9000 troops and 350 tanks

[Georg R. Baumann]

boy oh boy!

The military advantage is pretty much a fact, at least according to the french " "L'Année stratégique" (2007), as well as the british "International Institute For Strategic Studies"(2008).

The german magazin Der Spiegel calls it a David vs. Goliath situation, rightly so.

Sad, really sad!

What are your thoughts on this disasterous russian move?

[Georg R. Baumann]

Well, what I found interesting was the news that a week before the russians made their move, a major pipeline was supposedly cut.

Of course, Georgia is a pain in the arse for Putin, another thought is the region's asset as a major energy transfer area, which raises more questions on the whole scenario.

Putin is anything but stupid. Makes me wonder what really triggered this move at the end.

War shows it's ugly face again. Old men are shouting orders and farting in chairs, young men loose their limbs, civilians are traumatized or killed, the sound of helicopters and bombers scares the living daylight out of people there.

Oh, Phelbs won olympic Gold? ....Really?

War in caucasus, and hey, Dick Cheney was on Television, I had no idea he is still around.

So what about the post sovject georgian government and their mono ethnic attitude? If the informations are correct, on August the 8th the Georgian troops killed 200 people, no room was left for Abkhazs and Ossetians in such a state.

It is all confusing, and the obvious is not always the underlaying reason, of course not. Often provocation is deliberatly placed.

Truth is the first victim of war in any case. So what can you believe anyways?

Brecht believed the thirty years war was the first capitalist war, desperate for expansion of markets.

Today we have the likes of Haliburton etc. and certainly it is worthwhile contemplating generally about the relation between free market policies and unilateral interventions.

For that little bird whispers in your ear:
"That's all very well but wait a year
And we will join the big brass band
We march in lockstep with the rest.

But one day, look! The battalions wheel!
The whole thing swings from east to west!
And falling on our knees, we squeal:
The Lord God, He knows best!
(But don't give me that!)

B. Brecht-Mother Courage, from "Song of the great Capitulation"

Here is to hoping that peace will prevail and the people can return to their daily lives.

What a mess.

[Bart_van_der_Wolf]

Originally Posted by Georg Baumann

What are your thoughts on this disasterous russian move?

What the hell is happening? That's what I'm thinking. As you said, truth is the first victim of war. However, normal people are yet again the victims of what seems to be a nationalisticly oriented power struggle between sovereign states.

Bart

[Georg R. Baumann]

Yeah, and it is them we need to think of, not the Generals or Soldiers, not the Politicians or Diplomats, but the people in the middle of this mess as they have only one legitimate agenda, to surrvive.

I think this is a very dangerous situation if the Russians do not accept the rules they agreed to, which was something like 3,000 troops not more.

Funny thing is to see Bush and Cheney swinging dick. LOL They have no leverage whatsoever and make the russians rather grin. The Europeans have the most leverage I would think, and they better play that quick.

What the Hell is right.

[Gary Ayala]

Originally Posted by Georg Baumann

Yeah, and it is them we need to think of, not the Generals or Soldiers, not the Politicians or Diplomats, but the people in the middle of this mess as they have only one legitimate agenda, to surrvive.

I think this is a very dangerous situation if the Russians do not accept the rules they agreed to, which was something like 3,000 troops not more.

Funny thing is to see Bush and Cheney swinging dick. LOL They have no leverage whatsoever and make the russians rather grin. The Europeans have the most leverage I would think, and they better play that quick.

What the Hell is right.

Actually survival is on top of the list for the generals, soldiers, politicians and diplomats also.

Gary

[Asher Kelman]

It's the same issue we have with most oil and gas exporters who run what must be called autocracies. Europe consumes natural gas and oil from Russia and so are financing the renewed claws of the bear. America similarly finances all the tin post regimes that promote violence and lack of basic rights and find birth control offensive.

As long as we are dependent on an ever increasing fix with fuel, the bad guys get to strut their stuff. Frankly I'd do everything in the next 5 years to make a Western fuel diet plan. Otherwise, we will continue to support violence and pay for the weapons every time we fill up the car or dry our laundry.

