RUSSIA/GEORGIA WAR UPDATES TICKER & VIDEOS: EU THREATENS RUSSIA- War Threatens U.S. Chicken Prices - Excuse Me, Does That Aid Blow Up?
PAT’S BEEN TRAVELLING, CHECK SHORTLY FOR REINVIGORATED UPDATES.
UPDATE: Sept. 2nd:
MOSCOW (AFP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev no longer considers his counterpart Mikheil Saakashvili to be Georgia’s leader, telling Russian television Tuesday that Saakashvili is a “political corpse.”
“For us, the present Georgian regime has collapsed. President Saakashvili no longer exists in our eyes. He is a political corpse,” Medvedev said.
BRUSSELS, Belgium— European Union leaders warned Russia on Monday that talks with on a wide-ranging political and economic agreement would be postponed unless Russian troops pull back from positions in Georgia.
The threat to delay talks set for this month on the “partnership and cooperation agreement” with Russia came after Britain and eastern European nations held out for a tougher line. But Europe’s dependence on Russian oil and gas supplies effectively ruled out stronger sanctions.
Earlier, Russia warned the West against supporting Georgia’s leadership, suggesting that the United States carried weapons as well as aid to the ex-Soviet republic and calling for an arms embargo until the Georgian government falls.
“The EU would welcome a real partnership with Russia, but you have to be two to tango,” French President Nicolas Sarkozy told a news conference after an emergency EU summit. “We have to re-examine our partnership with Russia.”
Sarkozy said he plans to travel to Moscow on Sept. 8 for talks with the Russian leadership. A cease-fire he brokered to end fighting between Russian and Georgia calls for forces to be withdrawn to their positions before the war.
“If instead of choosing their national interests and the interests of the Georgian people, the United States and its allies choose the Saakashvili regime, this will be a mistake of truly historic proportions,” Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.
Hours after Lavrov’s comments, the spokesman for the Foreign Ministry suggested U.S. ships that carried humanitarian aid to Georgia’s Black Sea coast following last month’s war may also have delivered weapons.
Without naming a specific country, Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nesterenko said there were “suppositions” that the cargo of military ships bringing aid to Georgia may also have included “military components that will be used for the rearmament” of Georgia’s military. He provided no evidence, but said such suspicions were a reason for Russia’s call for an arms embargo.
Lavrov reserved particular criticism for the United States, which has trained Georgian troops, saying such aid had failed to give Washington sufficient leverage to restrain the Georgian government. Instead, he said, “It encouraged the irresponsible and unpredictable regime in its gambles.”
Neither the State Department nor the Pentagon had immediate comment.
Human Rights Watch said Monday that Georgia — as well as Russia — dropped cluster bombs during the conflict. The rights group said Georgia’s government has admitted it, while Russia continues with denials.
“These indiscriminate attacks violate international humanitarian law,” said Bonnie Docherty, arms division researcher at the New York-based body, who said the casualty toll in only four Georgia villages from cluster bombs and their leftover duds was 14 dead and dozens wounded.
The revelation could provide fuel for Russia, which has traded allegations with Georgia over controversial weapon usage, human rights violations and disinformation.
Huge crowds of Georgians surged into the streets of the capital, Tbilisi, to demonstrate against Russia while others gathered at a Russian checkpoint where soldiers are guarding the “security zone” Moscow claimed for itself after last month’s war.
Large demonstrations also took place in Poti, the Black Sea port city where Russian forces have a checkpoint on the outskirts, and in Gori, which was bombed and then occupied by Russian forces.
Several hundred people marched from Gori to the Russian checkpoint at Karaleti, about four miles north, where soldiers watched impassively but a tank turret swiveled ominously from behind an earthen fortification.
No figures for total turnout nationwide were immediately available, but the television station Rustavi-2 said more than 1 million people participated in the demonstrations that also included the cities of Kutaisi and Zugdidi.
The crowd that jammed Tbilisi’s main avenue alone appeared to have at least 100,000 people. The Tbilisi demonstration started with people holding hands to form “human chains” in an echo of the so-called Baltic Chain of 1989 in which residents of then-Soviet Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia stretched the length of their homelands to protest Soviet occupation.
A 60-year-old demonstrator, Tengiz Kuparadze, said he was in Lithuania for that event.
“Now, Lithuania has become free; it is a member of the European Union and reliably protected against Russia. Georgia will fight for this, and will win,” he said.
On arrival at the EU summit, German Chancellor Angela Merkel said the EU must stress the importance of “the territorial integrity of Georgia” but that the lines of communication with Moscow “should not be cut off.”
British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said the “27 members of the European Union are totally united in condemning the aggression of the Russian Government.”
“While we do want good relations with Russia, I think it is pretty clear from what has happened over these last few weeks it cannot be business as usual. Indeed it will not be business as usual until things improve.”
Russia supplies the EU with a third of its oil and 40 percent of its natural gas — a dependence the European Commission says will rise significantly in the future.
On Aug. 7, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, hoping to retake the province, which broke away from Georgia in the early 1990s. Russian forces repelled the offensive and pushed into Georgia. Both sides signed a cease-fire deal in mid-August, but Russia has ignored its requirement for all forces to return to prewar positions.
Moscow has insisted the cease-fire accord lets it run checkpoints in security zones of up to 4 miles into Georgian territory.
Two weeks ago, the words “humanitarian aid” weren’t even out of Bush’s mouth when we told y’all bout exactly what was going to go down at that rodea. This is why you come here. The reportage, the commentary, are not always what they seem on the surface. Scratch a little a harder, look a little closer, and you’ll see maps to the future. Why do I brag like this? Cos Rush Limbaugh does and it seems to fucking work.
5:56 P.M. Wednedsay August 27
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Western leaders warned Russia on Wednesday to “change course,” hoping to keep a conflict that already threatens a key nuclear pact and could even raise U.S. chicken prices from blossoming into a new Cold War.
Moscow said it was NATO expansion and Western support for Georgia that was causing the new East-West divisions, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States for using military ships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.
Meanwhile, Georgia slashed its embassy staff in Moscow to protest Russia’s recognition of the two separatist enclaves that were the flashpoint for the five-day war between the two nations earlier this month.
The tensions have spread to the Black Sea, which Russia shares unhappily with three nations that belong to NATO and two others that desperately want to, Ukraine and Georgia. Some Ukrainians fear Moscow might set its sights on their nation next.
In moves evocative of Cold War cat-and-mouse games, a U.S. military ship carrying humanitarian aid docked at a southern Georgian port, and Russia sent a missile cruiser and two other ships to a port farther north in a show of force.
The maneuvering came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had said his nation was “not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War.” For the two superpowers of the first Cold War, the United States and Russia, repercussions from this new conflict could be widespread.
Russia’s agriculture minister said Moscow could cut poultry and pork import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, hitting American producers hard and thereby raising prices for American shoppers.
Russians sometimes refer to American poultry imports as “Bush’s legs,” a reference to the frozen chicken shipped to Russia amid economic troubles following the 1991 Soviet collapse, during George H.W. Bush’s presidency.
And a key civil nuclear agreement between Moscow and Washington appears likely to be shelved until next year at the earliest.
On the diplomatic front, the West’s denunciations of Russia grew louder.
Britain’s top diplomat equated Moscow’s offensive in Georgia with the Soviet tanks that invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring democratic reforms in 1968, and demanded Russia “change course.”
“The sight of Russian tanks in a neighboring country on the 40th anniversary of the crushing of the Prague Spring has shown that the temptations of power politics remain,” Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.
Western leaders have accused Russia of using inappropriate force when it sent tanks and troops into Georgia earlier this month. The Russian move followed a Georgian crackdown on the pro-Russian South Ossetia.
Many of the Russian forces that drove deep into Georgia after fighting broke out Aug. 7 have pulled back, but hundreds are estimated to still be manning checkpoints that Russia calls “security zones” inside Georgia proper.
