Georgia moves against separatists

[MigBuster 2,884]

Hopefully its over - hooray for now anyway

 

 

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has ordered an end to military operations against Georgia, the Kremlin says.

 

He told officials he had taken the decision to end the campaign after restoring security for civilians and peacekeepers in South Ossetia.

 

However, Russia has been highly critical of Georgia's leadership, and there were no signs of imminent talks.

BBC

[+whiteknight06604 934]

"I do have to say, it's bloody ironic listening to the US administration condeming Russia's actions as "attempting to orchistrate a regime change in Georgia." I mean, that took big brass ones, IMHO."

 

 

no one complained when it was done in WW2 and ask the Kuwaities what they think of the ouster of Sadam.The Man killed hundreds of thousands of people and threatened the security of surrounding countries.It was a service to the world removing him and 40-50 million people in Iraq and Afganastan are free thanks to the actions of the US military.The situation in Georgia is not compairable considering that Russia cares nothing for freedom or civilian casulties.Georgia isn't inocent in the destruction of civilian ares either.Russian motivation for the "invasion" is one of pure greed.they want to reestablish control over the former republics and gain control of the oil in the region.The US has shed blood and spent billions helping people be free of murder rape and torture.things got bad due to mismanegment and outside forces(Iran,Syria and the internal terrorists)but they are on the right track now and casulties and attacks are at an all time low.So the USA did show brass balls but it was standing up to a bully with a nuclear arsenal.

[Mannie 21]

Well, I sure hope this is over.

 

One thing is not over, and in fact just beginning.

 

"No more one superPower that sets the rules" (USA)

 

Russia has made its way back into the center as a second SuperPower.

 

No one is in a position to tell them what to do.

 

Right now I miss president John F. Kennedy and the way he handled The Missile crises in Cuba.

[JediMaster 451]

Well, I don't know if I agree with the "do what we say or we'll nuke you" philosophy.

[Erwin_Hans 6]

Well, I don't know if I agree with the "do what we say or we'll nuke you" philosophy.

 

 

Yes,only fools can say "Let's nuke each other,at most,we all disappeared."

Edited August 12, 2008 by Erwin_Hans

[Mannie 21]

Well, I don't know if I agree with the "do what we say or we'll nuke you" philosophy.

 

The man had balls made of iron!

[Roopod 0]

For some of us who can't figure out why some people won't distinguish between Russia invading Georgia and the U.S. liberating an oppressed people living under tyranny here is a good video explanation here:

I found it to be very enlightening and of course it doesn't apply to everyone.

[+lindr2 19]

Russian MoD Press-conference on Russian_TV:

 

1)Operation in S-O ended, mission Accomplish

 

2) All units have order stop end stay on reached positions

 

3) Operation of desarming georgian forces on west Georgia (in zone 12.5 km east from Abkhazian Republic border ) to be continued.

 

4) Kodory zone almost secured, only 2 high montains vilages still in unsecured.

 

5) Sinaki airfield stay on russian hands.

 

6) Some Georgian units still in S-Osethia, they must be withdraw.

 

7) Any Attempts to Attack on Russian or SO forces will be neitralized by any possible methods.

 

GOD BLESS RUSSIAN ARMY !!!

 

P.S. Russians always talked: Bad peace is better than good war.

[JediMaster 451]

Some parallels can't be ignored.

In 1990, Iraq invaded Kuwait. A month or so later the US moved into Saudi Arabia, and less than 6 months later drove them out of Kuwait, but didn't go into Iraq.

In 1991, the Kurds in N Iraq rose up against Saddam after years of being killed in droves by his people.

In 2003, the US arrived to help them--AFTER there was talk of nukes and other WMDs.

Russian response time was obviously faster than that.

So, oil-rich Kuwaitis--6 months. Poor Kurds--12 years. Sure there was a no-fly zone, but that was a flawed idea from day one.

 

In Sudan, NO ONE has done a thing.

 

It's obvious that intervention for "humanitarian reasons" is a fallacy as it is never used consistently. Instead, it can at best be the trigger for an intervention and at worst an excuse for an invasion. Only when there are other concerns IN ADDITION will countries commit the money, resources, and human cost to an operation of this type. To then trumpet "humanitarian reasons" rings so false it's a wonder anyone still bothers.

