canada's Aboriginal Show and Tell

Nouri Gana
Arab Despise Thyself ...

Heather Gray /
K. Rashid Nuri
Grow Your Own: Urban Farming's Challenge to Corporate Agriculture

Daniel Wolff
Jason Isbell and the 400 Unit: a Familiar Strangeness

Website of the Day
Chernobyl: a Photographic Essay

February 16, 2010

Paul Craig Roberts
A Country of Serfs

Forrest Hylton
Students as Spies: Colombia Mimes the CIA

Carl Ginsburg
Less is Less

Jonathan Cook
Arabs of Jaffa Face Settlers as Neighbors

Robert Alvarez
Nukes Aren't the Answer

Deepak Tripathi
A Great Military Triumph? Questions About the Capture of Mullah Baradar

George Wuerthner
Cows, Condos and All the Rest: the Geography of Agriculture and Sprawl in the West

Shamus Cooke
The Great Bi-Partisan Deception

Robert Bryce
Peak Confusion: Tom Friedman's Twisted Energy Politics

Brian Cloughley
Speaking Badly of Charlie Wilson

Carl Finamore
How to Succeed After Failing

David Rovics
Fighting Shell Oil in Ireland: the Arrest of Pat O'Donnell

Website of the Day
Aid to Israel

February 15, 2010

David Price
Human Terrain Systems Dissenter Resigns, Tells Inside Story of Training's Heart of Darkness

Michael Hudson /
Jeff Sommers
Latvia's Road to Serfdom

Ishmael Reed
My Problem with Hardball

Conn Hallinan
China and India: a Danger in Thin Air

Yvonne Ridley
Operation Moshtarak: a Codeword for Ethnic Cleansing in Afghanistan?

Bill Quigley
A Million Homeless in Haiti

Patrick Cockburn
The Assault on Marjah

Dave Lindorff
Picturing the Dead

David Díaz-Arias
Right Rising in Costa Rica

Stephanie Westbrook
Questioning the "Special Relationship" with Israel

Harvey Wasserman
Our Founders Were Not Fundamentalists

Norman Solomon
Dollars for Death, Pennies for Life

Website of the Day
The World's Oldest Potheads

February 12-14, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
The Goat in the Clearing

Andrew Cockburn
The Economic Velociraptors

Arno J. Mayer
The Treason of the Nobels

Ishmael Reed /
Sapphire
A Dialogue on "Precious"

Ismael Hossein-Zadeh
The Retrogression: New Phase, Not Just Another Recession

Jonathan Cook
Israel's War on Protest

Gareth Porter
The Taliban Isolated Bin Laden

William Blum
That Which Can Not be Spoken

Jeffrey St. Clair
Fear and Firewood

Saul Landau
Government of Lawyers Spit on Law

John Ross
Mexican Church and State Go Nose to Nose Over Who Can Marry Who

Fran Shor
Dumb Power in the Af-Pak War

Marshall Auerback
Greece Signs Its National Suicide Pact

Dave Lindorff
I Cut My Hair, But I'm Not a Terrorist

Ramzy Baroud
The Useless Logic of Round Numbers

Gary Leupp
Skewing the Himalayan Revolution

Joseph Sher
Health Insurance Death Spiral

David Swanson
Yoo's Weird Lies About Obama

Randall Amster
Empire of the Sunset

David Ker Thomson
Against Canada

Bill Piper
Obama's Drug War Budget: Looking a Lot Like Bush's

Missy Beattie
How Blackwater Built Morale

Farzana Versey
Botulism and Babel: Understanding the Rot in Academia

Dan Bacher
How Water Exports are Killing California Jobs and Salmon

Bill Worf
Fires, Logging and Wilderness in Montana

Christopher Brauchli
Special Offer! Free Cremation!!

