WAR Russian Tanks Rolling Into South Ossetia! Hot War!-9/22-#2534

Georgia invades S. Ossetia

European news wires claim Georgia invaded S. Ossetia as the Olympic games began not Russia. Bob Chapman says Russia will not let this go unanswered. Could it be a smoke screen to divert our eyes from the economy. Heavy civilian causalities with Masad and Black Water leading the charge as advisors. Return of the cold war tensions with the Russians as they have put the nuclearoption back on the table to protect the homeland. War drums beating louder. Cheney wants war before the election. This will get much worse before it gets over.

deleted -- dupe

well

Expose,

maybe the German minister is just a little less biased?



"But German's deputy foreign minister, Gernot Erler, said Georgia had breached a 1992 South Ossetia ceasefire agreement"




there is a good article on wiki about the recent developments including how Georgia was offering a complete ceasefire and then invaded the next day.

montanapreacher said:

European news wires claim Georgia invaded S. Ossetia as the Olympic games began not Russia. Bob Chapman says Russia will not let this go unanswered. Could it be a smoke screen to divert our eyes from the economy. Heavy civilian causalities with Masad and Black Water leading the charge as advisors. Return of the cold war tensions with the Russians as they have put the nuclearoption back on the table to protect the homeland. War drums beating louder. Cheney wants war before the election. This will get much worse before it gets over.

Click to expand...

Gotta remember South Ossetia is Georgia & I can't say it any plainer. South Ossetia is not recognized by anyone but themselves; not even the Russian Federation recognizes them as an independent nation.

DS,

I think it is a case of wrong and wronger, but no matter how you slice it, Russia has gone too far now by going outside of the conflict area.

on an important breaking news story, we are getting sorcha fail and links to info wars...
please...if the only input you have is from a known hateamerica site that is known to post outright lies, then post it on another forum.

i lament the days of the real tb2k...

Of course the fact that Russia is an implacable enemy of the USA would seem to be your main criteria for defending them...

Click to expand...

DS has never met an enemy of the USA that he doesn't support.

Is a single US News correspondent and camera crew actually in Georgia, Ossetia or even Southern Russia?

NBC Nightly News mentioned they were sending somebody to Georgia on Monday. (Whoopee!)

The US media has been conspicuously absent during the invasion of Georgia.

Remember under Clinton how the US media fed us a daily diet of broken bodies trying to shape opinion.

Not a peep now .....

Posted for fair use...
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/08/10/MNB3128JJH.DTL

Analysis: Two nations destined for war are indeed at war

C.J. Chivers, New York Times

Sunday, August 10, 2008
A woman comforts a child while riding in a vehicle near t... Russian troops ride atop armored vehicles in the village ...

(08-10) 18:39 PDT -- As the bloody military mismatch between Russia and Georgia unfolded over the past four days, even the main players were surprised by how quickly small border skirmishes slipped into a conflict that threatened the Georgian government and perhaps the country itself.

Several U.S. and Georgian officials said that unlike the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, when Soviet forces massed before the attack, Russia had not appeared poised for an invasion last week. As late as last Wednesday, they said, Russian diplomats had been pressing for negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia, the breakaway region where the combat flared and then escalated into full-scale war.

"It doesn't look like this was premeditated, with a massive staging of equipment," one senior U.S. official said. "Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role."

But while the immediate causes and the intensity of the Russian invasion had caught Georgia and the Western foreign policy establishment by surprise, there had been signs for years that Georgia and Russia had methodically, if quietly, prepared for conflict.

Several other long-term factors had also contributed to the possibility of war. They included the Kremlin's military successes in Chechnya, which gave Russia the latitude and sense of internal security it needed to free up troops to cross its borders, and the United States' support for President Mikheil Saakashvili, a figure loathed by the Kremlin.

Moreover, by preparing Georgian soldiers for duty in Iraq, the United States appeared to have helped embolden Georgia to enter fight it could not win.

U.S. officials and a military officer who have dealt with Georgia said privately that as a result, the war risked becoming a foreign policy catastrophe for the United States, whose image and authority in the region were in question after it had proven unable to aid Georgia or to restrain the Kremlin while the Russian army pressed its attack.

Russia's bureaucratic and military groundwork was laid even before Saakashvili came to power in 2004 and positioned himself as one of the world's most strident critics of the Kremlin.

Under the presidency of Vladimir Putin, Russia had already been granting citizenship and distributing passports to virtually all of the adult residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the much larger separatist region on the Black Sea where Russia had also massed troops over the weekend. The West had been skeptical of the validity of Russia's handing out passports by the thousands to citizens of another nation.

But whatever the legal merits, the Kremlin had laid the foundation for one of its public relations arguments for invading Georgia: Its army was coming to the aid of Russian citizens under foreign attack.

In the ensuing years, even as Russia issued warnings, Saakashvili grew bolder. There were four regions out of Georgian control when he took office in 2004, but he restored two smaller regions - Ajaria and the upper Kodori Gorge with few deaths. The victories gave him a sense of momentum. He kept national reintegration as a central plank of his platform.

Russia, however, began retaliating against Georgia in many ways. It cut off air service and mail between the two countries, closed the border and refused Georgian exports. And by the time the Kodori gorge was back in Georgian control, Russia had also consolidated its hold over Chechnya.

Simultaneously, as the contest of wills between Georgia and Russia intensified, the strong support of the United States for Saakashvili created tensions within the foreign policy establishment in Washington, and created rival views.

Some diplomats considered Saakashvili someone who could reorder Georgia along the lines of a Western democracy and become a symbol of change in the politically moribund post-Soviet states.

Other diplomats worried that both Saakashvili's persona and platforms presented an implicit challenge to the Kremlin, and that Saakashvili made himself a symbol of something else: Russia's suspicion about U.S. intentions in the Kremlin's old empire. They worried that he would draw the United States and Russia into arguments that the United States did not want.

The risks were intensified by the fact that the United States did not merely encourage Georgia's young democracy, it helped militarize the weak Georgian state.

In his wooing of Washington as he came to power, Saakashvili firmly embraced the U.S. missions in Afghanistan and Iraq. Saakashvili's rise coincided neatly with a swelling U.S. need for political support and foreign soldiers in Iraq. His offer of troops was matched with a Pentagon effort to overhaul Georgia's forces.

At senior levels, the United States helped rewrite Georgian military doctrine and train its commanders and staff officers. Georgia, meanwhile, began re-equipping its forces - with Israeli and U.S. firearms, reconnaissance drones, communications and battlefield-management equipment, new convoys of vehicles and stockpiles of ammunition.

The public goal was to nudge Georgia toward NATO military standards. Privately, Georgian officials welcomed the martial coaching and buildup, and made clear that they considered participation in Iraq as a sure way to prepare the Georgian military for "national reunification" - the local euphemism of choice for restoring Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgian control.
Military power

Comparative size of Russian, Georgian armed forces:

-- Spending: Russia's military budget is equivalent to about $40 billion this year, compared to Georgia's $997 million.

-- Strength: Russia has 1.1 million soldiers, Georgia has 37,000.

-- Arsenals: The Russian armed forces have about 6,000 tanks and some 1,700 combat aircraft. Georgia has 230 tanks and 12 combat aircraft.

Source: Associated Press

Posted for fair use....
http://www.reuters.com/article/GCA-Georgia/idUSHO05105720080811

TIMELINE: Conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia
Sun Aug 10, 2008 8:52pm EDT

(Reuters) - Georgian forces pulled out of the breakaway South Ossetia region on Sunday after three days of fighting and Russian troops took most of the capital.

Here is a chronology of events in South Ossetia:

November 1989 - South Ossetia declares autonomy from the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic, triggering three months of fighting.

December 1990 - Georgia and South Ossetia begin a new armed conflict which lasts until 1992.

June 1992 - Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian leaders meet in Sochi, sign an armistice and agree the creation of a tripartite peacekeeping force of 500 soldiers from each entity.

November 1993 - South Ossetia drafts its own constitution.

November 1996 - South Ossetia elects its first president.