 

No one has any interest in anything in Sudan but the people dying there--not sufficient apparently.

[+lindr2 19]

In Sudan, NO ONE has done a thing.

 

One additional reason: >75% Sudan oil field controlled chinnese companies. China will never allow anybody to attack sudan.

[+NeverEnough 78]

Here are some insights from someone with a little more perspective!

 

Welcome Back to the 19th Century

By JOSEF JOFFE

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE

August 12, 2008

 

Wait a minute, isn't this the 21st? Chronologically, it is. But last Friday, Russia -- like the mad scientist Emmett Brown in "Back to the Future" -- thrust us backward by about 150 years in the Caucasus: into the age of imperialism and geopolitics, resource wars and spheres of influence.

 

It was strictly 19th-century when Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin casually announced that "war has started." In the old days, such pronunciamentos were routine; war, to recall Clausewitz, was just the "continuation of politics with the admixture of other means." (For the specifics, look up: the Crimean War, Prussia's conquest of Germany, the Balkan Wars; then go farther afield to the Spanish-American and Russo-Japanese wars.)

 

 

But this is the 21st century, isn't it? At least in that vast swath extending from Berkeley to Berlin and to Beijing (with an outrigger in Moscow), anything "geo" could only refer to "economics." Welfare had replaced warfare. Tankers had replaced tanks, balance of payments the balance of power. At least in the Berlin-Berkeley Belt, all of us were playing win-win games, wheeling, dealing and consuming.

 

Chanting "no more war," we worried about "soft politics" and "soft power": how to battle AIDS and desertification, SARS and subprime crises. Sure, in international politics, it was still hardball -- the eternal struggle for influence and advantage, but without the ultima ratio. Basically, we in the West didn't think that somebody in the bleachers would empty an AK-47 at us.

 

Say hello to Vladimir Putin and his stand-in Dmitry Medvedev. By attacking Georgia, they have raised the curtain on a post-World War II premiere. They have launched the first real war in "Greater Europe" since 1945. (The 1990s clashes in the Balkans were secessionist/internal wars; the invasion of Prague in 1968 was, if you pardon the expression, an act of "bloc recentralization.")

 

But the Caucasus is the real thing: armies marching, fleets circling, rockets flaring. Many are blaming "hot-headed" President Mikheil Saakashvili for having baited the bear, and he is no angel, for sure. Didn't he go first by ordering his army into South Ossetia?

 

But in 1939, they also blamed the "hot-headed" Poles for refusing to placate Hitler, and so he just had to flatten Warsaw on Sept. 1. They also castigated the Czechs, a "faraway country of which we know little" for being so obstinate in resisting German demands on the Sudetenland.

 

Apologists for Russia can point to lots of mitigating circumstances, starting with the biggest one of Christmas Day 1991, when the hammer-and-sickle flag over the Kremlin went down for the last time, and up went the Russian tricolor. Poof, and a whole empire from the Baltic to Kazakhstan was suddenly gone. Yes, that chilled the Russian soul, and so did Georgia's love affair with the United States. How dare Georgia, the birthplace of Stalin, sidle up to the EU and NATO?

 

In the greater scheme of things, though, Georgia's geopolitical crimes pale against a simple historical truth: 8/8 is payback for 12/25, when the Soviet Empire expired.

 

That, as Mr. Putin has told us, was the "greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century," and ever since he was anointed neo-czar in 2000, he has been working hard, and as time went by ever more ham-handedly, to reverse the verdict of the Cold War -- to regain what Russia had lost.

 

* * *

So, forget about Mr. Saakashvili's bluster and bumbling; think "revisionism" and "expansionism," terms beloved by diplomatic historians trying to explain the behavior of rock-the-boat states. A revisionist power wants back what it once had; an expansionist power wants more for itself and less for the rest. The R&E Syndrome is a handy way to explain all of Mr. Putin's strategy in the past eight years. Draw an arc from the Baltic to the Caspian and then start counting.