German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a phone call to immediately fulfill the EU-brokered cease-fire by pulling all troops out of Georgia.
The Kremlin rejected Western criticism, and Tuesday even suggested the conflict could spread. It starkly warned another former Soviet republic, tiny Moldova, that aggression against a breakaway region there could provoke a military response.
French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Russia of trying to redraw the borders of Georgia. His foreign minister went further, suggesting Russia had engaged in “ethnic cleansing” in South Ossetia, one of the two Georgian rebel territories.
And the seven nations that along with Russia make up the G-8 issued a statement that underlined Russia’s growing estrangement from the West.
The seven—United States, Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and Italy—said Russia’s decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries violated the Georgia’s territorial integrity.
On Tuesday officials had told The Associated Press that the G-7 were weighing whether to effectively disband what is known as the G-8 by throwing Moscow out.
Georgia’s prime minister put damage from the Russian war at about $1 billion but said it did not fundamentally undermine the Georgian economy. Georgia, which has a national budget of about $3 billion, hopes for substantial Western aid to recover.
The United Nations has estimated nearly 160,000 people had to flee their homes, but hundreds have returned to Georgian cities like Gori in the past week.
In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, boxes of aid were sorted, stacked and loaded onto trucks Wednesday for some of the tens of thousands of people still displaced by the fighting. Some boxes were stamped “USAID—from the American People.”
In the Black Sea, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, carrying 34 tons of humanitarian aid, docked in Batumi. The missile destroyer USS McFaul was there earlier this week delivering aid, and the U.S. planned to leave it in the Black Sea for now.
A spokesman for Putin, quoted by Interfax news agency, observed: “Military ships are hardly a common way to deliver such aid.”
The U.S. has used military ships to deliver humanitarian aid before, including in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami.
The U.S. Embassy in Georgia had earlier said the Dallas was headed to the port city of Poti but then retracted the statement. A Georgian official said the port in Poti could have been mined by Russian forces.
Poti’s port reportedly suffered heavy damage from the Russian military. In addition, Russian troops have established checkpoints on the northern approach to the city, and a U.S. ship docking there could have been seen as a direct challenge.
Meanwhile, the Russian missile cruiser Moskva and two smaller missile boats anchored at the port in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, some 180 miles north of Batumi. The Russian Navy says the ships will be involved in peacekeeping operations.
Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that NATO has already exhausted the number of forces it can have in the Black Sea, according to international agreements, and warned Western nations against sending more ships.
“Can NATO—which is not a state located in the Black Sea—continuously increase its group of forces and systems there? It turns out that it cannot,” Nogovitsyn was quoted as saying Wednesday by Interfax.
Happier Times
Wednesday August 27, 2:12 P.M.
Let’s hear what you think about this…This is a very disturbing statement. The Russians have also just formally recognized the breakaway Georgian regions, which is no doubt going to piss off the West.Full StoryMonday, Augsut 25, 11:48 A.M.
4:56 A.M. Sunday, August 24
1:36 A.M. Sunday, August 24
A fuel train hit a mine and exploded near the stricken Georgian city of Gori on Sunday as Russia faced renewed European Union pressure to make a complete withdrawal from Georgia.
The Georgian Interior Ministry said the rail track used by the train had been mined and a huge pall of black smoke could be seen across the Gori region after the huge explosion.
“The railway was mined and that was the reason for the explosion,” Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili told AFP.
The blast was the latest fallout from from the five day conflict between Russia, where its troops held a strategic port, and the Georgian army.
Sunday, August 24, 1:10 A.M.
Georgians look at Russian soldiers during a rally in the Black Sea port city of Poti, western Georgia, Saturday, Aug. 23, 2008. Thousands of Georgians angry at the presence of Russian troops on the outskirts of this strategic Black Sea port took to the streets in protest Saturday, demanding that the Russians move out.
The proof that Russia is digging in deep in the heart of Georgia
A day after announcing that it had ‘withdrawn’ from Georgia, Russian troops continued to occupy large areas of the country yesterday in defiance of international pressure and in breach of a ceasefire deal signed by Moscow.
The country’s forces were in control of several key areas outside the original conflict zone - including the Black Sea port of Poti and the western town of Senaki. Additionally, troops had established new ‘buffer zones’ around the breakaway republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
The United States, France and Britain have denounced Russia’s failure to fully withdraw troops. They say it has blatantly failed to ‘comply’ with a ceasefire agreement obliging it to pull back to its positions before the conflict started on 7 August.
There was compelling evidence yesterday, however, that Russia is planning a long-term occupation of Georgia. The Observer witnessed Russian soldiers digging trenches seven kilometres outside the port of Poti next to the Rioni river and the main highway to Tbilisi.
A Russian flag flew above a grassy camp; around 20 soldiers were spread out in trenches and next to an armoured personnel carrier. A crowd of about 1,000 demonstrated in front of them yesterday afternoon, waving Georgian flags and shouting: ‘Go home.’
‘This isn’t peacekeeping. This is occupation. Their objective is to blockade Georgia and Georgians,’ Fatuna Rubakidze, 29, said. Pointing to the bridge across the river, she said: ‘This allows them to stop traffic to Poti. It means they can always blackmail us.’
The Russians had taken off their regular army helmets and replaced them with blue peacekeeping ones. Locals flung leaflets at them in Russian with the slogan: ‘No to Russian fascism’. The soldiers stood implacably in the afternoon sunshine. Once the crowd left, they took the leaflets away. ‘Yesterday they were regular soldiers. Today they are peacekeepers. Whatever they are, we want them to leave our territory,’ Fatuna, a police lieutenant, said, clicking a photograph of the soldiers with her mobile phone.
The Kremlin’s plan now appears clear: to maintain a significant military presence in Georgia, capable of choking the country’s economy and shutting down its major trade routes. It also allows Russia the option of a future invasion, should it want one.
The deputy head of Russia’s general staff, Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, was unrepentant yesterday. He said Russia would continue to patrol Poti - even though it lies outside any so-called ’security zone’. Russia insists that under a previous agreement it can station 2,600 ‘peacekeeping’ troops beyond the borders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
‘Poti is not in the security zone. But that doesn’t mean we will sit behind the fence watching as they drive around in Hummers,’ Nogovitsyn said, in sardonic reference to the four US Humvees seized by Russia in Poti last week. The vehicles were used in joint US-Georgian military exercises.
The general accused Nato of increasing tensions in the Black Sea. American, Spanish German and Polish ships are all heading to the area, with US ships due to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia today. This ‘did not contribute to the settlement of the situation’, he said.
Georgia yesterday described Russia’s occupation as ‘absolutely illegal’. Moscow’s failure to leave is deeply embarrassing for French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who brokered the ceasefire deal last weekend with Russia’s President Dmitry Medvedev.
Georgian officials yesterday took The Observer by helicopter across a landscape of shimmering green pasture and mountain to the steamy port of Poti. Their aim was to show off its destruction by Russian soldiers - and to point out that they were still there.
Russian bombers destroyed Poti’s naval base, killing five people, on the second day of the war. Yesterday, the gun turret of a sunken vessel stuck out above the turquoise water; nearby a white coastguard boat was listing and sunk. Russian soldiers had ransacked the port’s main building, blowing open doors and upturning filing cabinets. One had written on a whiteboard: ‘Georgian bitches. Die pederast cocks’.
‘They turned up in 23 BMP armoured vehicles and took whatever was valuable,’ said Reza Managadze, a port employee. ‘They didn’t even leave us anything to eat.’ In a smashed-up medical room lay a portrait of Georgia’s pro-US president Mikheil Saakashvili. A Russian soldier had stamped on it. He then added one word: ‘Dick’.
