Georgia bound
"Downtown Tbilisi is wonderfully exotic and charming, but the outskirts and the border region have been much more brutally Sovietized than anything I saw in Eastern Europe, including Albania. It is shocking to see. Georgia aches with past and present oppression from Moscow." So writes Michael Totten, recently arrived there, after a long slog from Baku. Meanwhile, Irish blogger Gavin Sheridan is getting ready to go in country as well. He's taking advice on war zone media gear — commentators have suggested, so far, a flak jacket and a tricolour. Maybe the latter has something to do with war-affected football.
Gavin expressed some concern that he might be coming across as biased in favour of Georgia in his excellent postings on the Caucasus crisis, but such partiality is to be praised, not regretted. Michael Totten is surely right when he speaks of "oppression from Moscow" and those of us who value freedom have a duty to call it as we see it. From Estonia to Moldavia, there's genuine fear that the neighbouring dictatorship will invade, pillage and subjugate. Apropos, Andrew Breitbart puts his cards on the table in "Baku to the future". Snippet:
"The Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline begins in the Caspian Sea and goes through the Caucasus Mountains westward to the Black Sea. It is the only such oil-and-natural-gas route in the region that circumvents Russia and Iran and provides long-term energy security to Europe. If Azerbaijan provokes Russia, it could be the next Georgia — and the consequences would be far more reaching. Azerbaijan's fear is both real and now."
Meanwhile, Doug Merrill is back in Tbilisi and he's glad to be there. That's the spirit.