 

Moscow has unleashed a cyberwar against tiny Estonia, formerly a Soviet republic. It has threatened the Czech Republic and Poland with nuclear targeting if they host U.S. antimissile hardware on their soil that could not possibly threaten Russia's retaliatory potential. It has exploited small price disputes (normally resolved by lawyers screaming at each other) to stop gas deliveries and thus show Ukraine, Belarus and former Warsaw Pact members who runs the "Common House of Europe," to recall Mikhail Gorbachev's famous phrase.

 

Mr. Putin has always reserved the harshest treatment for Georgia. Tbilisi's mortal sin was the attempt to get out from under the bear's paw and snuggle up to the West. Ever since, Moscow has tried to subjugate Georgia or to split it up. It was either undermining the government by cutting off trade and gas, or putting the whole country on the butcher's block. Hence Russia's support, including arms and troops, for the secession of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Reports from the fighting suggest that Russia's war aims go way beyond driving Georgian troops from South Ossetia. According to President Saakashvili, the Russians have captured the city of Gori in central Georgia, cutting the country into two. Moscow denies this.

 

The object is pure 19th-century: domination plus winning the resource war. Georgia is the "last of the independents," so to speak, a critical conduit of oil and gas that goes around Russia into the Black Sea and (with a planned gas pipeline) via Turkey into the Mediterranean. It is no accident that Russian planes are bombing throughout the country, and narrowly "missed" pipelines. The message to the West is: "You don't really want to invest in energy here."

 

If Moscow gains control over Georgia, it is "good night, and good luck" to Europe. All of its gas and oil bought in Eurasia (minus the Middle East) will pass through Russian hands in one way or the other.

 

So, in the Caucasus, we are not observing restless natives turning faraway "frozen conflicts" into hot ones. Who ever heard of Abkhazia? And isn't "Ossetia" some kind of caviar? No, these are the flash points of the 21st century's Great Game, and the issue is: Who will gain control over the Caspian Basin, the richest depository of strategic resources next to the Middle East.

 

By penetrating deeply into Georgia, Russia is signaling to the West: "We will!" Alas, neither the U.S. nor the EU was prepared for the return of the 19th century. They thought that Clausewitz was dead once and for all, that it was win-win games now and forever, that Russia, lured by respectability and riches, would turn into a responsible great power. Apparently, George F. Kennan, the diplomat and historian, had it right. To him is attributed a very apropos aphorism: "Russia can have at its borders only vassals or enemies."

 

But the issue runs a lot deeper as of 8/8: What are Russia's borders? Will it be satisfied with Georgia? As Prince Gorchakov, Russian chancellor, put it in 1864, in the midst of the Russian conquest of the Caucasus: "The greatest difficulty is to know when to stop." And what is the regime's character? Government by, for and of goons?

 

At least we now know one thing: Dreams of multipolarity, of governance by committee, are premature. Revisionist powers are never responsible. Which goes for China, too. Though it pursues a "peaceful rise," it also wants more for itself and less for the common good. Indeed, it was China and the other wannabe-superpower, India, that buried the Doha Round and thus any chance for expanded free trade.

 

Which leaves us with the two usual suspects, America and Europe, to take care of global business. And with NATO, the alliance supposedly doomed by victory in the Cold War. With 8/8, Messrs. Putin and Medvedev have given the old lady more steroids than might have been consumed on the way to the Beijing Olympics.

 

Mr. Joffe is publisher-editor of Die Zeit and a fellow of the Institute for International Studies and the Hoover Institution, both at Stanford.

[+Gepard 11,293]

Roodpod, i think it is not as dramaticaly that US people dont know that there is a stat Georgia outside the USA. The same name, okay, can happen. In german we call this land Georgien and in the russian language sphere the name is Grussinia.

More serios it is if people mix Chechenya with the Czech Republic. I remember very good the big laughter about George W Bush saying Russia should stop the war against Czech, some years ago.

 

 

And now some words to all specialist about living in communist regimes. I dont know from where you have your knowledge. First hand it cant be. I still hear the western propaganda from the bad old days of Cold War in your words. And you are wrong. You are speaking like blind people about the rainbow.

Why i have the right to say it? I had living in East Germany. The living in the socialist world was absolutly different then the living today. It was better and worser. It was happier and sader. It was richer and poorer. It depends on the fact you are focus on.

