War in Georgia?

[MTT]

There are no winners from this conflict. Hours before the Georgian invasion, Russia had been working to secure a United Nations Security Council statement calling for a renunciation of force by both Georgia and South Ossetians. The statement that could have averted bloodshed was blocked by western countries.

So they had gone to the UN asking if they could take Georgia back before the invasion. While they had the ships blockading the harbour and the tanks lined up on the border ?

Who knows how ugly it gets but I don't think we (The US) and RU are going to let this one pass.

I don't think we are so much (In the Tank) militarily as some may think. I belive the world is about to find that out

[Benny Profane]

Good summary of what's happening. The Times has been covering this well for the past few days.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/s...oryId=93561996

[wi3dzmin]

Oh for the love of...

"Why Russia Was Right"

"The writer is minister of foreign affairs of the Russian Federation"

C'mon! That article was chock full of misleading statements and questionable and unverified claims WRITTEN BY THE RUSSIAN GOVERNMENT!

Fair enough. However, what remains a fact is that South Ossetia was being demolished by the Georgian army long before Russian army crossed the border, which was being reported by both Western and Russian journalists in the area. So it's weird seeing stuff like "Russian invasion", "Russian aggression" "overreaction" in the headlines, as well as the focus shifting from when Russians are going to get out instead why they came there in the first place.

Speaking of bias:

[mr_gyptian]

Fair enough. However, what remains a fact is that South Ossetia was being demolished by the Georgian army long before Russian army crossed the border, which was being reported by both Western and Russian journalists in the area. So it's weird seeing stuff like "Russian invasion", "Russian aggression" "overreaction" in the headlines, as well as the focus shifting from when Russians are going to get out instead why they came there in the first place.

Speaking of bias:

It seems as if taking the side of the Russians has its pitfalls. How could you guys possibly believe them?

It's almost as if you wish they could return to their former power.

Tour of Tskhinvali undercuts Russian claim of genocide
More on this Story
Story | No sign that Russians have begun to leave Georgia
Story | U.S. weighing what to do next about Russia
Story | U.S. knew Georgia trouble was coming, but couldn't stop it

Associated Press

A Russian soldier Sunday guards tanks allegedly captured from the Georgian military in Tskhinvali. | View larger image
By Tom Lasseter | McClatchy Newspapers
TSKHINVALI, Georgia_ As Russian troops pounded through Georgia last week, the Kremlin and its allies repeatedly pointed to one justification above all others: The Georgian military had destroyed the city of Tskhinvali.

Russian politicians and their partners in Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region South Ossetia, said that when Georgian forces tried to seize control of the city and the surrounding area, the physical damage was comparable to Stalingrad and the killings similar to the Holocaust.

But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a very different picture. While it was clear there had been heavy fighting — missiles knocked holes in walls, and bombs tore away rooftops — almost all of the buildings seen in an afternoon driving around Tskhinvali were still standing.

Russian-backed leaders in South Ossetia have said that 2,100 people died in fighting in Tskhinvali and nearby villages. But a doctor at the city's main hospital, the only one open during the battles that began late on Aug. 7, said the facility recorded just 40 deaths.

The discrepancy between the numbers at Tskhinvali's main hospital and the rhetoric of Russian and South Ossetian leaders raises serious questions about the veracity of the Kremlin's version of events. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other senior officials in Moscow have said the Georgians were guilty of "genocide," prompting their forces to push Georgia's military out of South Ossetia — in a barrage of bombing runs and tanks blasts — and march southeast toward the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, stopping only 25 miles away.

That explanation, that Russians were saving South Ossetians from total annihilation, undergirded Moscow's rationale for the invasion.

Georgia's leadership maintains the war was launched by the Kremlin because of longstanding resentment about the former Soviet republic's close ties with the West.

Since Russian troops occupied much of Georgia last week, Kremlin officials have suggested strongly that both South Ossetia and its fellow rebel region, Abkhazia, should gain independence from Tbilisi.

A senior member of Russia's parliament, Konstantin Zatulin, was in Tskhinvali on Sunday. "We need to recognize reality," he said, meaning that South Ossetia should secede from Georgia.

Zatulin also said that the Russian government intended to spend some $100 million on building a "Moscow district" in the city; he did not explain what that would entail.

