GEORGIA: FIGHTING RAGES IN S. OSSETIA, RUSSIAN TANKS HEAD FOR BATTLE

[mytee726]

Sorry I've been a bit busy since this thing started have we figured out what is going on over there is this a game to see if they can jumpstart WWIII or just someone wanting russia out of their country or what, sorry with everything going on its hard to keep up on everything.

[Wanted]

Widening Russian action in Georgia affecting global oil supplies
http://www.theolympian.com/nationworld/story/539941.html


Oil traders on Monday shrugged off Russia's widening invasion of neighboring Georgia, but if the conflict spreads further it could threaten nearly 1 million barrels per day of needed global crude supplies from the Caspian Sea, most of it bound for Europe.

In a move welcomed by American motorists, oil prices on Monday continued their prolonged slide, dropping below the psychological barrier of $115 a barrel to settle down 75 cents at $114.45 on the New York Mercantile Exchange.

But this trend could quickly reverse if the conflict in the Caucasus region - a tinderbox area between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea - doesn't end soon or continues to escalate.

Even before the fighting began Thursday in South Ossetia, a breakaway region in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, the vital BTC pipeline traversing the Caucasus already had been largely shut down by an Aug. 5 bombing of a section of the pipeline in eastern Turkey.

The BTC pipeline takes its crude from Baku in Azerbaijan through Tbilisi in Georgia to the port city of Ceyhan in Turkey. It's the world's second-longest pipeline at almost 1,100 miles; this month, its throughput capabilities were to be boosted from 850,000 barrels a day to 1 million.

That extra capacity, important in moving more supply to the oil-starved world market, was sidelined when the PKK, a Kurdish separatist movement in Turkey, blew up part of the pipeline.

Some Caspian Sea oil had still been moving from Azerbaijan by railcar and a small pipeline to Georgia's western port of Sup'sa, but that had stopped Monday as Russian troops moved beyond disputed South Ossetia and deep into Georgia. The only remaining outlet was to send some oil far north through the Russian port of Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, an option that Azerbaijan apparently rejected.

"Virtually all production has been shut down because of this," said Eric Kreil, an oil analyst who follows the world's oil hotspots for the Energy Information Administration - the statistical and research arm of the U.S. Energy Department.

Like many global hotspots, the conflict in the Caucasus region is in large measure about oil, specifically who controls its flow and who derives its benefits

The BTC pipeline was built at a cost of $4 billion with support from the Bush administration. It is one of the important sources of new oil to offset falling production in Mexico and elsewhere.

But Russia, the world's second largest oil producer, was upset about competition from Baku, the capital of the former Soviet republic of Azerbaijan, and its hostile, U.S.-backed neighbor, Georgia.

The United States has aggressively sought its own oil foothold in the Caucasus region. The U.S. Overseas Private Investment Corp. and the World Bank provided credit guarantees for the building of the BTC pipeline, whose biggest stakeholder is British Petroleum at 30 percent. The U.S. Export-Import Bank provided about $160 million in financing for the project for construction giants Bechtel Corp. and Petrofac LLC, a British company with U.S. operations in Tyler, Texas.

U.S. oil giant Chevron had a nearly 9 percent stake in the project, while ConocoPhillips and Hess Corp. had stakes of 2.5 percent and 2.36 percent, respectively.

Baku's oil was first commercialized in the 1870s by Swede Robert Nobel, brother of Alfred Nobel, for whom the famed prizes are named, according to The Prize, the 1991 award-winning book on the history of oil.

Roughly two-thirds of the oil moving along the nearly 1,100-mile BTC pipeline is bound for Europe. Any hit on global supplies in a tight world market threatens consumers everywhere.

Environmental groups opposed construction of the BTC pipeline because of concerns that the fighting in the volatile region could lead to pipeline damage and fouled ecosystems.

"That was always identified as a huge potential risk for this project," said Doug Norlen, policy director for Pacific Environment, a San Francisco-based group that helps foreign communities oppose well-financed oil companies. "It demonstrates what the world's addiction to oil results in."

[mytee726]

So basically its another Oil Scheme

[Sub-X]

Russian troops take first steps deep into Georgian territory
Telegraph
11 August 2008

Russia has taken its first steps deep into Georgian territory while the president of its beleaguered neighbour made an international plea for help, saying the world had a 'moral duty to stop this madness'.

Russia's opening of a second front saw it strike 20 miles inside Georgia near the breakaway province of Abkhazia. The move cut the country in two by seizing a key road and rail junction.

The capture of the town of Senaki in western Georgia marked the moment the ground war spread beyond the boundaries of the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. It underlined the ease with which Russia has so far been able to act against its tiny neighbour, incurring nothing but harsh words from the West.

The Senaki operation by about 300 Russian troops coincided with Georgia's heavily outnumbered forces abandoning the central city of Gori and going into full retreat.

After their operations were complete, Russian forces withdrew from the city.

“Russian forces have destroyed Senaki military base and have left it,” said Shota Utiashvili, a spokesman for the Georgian interior ministry.

His comments confirmed an earlier Russian statement.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia accused Russia of the "invasion, occupation and annihilation of an independent democratic country". He added that Russia was carrying out the "pre-planned, cold-blooded and pre-meditated murder of a small country".

Mr Saakashvili urged the international community to act.

President George W Bush criticised Russia's "disproportionate" actions and said that Georgia's "sovereignty must be respected".

Bernard Kouchner, the French foreign minister, arrived in Georgia and visited Gori, areas of which have been heavily bombed. "We are here to stop this bloody war," he said. President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which hold the European Union's rotating presidency, is expected to visit Georgia tomorrow and then fly on to Moscow to urge a truce.

Gordon Brown said there was "no justification for continued Russian military action in Georgia, which threatens the stability of the entire region and risks a humanitarian catastrophe". The Prime Minister added: "There is an immediate and pressing need to end the fighting and disengage all military forces in South Ossetia. The Georgian Government has offered a ceasefire, which I urge the Russians to reciprocate without delay.

Georgia declared a unilateral ceasefire on Sunday and withdrew its forces from South Ossetia, where the fighting began last week. This enclave, populated largely by Russian citizens, is now firmly in the Kremlin's grasp.

President Dmitry Medvedev of Russia said that the "major part" of his country's operation in South Ossetia was over. But he gave no indication of whether he would follow Georgia and call a ceasefire. Later Russia stepped up its attacks in the main body of Georgia.

In Senaki, 40 Russian lorries and armoured personnel carriers stood at a junction on the main highway linking east and west Georgia. By striking from Abkhazia and seizing this key position 20 miles inside Georgian territory, the Russian troops had severed a crucial communications artery.

Georgia's Black Sea coast and the port of Poti are now sealed off from the rest of the country. In effect, Russian forces have sliced Georgia in two.

"We are here for protection, just protection," a platoon leader told The Daily Telegraph before ordering us out of the area. Within hours the Russian troops had taken a military base inside Senaki and were turning away traffic.

Pressure on Poti is now being exerted on two fronts. A Russian warship patrols the Black Sea coastline and is believed enforce a 50-mile exclusion zone. To the East, the capture of Senaki cuts off the port's land links.

Poti was also bombed last week and nine people died. Alan Middleton, the port's British general manager, said that although no ship had been courageous enough to test the proposition, he assumed that Poti was now blockaded from the sea.

Elsewhere, Russian artillery deployed in South Ossetia bombarded the village of Tkviavi, which lies five miles inside Georgia, near the road southwards to Gori. Air strikes on Georgian military positions nearby also took place.

Later, Russian helicopter gunships flew low over Gori, dropping flares as a precaution against missile attack. Georgian troops promptly abandoned the city and retreated eastwards towards the capital, Tbilisi - only an hour's drive away. They began establishing defensive positions around the city in case of another Russian advance.

But Russia's defence ministry denied that any of its troops had actually entered Gori. No independent evidence suggests that Gori has fallen. But Mr Saakashvili claimed - without offering any evidence - that "the majority of Georgia's territory is occupied".

He added: "All that we have had from the international community is humanitarian aid, which is starting to arrive, and statements.

"Of course this is important, but we need much more."

[Capt. Obvious]

So basically its another Oil Scheme

I think Brezsinky's notions are the explanation. He said that the way to weaken Russia was to cause it to get into conflicts with its border states. Those quotes from him are in this thread somewhere.

[Wanted]

Russia seeking to topple Georgia's government: McCain
http://news.smashits.com/282266/Russia-seeking-to-topple-Georgia-39s-government-McCain.htm


Washington, Aug 11 (DPA) Russia's military offensive is designed to oust Georgia's democratically-elected government and intimidate other former Soviet states seeking closer ties to the West, Republican presidential hopeful John McCain said Monday.