The breakdown of the socialist/communist system had nothing to do with a strong beloning to freedom and democracy or whatever. The breakdown was the result of an absolutly stupid economical system. One example:

Shopping in Moscow of the 80th, lets say you wanted to by 200 gramm cheese. First you had to enter a que for the cashier desk and had to wait. Then you had to pay the 200 gramm cheese and got a billet. With this billet you had to enter the the que in front of the Cheese desk. And after a long waiting time the clerk will give you exactly 200 gramm of cheese. If he had on the first attempt 10 gramm to much he will cut it off, till there were exactly 200 gramm.

A second stupid example, this time from East Germany: The state buyed vegetable, eggs, rabits, ducks etc from the village people to put it into the shops of the towns. They gave lets say 25 Mark for each rabbit. In the shops the sold the rabits for the half price, also 12,50 Marks, also made a loss of 12,50 of each sold rabit.

Can such an economy survive?

 

If the socialist/communist would have been able to gave their people the living standard of the western contries we would have the Soviet Union and there allies today.

Edited August 12, 2008 by Gepard

[MigBuster 2,884]

Gepard - thanks for vetoing Georgia out of NATO -btw all hail Ger... do you think we can trust you enough to pull our troops out

[MigBuster 2,884]

For some of us who can't figure out why some people won't distinguish between Russia invading Georgia and the U.S.

 

 

 

 

Lets try to keep this a bit shorter:

 

No one on here is deluded enough to think that if we drop arms - every other nation will do the same.

 

I understood the policy of preemptive intervention well - it removed dictators from Sierra Leone and Serbia quickly.

 

I was for going into Iraq to remove Saddam/WMDs and securing energy supplies (if anyone thinks that energy isnt in our interests then think again) - despite whether or not those countries were involved - and the dodgy legality issues

 

The military invasion was a success - what followed was either the biggest miscalculation of all time - or somebody really didnt give 2 **** for the Iraqi people and serving forces (btw if you find an Iraqi that is happy to be liberated - let us know wont you)

 

What really ***** me off about the Georgian situation is the doubles standards and hypocrisy of the public statements by our so called leaders

 

Now they are clearly on Georgias side - on what basis - thats right Georgia is a democracy??.

 

So is a Democracy with a lunatic despot - who starts a war expecting us to back him up against Russia ok then??? I think you will find it isnt in any way - that is a bridge to ****** far.

 

George Bush has been weilding the sword of power like a 1 armed Monkey with a hand grenade in his time - not just at the cost of lives - but current and future relationships between countries.

 

Gordon Brown (who was NOT elected by us btw) has been no better with his comments.

 

Im not defending Russias actions in any way - im just not stooping to the blatant levels of hypocrisy that my glorious leaders are.

 

thats politics folks - and it sucks!!!

Edited August 12, 2008 by MigBuster

[Emp_Palpatine 501]

And now some words to all specialist about living in communist regimes. I dont know from where you have your knowledge.

I've experienced Libyan way of socialism, seen security forces searching people on street, having seen people dissaeppered, seen the fear in the eyes and habits of libyan friends, heard and seen purges, been on watch myself and seen the results of state-managed economy. Thank God, as a member of an embassy (but not a diplomat), I had some protection and privilege...

I'ven't been more awake of what liberty and free market mean that those days. Without any doubt in my mind, Communism and Socialism are evil.

[MigBuster 2,884]

Here are some insights from someone with a little more perspective!

 

Welcome Back to the 19th Century

By JOSEF JOFFE

FROM THE WALL STREET JOURNAL EUROPE

August 12, 2008

 

Nice - done with a distinct tongue in cheek style - Might see if hes done something comparing to when the British were last in Afghanistan :)

[Roopod 0]

The Georgian military that I've seen wear USMC Marpat cammies along with assorted other patterns. U.S. Marines helped train some of the Georgian military personel in Iraq. I've heard of a statue of Bush was erected somewhere in Georgia. Thousands of Americans had to be evacuated from Georgia due to the Russian invasion still active there today. I see how people like to say the Cold War is over but the distrust between Russia and the West is still active and apparent in this latest military venture. I put to you how to explain the number of Russian military units poised to enter Georgia that first day. The excuses used when Germany entered the Sudetenland of Czechoslovakia in 1938 and Russia entering South Ossetia of Georgia in 2008 seem to have been virtually the same. We'll just have to wait to see how successful the Russians were or if in fact they failed. This guy said the Georgians ambushed and shot up a Russian Battalion in Tskhinvali?