Frankly, I'm disgusted with the Olympic games being a cover for the Russian invasion. I hate being rude, but how can our president stay in Beijing with all the cheering when people are being bombed and tanks are all over Georgia.

Asher

[Georg R. Baumann]

Wether Bush is in Bejing or in Texas really does not change a thing, does it?

The big question in my book is why did Saakaschwili send troops in the first place, and why right now, as the timing is always key factor in military stratgey. Did he just get his game plan wrong or was this deliberate? The Seperatists and the Enegry question are the obvious things to observe at a glance, but is there more?

Abchasia is what? Russia supports it, the international community did not, so far. Southossetia was also on Saakaschwili's feck list.

One wonders what was really going on behind closed doors.

Sometimes it helps to look at the accounts of the past few years alone and here it is clearly the case that Georgia more than trippled military expenditure since 2003. 24 Million USD in 2003 and 76 in 2006. A quick closer look and it is clear that the USA send massive military support to Georgia since 2001, military equipment and education valued at 80 million USD went to Georgia in 2006 alone, let aside attack helicopters that were send for free!

The US are the biggest military exporter into Georgia, 1/5 of the entire US military help budget went to Georgia alone, Israel and Turkey as well join the list, and it goes on an on, Bulgaria, Ukraine, Rumania, Macedonia, Litauen and even Egypt joined the club.

Saakaschwili is in power since Januaery 2004 and was elected with 96% of votes, yeah right. In November 2007 people went on the street protesting against Saakaschwili demanding his resignation. He was re elected with somewhat 56% and it is his last election period he serves.

He was educated in George Washington University in Washington D.C. and worked as a solicitor in Manhattan at the same time.

Oh yeah, he got medals too, not olympic Gold, but from the American Bar Association, for his achievements to support Law and Order. <grin>

Saakaschwili is one more puppet on the international stage of crisis regions with oil pipelines, strings attached and pulled from others far away, serving their own agendas.

....Nothing new under the sun....

[Ben Rubinstein]

What I think is more worrying is that Russia have twice signed on a withdrawal and in front of the whole world are completely ignoring it. Whatever their motives, and controlling the oil pipeline so that the west cannot be independent of them and the middle east seems to be the most obvious reason, the fact that they are lying openly and without caring, that is very worrying. That Russia seems to align themselves to Syria and Iran vis a vis arms exports, vetoing any anti nuclear sanctions and oil control is downright frightening. If Russia is prepared to buffer the west so that Iran can make a move and thereby strengthen their own position in Europe it will effectively castrate the west.

I was born in 1980. I didn't know the cold war. What is happening now on the world stage with the gradual alignment of powers who happily stick a middle finger at the west is to me just as frightening, especially as the west doesn't even begin to have the guts to do anything about it. When the UN is as powerless as the League of Nations was, when countries are quite happy to admit their own imperialistic ambitions without a care for the worlds opinions (Russia, Iran) and have the armoured might to do it, doesn't that sound like the latter half of the 3rd decade of the last century to you?

[Cem_Usakligil]

Originally Posted by Ben Rubinstein

... That Russia seems to align themselves to Syria and Iran vis a vis arms exports, vetoing any anti nuclear sanctions and oil control is downright frightening. If Russia is prepared to buffer the west so that Iran can make a move and thereby strengthen their own position in Europe it will effectively castrate the west.
...

This has been going on for the last 30+ years so what's news actually?
The last time I looked, Turkey had been the age old NATO buffer preventing the West from the Russians and the Middle-East. It has never resulted in a position in which Turkey could "effectively" castrate anything, except maybe for Cyprus. And for the Russians, they can castrate the West anytime they want.

Cheers,

[doug anderson]

Originally Posted by Georg Baumann

Well, what I found interesting was the news that a week before the russians made their move, a major pipeline was supposedly cut.

Of course, Georgia is a pain in the arse for Putin, another thought is the region's asset as a major energy transfer area, which raises more questions on the whole scenario.