December 2001 - South Ossetia elects Eduard Kokoity as president. In 2002 he asks Moscow to recognize the republic's independence and absorb it into Russia.

January 2005 - Russia gives guarded approval to Georgia's plan to grant broad autonomy to South Ossetia in exchange for dropping its bid for independence.

November 2006 - South Ossetia overwhelmingly endorses its split with Tbilisi in a referendum. Georgia's prime minister says this is part of a Russian campaign to stoke a war.

April 2007 - Georgia's parliament approves a law to create a temporary administration in South Ossetia, raising tension with Russia.

June 2007 - South Ossetian separatists say Georgia attacked Tskhinvali with mortar and sniper fire. Tbilisi denies this.

October 2007 - Talks hosted by the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe between Georgia and South Ossetia break down.

March 2008 - South Ossetia asks the world to recognize its independence from Georgia following the West's support for Kosovo's secession from Serbia.

March 2008 - Georgia's bid to join NATO, though unsuccessful, prompts Russia's parliament to urge the Kremlin to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

April 2008 - South Ossetia rejects a Georgian power-sharing deal, insists on full independence.

August 2008 - Georgian forces attack South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali to re-take the breakaway region. Russia says its troops were responding to the assault and Georgia's Saakashvili says the two countries were at war.

-- Georgian forces pull out after three days of fighting. Russia says its troops control most of Tskhinvali.

-- Russia bombs a military airfield outside Tbilisi.

-- Russia says that the death toll in fighting stands at 2,000. Georgia said on Friday that it had lost up to 300 people killed, mainly civilians.

© Thomson Reuters 2008. All rights reserved.

Sassy

the last three 'presidencies' regardless of election, ummmmm, improprieties and shennanigans have all been going whole hog against the Russians, destroying all the good that Ronald Reagan and Gorbechav did in tearing down that wall and standing down the nukes.


Going too far? You kidding? Like US slaugthering those thousands and thousands of Iraqi's fleeing Kuwait along the 'highway of death' when it was obvious they were no military threat at all?


The Georgians have flattened the capital of S. Ossetia. I am sure there will be a lot of evidence of wholesale slaughter of civilians. It is starting to look like the invasion was aided and trained for by Israelis (you got any idea what the "oligarchs" did to rape and destroy Russia before Putin drove them out to Israel?) and now quite possibly Black Water (or Nato?).

The Russians warned don't do it, we WILL retaliate, and they have. The Georgian's just participated in Nato wargames, Rice was there a month ago, and now they invade S. Ossetia, WHILE Ossetia was garrisoned by Peace Keepers including large number of Russians, and killed Russian troops.

No, this is payback for Kosovo. It is a huge slap in the face of gw who keeps wanting to plant US missiles right on the Russian border, it is a very stern warning to other former satillites and especially Europe and it's Nato expansionism, and if BlackWater and Israelis WERE in the forefront...................................


very big miscalculation on someone's part and Russia is going to kick some serious ass on this one as a warning.


Personally, I don't want my children and my grandchildren and my great grandchildren bleeding out for wars for the super rich and powerful.

It was to get away from kings and royals and their private wars that this country was formed.

The S. Ossetians aren't my enemies, and the Serbs sure as hell weren't. The heroin drug running muslim terrorist KLA that klintoon and NATO supporter sure as hell were far more than the Serbs.

Posted for fair use....
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1218104259162&pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull

Aug 10, 2008 22:32 | Updated Aug 11, 2008 0:10
Analysis: Back to the USSR
By ISABELLA GINOR AND GIDEON REMEZ

As we write, reports are coming in that after a bombardment by Russia's aircraft, its tanks are advancing on the Georgian town of Gori - the birthplace of Iosif Djugashvili, better known as Stalin.

This throwback to the heyday of the Soviet Union is more than symbolic. Historical analogies are never perfect, but our sense of déjà vu was acute as we watched Moscow's Soviet-style move to reassert its domination of the USSR's former fief.

Moscow perceives a threat to its strategic interests from a small regional actor. It prods its neighboring clients to commit such provocations that the adversary is drawn into military action that "legitimizes" a massive, direct intervention to "defend the victims of aggression."

In our recent study Foxbats over Dimona: The Soviets' Nuclear Gamble in the Six-Day War, we demonstrated that this was the scenario employed by the USSR to instigate the 1967 conflict. Then, it was the unexpectedly devastating effect of Israel's preemptive strike that thwarted the planned Soviet intervention. Against Georgia this week, the ploy has so far worked much better.

As in our Middle Eastern precedent, a major motive for Moscow's move was to prevent its encirclement by nuclear-armed Western pacts. When the United States announced its intent to deploy missile defenses in the new NATO members Poland and the Czech Republic, Russia declared this to be a measure that would be met with a military response. Its alarm grew when President George W. Bush visited Ukraine and Georgia, inviting them, too, into NATO. But at the pact's summit in Bucharest in April, when the European allies demurred, Russia saw its chance - and pounced.

Georgia has assiduously courted US protection, if not a full NATO guarantee. It sent 2,000 soldiers to Iraq, who are being recalled to face the Russian invasion. Washington has provided Georgia with materiel and advisers, and so did Israel - at least until Russia pressed it to stop, reportedly in return for promises to withhold advanced weapons from Syria.

The South Ossetia separatists are already claiming US intervention - saying there are black people among the Georgian casualties. But even if some American personnel went discreetly into action, that would not suffice to deter Russia from bringing Georgia to heel, if not physically occupying the country. And then the Western loss will not be limited to the independence of a small, remote, struggling democracy.

Russia would achieve another strategic goal: regaining control of the vital flow of Caspian Sea oil to Western (and Israeli) consumers via pipelines that pass through Georgia to its own ports - now already blockaded by the Russian navy - and to Turkey's.

But Moscow's apparent disregard for the hitherto internationally sacrosanct borders and sovereignty of the 15 former Soviet Socialist Republics may have even farther-reaching consequences. Russia itself enjoyed immunity for its suppression of Chechnya's independence bid, as the latter was only an autonomous component of the Russian Federation. By the same token, South Ossetia and Abkhazia (where Russian marines have landed to assist separatists in opening a second front) are integral parts of Georgia. In calling these often-arbitrary borders into question, Russia has opened a vast Pandora's box.

Absent a resolute Western response, the next in line for Russian designs will be another would-be NATO candidate: Ukraine, which Moscow has already berated for backing Georgia. Ukraine's eastern mining and industrial regions are heavily populated by Russian-speakers; the Crimea, whence Ukraine seeks to eject the Russian Black Sea Fleet's main base, was part of Russia until the 1950s.

After "coming to the rescue of Russian citizens" in South Ossetia (locals who were issued Russian passports, or actual settlers from across the border), Moscow may demand the repatriation of its people from Ukraine - along with their land.

In respect to Israel, too, Russian leaders often proclaim a "special relationship" based on the "hundreds of thousands of Russian people" who reside here. This may still be far over the horizon - but you read it here first: Some day, a "representative delegation" of these "Russians" may invoke the Ossetian precedent to appeal for protection from Moscow. With a large part of the Russian fleet moved by then from Sevastopol, Crimea, to Tartus, Syria, such an intervention may be at least as feasible as in 1967.

MGNiko said:

Gotta remember South Ossetia is Georgia & I can't say it any plainer. South Ossetia is not recognized by anyone but themselves; not even the Russian Federation recognizes them as an independent nation.

Click to expand...

And that, in a nutshell, is the crux of the matter.
For 15 years The Russians have been supporting S Ossetia, fomenting discord and funding the rebellion
Long before Bush or Israel or Turkey or France or Japan were involved this has been going on.
There is little doubt that Georgia struck first, but it was in response to years and years of provocation and an attempt to bring S Ossetia back under Georgian rule. Not a smart move, but a predictable one.
Russia, as shown by it's buildup on the border was waiting, and has used this as an excuse to take over Georgia and retain it's control of it's monopoly of Caspian oil.
Supporting Georgia, a democracy and an ally by training it's defense forces as well as building it's economy was and is the right thing for us to do and also in our national interest as well as the interest of Europe, other nations in the ME and allies that did not want to be totally reliant on Russia for energy.