[MigBuster 2,884]

Interesting footage thanks

 

Just goes to show that deciding what to believe from any source can be difficult. So much information but what is really happening out there?

 

You could also say - did CNN know it wasnt Gori or were they just handed the footage and told it was in Gori? - lets face it who in CNN looking at the film would know where the footage was from let alone anyone watching.

[Shaolin 0]

[...] Without any doubt in my mind, Communism and Socialism are evil.

 

I wouldn't say that! It's the people who are evil, not the idea! But its always the same, nobody with power cares about the people - just about more power and their own wealth...

 

edit: @Roopod: The parallel to the occupation of the Sudetenland came into my mind, too.

Nobody learns out of history...

Edited August 12, 2008 by Shaolin

[MigBuster 2,884]

I wouldn't say that! It's the people who are evil, not the idea! But its always the same, nobody with power cares about the people - just about more power and their own wealth...

 

Isnt the Star Trek Utopian fantasy of the future based on Communism to a point :yes: A world where everybody is content to work for the greater good - and in doing so everything is provided for you - it of course would never work in reality due to greedy people :)

 

 

 

There is no perfect model - Democracy will have to do for us - but there is still a danger your right - its no protection from getting a Hitler in charge by any means - and if you look at it from some angles a Hitler that keeps his population happy and on side by treating them nicely can potentially lead them whereever they like.

[Shaolin 0]

Isnt the Star Trek Utopian fantasy of the future based on Communism to a point :yes: A world where everybody is content to work for the greater good - and in doing so everything is provided for you - it of course would never work in reality due to greedy people :)

 

 

 

There is no perfect model - Democracy will have to do for us - but there is still a danger your right - its no protection from getting a Hitler in charge by any means - and if you look at it from some angles a Hitler that keeps his population happy and on side by treating them nicely can potentially lead them whereever they like.

 

That's exactly what i meant! An the main problem with power was already shown in Orwells "Animal Farm" - every time one elite is "erased" by the people, some of them will form a new elite who continues the work of the former - just under a new name and with little differences...

[Emp_Palpatine 501]

I wouldn't say that! It's the people who are evil, not the idea! But its always the same, nobody with power cares about the people - just about more power and their own wealth...

Everywhere those ideas were put into motion, the results are the same. Almost 1/3 or half of the countries of the World are here to show those facts. From Cuba to North Korea, Russia, Ethiopia, Algeria, Libya, Yemen, Vietnam, Cambodgia, Benin, Congo, China... The same reasons drive to the same results: those ideas are wicked.

[+whiteknight06604 934]

I wouldn't say that! It's the people who are evil, not the idea! But its always the same, nobody with power cares about the people - just about more power and their own wealth...

 

edit: @Roopod: The parallel to the occupation of the Sudetenland came into my mind, too.

Nobody learns out of history...

 

 

actually the Idea of scocialism is fundementaly evil.why is it ok to take from one and give to another?If you work hard for what you have you shouldn't have to give it to some slob only doing just what he needs to get by.In the "pilgim days" in North America they tried it and they almost starved.every family put their crops into a central warehouse andd everyone got an equal share but it was discovered that noone worked hard because they got fed even if they didn't work for it.Food production went down and starvation was a real posibility that first winter.once they switched to private plots everyone worked and there was a surplus crop.On every level and in every time Scocialism/communism has been a dismal failure.unless everyone is a clone and thinks exactly the same it will never work.jelousy and lazyness will alaway ruin it.the only way it can work is with clones.People as long as they are different will alaways covet what they don't have weather it's somones ability with poetry or their looks it can and never work with the human race.Commonism has lead to more death famine and represion than just about anything else the human race has concocted.

 

"btw if you find an Iraqi that is happy to be liberated - let us know wont you"

 

 

there are tens of millions of them.You can deny the truth all you want but I have friends with family in Iraq and everyone they have ever talked to are happy as hell they have a future.

 

 

"George Bush has been weilding the sword of power like a 1 armed Monkey with a hand grenade in his time - not just at the cost of lives - but current and future relationships between countries."