In the town of Gori, normal life slowly resumed after the withdrawal of Russian forces yesterday. Residents began trickling back; a few shops reopened. But the Russians had not gone far, setting up a new checkpoint about 15km north of the city. Russia says that it intends to have 18 checkpoints on the road to South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
1:08 P.M. Friday, August 22
GORI, Georgia Russian troops pulled out of the Georgian city of Gori Friday in what Moscow said was compliance with a cease-fire agreement, but they blew up Georgian military installations on their way out and set up checkpoints north of the city.
U.S., French and Georgian officials later disputed Russia’s assertion that it had complied with the pullout provisions of the cease-fire accord.
The Russian withdrawal from Gori made good on assurances from Moscow that the troops would be out of the city by 8 p.m. local time. But around that deadline, a loud blast shook a Georgian military installation, and Georgian sources said the Russians had blown up a major arms depot. Other explosions followed, and thick clouds of black smoke could be seen billowing up from at least two locations in the city.
Georgian police arrived on the heels of the Russian departure and began setting up their own checkpoints. They were followed by nearly two dozen Georgian police cars that headed into the city from the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, shortly after the pullout. The road between Gori and Tbilisi, a main east-west artery, appeared to be clear of Russian checkpoints, and Russian tanks were moving out of their positions in fields off the road.
The Russians, however, did not immediately withdraw from undisputed Georgian territory, instead setting up a checkpoint about two miles north of Gori and several others on the road to Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia.
In Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said it was in compliance with the French-brokered cease-fire deal and that troops were carrying out their duties by manning what it described as peacekeeping checkpoints in Georgian territory.
In Crawford, Tex., White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe said President Bush and French President Nicolas Sarkozy agreed in a telephone conversation Friday that “Russia is not in compliance and that Russia needs to come into compliance now.” Johndroe told reporters, “It is my understanding that they [Russian forces] have not completely withdrawn from areas considered undisputed territory, and they need to do that.”The Pentagon reported some movement of Russian forces but said it was not yet clear whether the movement amounted to a withdrawal or a repositioning of troops.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement that President Dmitry Medvedev was informed of “the completion of the order to pull out from Georgian territory Russian troops sent to reinforce peacekeepers.”
But a senior Georgian official said the remaining Russian checkpoints violated the cease-fire terms, and a NATO envoy said more time was needed to determine whether Russian was in compliance, Reuters news agency reported.
By late afternoon Friday, the Russians had abandoned a checkpoint leading into Gori, as well as two others in the downtown area. Wire service and other reports from the region indicated that Russian columns were heading away from Gori, the western town of Senaki and the village of Igoeti, their closest point to Tbilisi.
At the same time, Georgian military and police units began reappearing along the main road from Tbilisi to Gori. The highway had been under Russian control since troops moved into Georgia proper through the two Russia-allied separatist provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia about two weeks ago.
The final extent of the Russian withdrawal remained unclear. Moscow has said it plans to keep a significant peacekeeping presence in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and would also keep troops in a “buffer zone” on undisputed Georgian territory.
12:12 P.M. Friday, August 22
Georgian police officers wait for a road leading to Gori to be reopened following a Russian pullback, near Gori, Georgia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2008. Waves of hulking Russian military convoys rolled out of key positions in Georgia on Friday, and Russia announced it had fulfilled President Dmitry Medvedev’s promise to withdraw forces from the country’s small southern neighbor.
Russian military vehicles leave a checkpoint on the highway to Gori, Georgia, Friday, Aug. 22, 2008. Russian military convoys rolled out of three key positions in Georgia and headed toward Moscow-backed separatist regions on Friday in a significant withdrawal two weeks after thousands of troops roared into the former Soviet republic.
7:30 A.M. Friday, August 22
IGOETI, Georgia (AP) - Russian forces pulled out of positions deep inside Georgia on Friday, two weeks after thousands of troops roared into the small Caucasian nation aboard hundreds of armored vehicles.
The movements came after Russia’s defense minister said President Dmitry Medvedev had ordered a pullback and promised that Russian forces would withdraw to separatist regions and surrounding security zones by the day’s end.
An armored column was seen moving away from a military base in western Georgia toward the border with the breakaway region of Abkhazia in the late afternoon.
Further east, Russian forces abandoned a checkpoint and roadside position at the village of Igoeti, just 30 miles from the Tbilisi and the closest Russian troops had come to the capital for any length of time.
Georgia’s security council chief, Alexander Lomaia, said Russian forces also were leaving the strategic central city of Gori, which straddles the country’s main east-west highway south of South Ossetia, the separatist region at the heart of this month’s war between Russia and Georgia.
In the west, a column of 83 Russia tanks, APCs and trucks hauling artillery rolled away from the Senaki military base and toward the border with Abkhazia. Georgian police said the vehicles came from the base.
Friday, August 22 5:49 A.M.
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Georgia’s security council chief says Russian troops are leaving the strategic city of Gori.
Alexander Lomaia said Friday “we are seeing the pullback of Russian troops” from Gori, a key crossroads in central Georgia.
Gori regional governor Vladimir Vardzelashvili said earlier that 40 Russian military vehicles left Gori on Friday, heading north.
Under the cease-fire deal, Russian forces are to pull back to positions they held before intense fighting broke out Aug. 7 in South Ossetia, a separatist province in Georgia that has close ties to Russia.
The short but intense war on Russia’s southern border has deeply strained relations between Russia and the West.
THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE.
Russains soldiers sit a top of an APC near village Khurvaleti, 60 km northwest of Tbilisi, Friday, Aug. 22, 2008 as the Russian convoy moved north, in the direction of South Ossetia.
A Georgian gestures, whilst waiting for humanitarian aid to be distributed, in Gori, northwest of the capital Tbilisi, Georgia, Wednesday, Aug. 20, 2008. Some 80,000 refugees are in more than 600 centers in and around Tbilisi, primarily sheltered in schools, hospitals and previously abandoned buildings.
2:15 P.M. Thursday, August 21
11:09 A.M. Thursday, August 21
‘TROOPS WILL LEAVE IN THEIR OWN TIME’
Guardian:
A senior Russian government spokesman said today the withdrawal of the country’s forces from Georgia would take “a couple of weeks”. Russian forces would leave in their own time, the spokesman said, and even after the main bulk of the Russian army had gone, that Russian peacekeepers would continue to occupy Georgia.
“The withdrawal of long military columns will start in a few days. We came here in a hurry to help civilians and Russian citizens and it will take as long as it takes,” he said.
The spokesman said Georgia had misrepresented the ceasefire deal signed by the Russian president, Dmitry Medvedev, and that under those terms Russia could station peacekeepers in Georgia indefinitely
“They [the Georgians] are perverting the agreement. The agreement doesn’t indicate a specific time for withdrawal.”
A Russian soldier walks back to his convoy on the main Gori-Tbilisi road.
“The deal means we are able to take responsibility for the safety of our military personnel,” he said. “Our withdrawal will take a few weeks.”
However, at about the same time, the deputy chief of the general staff of the Russian army, Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, told reporters: “The pullback has started at such a pace that by the end of August 22 all the forces of the Russian Federation will be behind the line of our zone of responsibility.” Russia has made conflicting statements over its intentions for much of the past week.
Some Russian tanks were seen leaving Georgia overnight. Reuters news agency reported 21 tanks, rocket launchers and armoured cars moved north through the Roki tunnel that separates the Ossetia region from Russia.
Elsewhere, the Russians appeared to be strengthening their grip. Troops were seen today digging trenches and setting up mortars around the western Georgian port of Poti.
The Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili, said that Russian manoeuvres reflected “some kind of deception game”.
“They don’t show any sign that they want to give up control,” he told a news conference in Tbilisi. “It looks like the word withdrawal is understood in different ways by different people.”
