War in Georgia

Today, Mikheil Saakashvili has an editorial in the Wall Street Journal wherein he expounds on the reasons the West should intervene in the conflict.

On Friday, hundreds of Russian tanks crossed into Georgian territory, and Russian air force jets bombed Georgian airports, bases, ports and public markets. Many are dead, many more wounded. This invasion, which echoes Afghanistan in 1979 and the Prague Spring of 1968, threatens to undermine the stability of the international security system.

AP

An apartment building, damaged by a Russian air strike, in the northern Georgian town of Gori, Saturday, Aug. 9.

Why this war? This is the question my people are asking. This war is not of Georgia’s making, nor is it Georgia’s choice.

The Kremlin designed this war. Earlier this year, Russia tried to provoke Georgia by effectively annexing another of our separatist territories, Abkhazia. When we responded with restraint, Moscow brought the fight to South Ossetia.

Ostensibly, this war is about an unresolved separatist conflict. Yet in reality, it is a war about the independence and the future of Georgia. And above all, it is a war over the kind of Europe our children will live in. Let us be frank: This conflict is about the future of freedom in Europe.

I understand the yearning for freedom. I have it too. And I have a different perspective than most on what freedom is. You see, I don’t believe the West is all that free.

Georgia (the country) used to be a part of the USSR. Georgia (the state) is a part of the United States and happens to be my state of residence. If most Georgians today decided that the United States didn’t represent the type of government they wanted and declared independence by seceding from the United States of America, I think the same thing that is happening in Georgia would happen in the United States. I’m certain that the federal government of the U.S. would use force to keep a member state from declaring independence. That’s not freedom.

When Mikheil Saakashvili asks for the West to intercede in Georgia he is just trading one master for another. Perhaps one master is gentler than the other, and maybe existence under that other master is more tolerable. And that might be OK for some people. It’s not enough to satisfy me.

A truly free society always emphasizes as wide a range of choices as possible. That is not what the West offers, although it may offer more choices than Russia is most matters, it is still a master. Georgia will not be independent in the foreseeable future, anymore than South Ossetia has been. Georgia is a pawn in larger struggles between Western authoritarians and Russian authoritarians.

The most powerful thing about independence is a that it is a state of mind that the state cannot defeat. Have you really thought about your state of mind? Or the state you live in? Or the range of choices available to you in life? War can visit anyplace, at anytime. Are you mentally ready to fight the important battles? Do you even know what is important to you?