War in Georgia

[phylo_roadking]

If anyone outside the Uk can pick up Channel Four News, or find the interview on the Internet - they have just run a short interview with the Russian Deputy Prime Minister. He spends sentence after sentence calling the population of South Ossetia "Russian" - THEN asks why the President of Georgia should have launched on HIS own citizens... Poor chap didn't seem to realise he just spend minutes claiming they were citizens of RUSSIA...

THEN he said that Russian forces would not go beyond the borders of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The interviewer corrected him, saying that the Russian Defence Ministry had CONFIRMED Russian forces were on the outskirts of Gori and in Senaki! He tried to contradict that, but the interview ended suprisingly quickly after that gaffe!

The funniest current-affairs interview since the one months back with President Assad of Syria's nephew saying that no of course we aren't building a nuclear reactor, and hey we're GREAT friends with the Israelis, SUCH good friends that hey they can come over and bomb us any time! We don't mind, what's a few buildings between friends!!!

[Robert Rojas]

Greetings to both cousin Benoit Douville and the community as a whole. Howdy Benoit! Well sir, in reference to your introductory posting of Saturday - August 09, 2008 - 5:52pm, old Uncle Bob would contend that we are all witnessing the classic reassertion of Great Russian irredentism. The Republic of Georgia is merely a test case to measure the resolve or lack of resolve from the Russian Federation's potential challengers. After observing the flaccid response from both the European Union and the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, you may rest assured that the contemporary powers-that-be in old Moscovy will be finalizing their grand strategic plan of operation for the inevitable reincorporation of all of the vast territories that were lost with the dissolution of the now defunct Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. One must also wonder if that irredentism will eventually include that slice of the old Imperial Russian Empire that is presently known to many as the American State of Alaska. There is much to ponder - especially for the disparate peoples of Lithuania, Latvia and Estonia. Well, that's my initial two Yankee cents worth on this sad repeat of old European history - for now anyway. As always, I would like to bid you an especially copacetic day up in your corner of the GREAT WHITE NORTH of Francophonic speaking Canada - QUEBEC LIBRE!

[sniper1shot]

Having served on a few UN missions in the past, DO NOT put much hope or faith in the UN halting and keeping the peace. The UN will move in and help pick up the pieces after the battles. There are so many rules to the mandates that it could make your head spin.

[Robert Rojas]

Greetings to both cousin Sniper-One-Shot and the community as a whole. Well S.O.S., in reference to your installment of Tuesday - August 12, 2008 - 5:53am, you will note old Uncle Bob's conspicuous omission of that odious institution known as the United Nations within my posting to cousin Benoit Douville's on Tuesday - August 12, 2008 - 12:12am. I had no particular desire to insult the collective intelligence of this thread's readership. And no, this entry is not meant to be tongue-in-cheek in its tone. Old yours truly has been a consistent and virulent critic of that overglorified whorehouse on the East River for years. In short, the United Nations is not the solution - IT'S USUALLY THE PROBLEM! Undoubtedly, the political leadership in Moscow is laughing hysterically over anything emanating from One United Nations Plaza in New York City. Oh well, as it is often said - @#% HAPPENS. Well, that's my latest two Yankee cents worth on this contentious topic of interest - for now anyway. As always, I would like to bid you a copacetic day up in your corner of the greater Canadian Confederation - EH!?

[Volgadon]

Alaska was a heated issue in Soviet Russia. They taught it in such a way as to inflame publics opinion against the USA. There is a very funny song about it too.

[Dackel Staffel]

Hi,

I've heard on TV that with Sarkozy at Tbilissi, there are also the presidents of the Baltic states, Poland and Ukraine. It seems that this people are afraid of something and I don't think it's only about the fate of Georgia.
So where are the next areas with russian people which need to be "liberated" by Putin ? Latvia, Estonia, Crimea ?

So long.

[phylo_roadking]

Technically speaking - does the order matter? ...

I somehow think we'll see that big NATO summit planned for the end of the year, where the membership of all these new states was to be decided...being brought forward...

Interestingly, given

By NOW we should have been seeing C-5s unloading Patriots at the airport at Tblisi, or boxes and boxes of Stingers and Dragons. Perhaps THIS is why the Russians bombed the airport last night...is there another runway in Georgia capable of landing C-5s???

...how did the 2000 Georgian soldiers from Iraq make it home to Georgia? The USAF landed them by C-5 at Tbilisi International Airport..despite the attempts made to put the airport out of action. It MAY have only been a small gesture, and not exactly the American gesture the Georgians would have wanted - but Americans DID put themselves in harm's way for them - a two full days after the FIRST of several attacks on the airport...

It is of course purely coincidental that the Russians "halted their military operation" VERY soon after the first pics of US planes landing under their bombardment flashed around the world...

Moscow definitely lost the PR war...and maybe nowadays, in any conflict short of TWO superpowers fighting each other, that's the war that REALLY matters to the REST of the world outside the Caucasus.

It's a horrible thought - but maybe Jonathon Pryce's Character of the satellite news mogul waging war by media in the Bond film is slowly coming to reality...