Dr. Susan Block
Secret Sexual Fantasies: the Erotic Theater of the Mind

Charles R. Larson
Politics, Corruption and Sex in El Salvador

David Yearsley
A Clavichord Battles Santa Monica

Binoy Kampmark
The Vicious Countryside: Haneke's "The White Ribbon"

Poets' Basement
LaMorticella, Moser and Chaet

Website of the Weekend
Privatizing Public Bison

February 11, 2010

Patrick Cockburn
The Battle for Marjah

Mark Schuller
Uncertain Ground: the Haiti Earthquake and Its Aftermath

Stephen Soldz
The Seven Paragraphs on Torture

Harvey Wasserman
Vermont's Radioactive Nightmare

Stephen Fleischman
How the Corporations Broke America

Ron Jacobs
Ending the War in Afghanistan

Helen Redmond
Haiti and Health Care

Steve Zhou
Ideological Detox and the Muslim Community

Fatemeh Keshavarz Ahmadinejad, the Western Press and the Iranian Green Opposition

Gary Goldstein
The High Cost of Another Failed Star Wars Test

Website of the Day
Love Stinks: Matchmaking for Polluters & Lobbyists

February 10, 2010

Jules Boykoff
Showdown in Vancouver

Paul Craig Roberts
The U.S. is Now a Police State

David Macaray
A Dagger in the Heart of Labor

William Blum
Haiti, Aristide and Ideology

Martine Bulard
Live Long .... If You're Rich

M. Shahid Alam
A Eurocentric Problem

Tolu Olorunda
Making a Killing on Student Loans

Jayne Lyn Stahl
How Much is Too Much Information?

Cecilia Lucas
Don't Ask, Don't Tell, Don't Serve

Eric Walberg
The Great Game Playoff

Website of the Day
Saving Tropical Rainforests

February 9, 2010

Vijay Prashad
Troubles in the Mountains

Bill Quigley
Haiti by the Numbers

Jonathan Cook
Jerusalem Mayor to Raze 200 Palestinian Homes

Shamus Cooke
The Democrats are Coming After Social Security

Robert Jensen
The New York Times, Israel and Ethan Bronner

Laura Flanders
The Discreet Unveiling of a Covert War

Chris Kromm
Who Dat in the New Orleans Mayor's Office?

Dave Lindorff
Mumia Abu-Jamal's Case Stuck in Limbo

George Wuerthner
The Thinning Trap: Fear, Fire and Logging

Belén Fernandez
Check Out That Cuban!

Michael Donnelly
Green After-Birth?

Susie Day
GOP Sells Soul to Pat Robertson

Website of the Day
Goldstone Facts

February 8, 2010

Pam Martens
Wall Street's Killer Instinct Spells Death Knell for Jobs

Heather Gray
The Cruel Insanity of Obama's Agriculture Export Plan

Paul Craig Roberts
Blood Lust and Bragging Rights

Franklin Spinney
Mark-to-Market Pentagon Style

Ralph Nader
Institutionalizing Howard Zinn

Ellen Brown
The World's Greatest Insurance Heist

Sasha Kramer
Hope Rising from the Ashes of Port au Prince

Richard Morse
Who's in Charge of This Country?

Fred Gardner
LaGuardia and the Truth About Marijuana

Binoy Kampmark
Trouble at The Lancet

Michael Winship
Lobbyists Retreat, But Never Surrender

David Michael Green
Just Give Us Some Truth Now

Charles R. Larson
Socialist Blizzard Hits DC

Website of the Day
Markets! Finance!! Scandal!!!

February 5 - 7, 2010

Alexander Cockburn
The Left: Downhill From Greensboro

Paul Craig Roberts
The Free Market Fetish

Forrest Hylton
The Culture of Cocaine

Joanne Mariner
"If You Were in Secret Prisons...:" The Trial of Aafia Siddiqui

Bill Quigley
Haiti, Still Starving 23 Days Later

Jeffrey St. Clair
Vigilante Justice in the Land of Enchantment

Todd Gordon / Jeffrey R. Webber Consolidating the Coup in Honduras

Joseph Nevins
Bottled Water Syndrome: the Drinking Water Profiteers

Mike Miller
What Do Grassroots Organizers Actually Do When They Organize?

Mark Weisbrot
Why Washington "Cares" About Honduras and Haiti

Alison Weir
The NYT's Ethan Bronner's Conflict With Impartiality

David Swanson
Top 10 Problems with America Assassinating Americans

Missy Beattie
Recall Notices

Jonathan Cook
How Israel Stole $2 Billion From Palestinian Workers

Richard Morse
Will Clinton Roll With His Pre-Quake Friends in Haiti?

