While You're Sleeping...

There's a great article in the WSJ regarding what's going on in Georgia, as the Russian Army allegedly is withdrawing. Too many feet on the street say that this is simply not happening. The media continues to ignore this in America, as they are overwhelmed by his Obamaness and the anointing ceremony of the supreme Marxist commandante in Denver.

About thirteen years ago, I met a higher-ranking government official from Georgia on a train in Spain. He had married a woman from Barcelona and was on his way to pick her up after she'd spent time with family there and then head back to Georgia. Georgia was a new democracy back then, in its infancy, but after having a wonderful chat with this man, I could tell something burned in his chest--the flame of desire for freedom. I've since read in other places that the Georgians "get it" when it comes to fighting for freedom. Soldiers I know who've deployed to Iraq and have fought alongside and trained the Georgians have told me that they "get it" more than anyone else--sometimes more than the Americans. Watch the reception that President Bush got in Tbilisi in 2005 and you'll see a nation of people that "gets it." This was the infamous "watch stealing" episode (that wasn't), but the Georgians welcomed this president, who talked the talk and walked the walk about defending nascent freedom, with arms wide open.

To have the Russians move in on Georgia, attempting to quash a people who "get it" and take from them the freedom they had won not even fifteen years prior, is evidence of a troubling dichotomy in the Russian sphere. In Russia, you have a nation who was once proud, immensely powerful, feared and had since become a shell of its former self. In Georgia (and the Ukraine, and other former "SSRs") you have a sovereign nation who, now that it has drank deep from the fountain of freedom, relishes its opportunity and even stands boldly against those who would attempt to deprive others of a chance at it. To ignore the Russian aggression against Georgia is to say the men and women dying in Iraq and Afghanistan promoting democracy is a waste--that it somehow is not worth it.

Let's take a lesson from the Georgians. Let's "get it" and stand up to a Russia driven by unfulfilled dreams of empire, attempting to forcefully control something that cannot be controlled: the Georgian desire--the human desire--for freedom.