 

you obviously don't understand how things work over here then because for the most part The power of the President is checked by the other branches.George Bush hasn't done anything any other World leader hasn't done at one tme or another.And as for international rel;ations why be friends with somone who stabs you in the back?And the way things look now somtimes you have to do what is right not what is popular.And the weasels in germany and france found out when they were voted out and replaced with more pro-American leaders.George Bush isn't responsible for the civilian deaths in Iraq than Winston churchil was for the german civilian deaths in WW2.As stated millions are free from oppresion starvation murder torture and now have at least a chance at a future.Far more were dieing everyday pre US invasion due to murder and famine and lack of medical attention than do post invasion.

 

If I have to hear that tired and discredited old "blood for oil" bullcr@p again i'll just puke.that is stuff ignorant school kids believe here not anyone that has any independant thought or a reasonable understanding of the facts.

[+Julhelm 266]

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gj_jyR...z2MyszBj6k_ZMtw

US military surprised by speed, timing of Russia military action

1 day ago

 

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The US military was surprised by the timing and swiftness of the Russian military's move into South Ossetia and is still trying to sort out what happened, a US defense official said Monday.

 

Russian forces surged into the breakaway region last week after weeks of clashes, threats and warnings between Tblisi and Moscow which culminated August 6 in a two-day Georgian offensive into South Ossetia.

 

That the two countries were on a collision course was no surprise to anyone, but the devastating Russian response was not expected, officials said.

 

"We were tracking it earlier in that week and we knew that things were escalating," said a military official, who asked not to be identified. "I can tell you it moved quicker than we anticipated that first day."

 

But how it unfolded is still unclear, clouded by conflicting claims from both sides.

 

"I think a lot of what you're asking needs to be ironed out," said the official.

 

"Some of these little issues are definitely still big questions in this event -- What was the intent? Who started it? Why did they start it? And why weren't they prepared to defend what they started?"

 

President George W. Bush, who urged Moscow to cease fire and return to pre-August 6 positions, charged in a televised statement that Russia's intention appeared to be depose Georgia's democratically elected president.

 

But the extent of the Russian operation remained unclear to US officials on Monday.

 

Georgian officials said Russian troops had moved out of South Ossetia into Georgia proper, occupying the city of Gori while Georgian troops were retreating to the capital.

 

But US defense officials said they were unable to corroborate the Georgian claims.

 

"We don't see anything that supports they are in Gori," said a defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I don't know why the Georgians are saying that."

 

"That assessment is ongoing," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

 

The United States has among the most powerful tools for monitoring brewing conflicts, from spy satellites to reconnaissance aircraft and drones capable of scooping up radio signals or capture real-time images of forces on the ground.

 

But the extent to which they were trained on this remote conflict before it turned violent is not known.

 

The Russians, however, warned on August 3 of a growing threat of "large scale military conflict" between Georgia and South Ossetia.

 

The State Department issued a mild statement on August 5 urging Moscow to refrain from provocative actions, but gave no hint that it was aware that military action either by Georgia or Russia was in the offing.

 

Officials have suggested the fighting was not seen as an immediate threat, in part because there were only about 95 US troops and 35 civilian contractors in the country training Georgian troops for Iraq. And they were not near South Ossetia.

 

Some 1,650 US troops conducted a joint exercise with the Georgian military in mid-July. But they were out of the country when the hostilities flared.

 

At around the same time, the Russian military deployed 8,000 troops to the North Caucases for counter-terrorism exercises that Moscow said were unrelated to the tensions with its southern neighbor.

 

The US defense official said about 8,000 to 10,000 Russian troops have moved into South Ossetia. They also have flown SU-25, SU-24, SU-27 and TU-22 fighters and bombers during the campaign.

 

But the official said there was no obvious buildup of Russian forces along the border that signaled an intention to invade.

"Once it did happen they were able to get the forces quickly and it was just a matter of taking the roads in. So it's not as though they were building up forces on the border, waiting," the official said.

 

"What are their future intentions, I don't know. Obviously they could throw more troops at this if they wanted to," he said.

[eraser_tr 29]

No Blood for Oil!

 

I just had to.