'This pattern of attack appears aimed not at restoring any status quo ante in South Ossetia, but rather at toppling the democratically-elected government of Georgia,' 

McCain told reporters on the campaign trail in Erie, Pennsylvania. 



The conflict that began last week escalated Monday, as Russian troops in Georgian territory seized a military base outside the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The Georgian military entered South Ossetia last week to reclaim control over the territory, prompting a swift military response from Russia, which sent troops into South Ossetia to counter the Georgian offensive.


Georgia has called for a ceasefire, but Russia has continued the assault with a series of attacks on Georgian soil and was reportedly preparing a second offensive in another separatist region, Abkhazia.


'That makes Russia's recent actions against the Georgians all the more alarming,' McCain said. 'In the face of Russian aggression, the very existence of independent Georgia and the survival of its democratically-elected government are at stake.'


McCain, 71, read the statement to reporters, trying to show he is vastly more experienced on foreign policy issues than his Democratic rival Barack Obama, who also weighed in on the conflict by calling on both sides to show restraint.


President George W. Bush, attending the Olympics in Beijing, said he had spoken with Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and told them the violence was 'unacceptable'.


'And, look, I expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn bombing outside of South Ossetia,' Bush told NBC television, a US network.


In London, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown delivered a sharp warning to Russia to end its military operations in South Ossetia.


There was 'no justification' for Russia's military offensive, Brown said in a statement Monday.


It is the 'clear responsibility' of Moscow to agree to a ceasefire and to end the conflict immediately, he said, adding that the situation 'threatens the stability of the entire region and risks a humanitarian catastrophe.'


'Continued aggression against Georgia - and especially an escalation of the conflict beyond South Ossetia - will only serve to damage Russia's international reputation and its relations with countries across the globe,' the prime minister said.

[Sasha]

Sorry I've been a bit busy since this thing started have we figured out what is going on over there is this a game to see if they can jumpstart WWIII or just someone wanting russia out of their country or what, sorry with everything going on its hard to keep up on everything.

If you'd like a detailed over view of the conflict, the fellow that was on Infowars earlier, Prof Michel Chossudovsky, wrote a great article that's posted in the thread:
http://forum.prisonplanet.com/index.php?topic=52464.msg256388#msg256388

[Wanted]

US releases 250,000 dollars for emergency aid in Georgia

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jw3CVERzZCel4snXg1NzhbKuTKoA

23 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States has made available 250,000 dollars in aid for ally Georgia aimed at providing emergency supplies for thousands of people affected by the Georgia-Russia conflict, the State Department said Monday.

The United States began bringing the urgently needed humanitarian aid to Georgia, but "it is expected that supplies (distributed by the US embassy in Tbilisi) will be exhausted by the end of the day" Monday, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

The embassy issued a disaster declaration Sunday "releasing 250,000 dollars in initial funding that can provide emergency relief supplies that can assist up to 10,000 people," Wood told reporters.

Washington expects to raise the amount of aid as needed, he added.

Some medicines and other emergency supplies remained at pre-positioning sites in Germany, and US officials were consulting with the United Nations to have the supplies transported to Georgia as soon as possible, said Wood.

The US embassy in Tbilisi has already distributed emergency supplies that had been prepared for use in the aftermath of a natural disaster: tents, blankets and sheets, hygiene kits, clothes, beds and medicines.

Tensions have flared since Russia sent thousands of troops, tanks and air support into South Ossetia on Friday after Georgia launched an offensive to seize control of the breakaway province.

The conflict has since escalated sharply, and on Monday dozens of Russian warplanes staged air raids in Georgia while Georgian forces shelled South Ossetia.

[Sasha]

US releases 250,000 dollars for emergency aid in Georgia

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jw3CVERzZCel4snXg1NzhbKuTKoA

23 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States has made available 250,000 dollars in aid for ally Georgia aimed at providing emergency supplies for thousands of people affected by the Georgia-Russia conflict, the State Department said Monday.

That's big news but, unfortunately, expected.

These bastards in the Dark-Side House (formally white) are gonna drag all of the US into their bloody game.

[Sasha]

Georgia bombs South Ossetia - witness
From correspondents in Gori, Georgia
August 12, 2008 06:27am
Perth Now
http://www.news.com.au/perthnow/story/0,21598,24166801-5005361,00.html


AT least six Georgian attack helicopters have bombed targets in the region around the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, a Reuters witness says.

The action appeared to countermand a Georgian declaration of an end to military activity over the separatist region.

The Reuters reporter said the helicopters flew from Georgia proper and attacked targets just over the de facto boundary with South Ossetia, sending dark smoke billowing into the air.

Russia had earlier accused Georgia of shelling Russian troops, which drove Georgian forces from Tskhinvali this week.

[ramallamamama]

US releases 250,000 dollars for emergency aid in Georgia

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5jw3CVERzZCel4snXg1NzhbKuTKoA

23 minutes ago

WASHINGTON (AFP) — The United States has made available 250,000 dollars in aid for ally Georgia aimed at providing emergency supplies for thousands of people affected by the Georgia-Russia conflict, the State Department said Monday.

The United States began bringing the urgently needed humanitarian aid to Georgia, but "it is expected that supplies (distributed by the US embassy in Tbilisi) will be exhausted by the end of the day" Monday, State Department spokesman Robert Wood said.

The embassy issued a disaster declaration Sunday "releasing 250,000 dollars in initial funding that can provide emergency relief supplies that can assist up to 10,000 people," Wood told reporters.

Washington expects to raise the amount of aid as needed, he added.

Some medicines and other emergency supplies remained at pre-positioning sites in Germany, and US officials were consulting with the United Nations to have the supplies transported to Georgia as soon as possible, said Wood.

The US embassy in Tbilisi has already distributed emergency supplies that had been prepared for use in the aftermath of a natural disaster: tents, blankets and sheets, hygiene kits, clothes, beds and medicines.

Tensions have flared since Russia sent thousands of troops, tanks and air support into South Ossetia on Friday after Georgia launched an offensive to seize control of the breakaway province.

The conflict has since escalated sharply, and on Monday dozens of Russian warplanes staged air raids in Georgia while Georgian forces shelled South Ossetia.

Tbilisi resident: "Gee thanks, those twenty five United States federal reserve notes will really help me rebuild my life..."

[Sasha]

8 minutes ago



STATEMENT BY PRIME MINISTER HARPER ON CONFLICT IN GEORGIA
August 11, 2008
Conservative Party of Canada (press release), Canada
http://www.conservative.ca/EN/1091/101335


In a statement released today, Prime Minister Harper condemned Russia’s incursions into Georgian territory far beyond South Ossetia, including into already tense Abkhazia.
 
"Russian and Georgian forces must immediately cease hostilities throughout Georgia and return to their August 6 positions,” he said. "Furthermore, in escalating the conflict through its attacks on Georgian towns and cities outside South Ossetia, Russia has ceased to act as a peacekeeper. It is imperative that Russia respects the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia."
 
Prime Minister Harper added that “Military force will not resolve this dispute. The only viable long-term solution is international mediation and peacekeeping." 
 
Prime Minister Harper added that Canada is working with its international partners to bring this conflict to a close as quickly as possible. He also stated that Canada stands ready to provide humanitarian assistance to those affected by the conflict. The first priority for all sides must be to respect their obligations under international humanitarian law, including the protection of civilians, and facilitate full, safe and unhindered humanitarian access to assist those in need.

[Sasha]

Capital Flight Fears Lead Georgia to Halt Lending
The Moscow Times
12 August 2008
By Nadia Popova / Staff Writer
http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/600/42/369727.htm


The Georgian economy suffered a major blow Monday as banks were told to stop issuing loans and investors voiced concern that a military conflict spilling over into the country from two rebel provinces could disrupt energy supplies.

The Bank of Georgia, the country's largest lender, said it halted all loans and its online banking service until August 18, after Georgian financial regulators ordered a freeze to prevent capital flight.

"We understand that we may face a massive money withdrawal, so it seems logical to keep the assets in the banks," said Macca Ekizashvili, head of investor relations at the bank. "But we haven't seen any kind of panic so far."

Online banking was suspended over fears of attacks by Russian hackers, Bank of Georgia chairman Nicholas Enukidze told investors during a conference call late Monday. He said didn't expect dramatic foreign-capital flight.

"Much of the foreign money is invested in the infrastructure — road, railway and pipeline construction, so it will be hard to withdraw," Enukidze said, adding that investment in resorts could decrease, hurting the tourism sector.