[phylo_roadking]

I somehow think we'll see that big NATO summit planned for the end of the year, where the membership of all these new states was to be decided...being brought forward...

It appears that very quietly today, buried in among the rest of the press activity over this, the NATO Secretary-general announced that Georgia WILL be confirmed as a member of the Organisation.

[John Kilmartin]

It is my understanding that the Georgian government had signed a treaty with Russia regarding the use of Russian troops as peace keepers in South Ossetia. It is also my understanding that this treaty also contained a promise that Georgia would not use its military to change the status quo. It is also my understanding that Ossetians are not ethnic Russians but instead speak a language that is fairly close to Farsi or Dari.
As for allowing Georgia to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that sounds pretty crazy to me. I know I'm not going to vote for any party that supports that idea.
Cheers,
John K

[phylo_roadking]

As for allowing Georgia to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization that sounds pretty crazy to me. I know I'm not going to vote for any party that supports that idea.

This has been on hands now for three-four years IIRC. The final decision - along with a number of other former-USSR states - was to be at the end of the year, I think in December.

It is my understanding that the Georgian government had signed a treaty with Russia regarding the use of Russian troops as peace keepers in South Ossetia.

Yes, both nations had forces in South Ossetia up to last thursday-friday. A number of Georgian "security detachments" were still sitting behind their wire fences and unmolested in South Ossetia as late as Sunday evening, a BBC camera crew made it through to film at one briefly. Unmolested - but running out of toilet paper and clean underwear IIRC!!!

It is also my understanding that this treaty also contained a promise that Georgia would not use its military to change the status quo

This seems to have been written up by the press from material supplied by Interfax etc. in Moscow. The Georgian version seems to indicate that Georgia agreed that it would not use its military force to oppose Russian peacekeepers or change the disposition of each nation's peacekeepers ...which is a very different complexion Strangely enough - NEITHER side seems to have been waving actual copies of the peacekeeping agreement about...

One thing to point out - the joint peacekeeping provisions weren't a "treaty" in the sense of the International Law on Treaties, there's no formally-posted Treaty on anything in South Ossetia - that's part of the problem! LOL

[Robert Rojas]

Greetings to both citizen Phylo Roadking and the community as a whole. Howdy Phylo! Well sir, in respect to your praise laced installment of Tuesday - August 12, 2008 - 4:37pm, old Uncle Bob rather suspects (rightly OR wrongly) that the transport aircraft of the United States Air Force had plenty of over the horizon support standing by in the event that the armed forces of the Russian Federation attempted to interfere with the Air Mobility Command's operational airlift of Georgia's military personell from greater Mesopotamia into Caucasia proper. I believe it would be a fair assumption to conclude that the Russian Federal Air Force had no particular desire to have its lunch handed to it by N.A.T.O. fighter jockeys flying combat air patrol out of the Incirlik Air Base near Adana, Turkey. The "WEST" (whatever that constitutes these days) might have "won" this first round with the Ivans, BUT there will be a tomorrow. You can bank on it! Well, that's my latest two Yankee cents worth on this geopolitical topic of interest - for now anyway. As always, I would like to bid you a copacetic day over in your corner of greater Hibernia.

[phylo_roadking]

For those in reach of the BSkyB satellite network, or who round the world can access SkyNews on sky.com - a novel situation has arisen in the last hour....

At a press call in Moscow at 1pm Moscow time, the Russian Deputy Chief of Staff announced that there were NO Russian tanks in Gori. At that exact moment a Sky News team was TALKING to the non-existent Russian troops! Contrary to what the Russian military staff were trying to portray, there's a Khazakstan-based mechanised division in Gori...

...accompanied by South Ossetian troops.

Whatever Moscow is trying to sell - "must do better" The world's press KEEPS catching them out.

Regarding the presence of South Ossetian troops alongaide Russian troops thirty miles inside Gerogia...someone should tell the Russians that a "peacekeeping mission" works both ways. NOW the Russians have handed the Georgoians and the worlds' press a monstrous propaganda faux pas. The BBC is now back in Gori in the last hour and is likewise reporting that the South Ossetian troops are looting in Gori.

[phylo_roadking]

More detail is now available - the unit is very specifically identified as the 42nd Mechanised Infantry Division - and they ain't where the Russian Deputy Chief of Staff says they are i.e. NOT in Gori LOL

[michael kenny]

It appears that very quietly today, buried in among the rest of the press activity over this, the NATO Secretary-general announced that Georgia WILL be confirmed as a member of the Organisation.

I don't think so. Bush and Cheney may want it but the rest of Europe are much more realistic. Whoever gave the Georgians the nod to start this one badly miscalculated.

[phylo_roadking]

I don't think so. Bush and Cheney may want it but the rest of Europe are much more realistic. Whoever gave the Georgians the nod to start this one badly miscalculated

Actually - they love it. What do you think they're doing by opening up membership of the EU to most of the post-USSR states? Orienting them AWAY from the former Soviet Union towrds the West. NATO does exactly the same - but in terms of security, not economic alignment. It's the equivalent of the 1930's "fencing in Hitler"...anbd what's more - it's backed by AMERICAN military power out there on the edges...i.e. it doesn't cost THEM a single extra Euro