Putin is anything but stupid. Makes me wonder what really triggered this move at the end.

War shows it's ugly face again. Old men are shouting orders and farting in chairs, young men loose their limbs, civilians are traumatized or killed, the sound of helicopters and bombers scares the living daylight out of people there.

Oh, Phelbs won olympic Gold? ....Really?

War in caucasus, and hey, Dick Cheney was on Television, I had no idea he is still around.

So what about the post sovject georgian government and their mono ethnic attitude? If the informations are correct, on August the 8th the Georgian troops killed 200 people, no room was left for Abkhazs and Ossetians in such a state.

It is all confusing, and the obvious is not always the underlaying reason, of course not. Often provocation is deliberatly placed.

Truth is the first victim of war in any case. So what can you believe anyways?

Brecht believed the thirty years war was the first capitalist war, desperate for expansion of markets.

Today we have the likes of Haliburton etc. and certainly it is worthwhile contemplating generally about the relation between free market policies and unilateral interventions.

B. Brecht-Mother Courage, from "Song of the great Capitulation"

Here is to hoping that peace will prevail and the people can return to their daily lives.

What a mess.

Funny how Brecht stays current. The nastier people get, the more he makes sense.

[Rhys Sage]

No matter how much we debate politics and events reported by the media from far off corners of the planet, we can't change anything from where we are. All we can do is get into entrenched positions and fire increasingly vitriolic messages at each other.

While I have not been to Georgia, I used to work amongst Russians etc when I worked in the Baltic states. There, I learned never to take any sides with ethnic conflicts. Privately, all sides had a point and all sides were completely and utterly wrong. My experiences out there were that most of the ethnic groups (including Russians, Latvians etc) tended toward very thuggish behavior and that thuggish behavior went right through from street level to the upper echelons of government and society. Actually the very top of society was mostly local mafia anyway.

My opinion - this is the pent-up stress of 75 years of iron rule releasing itself. All the old ethnic conflicts have resurfaced. Additionally, Stalin worked on the principle of divide and conquer and thus uprooted large ethnic populations and plonked them down in the middle of opposing ethnic groups. This had the effect of focusing hatred on each other rather than on the state. et voila, peace - as long as the iron rule continued. It's all coming out again with the hatred and resentment resurfacing.

Another way of looking at it is that the Soviet system was temporary civilization for a country that was until 1917 ruled by feudal warlords.

[Nill Toulme]

This happened to land in my e-mail today. I'm certainly no fan of Pat Buchanan, but it's an interesting perspective:

Blowback From Bear-Baiting

08/15/2008

Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.

Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.

Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.

Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America's lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.

Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.

American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight -- Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end.

Russia's response was "disproportionate" and "brutal," wailed Bush.

True. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"?

Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi?

Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing?

When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces, whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed in breaking away?

Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda of the neocons, many of who viscerally detest Russia?

That Putin took the occasion of Saakashvili's provocative and stupid stunt to administer an extra dose of punishment is undeniable. But is not Russian anger understandable? For years the West has rubbed Russia's nose in her Cold War defeat and treated her like Weimar Germany.

When Moscow pulled the Red Army out of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states, and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do?

American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are now NATO members.

Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet.

When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia?

The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs. A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand.

We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and tried to repeat it in Belarus.

Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them.

Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan, where Europe had opted out of the Cold War after Moscow installed those SS-20 missiles east of the Elbe. And Europe had abandoned NATO, told us to go home and become subservient to Moscow.

How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian behavior?

For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost -- in Tbilisi.

Pat Buchanan

"Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them." I do indeed agree with that. ;-)

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

[Asher Kelman]

Originally Posted by Nill Toulme

This happened to land in my e-mail today. I'm certainly no fan of Pat Buchanan, but it's an interesting perspective:

Blowback From Bear-Baiting

08/15/2008

American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. .....
Pat Buchanan

"Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them." I do indeed agree with that. ;-)

Nill
~~
www.toulme.net

Is it true that we promised Gorbachev not to lead the freed chickens from his backyard for NATO? I have not found the source for that claim. Also what carpetbaggers?

