Ever since Russia launched a massive counter-offensive in response to Georgia’s attempt to retake the pro-Russian, breakaway region of South Ossetia, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has been omnipresent in Western media. He has appeared on CBS, CNN, BBC and pretty much every other English-language TV channel to accuse Russia of penetrating Georgia far beyond Ossetia, planning an assault on the capital and plotting his overthrow.
On Aug 11 he wrote an opinion column in the Wall Street Journal warning Georgia’s fall would mean the fall of the West.
At the start of the conflict the verdict was unequivocal. Saakashvili was winning the media war hands down. While the Kremlin’s press operation was largely silent, Saakashvili, an urbane, U.S.-educated lawyer, was assured in putting Georgia’s case. The world’s media and many political leaders swung behind him (in words if not deeds).
But is the tide turning? Saakashvili’s wall-to-wall media coverage may be starting to work against him and the Russians have become more nimble in dealing with the media and countering Saakashvili’s accusations.
Even close ally the United States has reined him in, knocking down his assertion that U.S. forces would take control of Georgia’s airports and ports.
Is Saakashvili’s well-oiled public relations machine starting to work against him? Is he losing sympathy internationally?
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Why did this happen? …Does Kosovo come to mind…
- Posted by Shanehmm i guess wut goes around comes around..?!
He might be winning the media war, but images like those posted by Reuters, help the Georgian cause even more.
What I’m talking about here is impartial imagery reporting. Out of the 77 images of the conflict on this site, none show Russians struggling. We look at these photos and sympathize for the Georgians (military and civilians alike). Imagery influences the public immensely. These photos, along with other reporting, victimize the Georgians and cast the Russians as the big, menacing, imperial force.
The public should be able to look at a conflict and decide on its own what it believes. We need reporters that cover both sides, unlike the pitiful one-sided reporting we see at the Olympics and the conflict in Georgia. Let people learn the whole story and determine their own points of view. Reporters and news agencies need to stop determining this for us and present impartial and factual findings. Make up your own mind readers.
- Posted by CorySaakashvili has been playing the western media (espec U.S.) like a fisherman plays a Tuna. And to their discredit they’ve swallowed his baits hook, line and sinker.
He flooded the airwaves in English, pulled every emotional heart-string and made every hysterical claim he could:
- ‘Tblisi was under attack’ (it wasn’t)
- He made ‘genocide’ claims (must’ve thought he’d get the U.S. Jewish vote onside with that whopper)
- ‘Big bad Russia’ vs ‘brave little Georgia’ ploy (The West was warned for years by Moscow to stop encirclement and militarising proxies on it’s borders or else there would be repercussions but no one listened.
- Russia is shelling ‘poor little Georgia’ (only after he started shelling them first).
- ‘Democracy and freedom is under attack’ (really laying it on thick - he knew Americans respond unthinkingly to this like Pavlov’s dog do to a bell. Except Saakashvili’s an autocrat who crushed his OWN uprising not so long ago).
I’m glad at last the media are starting to see thru him (and also the U.S./Iraq lies). But why do they always take until it’s too late before they act journalists and ask the hard questinos like they are supposed to/used to?
- Posted by Mark LowePretty good comments from everyone, I don’t see much sympathy for Saakashvili and his decision to reclaim the break away region of S. Ossetia by force. As always, the most sorrowful result of conflict are the innocent people who are killed, displaced, or injured on both sides of the misadventure.
- Posted by Michael M. SernaIm curious to see how this event unfolds over the next months and years. I don’t beleive this is an impulsive swat at a bothersome aggravation, but a statement to the world that Russia is no longer an observer of events near or far, but is now a player to be reckoned with, something the West has not had to contend with for some time. This will have a profound effect on world events in the coming years, Im sure there is already some revisiting going on concerning “what if” with Iran.
Darren pretty much summed it up. There are some here who are echoing Bush stating that Russia acted in Soviet-style diplomacy that doesn’t work in the 21st century. Nonsense. Regardless of wether they were right or wrong, the Russians were able to finish in 5 days and achieved their objectives with minimal costs, and it is sure that in a relatively short period any tension with the west where it matters over this affair will be smoothed out in a relatively short period, a remarkable achievement if you compare it to the US spectacular 5 years of disastrous failures and countless human lives lost and displaced and the nation destroyed and general alienation to most of the world’s population,including americans.
