U.S. forces headed for Georgia. (Insider Report).

If you're dismayed at the deepening Afghan quagmire, wait 'til we've become bogged down in Georgia (the bandit state in the Caucasus, that is, not the Peach State). Georgia, the newest hot spot in the war against terrorism, gained nominal independence in 1991 from the old Soviet Union. Russia, however, still maintains a number of military bases in Georgia, and one of Mikhail Gorbachev's old cronies, unreconstructed Communist gangster Eduard Shevardnadze, still runs the country with an iron fist. Shevardnadze came to power after a bloody coup against former president Zviad Gamsakhurdia. Gamsakhurdia was later assassinated, and Shevardnadze is long suspected to have played a role in his death.

In addition to Shevardnadze's corrupt police-state rule, Georgia has endured two separate wars against separatist movements in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. In both instances, the separatists beat back the Georgian army and now enjoy de facto autonomy. Meanwhile, the Pankisi Gorge area in the mountainous north has become a refuge for Chechen rebels fighting Russian forces in adjacent Chechnya. But lately, the lawless border region has attracted Washington's attention; over the past several weeks, rumors have begun to circulate that a number of al-Qaeda rebels, and possibly even bin Laden himself, have taken refuge in Pankisi.

Not surprisingly, the Bush administration has decided to send U.S. special forces into Georgia, supposedly in noncombat roles. But the details behind the apparently straightforward deployment of U.S. military personnel to train the Georgian military are as tangled as Transcaucasian politics. U.S. government officials, including one Otar Shalikashvili, a Georgian-American assistant to the U.S. defense secretary, have made a number of trips to Georgia over the last year or so, including one that coincided with a visit by a Russian delegation in February of 2001. Evidently, American-Georgian military cooperation has been in the works for some time, perhaps prior to September 11th. Shalikashvili, incidentally, will lead the U.S. force in Georgia, which may number up to 200 special forces troops.

In effect, we are sending troops to prop up a bandit regime already supported by Russian military bases, and possibly to wage war on the same Chechen freedom fighters who've been suffering under Moscow's boot for years.