Russian troops have kept tight control on access to Tskhinvali, often bringing reporters in on coordinated trips. A McClatchy journalist was stopped at a checkpoint on the way out of Tskhinvali and directed back to a Russian outpost, where officers demanded to know where the journalist had been and whom he'd interviewed. In addition to Russian soldiers, South Ossetian militia fighters roamed the streets. One of them, drunk, walked up and showed off a shiny watch. "I got it from the body of a Georgian soldier," he said with a smile.

The difference between Russian officials' description of Tskhinvali and the facts on the ground are profound.

Col. Gen Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy head of the Russian military's general staff, said last Tuesday that "Tskhinvali doesn't exist, it's like Stalingrad was after the war."

But in fact, the city still does exist. While there was extensive damage to some structures, most buildings had front doors on their hinges and standing walls. For every building charred by explosions — the Georgians are accused of using multiple rocket launcher systems — there were others on tree-lined streets that looked untouched.

One government center was hollowed out by blasts, but the one next to it teemed with workers.

While the city was still teetering from the violence, families sat on benches in front of their homes and ate fruit. Many talked about the Georgian incursion on Aug. 7, and the Russian units that then streamed across Georgia's border to beat them back.

"There were Georgian tanks on each street," said Givi Tsekhov, who was walking in front of his apartment building. "But then the Russians came."

Down the road from Tskhinvali, in Georgian areas now occupied by Russian troops, entire towns were almost completely empty and a few bodies were splayed on the side of the road, bloated and cooked by the sun.

Not only was the destruction in Tskhinvali a far cry from Stalingrad after World War II, it was well short of what happened in the southern Beirut suburbs during Israel's war with Hezbollah in the summer of 2006, or the Iraqi city of Fallujah during U.S. fighting against insurgents in November 2004.

In short, the city was scarred but still standing.

The doctor at the Tskhinvali hospital, Tina Zakharova, said she wanted to clarify that she wasn't disagreeing with the South Ossetian officials' numbers, adding that many bodies had been buried in gardens and cemeteries in outlying villages. She could not, however, explain how more than 2,000 dead — the difference between her hospital's count and the Kremlin-backed officials' tally — were buried in a relatively small area without any evidence such as stacks of coffins or mass funerals.

Researchers for Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy group, had similar findings as McClatchy about casualty numbers in Tskhinvali. A doctor at the city's hospital told the group's researchers that 44 bodies were brought by and was "adamant" that they represented the majority of deaths there because the city's morgue was not functioning at the time.

"Obviously there's a discrepancy there, a big discrepancy," Rachel Denber, deputy director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights Watch, said about the apparently inflated casualty figures. "It's not clear to us at all where those numbers are coming from."

McClatchy Newspapers 2008

[Big Balls]

For me the most cringe worthy moment during the whole GW admin was when back in 2000 he said he peered into Putin's soul and saw a good man. I was thinking at the time how can W be so fucking stupid. Here's a KGB man whose whole life he has been trained to lie and get what he wants and then he shows up at W's doorstep and says that he likes american pie, BBQ's, and capitalism and Bush instantly is willing to give the guy a blowjob. What a freakin moron. I don't think that idiot Al Gore would have even done that.... On Bush's watch: the Soviet Union re-emerges, nuclear armed Pakistan turns into a Taliban/Bin Linden safe haven, fanantical Iran gets nuke, and record surpluses are turned into record debts. It's beyond belief that there are still many of my fellow conservatives that think this guy was a successful president. Ted Kennedy would have been more successful. It's amazing how many people in this country only care about how many times their politicians jack off to baby jesus in a day and not care about anything else.

[Tippster]

This just in: Iran does not have a nuke.

[Big Balls]

This just in: Iran does not have a nuke.

This just in: GW's admin is not over yet.

[wi3dzmin]

So Russians were right after all.

http://www.kommersant.com/p-13183/r_...U.S._hearings/

[summit]

So Russians were right after all.

http://www.kommersant.com/p-13183/r_...U.S._hearings/

So says a Russian website quoting one US representative.

[wi3dzmin]

So says a Russian website quoting one US representative.

You've been expecting to hear it on Fox?