Zurab Katabadze, president of the Association of Business Consulting Organizations of Georgia, which works with small and medium-sized businesses, said entrepreneurs were "now more concerned about our lives than our money."

He said he hoped that Russian and Georgia would resume trading once the hostilities end but that because of sanctions imposed by Russia last year, it was no longer a major trading partner.

"We try to export our wine and fruit to Europe and the United States, but they have very high standards, so we would prefer Russia," Katabadze added.

The Georgian Chamber of Commerce and Industry, which represents big business, declined to comment Monday.

"The situation in Georgia highlights the greatly increased risks related to energy transits through the country," Troika Dialog said in a note, estimating the volume of potential disruptions at around 1.6 million barrels per day.

Russia's military sought to ease concerns that it was targeting Georgian energy infrastructure, including several key pipelines supplying oil and gas to Europe, and denied claims that it had bombed an export route to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan.

"We are not bombing oil pipelines," said Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of the General Staff, Reuters reported.

The Georgian Energy Ministry said Saturday that Russian jets dropped around 30 bombs 5 meters from an oil transit line near Tbilisi on Friday night, although no damage was done.

Several pipelines run through Georgia, primarily delivering Caspian Sea oil to Europe. The lines include the BP-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan, which has been disrupted since a bomb blast hit it in Turkey earlier this month. A spokesperson for the pipeline said the fire was contained Monday, Bloomberg reported.

At least one foreign investor started pulling out staff Monday. British mining and exploration firm Templar Minerals removed most of its personnel "due to the current security situation," the company said in a statement.

[Sasha]

Bush warns Russia to pull back in Georgia
By MATTHEW LEE – 29 minutes ago
 

WASHINGTON (AP) — President Bush on Monday demanded that Russia end a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence in Georgia, agree to an immediate cease-fire and accept international mediation to end the crisis in the former Soviet republic.


President Bush makes a statement about the situation in Georgia in the Rose Garden of the White House, Monday, Aug. 11, 2008, in Washington. Bush said that Russia must reverse course in Georgia and withdraw its troops. (AP Photo/Lawrence Jackson)

Almost immediately after his return from the Olympics in China, Bush warned Russia in his strongest comments since the fighting erupted over Georgia's separatist South Ossetia region last week to "reverse the course it appears to be on" and abandon any attempt it may have to topple Georgia's pro-western government.

"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century," the president said in a televised statement from the White House, calling on Moscow to sign on to the outlines of a cease-fire as the Georgian government has done.

"The Russian government must reverse the course it appears to be on and accept this peace agreement as a first step toward solving this conflict," Bush said, adding that he is deeply concerned that Russia, which Georgian officials say has effectively split their country in two, might bomb the civilian airport in the capital of Tbilisi.

He said Russia's escalation of the conflict had "raised serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region" and had "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world." "These actions jeopardize Russia's relations with the United States and Europe," Bush said. "It's time for Russia to be true to its word to act to end this crisis."

Despite the tough talk, the president's comments were not backed up by any specific threat of consequences Russia might face if it ignores the warning. U.S. officials said they were committed to the diplomatic track and were working with U.S. allies in Europe and elsewhere, as well as with the Russians, to defuse the crisis.

Earlier Monday, the United States and the world's six other largest economic powers issued a call similar to Bush's for Russia to accept a truce and agree to mediation as conditions deteriorated and Russian troops continued their advances into Georgian territory.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her colleagues from the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations pledged their support for a negotiated solution to the conflict that has been raging since Friday, the State Department said.

"We want to see the Russians stand down," deputy spokesman Robert Wood told reporters. "What we're calling on is for Russia to stop its aggression."

Rice and the foreign ministers of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan spoke in a conference call, during which they noted that Georgia had agreed to a cease-fire and wanted to see Russia sign on immediately, he said, adding that the call was one of more than 90 that Rice has made on the matter since Friday.

They called on Russia to respect Georgia's borders and expressed deep concern for civilian casualties that have occurred and noted that Georgia had agreed to a cease-fire and said the ministers wanted to see Russia sign on immediately as urgent consultations at the United Nations and NATO were expected, according to Wood.

The seven ministers backed a nascent mediation efforts led by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, whose country currently holds the rotating presidency of the European Union, and Finnish Foreign Minister Alexander Stubb, whose country now holds the chair of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, he said.

The Group of Seven, or G7, is often expanded into what is known as the G8, a grouping that includes Russia, but Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov was notably not included in the call.

Wood said the United States was hopeful that the U.N. Security Council would pass a "strong" resolution on the fighting that called for an end to attacks on both sides as well as mediation, but prospects for such a statement were dim given that Russia wields veto power on the 15-member body.

A senior U.S. diplomat, Matthew Bryza, is now in Tbilisi and is working with Georgian and European officials there on ways to calm the situation.

Meanwhile, the State Department said it has evacuated more than 170 American citizens from Georgia. Wood said two convoys carrying the Americans, along with family members of U.S. diplomats based in Georgia, left Tbilisi on Sunday and Monday for neighboring Armenia.

The U.S. Embassy in Georgia has distributed an initial contribution of $250,000 in humanitarian relief to victims of the fighting and is providing emergency equipment to people in need, although those supplies would run out later Monday, the department said.

The Pentagon said it had finished flying some 2,000 Georgian troops back home from Iraq on C-17 aircraft at Georgia's request.

It said it had informed the Russians about the flights before they began in order to avoid any mishaps, but Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin harshly criticized the step, saying it would hamper efforts to resolve the situation by reinforcing Georgian assets in a "conflict zone."

Wood rejected the criticism, saying: "We're not assisting in any conflict."

Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said the U.S. flew the Georgians out of Iraq as part of a prior agreement that transport would be provided in case of an emergency.

Pentagon officials said Monday that U.S. military was assessing the fighting every day to determine whether less than 100 U.S. trainers should be pulled out of the country.

There had been about 130 trainers, including a few dozen civilian contractors, but the civilians had been scheduled to rotate out of the country and did so over the weekend, Whitman said. The remaining uniformed trainers were moved over the weekend to what officials believe is a safer location, he said.

[TheGoodFight1984]

Ukraine sticks an oar in:

Ukraine - Ukraine warned Russia on Sunday it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia's coast.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry said the deployment of a Russian naval squadron to Georgia's Black sea coast has the potential of drawing Ukraine into the conflict.

"In order to prevent the circumstances in which Ukraine could be drawn into a military conflict ... Ukraine reserves the right to bar ships which may take part in these actions from returning to the Ukrainian territory until the conflict is solved," said the statement which was posted on the ministry's Web site.

Both Ukraine and Georgia have sought to free themselves of Russia's influence, integrate into the West and join NATO.

The statement reflected a strong Ukrainian support for Georgia and is certain to anger Moscow, further straining Russian-Ukrainian relations.

Russia's deputy chief of General Staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said Sunday he was aware of the statement, but added that the Russian government must analyze it before making comment.

"It makes a third party involved, and it's quite unexpected," Nogovitsyn said said at a news conference.

A 1997 agreement between Russia and Ukraine lets the Black Sea Fleet remain in Sevastopol through 2017, but Ukrainian officials have said they want it out after that. The issue adds to emotions over Crimea, which was part of the Russian Federation but ceded to Ukraine during the Soviet era and became part of the independent Ukraine when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

http://kavkazcenter.com/eng/content/2008/08/10/10053.shtml

----------

Georgia's Interior Ministry captured 

Georgia's Interior Ministry captured

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 17:37:28 GMT

Russian forces have taken a Georgian Interior Ministry building in the western city of Zugdidi amid an escalating conflict in the Caucasus region.

"The Russians have crossed the border and are now in control of Zugdidi," a reporter for Norwegian TV2 news channel said on Monday.

The arrival of the Russian troops came just after UN observers left the town, AFP quoted the reporter as saying.

"We saw Russian military trucks passing by. We saw hundreds of soldiers. There was a mix of soldiers from the regular army and soldiers that are supposed to be peacekeepers," he said.

This comes while Georgian authorities said Russian forces occupied the city of Gori, 76 kilometers west of Georgia's capital, Tbilisi.

SB/DA

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=66309&sectionid=351020606

[Optimus]

Matt Siegel: Cossacks and Chechens unite to fight 'America'
http://www.independent.co.uk/opinion/commentators/matt-siegel-cossacks-and-chechens-unite-to-fight-america-891497.html
Tuesday, 12 August 2008

"I came here to fight," said Nikolai, a muscular 30-year-old from Stavropol, the birthplace of Mikhail Gorbachev. When Nikolai heard that war had broken out in Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia he left his job, jumped in the car and drove 600 miles through the night to sign up to help defend the Russia cause. "I came here to defend my people from genocide."

