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

[1aquarian1]

President saakashvili  "we pulled out our troops after they had completed the task of cleaning........ They're out! They're out!"

Cleaning what?

love these little slips.

From RT1 feed.

[gabba2k7]

President saakashvili  "we pulled out our troops after they had completed the task of cleaning........ They're out! They're out!"

tshinval with its people cleaning

[gabba2k7]

Georgian preparation
•The Georgian military budget is record. (In relation to gross national product.) 1kkk $.

USA and allies help to Georgia
•8000 soldiers were trained by instructors from the USA
•800 soldiers were trained by instructors from Turkey

•USA have given to Georgia 30 kk $, Turkey 45 kk $
•+USA spend its taxpayers money on such programms as "Operation on stability preservation", "Equipment and training" and some manoeuvres/war games

•The countries delivering in Georgia technics and arms - the USA, Israel, Turkey, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Czechia

•Georgia was visited  by Condoliza Rise shortly
•There are about 100 american military advisers in Georgia

•From NATO Georgia has received
-175 tanks
-126 armoured troop-carriers
-62 artillery pieces
-12 helicopters
-8 fighting sea technicians
-4 planes

•The Georgian invasion in S.Osetia has broken 5 resolutions of the UN, concerning observance of the peace arrangement.

•There was NO ANY "independent" western reporters in S.Osetiya.
•Some Western massmedia video and comments can be not corresponding with each other and/or with the reality.

PS The armistice(cease-fire) is not present [on the moment of msg posting]. There is only a regrouping of the Georgian armies. and relative silence in Tshinval (troops firing are still exist)

PS:very dirty game on Northern Caucasus. Especially cynically, that the Georgian aggression is dated by their owners/masters for opening of Olympic games.

[StemCell]

Russia answers cease-fire offer with wider assault on Georgia

By NEWS SERVICES

August 11, 2008

TBILISI, GEORGIA - Russia pressed its invasion of Georgia by land, sea and air for a third day Sunday, striking far beyond contested South Ossetia as the Kremlin brushed aside a cease-fire offer and disputed Georgia's claim to have pulled its forces out of the rebel enclave.

Russian jets bombed near Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, including civilian housing, military bases, factories and the international airport, according to Georgia officials. Russian warships also deployed off the Black Sea coast, sinking a Georgian missile boat that approached them, state-run Russian news media said.

Russian troops and tanks, meanwhile, took control of Tskhinvali, the devastated capital of South Ossetia, according to Russian state-run media, and there were reports that an armored column tried to push out of the separatist enclave's boundary toward the city of Gori, in Georgia, before being turned back by Georgian forces.

The military campaign also expanded, with Russian troops entering Abkhazia, another separatist Georgian province.

President Bush, speaking early today in Beijing, sharply criticized Moscow's military moves, saying the violence is unacceptable.

In an interview with NBC, Bush said, "I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia."

He said he did so directly to Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was in Beijing with Bush for the Olympics, and by phone to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev. "I was very firm with Vladimir Putin," Bush said. "Hopefully this will get resolved peacefully."

On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney said that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."

Asked to explain Cheney's phrase "must not go unanswered," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "It means it must not stand." White House officials refused to indicate what recourse the United States might have if the attacks continue.

The Bush administration did say it was seeking a resolution from the U.N. Security Council condemning Russian military actions in Georgia.

Russian officials say Georgia provoked the assault by attacking South Ossetia last week, causing heavy civilian casualties. But Western diplomats and military officials said they worried that Russia's decision to extend the fighting and to open a second front in Abkhazia indicated that it had sought to use a relatively low-level conflict in a conflict-prone part of the Caucasus region to extend its influence over a much broader area.

Fighting on two fronts

There was heavy fighting Sunday on two fronts. Russian artillery shells slammed the city of Gori, a major military installation and transportation hub in Georgia. In Abkhazia, Russian paratroopers and their Abkhaz allies battled Georgian special forces and tried to cross into undisputed Georgian territory, Georgian officials said.

Russia bombarded Tbilisi's airport shortly before Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France, who was sent by the European Union to attempt a mediation, landed. It twice bombed a factory in the capital.

The Kremlin declined to say whether its troops had entered Georgia proper but said its actions were intended to strike at Georgian forces that had fired on its peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia. Russia denied any intention of occupying Georgia.

"We have enough territory to think of," a Kremlin spokesman, Aleksei Pavlov, said. "We don't need Georgia."

Georgia made an offer to negotiate a truce earlier Sunday.

"Georgia expresses its readiness to immediately start negotiations with the Russian Federation on a cease-fire and termination of hostilities," the Georgian Foreign Ministry said in a statement, adding that it had notified Russia's envoy to Tbilisi.

But Russia insisted Georgian troops were continuing their attacks. Alexander Darchiev, Russia's charge d'affaires in Washington, said Georgian soldiers were "not withdrawing but regrouping, including heavy armor and increased attacks on Tskhinvali."

"Mass mobilization is still underway," he told CNN's "Late Edition."

"We're not crazy," Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told CNN, claiming his troops withdrew from the South Ossetian capital after attacks by Russia's vastly larger armed forces. "We have no interest whatsoever in pursuing hostilities."

Claims of 2,000 dead

South Ossetia broke away from Georgia in 1992. Russia granted passports to most of its residents, and the region's separatist leaders sought to absorb the region into Russia.

Georgia, whose troops have been trained by U.S. soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and airstrikes that pounded Tskhinvali. Georgia says it was responding to attacks by separatists. In response, Russia launched massive artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed.

Thousands of civilians have fled South Ossetia -- many seeking shelter in the Russian province of North Ossetia.

"The Georgians burned all of our homes," said one elderly woman, as she sat under a tree with three other white-haired survivors of the fighting.

She seemed confused by the conflict. "The Georgians say it is their land," she said. "Where is our land, then? We don't know."

[StemCell]

Bush tells Russia to halt attacks on Georgia

United States is waging an all-out diplomatic campaign to press Russia to halt its retaliation against Georgia

Beijing: U.S. President George W. Bush sharply criticized Moscow's harsh military crackdown on the former Soviet republic of Georgia, saying Monday that the violence is unacceptable and Russia's response disproportionate.

The United States is waging an all-out diplomatic campaign to press Russia to halt its retaliation against Georgia, a U.S. ally, for trying to take control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

''I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia,'' Bush said in an interview with NBC. He said did so directly to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who was also in China for the Olympic Games, and by phone to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

''I was very firm with Vladimir Putin,'' Bush said. ''Hopefully this will get resolved peacefully.''

On Sunday, U.S. Vice President Dick Cheney said that ''Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States.''

While Georgia said its troops have retreated from South Ossetia and are honoring a cease-fire, Russia disputed the claim, and U.S. officials said Moscow was expanding its blitz into new areas.

Cheney spoke Sunday afternoon with Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, Cheney press secretary Lee Ann McBride said. ''The vice president expressed the United States' solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity,'' McBride said. White House officials refused to indicate what recourse the United States might have if the attacks continue.

A Russian official said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday; the figure could not be confirmed independently.

The president was to end his weeklong stay to Asia by attending a baseball game and other events Monday at the Beijing Olympics. The trip was meant mostly for fun and games. But the fast-moving conflict in Georgia has commanded his attention.

Bush, pressing international mediation, reached out Sunday to French President Nicolas Sarkozy, whose country currently holds the presidency of the European Union. The two agreed on the need for a cease-fire and respect for Georgia's integrity, White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said.

Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded the provincial capital, Tskhinvali. In response, Russia launched artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

''We're alarmed by this entire situation, and every escalatory step is a further problem,'' deputy national security adviser Jim Jeffrey told reporters.

The U.S. military began flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq after Georgia recalled the soldiers following the outbreak of fighting with Russia. The decision was a timely payback for the former Soviet republic that has been a staunch U.S. supporter and agreed to send troops to Iraq as part of the U.S.-led coalition. Georgia was the third-largest contributor of coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain, and most of its troops were stationed near the Iranian border in southeastern Iraq.

The risk of the conflict setting off a wider war increased when Russian-supported separatists in another breakaway region of Georgia, Abkhazia, launched air and artillery strikes on Georgian troops to drive them out of a small part of the province they control.

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

The White House sought to reassure that the administration _ including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen _ were talking to parties on both sides and trying for a diplomatic solution.

Bush also used the Olympic visit to press President Hu Jintao over China's jailing of political and religious activists. In the NBC interview, he was asked if the message is getting through.

''It's hard to tell,'' Bush replied. ''He listened politely. I can't read his mind, but I do know that every time I met with him I pressed the point.''

In Beijing, Bush found time for a couple of marquee sporting events, including watching American swimmer Michael Phelps win his second gold medal on Monday. Pursuing Mark Spitz's record seven golds, Phelps set a world record again, this time as part of the 400-meter freestyle relay team.

Source: Associated Press

[chirhonius]

President saakashvili  "we pulled out our troops after they had completed the task of cleaning........ They're out! They're out!"

Wow I just listened to that clip. That sounds like he knew what the "mission" was in that city 


Just saw this also:
Cuba backs Cold War ally Russia on Georgia actions
http://uk.reuters.com/article/wtMostRead/idUKN1030086820080811


Man this is looking more like 1973 than 2008 (Oil crisis + cold war)

[mike E. dangerously]

IMO; georgia expected the US to come running to their aid, it wont happen so what now?...

Pretty much now it looks like they are about to lose thier multibillion dollar pipeline which I think was Russia's goal all along.Wither they wanted to or not Russia just dealt a major blow to the gobalists.

[k4l4sh]

Watching RT: Russia wants a new UN Council meeting, reporters claim a resolution is very probable if this happens. Why they claim this I don't know because russia has been very isolated and lacks the proper support atm.

[mike E. dangerously]

Watching RT: Russia wants a new UN Council meeting, reporters claim a resolution is very probable if this happens. Why they claim this I don't know because russia has been very isolated and lacks the proper support atm.

Well,they did what they set out to do kicked the US-NWO client sates butt and disrupted it's economy

[chirhonius]

Developing right now - Russian Stock Market Plummets 4%
The globalists may be dumping their shares.

[mike E. dangerously]

Developing right now - Russian Stock Market Plummets 4%
The globalists may be dumping their shares.

The plan must have backfired and now they are bailing!

