Ever since Georgia invaded its break-away province of South Ossetia earlier this month, there has been a concerted attempt by both Georgia and its allies to portray its subsequent fight with Russia as a conflict between “David and Goliath”. Georgia is the small David fighting the Goliath of the ruthless Russian army.

Although it seems it retaliated to Russian provocation, it was Georgian forces that first moved into South Ossetia, sparking the wider conflict. However the predominant way the story has been reported in the west is that it is Russia that is the major aggressor. It is true that Russia has retaliated against the Georgian incursion into Ossetia with brutal, disproportionate force. However, the way that Georgia has tried to manipulate the crisis is in itself quite remarkable too.

In the great tradition of spinning the truth in military campaigns, Georgia may have been comprehensively defeated militarily, but it is seen as having won the propaganda war. Little, brave Georgia has taken on the nasty Russian Republic.

When the journalist Peter Whilby examined press releases issued by Georgia’s PR consultants, he noted that they used deliberate “terms that trigger western media interest” in describing the Russian actions, such as “civilian victims”, “nuclear”, “humanitarian”, “occupation” and “ethnic cleansing.”

The Georgians had also cleverly targeted bankers and analysts on Wall Street in New York that had successfully filtered their message onto prime time American TV. The effect of this, claims Mark Ames, the editor of Moscow’s alternative paper The eXile, “was brilliant”. He says “now you’re starting to see the American media shift its coverage from calling it Georgia invading Ossetian territory, to the new spin, that it’s Russian imperial aggression against tiny little Georgia.”

The propaganda battle between Russia and Georgia has even made the front-page of the magazine PR Week in the UK. In the article Georgia’s hired PR company, Aspect Consulting attacked Russian “propaganda.” Aspect Consulting’s founding partner James Hunt told PR Week how he could not understand how the PR companies working for Russia could be “comfortable about that.” He said bluntly: “I’m on the side of the angels”.

For someone who likes to portray himself on the side of good over evil, Hunt has had a controversial career. He has defended some of the biggest companies during three of the biggest environmental and health scandals of recent times in the UK. He worked for Shell on the Brent Spar debacle in the mid-nineties, when Shell attempted to recklessly dump its redundant oil platform in the Atlantic. A hugely successful public campaign by the environmental organization Greenpeace forced the oil giant to dispose of the Brent Spar on land. It also forced Shell into a comprehensive review of its environmental policies and practices.

Hunt also worked for the global fast-food giant McDonalds over what was known as “mad cow disease” in the mid-nineties as well as working with biotechnology seed companies over their promotion of genetically-modified crops, despite known health and ecological risks that those crops entail. Aspect’s current clients still include biotechnology companies such as Novartis and Exxon Mobil, the global oil company that has been at the forefront of action to deny climate change. Many would see his career as dancing with the devil, not flying with the angels.

Aspect started working with Georgia last year to assist the country become part of both the EU and Nato. The agency was reportedly paid some $750,000 to promote the Georgian cause. The agency has been trying to spin the truth over what happened, arguing that it was not Georgia that started the war, and that the war was “about punishing Georgia for wanting to pursue an Euro-Atlantic future”.

Whilst there must be elements of this, the first major act of aggression was on Georgia’s behalf against the people of South Ossetia, although there are reports that Russia was trying to provoke a Georgian attack. Moreover in that conflict, Georgia – a population of 4.4 million, with a military equipped by the Americans and Israelis – was far superior to the South Ossetians, who have a population of around 60,000. Initial reports coming out of South Ossetia talk of a ferocious assault by the Georgians in the capital city, Tskhinvali. There were reports of some 2,000 Ossetians killed, including woman and children sheltering in bomb shelters.

There is also evidence that the Georgians would not have attacked South Ossetia without American military and logistical support. There are certainly close connections between the Georgians and US neo-conservatives. One of Georgia’s top lobbyists in the last few years has been Randy Scheunemann, who recently became the Republican presidential candidate John McCain’s senior foreign policy adviser.

Scheunemann was one of the key neo-conservative pushing for the Iraq war when he was a project director at the Project for a New American Century. Scheunemann also headed the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, which also called for a US invasion of Iraq.

Scheunemann has a history of working with McCain on the Georgian issue. In 2005, when he was a registered lobbyist for Georgia, Scheunemann worked with McCain to draft a resolution in the US Congress that called got Georgia’s membership in NATO. The following year, Scheunemann accompanied McCain on a trip to Georgia. During the trip, McCain denounced the South Ossetian separatists, and speaking at the military base at Senaki, he declared that Georgia was America’s “best friend.” McCain also added that Russian peace-keepers in the region should be thrown out.

By April this year, Scheunemann had formally ceased his own lobbying work for Georgia. However the same day that McCain phoned the president of Georgia offering support for the country, a lobbying firm, called Orion Strategies that is partly owned by Scheunemann, signed a $200,000 contract to continue providing strategic advice to the Georgian government in Washington.

A Month later, Scheunemann was forced to distance himself from the firm, but despite this the Washington Post notes “For months while McCain’s presidential campaign was gearing up, Scheunemann held dual roles, advising the candidate on foreign policy while working as Georgia’s lobbyist. Between January 1, 2007, and May 15, 2008, the campaign paid Scheunemann nearly $70,000 to provide foreign policy advice. During the same period, the government of Georgia paid his firm $290,000 in lobbying fees.”

Having political advisors who are also paid lobbyists for a foreign country obviously raises serious conflicts of interest that the McCain team has hardly dealt with by forcing Scheunemann to break his formal ties with the Georgians.

We should not forget how strategic Georgia is to the West because of oil. Although Georgia has no significant oil reserves of its own, it is a key transit point for oil from the Caspian and central Asia destined for the thirsty markets of Europe and the US. The 1,770km Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline pumps up to 1 million barrels of oil per day from Baku in Azerbaijan to Turkey. The pipeline route was specifically designed to avoid Russia, running in part through Georgia instead.

Russia does not escape blame in the conflict either. Last week, the Independent newspaper quoted a senior Russian military analyst saying that Russia tried to provoke a conflict to “prevent Georgia from joining Nato.” Russia has also been using PR companies to spin its message. The country uses two agencies that form part of the global giant Omnicom company. GPlus in Brussels and Ketchum in Washington.

GPlus and Ketchum were first hired by the Kremlin to cover Russia’s presidency of the G8. Gplus has received significant criticism for handling the Russian account including during the current conflict. GPlus argues that all it does for the Russians is “give them logistical support to assist spokespeople with handling the European media.” But their Georgian PR opponents have said that the PR companies acting for the Russians have been “misleading foreign journalists” and pumping out Russian Government propaganda.

However what we do know is that both sides are using propaganda and both sides have used indiscriminate force against civilians, which in itself is a war crime. The respected organization Human Rights Watch reported last week that there was “mounting evidence” that both the Russian and Georgian military had “used armed force unlawfully during the South Ossetian conflict.” According to Human Rights Watch, both sides had used “indiscriminate force against civilians.”

What we know is that in war, the situation is hardly ever black and white. The truth gets trampled on both sides, as they both issue propaganda to suit their own ends. It will be the innocent civilians who suffer, who will be bombed, killed, injured, terrorized, made homeless and starving. It will be the innocent who look for their loved ones in the burnt out buildings, over-stretched hospitals and over-flowing morgues. As the innocent die on both sides, no one can claim to be on the side of the angels.

Because there are no angels in war.