Aid agencies have been trying to reach an estimated 159,000 people displaced by the conflict. The UN high commissioner for refugees reported today that 15,000 people in western Georgia were “in dire need of assistance” and cut off from the capital, Tbilisi.
Nato’s special envoy for the Caucasus and central Asia, Bob Simmons, arrived in Tbilisi today for talks with the government over deepening cooperation with the alliance. He was accompanied by a team of specialists in civil emergency planning to help Georgia deal with its immediate humanitarian needs, but Simmons will also be discussing the rebuilding of Georgia’s armed forces and the path to full Nato membership.
Georgia’s deputy foreign minister, Giga Bokeria, welcomed comments made yesterday by David Miliband, Britain’s foreign secretary, saying the formal process leading to Nato membership had already begun.
Bokeria told the Guardian that the Russian occupation had backfired and accelerated Georgia’s progress towards Nato. But he said Georgia had suffered as a result of earlier Nato indecision over its membership potential.
“Some European states made an honest mistake not to make a clear and ambiguous signal to Russia, and Georgia has paid the price,” Bokeria said.
8:33 A.M. Thursday, August 21
POTI, Georgia (AP) - Russian forces blocked the only land entrance to Georgia’s main port city on Thursday, a day before Russia promised to complete a troop pullout from its ex-Soviet neighbor.
Armored personnel carriers and troop trucks blocked the bridge to the Black Sea port city of Poti, and Russian forces excavated trenches and set up mortars facing the city. Another group of APCs and trucks were positioned in a nearby wooded area.
Although Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has promised that his forces would pull back by Friday, Russian troops appear to be digging in, raising concern about whether Moscow is aiming for a lengthy occupation of its small, pro-Western neighbor.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told The Associated Press that Russia was thinning out its presence in some occupied towns but was seizing other strategic spots. He called the Russian moves “some kind of deception game.”
“(The Russians) are making fun of the world,” he declared.
Nonetheless, a top Russian general troops were moving out in accordance with an EU-sponsored cease-fire.
“The pullback of Russian forces is taking place at such a tempo that by the end of August 22 they will be in the zones of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers,” Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy head of the general staff, said at a briefing.
The truce says both Russian and Georgian forces must move back to positions they held before fighting broke out Aug. 7 in Georgia’s separatist republic of South Ossetia, which has close ties to Russia. The agreement also says Russian forces can work in a so-called “secu
Russian soldiers in armored vehicles, are seen on the outskirts of Gori, northwest of the capital Tbilisi, Georgia
12:41 P.M. Wednesday, August 20
SACHKHERE, Georgia (AP) - Russian forces on Wednesday built a sentry post just 30 miles from the Georgian capital, appearing to dig in to positions deep inside Georgia despite pledges to pull back to areas mandated by a cease-fire signed by both countries.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev says his troops will complete their pullback by Friday, but few signs of movement have been seen other than the departure of a small contingent that have held the strategically key city of Gori.
Conditions throughout much of Georgia remained tense.
Russian soldiers were setting up camp Wednesday in at least three positions in west-central Georgia. Further east, soldiers were building a sentry post of timber on a hill outside Igoeti, 30 miles from Tbilisi and the closest point to the capital where Russian troops have maintained a significant presence.
A top Russian general, meanwhile, said Russia plans to construct nearly a score of checkpoints to be manned by hundreds of soldiers in the so-called “security zone” around the border with South Ossetia.
And at a military training school in the mountain town of Sachkhere, a Georgian sentry said he feared Russian forces will make good on their threat to return after a confrontation the day before.
The sentry, who gave his name only as Corporal Vasily, said 23 Russian tanks, APCS and heavy guns showed up at the base on Tuesday and demanded to be let in. The Georgians refused and the Russians left after a 30-minute standoff but vowed to return after blowing up facilities in the village of Osiauri, he said.
Georgia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that Russian soldiers destroyed military logistics facilities in Osiauri, but the claim could not immediately be confirmed.
“We’re trying not to provoke them; otherwise they’ll stay here for five to six months,” Vasily said. He said the school itself had no heavy weapons or other significant strategic value, unlike the military base raided by Russians at Senaki, “where they even took the windows off the buildings.”
The Kremlin said Medvedev told French President Nicolas Sarkozy by phone Tuesday that Russian troops would withdraw from most of Georgia by Friday—some to Russia, others to South Ossetia and a surrounding “security zone” set in 1999.
The White House has made clear that it expects Russia to move faster.
10:58 A.M. Wednesday, August 20
From the Guardian:
French, British and US officials are drafting a UN security council resolution in New York stiffening the terms of a Russian pullout, and agreement was reached to deploy the first western monitors in Georgia. Twenty unarmed military officers are to go to Georgia tomorrow, with another 80 expected to follow within weeks.
But the agreement to deploy international monitors took a week to finalise and was only sealed after negotiations through the night yesterday in Vienna by Finnish diplomats and the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe, together with the Russians and the Georgians.
The agreement suited the Russians, who had insisted the monitors not be permitted into South Ossetia. The observers are to patrol in “Georgia proper” and in what the Russians describe as their “security zone” bordering South Ossetia.
“The Russian side supports the deployment of a considerable number of additional observers in the security zone,” said the Russian foreign ministry.
“There is no security zone,” the US under-secretary of state, Dan Fried, told the Guardian.
Georgians confront Russian soldiers at a check-point, demanding their ouster, as a Russian armoured personnel carrier passes on the road from Tbilisi to Gori near Kaspi August 20, 2008.
Russian soldiers atop armoured personnel carriers occupy a village near the road from Tbilisi to Gori August 20, 2008.
An elderly Georgian couple escapes from a house set on fire by South Ossetian militia in the Georgian village of Kvemo-Achebeti outside the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, August 20, 2008.
Wednesday, August 20, 7:50 A.M.
If you missed this from a story posted yesterday, it’s important to know.:
NATO Won’t Hit Russia Hard Due To Energy Dependence
BRUSSELS, Belgium - NATO pulled its punches against Russia on Tuesday, suspending formal contacts as punishment for the Georgia invasion but bucking U.S. pressure for more severe penalties.
The Russian ambassador to NATO played down the impact of the emergency meeting of the Western alliance.
“The mountain gave birth to a mouse,” said Dmitry Rogozin.
Although the allies said they would not convene any more meetings of the NATO-Russia Council until Russian troops withdraw from Georgia, they bowed to concerns from Europe — which depends heavily on Russia for energy — and stopped short of adopting specific long-term steps to punish Moscow for its actions.
Wednesday, August 20, 6:18 A.M.
POTI, Georgia (AP) ― Russian soldiers took about 20 Georgian troops prisoner in Poti — Georgia’s key oil port city on Tuesday, blindfolding them and holding them at gunpoint, and commandeered American Humvees awaiting shipment back to the United States. As of this morning, Georgia is reporting that the soldiers and Humvees are still missing.
The move came as a small column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles left the strategic Georgian city of Gori in the first sign of a Russian pullback of troops from Georgia.
Russian forces blocked access to the city’s naval and commercial ports on Tuesday morning and towed the missile boat Dioskuria, one of the navy’s most sophisticated vessels, out of sight of observers. A loud explosion was heard minutes later.
Homevideo of Georgian warship burning in Poti:
Several hours later, an Associated Press photographer saw Russian trucks and armored personnel carriers leaving the port with about 20 blindfolded and handcuffed men riding on them. Port spokesman Eduard Mashevoriani said the men were Georgian soldiers.
Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said officials were looking into the reported theft of the Humvees.
The deputy head of Russia’s general staff, Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said Russian forces plan to remain in Poti until a local administration is formed, but did not give further details. He also justified previous seizures of Georgian soldiers as necessary to crack down on soldiers who were “out of any kind of control … acting without command.”
An AP television crew has seen Russian troops in and around Poti all week, with local port officials saying the Russians had destroyed radar, boats and other Coast Guard equipment there.