David Ker Thomson
Sects and the City

Benjamin Dangl
Beer Battles

Cal Winslow
Healthcare Workers Savor a Victory

Jim Goodman
Fear of the Organic

Michael Dickinson
What Not to Wear or Say in Turkey

Bouthaina Shaaban
The Arab Community ... the International Community

Don Monkerud
Justice Thomas in Hiding

Ananya Mukherjee-Reed
The Olympics That Will Not Be Televised

Doug Bevington
The Rebirth of Environmentalism

Stephen Martin
Globalization Burning

Charles R. Larson
The Nigerian 419 Scam

David Yearsley
At Last, the Sackbutt Gets Its Due

Kim Nicolini
"Up in the Air:"
a Landscape of Impossible Options

Poets' Basement
Marlin and Farrelly

Website of the Day
CIA Watched as Missionaries Shot Down in Peru

February 4, 2010

Barbara Rhine
Keep What You Have, But Leave the Rest

Barry Lando
Master of Treachery: Kissinger on Iraq

David Macaray
Black Lung Rising

Shamus Cooke
China's Wage Rates for U.S. Workers

P. Sainath
India's Farm Suicides: a 12-Year Saga

Christopher Brauchli
Sammy the Mouth Alito: Chucking Precedent at the Surpeme Court

Ramzy Baroud
Will Israel Target Gaza or Lebanon First?

Suzan Mazur
The Peer Review Prison

Harry Clark
The Invention of the Jewish People

Andy Worthington
Swiss Take Two Gitmo Uighurs

Website of the Day
Selective Compassion

February 3, 2010

Paul Craig Roberts
The Crisis is Not Over

Kathleen Christison
Zionism Laid Bare

Franklin Spinney
The Pentagon Goes Intellectually AWOL

Dean Baker
No Way Out: Roadblocks on the Way to Recovery

Marc Levy
No Medal Jacket

Kathy Kelly
Banning the Homeless in Colorado Springs

Gareth Porter
Talking with the Taliban: US and Karzai Clash

Joshua Frank
Blackwash: How the Coal Ash Industry Manipulated EPA Reports

Rannie Amiri
Saada War Rages On

Gregory Vickrey
Short-Changing the Health Care Debate ... For Now

Website of the Day
Mt. Reagan?

February 2, 2010

Michael Hudson
The Bernanke Disaster

Boadiba
Boadiba's Earthquake Diary

Chris Floyd
War, Budgets and Blind Ambition

Paul A. Passavant
The Symbolic Politics of the GOP: State of the Union or Civil War?

Mike Whitney
Bair's Damning Testimony

John Ross
Who's Who in Mexico's Narco Wars?

Jonathan Cook
Israel is Criminalizing Dissent

Susan Galleymore
Wasting Good Waste

Dave Lindorff
Talk Now With the Taliban

Tolu Olorunda
Words as Weapons

Ron Jacobs
I See Hawks and Earthworms

Website of the Day
Cop Watch: Guerrilla Video Primer

February 1, 2010

Michael Hudson
Obama's Junk Economics

Stan Goff
The Murderous Mystique of JSOC: How Secret Becomes Special

Patrick Cockburn
The Case Against Tony Blair

Saul Landau
Universal Disorientation: the Modern Media and Haiti

Dr. Carol Paris, MD
Staying When They Tell You to Leave: What I've Learned Doing Civil Disobedience for Single Payer

Marshall Auerback
A Proposal for Genuine Financial Reform

Harvey Wasserman
Will Obama Guarantee a New Nuclear Reactor War?

Johanna Berrigan
Destruction, Hope and Faith in Port au Prince

Peter Gelderloos
More Wood for the Fire

David Michael Green
An Ugly Week for the Human Race (and Other Living Things)

Martha Rosenberg
If You Liked Bovine Growth Hormone, You'll Love Beta Agonists

Kevin Zeese
Health Care: a Better Idea

Alan Farago
Where Nature Saves the World ... From Us

Website of the Day
Demolishing Flint

Weekend Edition
March 5 - 7, 2010

Georgia vs. Russia

Fanning the Flames of Another War in the Caucasus?