To some, as always, WE are the bad guys in this and nations like Russia are the victims.
A look at the companies and states involved in the building of the pipeline and the development of Georgia and other area nations shows how important it is to those nations to have an alternative to being under such a powerful Russian influence.
There is no evil plot, no underhanded agendas, just a wish to freely pursue trade and independent lives. By us, by Georgia and by other independent nations not wanting to live under the yoke of Russia or anyone else.
wardogs

Interesting that Reuters didn't include the shooting into Georgia by the S Osettians that perceded the Georgian attack.

Posted for fair use....
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/europe/11ticktock.html

August 11, 2008
News Analysis
In Georgia and Russia, a Perfect Brew for a Blowup
By C. J. CHIVERS

As the bloody military mismatch between Russia and Georgia unfolded over the past three days, even the main players were surprised by how quickly small border skirmishes slipped into a conflict that threatened the Georgian government and perhaps the country itself.

Several American and Georgian officials said that unlike when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a move in which Soviet forces were massed before the attack, the nation had not appeared poised for an invasion last week. As late as last Wednesday, they said, Russian diplomats had been pressing for negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia, the breakaway region where the combat flared and then escalated into full-scale war.

“It doesn’t look like this was premeditated, with a massive staging of equipment,” one senior American official said. “Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role.”

But while the immediate causes and the intensity of the Russian invasion had caught Georgia and the Western foreign policy establishment by surprise, there had been signs for years that Georgia and Russia had methodically, if quietly, prepared for conflict.

Several other long-term factors had also contributed to the possibility of war. They included the Kremlin’s military successes in Chechnya, which gave Russia the latitude and sense of internal security it needed to free up troops to cross its borders, and the exuberant support of the United States for President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia, a figure loathed by the Kremlin on both personal and political terms.

Moreover, by preparing Georgian soldiers for duty in Iraq, the United States appeared to have helped embolden Georgia, if inadvertently, to enter a fight it could not win.

American officials and a military officer who have dealt with Georgia said privately that as a result, the war risked becoming a foreign policy catastrophe for the United States, whose image and authority in the region were in question after it had proven unable to assist Georgia or to restrain the Kremlin while the Russian Army pressed its attack.

Russia’s bureaucratic and military groundwork was laid even before Mr. Saakashvili came to power in 2004 and positioned himself as one of the world’s most strident critics of the Kremlin.

Under the presidency of Vladimir V. Putin, Russia had already been granting citizenship and distributing passports to virtually all of the adult residents of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the much larger separatist region where Russia had also massed troops over the weekend. The West had been skeptical of the validity of Russia’s handing out passports by the thousands to citizens of another nation.

“Having a document does not make you a Russian citizen,” one American diplomat said in 2004, as Russia expanded the program.

But whatever the legal merits, the Kremlin had laid the foundation for one of its public relations arguments for invading: its army was coming to the aid of Russian citizens under foreign attack.

In the ensuing years, even as Russia issued warnings, Mr. Saakashvili grew bolder. There were four regions out of Georgian control when he took office in 2004, but he restored two smaller regions, Ajaria in 2004 and the upper Kodori Gorge in 2006, with few deaths.

The victories gave him a sense of momentum. He kept national reintegration as a central plank of his platform.

Russia, however, began retaliating against Georgia in many ways. It cut off air service and mail between the countries, closed the border and refused Georgian exports. And by the time the Kodori Gorge was back in Georgian control, Russia had also consolidated its hold over Chechnya, which is now largely managed by a local leader, Ramzan Kadyrov, and his Kremlin-backed Chechen forces.

Chechnya had for years been the preoccupation of Russian ground forces. But Mr. Kadyrov’s strength had enabled Russian to garrison many of its forces and turn its attention elsewhere.

Simultaneously, as the contest of wills between Georgia and Russia intensified, the strong support of the United States for Mr. Saakashvili created tensions within the foreign policy establishment in Washington and created rival views.

Some diplomats considered Mr. Saakashvili a politician of unusual promise, someone who could reorder Georgia along the lines of a Western democracy and become a symbol of change in the politically moribund post-Soviet states. Mr. Saakashvili encouraged this view, framing himself as a visionary who was leading a column of regional democracy movements.

Other diplomats worried that both Mr. Saakashvili’s persona and his platforms presented an implicit challenge to the Kremlin, and that Mr. Saakashvili made himself a symbol of something else: Russia’s suspicion about American intentions in the Kremlin’s old empire. They worried that he would draw the United States and Russia into arguments that the United States did not want.

This feeling was especially true among Russian specialists, who said that, whatever the merits of Mr. Saakashvili’s positions, his impulsiveness and nationalism sometimes outstripped his common sense.

The risks were intensified by the fact that the United States did not merely encourage Georgia’s young democracy, it helped militarize the weak Georgian state.

In his wooing of Washington as he came to power, Mr. Saakashvili firmly embraced the missions of the United States in Afghanistan and Iraq. At first he had almost nothing practical to offer. Georgia’s military was small, poorly led, ill-equipped and weak.

But Mr. Saakashvili’s rise coincided neatly with a swelling American need for political support and foreign soldiers in Iraq. His offer of troops was matched with a Pentagon effort to overhaul Georgia’s forces from bottom to top.

At senior levels, the United States helped rewrite Georgian military doctrine and train its commanders and staff officers. At the squad level, American marines and soldiers trained Georgian soldiers in the fundamentals of battle.

Georgia, meanwhile, began re-equipping its forces with Israeli and American firearms, reconnaissance drones, communications and battlefield-management equipment, new convoys of vehicles and stockpiles of ammunition.

The public goal was to nudge Georgia toward NATO military standards. Privately, Georgian officials welcomed the martial coaching and buildup, and they made clear that they considered participation in Iraq as a sure way to prepare the Georgian military for “national reunification” — the local euphemism of choice for restoring Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgian control.

All of these policies collided late last week. One American official who covers Georgian affairs, speaking on the condition of anonymity while the United States formulates its next public response, said that everything had gone wrong.

Mr. Saakashvili had acted rashly, he said, and had given Russia the grounds to invade. The invasion, he said, was chilling, disproportionate and brutal, and it was grounds for a strong censure. But the immediate question was how far Russia would go in putting Georgia back into what it sees as Georgia’s place.

There was no sign throughout the weekend of Kremlin willingness to negotiate. A national humiliation was under way.

“The Georgians have lost almost everything,” the official said. “We always told them, ‘Don’t do this because the Russians do not have limited aims.’ ”

skip1 said:

Will understand this...

Georgia = THE NARNS​

Click to expand...

Yep, and the Soviets are the Shadows. But are we the Vorlons or Babylon 5 forces?

Wardogs, Thank you for always being able to explain things so clearly. Your posts are always worth reading and insightful.
RD

Posted for fair use....
http://pacificfreepress.com/content/view/2930/1/


The Kremlin Surge
Written by Chris Floyd
Monday, 11 August 2008
Marching Through Georgia II: The Kremlin Surge
by Chris Floyd

As events move swiftly, and ominously, in the conflict between Georgia and Russia, an understanding of the background of the conflict is essential. Several pieces have appeared just today providing some good context and analysis.

First, Ellen Barry (with whom I once worked at the Moscow Times) gives an overview of South Ossetia's history and the tensions that have stalked the region since the break-up of the Soviet Union in this analysis piece from the New York Times. (The NYT's news roundup of the latest events is co-written by Anne Barnard, yet another former colleague from the Moscow Times.)
[For complete article reference links, please see source here.]

Over at the Guardian, David Hearst provides an excellent analysis of the current conflict. Here's an excerpt:

Observers had little doubt the operation to take South Ossetia back under Georgian control bore the hallmarks of a planned military offensive. It was not the result of a ceasefire that had broken down the night before. It was more a fulfillment of the promise the Georgian president, Mikhail Saakashvili, made to recapture lost national territory, and with it a measure of nationalist pride.