[Triadtropz]

It's a normal reaction to war...the elite moves their money into gold, til the uncertainty of war ends.

[gabba2k7]

headlines: "Russia answers cease-fire offer with wider assault on Georgia" etc
LOL, masters of bullshit at work...

_________
Is there are (in USA or UK) any 1-2 independent (tv)channels/(Newspaper) editions ?

or every reporters have instructions not to go to S.Osetia, cauze its bombed regulary by georgians and it is not safety? ^_^

[ConcordeWarrior]

http://fr.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080811/twl-georgie-russie-ossetie-091cf94.html

Just as if the dwarf Sarkozy and his underdogs were going to put an end to this war. Dream on.

Translation:

Georgian President Mikhaïl Saakachvili announces he has signed an engagement of cease fire in the presence of the French and Finnish ministers of foreign affairs.

Saakachvili precised that the two European mediators French Bernard Kouchner and his Finnish peer Alexandre Stubb will now travel to Moscow during the day to persuade Russia to accept this truce.

[menace]

A senior general says Russia has no plans to move its troops from Georgia's two breakaway provinces into Georgian-controlled territory.

Deputy chief of General Staff Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn says Russia does not intend to move deeper into Georgia. Georgian officials earlier reported Russian tanks moving from the breakaway province of South Ossetia into Georgian-controlled territory and heading toward the strategic city of Gori before being turned back.

Nogovitsyn also says, however, that Russia has demanded that Georgian troops near the breakaway province of Abkhazia disarm.

The Russian warning sparked Georgian fears that Russia may open a second front in the conflict over South Ossetia

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080811/ap_on_re_eu/georgia_south_ossetia

[mike E. dangerously]

http://fr.news.yahoo.com/ap/20080811/twl-georgie-russie-ossetie-091cf94.html

Just as if the dwarf Sarkozy and his underdogs were going to put an end to this war. Dream on.

Translation:

Georgian President Mikhaïl Saakachvili announces he has signed an engagement of cease fire in the presence of the French and Finnish ministers of foreign affairs.

Saakachvili precised that the two European mediators French Bernard Kouchner and his Finnish peer Alexandre Stubb will now travel to Moscow during the day to persuade Russia to accept this truce.

Ha! The Russians are gonna laugh in their faces and continue it's ops.

[ConcordeWarrior]

Fighting Sends Stocks Tumbling
11 August 2008By Tim Wall, Tai Adelaja / Staff Writers

The sudden ferocity of the fighting in South Ossetia took investors aback Friday, sending Moscow stock markets spiraling downward as some saw the slide toward war as a good excuse to dump Russian risk altogether.

The RTS Index, a benchmark for foreign investors, shed 6.5 percent to close at 1,722.71 points, its lowest in 14 months, while the ruble-denominated MICEX Index dropped 5.3 percent to 1,359.62 points, down 28 percent this year.

The most value was wiped off the most liquid stocks — oil giant Rosneft, which sank 7.4 percent Friday, and behemoth Gazprom, which fell 5.2 percent. LUKoil, the country's No. 2 oil firm, fell 5.3 percent. Other big names suffering were Sberbank, which dropped 6.2 percent, and Polyus Gold, which fell 6.9 percent.

The worst-hit stock was Inter RAO, an electricity generating firm with plants in Georgia, which bled one-quarter of its value, later closing down 19 percent, after Georgia said Russian warplanes had bombed two Georgian towns. Bank of Georgia, the South Caucasus country's biggest bank, plummeted 24 percent in London.

http://www.moscowtimes.ru/article/600/42/369688.htm

Can the Moscow Times be trusted?

[ConcordeWarrior]

Brzezinski's Georgia Puppets
Attack Russia - WWIII In Sight
By Webster G. Tarpley
8-11-8

WASHINGTON, DC -- Clearly playing the role of the aggressor, the NATO puppet regime of Mikhail Saakashvili has carried out a midnight sneak attack against Russian peacekeepers in the province of South Ossetia. Those peacekeepers have been there for 15 years under an agreement with Georgia. Saakashvili is a protégé and creature of Zbigniew Brzezinski, the foreign policy boss of the Barack Obama presidential campaign. As is explained in my book Obama- The Postmodern Coup: The Making of a Manchurian Candidate, Saakashvili was brought to power in 2003-2004 by a people power coup or CIA color revolution, directed by the Brzezinski clan and financed by George Soros, one of Obama's key financial backers. In a very real sense, it is the Obama campaign which has attacked Russia in South Ossetia.
 
Responding to this provocation, Russia has struck back powerfully, hurling the Georgian military into full retreat. The 3000% increase in Georgian military spending on US military hardware since 2004 has not had the desired effect. But the Georgians have killed a score of Russian troops and shot down several aircraft. Russia is blockading the Georgian Black Sea coast and has already sunk a Georgian warship. The US regime, the butchers of Iraq, are now whining that the Russian response is "disproportionate," and that regime change is inadmissible! McCain responded by aggressive posturing against Russia scripted by Ian Brzezinski, as expected. At the Olympics, Bush had a heated exchange with Russian Prime Minister Putin over the Georgian aggression. Bush has dropped his plans to attack Iran and North Korea, and is now slavishly following Brzezinski's orders by concentrating on provoking Russian and China.
 
Most interesting is the response of Brzezinski's other puppet, Obama. The Messiah first intoned that it was necessary to show restraint, and stop the armed conflict. He talked then to NSC Director Hadley, Saakashvili, Rice, and unspecified foreign policy advisers ­ undoubtedly the Brzezinskis, Zbig and Mark. Notice Obama's failure to talk with a single Russian leader ­ he failed to bring anybody together this time. Then Obama switched to a full warmonger line, identical to that of Bush: Obama now lied that Russia had invaded Georgian sovereignty and encroached on Russian sovereignty. Obama's spokesman, Ben Rhodes, added that Russia was responsible for the conflict. This goes to show that Obama is a ticket to World War III on the Brzezinski Plan, the crackpot design to break up Russia and China, securing another century for the Anglo-American world empire. Because Brzezinski's strategic insanity unfolds on a scale more vast than that of the neocons, Obama is indeed a far bigger warmonger than Bush.
 
"In his later statement, Mr. Obama said, "What is clear is that Russia has invaded Georgia's sovereign - has encroached on Georgia's sovereignty, and it is very important for us to resolve this issue as quickly as possible,"' The New York Times reported. Obama is morally insane, since Georgia is the aggressor and Russia is acting in self-defense. Russian peacekeepers have been stationed in South Ossetia for about 15 years under a Russian- Georgian bilateral agreement which the provocateur Saakashvili has now chosen to violate. The pseudo-democratic Saakashvili has declared martial law and is proceeding to liquidate his internal opposition ­ a favorite Saakashvili trick. In November 2007, when opposition to the NATO "free market" kleptocrats was getting out of hand after a large demonstration, Saakashvili also declared martial law, suppressing the media and rounding up his opponents. This is the man Obama is supporting.
 
WARMONGER OBAMA BLAMES RUSSIA, MIMICS BUSH, CHENEY
 
"Clearly over the course of the last 24 hours this crisis has escalated," said Ben Rhodes, an Obama foreign policy aide. "Clearly Russia bears the responsibility for that escalation." If this is the 3 AM phone call, Obama has failed miserably. Obama is running for the third term of the dotard warmonger Dick Cheney, who according to AP 'told Georgia's pro-American president that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States."'
 
Predictably, the US controlled corporate media, NPR, PBS, the BBC, and the rest of the Anglo-American media cartel are attempting to cover up the salient fact that this war was started by Georgia. Georgia is unquestionably the aggressor, and a cowardly one at that. It is time to demand that not one soldier, not one penny, not one ship, not one plane be used by the US to support Saakashvili and his gang of kleptocrats and thugs. There must be no NATO membership for Georgia, nor for the similar gang of kleptocrats and thugs ensconced in Kiev, Ukraine, who have declared their full support for Georgia. Russian President Medvedev has pointed out that the Georgians have already killed about 2,000 Ossetians out of a total population of 70,000, and that Georgia is pursuing genocide and ethnic cleansing. These charges are well founded. In the face of imminent military defeat, Saakashvili will have a hard time holding onto power. Russia is unlikely to consider Georgia proper a privileged sanctuary for launching further attacks, and the Tiflis airport and other assets have already been bombed by Russia. Georgia's entire military infrastructure will now be subject to destruction. This lesson will hopefully not be lost on Brzezinski's Ukrainian puppets.
 
South Ossetia can be compared to West Virginia. When Virginia seceded from the Union in 1861, West Virginia soon retaliated by seceding from Virginia. Similarly, when Georgia left the USSR in 1991, South Ossetia chose to remain with North Ossetia, which has been a part of Russia since about 1761. A second West Virginia exists in the form of Abkhazia, another province assigned by Stalin to the Georgian SSR which chose to stay de facto with the Russian Federation. Abkhazia fears a Georgian attack, and has declared a state of emergency, mobilizing its armed forces. Do not be surprised if Abkhazia pre-emptively seizes back some of its territory now held by Georgia.
 
The attack is coherent with Brzezinski's desperate plan to save the collapsing US-UK regime of world domination by finding ways to smash Russia and China, the two serious power centers capable of checkmating Washington and London. As predicted, the epicenter of world confrontation is shifting rapidly away from the Persian Gulf. The method is classic Brzezinski: Zbig, working through the Principals' Committee (Gates, Rice, Paulson, Mullen, Hadley) which rules Washington behind the scenes while the lame ducks Bush and Cheney babble off into the sunset, is playing his Georgia puppet state against Russia, leading in all probability to regime change and possible guerrilla warfare in Georgia. This is exactly what Brzezinski did with Afghanistan in 1979, leading to the collapse of the Soviet Union. It is also what Brzezinski intends to do with Iran. The Georgia-Ossetia war is already the biggest international crisis since 2003, with implications that go far beyond anything involving Iraq or Iran, since we are here dealing with the specter of superpower thermonuclear confrontation ­ a danger which is not immediately present in the Gulf.
 
The Georgia-Ossetia war risks going out of control, and moving the planet towards World War III, in several ways:
 
There are 2,000 Georgian soldiers serving for the US in Iraq. These forces have now been called home. The US is flying them back to Georgia in US military aircraft, a very unfriendly act towards Russia, since these troops will soon be fighting the Russians under present circumstances. What is Russia decided to shoot down these US planes? That would bring World War III much too close for comfort. NBS News reports that the State Department is talking to the Russian Foreign Ministry to avoid just such a highly dangerous mid-air confrontation. American national interest demands that these Georgians be told to get home on their own power, without the US Air Force.
 