Nikolai is far from alone. Since the fighting broke out on Thursday night, hundreds and perhaps thousands of upstart fighters from Siberia to Chechnya have flocked to the border with Georgia to sign up to fight in what they describe as the first front in a full-scale war between Russia and the United States. "This war," barked a stocky young man at a military recruitment centre in Vladikavkaz, the North Ossetian capital [in Russia], "is absolutely a war between Russia and America. The biggest mistake was in underestimating us. Now you'll see what happens."

Officially, Russia denies the existence of volunteer brigades. Moscow does not use conscription and has no provision for enlisting reinforcements in a particular armed conflict, said a military spokesman. Those who have come to the border with Georgia offer only humanitarian aid, he claimed. "The whole of South Ossetia is in ruins. The role of those who came here today is 100 per cent humanitarian. They came to rebuild ... infrastructure."

In Vladikavkaz, a departure point for tanks and troops moving towards South Ossetia, the reality is different. Beneath a corrugated iron awning in the courtyard of the recruitment centre, a group of irregular soldiers mills about restlessly. Their battle get-up ranges from jeans and striped Russian navy T-shirts to Soviet-era military dress. But their chatter is uniform – an endless discussion about the war and what it means. One fighter, who described himself only as a Cossack from Siberia, also said the goal of Georgia's President, Mikheil Saakashvili, and his American backers is nothing less than the complete ethnic cleansing of the region. "It's an American-led genocide," he said. Some volunteers in Vladikavkaz said they were being given assault rifles and $400 (£200).

And some Russian officers, when pressed, admitted that the humanitarian mission was a recruitment smokescreen. "In the past two days, about 2,000 people volunteered. These are men... with experience of military operations in hot spots," the head of one recruitment post told the Russian Ria Novosti news agency.

This volunteer fighting force is something to which even Vladmir Putin, the Prime Minister, has alluded. On Friday, he told George Bush that it would be "difficult to restrain" them.

Closer to the combat zone, near the Roki Tunnel, which leads into South Ossetia, the co-operation between irregular fighters and the official army is immediately apparent. Dozens of cars filled with civilian fighters were interspersed in a column of hundreds of Russian troops and tanks, rumbling through narrow mountain passes around the border.

"Bush kaput! Bush kaput! We will fight against America!" shouted Zelimkhan Gagiev, 27, from the window of his Neva jeep.

Waiting in the courtyard of the recruitment centre, Azamat, 30, was seething. "Not one newspaper in the West has written the truth about what's happening here. No one has written that the Georgians were the ones who started this. That they are the ones shooting women and children."

The North Ossetians, who used to live harmoniously next to Georgian neighbours, are being caught in this wave of anti-Western hysteria. Edik Ikaev, a chef from Vladikavkaz, said: "It's strange, because I've lived around them all my life, but I'm just so angry at the Georgians. If they let me fight, I will."

[Optimus]

Ukraine says it may bar Russian navy
http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5jiafUbbRzef5Bap4RvqbtLjfj_vgD92FBJHG0
1 day ago

KIEV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine has warned Russia it could bar Russian navy ships from returning to their base in the Crimea because of their deployment to Georgia's coast.

Ukraine's Foreign Ministry says in a statement posted on its Web site Sunday that the deployment could draw Ukraine into the conflict.

If so, that would give Ukraine the right to bar the ship from coming back to their base.

[Sasha]

Russia's UN deligate, Churkin, is saying right now of Russia Today that,  "nothing materialized out of 5th Security Council meeting."

That he, "moved with care not to worsen relations with the US."

That the French ceasefire draft was a mostly a failure in that it did not address the facts on the ground nor the truth of the real initial aggressors.

He's still speaking:
streaming.visionip.tv/Russia_Today

[Sasha]

ouch!  Someone just cut the feed, and RT lost the transmition.

Oh wait its back up,.... technology?!?   

[Optimus]

UKRAINE AND THE CONFLICT IN SOUTH OSSETIA
http://jamestown.org/edm/article.php?article_id=2373304
By Roman Kupchinsky

Monday, August 11, 2008


In the morning of August 10, the Ukrainian Ministry of Foreign Affairs informed its Russian counterpart that in order to prevent Ukraine from being drawn into an armed conflict, Ukraine might take measures to prevent the Russian Black Sea Fleet (RBSF) vessels from returning to their base in Sevastopol in the Crimea if they were involved in combat operations against Georgia. This ban might last until the conflict in South Ossetia is “regulated,” the website of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Ukraine stated.

Two days earlier, on August 8, the, troop landing ship Yamal left Sevastopol for the Russian port of Novorossiysk, according to a report on the www.proUA.com website which also noted that a large contingent of ships from the RBSF that had taken part in the military exercise Caucasus-2008 in late July did not return to Sevastopol but remained in Novorossiysk (www.proUA.com, August 10).

Western media reported that on the night of August 9, Russian troops had been put ashore from warships into the disputed territory of Abkhazia.

On August 9 the flagship of the RBSF, the cruiser Moskva, with the commanding admiral of the fleet, Alexander Kletskov aboard, sailed from Sevastopol. It was accompanied by the destroyer Smetlivy and the anti-submarine ships Muromets and the Aleksandrovets, along with an assortment of support vessels.

As the situation on the ground in South Ossetia rapidly deteriorated, Georgian National Security Council Secretary Alexander Lomaia told the media that the Russian navy was blocking Georgian ports and preventing ships laden with grain and fuel from entering. Meanwhile, Interfax reported that "The navy was ordered not to allow supplies of weapons and military hardware into Georgia by sea."

On August 10, however, Novosti Press Agency quoted an unnamed, highly placed source in the General Staff of the Russian navy as saying that the role of the RBSF in the conflict was to merely “provide aid to refugees” and strongly denied that Russian ships were blockading the Georgian coast. “A blockade of the coast would mean that we were at war with Georgia…which we are not,” the source was quoted as saying.

The question of what type of humanitarian role the cruiser Moskva, armed with 16 cruise missiles, torpedoes and an assortment of other sophisticated weaponry, could play was not raised.

Ukraine’s threat elicited a quick response from the Russian side. Anatoly Nagovitsin, the deputy head of the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was quoted by UNIAN press agency on August 10 as saying that the Ukrainian statement “needed reworking,” adding that thus far the RBSF was not engaged in military actions against Georgian ships but that this could possibly change along with the situation.

Later that day, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Gregory Karasin told a press conference in Moscow that the Russian foreign ministry would begin talks with Ukraine on the return of the RBSF to Sevastopol, adding that Russian ships were close to Abkhaz territorial waters in order to prevent a situation similar to the one in South Ossetia from taking place in Abkhazia (UNIAN, August 10, 2008).

Russian statements took on more ominous tones later that evening after Russian troops began an assault on the Georgian city of Gori. The Ukrayinska Pravda website quoted a spokesman for the Russian Foreign Ministry as saying, “The actions by the Ukrainian side are contrary to Ukrainian-Russian agreements and are hostile to the Russian Federation.” At approximately the same time, Interfax, citing information released by the Russian navy, reported that a Georgian military ship had been sunk by the Russian fleet off the coast of Abkhazia.

The Ukrainian move seems to have come as a nasty surprise for the Kremlin and the Russian General Staff, but it is also a risky one for Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko. Throughout Yushchenko’s presidency, Ukraine and Georgia have been exceptionally close. They both applied for a Membership Action Plan in order to join NATO as part of their pro-Western policies, and both were rejected. Ukrainian arms sales to Georgia have been bitterly criticized by Russia, which claims that the arms were being used by Georgia for “ethnic cleansing.”

As recently as mid-July, Ukrainian, Azeri, Armenian and U.S. troops took part in a large scale Georgian military exercise, “Immediate Response 2008,” which was planned by the U.S. Armed Forces European Command and financed by the U.S. Defense Department.

If the Ukrainian leadership goes through with its threat to close off Sevastopol to Russian ships returning from the Georgian coast, a host of problems might arise.

The political situation on the Crimean peninsula, never favorable for Kyiv, could deteriorate further and increase calls by Russian politicians not to renew the 1997 Treaty of Friendship, Cooperation, and Partnership by which Russia recognized the present borders of Ukraine and which is due to expire in December 2008.

If the treaty expires, the consequences could be severe, since this treaty, in addition to Nikita Khrushchev’s handover of the territory to Ukraine in 1954, legalized Ukrainian claims to the Crimea. This could pave the way for renewed calls by Russian politicians and military leaders to annex the peninsula.

Another problem that is sure to become aggravated is the continuing dispute between Kyiv and Moscow over the Russian lease of the RBSF base in Sevastopol, which is due to expire in 2017. Ukraine does not want to extend the lease, and the Russians insist that it be prolonged.