Russian soldiers take position at the Black Sea port city of Poti, western Georgia.
A column of a dozen Russian military trucks move along the road near Verkhny Zaramag in North Ossetia after crossing the border into Russia from Georgia, August 20, 2008
Tuesday, August 19, 2008 6:58 A.M.
BRUSSELS, Belgium — DEVELOPING: NATO allies say they cannot have normal relations with Russia as long as Moscow has troops in Georgia.
U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and her 25 NATO counterparts have called on Russia to immediately withdraw its troops from Georgia.
NATO foreign ministers say in a statement released after a meeting Tuesday that the alliance “cannot continue with business as usual” with Russia.
NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer says no cooperative programs have yet been axed “but one can presume … this issue will
have to be taken into view.”
6:00 A.M., Tuesday August 19
A small column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles has left the strategically key Georgian city of Gori and a Russian officer says they are heading back to South Ossetia and then Russia.
The column, which also apparently included a mobile rocket-launcher, passed the village of Ruisi, outside Gori on the road to South Ossetia on Tuesday afternoon.
Col. Igor Konoshenkov, a Russian military officer, told The Associated Press at the scene that the unit was headed for South Ossetia and, ultimately, back to Russia.
Konoshenkov said the movement was part of the Russian pullback mandated by a cease-fire that requires both sides to return to the positions they held before the Aug. 7 outbreak of heavy fighting in South Ossetia, a separatist Georgian province that has close ties to Russia.
Russia and Georgia on Tuesday also exchanged prisoners captured during their brief war, a move that may reduce tensions and, Georgia hopes, hasten the promised withdrawal of Russian troops.
Georgian Security Council head Alexander Lomaia said the swap removes any pretext for Russians to hold positions in Igoeti. The village is the closest that Russian forces have advanced to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, about 30 miles away.
NATO foreign ministers prepared to hold an emergency meeting in Brussels over a unified response to Russia’s invasion of its tiny neighbor, as the Russian troop pullout from Georgia that was supposed to have begun Monday.
A Russian defense official indicated Tuesday that a complete withdrawal from Georgia proper was not imminent.
3:00 P.M. Monday, August 18
2:41 P.M. Monday, August 18
1:30 P.M. Monday, August 18
U.N. Reports Over 118,000 Georgians Have Fled Fighting
GENEVA — The number of people who have fled the fighting in Georgia has risen above 118,000, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees said Friday.
According to figures provided by governments in the area, some 45,000 people have fled from the breakaway province of South Ossetia, said UNHCR spokesman Ron Redmond. Two-thirds of them have crossed the Russian border into North Ossetia, and the rest have gone into other parts of Georgia.
The bulk of the displaced people are 73,000 Georgians who have remained in Georgia proper, Redmond said. Most of them had fled from the strategic Georgian city of Gori, just south of the boundary with South Ossetia.
1:11 P.M. Monday, August 18
DEVELOPING: A U.S.Defense official has confirmed to FOX News that Russia has placed short range SS-21 missiles in South Ossetia, “which pose a threat to most major Georgian cities,” including the capital, Tbilisi.
“Anything such as that, or any other military equipment that was moved in would be in violation of this cease-fire and should be removed immediately,” Pentagon Spokesman Bryan Whitman said. “The only forces that are permitted to remain under the cease fire agreement are the forces that were in there at the Aug. 6 time frame.”
This news comes as Russia’s deputy chief of staff insists that Russian troops were pulling out of the breakaway region. However, there have been no confirmed signs of a withdrawal.
Monday, Aug. 18 11:04 A.M.
No Sign Russians Be Headed Anywhere
Russia’s deputy chief of staff insisted Monday that Russian troops and tanks have begun to withdraw from the conflict zone with Georgia, but left unclear exactly what Russia thought that zone was. In the key Georgian city of Gori, as everywhere else, there were no signs of a Russian pullback.
The statement by Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn came amid uncertainty about whether Russia was fulfilling President Dmitry Medvedev’s promise to begin a troop pullout Monday after signing an EU-backed cease-fire.
Nogovitsyn told a briefing in Moscow that “today, according to the peace plan, the withdrawal of Russian peacekeepers and reinforcements has begun” and said forces were leaving Gori.
However in Gori, Russian forces seemed to be solidifying their positions and the only movement seen by Associated Press reporters was in the opposite direction from Russia — toward the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, 55 miles to the east.
2:07 P.M. Sunday, August 17
Facing increasingly pointed Western calls to withdraw under a cease-fire agreement, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev told France’s Nicolas Sarkozy that Russian troops would begin pulling back on Monday, headed toward South Ossetia. He stopped short of promising they would return to Russia.
The EU-backed cease-fire agreement calls for Georgian and Russian troops to withdraw to the positions they held before fighting broke out Aug. 7.
But Medvedev’s silence on South Ossetia has fueled fears that Russia could annex the region, which—like Abkhazia—broke from Georgia government control in the 1990s and has declared independence. Getting Abkhazia alone would increase the length of Russia’s Black Sea coast by more than 25 percent.
“Georgia will never give up a square kilometer of its territory,” Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told a news conference alongside Germany’s Angela Merkel, the latest Western leader to visit Tbilisi and offer support for the country he has led on a pro-Western path, seeking to shake off a history of domination by Moscow.“I expect a very fast, very prompt withdrawal of Russian troops out of Georgia,” Merkel said in a courtyard at Saakashvili’s official residence.
In a statement of solidarity with Georgia, she said that eastern European country would join the Western defence alliance Nato despite Russia’s fierce opposition to such a move. “Georgia will become a member of Nato if it wants to - and it does want to,” she said.As Merkel spoke, Russian tanks and troops continued to control a wide swath of Georgia, including the main highway running through the country, the strategic central city of Gori, the western city of Senaki and the Senaki air base.
9:53 A.M. Sunday, August 17
WAPO:
MOSCOW, August 17 — Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Russian forces will begin withdrawing Monday from deep inside Georgia, back to the positions they held before heavy fighting broke out over two separatist provinces last week.
Following telephone discussions on Saturday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Medvedev said Russian troops would return to zones held before the conflict over control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia erupted into full-scale combat. In a written statement issued from the Kremlin, Medvedev said Georgian forces must also return to their previous positions.
U.S. officials reacted to the news somewhat skeptically, with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice saying she hoped that “this time” Medvedev would “keep his word.” Defense Secretary Robert Gates said at a Pentagon news conference that Russia’s aggressive push into Georgian territory could cause the United States to “revaluate” its strategic relationship with Moscow.
“There’s a real concern that Russia has turned a corner here and is headed back to its past rather than its future,” Gates said. “The fact is we have worked hard to bring them into the community of nations . . . We thought they were headed in that direction. Now we have to re-evaluate all that.”
3:37 A.M. Saunday, August 17
Despite treaty, Russians stay and fuck shit up
On the civilian bombings and massacres a few days ago:
8:46 A.M. Saturday, August 16
AFP:
US President George W. Bush said Saturday that the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia must remain part of Georgia.
Bush said in a speech at his ranch in Crawford, Texas that the two regions, embroiled for the past two weeks in a bloody conflict between Russia and Georgia, are “a part of Georgia,” and “they will remain so.”
“There is no room for debate on this matter,” Bush added.
5:50 A.M. Saturday, August 16
IGOETI, Georgia (AP) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed a truce with Georgia on Saturday, a definitive step toward ending the fighting there despite the uncertainty on the ground reflected by Russian soldiers digging in just 30 miles from the Georgian capital.
Medvedev spokesman Alexei Pavlov said Medvedev signed the agreement in the resort city of Sochi, where the president has a summer residence, but did not give further details. It was not immediately clear if any troops had begun pulling back after Medvedev signed the cease-fire.