Asher

[Ben Rubinstein]

The hypocracy of people who vilify Bush for supposedly attacking a country for its oil (patently untrue, Iraq has made a fortune from the oil, isn't that what Obama wants them to use to pay the US?) but then say that Putin is within his rights to protect his countries own interest by invading and threatening the countries once occupied by the Soviet Union who have democratically elected govenments and are recognised internationally, just so that he can cash in on the pipeline and rebuild a Russian empire is incredible. I think only a fool would suggest that the invasion of Georgia was to protect South Ossetia, Russia have killed enough civilians in Chechen for any humanitarian claim to gain any credence. It was an excuse to bully and threaten Eastern Europe. Threatening nuclear war on Poland because some purely defensive weapons will be positioned there is sheer naked aggression.

[Rhys Sage]

Originally Posted by Ben Rubinstein

The hypocracy of people who vilify Bush for supposedly attacking a country for its oil (patently untrue, Iraq has made a fortune from the oil, isn't that what Obama wants them to use to pay the US?) but then say that Putin is within his rights to protect his countries own interest by invading and threatening the countries once occupied by the Soviet Union who have democratically elected govenments and are recognised internationally, just so that he can cash in on the pipeline and rebuild a Russian empire is incredible. I think only a fool would suggest that the invasion of Georgia was to protect South Ossetia, Russia have killed enough civilians in Chechen for any humanitarian claim to gain any credence. It was an excuse to bully and threaten Eastern Europe. Threatening nuclear war on Poland because some purely defensive weapons will be positioned there is sheer naked aggression.

People clearly misunderstand the Russian psyche. Russians are very territorial and very patriotic. There is also the ethnic angle that everybody in the West misunderstands and undervalues terribly. Russians despise Georgians even though Stalin himself was Georgian. Popular jokes abound in Russia about Georgians with the Georgians always being the villain. One such joke now follows:

A TV reporter from Moscow's TV6 was interviewing a prominant Georgian scientist:
Reporter: is it true that Georgia has found a way a man can make another man pregnant?
Scientist: No. That's not true at the moment although as we speak, experiments are being carried out all over Georgia

The Russians despise equally the Chukcha (Eskimos) but as they already rule their territories and there's nothing worth having there, there's no war there. I suspect it was a sheer dislike of the Eskimos in Alaska combined with Alaska being a long way from Moscow and therefore difficult to govern that led the Tsar to sell Alaska to the US.

[Ben Rubinstein]

I used to manage a photo lab in Bet Shemesh Israel at the beginning of the 2nd intafada. The manager of the Agfa warehouse was Russian. He was once talking to us about the situation at the time with terror attacks. His comment was 'You Israelis are so weak, when we were in Yugoslavia if anyone tried to rebel we burnt and salted his farm and 5 km around it, we never had any problems after the first few'. A very different mentality...

[Rhys Sage]

Originally Posted by Ben Rubinstein

I used to manage a photo lab in Bet Shemesh Israel at the beginning of the 2nd intafada. The manager of the Agfa warehouse was Russian. He was once talking to us about the situation at the time with terror attacks. His comment was 'You Israelis are so weak, when we were in Yugoslavia if anyone tried to rebel we burnt and salted his farm and 5 km around it, we never had any problems after the first few'. A very different mentality...

Classic Stalinist burnt earth policy.

During WW2 in their retreat, Stalin's forces blew up every building, burnt every crop, coppice, forest etc, destroyed roads, bridges, railways and anything else that could possibly aid an enemy. It's a good, solid military tactic.

Britain has done exactly the same thing. In Afghanistan in the 1880s, some Afghan did something and the General in charge sent a team to exact retribution so they ended up burning the Bazaar in Kabul to the ground. It's called "shock and awe" at the moment. In Iraq, the US forces blew up all the bridges on the way in and then worked on the rest.

[Ben Rubinstein]

I think this was more punishment than military tactic. Similar to the British bombings of Iraqi villages in the '30's as retribution for unpaid taxes, etc.