The Russian navy is now blockading the Black Sea coast of Georgia. What if the US or other NATO states now decide to send ships carrying humanitarian or military aid to Georgia? A large NATO fleet buildup in the eastern Mediterranean is reported. What if the US, the British, or the French try to break through the Russian naval blockade? If shooting starts, World War III could loom very quickly.
 
The NATO puppet regime in Ukraine controls the bases for the Russian Black Sea fleet. These NATO provocateurs in Kiev are now saying that, since the Russian Black Sea fleet has left those ports to blockade Georgia, they will not be allowed to re-enter their Ukrainian home ports. If shooting starts, this could be a wider war. If the NATO Tusk regime in Poland, yet another gaggle of Brzezinski puppets, decides to come in on the side of the Ukrainians, then Warsaw could invoke the NATO alliance, and the US could soon be at war with Russia.
 
Ukraine could also decide to support Georgia with ground troops. If the Ukrainians get into trouble, they will call on the Poles, and the Poles will call on NATO, also threatening to drag the US into a real war of catastrophic proportions.
 
Letting Poland join NATO was supreme folly. We are fortunate that Georgia and Ukraine are not NATO members already. American national interest demands good relations with Russia. The United States must not be carried towards World War III as the tail of the Brzezinski- Obama kite. There must be no support for Saakashvili and his gang.

http://www.rense.com/general82/indt.htm

[UpsetBrit]

Kouchner is Bilderberg and a charity man. Enough said there!

I'm currently reminded of my dream of Russian bombers destroying my town. I hope it doesn't happen, but if NATO/US/UK gets officially involved....

[UpsetBrit]

Update from Russia-Today:

Georgia resumed shelling of South Ossetia and a Georgian plane has attacked Russian troops in South Ossetia. Several Russian troops injured in the plane attack.

[bigron]

"Bodies are lying everywhere. It’s hell’

By Mark Franchetti, Moscow

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4493620.ece

10/08/08 "The Times" -- - OLEG KALCHAKEYEV sighed with relief as he watched the evening news on Thursday.

The reports told of renewed skir-mishes between separatist rebels seeking South Ossetian independence and the Georgian army – but also revealed that Mikhail Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, had declared a ceasefire. On Friday, so the young leader said, the two sides would sit down to negotiate.

Kalchakeyev, a car mechanic from Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian capital, told his son: “At least we’ll be able to watch the Olympics.”

Only a few hours later, however, shortly before dawn, Kalchakeyev woke up to the sound of explosions. He looked out of the window and saw the night sky over Tskhinvali filled with tracer fire. A barrage of Grad and Katyusha rockets followed.
  It is unclear who first violated the ceasefire, but less than eight hours after Saakashvili’s pledge, the Georgian president had ordered his troops to retake South Ossetia by force.
“Suddenly there was a massive explosion which hit a house down the road from us,” said Kalchakeyev, who managed to flee across the border to Russia.

“Our windows shattered and I jumped for cover. I grabbed my son and wife and ran down to the basement, where I was joined by dozens of other civilians. The bombing only got worse. It was relentless and went on for hours. I never thought it would come to this – Georgians bombing us – not in my wildest imagination.”

As Vladimir Putin and George W Bush gathered with world leaders at the so-called bird’s nest stadium in Beijing for the Olympic opening ceremony, war was breaking out between Putin’s Russia and Bush’s client state Georgia.

Within hours, Russia sent its tanks rampaging into South Ossetia – even though it still officially recognises it as Georgian sovereign territory – and yesterday it ordered its air force to attack Georgian targets.

Apartment blocks were on fire in Gori, 15 miles from South Ossetia. Afterwards, a woman knelt in the street and screamed over the body of a dead man.

Another old woman covered in blood stared into the distance, and a man knelt by the road, his head in his hands.

“Why do I have to go through this again?” asked one woman, who said she had survived the second world war. “Why can’t we just live in peace?”

A wave of shock and apprehension gripped the region as survivors asked themselves whether Georgia was about to follow Chechnya into another Caucasian war.

Yesterday it emerged that Tskhinvali, a quiet, small town, had been all but destroyed by the initial Georgian attack on Friday.

As a barrage of artillery fell on its outskirts, Georgian tanks moved into the centre, where they were met with fierce resistance from South Ossetian separatist rebels.

“Georgian snipers are taking down anything that moves, even outside the town’s hospital, which is making it hard to deliver the wounded. They are not sparing anyone,” claimed a South Ossetian government spokesman.

The presidential palace of a region of only 70,000 inhabitants was in flames as intense hand-to-hand fighting broke out across the town. Ordinary apartment blocks were pounded as the remains of Georgian tanks struck by rocket-propelled grenades stood burning in the middle of the street.

“It’s hell,” said Zara Valiyeva, a local journalist trapped in the city. “Houses are being hit around us by rockets. We have no food but it’s too dangerous to go out.”

Battered Ladas delivered the wounded to the town’s hospital, which according to several reports was also badly hit.

“There were bodies lying everywhere, in the streets, around ruined buildings, in cars. There is hardly a single building left undamaged,” said Ludmilla, a woman who fled the town during the fighting.

“The city is burning,” stated a local resident, Oleg Repukhov, in a text message from a basement he took refuge in.

“Grad missiles are falling. They are taking the city. We are running out of ammunition. Where’s our f***ing help!!?” he wrote before the line went down.

“We never thought this could happen,” said Fatima Kochieva, a 47-year-old mother of two who lived on Tskhinvali’s southern outskirts, where the first Georgian artillery shells landed. “It all happened so quickly. Suddenly we were in the middle of heavy fighting. I saw our neighbour’s house get a direct hit. I took cover with the kids in the basement. It was terrifying.”

It took the Georgian army, which in the past few years has received US training and equipment, only a few hours to take the town.

Huge bomb craters cut through the streets. Blackened Soviet-era apartment block buildings were in flames; dead bodies of fighters and civilians lay on the ground amid the rubble. The remains of Georgian armed vehicles hit by grenades lay upside down close to the central square. Power and water supplies were cut off.

“The town is destroyed. There are many casualties, many wounded,” said Zaid Tsarnayev, a resident. “I was in the hospital on Friday where I saw many civilian wounded. The hospital was later destroyed by a Georgian jet.”

Russia’s response to the crisis was swift. Tank columns from the 58th army rolled across the border into South Ossetia. Backed by Russian fighter jets that pounded the Georgian army’s position, they quickly advanced towards Tskhinvali.

“Russia will not close its eyes on the deaths of Russian citizens in South Ossetia,” warned Dmitry Medvedev, the new Russian president.

Hundreds of volunteers from across the Caucasus – including scores of Cossacks – continued to cross into the disputed enclave to help the South Ossetian separatists.

Yesterday morning the Russians stepped up the pressure by sending in their Spetsnaz special forces. Clashes were reported in and around Tskhinvali but by midday the Russians had pushed the Georgians back, establishing a big military presence that Moscow will argue needs to stay for the fore-seeable future as a “peacekeeping” force.

Georgia’s interior ministry claimed that Russian warplanes had bombed a military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and three military bases on the Black Sea port of Poti. Russia denied the claims. Georgia also claimed to have shot down 10 Russian planes. The Russians said they had lost two.

It was when Russian jets attacked Gori, a small Georgian town to the south of the fighting, that the worst bloodshed occurred.

Richard Galpin of the BBC was the first foreign reporter on the scene. He said: “We saw the impact of the air strikes – buildings on fire. We could hear the Russian jets above us. In one strike the pilot missed the intended military base, instead hitting two apartment blocks.

“When we arrived, flames were pouring out of the buildings and people were still trapped inside. We saw injured civilians being pulled from the buildings.”

Roots of the conflict

Why is the Caucasus so important?

Because it is the only route for Central Asian oil supplies that does not cross Russia. Throughout the 19th century Russia fought wars to control the region and Moscow considers the area a key part of its sphere of influence.

Why does South Ossetia want to break away?

Most of its people speak their own language and feel closer to the Russians than the Georgians. They say they were absorbed into Georgia after the fall of the old Soviet Union. The 70,000 South Ossetians want independence – just like Kosovo, the breakaway Serbian province.

Why are the Georgians so upset about South Ossetia?

Because they see it as a Russian outpost funded largely from Moscow, and where most people carry Russian passports.

Why has Georgia’s president chosen to raise the issue now?

Because he thought everyone was focused on the Olympics and the Russians would hesitate to respond with force.

Why has Russia been willing to go to war?

The Kremlin is angry about western, particularly American military support for Georgia, its desire to join Nato and US plans for a missile defence shield in Europe.

Will anyone else intervene?

Unlikely, western armies are busy and the prospect of taking on Russia is not enticing.

What happens next?

The Georgians will back down looking like the bad guys. Both sides will go back to hating each other. Result: Russia 1, Georgia 0.

[bigron]

Petraeus: US is Flying Georgian Troops into Battle Zone

Exclusive: Deborah Haynes, Baghdad
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/iraq/article4498032.ece


10/08/08 "The Times"---- -  'US aircraft have started to fly some of Georgia’s 2,000 troops in Iraq back home to join the fight in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, General David Petraeus, the top US commander in Iraq said toda

“The flights are ongoing to redeploy the elements of the Georgian contingent so that they can deal with the security issues in their country,” General Petraeus told The Times in an interview at his office inside Baghdad’s Green Zone.

He said measures were already in place to mitigate the impact on operations in Iraq of the sudden departure of the soldiers.

“We can accommodate that. Obviously it was not expected but it is something, the effects of which we can certainly mitigate.”

The Georgian contingent has been taking part in an operation with US and Iraqi forces to clear the south-eastern corner of Diyala province, north of Baghdad, a known al-Qaeda stronghold.

Some 150 Georgian soldiers also guard the Iraqi Parliament building as well as other key structures inside Baghdad’s fortified Green Zone.

In addition, one battalion is helping to support the Iraqi security forces in Wasit province, south of the capital, near the Iranian border.

what happens if a US military plane carry troops into a combat zone is shot down (accidentally!) by Russians? US troops did joint exercises in Georgia last month, are they still there?

jc, white plains ny, usa

God Bless America!! Just another example of U.S. interference in another country's affairs. One of these days it is all going to come back & bite them. I suppose this will become part of the Obama/McCain platform? We screwed up/lied in Iraq so we might as well move on to Georgia.

