Following winning comments like "Military aggression by Russia had not been discussed as a threat of high probability" by Georgia's newly minted Minister of Defense, the Georgian parliament has released its official report on its crushing military defeat by Russia last August. Their official conclusion?
The army screwed it up.
The Georgian parliament has decided that it did everything right, and systematic problems within its military scuppered the war effort.
"The Georgian leadership managed to halt the Russian military aggression during the August events," the parliamentary commission said. But "serious systematic and personnel failures took place".
It said civilian and military leaders had failed to foresee and prepare for Russian intervention, operations lacked strategy and co-ordination, and there were problems in military communication.
It's not clear in what way Georgian leadership 'halted' The Russian military, but it is clear that the Georgian executive isn't planning on operating in a reality-based manner anytime soon. Not everyone is on the imagination-based game plan, though:
Georgia's former ambassador to Russia, vilified in November when he told the commission he believed Tbilisi had been the aggressor, said he struggled to take the findings seriously.
"The conclusions were known from the very beginning, and say nothing about the fault of the Georgian leadership, which together with Russia led us to the catastrophe we are now in," Erosi Kitsmarishvili told Georgian Imedi television.
Clearly, Russia has been provoking the hell out of Georgia for several years now, but just as clearly, Saakashvili made a remarkably poor choice in initiating a war against a massively superior military power. His unwillingness to accept responsibility for that doesn't bode well for Georgia's near future.