RickHolland
September 12th, 2011, 02:31 PM
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Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, territories of its former empire that were immediately declared independent sovereign nations as well as those whose status is yet to be determined have fallen prey to foreign and internal interests seeking to separate them from Russia. One such major area is the Caucasus land bridge sandwiched between the Black and Caspian Seas that since antiquity has been the interface between Europe and Asia. Some of the predominantly Turkic peoples have formed separatist parties seeking independence from Russia. International oil and gas interests want access and rights to exploit the mineral wealth and strategic position of the Caucasus. Indeed, the very geographic location of the Caucasus makes it a vital trans-Eurasian energy-transit route, delivering energy to the West.
The Caucasus itself is laterally divided into the South Caucasus (Transcaucasia), which includes the sovereign states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, and the North Caucasus (Ciscaucasia) under Russian control that comprises the autonomous republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia, and other small entities. Armenia and Georgia are ancient Christian states with equally venerable Caucasian Jewish communities coexisting over the centuries amidst a sea of Muslims. Conflicts have already erupted in Chechnya, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Ingushetia, and a major war has just been concluded between Russia and Georgia.
As M. Raphael Johnson has ably shown, the geopolitical and oil-gas interests of the outside powers have further distorted and aggravated the already complicated situation in the Caucasus. (“Israel, Oil and Death: The War for Ossetia.” Culture Wars, October 2008). The United States and Israel, supported by native Georgians, Christians and Jews, have aligned militarily against Russia, further alienating Christian Armenia from its Georgian Christian neighbor. Ever since the First World War and its aftermath Armenia has been especially indebted to Russia for having protected her against Turkic attacks.
Today the Armenians see Israel and America supporting the Azeris in the Nagorno-Karabakh fighting. Independent Azerbaijan, with its famed capital Baku astride the Caspian Sea and one of the earliest oil cities, has a border contiguous with Armenia. Russia stations troops in the Armenian Gyumri military base and controls the air space over Armenia.
History buffs will recall that the German Army had reached the gates of Baku and Grozny in August 1942 in the hope of linking up with General Rommel’s army coming up from Egypt. But before the pincers could close the battles of El Alamein and Stalingrad intervened, and the Germans began a three-year retreat.
Rivka Cohen, the Israeli Ambassador to Georgia, is credited with coordinating Israeli and Caucasian Jewish activities as well as for making Tbilisi (Georgia’s capital) the base for Mossad operations in the Caucasus. As a consequence, an Armenian-Russian-Iranian alignment opposes what it sees as American and Israeli intervention in the area aimed not just at stifling pro-Russian sentiment in the smaller autonomous countries but at separating the Caucasus entirely from Russia.
The still simmering Russo-Georgian War over the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the continuing Russo-Chechen ethnic conflicts have been and remain the most violent confrontations in the Caucasus to date. Israel and the United States have supported Georgian claims to Abkhazia and Ossetia with arms shipments and military advice while a group of Anglo-Jews in London, presumably with the tacit approval of the British government, has also been fanning the flames of war in Chechnya. Britain, after all, has been a leading player in the “Great Game” since the early 20th Century.
The United States only began to intervene in the affairs of Georgia in earnest in about 1989 when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, under President Bush, developed a close relationship with Eduard Shevarnadze, who at that time was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Mikhail Gorbachev. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union Shevarnadze first converted to the Georgian Orthodox Church and then went on to become president of the newly independent Georgian state, where he established a solidly pro-American policy.
One of Shevarnadze’s protégées in the Georgian government while he was president was Mikheil Saakashvili, who was to become president. In the mid 1990s, Saakashvili received the best grooming America had to offer. He received a fellowship from the U.S. State Department, studied at neocon stronghold George Washington University, obtained a degree from Columbia University, and a diploma from the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. One year after serving as Minister of Justice under President Shevarnadze, he overthrew his erstwhile mentor in the so-called Rose Revolution and assumed the presidency.