IAN RAYBURN, Gloucester, Canada

What? 1000 soldiers to face the Red Army? Who's their leader? Leonidas?

Eugene, heidelberg, germany

[bigron]

'US incited Georgia offensive in S. Ossetia'


Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:57:00 GMT
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66208&sectionid=351020602
 
 

The White House has orchestrated the current conflict between Russia and Georgia in South Ossetia, a high-ranking Russian official says.

In a Friday press conference, Chairman of Russia's State Duma Security Committee Vladimir Vasilyev said without US aid, Tbilisi would have been unable to start military operation in South Ossetia.

Georgian military forces launched a large-scale military offensive against South Ossetia on Thursday evening. Russia, in response, moved its forces to the region.

The battles between Georgian and Russian forces have left at least 1500 people dead.

Vasilyev said the situation in South Ossetia draws parallels to the wars in Iraq and Kosovo.

"The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America," the Russian official added.

According to Vasilyev, the US State Department refused to comment on reports by South Ossetian defense officials that Georgia was planning an imminent aggression.

"In essence, the Americans have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals," he expounded.

South Ossetia is officially a Georgian province but a large number of its population of 70,000 possess Russian passports and have strong links with North Ossetia, a Russian territory.

MD/HGH

 
Related News
 Israel 'has a hand in S. Ossetia war' :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66203&sectionid=351020202
 
 Abkhazia declares 'state of war' :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66172&sectionid=351020606
 
 Putin accuses Georgia of genocide :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66147&sectionid=351020602
 
 US official: Tblisi shares blame  :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66132&sectionid=351020606


 
 

[bigron]

War between Russia and Georgia orchestrated from USA

By Pravda

http://www.informationclearinghouse.info/article20469.htm

09/08/08 "Pravda" -- The US administration urged for an immediate cease-fire in the conflict between Russia and Georgia over the unrecognized republic of South Ossetia.

In the meantime, Russian officials believe that it was the USA that orchestrated the current conflict. The chairman of the State Duma Committee for Security, Vladimir Vasilyev, believes that the current conflict is South Ossetia is very reminiscent to the wars in Iraq and Kosovo.

“The things that were happening in Kosovo, the things that were happening in Iraq – we are now following the same path. The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America. South Ossetian defense officials used to make statements about imminent aggression from Georgia, but the latter denied everything, whereas the US Department of State released no comments on the matter. In essence, they have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals. They are responsible for this. The world community will learn about it,” the official said.

In the meantime, it became known that the Georgian troops conducted volley-fire cleansings of several South Ossetian settlements, where people’s houses were simply leveled.

“The number of victims with women, children and elderly people among them, can be counted in hundreds and even thousands,” a source from South Ossetian government in the capital of Tskhinvali said.

The head of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Sergei Lavrov, told reporters that Georgia’s actions in South Ossetia question its consistency as a state and as a responsible member of the international community, Interfax reports.

"Civilians, including women, children and elderly people, are dying in South Ossetia. In addition to that, Georgia conducts ethnic scouring in South Ossetian villages. The situation in South Ossetia continues to worsen every hour. Georgia uses military hardware and heavy arms against people. They shell residential quarters of Tskhinvali [the capital] and other settlements. They bomb the humanitarian convoys. The number of refugees continues to rise – the people try to save their lives, the lives of their children and relatives. A humanitarian catastrophe is gathering pace,” Russia’s Foreign Minister said.

The minister added that the Georgian administration ignored the appeal from the UN General Assembly to observe the Olympic truce during the Beijing Olympics.

The Georgian administration has found the use to its arms, which they have been purchasing during the recent several years,” Lavrov said. “The fact that Georgian peacemakers in the structure of joint peacemaking forces opened fire on their Russian comrades from one and the same contingent speaks for itself, I think,” the minister added.

“Now it is clear to us why Georgia never accepted Russia’s offer to sign a legally binding document not to use force for the regulation of the South Ossetian conflict,” Lavrov said. “Not so long ago, before the military actions in South Ossetia, Georgia’s President Saakashvili said that there was no point in such a document because Georgia would not use force against its people, as he said. It just so happens that it is using it,” Sergei Lavrov said.

Sergei Lavrov believes that the international community should stop turning a blind eye on Georgia’s active deals to purchase arms.

“We have repeatedly warned that the international community should not turn a blind eye on massive purchases of offensive arms, in which the Georgian administration has been involved during the recent two years,” Lavrov said.

[Cobra]

'US incited Georgia offensive in S. Ossetia'


Sun, 10 Aug 2008 20:57:00 GMT
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66208&sectionid=351020602
 
 

The White House has orchestrated the current conflict between Russia and Georgia in South Ossetia, a high-ranking Russian official says.

In a Friday press conference, Chairman of Russia's State Duma Security Committee Vladimir Vasilyev said without US aid, Tbilisi would have been unable to start military operation in South Ossetia.

Georgian military forces launched a large-scale military offensive against South Ossetia on Thursday evening. Russia, in response, moved its forces to the region.

The battles between Georgian and Russian forces have left at least 1500 people dead.

Vasilyev said the situation in South Ossetia draws parallels to the wars in Iraq and Kosovo.

"The further the situation unfolds, the more the world will understand that Georgia would never be able to do all this without America," the Russian official added.

According to Vasilyev, the US State Department refused to comment on reports by South Ossetian defense officials that Georgia was planning an imminent aggression.

"In essence, the Americans have prepared the force, which destroys everything in South Ossetia, attacks civilians and hospitals," he expounded.

South Ossetia is officially a Georgian province but a large number of its population of 70,000 possess Russian passports and have strong links with North Ossetia, a Russian territory.

MD/HGH

 
Related News
 Israel 'has a hand in S. Ossetia war' :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66203&sectionid=351020202
 
 Abkhazia declares 'state of war' :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66172&sectionid=351020606
 
 Putin accuses Georgia of genocide :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66147&sectionid=351020602
 
 US official: Tblisi shares blame  :
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66132&sectionid=351020606


 
 

What exactly did Georgia do in this conflict? They had a pathetic showing. The more this goes on the more it seems like Sakhashvili may have taken this particular route on his own. It is evident that Georgia is woefully under equipped. Russian Jets bomb their cities with impunity. If the US orchestrated this than at least they would have a SAM system in place to deter potential Russian jet attacks.


Btw, Putin should be the last person on earth to cry Genocide. He's very familiar with ethnic cleansing in Chechnya.

[Triadtropz]

with putin calling this a genocide ..I guess the propoganda wheels are spinning full out on both sides..I see the US as the big loser here..they've appointed themselves world policeman..and georgia called 911..and the phone was disconnected..

[bigron]

The Real Aggressor
Georgian invasion of South Ossetia sets the stage for a wider war

by Justin Raimondo
August 11, 2008
http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13285

The anti-Russian bias of the Western media is really something to behold: "Russia Invades Georgia," "Russia Attacks Georgia," and variations thereof have been some of the choice headlines reporting events in the Caucasus, but the reality is not only quite different, but the exact opposite. Sometimes this comes out in the third or fourth paragraph of the reportage, in which it is admitted that the Georgians tried to "retake" the "breakaway province" of South Ossetia. The Georgian bombing campaign and the civilian casualties – if they are mentioned at all – are downplayed and presented as subject to dispute.

The Georgians have been openly engaging in a military buildup since last year, and President Mikhail Saakashvili and his party have been proclaiming from the rooftops their aim of re-conquering South Ossetia (and rebellious Abkhazia, while they're at it). Avid readers of Antiwar.com saw this coming. In a column entitled "Wars to Watch Out For," I wrote:

"As President Mikheil Saakashvili deflowers his own revolution and shuts down the opposition media, he could well try to divert attention away from his political problems by ginning up a fresh conflict with the breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, both of which are protected by Russian troops and regional militias."

That's what Western reporters aren't telling their readers: the South Ossetians (and the Abkhazians) have had de facto independence since 1991, when they rose up against their "democratic" central government, which had banned regional parties from participating in elections. They beat back the Georgian army, which, nonetheless, inflicted a lot of casualties and damage. A low-level war has been in progress ever since, with Saakashvili and his ultra-nationalist party using the rebels as a foil to divert attention from their repressive domestic policies and Georgia's sad status as an economic basket case. As I wrote way back at the beginning of this year:

"Saakashvili, the great 'democrat,' is busy charging anyone who opposes him with being a pawn of the Russians (and therefore guilty of treason), but the West is calling on him to restore civil liberties – and, in an apparent effort to propitiate his Western benefactors, he has lifted some restrictions and called new elections. Widespread and growing opposition to his strong-arm tactics, even among many of his former supporters, spells political trouble for Saakashvili and his corrupt cohorts, however – and an appeal to Georgian ultra-nationalism (which was always the real ideological motivation of the Rose Revolutionaries) would bolster him in the polls and provide a much-needed distraction, at least from the ruling party's point of view."

What's particularly disgusting is the spectacle of the fraudulent Saakashvili's smug mug all over Western television – the BBC and Bloomberg, for starters – invoking his great love of "democracy" and "freedom" and calling on the U.S. to intervene in the name of supposedly shared "values." What drivel! Up until very recently, Saakashvili has been busy rounding up his political opponents and charging them with espionage, as his police beat demonstrators in the streets. When this happened, even our somnolent media sat up and took notice, but they seem to have forgotten.

Saakashvili uses the Western media as a platform to broadcast his great love for "freedom" and make the case against the Russian "aggressors," comparing the present conflict with the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in the 1980s – and even the bloody 1956 repression of the Hungarians! This is nonsense. Russia is not the Soviet Union, the Iron Curtain has long since been melted down for scrap metal, and, if anything, Saakashvili resembles the Hungarian satraps of the Kremlin rather than the heroic freedom-fighters, given his absolute fealty to his foreign masters in Washington, to whom he appeals for help in putting down an internal rebellion.

In any case, it wasn't too hard to have seen this coming a mile away, or to predict the American government's response. As I wrote in "Wars To Watch Out For":

"In the event of an outbreak of hostilities, expect the U.S. to do what they have done for the duration of Georgia's political crisis: proffer unconditional support to Saakashvili. With Russia aiding and giving political and diplomatic support to the Abkhazians and the Ossetians, and the Americans letting loose a flood of military aid to Tbilisi, this could be the first theater of actual conflict in the new cold war."