The agreement was signed by Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili the day before. It calls for both sides forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted Aug. 8 after Georgia launched a massive barrage to try to take control of the Russian-backed separatist region of South Ossetia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed the forces of its small U.S.-backed neighbor and then drove deep into Georgia.
The Russian seizure of territory including the strategic city of Gori about 20 miles from Igoeti, raised fears that Russia aimed for a permanent occupation of the country that was once was part of its empire.
The shallow foxholes being gouged out of the earth at Igoeti on Saturday could indicate the Russians’ intention to stay awhile. But they could be meant for defensive positions to guard their comrades as they withdraw.
4:33 P.M. August 15
Guardian:
Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili said today that he had signed a ceasefire deal with Russia, ending hostilities over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, as he accused the Russian forces of using cluster bombs, weapons of mass destruction and ethnic cleansing.
In a press conference alongside the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, he also accused Russia of plotting an invasion after Nato denied Georgia membership in April. This advance planning had allowed Russia to send 1,200 tanks into Georgia within a matter of hours, said the president, who blamed the west for failing to intervene.
An emotional and angry Saakashvili said: “We are today looking evil directly in the eye.” He said Georgia would “never ever” reconcile itself to any occupation of its territory by Russia and said a “durable mechanism” was needed to deter Russia or it would attack again.
Rice, who was in Tibilisi to support Georgia after it was routed by Russia, said Russian forces must leave Georgia immediately now that the ceasefire had been signed.
“Our most urgent task today is the immediate and orderly withdrawal of Russian armed forces and the return of those forces to Russia,” said Rice. She added: “This is no longer 1968.”
The Russian president was prepared to sign the ceasefire, according to Rice, who said international observers could move in within days to be followed by a “robust” peacekeeping force.
9:04 A.M.
Russia accused of dropping cluster bombs on Georgian civilians
London Times:
Russian military aircraft have deployed controversial and indiscriminately deadly cluster bombs on civilian areas of Georgia according to an international rights group.
Human Rights Watch, which is based in New York, said today that it has obtained evidence proving that the weapons, which were banned by more than 100 countries in May, have killed at least 11 people so far during the conflict in the Caucasus.
Cluster bomb systems scatter small “bomblets” across a wide area and can prove deadly to civilians - particularly children - who pick up munitions which have failed to detonate on impact. The bombs effectively leave behind a trail of landmines.
4:02 A.M.
Stranglehold of Gori Splits Georgia In Two
GORI, Georgia (AP) - Russian troops on Friday allowed some humanitarian supplies into the city of Gori but continued their blockade of the strategically located city, raising doubts about Russia’s intentions in the war-battered country.
Gori is on the country’s main east-west highway about 45 miles west of the capital, Tbilisi. By holding it, Russian forces effectively cut Georgia in half.
What happens in Gori is key to when—or if—Russia will honor the terms of a cease-fire that calls for both sides to pull their forces back to the positions they held before fighting broke out last week in the separatist region of South Ossetia.
Russian military vehicles were blocking the eastern road into the city on Friday, although they allowed in one Georgia bus filled with loaves of bread.
1:20 A.M. August 15
Doubt Remains That Russia Will Leave Georgia
GORI, Georgia - High hopes plummeted into fearful confusion in key Georgian cities Thursday as Russian troops appeared ready to pull out, then returned. Georgia’s government said Russian tanks and other vehicles advanced toward the country’s second-largest city but later stopped dozens of miles away.
Russian troops are still blocking entrance to the city of Gori in war-battered Georgia. Doubt remains about whether Russia will honor an agreement to pull back its forces from the country.
The city is on Georgia’s main east-west road. The Russian troops’ presence there effectively cuts the country in two.
A cease-fire agreement calls for Russian forces to pull back to the positions they held before fighting that broke out a week ago in the separatist region of South Ossetia. The conflict has since seen Russian forces enter Georgia proper.
A Georgia Interior Ministry spokesman says there are no Russian troops in the second-largest city of Kutaisi, despite reports they were headed in that direction overnight.
12:30 A.M. Friday August 15
Russia Destroying Infrastructure During Withdrawal
WASHINGTON — Russia apparently is sabotaging airfields and other military infrastructure in Georgia as its forces pull back, in a deliberate attempt to cripple the already battered, U.S.-trained Georgian military, a U.S. official said Thursday.
Reports from Georgia indicate that Russian forces are doing what they can to disable Georgia’s ability to fight a future conflict, the official said. The official spoke on condition of anonymity to describe incomplete but apparently convincing eyewitness accounts.
Explosions were heard near Gori on Thursday as a Russian troop withdrawal from the strategic city seemed to collapse. A fragile cease-fire appeared even more shaky as Russia’s foreign minister declared that the world “can forget about any talk about Georgia’s territorial integrity.”
Meanwhile the United States poured aid into the Georgian capital of Tbilisi in a Pentagon mission directly challenging Russia’s military moves to retake territory in the former Soviet republic. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice launched emergency talks in France aimed at heading off a wider conflict.
Two aid flights were carrying cots, blankets and medicine for refugees displaced by the weeklong fighting. The shipment arrived on a C-17 military plane, an illustration of the close U.S.-Georgia military cooperation that has angered Russia.
12:05 A.M. Friday, August 15
Administration Reeling From Collapse Of Georgia
The Bush administration is reeling from the near collapse of its closest friend among the former Soviet republics, a strategic Black Sea nation that is an emerging pathway for undeveloped energy reserves and that has worn its zeal for America and the West as a badge of honor.
As the United States mustered humanitarian aid for Georgia, President George W. Bush demanded that Russia end all military activity inside its neighbor and withdraw all troops sent in recent days onto Georgian territory.
Bush announced that U.S. military assets and personnel would be deploying into the conflict zone. Though they going there only on a humanitarian mission, he made a point of noting that “we will use U.S. aircraft, as well as naval forces” to distribute supplies. He warned Russia not to impede relief efforts in any way.
All this appeared designed to answer criticism that Bush has not done enough to stand by his 2005 pledge, made from the center of Tbilisi before tens of thousands of citizens, to “stand with” the people of Georgia.
Amid some fear that Russian troops may be setting up for some type of medium-term occupation of parts of Georgia or even have intentions to press on to its capital of Tbilisi, Bush promised Wednesday to “rally the free world in the defense of a free Georgia.”
Speaking in grave tones at the White House, Bush decried Moscow’s apparent violation of a cease-fire agreement.
He demanded that Russia “keep its word and act to end this crisis.”
“The United States stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected,” he said.
The president postponed Thursday’s planned start of a two-week Texas vacation for a couple of days to monitor developments.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he saw no need to invoke American military force in the nearly week-old war, despite continued uncertainty about Russia’s next move.
“The United States spent 45 years working very hard to avoid a military confrontation with Russia. I see no reason to change that approach today,” Gates said at the Pentagon.
taking off his coat to reveal a shirt that says once a Pussie always a Pussie.
August 15th, 2008 at 1:27 amAnd it probably wasn’t what the C-17’s brought that was important, it was what they took away.
August 15th, 2008 at 1:29 amSend in some B2’s and let these pricks have it. or just give all Russia’s neighbour’s b2’s
im sure they would love it.
August 15th, 2008 at 1:38 amThe U.S. didn’t stop billions of dollars in economic and other aid to Russia during the war with Chechnya. It didn’t stop the aid when Russia said it planned on making nuclear reactors in Iran in 1996.
If any kind of financial aid is currently being funneled to Russia, I say stop it immediately. And don’t worry about the negative press. No matter what the U.S. does, most of the world press is going to excoriate us anyway. Let’s do something that’s right for the U.S., for once.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:53 amtaking off his coat to reveal a shirt that says once a Pussie always a Pussie. LOL
August 15th, 2008 at 4:20 amRussia is throwing dirt in our face and all we can say is throw some more.
