Pat Dollard

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A wounded Georgian woman lies in front of an apartment building, blown apart by a Russian air strike allegedly targeting civilians, in the northern Georgian town of Gori, the birthplace of Josef Stalin, on Saturday, Aug. 9, 2008. See Video below for raw footage of the air raid.

Times Online: The country is the West’s strongest ally in the region, one of the staunchest supporters of America’s War on Terror and a vital conduit for Western oil and gas supplies from Central Asia.

“We have Russian tanks moving in. We have continuous Russian bombardment,” President Saakashvili declared as he appealed for international support. “Russia is fighting a war with us in our own territory.”

Pat:

Idiot headline of Saturday morning: LA Times: Russia And Georgia Edge Toward War. Tell the 1,500 dead “We’re not there yet”. Bombs falling on bases and cities, the entire Russian-controlled province of South Ossetia invaded, with most of it now taken by staunch U.S. ally Georgia. The entire Georgian military mobilized and most of it engaged, the Russians engaged in a fierce counter-offensive, intenionally massacring civilians and pouring thousands of fresh troops in to join the battle. This would be called a war. It’s funny, when there were almost exclusively urban turf wars between Sunni and Shiite gangsters, the Times and their leftist ilk were screaming “Civil War” as if there was a real one raging across Iraq. Not even close. But here, for some reason, they are very, very reluctant to call a spade a spade when it actually is one. And keep an eye out for the MSM leaning toward sympathizing with Russia in this, for one reason: Georgia is a very strong U.S. ally, and has had more troops in Iraq than any country but the U.S. and Britain.

BILISI, Georgia (AP) – GORI, Georgia (AP) – Fighting raged in South Ossetia for a second day Saturday as Russia sent hundreds of tanks and troops into the separatist province and dropped bombs on Georgia that left hundreds to thousands of civilians dead or wounded.

Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally and active partner in the Iraq war, launched a major offensive Friday to retake control over South Ossetia. Russia, which has close ties to the region and has soldiers there, which they call peacekeepers, responded with a fierce air and ground counteroffensive, and by sending in thousands of reinforcements and armor. Russian Cossack militia units are also mobilizing as well as groups of Chechens in neighboring provinces, who despite their own differences and recent bloody war with Russia, are committed to countering any Georgian influence in the region, and have thusly promised the Russians any military aid possible.

About 1,500 people have been killed and the death toll continued to rise, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told journalists Saturday, and people interviewed who fled the fighting said hundreds of civilians had died, as they saw scores and scores of dead strewn about the cities they were fleeing.

Witnesses said that most of the provincial capital, Tskhinvali, was in ruins and bodies were everywhere. Television footage showed burned out Georgian tanks, and fighting continued overnight and into Saturday.

Russian military aircraft also air raided the Georgian town of Gori on Saturday. An Associated Press reporter who visited Gori shortly after the bombing saw several apartment buildings in ruins, some still on fire, and scores of dead bodies and bloodied civilians. The elderly, women and children were among the victims.

Georgia’s Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital was bombed by Russian warplanes during the night and that bombs fell in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline.

He also said two other Georgian military bases were hit and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.

VIDEO: Russian bombing of the city of Gori, the birthplace of Josef Stalin. Georgia says, and there is evidence here, that Russia is purposely bombing civilians.(story continues below video)

Utiashvili said there apparently were significant casualties and damage in the attacks, but that further details would not be known until the morning.

Georgia’s President Mikhail Saakashvili said “Georgian military forces completely control all the territory of South Ossetia” except for a northern section adjacent to Russia.

In an interview with CNN, Saakashvili called for unspecified U.S. support for Georgia, comparing the situation to Soviet crackdowns in places such as Czechoslovakia and Afghanistan. “This is not about a tiny separatist area inside Georgia. . . . This is not about Georgia anymore. It is about America, its values,” he said.

Shota Utiashvili, spokesman for the Georgian Interior Ministry, said that Georgian forces remained in control of the provincial capital, fending off Russian attacks.

But Russian military spokesman Col. Igor Konashenkov said Russian armor and infantry were deployed on the outskirts of Tskhinvali and were prepared for what he described as a mission to “enforce peace.”

Konashenkov said the Russian troops were ordered to “harshly suppress any shooting.”

Eyewitnesses said that separatist and Russian forces seemed to be in control of Tskhinvali center with no Georgian troops visible there on Saturday morning. Horrified civilians crawled out of the basements into the streets as fighting eased, looking for supplies.

The air and artillery bombardment left the city without water, food, electricity and gas.

Konashenkov, who accused Georgian forces of deliberately attacking Russian peacekeepers with heavy weapons, said that 15 peacekeepers have been killed and about 70 wounded.

He alleged that Georgian troops had killed some wounded Russian peacekeepers when they seized Russian checkpoints. Konashenkov’s claim couldn’t be independently confirmed.

Asked to comment on the Georgian claims of Russian bombing, Lavrov said it was Georgia that had bombed Russian peacekeepers and civilians and warned that the small Caucasus country should not feel safe.

“Whatever side is used to bomb civilians and the positions of peacekeepers, this side is not safe and they should know this,” he said.

Asked whether Russia could bomb the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, he answered: “I don’t think the bombing is coming from Tbilisi, but whatever part of Georgia is used for this aggression is not safe.”

The fighting seemed likely to increase tensions between Moscow and Washington, which Lavrov said should bear much of the blame for arming and training Georgian soldiers.

Georgia has accused Russia of bombing its towns, ports and air bases and has asked the international community to help end what it called Russian aggression.

Kakha Lomaya, the head of Georgia’s Security Council, said Georgia has shot down 10 Russian planes, including four brought down Saturday.

The first Russian confirmation that any of its planes had been shot down came Saturday from Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of the General Staff, who said two Russian planes were downed. He did not say where or when.

Russia has said it needs to act to protect its peacekeepers and civilians in South Ossetia, most of whom hold Russian passports. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Saturday that the troops were sent in to force Georgia into a cease fire.

Diplomats have issued a flurry of statements calling on both sides to halt the fighting and called for another emergency session of the United Nations Security Council, its second since early Friday morning seeking to prevent an all-out war.

U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice urged Russia to halt aircraft and missile attacks and withdraw combat forces from Georgian territory. Rice said in a statement the United States wants Russia to respect Georgian sovereignty and agree to international mediation.

It was unclear what might persuade either side to stop shooting. Both claim the battle started after the other side violated a cease-fire that had been declared just hours earlier after a week of sporadic clashes.

The United States was sending in its top Caucasus envoy, Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew Bryza, to try to end the bloodshed.

It was the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won de facto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992. Russian troops went in as peacekeepers but Georgia alleges they now back the separatists.

Russia, which has granted citizenship to most of the region’s residents, appeared to lay much of the responsibility for ending the fighting on Washington.

Georgia, which borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. Georgia has angered Russia by seeking NATO membership—a bid Moscow regards as part of a Western effort to weaken its influence in the region.

Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer, long has pledged to restore Tbilisi’s rule over South Ossetia and another breakaway province, Abkhazia. Both regions have run their own affairs without international recognition since splitting from Georgia in the early 1990s and have built up ties with Moscow.

Georgia has about 2,000 troops in Iraq, making it the third-largest contributor to coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain. But Saakashvili has called them home in the face of the South Ossetia fighting. The Georgian commander of the brigade in Iraq said Saturday they would leave as soon as transport can be arranged.