Posted on August 7, 2009 - by Venik

Happy Anniversary, Misha

Tweeter celebrated the one-year anniversary of the Georgian-Russian war by setting it’s Web servers on fire. (For those of you with long-term memory problem, here is a brief recap of the events.) The Unix gurus at Tweeter’s datacenter blamed the downtime on unspecified hackers unleashing a DDoS attack. According to some networking experts interviewed by the New York Times, the word “attack” might not have been entirely applicable to this scenario. It would seems that the Georgians and the goddamn Ruskies, wishing to recapture some of the excitement of last August, engaged in a heated online debate and got carried away. As the result, Tweeter, Facebook, LiveJournal and even the almighty Google came down with a stomach flu.

Just like a year ago, the Georgians prepared a little surprise by creating hundreds of propaganda “blogs” using the aforementioned services, ready to go online on the day of the war’s anniversary. And, just like last year, the Russians noticed the commotion and spoiled all the fun by sending out millions of emails inviting people around the world to read Georgian propaganda. The hope was that Tweeter and such are ran by idiots and their servers were not prepared to cope with the sudden surge in traffic. And, of course, they were not prepared. This wasn’t really a DDoS attack – just too many visitors for Tweeter to handle. Naturally, the service could not admit incompetence of it’s technical staff and chose to blame the mysterious hackers instead.

Georgian tanks during exercises in 2007

Georgia’s president Misha Saakashvili ordered his government to write a book about how Russia started the war and how Georgia won. In an attempt to answer many questions that inevitably arose, in a followup email to his staff Saakashvili did mention that they do not necessarily have to be all writing about the same war, for doing so clearly would present some difficult technical challenges and the final manuscript was expected by the publisher before sundown. The book was presented with great pomp at what was supposed to be a large gathering of foreign dignitaries in Tbilisi. They say even the ambassador of Estonia was in attendance. Imagine that. The “New History of Modern Georgia: Why 2008 Was Not a Real Year”, by Mikheil Saakashvili, Esq., was an instant hit and is expected to topple the “Complete Idiot’s Guide to Warfare” as Georgia’s top-selling paperback.

Notably, the president of the renegade South Ossetia province was not present at the victory celebrations in Tbilisi. According to his press secretary’s second cousin (on his father’s side, of course), Ed Kokoiti came down with a severe case of hiccups and on the advice of his physician was to spend the entire weekend at the beach in nearby Abkhazia that also used to belong to Georgia. Infuriated by such blatant breach of protocol, Saakashvili announced to the crowd of actors impersonating foreign dignitaries and loyal supporters that Mr. Kokoiti will be at the party, even if Georgia had to send every last Ukrainian-made T-72 main battle tank to get him. Reminded by an aide that he didn’t have any left and that the tanks promised by Biden were still somewhere in Maryland, Saakashvili said that he will be sending Mr. Kokoiti an angry email instead. Unfortunately, Misha kept his address book on Tweeter, which was down at the time. He got drunk instead.

Russian paratroopers fending off Georgian attack

Jokes aside, what has become of Georgia under the leadership of Napoleon Jr. is indeed a disturbing sight. The last time I was in Tbilisi was in 1987, when Gorbi’s “Perestroika” has already sapped some of the life out of people, but the city was still very vibrant. Since then I have been to many cities and countries, but that year I spent in Georgia is by far the most memorable experience of my life. The city was beautiful, but what really attracted me to Georgia were the people. In the former USSR, Georgians were renown for their hospitality and, in my opinion, this reputation was well deserved. It makes me truly sad to see where this great nation is heading under the leadership of that New York lawyer the Georgians had the misfortune of electing as their president.

Georgians are mindful of their history and especially of their military history. For such a small nation, Georgia gave the world a surprising number of accomplished military commanders. From Gen. Pyotr Bagration – hero of the 1812 war against Napoleon – to John Shalikashvili – a four-star US general and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff – Georgians took their warfighting skills very seriously and produced well over four hundred generals for the Russian Empire and the Soviet Union, as well as one of only four military commanders in all of Russia’s history to receive the rank of Generalissimus. All the more humiliating Georgians find their quick defeat at the hands of Russia’s 58th Army last year. Some Georgians even compare the significance of this war to the defeat of ancient Georgia at the hands of Gnaeus Pompeius Magnus in 65 B.C. or to the surrender to the Golden Horde in 1243.

A destroyed Georgian tank in Tskhinvali

Will there be another war between Georgia and Russia? It is very unlikely but possible. Saakashvili is desperately trying to redirect public outrage at home away from himself and toward the Kremlin. During his re-election campaign two years ago Saakashvili resorted to all kinds of dirty tactics widely practiced by dictators of other banana republics around the world. He used everything at his disposal to suppress the opposition. His methods ranged from shutting down TV broadcast stations to using directed high-frequency sonic weapons on the opposition protesters. Back then he was only fighting for power and now he is fighting for survival.

Fortunately for everybody, the Georgian army left most of its weapons in the Russian hands when it retreated east. Lack of significant offensive capability and substantial Russian military presence on the border prevent Saakashvili from giving his 2008 military fiasco a second try. The only thing that’s left is to lob a few mortar shells across the border into South Ossetia and hope that the resulting media circus keeps the public mind off unimportant things like lack of hot water, electricity shortages, raging unemployment, empty shelves at the grocery stores, lost territories and severely deflated national pride.

Photos:

• Georgian army before the war
• Victims in South Ossetia
• Destruction of Tskhinvali
• Georgian losses in the war
• Russian troops in Georgia
• After the war

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