The assault appears to have been carefully timed to coincide with the opening of the Olympic games when the Russian prime minister, Vladimir Putin, was in Beijing. Tom de Waal of the Institute for War and Peace Reporting and an expert on the region said: "Clearly there have been incidents on both sides, but this is obviously a planned Georgian operation, a contingency plan they have had for some time, to retake [South Ossetia's capital] Tskhinvali.

* "Possibly the Georgians calculated that with Putin in Beijing they could recapture the capital in two days and then defend it over the next two months, because the Russians won't take this lying down."


(Tom de Waal is, yes, yet another Moscow Timesnik from my days there in the mid-1990s. In addition, The Times of London's front-page print piece on the war was written by Kevin O'Flynn, whom I knew as a laid-back, long-haired youth on the sports desk at the Moscow Times. It's been like old home week for the MT crowd of that era.)

Hearst further notes:

* The Russians are far from blameless. They have a long and dirty history of dividing and ruling, fomenting strife to weaken opponents in a critical frontier zone. But Russia could claim in the UN security council to be defending its own citizens and its own peacekeepers. Sabine Freizer, Europe programme director of the International Crisis Group said: "Russia should not be blamed for the fighting, but Russia should now be pressured not to go beyond its peacekeeping mandate, and to ensure that armed militia do not cross the border into South Ossetia."


However, the fighting is rapidly spreading beyond the "peacekeeping mandate," with Russian planes bombing targets in the Georgian city of Gori (Stalin's birthplace), killing several civilians. This brutal assault -- including a murderous airstrike on an apartment house -- only underscores the savagery that awaits if the conflict cannot be tamped down quickly.

It seems clear at this point that Georgia has taken an enormous gamble in launching the initial attack into South Ossetia, hoping for a quick knock-out blow and then strong support from Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili's Terror War pals in Washington, as Jim Heintz notes in an insightful piece for the Associated Press (You'll be relieved to know that I did not work with Heintz at the Moscow Times):


With Vladimir Putin in Beijing for the Olympic opening ceremony and the world's attention fixed on China, Georgia may have been betting it could pounce on an opportunity to quickly wrest control of its breakaway province. But the gamble may backfire: Washington hasn't endorsed Georgia's power play, and Moscow's counteroffensive has brought the two sides into a fight it will be hard for Georgia, a former Soviet state, to win...

One analyst suggested Georgia's unexpected assault may have been rooted as much in a sense that its NATO bid was faltering as in antagonism with Russia. Earlier this year, NATO quashed Georgia's drive to get a so-called road map for alliance membership amid alarm that President Mikhail Saakashvili was backtracking on democracy with his violent suppression last year of opposition rallies.

Georgia got assurances that it could eventually join, but "this pushed Georgia into a philosophy of self-reliance — the idea that Georgia will be able to regain breakaway entities only by its own means," said Nicu Popescu of the European Council on Foreign Relations. "The elephant in the room behind this whole story is Georgia's NATO prospects."

He also speculated the timing of the attack, hours before the opening ceremony in Beijing, could be a signal from the Georgian government. The Russian resort region of Sochi, just miles from the border of Georgia's other separatist region of Abkhazia, will host the 2014 Winter Games.

* "It might be a signal to the Russians saying that the Sochi Olympics will not go the way Russia wants if there is no progress on the settlement in Abkhazia," Popescu said.


Heintz also notes a fact that seems to be slipping away from many media narratives on the conflict: that Saakashvili ordered the heavy bombardment of the South Ossetian capital just hours after declaring a supposed "cease-fire," and that Georgian forces targeted and killed several Russian peacekeeping troops that had been stationed in the region for years. These brutal and boneheaded moves provided the perfect excuse for the Kremlin to flex its muscles and secure an even tighter hold on Georgia's breakaway regions:

* Georgia's withering artillery barrage came hours after Saakashvili declared a unilateral cease-fire ahead of negotiations set for the next day — and the separatists reportedly agreed to follow suit.
* If Georgia violated its own cease-fire, it could be a crushing blow to its drive to integrate with the West.


Heintz also notes a point we mentioned yesterday: that the West's recognition of Kosovo's illusory "independence" helped spark the recent rise in tensions and cross-border incidents that Georgia used to justify Saakashvili's long-declared intention to bring all of what was Soviet Georgia under his control. Heintz further notes that almost every South Ossetian considers their region part of Russia; another fact frequently overlooked in the resurrection of Cold War rhetoric that has greeted the conflict:

* South Ossetia was trouble waiting to happen for years — a "frozen conflict" with tensions building just below the surface. Georgia's thunderous assault may have been a go-for-broke move by a country that felt it was out of options amid Russia's growing dominance in the region. Or South Ossetia's separatists may have provoked Georgia once too often.
* A grudging cease-fire that ended a separatist war in 1992 left the region mostly under control of an internationally unrecognized government, but dappled with areas held by Georgian forces. South Ossetia longed to be incorporated into Russia, whose province of North Ossetia contains their ethnic brethren. Georgia firmly rejected the prospect: Ceding the territory would bring Russia within 50 miles of the Georgian capital.
* Negotiations were sporadic, often foundering on who should participate. Clashes broke out, especially near the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, which is in a pocket nearly surrounded by Georgian-held territory.
* Tensions rose markedly this year after South Ossetia basked in Kosovo's declaration of independence from Serbia, calling it an international precedent that legitimized its own refusal to remain part of Georgia. Moscow boosted ties with the separatist government — and with a similar regime in Georgia's other separatist region, Abkhazia — and repeatedly denounced Saakashvili's push to join NATO.
* None of the previous clashes this month had been anywhere close to the magnitude of the explosions that shook Tskhinvali throughout the night.



II.

Neither side has nor will cover themselves with glory in this bloody episode. The depredations of the Putin regime are well-known; there is little to be expected from that quarter but power politics at its most brutal. Putin is a war criminal responsible for vast atrocities in Chechnya and a security apparat that uses black ops, assassinations and terrorism with as much aplomb as their American counterparts.

Meanwhile, Saakashvili's tenure in Tblisi -- which began as a self-proclaimed reformist revolution -- has deteriorated into a regime marked by much of the same kind of corruption, cronyism and repression that it puported to overthrow. One of Saakashvili's partners in the revolution, Irakli Okruashvili, had a dramatic falling-out with the boss last year.

When he announced he was running for president against Saakashvili, he was arrested "and taken to Tbilisi’s notorious Isolator Number 7, the scene of well-documented torture of political prisoners since 1991," as Mark Almond of Oriel College, Oxford, noted in an article last year. After subjection to "strenuous interrogation techniques," Okruashvili "recanted" his charges against the president, and coughed up $6 million in shakedown "bail" money to win his release.

And what were Okruashvili's charges? Almond provides this quote from the former defense minister in Saakashvili’s government:

* “The style of Saakashvili’s governance … has made dishonesty, injustice and oppression a way of life. Everyday repression, demolition of houses and churches, robbery, ‘kulakization’, and murders, I would stress, murders, have become common practice for the authorities.”


You can see why George W. Bush has embraced Saakashvili so enthusiastically. Saakashvili is also a war criminal, albeit at a much smaller level than his patron Bush or his enemy Putin. Saakashvili has eagerly taken part in the greatest war crime of our still-young century (I'm sure we ain't seen nothin' yet): the war of aggression against Iraq, which has already led to the slaughter of at least a million innocent people. No one forced Saakashvili to be an accomplice to this horrendous crime; he chose to do it willingly, and he cannot escape the guilt.