However, not all the rough edges had been smoothed over in the United States. Saakashvili has been criticized at home for his occasional vulgarity. He has publicly made insulting comments about Russian women, and has labeled the Russians his “Mongoloid enemy.” He has also publicly referred to Blacks as savages and by the n-word, using the vulgar Georgian word ‘zangi’.
In 2004 Saakashvili made his first visit to Israel where he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa and hailed as the Nelson Mandela of the 21st century. A Georgian-Jewish Friendship Week was established. In 2007 Saakashvili reorganized his cabinet. He retained Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze, who is a dual UK-Georgian citizen, but appointed a new defense minister, David Kererashvili, a Georgian Jew with friendly connections in Israel. Israel has a special interest in Georgia because of the flight distance and overflight rights en route to Iran, should Iran develop and deploy nuclear weapons.
His recent appointment to his cabinet of Vera Kobalia as Minister of the Economy and Sustainable Development has evoked considerable criticism because of her age (29) and lack of experience. Before joining Saakashvili’s cabinet, the young lady had lived in Canada until 2009, where she had worked in her father’s company, the European Breads Bakery. The current Georgian Ambassador to the United States is Temuri Yakobashvili, a proud Hebrew-speaking Zionist youth activist. He is co-founder of the Atlantic Council of Georgia and headed the Georgian Department for the United States, Canada, and Latin America.
After years of mutual recriminations, aerial and ground incursions into and over each other’s territory, a major war broke out on 7 August 2008 when Georgian forces attempted to reconquer areas in South Ossetia and Abkhazia that had attempted to escape Georgian control by seeking independence and Russian protection. The Georgians failed to take Tskhinvali, their initial target, and were eventually thrown back on all fronts. President Sarkozy of France mediated a ceasefire. The loss of Abkhazia, which occupies a long stretch along the Black Sea coast, will particularly handicap the U.S. Navy in any future attempts to supply our allies and our own forces in the Middle East. The ports it might have used will now be at the disposal of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Since only a ceasefire exists and since the United States, Israel, Ukraine, and other states have hastened to resupply and rearm Georgia, and since Russia has done the same for its forces and allies in the area, the world can expect further bad news from the Caucasus.
Concurrently with the Russo-Georgian War, Russia and the original Turkic and Iranic indigenous peoples of Chechnya, Dagestan, the Crimea, and other areas in the south of Russia proper, which were forcibly incorporated in the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, have continued their long-standing conflicts. Ongoing strife between the Russians and the Muslim native peoples in the south peaked in the mid 20th century when Stalin ruthlessly deported these peoples to Siberia for collaborating with the German invaders. After the dictator’s death, however, the exiled peoples were permitted to return to their ancestral homelands nursing an even greater hatred of the Russians and determined more than ever to resist Russian imperialism.
In retaliation, Chechen opponents of Russian encroachments and domination have on occasion launched terrorist attacks against Russia as, for example, the Moscow Theater Seizure in October 2002 in which more than a hundred hostages were killed, and the Beslan School Seizure and Massacre in September 2004 in which some 300 hostages, including many children, were killed.
Aiding the Chechens in their endeavor to resist Russian control is the London Circle of exiled Russians headed by the Russo-Israeli dual citizen, Boris Berezovsky. Among others, the Circle includes or at one time included: Akhmed Zakayev, former Prime Minister (1997–2007) of the earlier unrecognized secessionist Chechen Republic; Aleksandr Litvinenko, former KGB and FSB operative who accused his superiors of wanting to assassinate Berezovsky and whose death by polonium radiation poisoning has directed world attention to the activities of the London Circle in opposing Putin’s policies and fanning the flames of rebellion in Chechnya; and Alex Goldfarb, dissident microbiologist, manager of the Soros Foundation in Russia and a friend of Litvinenko.