Which is precisely what has occurred. The United States is denouncing the Russians as aggressors in the UN Security Council and accusing the Kremlin of engaging in a policy of "regime change," in Ambassador Khalilzad's phrase. The Russian response: "regime change" is "an American invention," but, hey, in Saakashvili's case, it might not be such a bad idea.

They have a point. The Georgian strongman is a thug and an opportunist who does an excellent imitation of George W. Bush-times-10: whereas GWB merely implies his political opponents are traitors to the nation, Saakashvili comes right out and says it – then drags them into court on trumped up charges of high treason. GWB has presided over a regime that has legalized torture, but only for foreign "terrorists" (José Padilla excepted). Saakashvili, on the other hand, throws his domestic political opponents – whom he labels "terrorists" – in jail and tortures his own countrymen. Georgia's notorious prisons are chock full of political dissidents. GWB justifies his aggression by invoking "democracy" and the doctrine of "preemption," while Saakashvili doesn't bother with such theoretical niceties, denying his aggression against South Ossetia in defiance of the plain facts.

In short: if you love GWB, you'll love President Saakashvili. Therefore it's no surprise John McCain is portraying the Georgians as the good guys and demanding that Russian troops leave "sovereign Georgian territory" without preconditions or delay. After all, when your chief foreign policy adviser has up until very recently been a paid shill for the Georgian government, what else could we expect? As I've pointed out on a few occasions in this space, Mad John has been spoiling for a fight with the Russians – in the Caucasus and elsewhere – for years, going so far as to travel to Georgia to proclaim his sympathy for Saakashvili's cause.

What's really interesting, however, is how Barack Obama has taken up this same cause, albeit with less vehemence than the GOP nominee. As Politico.com reported:

"When violence broke out in the Caucasus on Friday morning, John McCain quickly issued a statement that was far more strident toward the Russians than that of President Bush, Barack Obama, and much of the West. But, as Russian warplanes pounded Georgian targets far beyond South Ossetia this weekend, Bush, Obama, and others have moved closer to McCain's initial position."

While calling for mediation and international peacekeepers, Obama went with the War Party's line that Russia, not Georgia, is the aggressor, as the Times of London reports: "Obama accused Russia of escalating the crisis 'through it's clear and continued violation of Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity.'" While his first statement on the outbreak of hostilities was more along the lines of "Can't we all get along?", the New York Times notes:

"Mr. Obama did harden his rhetoric later on Friday, shortly before getting on a plane for a vacation in Hawaii. His initial statement, an adviser said, was released before there were confirmed reports of the Russian invasion. In his later statement, Mr. Obama said, 'What is clear is that Russia has invaded Georgia's sovereign – has encroached on Georgia's sovereignty, and it is very important for us to resolve this issue as quickly as possible.'"

This nonsense about Georgia's alleged "sovereignty" rides roughshod over the reality of the Ossetians' apparent determination to free themselves from Saakashvili's grip, and it's the buzzword that identifies a shill for the Georgians.

"I condemn Russia's aggressive actions," said Obama, "and reiterate my call for an immediate cease-fire." This cease-fire business is meant to feed directly into the Georgians' contention that they have offered to stop the conflict, even as they continue military operations in South Ossetia, which have already cost the lives of over a thousand of that country's inhabitants.

That didn't stop the McCainiacs from attacking Obama as a tool of the Kremlin. Sunday the news talk shows were abuzz with rumors of Democratic discontent over Obama's seeming inability to hit back at McCain's viciously negative campaign, yet it's much worse than that – it's not an unwillingness, but an inherent inability to do so. I hate to cite Andrew Sullivan favorably, but he was one of the first to note the convergence of the Obama camp and the McCain campaign on such central issues as Iran, and the process continues with this confluence of opinion on the Russian question. While the Obama people have dutifully pointed out that Randy Scheunemann, McCain's foreign policy guru, earned hundreds of thousands of dollars for his public relations firm as a paid lobbyist for the Georgians, their own candidate's position on the matter differs little from McCain's, except, as the New York Times notes, in terms of "style."

GWB recently assured Saakashvili that he would do his best to get the Georgians into NATO, but the Europeans – particularly the Germans – are balking, and this foray by the Georgian Napoleon into a direct conflict with the Russians seems to confirm their initial reluctance. The Euros are no dummies: they know Saakashvili's recklessness could plunge the entire region into an armed conflict that would resemble World War I in its utter stupidity.

I've written at length about the economic and political interests that stand to profit from a war in the Caucasus, and I won't repeat myself here except to note that the timing of this – with attacking Iran on the War Party's agenda – should alert us to the importance of what is happening. Russia has not only been opposed to Iran's victimization at the hands of the West, but Putin and his successor have taken up Tehran's cause, selling arms and technology to the Iranians and running diplomatic interference on their behalf. This is Washington's counterattack by proxy.

Please don't tell me Saakashvili just woke up one day and decided to attack Ossetia, and that the Americans weren't notified well in advance. Georgia depends on U.S. military and economic aid, and Saakashvili is a savvy operator: he is pulling a Lebanon, having learned from the Israeli example, and the Bush administration is more than glad to oblige him. Georgian tanks would never have rolled into South Ossetia without being given a green light by Washington.

Georgia has embarked on a very dangerous course, and it's important to realize it hasn't done so alone. Saakashvili has the implicit backing of Washington in his quest to re-conquer the "lost" provinces of Ossetia and Abkhazia (and don't forget Adjaria!) – or else what are 1,000 U.S. troops doing engaged in "joint military exercises" with the Georgian military, just as the crisis reaches crescendo of violence? (The Brits, to their credit, have thought better of getting dragged into this one…)

It's too bad Obama is going along with the game plan, but then again, he was never good on the Russian question to begin with, so I can't say I'm disappointed. South Ossetia is not now a part of "sovereign Georgian territory," and it hasn't been for nearly two decades, no matter what McCain and Obama would have us believe. If they, along with GWB, are going to stand by Saakashvili's side as he mows down civilians and imposes martial law on a war-torn, dirt-poor, and much-abused people, then may they all be damned to hell – that is, if we can find a rung low enough for them.

It's funny – if you like your humor black – but when Slobodan Milosevic was supposedly doing to Kosovo what Saakashvili is now doing to South Ossetia, the U.S. launched bombing raids and "liberated" the Kosovars from what we were told was to be a gruesome fate. There are many reasons to doubt that this attempted "genocide" ever took place, but given that something very bad was going on in the former Yugoslavia, one has to ask: why don't the same standards apply to South Ossetia?

I'll tell you why: because the victims, this time, are Russians, Slavs who haven't achieved official victim status in the lexicon of Western "humanitarians."

Imagine if, say, Colombia invaded Panama, and rained bombs down on the many U.S. citizens currently living there. Would the U.S. act to ensure their safety? You betcha! So somebody please tell me why Russia hasn't the right to defend its own citizens, and even to deter and punish Georgian aggression.

The War Party has been running on some pretty low energy lately, and this revival of the Cold War will no doubt recharge its batteries. The warmongers need a new enemy, a fresh face in their rogues' gallery, to get the masses excited again, and Putin's Russia fits the bill. I've been warning of this possibility for what seems like years, and now the moment is upon us. What's interesting is how many left-liberal "peaceniks" are falling for the War Party's guff and lining up behind McCain, their hero Obama, and the neocons in the march to confrontation with the Kremlin.

~ Justin Raimondo
Copyright Antiwar.com

[bigron]

Getting Georgia's War On
By Mark Ames

http://www.thenation.com/doc/20080818/ames

August 8, 2008

The outbreak of war in Georgia on Friday offers a disturbing and somewhat surreal taste of what to expect from John McCain should he become our nation's Commander in Chief. As the centuries-old ethnic animosities between Georgia and Ossetia boiled over into another armed conflict, drawing in neighboring Russia, McCain issued a stark-raving statement from Des Moines that is disturbingly reminiscent of the language used in the lead-up to NATO's war against Yugoslavia in 1999, a war McCain zealously pushed for:



Matt Taibbi & Mark Ames

"We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia's security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation," McCain said.

Calling on NATO to "stabilize this dangerous situation" is not going down well with Russia, where images of dead Russian peacekeepers and of frightened Ossetian refugees streaming across its borders have put the country in a very vengeful mood. It's hard to imagine what measures NATO could take under a McCain presidency, but in the mind of a man who thinks US troops should stay in Iraq for 100 years, and who runs around singing "Bomb Bomb Iran!" it's not hard to guess--and even harder not to be horrified by what it may mean come January 2009, should he win.

McCain's call to NATO-ize the war is not only frightening, it's also delusional: both NATO and US forces are already stretched beyond the breaking point, even by Joint Chief of Staff chairman Michael Millen's own recent assessment.

But McCain's brain remains undeterred by reality, a fact that became painfully clear today in Des Moines when he also demanded, "The US should immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to call on Russia to reverse course."

The problem with McCain's bold demand about going to the UN is that Russia already tried doing exactly what McCain called for--and got rejected by McCain's neocon pals in the Bush Administration. Early this morning, Russia convened an emergency session of the UN Security Council, calling on both sides to immediately cease hostilities, return to the negotiating table and renounce the use of force--but the last part about renouncing the use of force is exactly what Georgia's president Mikhail Saakashvili refuses to do.

The Bush Administration showed that it too has no patience with crunchy "renounce the use of force" resolutions. According to a Reuters report from earlier in the day:

At the request of Russia, the U.N. Security Council held an emergency session in New York but failed to reach consensus early Friday on a Russian-drafted statement.

The council concluded it was at a stalemate after the United States, Britain and some other members backed the Georgians in rejecting a phrase in the three-sentence draft statement that would have required both sides "to renounce the use of force," council diplomats said.

The meaning of this is clear: the United States and Britain are backing Saakashvili's invasion. Why would we back Saakashvili's reckless war, when last year even Bush was denouncing the Pinochet-wannabe's violent attack on his own people during a peaceful opposition protest in Georgia's capital, as well as shutting down the opposition media and exiling of political opponents? That would be a brain-teaser if the last seven years hadn't answered this question so many painful times already.