But the main question worrying the West and the Ukrainian leadership is that an emboldened nationalistic Russia might decide to come to the “rescue” of the predominantly Russian population in the Crimea just as it “came to the rescue” of the South Ossetians and Abkhaz.

Such a scenario could conceivably force Kyiv to defend its territorial integrity and declare war on Russia, which would have enormous repercussions around the world.

[Sasha]

Churkin, "There is no attempt to overthrow the Georgian President,"  and he did not deny previous Russian assertions that Russian forces have not moved into Gori.

[Optimus]

Richard Holbrooke: “Putin’s next target will be Ukraine”
http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=86525
[ 11 Aug 2008 13:36 ]

Washington – APA. Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke said Russia acted feeling hatred for Mikhail Saakashvili and wanted to overthrow the government, APA reports. Richard Holbrooke said in his interview to CNN that Russia trying to separate Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia incited Georgia to the military conflict.

“No one needs cold war with Russia. But this country has intruded into the territory of a sovereign state. I was surprised at Bush’s embracing Putin in the opening of the Olympic Games. After that Putin was sitting while Bush and first lady were applauding the American team,” he said.

Richard Holbrooke called Mikhail Saakashvili the most democratic and pro-western leader in the region.

Asked whether the war could impact on the whole region, former diplomat said he did not believe it and that Ukraine would join the conflict.
 
“Putin’s next target will be Ukraine. But he can not do it there. Georgia has 5 million population and Ukraine 50 million. There are other factors, too,” he said.

Richard Holbrooke is expected to be Secretary of State in case Barack Obama is elected president.

[Sasha]

Georgian troops fire at refugees
August 12, 2008, 0:45
Russia Today
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/28838


Authorities in South Ossetia say Georgian troops have shelled the road being used for evacuating people from the conflict zone, according to Russian Interfax news agency. Attacks are continuing in the South Ossetian region, despite claims from Georgia that it was imposing a ceasefire.



There have been several explosions in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, after it came under a renewed shelling attack. Several Russian troops have been wounded.

It said that Russian forces have shot down a Georgian military plane in South Ossetia in the area around Eredvi.

Amidst the violence, Russian humanitarian aid has begun to arrive in the breakaway region's capital and the constant tide of people from the devastated areas of South Ossetia keeps flowing to Russia.

With a humanitarian corridor opened on Monday, thousands of evacuees have fled the conflict zone and sheltered in refugee camps in North Ossetia.

Meanwhile, Tskhinvali is back under peacekeepers' control, after Russian troops disarmed Georgians remaining in the city.
 
Moscow is sending more troops to South Ossetia and has allocated $US millions to help rebuild the region.
Military investigators have already started working in Tskhinvali to collect evidence of war crimes.

More than 1,600 civilians have died in South Ossetia during four days of violence, including 18 Russian peacekeepers, with 70 others were wounded.
Georgia claims 50 of its troops have been killed, and around 300 wounded.

[Sasha]

Richard Holbrooke: “Putin’s next target will be Ukraine”
http://en.apa.az/news.php?id=86525
[ 11 Aug 2008 13:36 ]

Washington – APA. Former Assistant Secretary of State Richard Holbrooke said Russia acted feeling hatred for Mikhail Saakashvili and wanted to overthrow the government, APA reports. Richard Holbrooke said in his interview to CNN that Russia trying to separate Abkhazia and South Ossetia from Georgia incited Georgia to the military conflict.

“No one needs cold war with Russia. But this country has intruded into the territory of a sovereign state. I was surprised at Bush’s embracing Putin in the opening of the Olympic Games. After that Putin was sitting while Bush and first lady were applauding the American team,” he said.

Richard Holbrooke called Mikhail Saakashvili the most democratic and pro-western leader in the region.

Asked whether the war could impact on the whole region, former diplomat said he did not believe it and that Ukraine would join the conflict.
 
“Putin’s next target will be Ukraine. But he can not do it there. Georgia has 5 million population and Ukraine 50 million. There are other factors, too,” he said.

Richard Holbrooke is expected to be Secretary of State in case Barack Obama is elected president.

Holbroke is full of five kinds of sh*t.  That was a complete load of propaganda pushing the WWIII agenda.  To be expected though, from a CFR scumbucket.

[desertfae]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WDmNsJFs7Bg&feature=related

[Optimus]

Baltic States Show Support for Georgia
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3555990,00.html
 
Anti-Russia protesters in the Baltic states have taken to the streets with the Georgian flag
 
Thousands of people participated in peaceful protests in Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania on Monday to show support for Georgia in its current conflict with Russia.

In the Latvian capital Riga more than 1,000 people rallied, waving Georgian and Latvian flags and carrying white roses.

Demonstrators walked from the landmark Freedom Monument to the Russian embassy. There, yelling "aggressors" and "occupiers," they called on Russia to halt its military action in the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.

The group also proceeded to the Georgian embassy, where people cheered and shouted slogans supporting Georgia.

Lawmaker Sandra Kalniete from the opposition Civic Union said she was glad to see so many people turn up, seeing it as a sign that "we have not forgotten anything" about events in Latvia in 1991 when the country broke away from the former Soviet Union.

"Today, it's Georgia, tomorrow it's Ukraine, the day after tomorrow it's Latvia," a woman named Iveta told DPA news agency.

Conflicts have been raging in parts of Georgia since Friday, Aug. 8, when Russian troops engaged Georgian forces in South Ossetia after the later sent a large force into the separatist region to "restore constitutional order," the head of Georgian forces in South Ossetia told BBC.

After gaining control of the region's capital, Tskhinvali, Russian forces launched bombing raids Sunday near Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia proper.

In tandem with the conflict in South Ossetia, local forces in Abkhazia, a second separatist region in Georgia, began mobilization Monday to force Georgian troops from its borders. Russia simultaneously deployed thousands of its own troops in Abkhazia which have launched a move deep into Georgia proper.

Baltic parliaments join condemnation of Russia

In Tallinn, more than 300 people peacefully gathered in the Estonian capital carrying Georgian flags to oppose the Russian incursion. Estonia's parliament was to meet Monday for an extraordinary session to condemn Russian military action in Georgia.

On the Web site of the Estonian parliament, the presidents of parliaments of the Baltic states issued a joint statement saying they were watching events unfold in Georgia "with deep concern and anxiety."

"Russia's aggression against Georgia must be stopped, with the help of coordinated actions of the international community, immediately before all Georgian infrastructure and economy is destroyed which would bring about humanitarian catastrophe with long-term consequences in the entire region," the statement said.

"Justification of Russia’s actions in Georgia by the need to protect its citizens is unacceptable. Alleged reasons for taking up a war against Georgia raise concerns about the future in every state with Russian citizens living on its territory."

More than 50 people also protested outside the Russian embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania, with more protests expected late Monday and Tuesday.

Like Georgia, the three Baltic states broke free from the former Soviet Union in 1991, defying a possible invasion by Soviet forces.

In response to comments made earlier in the day by Estonian President Toomas Ilves, who said the Russian attacks against Georgia would cause a revaluation of Russia-EU relations, Russia's ambassador to Latvia warned the Baltic states that they would pay for their criticism of the Kremlin over the conflict in Georgia, the Baltic news agency BNS reported.

"One must not hurry on such serious issues, as serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards," Alexander Veshnyakov was quoted as saying by BNS.

[Wanted]

Georgia, Ossetia and Public Opinion
http://english.pravda.ru/opinion/columnists/11-08-2008/106058-georgiaossetiapublicopinion-0

Btw.....nice job guys everyone who posts here, this thread is definitely something. 




If the people of the world are being asked to judge the actions of the Russian Federation through press reports based on the information that is presented to them, then it would be a good idea to begin from a viewpoint whereby the international media presents the truth and not some half-baked subjective attempt to package the story in a way that is hostile to Moscow.

For a start, Moscow has been careful to inform the world media through a tireless campaign from its press attaches at its Embassies, whereby the Russian Foreign Ministry has provided detailed information as to Moscow’s constant attempts to broker a peace deal in South Ossetia, constantly stressing the need to satisfy both Tblissi (Georgia) and Tskhinvali (South Ossetia). Where has this information appeared in a single western news outlet? It has been systematically ignored in a massive attempt at misinformation.

Secondly, hours after it announced a ceasefire, Georgia instructed its peacekeeping forces to attack the Russian peacekeepers in the area, an act which raises questions as to the sanity of Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili and more seriously, to the intentions of Washington, which along with Tel Aviv, has hundreds of military advisors supporting the Georgian armed forces. How could this attack not have received approval from the puppet-master who pulls Saakashvili’s strings?

