Date: Thu, 18 Sep 2008
From: GORDON HAHN <gordon-hahn@sbcglobal.net>
Subject: Comment on Col. Hamilton's response to Hewitt
I would like to add my two cents in the debate between Col. Hamilton and Prof. Hewitt. Although Prof. Hewitt is off on numerous scores, Col. Hamilton issued forth some miscues as well.
On the issue of the West's supply of military training and equipment: Although this was not perhaps as entirely reckless as Prof. Hewitt seems to imply, there is certainly an element of recklessness in it. It has to be said that counter-insurgency tactics could be used against South Ossetian and/or Abkhazian fighters, especially if the Georgian occupation of the breakaway republics had failed to be consolidated and the separatists began guerilla tactics of any kind or of the kind adopted by jihadists in particular. Second, Western forces were providing, it appears, sniper training, which can be used against any force. The Ukrainian Defense Ministry's sudden acknowledgement that it had some 20 spetsnaz forces training Georgians somewhere in the Georgian hills as the tit-for-tat exchanges of fire escalated between the two sides could not have gone unnoticed in Moscow, Tskhinvali, and Sukhumi.
Col. Hamilton correctly notes that 2 Georgian brigades were sent to Iraq and were set to go to Afghanistan, but they did not. They were diverted - transported by the West - back to Georgia to fight Ossetians and Russians. Clearly their battle experience hardened them for any battle against Russia. Col. Hamilton's use of the word 'claim' to describe the Russians' assertions of Chechen fighters in Kodori suggests a certain bias. Indeed, as we know since 2002 Moscow has made this charge several times, and almost as many times the Georgians denied it was true only to have to later admit that it was true. Thus, Georgian 'claims' need to be weighed carefully, as Saakashvili's disinformation campaign during the war makes clear to anyone willing to see.
On Georgia's freedom to purchase weapons from Israel, Ukraine, etc.: Yes, Tbilisi is free to purchase such weapons, but the sellers -- all close U.S. allies -- were certainly encouraged to do so as a result of America's cozying up to Tbilisi and seeking Georgia's entry into NATO. They improved their own standing in Washington by supporting the US mission of building up Georgian forces and perhaps secured a foothold in future arms markets. They were very likely encouraged directly by the US to make the sales.
It is commendable that, as Col. Hamilton notes, "capabilities like armor, artillery and attack aviation were off-limits for U.S. assistance" because of their "provocative" nature. However, they will not be off limits once Georgian joins NATO, and this is one reason why NATO expansion is "provocative" and was a cause of this war.
On Col. Hamilton's version of which side attacked first and with what weaponry: He identifies no sources specifically, other than the US Embassy in Tbilisi which was getting its information from Tbilisi. Only Georgian sources and the Georgian Foreign Ministry's timeline, compiled after the war had started, claim the Ossetians fired first on August 1. Realtime reports from the Caucasus news reporting agency 'Kavkaz-uzel', sponsored by the well-respected Russian opposition human rights organization 'Memorial', produce a very different picture. Georgian snipers and low-caliber gunfire targeted numerous Ossetian villages on August 1, killing 6 and wounding 12. It was only on August 2, that the Georgian side reported Ossetian mortar attacks on Georgian villages and without mention of any casualties. Which "other international observers" confirmed the Ossetians fired first. The OSCE Mission observers and Joint Peacekeeping Forces' command claim the opposite.
According to the same source, Georgian forces also fired on Ossetian villages in the first hours of August 2 with automatic fire and mortars. Now some of these realtime reports were taken from Russian news agencies, but it stretches credulity to think that each Russian news agency made tens or even hundreds of false reports regarding casualties, without someone finding out about it, while they accept at fact value all Georgian claims, despite Tbilisi's repeatedly being caught issuing disinformation. The Colonel and others can do so, but they are fooling themselves. 'Kavkaz-uzel' was reporting Georgian attacks, troop movements and war preparations for nearly two months by both sides before the war's 'start' on August 7.
On August 7: It is now quite clear that the Georgian government changed the time at which it has stated Russian forces began crossing the Roki Tunnel. At 5:30am the Georgian Foreign Ministry issued its first report that Russian forces are crossing the Georgian border into South Ossetia through the Roki Tunnel. [See Nicolai Petro, “Crisis in the Caucasus: A Unified Timeline” citing the Georgian Foreign Ministry’s “Timeline by 13 August 16:20”] After three days, all Georgian official statements and a new official Georgian Foreign Ministry timeline indicate that the crossing began six hours earlier at 11:30pm. [Petro, “Crisis in the Caucasus: A Unified Timeline” citing “Timeline of Events in the Russian Invasion and Occupation of Georgia, August 16, 2008, www.mfa.gov.ge/index.php?lang_id=ENG&sec_id=461&info_id=7484 (accessed August 26, 2008)] The Georgians announced their military operation began even before 11:05pm. The audiotapes provided by the Georgians to the New York Times have still not been verified as authentic, and it may be impossible to know when they were actually recorded. There are very few good guys in this part of the world, and the Georgians are no more among them than are the Russians.