But with McCain, answering this is a little trickier. When he issued today's Des Moines statement calling for Russia to do what Russia already did a few hours earlier, you have to ask yourself: either McCain's short-term memory is totally shot, encased in an impenetrable tomb of aluminum-zirconium plaque... or worse, McCain simply doesn't give a damn about reality, he just wants to get Georgia's war on, as badly as Saakashvili does.

The awful truth is probably a combination of the two, which is the worst of all worlds, considering McCain's raving Russophobia, and his campaign team's financial and ideological ties to Saakashvili. As has been reported, McCain's top foreign policy advisor, neocon Randy Scheunemann, has a long financial relationship with Saakashvili to lobby his interests in the United States.

According to the Wall Street Journal:

In 2005, Mr. Scheunemann asked Sen. McCain to introduce a Senate resolution expressing support for peace in the Russian-influenced region of South Ossetia that wants to break away from Georgia, the records show.

Such resolutions of Senate support are symbolic but helpful to countries in their diplomatic relations. The Senate approved Sen. McCain's resolution in December 2005, and the Georgian Embassy posted the text on its Web site.

Sen. McCain has endorsed Georgia's goal of entering NATO, a matter for which the country hired Mr. Scheunemann to lobby. In 2006, Senator McCain gave a speech at the Munich Conference on Security in Germany in which he said "Georgia has implemented far-reaching political, economic, and military reforms" and should enter NATO, a text of his speech on the conference Web site shows.

Scheunemann, a bearded, pear-faced gun geek who looks like what might have happened to a GI Joe doll if it had spent years stuffing its face at pricey restaurants while power-schmoozing politicians and petty dictators, also worked for recently-disgraced Bush fundraiser Stephen Payne, lobbying for his Caspian Alliance oil business. The Caspian oil pipeline runs through Georgia, the main reason that country has tugged the heartstrings of neocons and oil plutocrats for at least a decade or more.

In 2006, McCain visited Georgia and denounced the South Ossetian separatists, proving that Scheunemann wasn't wasting his Georgian sponsor's money. At a speech he gave in a Georgian army base in Senaki, McCain declared that Georgia was America's "best friend," and that Russian peacekeepers should be thrown out.

Today, Georgian forces from that same Senaki base are part of the invasion force into South Ossetia, an invasion that has left scores--perhaps hundreds--of dead locals, at least ten dead Russian peacekeepers, and 140 million pissed-off Russians calling for blood.

Lost in all of this is not only the question of why America would risk an apocalypse to help a petty dictator like Saakashvili get control of a region that doesn't want any part of him. But no one's bothering to ask what the Ossetians themselves think about it, or why they're fighting for their independence in the first place. That's because the Georgians--with help from lobbyists like Scheunemann--have been pushing the line that South Ossetia is a fiction, a construct of evil Kremlin neo-Stalinists, rather than a people with a genuine grievance.

A few years ago, I had an Ossetian working as the sales director for my now-defunct newspaper, The eXile. After listening to me rave about how much I always (and still do) like the Georgians, he finally lost it and told me another side to Georgian history, explaining how the Georgians had always mistreated the Ossetians, and how the South Ossetians wanted to reunite with North Ossetia in order to avoid being swallowed up, and how this conflict goes way back, long before the Soviet Union days. It was clear that the Ossetian-Georgian hatred was old and deep, like many ethnic conflicts in this region. Indeed, a number of Caucasian ethnic groups still harbor deep resentment towards Georgia, accusing them of imperialism, chauvinism and arrogance.

One example of this can be found in historian Bruce Lincoln's book, Red Victory, in which he writes about the period of Georgia's brief independence from 1917 to 1921, a time when Georgia was backed by Britain:

the Georgian leaders quickly moved to widen their borders at the expense of their Armenian and Azerbaijani neighbors, and their territorial greed astounded foreign observers. 'The free and independent socialist democratic state of Georgia will always remain in my memory as a classic example of an imperialist small nation," one British journalist wrote.... "Both in territory snatching outside and bureaucratic tyranny inside, its chauvinism was beyond all bounds."

On Thursday, following intense Georgian shelling and katyusha rocketing into Tskhinvali, refugees streamed out of South Ossetia telling reporters that the Georgians had completely leveled entire villages and most of Tskhinvali, leaving "piles of corpses" in the streets, over 1,000 by some counts. Among the dead are at least ten Russian peacekeepers, who fell after their base was attacked by Georgian forces. Reports also say that Georgian forces destroyed a hotel where Russian journalists were staying.

In response, Russian jets bombed Georgian positions both inside South Ossetia and into Georgia proper, attacking one base where American military instructors are quartered (no Americans were reported hurt). By mid-afternoon Moscow time, as local television showed burning homes and Ossetian women and children huddling in bomb shelters, armored Russian columns were crossing into Georgian territory, and Georgia's President called for a total mobilization of military-aged men for war with Russia.

The invasion was backed up by a PR offensive so layered and sophisticated that I even got an hysterical call today from a hedge fund manager in New York, screaming about an "investor call" that Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze made this morning with some fifty leading Western investment bank managers and analysts. I've since seen a J.P. Morgan summary of the conference call, which pretty much reflects the talking points later picked up by the US media.

These kinds of conference calls are generally conducted by the heads of companies in order to give banking analysts guidance. But as the hedge fund manager told me today, "The reason Lado did this is because he knew the enormous PR value that Georgia would gain by going to the money people and analysts, particularly since Georgia is clearly the aggressor this time." As a former investment banker who worked in London and who used to head the Bank of Georgia, Gurgenidze knew what he was doing. "Lado is a former banker himself, so he knew that by framing the conflict for the most influential bankers and analysts in New York, that these power bankers would then write up reports and go on CNBC and argue Lado Gurgenidze's talking points. It was brilliant, and now you're starting to see the American media shift its coverage from calling it Georgia invading Ossetian territory, to the new spin, that it's Russian imperial aggression against tiny little Georgia."

The really scary thing about this investor conference call is that it suggests real planning. As the hedge fund manager told me, "These things aren't set up on an hour's notice."

Where this war is leading is impossible to say, but as Iraq and Afghanistan, not to mention Chechnya, have shown, wars have a funny way of lasting longer, costing more in money and lives, and snuffing out whatever individual liberties the affected populations may have. As good as this war is for Saakashvili, who has become increasingly unpopular at home and abroad, or for McCain, whose poll numbers seem to rise every time the plaque devours another lobe of his brain, it also bodes well for the resurgent Prime Minister Putin, who seems to have become increasingly peeved with his hand-picked successor, President Dmitry Medvedev's flickering independence and his liberalizer shtick. There's nothing like a good war to snuff out an uppity sois-disant liberal who's getting in your way--even McCain can still grasp this concept.

As I'm filing this, Russian forces are battling to take back Tskhinvali, while Saakashvili has been alternately claiming to have pulled his forces back, or that his forces are in full control of the city and defeating the Russians. Meanwhile, Georgia has been on a massive, successful, multi-layered PR offensive in the West, helped by years of cultivating people like John McCain as well as the army of neocons and old cold warriors who naturally gravitate to a fight with Russia.

About Mark Ames
Mark Ames is the editor of Moscow's alternative paper The eXile. He is the author of Going Postal: Rage, Murder and Rebellion From Reagan's Workplaces to Clinton's Columbine and Beyond (Soft Skull) and The eXile: Sex, Drugs and Libel in the New Russia (Grove). more...

[bigron]

Russia expands bombing blitz, deploys ships; Georgia reports ground assault

MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI
AP News
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=290260

Aug 11, 2008 00:14 EST

Russia and Georgia clashed on land and at sea Sunday despite a Georgian cease-fire offer and claim of withdrawal from the separatist province of South Ossetia, officials from both countries said.

Georgian officials said Russian planes bombed an area near the Georgian capital's airport and Russian tanks moved from South Ossetia into Georgian territory, heading toward a strategic city before being turned back.

A Russian general said Georgian forces directed heavy fire at positions around Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, early Monday, even though Georgia had claimed to be withdrawing from the shattered city and called for a cease-fire.

"Active fighting has been going on in several zones," the Interfax news agency quoted Maj. Gen. Marat Kulakhmetov as saying. He is commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent that has been in South Ossetia since 1992.

Russia also claimed to have sunk a Georgian boat that tried to attack Russian vessels in the Black Sea.

Russia appears determined to subdue diminutive, U.S.-backed Georgia despite international condemnation. Russia ignored a wave of calls to observe Georgia's cease-fire, saying it must first be assured that Georgian troops had indeed pulled back from South Ossetia.

President Bush on Monday sharply criticized Moscow's harsh military crackdown, saying the violence is unacceptable and Russia's response is disproportionate.

Bush, in an interview with NBC Sports, said, "I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia." He said he did so directly to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and by phone to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

International envoys were trying to end the conflict before it spreads throughout the Caucasus, a region plagued by ethnic tensions. But it was unclear what inducements or pressure the envoys could bring to bear, or to what extent either side was truly sensitive to world opinion.

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said one of the Russian raids on the airport area came a half hour before the arrival of the foreign ministers of France and Finland.

Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Temur Yakobashvili said Russian tanks tried to cross from South Ossetia into the territory of Georgia proper, but were turned back by Georgian forces. He said the tanks apparently were trying to approach Gori, but did not fire on the city of about 50,000, which sits on Georgia's only significant east-west highway.

An Associated Press photographer in Gori said early Monday that the city appeared quiet.

Russia also sent naval vessels to patrol off Georgia's Black Sea coast, but denied Sunday that the move was aimed at establishing a blockade.

The ITAR-Tass news agency quoted a Russian Defense Ministry spokesman as saying that Georgian missile boats twice tried to attack Russian ships, which fired back and sank one of the Georgian vessels.

South Ossetia broke away from Georgian control in 1992. Russia granted passports to most of its residents and the region's separatist leaders sought to absorb the region into Russia.

Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded the regional capital Tskhinvali. Georgia says it was responding to attacks by separatists.

In response, Russia launched massive artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed.

The respected Russian radio station Ekho Moskvy reported that two journalists were killed by South Ossetian separatists, citing a correspondent of Russian Newsweek magazine.

Thousands of civilians have fled South Ossetia — many seeking shelter in the Russian province of North Ossetia.

"The Georgians burned all of our homes," said one elderly woman, as she sat on a bench under a tree with three other white-haired survivors of the fighting.