[Lizhnik]

So, Summit, are you still in denial about what went down? You can still be a Russia-hater, even while acknowledging the truth. And, as a military buff, I'm interested to hear your take on the war. It seems like Russia won, dominantly, both militarily and politically. Why didn't Georgia put up much of a fight? I was expecting some kind of Hezbollah-type resistance, but it was all over in a matter of days.

[mr_gyptian]

So, Summit, are you still in denial about what went down? You can still be a Russia-hater, even while acknowledging the truth. And, as a military buff, I'm interested to hear your take on the war. It seems like Russia won, dominantly, both militarily and politically. Why didn't Georgia put up much of a fight? I was expecting some kind of Hezbollah-type resistance, but it was all over in a matter of days.

are you really being smug?

perhaps we should arm the Georgians with stingers and some chinese made AK's. then another generation of Russians can die trying to maintain its empire.

do you remember chechnya?

[Rubicon]

"Russian strategic bombers land in Venezuela"

http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20080911...and-in-ve.html

[Lizhnik]

are you really being smug?

perhaps we should arm the Georgians with stingers and some chinese made AK's. then another generation of Russians can die trying to maintain its empire.

do you remember chechnya?

Yes, perhaps a little smug. But this was directed more at Summit, who, unlike you, probably knows that the US and Israel have been arming Georgia for years with weapons much more serious than stingers and Kalashnikovs. And the US has been training them, as well, though in counter-insurgency (not much help in this situation). So, FAIL on this point of yours.

Chechnya I do, indeed, remember. Been there even. And you? What, according to your memories, has become of Chechnya? Were they successful in their war to secede? And, "then another generation of Russians can die" is a little dramatic, no? FAIL, on this point as well.

Please, make some more points, you are an easy target.

[mr_gyptian]

Yes, perhaps a little smug. But this was directed more at Summit, who, unlike you, probably knows that the US and Israel have been arming Georgia for years with weapons much more serious than stingers and Kalashnikovs. And the US has been training them, as well, though in counter-insurgency (not much help in this situation). So, FAIL on this point of yours.

Chechnya I do, indeed, remember. Been there even. And you? What, according to your memories, has become of Chechnya? Were they successful in their war to secede? And, "then another generation of Russians can die" is a little dramatic, no? FAIL, on this point as well.

Please, make some more points, you are an easy target.

I know we've been arming and training the Georgians. my point is that your joke of a country has been alley whipped by Afghans and Chechn's with less.

given the negative birthrate and negative growth rate in Russia the "another generation" aside wasn't all that dramatic.

[Lizhnik]

I know we've been arming and training the Georgians. my point is that your joke of a country has been alley whipped by Afghans and Chechn's with less.

given the negative birthrate and negative growth rate in Russia the "another generation" aside wasn't all that dramatic.

Thanks for the clarification. By "your joke of a country", do you mean the US? Because, you're right, it has been getting whipped lately by the Afghans. There are even a few Chechens in the mix, as well!

As for Russia, what do you mean by negative birth rate? And as for negative growth (I assume you are talking about the population here again), what does that have to do with war? And if it's so bad there, why is it the second largest destination for immigration after the US?

[Tuckerman]

[wi3dzmin]

http://exiledonline.com/is-cnn-getti...out-of-russia/

You probably didn’t know that CNN censored Putin for being just too darn sensible. Yep, it’s true. About two weeks ago, Putin gave the network an exclusive 30-minute interview. And you know what happened? Nothing. It was never allowed to air. CNN doesn’t know it yet, but that decision might have cost them their Russian broadcasting rights.

[alias]

"Russian strategic bombers land in Venezuela"

http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20080911...and-in-ve.html

That's some seriously fucked up shit right there.

[summit]

So, Summit, are you still in denial about what went down? You can still be a Russia-hater, even while acknowledging the truth. And, as a military buff, I'm interested to hear your take on the war. It seems like Russia won, dominantly, both militarily and politically. Why didn't Georgia put up much of a fight? I was expecting some kind of Hezbollah-type resistance, but it was all over in a matter of days.

I'd say that it was a brilliant bit of planning by Russia. Russia took advantage of a preexisting conflict. Rusia helped provoke the Georgians into their idiotic move that allowed Russia the excuse they'd been waiting for to invade (and they had been waiting for months for it).

