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Escalating situation in (country of) Georgia (pg. 8)
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| Magnetonium |
Yes, I cant watch Olympics with this going on. I just cant. I hope the bloodshed ends soon. Shame to those who decided to use the Olympics as a cover to launch this senseless military campaign. |
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| Krypton |
| America as the sole superpower of the world shows the example to every other country in the world. If they can interfere in Granada, Cuba, and Nicaragua, then I can't say Russia interfering in the Georgia's invasion is wrong. What basis can Mr. Bush tell Russia to cease fire? None. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
LOL!!! What are you talking about, seriously?? Russia committing genocide against their own citizens annd allied Ossetian people? Thats more ridiculous than the Georgian attack itself. Theres's only 75000 minus the current casualties of Ossetians in the whole republic! Current reports from the war zone indicate that Georgian shelling and attacks, as well as murderous genocidal campaign has resulted in over 2000 civilian deaths - that out of a total population of 75000. And thats NOT the first time Georgia has murdered a huge number of Ossetian people (first in 1920, then in early 1990s). |
Um..that was supposed to be a joke..you know like, aiming to say that people care more about celebrity affairs than genocides and ethnic cleansing and that sort of stuff. I thought I made my position relatively clear on the issue. But if there's any misunderstanding, let me say freely that I am most certainly not on Georgia's side in this conflict.
| quote: | | I doubt Russia will go to Tbilisi. Thats gonna be a lot of casualties, and Russian military hasnt established a line of support and supplies and more troops/equipment yet. Its not in the Russian interest to take over Georgia, plus they dont need to. Why? Because they can just defeat Georgian forces around Ossetian region, and then Georgian people can overthrow the disgraced leader later on in the year (remember Milosevic?). |
It's not Russia's interest to occupy Georgia, but to take down its government. Whether it will do it Serbia style or Iraq style, we have yet to see.
| quote: | | I repeat once again - Russia does not need Georgia. The geo-political thing is America's game. Georgia offers nothing to Russia, no oil or strategic resources. Armenia is Russsia's strategic ally in the region, not Georgia. Russia is only trying to establish a buffer zone to counter NATO expansion - which is a military pact that since the beginning was aimed at Russia, thats all there's to it, in addition to protecting its citizens and peacekeepers. Besides, Georgian attitude shows that they think Russians are weak and will not do anything. Well, this conflict can show the entire world that Russia is no longer a pushover. People need to treat Russia with respect and seriously, and deal with Russian government issues before just annihilating its citizens and peacekeepers like Georgia's coward and agressive attack did. |
It's kind of naive of you to think that americans are the only ones who are actively participating in geopolitics. Russia does not need Georgia for anything, but the US does need Georgia as a transit point for a pipeline that manages to avoid Russia and its allies. Therefore it is in Russia's interest to have Georgia destabilized or to have a pro-russian georgian government. Anything other would be foolish. I agree that NATO closing in and showing strength to other nations are also factors, but we already discuissed that.
This is not about the people, this is about geopolitics. Sure, people come in handy as an excuse and they certainly make a very good additional reason, but they're not the core issue. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by Magnetonium
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^^^ Thats a pretty dam conservative article. Too bad they dont show the photos of Tskhinvali, annihilated by Georgian forces. 1500 dead civilians - South Ossetians.
"Russian invasion of Georgia" is quite the statement. I dont recall reading the same titles about NATO ("NATO invasion of Yugoslavia"?) when it bombed Yugoslavia to stop the Milosevic. Saakashvilli is insane by sending troops on a vicious and surprise attack to murder Ossetian civilians, AND Russian peacekeepers. Do we see some hypocrisy here?
By looking at pictures like these, you can tell that Saakashvilli is lying when he said that Tskhinvali is under Georgian control:
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you can't say with any definitive certainty who is killing whom and at what rate at this particular moment.
maybe when the dust settles, maybe. it is a Russian conflict after all. |
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| HardTranceProd |
Excellent analysis below. From the Guardian (UK).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...eorgia.russia1
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Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili is often described as 'pro-West', although 'pro-Nato' would be more precise, which in most of the former Soviet Union translates unambiguously as 'anti-Russia'.
But that is not a definition that the North Atlantic alliance should embrace, especially not in the context of the war currently being waged over the tiny republic of South Ossetia.
Russia says it has acted to restore a peace that it was mandated to keep in the region; a peace that was violated when Tbilisi launched an all-out assault to reclaim the separatist enclave last week. Since that attack claimed the lives of Russian soldiers based in South Ossetia, Georgia, according to the Kremlin, has declared war.
Georgia, meanwhile, says it moved against the separatists only after constant provocation, stoked by the Kremlin. Moscow's zealous intervention, according to Tbilisi, confirms that the former imperial power in the Caucasus still sees the region as its private military playground.
There is truth in both accounts, and both sides have a store of historical grudges to draw upon in portraying their opponent as the reckless aggressor. Trying to identify 'who started it' leads into a tangle of nationalist mythology, conspiracy theory and disinformation.
But if the origins of the dispute are obscured by historical detail, the strategic miscalculations of recent days are clear. The biggest belongs to Georgia.
President Saakashvili has pledged to 're-integrate' the areas that broke away from Georgia when it gained independence from the Soviet Union - Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Both are supported by Moscow. Mr Saakashvili desperately wants his country to join Nato and knows that the existence of enclaves inside his borders but outside his jurisdiction is a serious obstacle to that goal. At a summit in Bucharest earlier this year Nato held out the prospect of membership at an unspecified point in the future. Mr Saakashvili appears to have interpreted that lukewarm invitation as a statement of unalloyed solidarity and a licence to bring the separatists to heel. He calculated that Russia would not dare invade a Nato member-in-waiting. He was wrong.
