Russia v Georgia

[NorthSideSox72]

Putin: The Americans started this.

 

[jasonxctf]

while its burried in another thread, i think this piece deserves its own.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/28....war/index.html

 

Its Wag The Dog, come true.

[kapkomet]

 

Funn,y it was mentioned in some blogs the day after the invasion - I think the LA Times had it. And just now they're (the Russians) saying this?

 

Again,

 

[EvilMonkey]

And there are many people also thinking that Russia staged this whole thing to take advantage of the world's attention on the olympics. A little prodding of the Ossetians to break a cease fire and provoke Georgia, Georgia responds back, Russian is ready and waiting to help their poor 'citizens', whom they have ignored for the last decade, but are suddenly interested in?

 

http://www.civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=18871

 

Six people were reportedly killed and 22 injured in the worst violence in years in the South Ossetian conflict zone late on August 1 and overnight on August 2.

 

Both sides have accused each other of opening fire first.

 

 

[NorthSideSox72]

while its burried in another thread, i think this piece deserves its own.

 

http://www.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/28....war/index.html

 

Its Wag The Dog, come true.

I already mentioned this in the Russia v Georgia thread. I'll merge.

 

 

[KipWellsFan]

That's completely ludacris. There is the possibility that the administration was pushing the Georgians a little too hard to crack down on South Ossetia, but to do it for McCain... That propaganda might help out in Russia but it just doesn't make sense here.

 

What... did it give McCain a 2 week bounce at most?

 

Fn' Putin.

[lostfan]

That's completely ludacris.

Ludacris is a rapper. Ludicrous means ridiculous.

[KipWellsFan]

Luda!

[lostfan]

Luda!

Luda is an Obama supporter though.

[Balta1701]

In response to some heavy naval movement by NATO in to the Black Sea, Russia is responding by sending some of its remaining naval pieces to the Americas, and they're working with another energy rich state that doesn't like us very much as well.

In a military first certain to raise eyebrows in the United States, Russia will carry out joint naval maneuvers in the Americas with Venezuela, the Venezuelan navy said Sept. 6.

 

Four Russian ships with almost 1,000 sailors aboard will carry out joint maneuvers with the navy of Caracas' leftist government in Venezuelan territorial waters November 10-14, the navy said in a statement.

 

"This is of great importance because it is the first time it is being done" in the Americas, Venezuela's navy joint chiefs strategic intelligence director, Rear Adm. Salbatore Cammarata Bastidas, said in a statement obtained by AFP.

 

Leftist-populist President Hugo Chavez is a harsh critic of the U.S. government. Moscow has been clashing with Washington over formerly Soviet Georgia.

 

Chavez, who has forged closer ties with Moscow including arms supply and production deals, is proud to claim a "strategic alliance" with Moscow. Chavez has supported Moscow in the Georgia conflict, and stressed that: "Russia is rising up again as a global power."

[Balta1701]

Dredging this thread back up, the investigations about who did what are starting to produce some results.

Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

 

Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

 

The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

 

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has characterized the attack as a precise and defensive act. But according to observations of the monitors, documented Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Mr. Saakashvili’s main justifications for the attack.

 

Senior Georgian officials contest these accounts, and have urged Western governments to discount them. “That information, I don’t know what it is and how it is confirmed,” said Giga Bokeria, Georgia’s deputy foreign minister. “There is such an amount of evidence of continuous attacks on Georgian-controlled villages and so much evidence of Russian military buildup, it doesn’t change in any case the general picture of events.”

[DukeNukeEm]

We figured this out in our IR classes about a month and a half ago.

[bmags]

no you didn't

[DukeNukeEm]

Unless you're an idiot who believes Putin is just a madman trying to bring back the USSR superpower status, it was the only thing reasonable.

[bmags]

that certainly is an aspect of putin, though.

[Flash Tizzle]

Unless you're an idiot who believes Putin is just a madman trying to bring back the USSR superpower status, it was the only thing reasonable.

Putin does come across as exactly that, though. If I was to judge on appearance alone, which I do all the time, he fits the role of a Russian leader. He has that look in his eyes that he can have you killed without hesitation.

 

Also, isn't he amending a portion of their constitution to come back into power?

Edited November 9, 2008 by Flash Tizzle

[bmags]

Putin does come across as exactly that, though. If I was to judge on appearance alone, which I do all the time, he fits the role of a Russian leader. He has that look in his eyes that he can have you killed without hesitation.

 

Also, isn't he amending a portion of their constitution to come back into power?

 

No, the Russian constitution says you cannot not serve 2 consecutive terms as president. President Medvedev is now asking to extend term limits from, I believe four, to 6 years. It is likely that at the end of Medvedevs term he will step down and Putin will be elected again. except this time he will be allowed to serve two consecutive terms again, at 6 years a piece.

[mr_genius]

Unless you're an idiot who believes Putin is just a madman trying to bring back the USSR superpower status, it was the only thing reasonable.

 

 

oh my