There are no white hats in this conflict; but that doesn't mean that we shouldn't try to see the reality of what is happening. In Saturday's Guardian, Almond gave this view of the background:

* Back in the late 1980s, as the USSR waned, the Red Army withdrew from countries in eastern Europe which plainly resented its presence as the guarantor of unpopular communist regimes. That theme continued throughout the new republics of the deceased Soviet Union, and on into the premiership of Putin, under whom Russian forces were evacuated even from the country's bases in Georgia.
* To many Russians this vast geopolitical retreat from places which were part of Russia long before the dawn of communist rule brought no bonus in relations with the west. The more Russia drew in its horns, the more Washington and its allies denounced the Kremlin for its imperial ambitions.....
* In 1992, the west backed Eduard Shevardnadze's attempts to reassert Georgia's control over these regions. The then Georgian president's war was a disaster for his nation. It left 300,000 or more refugees "cleansed" by the rebel regions, but for Ossetians and Abkhazians the brutal plundering of the Georgian troops is the most indelible memory.
* Georgians have nursed their humiliation ever since. Although Mikheil Saakashvili has done little for the refugees since he came to power early in 2004 - apart from move them out of their hostels in central Tbilisi to make way for property development - he has spent 70% of the Georgian budget on his military. At the start of the week he decided to flex his muscles.
* Devoted to achieving Nato entry for Georgia, Saakashvili has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan - and so clearly felt he had American backing. The streets of the Georgian capital are plastered with posters of George W Bush alongside his Georgian protege. George W Bush Avenue leads to Tbilisi airport. But he has ignored Kissinger's dictum: "Great powers don't commit suicide for their allies." Perhaps his neoconservative allies in Washington have forgotten it, too. Let's hope not....
* Saakashvili faces a domestic economic crisis and public disillusionment. In the years since the so-called Rose revolution, the cronyism and poverty that characterised the Shevardnadze era have not gone away. Allegations of corruption and favouritism towards his mother's clan, together with claims of election fraud, led to mass demonstrations against Saakashvili last November. His ruthless security forces - trained, equipped and subsidised by the west - thrashed the protesters. Lashing out at the Georgians' common enemy in South Ossetia would certainly rally them around the president, at least in the short term.

* Last September, President Saakashvili suddenly turned on his closest ally in the Rose revolution, defence minister Irakli Okruashvili. Each man accused his former blood brother of mafia links and profiting from contraband. Whatever the truth, the fact that the men seen by the west as the heroes of a post-Shevardnadze clean-up accused each other of vile crimes should warn us against picking a local hero in Caucasian politics...

* The question now is whether the conflict can be contained, or whether the west will be drawn in, raising the stakes to desperate levels. To date the west has operated radically different approaches to secession in the Balkans, where pro-western microstates get embassies, and the Caucasus, where the Caucasian boundaries drawn up by Stalin are deemed sacrosanct...

* 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?

* Other people's nationalisms are like other people's love affairs, or, indeed, like dog fights. These are things wise people don't get involved in. A war in the Caucasus is never a straightforward moral crusade - but then, how many wars are?



Indeed. The ultimate outcome of this war will be, as always, death and ruin for multitudes who have nothing to do with the violent aggression of corrupt elites on every side.

Well the side choosing has started....
Posted for fair use....
http://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSN10300868

Cuba backs Cold War ally Russia on Georgia actions
Sun Aug 10, 2008 10:15pm EDT


HAVANA, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Cuba sided with its old Cold War ally Russia on Sunday when President Raul Castro issued an official statement supporting Russia's military actions in Georgia's breakaway enclave of South Ossetia.

He backed a Russian demand that Georgia unconditionally withdraw its troops from the pro-Russian area that Georgia tried to reclaim militarily on Thursday.

"It's false that Georgia is defending its national sovereignty," Castro said in the statement that appeared to reflect recent steps toward renewing Cuba-Russia relations.

"The request for a previous withdrawal of the invaders is just and our government supports it."

The conflict began on Thursday when Georgia sent troops into South Ossetia, and Russia, which had peacekeepers in the province, responded by sending in tanks and heavy armor to drive back the Georgians. Russia previously had provided support to the separatists.

On Sunday, Russia took control of the province's capital, Tskhinvali, while Georgia offered a cease-fire and peace talks after pulling back its troops.

Castro said South Ossetia shared neither nationality nor culture with Georgia and had maintained its status as "an autonomous republic."

"The Autonomous Republic of South Ossetia historically formed part of the Russian Federation," he said.

Castro charged that Georgia had launched its action on South Ossetia "in complicity with the United States," Cuba's longtime enemy.

The U.S. has heavily criticized Russia, saying its actions in Georgia were "disproportionate and dangerous."

Castro's statement follows a visit to Cuba last week by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin in which the publicly-stated aim was to "reactivate" old ties between the former Communist allies.

Before that, news reports said Russia, angry at a U.S. plan to put a missile defense system in eastern Europe, may use Cuba as a refueling stop for nuclear-capable bombers.

Such a move, said a top U.S. Air Force general, would cross a "red line."

The report has since been denied but the dust-up brought back memories of the 1962 Cuban missile crisis, when the U.S. and Soviet Union nearly went to war when Soviet missiles were placed on the island 90 miles (144 km) from the U.S.

Russia, then the Soviet Union, was Cuba's benefactor during the Cold War, giving it billions of dollars in aid before the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991.

A large Russian embassy looms over western Havana, a reminder of the years of Russian dominance here.

(Reporting by Jeff Franks; editing by Philip Barbara)

Most accounts and video have Georgia initiating hostilities against civilian area in and near the capitol of South Ossetia early Friday morning.

With Georgia being a close ally of the US and recipient of US training and US military supplies, are we not a proxy in this conflict?

Why was our military and intelligence community completely unable to detect and deter Georgia from starting a war they could not win?

Did Georgia actually think the Russians would do nothing?

Was Georgia in some way emboldened by US aid?

What did Georgia expect us to do when they attacked Soviet troops and civilians.

Who authorized US planes to fly Georgians back to the war zone in Georgia?

Are US planes actually going to land in Georgia while Russia has air supremacy?

Who authorized that and under what authority can we do that?

Notice how the US Congress is on vacation?

Either Georgia hopelessly miscalculated Russia's response and/or they hopelessy misunderstood our level of involvement.

These qoutes pretty much put Cuba in perspective.....

Castro's statement follows a visit to Cuba last week by Russian Deputy Prime Minister Igor Sechin in which the publicly-stated aim was to "reactivate" old ties between the former Communist allies.


Before that, news reports said Russia, angry at a U.S. plan to put a missile defense system in eastern Europe, may use Cuba as a refueling stop for nuclear-capable bombers.


Such a move, said a top U.S. Air Force general, would cross a "red line."


We live in interesting times!!!!

Lots

of good detailed information on this thread.



"Other diplomats worried that both Mr. Saakashvili’s persona and his platforms presented an implicit challenge to the Kremlin, and that Mr. Saakashvili made himself a symbol of something else: Russia’s suspicion about American intentions in the Kremlin’s old empire. They worried that he would draw the United States and Russia into arguments that the United States did not want.

This feeling was especially true among Russian specialists, who said that, whatever the merits of Mr. Saakashvili’s positions, his impulsiveness and nationalism sometimes outstripped his common sense.

The risks were intensified by the fact that the United States did not merely encourage Georgia’s young democracy, it helped militarize the weak Georgian state.


The public goal was to nudge Georgia toward NATO military standards. Privately, Georgian officials welcomed the martial coaching and buildup, and they made clear that they considered participation in Iraq as a sure way to prepare the Georgian military for “national reunification” — the local euphemism of choice for restoring Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgian control.

All of these policies collided late last week. One American official who covers Georgian affairs, speaking on the condition of anonymity while the United States formulates its next public response, said that everything had gone wrong.

Mr. Saakashvili had acted rashly, he said, and had given Russia the grounds to invade. The invasion, he said, was chilling, disproportionate and brutal, and it was grounds for a strong censure. But the immediate question was how far Russia would go in putting Georgia back into what it sees as Georgia’s place.

There was no sign throughout the weekend of Kremlin willingness to negotiate. A national humiliation was under way.

“The Georgians have lost almost everything,” the official said. “We always told them, ‘Don’t do this because the Russians do not have limited aims.’ ”

Baron

"Why was our military and intelligence community completely unable to detect and deter Georgia from starting a war they could not win?"



If there are Israel and Blackwater dead and captured in S. Ossetia, surely you are not so naive as to think this wasn't known at the highest levels?


As I said, IF. We will know in the next two weeks for sure.


IF Israeli military people AND either NATO or American Mercs, directly under the auspices of the United States .gov helped lead the attack and kill Rus Peacekeepers, I'll bet the Rus will impose a very humiliating condition on Georgia.

