Georgian troops battle for separatist capital

[Looon]

This scenario was played out almost exactly in the first Ghost Recon game!

It was set to take place in 2008. Im not kidding.

[Rock Island Ranger]

This scenario was played out almost exactly in the first Ghost Recon game!

It was set to take place in 2008. Im not kidding.

Huh! Imagine that. Now imagine this. Who fucking cares.

[Looon]

This scenario was played out almost exactly in the first Ghost Recon game!

It was set to take place in 2008. Im not kidding.

Huh! Imagine that. Now imagine this. Who fucking cares.

Hey, don't you need to clean your dentures or something?

[Rock Island Ranger]

This scenario was played out almost exactly in the first Ghost Recon game!

It was set to take place in 2008. Im not kidding.

Huh! Imagine that. Now imagine this. Who fucking cares.

Hey, don't you need to clean your dentures or something?

Yea. Guess I could floss them with your wifes pubic hair.

[Rock Island Ranger]

Osettia area study:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/count ... 797729.stm

Seems some Americans can't get past the cold war rubric.
We have too much to lose by playing the old "we can't trust them' excuse, this always disguises ignorance.
Putin & his "cold war rheric"? or is it reaction to short sighted & ignorant foreign policies of two American administrations? Chicken or egg? You got my POV already.

We've been fighting the same enemies in central Asia & the Caucasis, too bad we seem to want to make it a three way fight.
We went to war with one country over a nuclear program that didn't exist and are trying to instigate a war with another over a nuclear program that may, or may not, produce a nuclear weapon in the next decade while we shit on the one power that CAN deliver an actual & total nuclear strike right now?
Yeah guys, "bring it on" was stupid when George II said it on 2003, it's even dumber in this context.
Allies? No such things, nations align with nations with common interests, we have far more common interests with Russia than with GA or many other erstwhile friendly nations. China should be shitting bricks over the thought of the US & Russia developing & defending Siberia, instead of the two Eurasian powers working together against us, as we've pushed to happen & is happening.

And what exactly has Russia done that inspires trust in you? Called it disguised ignorance if you like but its not cold war thinking that leads me to the conclusion. Convenient comment but none the less....untrue. So, list all of the major things Russia has done to cause us to "TRUST" them. For that matter...minor ones.
Essentially what you said in the last comment was, fuck the little guy, lets monster up and scare the shit out of everyone regardless of who is right or wrong, good or bad. The commonalities are exactly what? Oil? Whatelse?

[Looon]

For some time, Russia has been putting themselves in a position to control most of the energy supplied to all of Europe. This at least is partially due to the new pipeline going through Georgia, which bypassed Russia.

Russia is an energy superpower. They literally have a strangle hold on Europe.

This is just a means to an end.

[Chiron]

U.S. can't do much to stop Russia

WASHINGTON - The Russian Bear is back, and the United States doesn't seem to be able to do much about it.

The United States saw trouble coming between Russia and Georgia, a former Soviet republic turned nemesis, but didn't have enough leverage, focus or resolve to intervene. Even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a specialist on the old Soviet Union, may have misjudged the combustible combination of Russian grievance and ambition.

The Bush administration's assurances of solidarity with a young democracy also may have given Georgia's silver-tongued, U.S.-educated leader a little too much swagger as he picked a playground fight he never could win on his own.

Full story

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I also understand that Russia made a first attempt at bombing the oil pipeline but failed. My take is that Russia is very angry about now. I don’t have confirmations but they say a few thousand Russian civilians were killed in the Georgian initial attack. So this will be a fight till Tbilisi falls is my guess.

[Chiron]

I agree, and Russia has aligned themselves with N. Vietnam, N. Korea, Iran, Iraq under Hussein, Cuba, Syria, Just about everyone we consider dangerous or have fought wars against. Seems to me their interests are to see us fall..

Just a reminder: The Cold War is over, has been for almost two decades.
Russia is not aligned to DRV, Cuba or Syria. (They are not unfriendly with the above, which is something entirely different) We too were allied with Saddam right up to August 1990. I'd include N.Korea in the above list since they haven't been of much use to the NKs since 1991, but I think the Russians would be stupid not to maintain friendly relations with buffer states that keep us further away.

