Speaking personally, I certainly understand how an administration can drive morale down in the military. It is without a doubt THE singular most disheartening thing that can happen to you while deployed, which is to wonder if you truly have the support of those who sent you away from home.
TIMESONLINE
American soldiers serving in Afghanistan are [...]
Bloomberg:
When senior FBI official Joseph Persichini takes his 5 a.m. jog down Washington’s National Mall, he imagines everything that could go wrong at Barack Obama’s inaugural next week.
He said he thinks about the possibility of a sleet storm, bombing, chemical attack or — perhaps hardest to guard against — the lone gunman bent on [...]
The Guardian:
The Bush administration today accused Russia of aggression and authoritarianism, claiming its main aim in invading Georgia last month was to overthrow the country’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
In the strongest attack on a resurgent Moscow since it routed the Georgian military in a five-day war last month, the US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, said [...]
***UPDATE - Monday 11:30 pm ET
Gustav Drenches Gulf Coast, Mostly Spares New Orleans
(PICTURES)
NEW ORLEANS — A weaker-than-expected Hurricane Gustav swirled into the fishing villages and oil-and-gas towns of Louisiana’s Cajun country Monday, delivering only a glancing blow to New Orleans that did little more than send water sloshing harmlessly over its rebuilt floodwalls.
It was [...]
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 [...]
CNN
August 27, 2008- A U.S. Coast Guard ship carrying relief supplies is scheduled to dock Wednesday in Batumi, Georgia, a spokesman for the U.S. Embassy in Georgia said.
The cutter Dallas will bypass the Georgian port of Poti, where Russian troops set up checkpoints after invading Georgia this month.
News reports said the Dallas planned to dock [...]
Russian soldiers have been accused of establishing a market in a rebel region of Georgia to sell clothes and electronic goods they looted during the invasion and occupation of the country’s western regions.
24 Aug 2008
Telegraph UK
Georgian civilians leaving Gali, a predominantly Georgian town within the breakaway province of Abkhazia, spoke with wonder of [...]
By Ralph Peters - (Real Clear Politics)
A specter is haunting Europe-the specter of Putinism. Confronted by a masterful Russian leader without living peer in brilliance or ruthlessness, the continent sorely lacks leadership and a sense of common purpose. In their muddled reactions to the Kremlin’s invasion of Georgia, European states revealed a gap in perceptions [...]
A top Russian general has accused NATO of setting up a naval force in the Black Sea under the ‘cover’ of aid deliveries to Georgia.
I’ve been saying what the general’s now saying, for about a week. Last week, we were about the only website to boldy put up a story headlined: Bush Orders Troops To [...]
“Some still wonder where their friend is.”
USA Today:
TBILISI, Georgia — The road to the airport is named George W. Bush Street.
Across from historic Freedom Square, where former Soviet dictator Josef Stalin went to school, is a Marriott Courtyard. And the presidential palace under construction is often called the “white house.”
This tiny nation that emerged after [...]
THE DOGS OF WAR: A ragtag group of mercenaries from this Vostok Battalion has made its ominous presence known in the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.
DEVIL SENT DOWN TO GEORGIA
by Ralph Peters - (NYPost)
OVER the weekend, photographic proof emerged that the Russians used murderous Chechen mercenaries to do their dirtiest dirty work in Georgia: The ragtag [...]
Related post
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 [...]
At least for now, the smoke seems to be clearing from the Georgian battlefield. But the extent of the wreckage reaches far beyond that small country.
By John R Bolton - (Telegraph UK)
Russia’s invasion across an internationally recognised border, its thrashing of the Georgian military, and its smug satisfaction in humbling one of its former fiefdoms [...]
The US secretary of state, Condoleezza Rice, and Georgia’s president, Mikheil Saakashvili, in Tbilisi.
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 [...]
Let’s be clear. This isn’t just about humanitarian aid. It’s about the fact that the Russians will not commit anymore mayhem like the massacres of civilians they’ve already engaged in, and in fact will not stay, if the U.S. military is based for awhile in Georgia. Note Bush’s clear line that implies that [...]
9:57 P.M. August 12, 2008
Bloomberg:
“A substantial part of our military power has been destroyed,” said Georgian National Security Council chief Kakha Lomaia. “However, we did preserve the core of our army, and have managed to regroup it close to the capital.”
An airbase in Senaki was destroyed and three Georgian ships blown up in the Black [...]
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The UN Security Council NATO NEEDS to strip Russia of its Veto power PERIOD.
UPDATE:
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) - Russia opened a second front of fighting in Georgia on Monday, sending armored vehicles beyond two breakaway provinces and seizing a military base and police stations in the country’s west, the Georgian government and a Russian official said. [...]
Short article, you’ll blaze through it. And key.
The Daily Mail:
The war in Georgia escalated dangerously last night after Russian jets reportedly bombed a vital pipeline that supplies oil to the West.
After a day of heightening international tensions, Georgian leaders claimed that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, had been [...]
WASHINGTON — The Pentagon is considering sending as many as 7,000 more American troops to Afghanistan next year to make up for a shortfall in contributions from NATO allies, senior Bush administration officials said.
They said the step would push the number of American forces there to roughly 40,000, the highest level since the war [...]
BUCHAREST, Romania (AP) - Russia is deeply worried by NATO’s pledge to eventually bring Ukraine and Georgia into the alliance, despite its failure to do so immediately, a senior Russian diplomat said Friday.
Sergei Ryabkov, chief of the Russian Foreign Ministry’s department for European cooperation, spoke just before President Vladimir Putin sat down for a meeting [...]