By ERIC WALBERG

Will there be another war in the Caucasus? This is a smoldering issue on more than one front, finds Eric Walberg, in the first of a two-part analysis of the spectre of conflict in this crucial crossroads

With the collapse of the Soviet Union, the world expected a new era of peace and disarmament. But what happened? Instead of diminishing, US and NATO presence throughout Europe, the Persian Gulf, Afghanistan and Central Asia rapidly increased, and the world experienced one war after another -- in the Caucasus, Yugoslavia , Iraq and Afghanistan , each one hotter and more horrible than the last. And we are far from seeing the end to the savagery now unleashed by the anti-communist jinni.

Though a pokey backwater for the past millennium, the south Caucasus is now a key battleground, the “critical strategic crossroads in 21st century geopolitics”, writes analyst Rick Rozoff, the focus of ambitious energy transit projects and a military corridor reaching from Western Europe to East Asia, controlled (or not so “controlled”) from Washington and Brussel.

Surely peace in this vital region should be a paramount goal for both Russia and the West, for their own reasons -- Russia because, well because it is there and its cultural and economic links are vital to Russia ’s well being. The US, if only to benefit economically, since peace everywhere is a boon to economic well being and logically should be blessed by the world’s superpower, whether or not it is a benevolent one.

But this logic has been betrayed -- egregiously, in the case of US abetting Georgia in its disastrous war against Russia in 2008, less obviously in likely covert US and other involvement in Chechnya and its neighbours, as well as in the Armenia-Azerbaijan stand-off over Nagorno Karabakh.

Topping the list in recent times are Abkhazia and South Ossetia, where firebrand Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili struts and threatens, running from one NATO gathering to another, embracing one US military envoy after another, as he shakes his fist at his northern nemesis and vows to retake his breakaway territories Abkhazia and South Ossetia, now fully fledged republics. This pits a NATO hopeful against a NATO foe, and despite the fact that NATO expressly forbids membership to any country with disputed borders, it continues to vow that Georgia will soon be a full member, a project that can only mean war with Russia.

US encouragement for Saakashvili in his failed 2008 war with Russia was, to put it mildly, an embarrassment for the US and should be a warning to politely distance itself from further abetting a dangerously unpredictable character. Despite the likelihood that Saakashvili’s extreme pro-West policies will be reversed by a future government, the US navy is conducting war exercises at this very moment with Georgia in the Black Sea, and the Pentagon is preparing to build three military bases in Georgia and dispatch of up to 25,000 US servicemen to the country by 2015. It seems the embarrassment is also a “window of opportunity”, a chance to put facts on the ground which a future government would find very difficult to change.

Georgia is a tempting morsel for other reasons. US special envoy to AfPak Richard Holbrooke just last week visited Georgia to arrange transit of arms to his killing fields via Georgia. Saakashvili offered Georgia’s Black Sea ports Poti and Batumi as docks for military supply ships and the country’s airports as refuelling points for cargo planes. “The route to Afghanistan is already used extensively, because almost 80 per cent of cargo which is not going through Pakistan is going through Georgia, and only 20 per cent through Russia,” boasts Alexander Rondeli, president of the Georgian Foundation for Security in International Studies.

Saakashvili is pursuing a propaganda campaign aiming to destabilise the region through direct and indirect provocation of Russia and support of terrorists with the tacit approval of Washington and Brussels. He has launched a Russian-language TV station First Caucasus beamed into South Ossetia, much like Reagan’s TV Marti set up in 1985 for Cubans. He has also reached out to Abkhazians and Ossetians to try to convince them to subvert their current governments and join Georgia.

The idea, according to analyst at the Strategic Cultural Foundation Nicolai Dimlevich, is to foment instability throughout the Caucasus and in Transcaucasia and then call for all the zones of conflict to be passed into UN, EU and/or NATO hands for safekeeping, since Russia would be proven to be incapable of ensuring the security of local populations. In this scenario, the US and NATO “benefit” from war in the region, as it is an opportunity to weaken Russia and extend control over the region. Terrifying thoughts, but unfortunately perfectly “rational”.

The failed war against Russia in 2008 also left behind storm clouds in Saakashvili’s own Tbilisi , where opposition to his reckless political gambits has hardened. Even as Saakashvili blusters, key Georgian opposition figures have been visiting Moscow since late last year, disowning their president’s plans. “We are prepared to receive those, who come not for fighting and trickery, but for making some changes,” Russian Deputy Minister Gregory Karasin told reporters in Geneva recently. Karasin quoted Georgian parliament’s ex-speaker, current leader of the Democratic Movement-United Georgia, Nino Burjanadze: “When Saakashvili made a decision to wage war in summer 2008, I am quoting her ‘he intended to make Russia bend on its knees and to cause tension in relations with Russia, but Saakashvili lost the war and put the country in a tragic situation.’ We want to have open and pleasant relationship with Georgia.”