Russia’s actions before the conflict broke out were under the sphere of a legitimate and legally backed peacekeeping force and its reaction to this cowardly act of murder by the Georgian armed forces continues to be that of a peace-keeper, while at the same time providing humanitarian aid for the growing number of refugees. Hospitals have been set up and Moscow has approved billions of RUR for a rebuilding fund, given that the Georgia military exacted tremendous damage on residential areas in Tskhinvali and the surrounding area.

Let the people of the world judge the actions for what they are, not what they are wrongly reported as being. When President Bush condemned Moscow’s reaction is unacceptable, was he then giving his tacit support to the acts of ethnic cleansing carried out by Georgian troops in the early hours of their cowardly back-stabbing attack under cover of night and salvoes of missiles aimed at the heart of civilian residential areas in the capital?

When President Bush and Secretary of State Rice condemn Moscow, are they then giving their approval to the murder of 2.000 civilians by Tblissi and the internal dislocation of 40.000 others? Do they then approve of Tblissi’s announcing a ceasefire and then launching a massive attack against civilians?

Given their track record, what with the acts of torture by the CIA, the concentration camp at Guantanamo, the illegal act of butchery in Iraq, Lynndie England and her friends "just having fun" torturing people at Abu Ghraib, it would not be in the least surprising that in condemning Moscow, Bush and Rice do give their approval to ethnic cleansing against Russians. After all, what to expect from this pair and their regime?

However, one can only hope that someone in Washington has a brain and that this brain sees very clearly the situation for what it is, namely a very ugly and cowardly attack by a frustrated Tblissi, using military forces against civilians, then attacking ambulances and doctors as they came to help the victims, and documented cases of war crimes and crimes against humanity perpetrated by Georgia’s armed forces.

Let the people of the world judge events based on this true version of events, not the nonsense being reported in a biased and unfree western press. The fact of the matter is that Moscow is right and has done everything it possibly could to avoid conflict. The ones who started it were the Georgians, who now go whining to NATO.

NATO would do very well to remain silent and mind its own business, specially after lying about its expansion eastwards. Moscow is not afraid of NATO and has the capacity to neutralise any military situation to its advantage. However, it is not Moscow that is spoiling for a fight.

[larsonstdoc]

  Bush is like a dog with no teeth.  He also doesn't have any troops to back up his BS!

[otero1]

  Bush is like a dog with no teeth.  He also doesn't have any troops to back up his BS!

TRUEDAT!!

[Optimus]

Russia rejects draft UN peace resolution
http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2008/08/12/2332313.htm?section=justin
Posted 1 hour 48 minutes ago
Updated 1 hour 33 minutes ago

Russia's ambassador to the United Nations has rejected a proposed Western draft resolution in the Security Council that would call for an immediate truce between Russia and Georgia and for the mutual withdrawal of their forces from the conflict zone.

France presented the resolution, calling for an immediate ceasefire in Georgia, and withdrawal of all troops from Georgia's two breakaway enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

The text was based on a three-point peace plan calling for an immediate truce, respect for Georgia's territorial integrity and a return to the status quo that prevailed before Georgian troops punched into South Ossetia last week to wrest control from Moscow-backed separatists.

But Russian ambassador Vitaly Churkin told reporters: "I cannot see us accepting this French draft."

The United States had wanted to condemn what it said was Russia's unwarranted "military assault" on Georgia, but one diplomat said the French and other Europeans tried to avoid language that was certain to provoke a Russian veto.

As a permanent member of the Security Council, Russia has the power to prevent any resolution from passing.

The meeting of the Security Council was convened at the request of Georgia, which said Russian troops were invading their country.

This was the council's fifth emergency session on Georgia in as many days. Member nations had originally tried to agree on the wording of a unanimous appeal for a ceasefire but were unable to come up with language acceptable to Russia.


'Defining moment'

The United States' ambassador to the United Nations has accused Russia of "looking for an excuse" to attack Georgia and warned that there could be far-reaching diplomatic repercussions for Moscow.

US ambassador to the United Nations Zalmay Khalilzad said in an interview on CNN that Russia's response went beyond a peacekeeping campaign and that Russia had been "looking for an excuse" to attack Georgia.

"This has been a defining moment in Russia's relations with the rest of world," he added.

However the US ambassador also said he received assurances from his Russian counterpart that Moscow did not plan to overthrow Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Mr Khalilzad suggested on Sunday that Russia's military assault against its tiny pro-Western neighbour was aimed at ousting Mr Saakashvili.

Russia's UN envoy Vitaly Churkin responded by saying that some leaders could be an "obstacle" for their people and that Russia was only trying to defend its peacekeepers and protect civilians from Georgian "ethnic cleansing" and "genocide".

The simmering conflict erupted last Thursday when Georgia suddenly sent forces to retake South Ossetia, which threw off Georgian rule in the 1990s and declared itself independent, albeit without international recognition.

Moscow responded with a counter-attack by its vastly bigger forces that drove Georgian troops out of the devastated South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali on Sunday.

Georgia has appealed for international intervention and has pulled its battered forces back to defend the capital, as Russian troops move further into its territory, ignoring Western pleas to halt military occupation.

Russia says Georgia caused the crisis by trying to use military force to reclaim South Ossetia.


Growing conflict

UN assistant secretary-general for peacekeeping Edmond Mulet says UN military observers in Abkhazia have confirmed that Russian troops occupied the Senaki military base inside Georgia proper.

Mr Mulet said this was the first independent confirmation of Russian forces invading areas of Georgia outside the separatist territories.

"These are Russian troops, not peacekeepers," he said.

Earlier on Monday, Russian military spokesman Anatoly Nogovitsyn said there was no plan to move land forces beyond the breakaway eastern region of South Ossetia, the focus of the current conflict with Georgia.

But Russia's defence ministry says it occupied a military base in the western city of Senaki, at the other side of Georgia from South Ossetia, before later withdrawing.

Russia later said it had pulled out of the town after "eliminating" the threat it posed to South Ossetia.

Meanwhile, Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze says Russian forces have entered Georgia's Black Sea port city of Poti.

"Russian forces have entered Poti. There were no casualties," he said in a televised address.

Georgia's foreign ministry on Saturday said Russian aerial bombardment had "completely devastated" the port, which it described as a key facility for the transport of energy resources from the Caspian Sea.

In his TV address, Mr Gurgenidze criticised Western powers for standing by as Russia escalated its attacks on Georgia.

"We regret that we have witnessed such developments without our Western partners intervening more actively," he said.

- Reuters/AFP

[Sub-X]

Another battle in the 1,000-year Russia-Georgia grudge match
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/comment/columnists/guest_contributors/article4509624.ece
August 12, 2008

Retaking Ossetia is just one part of Russia's campaign to reassert dominance over the Caucasus - and defy America.

The Russian tank columns rumbling into Georgia reveal the anger of a tiger finally swatting the mouse that has teased it for years. South Ossetia may seem as distant, trivial and complicated as the 19th-century Schleswig-Holstein question but Russia's fury is about much more than the Ossetians. The Caucasus matters greatly to the Russians for all sorts of reasons, none greater than the fact that it now also matters to us.

The troubles in Georgia are not the equivalent of an assassinated archduke in Sarajevo. But historians may well point to this little war, beside the spectacular Olympic launch of resurgent China, as the start of the twilight of America's sole world hegemony. If the new Great Game is for the oil of the Caucasus and Central Asia, the West may be in the process of losing it.

I've been visiting Georgia since the fall of the Soviet Empire in 1991. I've known all three Georgian presidents since independence, and witnessed the wars and revolutions of the Caucasian tinderbox. In 1991 the chief of the Georgian partisans in the first Ossetian war, a dentist turned warlord, drove me up to villages around Tskhinvali, highlands of lusciously green beauty, where a vicious war between Georgian and Ossetian farmers was being waged with the ferocity of intimate neighbours, using comically armoured tractors instead of tanks.

My Georgian hosts leant their guns against a tree and took me to an open-air feast at a table stacked with delicacies in honour of a local boy killed that day. During the long drunken banquet I asked where the boy was buried. “He hasn't been buried,” replied my host, “he's under your feet.” Paling, I looked and there he lay, stretched out under the table, cradled with bouquets of flowers.

To understand this week's events, we must travel back a thousand years: long before Russia existed, Georgia was a Christian-warrior kingdom. The Caucasus was the natural borderland of the three great empires of the Near East: the battlefield between Orthodox Russia, the Islamic Ottomans and Persians. In 1783 the embattled King Eralke II was forced to claim the protection of Prince Potemkin, Catherine the Great's partner-in-power. Between 1801 and 1810 Russia swallowed the last Georgian principalities. In 1918 Georgia enjoyed independence for three years before Stalin seized it back for Moscow.