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Read More: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/AsiaCaucasusEthnic1.jpg
Following the collapse of the Soviet Union, territories of its former empire that were immediately declared independent sovereign nations as well as those whose status is yet to be determined have fallen prey to foreign and internal interests seeking to separate them from Russia. One such major area is the Caucasus land bridge sandwiched between the Black and Caspian Seas that since antiquity has been the interface between Europe and Asia. Some of the predominantly Turkic peoples have formed separatist parties seeking independence from Russia. International oil and gas interests want access and rights to exploit the mineral wealth and strategic position of the Caucasus. Indeed, the very geographic location of the Caucasus makes it a vital trans-Eurasian energy-transit route, delivering energy to the West.
The Caucasus itself is laterally divided into the South Caucasus (Transcaucasia), which includes the sovereign states of Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia, and the North Caucasus (Ciscaucasia) under Russian control that comprises the autonomous republics of Chechnya, Ingushetia, Dagestan, North Ossetia, and other small entities. Armenia and Georgia are ancient Christian states with equally venerable Caucasian Jewish communities coexisting over the centuries amidst a sea of Muslims. Conflicts have already erupted in Chechnya, Abkhazia, Nagorno-Karabakh, South Ossetia, and Ingushetia, and a major war has just been concluded between Russia and Georgia.
As M. Raphael Johnson has ably shown, the geopolitical and oil-gas interests of the outside powers have further distorted and aggravated the already complicated situation in the Caucasus. (“Israel, Oil and Death: The War for Ossetia.” Culture Wars, October 2008). The United States and Israel, supported by native Georgians, Christians and Jews, have aligned militarily against Russia, further alienating Christian Armenia from its Georgian Christian neighbor. Ever since the First World War and its aftermath Armenia has been especially indebted to Russia for having protected her against Turkic attacks.
Today the Armenians see Israel and America supporting the Azeris in the Nagorno-Karabakh fighting. Independent Azerbaijan, with its famed capital Baku astride the Caspian Sea and one of the earliest oil cities, has a border contiguous with Armenia. Russia stations troops in the Armenian Gyumri military base and controls the air space over Armenia.
History buffs will recall that the German Army had reached the gates of Baku and Grozny in August 1942 in the hope of linking up with General Rommel’s army coming up from Egypt. But before the pincers could close the battles of El Alamein and Stalingrad intervened, and the Germans began a three-year retreat.
Rivka Cohen, the Israeli Ambassador to Georgia, is credited with coordinating Israeli and Caucasian Jewish activities as well as for making Tbilisi (Georgia’s capital) the base for Mossad operations in the Caucasus. As a consequence, an Armenian-Russian-Iranian alignment opposes what it sees as American and Israeli intervention in the area aimed not just at stifling pro-Russian sentiment in the smaller autonomous countries but at separating the Caucasus entirely from Russia.
The still simmering Russo-Georgian War over the status of Abkhazia and South Ossetia and the continuing Russo-Chechen ethnic conflicts have been and remain the most violent confrontations in the Caucasus to date. Israel and the United States have supported Georgian claims to Abkhazia and Ossetia with arms shipments and military advice while a group of Anglo-Jews in London, presumably with the tacit approval of the British government, has also been fanning the flames of war in Chechnya. Britain, after all, has been a leading player in the “Great Game” since the early 20th Century.
The United States only began to intervene in the affairs of Georgia in earnest in about 1989 when U.S. Secretary of State James Baker, under President Bush, developed a close relationship with Eduard Shevarnadze, who at that time was Minister of Foreign Affairs under Mikhail Gorbachev. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union Shevarnadze first converted to the Georgian Orthodox Church and then went on to become president of the newly independent Georgian state, where he established a solidly pro-American policy.
One of Shevarnadze’s protégées in the Georgian government while he was president was Mikheil Saakashvili, who was to become president. In the mid 1990s, Saakashvili received the best grooming America had to offer. He received a fellowship from the U.S. State Department, studied at neocon stronghold George Washington University, obtained a degree from Columbia University, and a diploma from the International Institute of Human Rights in Strasbourg, France. One year after serving as Minister of Justice under President Shevarnadze, he overthrew his erstwhile mentor in the so-called Rose Revolution and assumed the presidency.
