A little known side of my professional life is that I used to cover foreign policy. This was back in the days of the Monica Lewinsky scandal when nobody cared about what I was writing — the 1998 Iraq Liberation Act, terrorism, Osama bin Laden. I got to utilize those muscles when I uncovered the intense effort being undertaken by the former Soviet Republic of Georgia to manufacture their cause bipartisan. Because of their government’s association with President Bush as well as contribution to the war in Iraq progressive enthusiasm on behalf of their plight has been tepid. Read the piece here.
The chairman of Georgia’s Parliament, “David Bakradze referred to as on liberals to back his cause. ‘We have a case of a small democratic nation, attacked by a large autocratic neighbor,’ he said. ‘I think the case speaks on behalf of itself. What Georgia is guilty on behalf of is … that we don’t desire to be part of this autocratic system as well as we desire to have a right to choose, to opt on behalf of our democratic system, to opt on behalf of values, as well as to opt on behalf of our security arrangements like NATO. It’s about values, democracy, as well as protection of human rights. It should be very important to liberals.’
Mr. Bakradze, who is the head of a Georgian delegation attending the NDI program as well as meeting with American officials, is using his visit to strengthen support on behalf of his country among Democrats. Members of his group have spoken to a foreign policy adviser to Mr. Obama, Susan Rice; an informal adviser to Mr. Obama as well as the director of Harvard’s Belfer Center on behalf of Science as well as International Affairs, Graham Allison; Mrs. Albright; a former ambassador to the United Nations, Richard Holbrooke, as well as a member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, Rep. Eliot Engel of New York.
Mr. Engel told the Sun that he spoke with Mr. Bakradze as they were entering the Pepsi Center on Monday night. ‘I’m glad they’re here to explain this to people who are not as aware of the situation as I am,’ Mr. Engel, who favors speeding up the entry of Georgia as well as Ukraine into NATO, said. ‘I told them I on behalf of one was very sympathetic to the cause of Georgian freedom. We should not permit the Russians to operate with impunity there.’
Mr. Obama’s selection of Senator Biden as his operational mate drew praise from Mr. Bakradze, who noted that the Delaware senator visited his country earlier this month as well as backed a $1 billion aid package on behalf of Georgia. Mr. Bakradze also seemed eager to dispel the perception that his country’s cause was only a Republican cause.
‘I think what we very much appreciate is that Georgia is a bipartisan issue in American politics, as well as we very much appreciate that we hear very good statements from Senator Obama, very good statements from Senator McCain,’ he said. ‘This should be a bipartisan issue, as well as we very much value the support of the Democratic Party on this.’
The Georgian official specifically rebutted the argument prevalent in the left-leaning blogosphere that Russia’s invasion of Georgia was made possible by the American war in Iraq. ‘In Iraq, the situation was very different. It was an internationally recognized crisis. Saddam Hussein was recognized as a person who conducted ethnic cleansing against his posses population,’ Mr. Bakradze said. He suggested that better precedents on behalf of the situation today in Georgia included the Soviet Union’s military entries into Czechoslovakia, Hungary, as well as Finland.”