- Posted by BillSakhishvilli may have had his moment in the spotlight with the a good deal of global sympathy, but that was proxy support for the Georgian people in their plight, but now the smoke of the guns is starting to dissipate, people are starting to remember how this started in the first place. It was a gross irresponsibility - some would say it was even criminal - on Sakhisvilli’s part to purposely provoke the Russians into the response everybody knew would come if he ordered an attack on south Ossetia..Even the Georgians themselves are starting to question the careless manner in which their leader endangered them.
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCri sis/idUSL5647106
“Russia warns Georgia over breakaway region” on the 5th of august. so anyone claiming Russias response was a surprise is clearly on another planet.
Maybe that is the same planet where you hold rallies and address ‘the people of georgia’ in english. i wonder what % of the population speak english in georgia? would Bush address the people of america in russian?
- Posted by eelcoI look forward to saakashvili’s warcrimes trial. he is both spineless and stupid enough to implicate his US and Israeli buddies for material aid and supply of mercenaries in this adventure in ethnic cleansing gone wrong. His bleating about territorial integrity is a joke to anyone who realises these borders were artificial and drawn by Stalin in the first place.
Western Media should stand trial right alongside them for the ridiculous amount of spin and outright lies supplied to us by them, in the face of overwhelming evidence to the contrary. Indian, Turkish, Chinese and Greek media have good sources on the ground and are sticking to the facts, not selling the neocon utopia.
- Posted by eelcoIt would be also appropriate and educating for readers if Reuters would include among Saakashvili’s statements his assessments of 19 downed russian airplanes, over five hundreds of russian tanks attacking Georgia, dousains or fifty russian planes indiscriminately bombing civilian targets throughout Georgia, tank columns entering Gori, which were then desperately sought by Reuters correspondent on the ground…. - well, you know all those “not confirmed” ones.
- Posted by Egor, NYThe Lebanon invasion of 2006 was, quite frankly, the fault of Hamas. They over played their hand and thought the border would keep Israel from retaliating.
The Georgia-Russia Conflict is quite similar, but the cause is something very different. The conflict between Ossentia and Georgia is an internal battle with seperatists. Russia doesn’t really care about the plight of the seperatists. They just want a demilitarized country on their border. The fight with the seperatists was just an excuse to walk all over Georgia blowing up installations.
The fight between the smaller combatants wasn’t genocide as the seperatists are quite well armed. Not to mention the so-called Russian peacekeepers that were inside Ossentia were as well. If anyone was to blame for this fight it was Russia. They have been giving out Russia Passports like candy to the seperatists. All to support their eventual claim to the territory as part of Russia. They don’t plan on honoring the ceasefire. They are just biding their time until there is nothing left of a military in Georgia to worry about.
This is the worst kind of Russian tactic they could use. We need to bring relations back to the 21st Century and out of the old Cold War. Otherwise, we will see many more dead on both sides.
Simply saying,
- Posted by WynterWynter
Following cold-blooded murder of the Russian peacekepers, Russia had the full right to return the favor.
- Posted by VictrorUS spend 2 billion dollars and sent 3000 instructors to help Georgia build its military, so it has the full moral responsibility for the Georgia now.
Finally, in Georgian there is no access to some of the news websites. It has blocked some of the TV channels. Previously this year it closed an opposition TV station, moreover, one of the main opposition leaders to Mr. Saakashvili died from suspicious causes - what kind of democracy is this ?