However, not all the rough edges had been smoothed over in the United States. Saakashvili has been criticized at home for his occasional vulgarity. He has publicly made insulting comments about Russian women, and has labeled the Russians his “Mongoloid enemy.” He has also publicly referred to Blacks as savages and by the n-word, using the vulgar Georgian word ‘zangi’.
In 2004 Saakashvili made his first visit to Israel where he was awarded an honorary doctorate from the University of Haifa and hailed as the Nelson Mandela of the 21st century. A Georgian-Jewish Friendship Week was established. In 2007 Saakashvili reorganized his cabinet. He retained Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze, who is a dual UK-Georgian citizen, but appointed a new defense minister, David Kererashvili, a Georgian Jew with friendly connections in Israel. Israel has a special interest in Georgia because of the flight distance and overflight rights en route to Iran, should Iran develop and deploy nuclear weapons.
His recent appointment to his cabinet of Vera Kobalia as Minister of the Economy and Sustainable Development has evoked considerable criticism because of her age (29) and lack of experience. Before joining Saakashvili’s cabinet, the young lady had lived in Canada until 2009, where she had worked in her father’s company, the European Breads Bakery. The current Georgian Ambassador to the United States is Temuri Yakobashvili, a proud Hebrew-speaking Zionist youth activist. He is co-founder of the Atlantic Council of Georgia and headed the Georgian Department for the United States, Canada, and Latin America.
After years of mutual recriminations, aerial and ground incursions into and over each other’s territory, a major war broke out on 7 August 2008 when Georgian forces attempted to reconquer areas in South Ossetia and Abkhazia that had attempted to escape Georgian control by seeking independence and Russian protection. The Georgians failed to take Tskhinvali, their initial target, and were eventually thrown back on all fronts. President Sarkozy of France mediated a ceasefire. The loss of Abkhazia, which occupies a long stretch along the Black Sea coast, will particularly handicap the U.S. Navy in any future attempts to supply our allies and our own forces in the Middle East. The ports it might have used will now be at the disposal of the Russian Black Sea Fleet.
Since only a ceasefire exists and since the United States, Israel, Ukraine, and other states have hastened to resupply and rearm Georgia, and since Russia has done the same for its forces and allies in the area, the world can expect further bad news from the Caucasus.
Concurrently with the Russo-Georgian War, Russia and the original Turkic and Iranic indigenous peoples of Chechnya, Dagestan, the Crimea, and other areas in the south of Russia proper, which were forcibly incorporated in the Russian Empire in the early 18th century, have continued their long-standing conflicts. Ongoing strife between the Russians and the Muslim native peoples in the south peaked in the mid 20th century when Stalin ruthlessly deported these peoples to Siberia for collaborating with the German invaders. After the dictator’s death, however, the exiled peoples were permitted to return to their ancestral homelands nursing an even greater hatred of the Russians and determined more than ever to resist Russian imperialism.
In retaliation, Chechen opponents of Russian encroachments and domination have on occasion launched terrorist attacks against Russia as, for example, the Moscow Theater Seizure in October 2002 in which more than a hundred hostages were killed, and the Beslan School Seizure and Massacre in September 2004 in which some 300 hostages, including many children, were killed.
Aiding the Chechens in their endeavor to resist Russian control is the London Circle of exiled Russians headed by the Russo-Israeli dual citizen, Boris Berezovsky. Among others, the Circle includes or at one time included: Akhmed Zakayev, former Prime Minister (1997–2007) of the earlier unrecognized secessionist Chechen Republic; Aleksandr Litvinenko, former KGB and FSB operative who accused his superiors of wanting to assassinate Berezovsky and whose death by polonium radiation poisoning has directed world attention to the activities of the London Circle in opposing Putin’s policies and fanning the flames of rebellion in Chechnya; and Alex Goldfarb, dissident microbiologist, manager of the Soros Foundation in Russia and a friend of Litvinenko.
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Read More: http://www.theoccidentalobserver.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/09/AsiaCaucasusEthnic1.jpg