She seemed confused by the conflict. "The Georgians say it is their land," she said. "Where is our land, then? We don't know."

The scope of Russia's military response has the Bush administration deeply worried.

The U.S. military began flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq after Georgia recalled them, even while calling for a truce.

The U.N. Security Council met for the fourth time in four days Sunday, with U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad accusing Moscow of seeking "regime change" in Georgia and resisting attempts to make peace. Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russians don't use the expression, but acknowledged there were occasions when elected leaders "become an obstacle."

Georgia borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s.

Both separatist provinces have close ties with Moscow, while Georgia has deeply angered Russia by wanting to join NATO.

Russian jets raided several Georgian air bases Saturday and bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility. The Russian warplanes also struck near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline which carries Caspian crude to the West.

Russian officials said they were targeting Georgian communications and lines of supply. But a Russian raid Saturday on Gori near South Ossetia, which apparently targeted a military base on the town's outskirts, also killed many civilians.

Tskhinvali residents who survived the Georgian bombardment overnight Friday by hiding in basements and later fled the city estimated that hundreds of civilians had died.

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer said Russia violated Georgia's territorial integrity in South Ossetia and employed a "disproportionate use of force."

Adding to Georgia's woes, Russian-supported separatists in Abkhazia launched air and artillery strikes on Georgian troops to drive them out of a small part of the province they control.

Abkhazia's separatist government called out the army and reservists on Sunday and declared it would push Georgian forces out of the northern part of the Kodori Gorge, the only area of Abkhazia still under Georgian control.

Separatist Abkhazia forces also were concentrating on the border near Georgia's Zugdidi region.

___

Associated Press writers David Nowak in Gori, Georgia; Douglas Birch in Vladikavkaz, Russia; and Jim Heintz, Vladimir Isachenkov and Lynn Berry in Moscow; and John Heilprin at the United Nations contributed to this report.

Source: AP News

[bigron]

Bush Condemns Russia's Attack On Georgia

Aug. 11, 2008
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2008/08/10/world/main4336544.shtml


(CBS/AP) President George W. Bush on Monday sharply criticized Moscow's harsh military crackdown in the former Soviet republic of Georgia, saying the violence is unacceptable and Russia's response is disproportionate.

The United States is waging an all-out campaign to get Russia to halt its retaliation against Georgia for trying to take control of the breakaway province of South Ossetia.

Mr. Bush, in an interview with NBC Sports, said, "I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia."

The president called the violence in Georgia "unacceptable."

He said he did so directly to Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who is in Beijing with Mr. Bush for the Olympics, and by phone to Russian President Dmitri Medvedev.

"I was very firm with Vladimir Putin," said Mr. Bush. "Hopefully this will get resolved peacefully."

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Monday he had signed a cease-fire pledge proposed by envoys from the European Union. He signed the document together with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his Finnish counterpart, Alexander Stubb.

Saakashvili said the EU mediators will head to Moscow later Monday to try to persuade Russia to accept the cease-fire.

While Georgia said its troops had retreated from South Ossetia and were honoring a cease-fire, Russia disputed the claim, and U.S. officials said Moscow was only expanding its blitz into new areas.

A Russian general issued an ultimatum to Georgian forces on Monday, insisting that troops near the other Georgian breakaway province of Abkhazia disarm or face Russian forces moving into Georgia.

Georgian Security Council chief Alexander Lomaia said Gen. Sergei Chaban in charge of Russian peacekeepers in Abkhazia conveyed the demand Monday through U.N. military observers in the area.

The Russian move would mark a major escalation in the Russian-Georgian conflict. With most Georgian troops concentrated in the east near South Ossetia, it could be hard for Georgia to repel a Russian offensive near Abkhazia, which lies further west on the Black Sea.

A senior general said Russia had no plans to move its troops from Georgia's two breakaway provinces into Georgian-controlled territory.


(AP/ESRI)Deputy chief of General Staff Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said Russia did not intend to move deeper into Georgia. Georgian officials earlier reported Russian tanks moving from the breakaway province of South Ossetia into Georgian-controlled territory and heading toward the strategic city of Gori before being turned back.

Alex Rossi, of CBS News partner Sky News, told Early Show co-anchor Harry Smith that Gori was bombed early Friday, and that some civilian locations were hit.

Rossi said fighting around the capital city of South Ossetia had largely quieted Friday and that Russian troops appeared to be fully in control of the breakaway region, leaving Georgian forces to retreat and take up defensive positions.

A Russian general said Georgian forces directed heavy fire at positions around Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, early Monday even though Georgia had claimed to be withdrawing from the shattered city and called for a cease-fire.

"Active fighting has been going on in several zones," the Interfax news agency quoted Maj. Gen. Marat Kulakhmetov as saying. He is commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent that has been in South Ossetia since 1992.

Russia also claimed to have sunk a Georgian boat that tried to attack Russian vessels in the Black Sea.

On Sunday, Vice President Dick Cheney told Georgia's pro-American president that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States," Cheney's office reported.

Cheney spoke Sunday afternoon with Saakashvili, Cheney press secretary Lee Ann McBride said. "The vice president expressed the United States' solidarity with the Georgian people and their democratically elected government in the face of this threat to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity," McBride said.

Asked to explain Cheney's phrase "must not go unanswered," White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said, "It means it must not stand." White House officials refused to indicate what recourse the United States might have if the attacks continue.

A Russian official said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday; the figure could not be confirmed independently.

Hundreds of refugees from the fighting in South Ossetia sought shelter in Russia on Sunday. They are among thousands who fled the region, and in particular the capital city of Tskhinvali, in recent days as Georgian forces battled for control.

Asked about the possibility of sending the U.S. military or other aid to Georgia, Mr. Bush's deputy national security adviser Jim Jeffrey said, "right now, our focus is on working with both sides, with the Europeans and with a whole variety of international institutions and organizations to get the fighting to stop."

Levin, too, did not see the chance of U.S. military involvement, though he said the U.S. needs to make clear to Russia that its action "is way out of line."

American "military intervention here is unthinkable," Brookings Institution senior foreign policy fellow Michael O'Hannlon told The Early Show's Smith. "Russia is a nuclear state. They are very close to this region and we are very far away."

Georgia, whose troops have been trained by American soldiers, began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday, launching heavy rocket and artillery fire and air strikes that pounded the provincial capital, Tskhinvali. In response, Russia launched overwhelming artillery shelling and air attacks on Georgian troops.

"We're alarmed by this entire situation, and every escalatory step is a further problem," Jeffrey told reporters.

"The Georgian gambit of trying to push the Russians out of its breakaway border territories seems to have had the opposite effect of consolidating Russian control," reported CBS News correspondent Mark Phillips. "It's still unclear whether this crisis can be contained with only the destruction and loss of life it has caused so far."

At the core of this conflict is Russian mistrust of Georgia's Western leanings and its desire to join the NATO military alliance, reported Phillips. Russia has long been wary of the alliance advancing toward its western border.

The U.S. military began flying 2,000 Georgian troops home from Iraq after Georgia recalled the soldiers following the outbreak of fighting with Russia. The decision was a timely payback for the former Soviet republic, which was the third-largest contributor of coalition forces in Iraq after the U.S. and Britain.

Putin criticized the U.S. on Monday for airlifting the Georgian troops, saying the move would hamper efforts to solve Russia's conflict with Georgia.

[Cobra]

Russia didn't invade Georgia but Georgia didn't invade Russia either. South Ossetia is not Russian territory. South Ossetia is still technically Georgian territory.
The propaganda on both sides is disgusting.

Neither side was right in what they did and both have ulterior motives.

[HYDROGENPAL]

Mr. Bush said about the Opening of the show was excellent and amazing. Lol they said he was talking about the Olympics but he was really talking about the start of the war.

[trailhound]

 Agreed Cobra. The 1500 people who died friday in Ossetia is disgusting and when Bush says russia's response was disproportionate and does not condemn georgia's actions i get even sicker...im disgusted with both sides and for US to take a side is most disgusting

[Triadtropz]

Mr. Bush said about the Opening of the show was excellent and amazing. Lol they said he was talking about the Olympics but he was really talking about the start of the war.

I believe it..I thought they would wait til after the olympics to start the NWO war..I think this is just a baby war..of things to come...I bet condoleeza rice gives some secret NWO signal, at the closing of the olympics.. and the whole war machine goes into motion?..

[larsonstdoc]

World War 3 Update. Georgian President Calls for US Intervention & A New World Order



       http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Lp_rLRAaHU&feature=email

[bigron]

Georgia's volatile risk-taker has gone over the brink

Its President shouldn't expect sympathy from the West, where patience is running out

Thomas de Waal The Observer, Sunday August 10 2008
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/aug/10/georgia.russia


The Caucasus is the kind of place where, when the guns start firing, it's hard to stop them. That is the brutal reality of South Ossetia, where a small conflict is beginning to spread exponentially.

Leave aside the geopolitics for the moment and have pity for the people who will suffer most from this, the citizens - mostly ethnic Ossetians but also Georgians - who have already died in their hundreds. It is a tiny and vulnerable place, with no more than 75,000 inhabitants of both nationalities mixed up in a patchwork of villages and one sleepy provincial town in the foothills of the Caucasus.

Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili seems to care less about these people than about asserting that they live in Georgian territory. Otherwise he would not on the night of 7-8 August have launched a massive artillery assault on the town of Tskhinvali, which has no purely military targets and whose residents, the Georgians say, lest we forget, are their own citizens. This is a blatant breach of international humanitarian law.

Moscow cares as little about the Ossetians as it does the Georgians it is bombing, regarding South Ossetia as a pawn in its bid to bring Georgia and its neighbours back into a Russian sphere of influence. Ordinary South Ossetians have also been cursed by a criminalised leadership which would long ago have lost power had they not been the rallying point for defence against Georgia.

This conflict was entirely avoidable. Its origin lies in one of the many majority-minority disputes that accompanied the break-up of the Soviet Union. The Ossetians, a divided people with one part living on the Russian north side of the Caucasus, the other in Georgia, generally felt more comfortable with Russian rule than in a new post-Soviet Georgian state. A small nasty war with Tbilisi in 1990-91 cost 1,000 lives and left huge bitterness.