RB, you have some valid questions. Keep in mind though that long before Friday the separatists were shooting/bombing Georgia proper. What were they supposed to do; continue to allow it? They had to crack down just like Israel does in Palestine; but even more this is Georgian territory.

Wow!

When is the last time a thread here racked up 660+ posts in under three days?

I wanted to thank everybody for their contributions and for keeping the flow of information moving in a timely manner.

TB2K is the place to be regarding this compelling breaking story!

dragonslayer2001 said:

Lots of good detailed information on this thread.

Click to expand...

I agree.
That one article was the best assessment of the realities yet.

"Mr. Saakashvili had acted rashly, he said, and had given Russia the grounds to invade".

And they were waiting and ready...
wardogs

yes

lol. Another 'democracy' under siege.......... just peaceful trade........etc etc etc........


"Meanwhile, Saakashvili's tenure in Tblisi -- which began as a self-proclaimed reformist revolution -- has deteriorated into a regime marked by much of the same kind of corruption, cronyism and repression that it puported to overthrow. One of Saakashvili's partners in the revolution, Irakli Okruashvili, had a dramatic falling-out with the boss last year.

When he announced he was running for president against Saakashvili, he was arrested "and taken to Tbilisi’s notorious Isolator Number 7, the scene of well-documented torture of political prisoners since 1991," as Mark Almond of Oriel College, Oxford, noted in an article last year. After subjection to "strenuous interrogation techniques," Okruashvili "recanted" his charges against the president, and coughed up $6 million in shakedown "bail" money to win his release.

And what were Okruashvili's charges? Almond provides this quote from the former defense minister in Saakashvili’s government:

* “The style of Saakashvili’s governance … has made dishonesty, injustice and oppression a way of life. Everyday repression, demolition of houses and churches, robbery, ‘kulakization’, and murders, I would stress, murders, have become common practice for the authorities.”

Oil rises towards US$116

Reuters | Monday, 11 August 2008

http://www.stuff.co.nz/stuff/dominionpost/4651748a26493.html


Crude oil rose towards US$116 a barrel overnight, rebounding from the previous session's US$5 decline on concern fighting between Russia and Georgia could disrupt energy exports from the Caspian region.

telling............

"Several American and Georgian officials said that unlike when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a move in which Soviet forces were massed before the attack, the nation had not appeared poised for an invasion last week. As late as last Wednesday, they said, Russian diplomats had been pressing for negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia, the breakaway region where the combat flared and then escalated into full-scale war.

“It doesn’t look like this was premeditated, with a massive staging of equipment,” one senior American official said. “Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role.”"



There you go Baron, it is possible that Russia was not expecting this. They moved very quickly in response if that is true. Militarily impressive.

I would not be surprised to see in the next 12/24 hours several Russian Tanks lost as well as aircraft to high tech means.

And on to Tbilisi.

http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=66240&sectionid=351020606

'Russian bombers bomb military targets'

Mon, 11 Aug 2008 02:32:21 GMT

Russian planes have bombed military targets in the suburbs of Tbilisi, a Georgian interior ministry spokesman has claimed.

Shota Utiashvili told AFP on Monday that the explosions were heard around 4:40 am (0040 GMT).

"At least two bombs were dropped," he said.

Apparently, the first bomb struck the village of Kodjori some 10 Km from Tbilisi where the special forces battalion is located while the second bomb struck an air traffic control centre 5 Km from the centre of Tbilisi.

The Russian defense ministry hasn't confirmed the attacks.

SM/DT

Click to expand...

Just

like Serbia, the Ossetians have been allies or part of Russia for hundreds of years.



Date(s) Item
501 - 600 Ossetians settle in the region of present-day North Ossetia.

1201 - 1300 Ossete nomads conduct raids on Georgian frontier, but they are eventually repulsed.

1774 The area of present day North Ossetia is incorporated into the Russian empire. Unlike many other Caucasian nationalities, the Ossetians generally welcome the Russian presence as offering protection from their more powerful local rivals.

1783 Georgia signs a treaty with Russia, becoming a protectorate of the Russian empire.

1801 - 1810 Russia annexes Georgia. Strict Russification measures are introduced.

1801 - 1900 Ossetians collaborate with Russian military forces as they occupy the Caucasus. A successful Russification campaign is introduced among Ossetians.

1821 - 1830 The area of present day South Ossetia is incorporated into the Russian empire.

1917 Overthrow of the Tsarist regime and later the Provisional Government. The Bolsheviks emerge as the de facto rulers of Russia, controlling Moscow, Petrograd (St. Petersburg) and other major urban centers. A government dominated by Social Democrats takes power in Georgia. A Transcaucasian Federation is established under Soviet auspices incorporating Georgia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan.

1917 - 1921 Most Ossetes collaborate with Bolshevik Russia in its confrontation with independent Georgia.

1918 The Transcaucasian Federation splinters as Armenia, Azerbaijan, and Georgia (May) all declare independence. Pro-Bolshevik Ossetians stage a revolt and are harshly repressed by Georgian forces.

1918 - 1920 The Bolsheviks impose a naval blockade on independent Georgia and deploy military units to threaten the pro-independence government in Tbilisi.

Feb 1921 Bolshevik forces occupy Georgia, bringing the country back under domination by Moscow.

1922 The South Ossetian Autonomous Region is formed within Georgia and North Ossetia is created in the Russian Federation.

1924 The relatively tolerant economic and cultural policies of the Soviet Georgian government come to an end with the attempted insurrection of the "Underground Independence Committee." Amid continuing resistance, Georgian churches are suppressed and forced agricultural collectivization is imposed. Ossetians, however, for the most part do not participate in anti-Soviet activities.

1925 Local leaders in the North Ossetian Autonomous Republic appeal for the creation of a united Ossetian republic. Their request is denied by Nationalities Minister Stalin.

1953 The death of Stalin and the purge and execution of Beria leads to relative liberalization of Soviet society, including tentative redress of minority group grievances.

1954 In South Ossetia, the written language formerly based on the Georgian alphabet is made to conform to North Ossetian practices (where the written language is on the Russian alphabet).

1956 Khrushchev initiates his anti-Stalinism campaign, one aspect of which is the rehabilitation of the ethnic minorities forcibly resettled by Soviet authorities during the 1930s through the early 1950s.

1971 - 1980 Evidence indicates that elements of the Communist Party of Georgia pursued a long-term strategy of completely assimilating Ossetians to Georgian culture.

1985 Mikhail Gorbachev takes power in Moscow. Gorbachev's broad reform initiatives known as perestroika (economic restructuring) and glasnost (greater cultural openness) lead most ethnic groups, including the Ossetians, to demand more cultural and political autonomy. As Georgians increasingly organize to assert their nationalism under Zviad Gamsakhurida, the Ossetians in turn mobilize to protect their identity and status.

1988 - 1989 Abkhazia, Adzharia, and Ossetia lobby Moscow for removal from Georgian jurisdiction. Abkhazia seeks restoration of its brief status as a Union Republic, while South Ossetia wants to merge with North Ossetia under the Russian Federation. Georgians see these moves as part of a Russian plot.

1989 Fearful of the rise of Georgian independence forces under Zviad Gamsakhurdia, nationalistic feelings increase in South Ossetia. In reaction against the anti-Communist rhetoric of Georgians, South Ossetian leaders adopt strongly pro-Soviet positions.

Aug 1989 Georgia publishes measures designed to increase the use of the Georgian language in all spheres of life. Many of Georgia's national minorities consider this an act of repression.

Sep 1989 The government of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic ratifies a measure making Russian and Georgian officially recognized languages within the South Ossetian Autonomous Region.

Oct 1 - 15, 1989 Police units in South Ossetia are reinforced following spreading protests by ethnic Ossetes. Activists are calling for an end to the official use of Russian and Georgian and are also demanding a revision of Ossetia's status from an Autonomous Region to an Autonomous Soviet Socialist Republic, a measure which would significantly increase the territory's independence from authorities in Tbilisi.