Hamilton claims: "Most of the Georgian forces did not move out of their garrisons until August 7th." In fact, according to Western observers interviewed after the war, by the morning of August 7 Georgia had amassed 12,000 troops on its border to South Ossetia, and 75 tanks and armored personnel carriers were positioned near Gori. [Manfred Ertel, Uwe Klussmann, Susanne Koelbl, Walter Mayr, Matthias Schepp, Holger Stark and Alexander Szandar, “Road to War in Georgia,” Der Spiegel, 25 August 2008, posted on Johnson’s Russia List, #162, 31 August 2008, www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/ (accessed 31 August 2008).] The Russians and Ossetians were reporting from August 3 that massive amounts of armor and troop were being moved toward the conflict zone. Yet, on August 5, like Col. Hamilton after him, NATO representative Cameron Romero states NATO has no information regarding any concentration of Georgian forces in or around the conflict zone. [www.kavkaz-uzel.ru/newstext/news/id/1226582.html] One wonders how the howitzers and 'Grad' artillery systems that leveled Tskhinvali managed to be moved into the conflict zone in a few hours from their Gori and Senaki bases.
Col. Hamilton states: "Abkhaz and Russian forces drove the small Georgian contingent from the Kodori Gorge and crossed from Abkhazia into Georgia proper – destroying both civilian and military infrastructure as they did so." The fact appears to be that there was virtually no destruction of civilian objects in western Georgia as the Los Angeles Times and other reporters reported days after the war on a tour of the region. In war, as the colonel knows, any military target is legitimate, especially if it can facilitate forces' actions actually in the field.
If, as Col. Hamilton believes, the Russian/Ossetian actions were pre-planned, why did it take some 14 hours after Georgia declared war before Russian troops engaged Georgian troops?
In responding to Prof. Hewitt's claim that Georgian forces targeted caused heavy casualties among South Ossetian civilians, he cites the now ancient Human Rights Watch figures of 44 fatalities in Tskhinvali. The count is now 133, nearly twice as high as Georgian civilian casualties, and the Ossetians and Russians are sticking to a figure of some 1,4000 and have produced some 400 names and are adding to them each day. Perhaps, Westerners would find this worthwhile investigating.
In terms of alleged Russian and Ossetian atrocities, Georgia's official fatality figure is 69. Hardly a genocide either. The Unosat pictures fail to note that most of the damage was due to single house fires spreading from rooftop to rooftop in small villages.
The more one reads Col. Hamilton's response one becomes less surprised as he blames the Abkhaz, Ossetians, and Russians for the ethnic cleansing in the 1991 and 1992 attacks and wars. It was Georgian president Zviad Gamsakhurdia who declared 'Georgia for the Georgians." This seems to be glossed over by many in the West who are rightfully taken aback and appalled when certain Russian elements talk about "Russia for the Russians." It was Gamsakhurdia who terminated Abkhazia's and South Ossetia's autonomous status and sent militias into those regions to ethnically cleanse them. In 2004, Saakashvili tried to do the same, or was his incursion an attempt to 'expand the zone of democracy, peace and security'? The Georgian side started the post-Soviet rise of Abkaz and Oset nationalism in this way, and it has paid the price. To be sure, Russian actions were no less objectionable in some ways, and that is why should now be avoiding the 'one side is guilty' approach that has seized Washington. We should be acting as brokers, but that possibility ended with NATO expansion and flirtations with post-Soviet states.
Col Hamilton is right when he states: "When, after the Rose Revolution, the Georgian government became much more effective and less corrupt, when it stated clearly that its goal was to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community, Russia attempted to use the separatist conflicts to dissuade the Georgian government from pursuing this objective." This is exactly why expanding NATO without Russia was a mistake.
Col. Hamilton seems rather complacent about the beating of Georgian opposition demonstrators for blocking a downtown Tbilisi street and using the methods of the 'colored revolutionaries.' I wonder whether Shevardnadze or Putin would receive such understanding from the colonel?
On Col Hamilton's belief that president Saakashvili learned his lesson and restored his democratic credentials with honest elections approved by the OSCE. In fact, both the January 2008 presidential and May 2008 parliamentary elections were badly marred by election irregularities, including falsification, intimidation, and vote buying. President Saakashvili responded to the opposition’s demonstrations and refusal to recognize the results of the earlier election with a temporary ban on demonstrations and the closing of mass media outlets. An OSCE report finding that 33 percent of the presidential ballot was counted incorrectly. Reports by the Russian newspaper Novaya Gazeta, a paper in opposition to the Putin regime, on the massive corruption in both elections were largely ignored by Western governments and media.
Gordon M. Hahn, Ph.D.
Senior Researcher
Terrorism Research and Education Program
Adjunct Professor, Graduate School of International Policy Studies
Monterey Institute for International Studies
Senior Researcher
Center for Terrorism and Intelligence Studies
Akribis Group
San Jose, CA 95110
Dr. Hahn is author of two well-received books, Russia’s Islamic Threat (Yale University Press, 2007) and Russia’s Revolution From Above, 1985-2000 (Transaction Publishers, 2002) as well as numerous articles in academic journals and English and Russian language print and electronic media. He has taught at Boston, American, Stanford, San Jose State, and San Francisco State Universities, as well as Saint Petersburg State University, Russia as a Fulbright Scholar and has been a fellow at the Kennan Institute and the Hoover Institution.