But outside high politics, ethnic relations were never bad. For a decade after South Ossetia's de facto secession from Georgia in 1991, it was a shady backwater and smugglers' haven. It was outside nominal Georgian control, but Ossetians and Georgians went back and forth and traded vigorously with one another at an untaxed market in the village of Ergneti.

Then Saakashvili came to power in 2004 with heady promises to restore his country's lost territories. He closed the Ergneti market and tried to cut off South Ossetia, triggering a summer of violence. Modelling himself on the medieval Georgian king David the Builder, he said Georgian territorial integrity would be re-established by the end of his presidency. He has sought to tear up the imperfect Russian-framed negotiating framework for South Ossetia, but has not come up with a viable alternative.

For their part, the Russians upped the stakes and baited Saakashvili, their bête noire, by effecting a soft annexation of South Ossetia. Moscow handed out Russian passports to the South Ossetians and installed Russian officials in government posts there. Russian soldiers, notionally peacekeepers, have acted as an informal occupying army.

Saakashvili is a famously volatile risk-taker, veering between warmonger and peacemaker, democrat and autocrat. On several occasions international officials have pulled him back from the brink. On a visit to Washington in 2004, he received a tongue-lashing from then Secretary of State Colin Powell who told him to act with restraint. Two months ago, he could have triggered a war with his other breakaway province of Abkhazia by calling for the expulsion of Russian peacekeepers from there, but European diplomats persuaded him to step back. This time he has yielded to provocation and stepped over the precipice.

The provocation is real, but the Georgian President is rash to believe this is a war he can win or that the West wants it. Both George Bush and John McCain have visited Georgia, made glowing speeches praising Saakashvili and were rewarded with the Order of St George. But Bush, at least in public, is now bound to be cautious, calling for a ceasefire.

The reaction in much of Europe will be much less forgiving. Even before this crisis, a number of governments, notably France and Germany, were reporting 'Georgia fatigue'. Though they broadly wished the Saakashvili government well, they did not buy the line that he was a model democrat - the sight last November of his riot police tear-gassing protesters in Tbilisi and smashing up an opposition TV station dispelled that illusion. And they have a long agenda of issues with Russia, which they regard as more important than the post-Soviet quarrel between Moscow and Tbilisi. Paris and Berlin will now say they were right to urge caution on Georgia's Nato ambitions at the Bucharest Nato summit.

Both sides are behaving badly. It is outrageous that Russia is seizing the chance to attack Georgian towns and airfields. Dozens of Georgian civilians are now dying too. But Georgia needs to be restrained, for its own sake. Otherwise Saakashvili looks set to lose both the economic stability he has achieved and hope of Nato membership. He already looks now to have forfeited his other lost territory of Abkhazia and the prospect of return there for the quarter of a million Georgians who fled the region during the 1992-93 war. Now it looks as though the Abkhaz are going on the offensive, taking the opportunity to tell the world that they will never return to Georgian rule.

· Thomas de Waal is Caucasus Editor at the Institute for War and Peace Reporting in London

[larsonstdoc]

World War 3 Is Upon Us. "Operation Brimstone" US Naval Nuclear Strike Force Has Been Deployed to Iran


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

[Triadtropz]

World War 3 Is Upon Us. "Operation Brimstone" US Naval Nuclear Strike Force Has Been Deployed to Iran


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

great clip..those NWO speeches by daddy bush give me the creeps...I guess he's in beijing seeing the fruitation of his NWO dreams.

[bigron]

Russian Jets Bomb Georgian Targets; Georgia Signs Cease-Fire Pledge


Monday , August 11, 2008
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,401243,00.html


  TBILISI, Georgia —

Georgian President Saakashvili says he has signed a cease-fire pledge proposed by envoys from the European Union.

President Mikhail Saakashvili says he signed the document together with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his Finnish counterpart, Alexander Stubb.

Saakashvili says the EU mediators will head to Moscow later Monday to try to persuade Russia to accept the cease-fire.

Meanwhile, a senior general says Russia has no plans to move its troops from Georgia's two breakaway provinces into Georgian-controlled territory.

Deputy chief of General Staff Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn says Russia does not intend to move deeper into Georgia. Georgian officials earlier reported Russian tanks moving from the breakaway province of South Ossetia into Georgian-controlled territory and heading toward the strategic city of Gori before being turned back.

Russia's military also denied Georgian claims that it had bombed Georgian oil pipelines, including a key export route to the Turkish Mediterranean port of Ceyhan, Reuters reports.

"We are not bombing oil pipelines," Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy head of Russia's general staff, told reporters in Moscow at a daily briefing.

Click here to see photos. :  http://www.foxnews.com/photoessay/0,4644,4780,00.html

Swarms of Russian jets launched new raids on Georgian territory Monday and Georgia faced the threat of a second front of fighting as Russia demanded that Georgia disarm troops near the breakaway province of Abkhazia.

While a senior Russian general insisted that Russia has no plans to press further into Georgian territory — its troops are now in Georgia's two breakaway provinces — the order to disarm carried the threat of Russian-sponsored fighting spreading.

A two-front battlefield would be a major escalation in the Russian-Georgian conflict that blew up Friday after a Georgian offensive to regain control of separatist South Ossetia.

Most Georgian troops are near South Ossetia, in the center of the country along its northern border with Russia, which would make it difficult for Georgia to repel an offensive from Abkhazia, in the west along the Black Sea.

International envoys flew into the region late Sunday and the U.N. Security Council met for the fourth time in as many days to try to end the conflict before it spreads throughout the volatile Caucasus.

U.S. officials have accused Russia of using the fighting to try to overthrow the Georgian government, a U.S. ally. Russian officials claim the Americans are helping Georgia militarily.

U.S. President George W. Bush and Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin traded barbs Monday. Bush sharply criticized Moscow's military reaction, saying the violence was unacceptable and Russia's response was disproportionate.

"I've expressed my grave concern about the disproportionate response of Russia and that we strongly condemn the bombing outside of South Ossetia," Bush said in an interview with NBC Sports.

In turn, Putin criticized the United States for airlifting Georgian troops back home from Iraq on Sunday at Georgia's request.

Georgia would not say how many troops returned but Russia's deputy chief of General Staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said eight U.S. transport planes delivered about 800 Georgian servicemen from Iraq.

Bush earlier complained that Russian airstrikes were hitting far from the fighting, and were aimed at crippling Georgia's industries.

In Tbilisi, President Mikhail Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge Monday proposed by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner and his Finnish counterpart, Alexander Stubb. The EU envoys plan to travel from Tbilisi to Moscow later Monday to try to persuade Russia to accept the cease-fire.

Saakashvili had ordered the halt Sunday after overwhelming Russian firepower blasted his troops out of the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, but Russian officials said they saw no cease-fire on the ground.

In Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Monday that Russia has completed "a large part of efforts to force Georgian authorities to peace in South Ossetia," a statement that suggests Moscow could accept the proposed cease-fire.

Saakashvili, however, voiced concern that Russia's true goal was to undermine his pro-Western government, which has sharply angered Moscow by wanting to join NATO. "It's all about the independence and democracy of Georgia," he said during a conference call.

Saakashvili said Russia has sent 20,000 troops and 500 tanks into Georgia — with some troops getting within 5 kilometers (3 miles) of Gori, located just outside South Ossetia, before being repulsed Sunday.

Georgia borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Both South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s. Both separatist provinces have close ties with Moscow.

Georgia began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia overnight Friday with heavy shelling and air strikes that ravaged the city of Tskhinvali. The Russia response was swift and overpowering — thousands of troops that shelled the Georgians until they fled Tskhinvali on Sunday, and air attacks across Georgia, some on facilities far from the site of the fighting.

The Georgian president said Russian warplanes were bombing roads and bridges, destroying radar systems and targeting Tbilisi's civilian airport. One Russian bombing raid struck the Tbilisi airport area only a half hour before the EU envoys arrived, he said.

Another hit near key Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which carries Caspian crude to the West. No supply interruptions have been reported.

While not addressing the Russian incursion near Gori, Nogovitsyn said Russia had no intention to move deeper into Georgia. "We aren't planning any offensive," he said.

Saakashvili later Monday drove to the outskirts of Gori, a town where scores of people were killed in a Russian attack Saturday. He was joining Kouchner, who had just completed a tour of the destroyed buildings.

As the Georgian president spoke to reporters, a member of his security team shouted "cover him!" Saakashvili was torn away by bodyguards and pushed to the ground. They piled extra flak jackets on top of him.

Fearing a Russian air raid, onlookers fled, looking skyward and screaming, but no jets were seen or heard. Kouchner had left seconds before the panic.

"This a misfortune, this is impossible to support," Kouchner said after touring Gori. "That's why we not only have to denounce this, but we have to work to stop the fight."

Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said more than 2,000 people had been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed, but refugees who fled the city said hundreds were killed.

Many of those fleeing sought shelter in the neighboring Russian province of North Ossetia.

"The Georgians burned all of our homes," said one elderly woman, as she sat on a bench under a tree with three other white-haired survivors of the fighting. "The Georgians say it is their land. Where is our land, then?"

Nogovitsyn said on Russian television Monday that Russia demanded Georgia disarm police in Zugdidi, a town just outside Abkhazia. Another Russian commander said 9,000 additional Russian troops and 350 armored vehicles had arrived in Abkhazia.

Abkhazia's Russian-supported separatist government called out the army and reservists on Sunday and declared it would push Georgian forces out of the northern part of the Kodori Gorge, the only area of Abkhazia still under Georgian control.

Nogovitsyn also said Russian ships deployed to Georgia's Black Sea coast sank one of four Georgian patrol boats that came close Sunday — a report rejected by Georgian Coast Guard chief David Golua.

In New York, the U.N. Security Council met Sunday for the fourth time in four days to discuss the crisis. U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad accused Moscow of seeking "regime change" in Georgia and resisting attempts to make peace.

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Churkin said Russians don't use the expression, but acknowledged there were occasions when elected leaders "become an obstacle."

[Aerioch]

Day 1 -- Surprise attack civilians who only have small arms, while you use tanks, rocket launchers, APV's, and Airstrikes
Day 2 -- Declare War on a vastly superior enemy, knowing you have no chance to survive, then declare martial law.
Day 3 -- Start begging on International TV, in English to save your facist country, which just happened to the conflict.
Day 4 -- Appeal to the U.N., to which you are not a member, to start a war against one of its own members.
Day 5 -- ....loading, please wait....