Saakashvili is a sleezebag who was trained by the US. He’s a great friend of Dick Chaney and a number of other neo-cons. This scumbag has actually named the main road from Georgia airport to the city after GW Bush. While Russia has 24 run down foreign military bases around the world the US has 750 and they continue to expand. What does that say to the world? I believe it’s now safe to state that the US are trying to do what Germany did during world war 2. In order to be successful they have to surround Russia and China with missiles (eg Poland) and new military bases. Training Georgia’s army was the first step the next would be the US base. Unfortunately in today’s world war isn’t just about missiles, it’s well documented that the best way to stop a powerful country is to send in suicide bombers not with ordinary bombs but nuclear suitcase bombs. So if Russia was attacked by Nato or the US and pushed into a corner one can only imagine the devastation wrought upon the world after they pass around nuclear bombs to Iran, Syria and every Al Queda extremist in the world
- Posted by Bob BennettSaakashvili starts a conflict thinking the USA will back him up, Russia responds but the USA stays out, he gets his butt kicked and now he goes crying and running to hide behind Aunty SamEU’s skirts. In pandering to Saakashvili and the American neocon echo chamber the western mainstream media presents Saakashvili as the poor little victim, which is not the case. He started an unnecessary war of aggression and it didn’t go the way he expected (sound familiar?). And to make matters worse the media cravenly ignores the rampant hypocrisy of America’s shrill denunciations of Russia - what’s good for the Eagle is not good for the Bear. Fortunately the Russians have been remarkably restrained, if it had been the USA (or Israel) in Russia’s place Georgia’s civilian infrastructure (water treatment plants, sewage plants, bridges, television stations, the Chinese embassy - er, OK, maybe even the USA wouldn’t go THAT far again…) would be smoking holes in the ground by now (remember “shock and awe”?). And if regime change is prescribed for Iran why not for Georgia? - except that I haven’t noticed the Iranians starting any wars recently.
- Posted by DarrenWhat really matters for Georgia is American public opinion - not that of the Bush administration and the Congress. My guess is that the fact that Georgia appears to have started this conflict, and on the eve of the Olympics, is eventually going to be seen very poorly in the US and the EU.
As far as Israel’s brutal invasion of Lebanon in 2006, that is widely seen as a strategic blunder because if caused a loss of public support for Israel in the US, and especially in the Congress. As a result Israel isn’t going to get all the offensive weaponry it wants from the US. I personally don’t even view Israel as an ally because their apartheid regime is such an ongoing disaster for the US in terms of international diplomacy.
- Posted by Chris Baker (US)Russia and USA are aggressors. Georgian people did not deserve to be murdered. Nor did Iraqi people deserve to be murdered. The superpowers must be peacemakers, not destroyers of countries.
- Posted by AlanVery true. Had the Mexican army poured into El Paso, killed 2000 US civilians and 8 US soldiers, well I’d say the US reaction would go way beyond the 150 or so Georgians, mostly military, the Russians killed while recapturing Ossetia. In fact, Russian restraint was astonishing. Even more astonishing, in light of what was Russia’s 9/11 moment, was our media’s quality of reporting. Instead of expressing sympathy our shameful media establishment chose to warp events and misinterpret reality to the point where it is complicit; a knowing, wilfull collaborator in the Georgian atrocity.
- Posted by RickSure, Saakashivili is definitely losing the war. The best way to tell which side is winning is to see who asks for a cease-fire first. In this case, it is Georgia. Saakashivili can hug the camera time all he wants, but war of words mean nothing if his army cannot resist the Russians, and it most definitely cannot. Winners are almost more quiet compared to losers. The more desperate a loser gets, the more he barks. Putin must be laughing his a$$ off right now.
- Posted by BoJeffim,
- Posted by Ian SankeyThat’s not true - a lot of the coverage here in the UK has been, in my opinion, pretty balanced.
There’s been suffering on both sides, but it was Saakashvili him self who started it.
What a ridiculous show of hypocrisy by the US and EU. What about the millions in Iraq who have been killed for nothing over the last 5 years of war? Shameful pathetic lies by America to point its finger at the other person.
- Posted by TerbekGeorgia get caught in the poker game between Russia and USA. Russia won the check, US will probably get another shot but need to be extremly careful how it plays its cards in the future, especialy if the game takes place in Russia’s backyard, while the card dealer (Georgia) is dead. Not insignificant information is that Israel had its share of guilt by its involvment in the game. Since poker game between Israel and Iran is to take place, will see how Russia returns the favour to Israel?
- Posted by peterThe Hezbollah attacked Israeli positions in Lebanon proper, Israel responded with a full force: bombing airports, Beirut civilians and so on. The US, UK and EU did not murmur a word about it. Now, the same thing happened to Russia and Georgia, and look at the hypocrisy of the West. No one even cared to thing of thousands of civilians living in Tshinvalli who were shelled overnight by the Georgians.
- Posted by JeffimSICK!!!