Oct 28, 1989 Izvestiya, the official organ of the USSR government, confirms that work stoppages have been sweeping through South Ossetia since September. In addition, the paper reports that a "Popular Front of South Ossetia" has been established by Ossetian activists.

Nov 12, 1989 The head of the Georgian Communist Party in South Ossetia is sacked for his failure to diffuse ethnic tensions in the region.

Nov 20, 1989 The Georgian Supreme Soviet declares that its incorporation into the Soviet Union in 1921 was the result of military force and not was therefore involuntary and illegitimate. The Supreme Soviet also claims that it enjoys the right to secede from the USSR and to nullify laws and decrees emanating from the central government in Moscow.

Nov 25 - 26, 1989 Violent clashes between Ossetes and Georgians occur in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, leaving about 20 people injured. Most of the Georgians involved in this unrest have entered the city from outside of Ossetia to challenge the rising tide of autonomy demands.

Nov 27, 1989 1,000 USSR Interior Ministry troops take up positions around Tskhivnali to guard against further ethnic clashes.

Aug 20, 1990 The Georgian Supreme Soviet schedules Republic-wide elections for October 28. The electoral law bans participation by groups who confine their activities to one region of Georgia. This measure prevents independence movements organized in South Ossetia and Abkhazia from participating in the election.

Oct 28, 1990 Nationalist forces in Georgia win 54 percent of the vote in the first round of elections for the Republic's Supreme Soviet. Sporadic boycotting of the election is reported in both South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Separatist organizations in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia are banned from participating in the election because their activities are geographically restricted, which is illegal under Georgia's electoral laws.

Dec 8, 1990 The Georgian Communist Party, which had adopted a pro-independence platform during the election campaign, declares that it is separating from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (CPSU). Party delegates from South Ossetia and Abkhazia do not attend the meeting and denounce the secession move.

Jan 1991 Moscow News publishes a poll of ethnic Russians in Georgia indicating that 62 percent are satisfied with conditions, 22 percent dissatisfied, and that 36 percent wish to remain in Georgia and 37 percent would like to emigrate to the Russian Federation.

Feb 27, 1991 Gamsakhurdia tells the Georgian Supreme Soviet that Gorbachev is planning to detach South Ossetia and Abkhazia from the Republic, and is using such measures as a tool for pressuring Georgia into singing the newly proposed Union Treaty.

May 26, 1991 In Georgia's first direct presidential elections, Gamsakhurdia wins 87 percent of the vote. The election campaign has been characterized by harsh denunciations among pro- and anti-Gamsakhurdia factions. Due to continued unrest, polling stations remain closed in sections of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Aug 19, 1991 The government of Georgia neither supports nor denounces the takeover in Moscow of the so-called "State Committee on the State of Emergency", a grouping of conservative, anti-Gorbachev elements drawn mainly from the military, Communist Party, and security services. However, authorities in South Ossetia and Abkhazia announce their support for the coup leaders.

Jun 21, 1992 Russian Vice-President Alexander Rutskoi accuses Georgia of practicing "genocide" against its Russian minority.

Oct 11, 1992 Shevardnadze is popularly elected chairman of parliament (President) with 95 percent of the vote. Due to interethnic fighting, nine districts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia do not participate in the election.

Nov 19, 1992 Georgian and Abkhaz forces reach a temporary ceasefire to allow Russian troops to depart from Sukhumi. The South Ossetian parliament votes to separate from Georgia and join Russia.

Jan 11, 1993 An opinion poll of ethnic Russians residing in the Georgian capital of Tbilisi indicates the following: 68 percent deny that the civil rights of Russians are violated in Georgia; 7 percent believe that the civil rights of Russians are violated in Georgia; 75 percent do not support the appeals of nationalists in the Russian Parliament to aggressively defend the Russians of Georgia; 58 percent say they will remain in Georgia.

Feb 18, 1993 Georgian and Russian representatives meet and agree that the various conflicts in the Caucasus cannot be separated from one another and must be settled in a comprehensive manner. The Russian side suggests that Russia will help end the conflict in Abkhazia if Georgia assists in bringing a close to ethnic strife in South Ossetia.

May 1, 1993 The Georgian Foreign Ministry rejects Russian allegations of discrimination against ethnic Russians in Georgia, but offers to host UN and CSCE experts to investigate such claims.

Jul 19, 1993 The Chairman of the Congress of Russian Communities, an organization based in Russia and dedicated to the protection of Russian minorities in the Newly Independent States, visits Georgia and meets with Shevardnadze. Georgian radio quotes the head of the Congress as saying that there was "not a single case of discrimination against ethnic Russians in Georgia."

Feb 2, 1994 Chairman of the South Ossetian "Nykhas" (Parliament) Lyudvig Chibirov accused Russia of inconsistency for signing a treaty with Georgia before the settlement of conflicts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia.
Feb 4, 1994 The Russian newspaper Rossiiskaya Gazeta reports that 150,000 ethnic Russians have left Georgia since 1992, although it observes that official policies of the Georgian government do not discriminate against Russians.

Mar 2, 1994 Russia and Georgia sign a military cooperation agreement. The leadership of South Ossetia and ABKHAZIA meets in a joint press conference to decry the treaty as provocative of further ethnic conflict.

May 3, 1994 The Georgian constitutional commission issues a draft program for the country's political and territorial structure. The draft calls for the granting of special political status to ABKHAZIA and ADZHARIA. South Ossetia is not offered a similar status, although Georgian officials indicate that the issue is subject to negotiation.

Sep 1994 Rallies are held in Abkhazia to protest against the return of ethnic Georgian refugees from Georgia proper. Allegedly, these rallies are orchestrated by the leadership of the breakaway region and prominently feature Russians in order to create the impression that that ethnic group disapproves of the return of Georgians to Abkhazia.

Oct 31, 1994 A Russian, Georgian, North Ossetian, and South Ossetian quadripartite commission meets to negotiate settlements of outstanding disputes. The primary goal of the commission is to reach a comprehensive political settlement in South Ossetia, where Russian peacekeepers maintain a cease-fire pending a comprehensive peace.

Feb 17, 1995 The Georgian government allocates one million dollars for relief aid to refugees returning to South Ossetia. Returning refugees, responding to improved security conditions in South Ossetia, include Ossetians and ethnic Georgians.

Feb 24, 1995 South Ossetian and Georgian authorities announce that joint restoration operations will begin in March. Infrastructure and economic conditions deteriorated due to combat in 1992 and the prolonged political stalemate that followed.

Apr 7, 1995 Abkhazian civic organizations, including the Russian community of Gudauta and the Armenian society "Krunk", sponsor a petition campaign addressed to Presidents Yeltsin and Shevardnadze calling for the recognition of Abkhaz independence.

May 1995 Representatives of the Russian Ministry for Nationalities and the Georgian Committee for Interethnic Relations meet and agree to cooperate on areas of mutual interest.

Jul 20, 1995 Representatives from Georgia and South Ossetia meet to negotiate a comprehensive settlement to their dispute.

Aug 4, 1995 Georgia's Prime Minister meets with OSCE representatives to discuss settlement of the South Ossetian conflict.

Aug 29, 1995 Due to political and economic conditions in South Ossetia, it is reported that some workers have not been paid for as long as two years.

Oct 25, 1995 The Chairman of the Abkhaz branch of the "Congress of Russian Communities" (an organization of Russian speakers) states that the region's 70,000 Russians are suffering under a blockade imposed by Russia.

Nov 1, 1995 Georgia's Central Electoral Commission suspends polling in ABKHAZIA and parts of South Ossetia. On Russian television Shevardnadze states that the Russian Federation should assist Georgia in restoring control over its breakaway regions, particularly ABKHAZIA.

Nov 5, 1995 Shevardnadze wins 74 percent of the popular vote in his reelection bid for the Georgian presidency. In the first round of parliamentary polling, Shevardnadze's Citizens' Union wins 91 of 225 seats.

Nov 20, 1995 Shevardnadze praises the state of Russo-Georgian relations. Georgian radio reports that delegations of policemen, students, and teachers will receive training in Turkey.

