Guess which Eastern European country will soon have the third largest military force in Iraq?

[rodeodance]

i missed this entirely!

http://harpers.org/archive/2007/07/hbc-90000482


Georgia Provides Troops for Iraq; Gets a Free Pass on Human Rights?
DEPARTMENT Washington Babylon
BY Ken Silverstein
PUBLISHED July 10, 2007

Guess which Eastern European country will soon have the third largest military force in Iraq? That same country is strongly pro-NATO and has on retainer a Washington lobbyist who was a leading advocate for the war in Iraq? Now guess which country is getting a free ride from the Bush Administration—and the media—on human rights and democracy?

The answer is Georgia. Ever since the “Rose Revolution” of 2003 that toppled Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet official, the Bush Administration has maintained close ties to the government in Georgia. The media, too, has been sympathetic to President Mikhail Saakashvili, who is generally portrayed as a spunky leader who is creating a Western-style state bound by the rule of law.

That portrait, though, is far from accurate. In 2005, Human Rights Watch released a report that described “the ongoing impunity for torture, a problem that persists despite some government measures taken to combat it.” In another report last year, “Undue Punishment: Abuses against Prisoners in Georgia”,” Human Rights Watch found that many prisoners “live in severely overcrowded, filthy, and poorly-ventilated cells. In the last two years, the prison population has nearly doubled due to the routine use of pretrial detention, even for nonviolent offences.” (Incidentally, there were 16,911 convictions in Georgia last year and just 37 acquittals, a rate that even an old Soviet-era prosecutor would have had a hard time matching.)

This year, the U.S. State Department’s own human rights report says of Georgia, “The government’s human rights record improved in some areas during the year, although serious problems remained . . . here were some reports of deaths due to excessive use of force by law enforcement officers, cases of torture and mistreatment of detainees, increased abuse of prisoners, impunity, continued overuse of pretrial detention for less serious offenses.”

[rodeodance]

1. Georgia, a nation of about 4.5 million people,

The Bush Administration could probably stop the farcical trial if it complained to the government, but since Saakashvili is “pro-Western” it doesn’t utter a peep of protest. Its silence might have something to do with the fact that Georgia recently announced it would increase its troops in Iraq from 850 to 2,000. After South Korea pulls its troops out, as it has announced, that will leave Georgia, a nation of about 4.5 million people, with the third largest contingent in Iraq after the United States and Great Britain.

[xchrom]

2. one thing we need to learn and change -- is that america

doesn't have a problem with heavy handed leaders.

we just have a problem with heavy handed leaders who aren't in our camp -- so to speak.

saakashvili probably plays a couple of different roles for us -- now that russia has made it clear that it will steer it's own course.