No one understood its ethnic complexity and strategic significance like Stalin, that Georgian romantic turned Russian imperialist, who had been born in Gori, the town that has been overrun by Russian forces and where a marble temple now stands over the hut where he was born. The Ossetians who straddled the border had early sought Russian alliance, earning Georgian disdain. Hence Stalin was accused by his enemies of being an Ossetian: his father was of Ossetian descent, though long since Georgianised. Stalin drew the borders of the Soviet republics to ensure Georgia contained autonomous ethnic entities, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Adzharia, through which Moscow could keep Georgia in order.

When that proud, cocky bantam, Georgia, became independent in 1991, the Russian double-headed eagle was humiliated. Ever since, Russian interference and skulduggery has bedevilled Georgia. Russia encouraged southern Ossetia to establish a statelet within Georgia, whose inept, insane first President, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, had inflamed ethnic tensions. As Ossetians fought Georgians who themselves rebelled against Gamsakhurdia, I sat in his office: he was a Shakespearean scholar and quoted King Lear to me.

Gamsakhurdia was either murdered or committed suicide. In 1993, his successor Eduard Shevardnadze, the former Soviet Foreign Minister and Politburo member, lost Abkhazia in another bloody Russian-orchestrated war. But Shevardnadze won the peace. Georgia, which had longed to be part of Europe, embraced Western democracy and US friendship. Yet Shevardnadze recognised the limits of Georgian defiance, once telling me as we flew in 1993 in his plane to make peace with the Kremlin: “The destiny of Russia is reflected in the Caucasus like the rays of the sun are reflected in a drop of water.”

Old, autocratic Shevardnadze was toppled in the Rose Revolution of 2003 by an energetic and decent if impulsive US-educated lawyer, Mikhail Saakashvili, who hoped to escape Moscow for ever by joining the EU and Nato - as did Russia's huge neighbour, Ukraine. This prospect of encirclement by triumphant America infuriated Russia. Imagine if newly independent Wales cockily joined the Warsaw Pact.

Russia is no longer the spineless giant of the Nineties: Vladimir Putin's musclebound, oil-fuelled authoritarian regime has aggressively reinvigorated Russia. He had already shown his ruthless determination to master the Caucasus by crushing Chechnya. Nato in Georgia would have made that meaningless. The Kremlin has used its clients, Abkhazia and Ossetia, as Trojan Horses to ruin Tbilisi's independence - recently raising the tension by offering Russian passports to all Ossetians and testing Georgian resolve with cross-border skirmishing: the trap of a practised imperial power.

Georgia is not guiltless: most Georgians I know care little about Ossetia even though it is part of sovereign Georgia. But in order to join Nato, President Saakashvili wanted to settle Georgia's instability by reclaiming Ossetia and Abkhazia. By seizing Tskhinvali, he took one hell of a gamble that Russia wouldn't intervene. Georgia is paying a high price for this. To finish this vicious circle, Russian attacks show how badly Georgia needs EU/Nato protection, yet Georgia will never get it while embroiled in fighting.

The retaking of Ossetia is a minor part of the Russian campaign. More significant is the attack on Georgia proper, which reasserts Russia's hegemony over the Caucasus, assuages the humiliations of the past 20 years, subverts Georgian democracy - and defies and defangs American superpowerdom. The swaggering arrival of Vladimir Putin, now the Prime Minister, across the border, macho in his tight jeans and white leather jacket, shows he, not President Medvedev, remains Russia's paramount leader.

This war is really a celebration of ferocious force in the realm of international power, a dangerous precedent. The West must protest with unified resolve; Russia both despises Western hypocrisy and craves Western approval. Georgian democracy and sovereignty matter. So do our oil supplies: the West built a pipeline to bring oil from Azerbaijan and Central Asian across Georgia to Turkey, free of Russian interference.

Russia's clumsy ferocity could ignite a Caucasian tinderbox that even Moscow cannot extinguish. But faced with Western outrage, the Kremlin might toss Stalin's words back at President Bush: “How many divisions has the Pope?” None: Washington and London are not sending the 101st Airborne or the SAS.

Russia, which appears to be pushing its tanks into Georgia to overthrow its democratically elected president, has demonstrated gleefully the limits of US power and Moscow's historic destiny as regional hegemon and restored 21st-century superpower. The Empire has struck back and shaken the order of the world.

[Sasha]

  Bush is like a dog with no teeth.  He also doesn't have any troops to back up his BS!

First of all Bush is a Bilderberg puppet himself and he doesn't need troops if he has no intention of occuping the territory.  The US DoD has enough bombs and missiles to completely rubble the whole region, and I don't want to even get into the modernized nuclear weapondry that the US has been developing while Russian has been barely able to even pay for some of their training programs and hardware upkeep (much of which has waltzed out of the country or gone bad in mothballs).

The NeoCons know that they have a chance to do what they've been drooling at the mouth over for years, to provoke Russia into a full conflict by using the third party Zionist/US puppet satelite states of the former Soviet Union against Russia itself - all the while crying foul and increasing international sentiments about how villianous Russia is.

The US government has so little credibility left in the world that they have to create a bigger boogie man that they are,... then its on.  Former head of the PNAC group, William Kristol, is already calling for US involvement and another PNAC'er, and current US delegate to the UN, Zalmay Khalilzad, is spurning every attempt by the Russian delegate to come to a reasonable ceasefire agreement based on preconflict borders.

The attempt here is obvious.  The PNAC'ers want all out war, with troops or without, and since Bush really is a dog with no teeth - Cheney and his minoins running the show - I doubt Bush will do anything but give simpleton speeches and nod alot with frowns to demonstrait how serious he wants us to believe he is taking things.

[k4l4sh]

Russian troops do not plan to advance on Tbilisi - Moscow
Moscow has denied Georgia's assertion that Russian troops are moving in on the capital Tbilisi. The allegation was made by Georgia's Ministry of Defence. Russia has also announced its troops have left the Georgian town of Senaki, having secured it from attacking South Ossetia.
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/28829

Russian troops invade Georgia and 'take the town of Gori'
Georgia today claimed that Russian forces had overrun the strategic city of Gori as troops prepared to defend the capital Tbilisi from what one official called a "total onslaught".
Georgian soldiers fled Gori, 17 miles from the border with rebel South Ossetia, in panic and disarray, clinging to the sides of cars and vehicles as they sped out of town. A Georgian armoured personnel carrier was in flames on the street, a victim of an apparent sudden rout.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4507980.ece

Russia Today TV link is dead

[Wanted]

Russian Diplomat Calls Statement By Baltic States, Poland on South Ossetia Cynical
http://www.istockanalyst.com/article/viewiStockNews+articleid_2502234.html


MOSCOW. Aug 11 (Interfax) - The Russian Foreign Ministry has criticized the statement of the three Baltic states and Poland on the situation in the South Ossetian - Georgian conflict zone and Russia's role in it.

"In their statement they accused Russia of no less than pursuing an imperial revisionist policy. I leave it with you to judge about the quality and timeliness of the statement. But I want to say that they found probably the most cynical and ill-timed forms to express such an odd and absolutely illogical approach. It was precisely because of such signals that the developments in South Ossetia started on August 7," Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said at a Sunday briefing in Moscow.

"The people who are making irresponsible criminal decisions should always be clearly and definitely rebuffed by the intentional community," he said.

"Everyone should realize who released the flywheel of bloodshed and who is trying to stop it and restore normal life in this part of the Caucasus," Karasin said.

The presidents of Baltic states and Poland in a joint declaration called on the international community to support Georgia in light of the latest developments in South Ossetia.

[Sub-X]

Georgian army flees in disarray as Russians advance
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4509692.ece
12 August 2008

The Georgian Army was in complete disarray last night after troops and tanks fled the town of Gori in panic and abandoned it to the Russians without firing a shot.

As Russian armoured columns rolled deep into central and western Georgia, seizing several towns and a military base, President Saakashvili said that his country had been cut in half.

For the first time since the crisis erupted last Thursday, Russia admitted that its troops had moved out of Abkhazia, the other breakaway region under Moscow’s protection, and seized the town of Senaki in Georgia proper. Russian officials again insisted that they had no intention of occupying territory beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgia said that the Russian Army was also in command of the towns of Zugdidi and Kurga in the west, and its tanks appeared to be moving from the north and the west towards Tbilisi, the capital.

The retreat from Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, was as humiliating as it was sudden and dramatic. The Times witnessed scores of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, laden with soldiers, speeding through the town away from what Georgian officials claimed was an imminent Russian invasion.