Russia absolutely crushed the Georgians using second and third tier armor. Russia had uncontested air superiority within an hour, although with somewhat surprising air losses. It was a total military victory for Russia. The only thing that stopped Putin from turning Tbilisi into another Grozny is that he didn't want to (perhaps due to diplomatic pressure).

As far as the political aims, it certainly sent a message to non-NATO countries who were cozy with the West. That was a Russian victory. However, Russia failed to destroy the pipelines and their military action hardened relations with the West (which I think was an acceptable loss in Russian eyes, even if I think it was a bad idea for Russia)... but it pushed Eastern European NATO members even closer to the West. I think Russia had intended to intimidate Poland away from hosting BMD installations, but instead the opposite happened and Poland agreed to host the missiles.

By "your joke of a country", do you mean the US? Because, you're right, it has been getting whipped lately by the Afghans. There are even a few Chechens in the mix, as well!

Well, I wouldn't call Russia a "joke," but comparing the Soviet performance in Afghanistan to the NATO performance in Afghanistan is laughable at best.

That's some seriously fucked up shit right there.

Why? Why should we be scared of a pair of Tu-160s in VE? They aren't going to attack us. We've been dancing the dance with Russia for the last 60 years. This is not different. The Russians also sent a Kirov class battlecruiser to the Caribbean to perform exercises with the Venezuelan navy. The Venezuelans are working hard to prepare a fleet in time to participate. They have ordered several large sheets of paper:



The new Venezuelan ships will be powered by hot air from Hugo Chavez

[Patches]

When the US backed the Kosovar declaration of independence I predicted war in Georgia to my friends, and I'm a hillbilly living in the mountains who barely pays attention to the news.

According to the US government, the majority Albanian population in Serbia has the right to secede and create their own country.

But, also according to the US government the small areas of Kosovo which are 99% ethnically Serbian don't have the right to secede from Kosovo and rejoin Serbia.

The US government's position is inconsistent. People in the US don't keep track of things like this, but you can bet its all over the news and editorial pages in the Slavic/Orthodox part of the world.

[Lizhnik]

Well, I wouldn't call Russia a "joke," but comparing the Soviet performance in Afghanistan to the NATO performance in Afghanistan is laughable at best.

I wasn't comparing their performances, I was merely making fun of mr. gyptian's assumption that I am Russian when, in fact, the United States is the only country of which I have ever been a citizen. Thanks for your take. Do you subscribe to Stratfor, by any chance? I think they've been covering the Caucasus conflict extremely well, and there is one paper, specifically, that does a good job of summing it all up. I can paste it here, but it's lengthy. Or, alternatively, Patrick Buchanan does it pretty well, also:

http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/08/pjb...-bear-baiting/

[alias]

We should be scared NOT because of what they sent, but rather just because they are conducting maneuvers in our backyard.

Something we have done to them for years mind you.

BUT it does signify another sabre rattling by Russia. It is a blatent statement of "we are a world power" and another turn towards a new cold war.

[summit]

I wasn't comparing their performances, I was merely making fun of mr. gyptian's assumption that I am Russian when, in fact, the United States is the only country of which I have ever been a citizen. Thanks for your take. Do you subscribe to Stratfor, by any chance? I think they've been covering the Caucasus conflict extremely well, and there is one paper, specifically, that does a good job of summing it all up. I can paste it here, but it's lengthy. Or, alternatively, Patrick Buchanan does it pretty well, also:

http://buchanan.org/blog/2008/08/pjb...-bear-baiting/

I very much enjoy stratfor... I loved it back when they were free. I still read the parts that are free. I can't justify the subscription since this is all just personal interest to me. I've been trying to get my school to get a subscription so I can read that way
I'll check out the PJB article.

[Gripen]

We should be scared NOT because of what they sent, but rather just because they are conducting maneuvers in our backyard.

Something we have done to them for years mind you.

BUT it does signify another sabre rattling by Russia. It is a blatent statement of "we are a world power" and another turn towards a new cold war.

It's nothing to be worried about, nor is it anything surprising. They are there because Chavez has been such a good customer of Rosoboronexport and they are hoping to sell more hard good after their recent fiasco with Algeria and continuing problems with marketing and supply chains.
Think of it as a courtesy call...

The Russians have fucked around in the Caribbean/South America for ages.