So they target ABM sites? Good for them, we're placing them in east europe in order to negate Russia's one element of military power which they can project or threaten us with. What would we do if they'd placed ABM sites in Cuba, Mexico and tried to push Nova Scotia, Quebec & British Columbia into the Warsaw Pact? (yes I know, those last three are Canadian provinces but geographicaly work for this metaphor) Tit for tat, that's how it works once you start. We gained nothing by starting & have largely blown the opportunities the West in Russia in the '90s.

Our State Dept claims missile defense in Europe is directed at rogue nations, or individuals that obtain nuclear weapons from rogue nations. But I'm sure they'd be happy to also have the ability to shoot down Russian missiles. You are correct though, nukes are the only deterrent Russia has. Their conventional forces look pretty mean in Georgia but do they have the funds and resources to maintain a long term conventional war against us? I would say no.

They are rich in oil, minerals and grains at the very least. They have been "stock pillingâ€

[Chiron]

Medvedev orders end to Georgia battles

TBLISI, Georgia - Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered an end to the military operation in Georgia on Tuesday.

In a nationally televised speech, Medvedev said the military has punished Georgia and restored security for civilians and Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia.

But he ordered the military Tuesday to defend itself and quash any aggressive action and armed resistance from Georgian forces.

Full story

[Chiron]

[quote]avert a “dramatic and brutal escalationâ€

[K.Ingraham]

This professor says it better than I can:
"Given its extraordinary ethnic complexity, Georgia is a post-Soviet Union in miniature. If westerners readily conceded non-Russian republics’ right to secede from the USSR in 1991, what is the logic of insisting that non-Georgians must remain inside a microempire which happens to be pro-western?"


The West Would Be Wise to Stay Out
Plucky Little Georgia?
By MARK ALMOND
Counterpunch
Weekend Edition
August 9 / 10, 2008
http://www.counterpunch.org/almond08092008.html
For many people the sight of Russian tanks streaming across a border in August has uncanny echoes of Prague 1968. That cold war reflex is natural enough, but after two decades of Russian retreat from those bastions it is misleading. Not every development in the former Soviet Union is a replay of Soviet history.
The clash between Russia and Georgia over South Ossetia, which escalated dramatically yesterday, in truth has more in common with the Falklands war of 1982 than it does with a cold war crisis. When the Argentine junta was basking in public approval for its bloodless recovery of Las Malvinas, Henry Kissinger anticipated Britain’s widely unexpected military response with the comment: “No great power retreats for ever.â€

[Silverback]

Cyberattacks knock out Georgia's Internet presence

Large-scale attacks, traffic rerouting traced to Russian hacker hosting network

August 11, 2008 (Computerworld) Hackers, perhaps affiliated with a well-known Russian criminal network, have attacked and hijacked Web sites belonging to Georgia, the former Soviet republic now in the fourth day of war with Russia, a security researcher claimed on Sunday.

Some Georgian government and commercial sites are unavailable, while others may have been hijacked, said Jart Armin, a researcher who tracks the notorious Russian Business Network (RBN), a malware and criminal hosting network.

"Many of Georgia's Internet servers were under external control from late Thursday," Armin said early Saturday in an entry on his Web site. According to his research, the government's sites dedicated to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, the Ministry of Defense, and the country's president, Mikhail Saakashvili, have been blocked completely, or traffic to and from those sites' servers have been redirected to servers actually located in Russia and Turkey.

As of midnight Eastern time on Sunday, Georgia's presidential and defense ministry sites were unavailable from the U.S. Although the foreign ministry's site remained online, the most recent news item was dated Aug. 8, the day Georgian and Russian forces first clashed.

Full Story

[rgrokelley]

Medvedev orders end to Georgia battles

TBLISI, Georgia - Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered an end to the military operation in Georgia on Tuesday.

In a nationally televised speech, Medvedev said the military has punished Georgia and restored security for civilians and Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia.

But he ordered the military Tuesday to defend itself and quash any aggressive action and armed resistance from Georgian forces.

Full story

This is all due to Obama's heavenly influence

It was a bad crisis for the world. It required tough words but also a smart approach to call on the international community to step in. And I’m very, very happy that the Senator’s (Obama) request for a ceasefire has been complied with by President Medvedev

- Tim Kaine, possible Obama VP

http://hotair.com/archives/2008/08/12/k ... amas-will/