Former Georgian prime minister Zurab Noghaideli was received by Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in December, the first time that the Russian leader openly met with a Georgian opposition leader. He openly advocates cooperation between his Movement for a Just Georgia and United Russia, and has developed close ties with the Union of Georgians in Russia. Noghaideli has repeatedly stated that without a radical change in Georgia’s foreign policy priorities his country’s “destruction will continue”, warning that “there is danger of Georgia’s further dismemberment” if Tbilisi’s current course continues.

“Saakashvili understands that his rule is in danger, and therefore he is prepared to plunge the country into a new war. He prefers to be a president banished from Georgia by Russia than to be banished by his own people,” said Burjanadze, condemning the TV station beamed into Ossetia which features a talk show hosted by the late Chechen rebel leader Dzhokhar Dudayev’s widow. Giorgi Khaindrava, a former Cabinet member and now an opposition leader, said. if the channel devotes coverage to the insurgency in Russia’s north Caucasus, Putin may declare it a terrorist threat and use force to shut it down. “This isn’t just fantasy. It could happen.”

The entire spectrum of Georgia’s politicians agree. Conservative Party leader Kakha Kukava says, “ Russia doesn’t have any strategic plan towards Georgia nowadays. It is in Saakashvili’s interests to provoke Russia and attract international attention to obtain support.” Even “some of the people close to President Saakashvili may also agree, but they can’t say so openly because they’re afraid of him,” asserts Noghaideli.

Perhaps Saakashvili’s bluster is just hot air. But the war exercises with the US and the planned US bases aren’t. Nor is the fact that the south Caucasus has become a transit route for drugs to Europe and Russia. Russian Federal Drug Control Service head Viktor Ivanov said last week that the ports of Batumi and Poti are “the main ones in drug trafficking, and the Georgian city of Kabuleti is one of the key points of trafficking of Afghan heroin.”

Only Saakashvili seems to think it’s possible to reunite the two breakaway regions with Georgia any time soon. For better or worse Abkhazia is ever more securely tied to Russia , as confirmed by President Sergei Bagapsh’s visit to Moscow last month to commemorate 200 years since Abkhazia was absorbed into the Russian empire. Though not Moscow’s favourite in the 2004 elections, Bagapsh has agreed to establish a joint military ground force for the next 49 years and to upgrade an existing Russian base at Gudauta, where 1,700 Russian troops are presently stationed. He also proposed that Abkhazia join the Belarus, Russia and Kazakhstan Customs Union even though neither Minsk nor Astana has recognised Abkhazia as a sovereign state. Ironically, says analyst Sergei Markedonov, if even a half dozen European countries were to recognise Abkhazia, “maybe Bagapsh would favour European integration.” Carnegie Moscow Centre analyst Alexei Malashenko suspects that Turkey may set things in motion. “Turkey is ready to establish special relations with Abkhazia.”

The mouse’s defeat in 2008 also was an important incentive for Ukrainians to turn against their Orange revolutionaries last month. Incumbent Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovich is merely expressing the will of the people when he dismisses any future move to join NATO and tones down the anti-Russian rhetoric. When Saakashvili goes, a similar move will surely take place in Georgia, as a future president tries to repair relations with Russia, though -- hopes the Pentagon -- leaving by-then existing US bases in place.

Eric Walberg writes for Al-Ahram Weekly. You can reach him at http://ericwalberg.com/

        

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Yellowstone Drift:
Floating the Past
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Born Under a Bad Sky:
Notes from the Dark Side
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2010 Country Mamas of Petrolia
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Waiting for Lightning
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Kevin Alexander Gray

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The Inside Story of the Shannon Five's Smashing Victory Over the
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Saul Landau's Bush and Botox World with a Foreword by Gore Vidal
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How They Made a Killing on the War on Terrorism

Spell Albuquerque:
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Humanitarian Imperialism
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CITY BEAUTIFUL
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