Thread by @realmattforney

Remember the Russo-Georgian War of 2008? Probably not, even though it was a blueprint for the Ukraine war and every other insane State Department social engineering project of the past 20 years. Let's take a trip down memory lane since the Ukraine debacle was informed by Georgia.

In 2003, the State Department-backed Rose Revolution overthrew relatively pro-Russian Georgian president Eduard Shevardnadze and replaced him with Mikheil Saakashvili, a pro-Western reformer who favored integration with the EU and NATO.

By color revolution standards, Saakashvili was a good president initially. He eliminated corruption in government through initiatives such as firing every single one of the country's cops for taking bribes and abolishing Soviet-era laws that were strangling economic growth.

Where Saakashvili screwed up was foreign policy. He reoriented Georgia heavily towards the U.S., to the point where there's a street in downtown Tbilisi named after George W. Bush. When I lived there, I'd frequently end up driving down that road whenever I went to the airport.

Georgia had three autonomous territories that were de facto independent at the time: Adjara, Abkhazia, and South Ossetia. These territories had been autonomous ASSRs within Soviet Georgia because they were populated by ethnic and/or religious minorities.

Following Georgia's secession from the Soviet Union in 1991, the Georgian Civil War saw the government lose effective control of these three territories in a fashion similar to Nagorno-Karabakh in Azerbaijan or the Donbass in Ukraine. Saakashvili sought to reintegrate them.

Adjara was easily reintegrated in 2004, largely due to the fact that its leader, Aslan Abashidze, was extremely unpopular due to his corruption. Additionally, most Adjarans are ethnic Georgians, albeit with a significant Muslim minority, meaning ethnic divisions weren't a factor.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia were dominated by ethnic minorities and sought independence from Georgia. On August 1, 2008, Georgian troops invaded South Ossetia after responding to alleged shelling from South Ossetian troops, occupying most of the territory the same day.

Russia, who had brokered the original ceasefires between Abkhazia, South Ossetia, and Georgia, accused Georgia of "genocide" and immediately moved troops in. The Georgians were overwhelmed and pushed out of South Ossetia, with the Russians occupying Georgian cities like Gori.

At the same time, Russian and Abkhaz forces attacked the Kodori Gorge, the only part of Abkhazia still under Georgian control, swiftly pushing them out. The war ended 12 days later when French president Nicolas Sarkozy negotiated a ceasefire between Russia and Georgia.

Prior to the beginning of the war, Russia had warned Georgia against military action in South Ossetia. So why did Saakashvili attack? Simple: he thought his good friends George W. Bush and John McCain would ride to his rescue, which they didn't.

The U.S. declined to assist Georgia in part for political reasons. Bush was extremely unpopular at the time, the 2008 presidential election was going on, and starting a new war would have wiped out McCain's already remote chances of winning in November.

But cooler heads prevailed in the Bush administration because even they understood the complete insanity of going to war with Russia. Even just backing the Georgians with money and arms would have been fruitless; they're a tiny country that had no hope of resisting Russia.

In the wake of the war's end, Abkhazia and South Ossetia formally declared independence from Georgia, which Russia immediately recognized, citing the precedent established when Kosovo declared independence from Serbia and was immediately recognized by the U.S. and most of NATO.

Georgians living in Abkhazia and South Ossetia were ethnically cleansed and Russia established military bases in both territories. All of this was thanks to Saakashvili thinking that his good pals Bush and McCain would start World War 3 for his idiot ass.

Saakashvili was term-limited out of power in 2013, which saw the opposition Georgian Dream party win both the legislative and presidential elections. They've been in power ever since, while Saakashvili fled the country, moved to Ukraine, and became involved in Euromaidan in 2014.

Saakashvili received Ukrainian citizenship around this time (losing his Georgian citizenship in the process) and even served as governor of one of Ukraine's provinces, but had a falling out with Petro Poroshenko (Zelenskyyyy's predecessor), who revoked his citizenship in 2017.

Saakashvili reentered Ukraine in 2017, possibly with help from the State Department (his citizenship was revoked while he was abroad, yet he was curiously able to enter Poland on an invalid passport). His supporters literally mobbed the border guards, allowing him to slip past.

Ukrainian authorities weren't able to arrest him for several months in part because he engaged in wacky escapades like threatening suicide and having his supporters drag him out of a paddywagon. He was finally deported in 2018, but Zelenskyyyy restored his citizenship in 2019.

In 2021, Saakashvili returned to Georgia, was immediately arrested for illegal entry, and was put on trial for abuses of power when he was president. Since then, he's been shuttled between prison and the hospital due to his allegedly declining health.

As for Georgia itself, the new Georgian Dream government sought to improve relations with Russia while remaining friendly with the U.S., motivated by reality: Russia is Georgia's largest trading partner and immediate neighbor, while Georgians desired integration with the EU.

In the wake of the Ukraine war, Georgia has moved closer to Russia, accusing the State Department of trying to overthrow the government and force Georgia into another war with Russia to distract them from Ukraine, a war that the government knows would be suicidal.

The Georgian government is also upset over the State Department's attempts to force wokeness on them. A 2021 USAID-sponsored gay pride parade in Tbilisi was met with extreme backlash; Georgia is the most religious nation in Europe, with 99% of the population believing in God.

I was in Tbilisi during the gay pride parade in 2021 and witnessed some of the anarchy. Georgian Orthodox Christians ransacked the office of the local gay rights organization and beat up marchers and journalists. This incident turned many Georgians against the U.S.

I believe that the Democrat/neocon fixation on Ukraine is in part a product of the Russo-Georgian War. Hawks like McCain (burn in hell) and Victoria Nuland felt that the Bush administration had messed up by abandoning Georgia and want to avoid the same "mistake" with Ukraine.

The end result of libtards and neocons trying to "avenge" Georgia by backing Ukraine is hundreds of thousands of dead Ukrainians and Russians in a war that never should have happened. Trump will bring peace, he will end these State Department experiments, he will heal the region.