What do you think they took away?
August 15th, 2008 at 4:57 amRussian butchers targeting civilians with cluster munitions in Gori and Ruisi:
Human Rights Watch said Russian aircraft dropped RBK-250 cluster bombs, each containing 30 PTAB 2.5M submunitions or bomblets, on the town of Ruisi in the Kareli district of Georgia on August 12, 2008 killing three civilians and wounding five others.
The organisation claims that on the same day a cluster strike in the centre of Gori killed at least eight civilians and injured dozens. The Dutch journalist Stan Storimans was among the dead.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4539186.ec
http://in.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idINIndia-35021820080815
August 15th, 2008 at 6:14 am
Mark Tanberg, Mr.Gates is forgetting some confrontations that happened after the Cuban missile crisis. The one I remember,because it involved me, was the US move to bomb Hanoi. I was stationed in Germany and we were put on high alert status as well as the Russians.Sometimes confrontations amount to who blinks first.
August 15th, 2008 at 6:25 amGary Gagliardi teaches the philosophy of Sun Tsu. In his blog he writes short paragraphs of how Sun Tsu tactics work in our daily lives. He writes:
Thanks to advances communication and transportation, the world has grown progressively smaller, but those who think that we can protect America by ignoring the political plight of free people around the world are smaller still.
http://www.artofwarplus.com/wordpress/
The US has lost it’s nerve in facing Russia. The signal of weakness, and lack of “what if” strategy and strained military from middle east involvement shows Russia planned this near perfect. All the world is watching and taking notes. The US looks like a well spanked child. Missles in Poland. I assure they will put try to place some of theirs in the Western hemisphere, forcing us to forget Poland.
The signal being sent is clear . Russia can do whatever it wants and the US will not do anything to stop them. The Russians have been supplying weapons to our enemies and we have stood by and literally said nothing. Why do you think that is.
History is repeating itself except this time Russia is much stronger economically. We once again have literally helped our enemy to defeat us politically.
This will only strenghen the resolve of Iran, Hizbollah, and Hamas who poses a much more serious threat to our continent. We have let too damn many of them in our country and they now plan our own demise from within. Plus, now, they just got bolstered by Russia’s obvious disgust for the US. What do you think will happen now that Russia has showed its true feelings about us?
Maybe we should begin looking into what has already been planned behind by the Rsskies behind our backs and with our other enemies and focus on saving our own ass.
The reality is that the US could lose any confrontation with Russia. Since we do not intend to use nukes either, we are faced with the bleak future that the Russians can force us to eat their shit and we may only be able to say, “Can I have a spoon …” The Russians are our enemies and they now
August 15th, 2008 at 6:35 amare free to further help our other enemies.
These governments are working hard on social policies instead of racheting up military spending. They had 20 years to ensure freedom for their people but instead provided free medical care. Freedom always requires blood. I can only hope the rest of the once soviet block countries can learn the lessons.
August 15th, 2008 at 7:38 amMaybe the MSM will finally choke on their own words, about the, “Cold War” is over bs! And maybe, some of the vital defense equipment will finally get funded, such as lots of new subs, planes, missiles, etc… (built here in USA), and scrap those “treaties” that hinder our nations defense posture. Our “backyard” includes Venezuela and Nicaragua, why should these countries be allowed to bring terrorist organizations to our backdoor?
August 15th, 2008 at 7:50 am“..why should these countries be allowed to bring terrorist organizations to our backdoor?”
Apparently we are no longer a serious country.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:21 amSending France, half of the ‘Socialist alliance’ that created this mess in Georgia, to negotiate a cease-fire is seriously messed up. Why expect anything better when it comes to our own hemisphere? Gates and Rice give lip service to ‘policy based on American national interests’ but I don’t see it. I’m very disappointed in them the last week.
Send some A-10’s their way.
I have been saying for a decade that we have been ignoring the wrong enemies. I wouldn’t be a bit surprised if Russia was behind the insurgency in Iraq both monetarily and logistically. Iran was just the filter medium.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:34 amsully your bilebag is overwelwing your perception
I guess that you should have gone there and make your miracle, I bet you would came back in POS
Now, if you want the escalation on war go on, you’ll have it on your nice moral counscience, I’ll be counting the casualties
August 15th, 2008 at 9:14 amfranchie, you’re an appeasing Socialist liar.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:28 amsay something intelligent or stfu
sully you are a bellicous battery rooster that has no moral to fake what suits your agenda
August 15th, 2008 at 9:32 am“Now, if you want the escalation on war go on, you’ll have it on your nice moral counscience, I’ll be counting the casualties.”
How exquisitely French.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:37 amBetter to live on your knees than die on your feet, eh, franchie?
And once again the EU and UN are twiddling their thumbs, perpetuating the fact that the U actually stands for “Useless.”
August 15th, 2008 at 9:45 amokay franchie… one more chance… everything you’ve posted on this subject has been (like your President) calls for appeasement of Russia.
August 15th, 2008 at 9:53 amExplain to us how that actually works.
No links.
Your own words.
There’s a great article by John Bolton on this subject on the Telegraph.co.uk website. Good grief, is he the only man in America that understands how to deal with these things? Essentially, he smartly lays out concrete steps that Nato needs to take now.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/2563260/John-Bolton-After-Russias-invasion-of-Georgia-what-now-for-the-West.html
August 15th, 2008 at 10:02 amsully you’ll have to check the next days, you can’t expect that the 2 factions will stop just with the thumb up
It’s doesn’t help to ignify the spirits, can’t see there is a raisonable proposition from you up to now, just bomb bomb, escalation till where? that China will decret war against you either, that’s a probability post OG though
August 15th, 2008 at 10:04 amIf Condi’s saying “get out”..what is the “or else”…what will/can be done. Freezing assets?… NATO?…yeah,right…G8 membership?….
Now they are threatening Poland, once again proving why Poland needs the missile shield to begin with. The missiles are conventional, not nukes. Now they are threatened by Poland and the Czech republic….Who has the history of agression and occupation… us or them?… Bullies always feel threatened when they can’t excersise their will.
August 15th, 2008 at 10:06 amyeah right… more bullshit from franchie not answering a direct request to explain how the french position of appeasing enemies and selling out friends works…. it’s just their ‘nature’.
August 15th, 2008 at 10:15 amwhat friends ? blackwaters ? they ain’t our friends, you neither, BUT with your big mouth you’ll never go there, just blah blah,
August 15th, 2008 at 10:19 amRussian convoy moves deeper inside Georgia
Fri Aug 15, 2008 12:59pm EDT
IGOETI, Georgia (Reuters) - A Russian military convoy advanced to within 55 km (34 miles) of Tbilisi on Friday, a Reuters witness said, in the deepest incursion since conflict with Georgia erupted last week.
The advance by some 17 armored personnel carriers (APCs) and about 200 soldiers coincided with a visit by U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to secure Georgia’s signature on a French-brokered peace plan to end the fighting.
Initially 10 APCs moved along the main highway from the Russian-occupied town of Gori, 25 km (15 miles) from breakaway South Ossetia, before stopping in the village of Igoeti. Several APCs headed down side roads and seven more arrived later.
The exact mission of the incursion was not clear.
http://www.reuters.com/articlePrint?articleId=USLF7284720080815
August 15th, 2008 at 10:39 amSomebody really needs to put down the French/English dictionary and step away from the keyboard.
August 15th, 2008 at 10:50 amGeorgia fallout felt in Iraq
U.S. troop withdrawal plans could be affected by the exit of 2,000 Georgian troops from Iraq
By Peter Spiegel, Los Angeles Times Staff Writer
August 15, 2008
WASHINGTON — Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the U.S. commander in Iraq, is being forced to grapple with one of the unexpected byproducts of the conflict in Georgia: His plan to withdraw American forces in Iraq was predicated on all partner nations keeping their troop levels intact.
