Picking at Misha's scabs

A Georgian Army tank battalion apparently mutinied earlier today. The exact reason is not known but the Georgian government has said it was due to Russian meddling and was an attempt to assassinate Prez Saakashvili. The Russians deny this, of course.

I think the truth is somewhere in between the two sides. It's pretty much an open secret with Vladimir Putin that he wants Saakashvili gone and someone more amenable to Moscow in his place. Saakashvili, has been less than helpful in his own cause with a less than level headed approach to Russia this past year. Add in the past relationship between Russia and Georgia dating back to Stalin and you can see how this love fest unfolds.

The tank battalion commander was quoted as saying:

"One cannot calmly look at the process of destroying the country calmly, at the ongoing [political] confrontation," the battalion commander, Mamuka Gorgishvili, said in a statement carried by local news agencies. "However, there will be no aggressive actions on behalf of our tank unit. We are in barracks and we are not going to leave them."

In the end, I think there was some Russian provocation in this, but I would love to see some third party reporting in the media looking into the tank battalion's state of mind amongst it's soldiers. That would really help to bring some clarity to the whole situation. But I think this won't be the last and we've got keep a close eye on Saakashvili and how he intends of spinning the NATO exercise next week. Will he keep his mouth shut and bob his head up and down or use it poke the Bear again.

An interesting aside on the NATO exercise comes at the end of this NPR article on the coup. Five former Warsaw Pact or USSR countries that were originally scheduled to participate have now backed out. It might seem that Russia's message of not playing well with NATO might be getting through. Sphere: Related Content