Over the years, I have also looked into events (dating from 2003) in South Ossetia, Abkhazia, and Adjaria (on behalf of International Crisis Group, between 2002 and 2004, and other clients, including some Western European countries, NATO members to boot).
I have information on how there were several Americans, Cubic Corporation, and other US contractors, who helped organize some of the dirty tricks in the Gal District, West Georgia; how they were also involved in training the Georgian snipers let loose in July and August 2008 in the South Ossetian zone of conflict.
The same snipers were later used in Ukraine as part of the effort of the US to pull Ukraine fully into the sphere of the West. These same trainers (“snipers”) were bragging about how South Ossetia was going to be a cake walk. A US organized sniping campaign started before the attack on South Ossetia, killing civilians, which is a war crime (as I was taught in my days as a 19D in the US army).
I had the date of the war THREE months before the actual attack on South Ossetia (August 2008) from USG defense contractors, who thought that I was one of theirs, as I talk the military B[ull] S[hit] got them drunk, and they started spilling the beans.
The fact of my knowledge about the approximate date of the attack can be confirmed by the Human Rights’ Center in Tbilisi, as I shared my experience with them about two months before the actual Georgian attack on South Ossetia (7 August). On about 2 August 2008, Georgian police went into border-villages and confiscated small arms from locals. They knew the war was coming but decided not to pull back civilians out of harm’s way, which was an intentional act, worse than malfeasance.
I went on record about my knowledge of the US government’s possible involvement in war crimes, its alleged role in weapons’ trafficking, and even earlier (in 2005), when there were armed skirmishes in South Ossetia, and officials from the US Defense Department were involved in direct support for an engagement with South Ossetian forces.
I can provide more by way of a truthful history of the events of August 2008. As a veteran of the US Army, I have also been investigating weapons’ trafficking; I have been on Georgian TV (Maestro Channel), where I shared my insights and various documents.
I blew open a story on weapons’ trafficking several months ago involving flights out of Georgia. I worked two years for Georgian State TV (1st Channel). I was behind Russian lines in August 2008 in South Ossetia, investigating human rights’ violations and got into an ammo-dump full of Serbian weapons, which reached Georgia via Jordan. I have copies of the end-user certificate and have investigated, together with Georgian TV, many of these networks.
I also discovered where Israeli cluster-bombs fell on Georgian villages, even before Human Rights’ Watch came out with their report, and these cluster-bombs even killed some Georgian soldiers.
I have always contended that the rights and wrongs of the disputes are not my main concern, but everyone should unite against the use of cluster-bombs, against the staging of incidents such as occurred in the Mingrelian village of Khurcha, where a bus carrying citizens from Abkhazia’s Gal District to vote in Georgia’s parliamentary elections (May 2008) was subjected to Georgian gunfire just after it had crossed into Mingrelia so that the attack could be falsely attributed to the Abkhazians, and against the carrying out of politically motivated wars by a state against its own citizens.
Having spent some nights behind Russian lines, both in South Ossetia and the buffer-zone, I visited an abandoned Georgian weapons’ stockpile in the South Ossetian zone of conflict; it had been left unguarded when the Georgian army fled in panic. This was the event that helped me put together the final pieces, based on pulling labels and the weapons left behind, of how Georgia is used to transit weapons for the US government — and Georgia is not the end user.
Georgia has long been recognized as a transit-point for illegal trade in weapons and terrorists, and much has been organized under the banner of the US government and funded by USAID (United States Agency for International Development), and even the US Department of Agriculture and US State Department.
It is now clear to me that there has been a “big connection” between the cluster-bomb makers and many high officials in the Georgian government and in the MOD. BTW, my articles and documents provided the US Embassy just before getting my passport back, may have been considered a form of blackmail. It worked, and in any event, the Russians know what no good the Americans and their NATO partners are up to, poor Georgia!
As the reader has no doubt gleaned, Silverman is a wealth of information on the wild and crazy goings on in the Caucasus. A brave guy, or one some would call “crazy” for his blatant stance in front of “less than savory” characters there in Tbilisi, Jeff’s a sort of legend in the clandestine community of journalists. I’ll never forget a conversation concerning him I once had with Veterans Today Managing Editor Jim Dean a few years back. We were talking about the CIA’s role in Georgia and other former Soviet states when the subject of Silverman even still being alive came up. Dean, who’s known Jeff longer than I, said he was amazed “they” had not already gotten to him. Given the size of thorn Silverman has been in the side of spooks and sellout politicians operating inside the Caucasus, it’s not hard to understand what the VT editor meant. And while almost all of us pro-Russia activists have suffered some degree of pain over our vehemence, Silverman has been beaten and worse for his efforts.
The many war reporters, freedom fighters, independent investigators, and local activists and insurgents have been part of the heroic prose of this insane new kind of information war. But there is another kind of heroic figure most people fail to recognize. Influential as any photojournalist, crazy as any moral insurrectionist, the social-media warlords for Putin operate in a sort of “make believe” digital realm akin to online political war gaming. While the term “troll” has been applied to so many of us media “operators,” Russia’s most important envoys often operate more like social superheroes, who appear ready to thwart any enemy onslaught by the sheer might of willpower or numbers. One such digital dynamo is a Cambridge research fellow, Dr. Chris Doyle, whom I first met on Facebook three years ago. Doyle, who help build several of the largest Russian support communities on Facebook, has undergone a different kind of “punishment” and ordeal in the name of free speech. Once again, rather than attempting to explain in my own words this Kremlin agent’s path, the Facebook super-sleuth is best characterized in his own words.
Chris Doyle: Kremlin Facebook Agent
My fascination with Russia began in 1976 when, as a 10-year-old boy, I was mesmerized by the performances of the Soviet gymnast, Nikolai Andrianov, at the Montreal Olympics. He won 5 Gold Medals and was far-and-away the most successful athlete at the games. At the same time, I fell in love with the Soviet National Anthem. In those days, the UK won very little, and so the BBC was compelled to broadcast the medal ceremonies of overseas gold medal winners. Of all the national hymns, I found that of the USSR especially powerful and emotive.
Shortly afterward, I bought an LP of Russian music (“Russian Fireworks”). I still remember the playlist (Kamennoi Ostrov, Procession of the Sardar, Sabre Dance, The Song of the Volga Boatmen, Polyushka Polye (Meadowland) and the Finale of Tchaikovsky’s 1812 Overture. My love of Russian culture was crystallized. I still have the sleeve although the record was lost long ago when my parents moved back to Ireland.