With nearly 2,000 Georgian troops returning home in the midst of the crisis there, the coalition has lost what one senior military official called one of the largest and most capable contributions to the Iraq effort. As a result, the official said, Petraeus is now assessing whether he will have to change his plans, including possibly delaying the return home of some U.S. forces this year…
…another military official familiar with Iraq planning said Georgian troops had been central to a new push to block weapons shipments coming across the border from Iran into southeastern Iraq, setting up a base in the city of Kut and patrolling nearby border regions.
“You can’t lose the Georgian component without some impact,” said the military official, who also requested anonymity because he was not authorized to discuss Iraq troop deployments publicly. “If you had to assess the 30 countries in Iraq as a coalition force, Georgia was among the top tier, both in number and capabilities.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/washingtondc/la-fg-surge15-2008aug15,0,1217779.story
August 15th, 2008 at 10:54 amC’mon franchie…. explain the benefits of appeasement.
August 15th, 2008 at 11:14 amYou live in France. Maybe Sarkozy had something important to say after his Neville Chamberlain moment.
Explain it all for us.
I’m interested in what he has to say
August 15th, 2008 at 11:20 am“Maybe Sarkozy had something important to say after his Neville Chamberlain moment”.
Sarozy’s ?????????? no Bush either !!!!
http://www.turkishweekly.net/comments.php?id=2959
fuck the US-EU pricks
August 15th, 2008 at 11:40 amsully & franchie
I’m not sensing a whole lotta love ’round here…
It’s like friday night at the fights.
But seriously, what is the mood across the pond there with the russians throwing another tantrum, this time w/weapons..Hungary, Czechoslovakia, Afghanistan, Georgia,…who’s next?…Franchie? anyone in merry old Englandistan?..anywhere else?
August 15th, 2008 at 11:47 amI said explain appeasement in your own words. You’ve been posting crap links for a week, including PRAVDA, which blame the victim without any explanation of how the French policy of appeasement actually works to promote enduring peace. The French voting against Georgia entering NATO on the grounds that it would piss Russia off didn’t ‘appease’ like France hoped. Explain how further appeasement works.
August 15th, 2008 at 11:49 amIf you’re unable to explain it just say so.
The French voting against Georgia entering NATO
Escuse-me Germany has a bigger voice, she is stll hosting Nato, not France
But in the case of Georgia, the problem of harming the ossetians and askasians was the reason of the delay : one couldn’t include yet a country that didn’t respect her minorities, anyway that was the official statment.
on the grounds that it would piss Russia off
might be true for the Germans, but not for us, our economy doesn’t rely on Russia markets
didn’t ‘appease’ like France hoped. Explain how further appeasement works. (check other sources than these that reproduct your voice, you’ll see that the US, have also NO intention to harm Russia)
If you’re unable to explain it just say so.
fuck you, is that appeasing for you ?
_____________________________________________
Stevem, hi, can’t help , it’s our modus vivendi
well, dunno yet how the crise is perceived here, seems all the people are in vacation or looking at the OG, it doesn’t seems that this crise is worrying many ; though, I expect that in september the lefties will fall on Sarkozy’s back, cause, that would surely not the decision they would have undergone
I say, wait a few days to see how the things are decanting
August 15th, 2008 at 12:06 pmhttp://www.cato-at-liberty.org/2008/08/13/more-on-georgia/
that says, even if Georgia had been in Nato, that would have accelerated the war process with Russia
though, I have been watching a report that interviewed georgians that were flying from the fightings, seem the problem is the president of Georgia, the people said, “if they (the russians) want him, they can have him, but we ought to be left in peace”
August 15th, 2008 at 1:24 pmMaybe you ought to re-read the article you posted…
August 15th, 2008 at 1:40 pmIread the inner links
August 15th, 2008 at 1:44 pmSince the bear has come out of the cave and is running amok…what’s next? Invade and control the rest of Georgia, conscript the eligible men for military service, attack the Ukraine, conscript their men….
August 15th, 2008 at 1:48 pmFrench for ‘franchie doesn’t have a clue what she’s talking about and therefore can’t explain a fucking thing’.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:07 pmsully , I don’t care , with you it’s horse shit
August 15th, 2008 at 2:19 pmWhat’s “horseshit” is you making assertions that defend Russia and the inept Sarkozy without backing them up.
August 15th, 2008 at 2:37 pmCommentators of all stripes seem to assume that Russia’s move into Georgia was driven by its increasingly autocratic nature. (This is reminiscent of Kennan’s argument back in the X article that Communism made the Soviet Union prone to aggression, which he later regretted.) It is worth considering whether this is a misperception. A powerful body of political science argues that states’ foreign policy actions are driven mostly by their circumstance and interests, not their regime type or the personality of the leaders. Regime type and personality affect how states interpret their circumstances, but maybe not as much as we tend to think. The United States is not particularly tolerant of seemingly hostile states in its near abroad either, whether they are democracies or not.
so Im not expecting a surprise, then again sully the inept Sarkozy, Carla and me tell you “fuck you”, good for your ulcère
August 15th, 2008 at 2:45 pmThat’s not your writing. Where did you find that bit of moral relativism to justify appeasement? PRAVDA again?
August 15th, 2008 at 3:02 pmnah, digg in the link, how comes its moral relativism when it says that US tolerance = Russia tolerance
August 15th, 2008 at 3:05 pmYou show yet again that you have no awareness of your own affliction.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:23 pmThat’s understandable. Insane folks always believe they are normal.
your a fullsy racist, and It will not happen any good of you, I tell ya you bile is going to kill you
parles moi encore de ta morale, tu peux te la mettre au cul
August 15th, 2008 at 3:31 pm“your a fullsy racist….”
Yeah… that’s what Obama’s people tell me so it must be true.
August 15th, 2008 at 3:36 pmyour problem is that you cofound Obama with everyone who is not holding your diatribe, that’s makes also an intolerant of you, I wonder how you can teach philosophy with such a spirit, ah I forgot, your also old then likely not teaching anymore but policing is quite your entertaining job,
A bas les fashists, A bas les fashists, à bas les fashists….
August 15th, 2008 at 3:55 pmFail again.
August 15th, 2008 at 4:12 pmMy ‘problem’ is Socialists like yourself that empathize with and appease violent Fascists like ‘palestinians’ and the Russians because you’re afraid of them.
ah, papy radote, soon in geriatic care I believe
August 15th, 2008 at 4:20 pmFail again.
but I can’t understand why you say such hurtful things…. we’re constantly told how ‘enlightening’ Socialism is for the masses.
Now… is there an actual grown-up at your house there that we could talk with instead?
August 15th, 2008 at 4:52 pmMaybe one we could prevail upon to intervene and get you to put that pipe away?
but I can’t understand why you say such hurtful things….
did I ? I though you had no sensibility, that you are a “dur de dur” ; then sorry, though you pushed the fighting button on
we’re constantly told how ‘enlightening’ Socialism is for the masses, yeah a trick, ya know Obama’s
Now… is there an actual grown-up at your house there that we could talk with instead?
Maybe one we could prevail upon to intervene and get you to put that pipe away?
im the boss, the grown-ups as you said, either watched TV, (OG) though a bit late, or are preparing a rallye with “alpine renault” (sorry again renault)
and they let me smoke my pipe of belgian tobacco
ZZZZZ
August 15th, 2008 at 5:09 pmSully, ignore ignorance. Drive the asshat over the edge. We can watch the frog self destruct.
This is a serious problem, unlike how to sell pissy wine to snobby Americans.
August 15th, 2008 at 5:19 pm“ZZZZZ”
That’s an even better idea.
I know it’s hard for you to imagine but maybe while you sleep you’ll dream of a world behind the Socialist propaganda your government spoon feeds you and the intern