Residents watched in horror as their army abandoned its positions after a day of increasingly aggressive exchanges of fire along the border with South Ossetia, the breakaway region now fully under Russian control.

Jeeps and pick-up trucks filled with Georgian soldiers raced through the streets, their occupants frantically signalling to civilians that they too should flee. The road out of Gori towards Tbilisi was a scene of chaos and fear as cars jockeyed with tanks for a speedy escape.

Soldiers left by any means available. Dozens of troops clung to cars on the back of a transporter lorry, while five other soldiers fled on one quad bike.

A tank had exploded on the mountain road leaving Gori, although it was unclear what had caused the blast. The Times passed an armoured car in flames, soldiers leaping from the roof of the vehicle. It had apparently caught fire while trying to bulldoze the tank’s burning shell out of the way. Columns of Georgian tanks and heavy weaponry filled the road during the 50-mile journey back to Tbilisi as thousands of soldiers, many looking totally demoralised, headed for the capital. Police sealed off the highway from Tbilisi, turning back the few cars that ventured towards Gori.

The Russian attacks were met with Georgian artillery fire towards South Ossetia, despite President Saakashvili’s statement that he had called a ceasefire. Reporters later witnessed at least six Georgian helicopters attacking targets in South Ossetia.

Elsewhere, Russian armoured personnel carriers swept into Senaki, 20 miles inland from the Georgian Black Sea port of Poti, which Russian troops were also said to be attacking.

Georgia said that Russian forces seized police stations in Zugdidi, where reporters saw Russian soldiers posted outside an Interior Ministry building and armoured vehicles moving through the town.

It was unclear last night where the tanks fleeing from Gori were heading, but many of the troops regrouped on the outskirts of Tbilisi as if preparing to make a stand to defend the capital. Some artillery pieces had also been sited on the approach road from Gori.

The panic had been triggered at about 5pm, when troops suddenly started pouring out of Gori. Officials from the Georgian Interior Ministry claimed that up to 7,000 Russian troops with tanks were heading for the town and that it was under imminent threat of bombardment. A similar panic had ensued on Sunday night as thousands of people poured from the town, in what turned out to be a false alarm. The fear this time was more tangible, the sense of threat more real, as Gori’s streets emptied rapidly.

Not everyone was prepared to leave, however. One man said: “This is my city. I will never leave it even if the Russians come here and kill me. Why should I go to Tbilisi and wait for them there?”

The Georgian Government, which appealed for international support, claimed later that Russian troops had entered Gori, although there was no independent confirmation of this.

As the noose appeared to tighten around Tbilisi, the US State Department evacuated more than 170 American citizens. Poland and several other former Soviet satellites voiced fears that the fighting indicated Russia’s willingness to use force to regain its dominance of the region.

Even at the height of the chaos, Georgia’s legendary hospitality never faltered. A 70-year-old woman named Eteri retreated into her home and appeared moments later to offer apples from her garden to her guests. “I am not afraid,” she said. “We have lived with the Russians for 100 years so why do we need this war now? I don’t want to be with America; I think we should live peacefully with the Russians.”

[DanielRD]

Pretty much sums it up....

Come you masters of war
You that build the big guns
You that build the death planes
You that build all the bombs
You that hide behind walls
You that hide behind desks
I just want you to know
I can see through your masks

You that never done nothin'
But build to destroy
You play with my world
Like it's your little toy
You put a gun in my hand
And you hide from my eyes
And you turn and run farther
When the fast bullets fly

Like Judas of old
You lie and deceive
A world war can be won
You want me to believe
But I see through your eyes
And I see through your brain
Like I see through the water
That runs down my drain

You fasten all the triggers
For the others to fire
Then you set back and watch
While the death count gets higher
Then you hide in your mansion
While the young people's blood
Flows out of their bodies
And is buried in the mud

You've thrown the worst fear
That can ever be hurled
Fear to bring children
Into the world
For threatening my baby
Unborn and unnamed
You ain't worth the blood
That runs in your veins

How much do I know
To talk out of turn
You might say that I'm young
You might say I'm unlearned
But there's one thing I know
Though I'm younger than you
Even Jesus would never
Forgive what you do

Let me ask you one question
Is your money that good
Will it buy you forgiveness
Do you think that it could
I think you will find
When your death takes its toll
All the money you made
Will never buy back your soul

And I hope that you die
And your death'll come soon
I will follow your casket
In the pale afternoon
And I'll watch while you're lowered
Down to your deathbed
And I'll stand o'er your grave
'Til I'm sure that you're dead

[Optimus]

'They are bombing us into oblivion'
Pummeled by Russian air attacks, many Georgians say their own government made a big mistake by sending troops into South Ossetia, provoking the Kremlin to retaliate.
http://www.startribune.com/world/26851554.html?elr=KArksLckD8EQDUoaEyqyP4O:DW3ckUiD3aPc:_Yyc:aULPQL7PQLanchO7DiUX
By ALEX RODRIGUEZ, Chicago Tribune

Last update: August 11, 2008 - 9:07 PM

GORI, GEORGIA - Levan Kakashvili has been sleeping under a tree. What used to be his house is now a mound of broken bricks behind a five-story apartment building blackened by Russian bombing raids.

He blames the Russians for his plight, but he blames his own leader, U.S.-backed Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, for giving the Kremlin an excuse to pummel the tiny former Soviet republic in the widening, four-day-old conflict that began over control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

"I'm very angry with him," said Kakashvili as he slapped water from an outdoor spigot on his face and wiped the dust off his shoes. "He knew that if he hit Tskhinvali [the South Ossetian capital], the Russians would hit Georgia. Now they are bombing us into oblivion."

Hours before reports that this city had fallen to Russian forces Monday, Georgians in Gori were stuffing into their cars whatever belongings they could salvage from the rubble of their apartments -- winter coats, kitchen utensils, bath towels -- and leaving.

And as they evacuated, they said they have lost confidence in their 40-year-old president, who only five years ago embraced President Bush and put his country on the path of democratic reform and an alliance with the West.

Where is the West?

Many said they were equally disheartened by the lack of intervention from the United States and Europe Union to bring an end to the hostilities.

Avtandil Sisuashvili, 72, was among them. "We need to know whether we are still under Moscow's rule or whether we are protected by the West," said Sisuashvili, standing inside his apartment, strewn with broken glass shattered by the bombing's shock waves. "We're not sure anymore whether the West defends us. Russia feels like it can do whatever it wants. We don't feel safe anymore."

Tsisto Tetruashvili sobbed as she scanned the scorched apartment buildings in her block.

"They bombed this morning again," she said, wiping tears away with a small blue handkerchief. "My son drives an ambulance, and every day he takes the dead and wounded to the local hospital.

"Saakashvili doesn't do anything but talk," continued Tetruashvili, 62. "If he had really done something, we wouldn't have so many dead and wounded. We worry that Gori will be destroyed just like Tskhinvali was."

Makuala Gulisashvili, 60, spent the morning filling plastic bags and flour sacks with what little she could salvage from her apartment, now a tangle of twisted beams and rubble. In her sacks were a few toys, spatulas and pillows. She said she once felt Saakashvili was a refreshing change for Georgia. "I can't feel good about him anymore," she said. "Everything that has happened here is his fault."

Americans getting out

With the conflict escalating, the U.S. Embassy in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, was helping to evacuate any Americans who wanted to get out.

Holding bottles of water and bags of bread, about 130 people stood in muggy heat, waiting to board tour buses that would ferry them to Yerevan, the capital of Armenia.

Russian bombers had hit the city's central aviation radar tower earlier in the day, prompting most airlines that had not already canceled flights to do so.

The Americans boarding the buses were joined by a few Canadians and other non-U.S. citizens.

Martha Tappen, 48, of Minneapolis, said she would come back as soon as she could. An archaeologist who has been coming here for 12 years, she lashed out at her own country for what she said was its abandonment of an ally. "Georgia has been such a staunch supporter of America that America owes it to Georgia to help in this situation. It's our responsibility to help the Georgians and make sure Russia does not occupy them," she said.

The Washington Post contributed to this report.

[revolt426]

Wow a few U.S. newspapers are actually admitting the Georgian Gov. provoked russia... totally TV media spin still, however

[mike E. dangerously]

I'm getting a kick out of the frantic actions of Saakashvili trying to convince the elite that this fight is in their best interests.I can see the fool being on the first plane outta Georgia if Russia takes Tbilisi.

[lord edward coke]

his story  http://www.goodnewsaboutgod.com/studies/political/jewsdeclarewar/jewsdeclarewar.htm