Georgia tried to play the card of mutual Western assistance, which it did not yet hold. As a result it has badly damaged its credentials as a reliable candidate for membership, a fact that Russia has been all too eager to point out.
Until recently Georgia seemed inclined to accept a compromise of substantial autonomy for South Ossetia, just short of independence. That, given Russia's deep involvement in the region, is clearly the best deal Tbilisi can hope for. But the scale of Moscow's response - a full-scale air and ground onslaught - suggests it now intends to use Georgia's blunder as a pretext to humiliate and disable the country, to crush its aspirations ever to challenge Russian authority. It claims licence for its actions from the West's support for Kosovan independence. The crude calculus is that, if Nato can help Kosovo break away from Russian ally Serbia, Russia can wrest South Ossetia from Nato ally Georgia.
Quite aside from the bogus analogy (Mr Saakashvili has many flaws but he is no Slobodan Milosevic), the Kremlin approach includes a strategic mistake. Georgia is sabotaging its Nato membership bid all by itself, which gives Russia the opportunity to play responsible regional peacekeeper. Since it knows Nato will not go to war over South Ossetia, the Kremlin could use this conflict to rebut the idea that it still grieves the loss of its old satellites and itches to reclaim them by force. Dmitri Medvedev, Russia's new President, is still an unknown quantity in the West with a chance to reshape his country's global image. With some shrewd diplomacy he could escape the shadow of his predecessor, Vladimir Putin, whose record in the Caucasus will always be coloured by memories of brutal repression in Chechnya.
Russian diplomats often complain that the West judges their country by obsolete Cold War stereotypes, seeing any action in relation to its neighbours as neo-Soviet aggression. That is certainly the Georgian perspective. The message should go out from Nato capitals to Tbilisi that the Alliance expects diplomatic maturity from prospective members. That means signalling clear readiness for an immediate ceasefire. The message to Moscow should be that, by moderating its response to Georgia's foolish gambit and accepting a truce, the Kremlin can prove those Cold War stereotypes false.
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The gist: Georgia has already demonstrated to the world its awful immaturity, scaring and irritating its allies. But Russia, for its part, could have seized this chance to show its maturity in dealing with this crisis, which it hasn't so far.
Here was a chance for Russia to improve its image and denigrate its enemy's on the world stage. |
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| DrUg_Tit0 |
| quote: | Originally posted by HardTranceProd
Excellent analysis below. From the Guardian (UK).
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisf...eorgia.russia1
The gist: Georgia has already demonstrated to the world its awful immaturity, scaring and irritating its allies. But Russia, for its part, could have seized this chance to show its maturity in dealing with this crisis, which it hasn't so far.
Here was a chance for Russia to improve its image and denigrate its enemy's on the world stage. |
The analysis does bring up some good points, but the fact of the matter is that force is often appreciated more than politness and maturity. If Russia crushes Georgia, there's no way any other former soviet region will try to challenge its authority. If Russia plays the mature card as the Guardian suggests, it probably would gain some popular respect in the west, but at a cost of being seen as weak by its neighbours and the rest of the world. Politics are more of a competition in strength than in popularity. The point that Russia is now trying to make is, to put it simply - don't with us. They're not some small country that needs popularity to succeed on the world stage. They're the second biggest army in the world, and they hold Europe by its balls thanks to their huge energy resources. 10 years from now, nobody will really care on what happened these days, like nobody cares about Chechnya anymore. They're a part of Russia, and nobody is trying to dispute it.
The thing is that this is a post 9/11 world. That basically means that the big powers do what they like and the UN has become like League of Nations, incapable of making a difference. I personally don't like what the world has come to at all, but I do understand that Russia does not want to waste time on diplomacy with Georgia when it has seen how the US handled Kosovo, Iraq, and Afghanistan.
Anyway, a little update, seems that Abhazian forces have also attacked georgian army. This is not good for Georgia, not good at all. |
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| guerra-monstru |
| ok, Ive read that Georgia has repelled four Russian advances and that Russia asked Georgia to let the wounded Russians out. But Georgia said no. And surprise surprise, Russia has not admitted to getting there butts kicked, yet. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by guerra-monstru
ok, Ive read that Georgia has repelled four Russian advances and that Russia asked Georgia to let the wounded Russians out. |
i'm not saying your wrong, but that just doesn't sound like Russia.
unless Moscow has some piss drunk regional commander calling the shots down there, Russian armor and jets should be rolling through the countryside vaporizing anything that moves and securing territory by the hectare. |
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| guerra-monstru |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
i'm not saying your wrong, but that just doesn't sound like Russia.
unless Moscow has some piss drunk regional commander calling the shots down there, Russian armor and jets should be rolling through the countryside vaporizing anything that moves and securing territory by the hectare. |
That sounds just like Russia. The Georgians bombed the tunnel which the Russians used to transport their men in. There were only two ways in to S. Ossetia, and Georgia has successfully secured both routes in. Now the Russians are going to have to use the road which is going to get exciting to hear about. There will be more blood whenever the volgograd army arrives. |
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| guerra-monstru |
| I forgot to mention that Georgian countryside is lots of mountains and rough terrains for tanks. |
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| Q5echo |
| quote: | Originally posted by guerra-monstru
I forgot to mention that Georgian countryside is lots of mountains and rough terrains for tanks. |
i didn't know that. i'll have to bring up some topography of the region. |
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| guerra-monstru |
| quote: | Originally posted by Q5echo
i didn't know that. i'll have to bring up some topography of the region. |
Ever heard of the Caucasus mountains? They divide Russia and Georgia;)
Plus, many more mountain ranges. Georgia is considered to be one of the best ski destinations, and the best part is that most people do not know that. |
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