Nov 21, 1995 The European Union promises Georgia 2,640,000 dollars in economic aid.

May 16, 1996 Georgian and South Ossetain leaders signed a confidence-building accords(Agence France Presse)

Aug 27, 1996 Shevardnadze and South Ossetian leader Chibirov met and discussed the political settlement of the conflict. They signed several agreements devoted to normalization of the relations between Georgia and South Ossetia (M2 Presswire)

Sep 1996 The South Ossetian parliament amended the constitution to create the institution of the presidency(TASS)

Nov 9, 1996 South Ossetia and North Ossetia signed a treaty of friendship and cooperation (TASS)

Nov 10, 1996 South Ossetia held presidential elections which were won by Lyudvig Chibirov, a moderate. The elections were not recognized by Georgia or any country. However, Shevardnadze stressed the fact that the elections should not undermine the thaw in the relations between Georgia and South Ossetia. A most radical South Ossetian candidate received less than 4%.(Agence France Presse)

Mar 14, 1997 South Ossetia called for the OSCE to review all the laws the republic has passed (BBC)

Apr 24, 1997 The OSCE opens its mission in South Ossetia (BBC)

Aug 1997 The congress of refugees and internally displaced peoples from Abkhazia and South Ossetia declared these provinces annexed and occupied by Russia. (BBC)

Sep 1997 South Ossetian refugees in North Ossetia are reported to live in homes of Ingush who escaped during the conflict with North Ossetian. The presence of South Ossetians is said to make return of the Ingush refugees more difficult (Defence and Foreign Affairs)

Nov 14, 1997 A meeting of Shevardnadze and Chibirov in Dzhava about the political settlement of the Georgian-South-Ossetian conflict took place. (TASS)

Apr 16, 1998 North Ossetian President Dzasokhov met with South Ossetian leaders (TASS)

May 13, 1998 North Ossetian and Georgian leaders discussed the settlement of South Ossetian conflict (BBC)

May 31, 1998 The South Ossetian Deputy Prime Minister and a North Ossetian business executive were murdered in a contract murder (TASS)

Jun 1998 Shevardnadze proposed an asymmetrical federation for Georgia with wider rights for Abkhazia, Adzharia and South Ossetia (BBC)

Jun 6, 1998 The EU granted 10 million ECU to Georgia for development, including restoration of South Ossetian territories damaged during conflict. (TASS)

Jun 20, 1998 Shevardnadze and Chibirov met in Borzhomi. They agreed on an economic program for the restoration of South Ossetia and stressed the importance of resolving the refugee issue but delayed the discussion of political settlement of the conflict (Current Digest of Soviet Press)

Aug 10, 1998 The South Ossetian government, 15 ministers and the heads of the state commission resigned on orders from Chibirov, who claimed that "decision was prompted by economic problems." (BBC)

Feb 8, 1999 Shevardnadze called for reconsideration of CIS treaty (BBC)
May 1999 Parliamentary elections in South Ossetia, not recognized by Georgia and the OSCE, were held. The Georgian population in the republic boycotted the elections (BBC)

May 10, 1999 South Ossetian authorities protested the Georgian customs enhancing measures to curb the passage of contraband goods, particularly petrol, from Russia to Georgia through South Ossetia (BBC)

May 16, 1999 South Ossetian authorities asked Russia to open a consulate in the republic (BBC)

May 26, 1999 It is reported that 256 South Ossetian refugee families returned home in 1998 and six refugees families returned so far in 1999 (BBC)

Jun 23, 1999 Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a joint declaration with the European Union. They pledge to overcome regional conflicts (BBC)

Jun 28, 1999 Shevardnadze welcomed the EU’s pledge to help resolve the Caucasus conflicts (Interfax)

Jul 2, 1999 Four hundred eighty newly replaced Russian peacekeepers resumed their duty in South Ossetia (BBC)

Jul 22, 1999 During the meeting with German diplomats, South Ossetian leaders said that international assistance to Georgia bypassed South Ossetia (BBC)

Aug 2, 1999 Russian nationalities Minister Mikhailov stated that there is a problem of 30,000 refugees from South Ossetia who live in Ingush settlements in Northern Ossetia (TASS)


http://www.cidcm.umd.edu/mar/chronology.asp?groupId=37203

Well Duh

dragonslayer2001 said:

"Several American and Georgian officials said that unlike when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a move in which Soviet forces were massed before the attack, the nation had not appeared poised for an invasion last week. As late as last Wednesday, they said, Russian diplomats had been pressing for negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia, the breakaway region where the combat flared and then escalated into full-scale war.

“It doesn’t look like this was premeditated, with a massive staging of equipment,” one senior American official said. “Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role.”"



There you go Baron, it is possible that Russia was not expecting this. They moved very quickly in response if that is true. Militarily impressive.

Click to expand...

Like we are going to say...like yeah we saw Ivan massing troops for blitzkrieg & did nothing to stop it....Perhaps...Our fearless leader...Cheney set a trap for the Ivan…Perhaps...Just wait & see what the...

It's

not meth is it Skip?

DS,

When I said Russia had gone too far, I was referring to my previous postings about the 1992 agreement and Russia having stated this was about defending its peace-keepers; if that were true, this would be over, not getting bigger.

NOPE...MUCH BETTER STUFFFFFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!!!

dragonslayer2001 said:

not meth is it Skip?

Click to expand...

dragonslayer2001 said:

"Several American and Georgian officials said that unlike when Russia invaded Afghanistan in 1979, a move in which Soviet forces were massed before the attack, the nation had not appeared poised for an invasion last week. As late as last Wednesday, they said, Russian diplomats had been pressing for negotiations between Georgia and South Ossetia, the breakaway region where the combat flared and then escalated into full-scale war.

“It doesn’t look like this was premeditated, with a massive staging of equipment,” one senior American official said. “Until the night before the fighting, Russia seemed to be playing a constructive role.”"

There you go Baron, it is possible that Russia was not expecting this. They moved very quickly in response if that is true. Militarily impressive.

Click to expand...

I hate to intrude on your love fest with Russia but the buildup began in January to an extent that a formal complaint was made by Georgia to the UN.
In May, it was again reported on as it became obvious that Russian volunteers were actually moving into S Ossetia.

Last Tuesday another complaint was made as Russian volunteers arrived in S Ossetia itself.

Georgia alarmed by buildup of Russian volunteers in rebel region
http://en.rian.ru/world/20080805/115774293.html

20:55 | 05/ 08/ 2008

TBILISI, August 5 (RIA Novosti) - Georgia said Tuesday it was alarmed by reports that volunteers from Russia had started arriving in South Ossetia obviously in preparation for military action.

The Cossack community in North Ossetia, the Russian republic neighboring South Ossetia, said that several hundred volunteers were ready to protect the unrecognized republic, where at least six people were killed and more than 15 injured in shelling attacks by Georgian troops over the weekend.

Unconfirmed reports later said volunteers had started arriving in South Ossetia. But North Ossetia's interior ministry said Tuesday armed groups would not be allowed to cross the border with the breakaway region.

"We are extremely concerned about Tskhinvali's obvious preparations for war," Georgia's Foreign Ministry said in a statement. "The regime said 300 terrorists, who are Russian nationals, had arrived in the region."

The ministry said Georgia would continue to seek dialogue with South Ossetia and responsibility for any escalation in the violence in the region would rest with Russia.

Tbilisi and Moscow have been locked in a feud over Georgia's two breakaway regions and the ex-Soviet Caucasus state's drive to join NATO.

Tbilisi earlier said the shelling of South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali, and a neighboring village had been provoked by the rebel region.

South Ossetia's leader said Monday at least 300 North Ossetians had already arrived in the breakaway region, with up to 2,000 expected. Eduard Kokoity also said other North Caucasus republics had pledged assistance if war breaks out with Georgia.

South Ossetia and Abkhazia broke away from Georgia following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, gaining de facto independence after bloody conflicts with Tbilisi.

Russia did not move two armored divisions and 10,00 troops into the area in a matter of hours. That's not "impressive", that's impossible.

Unlike your rumors of Israelis and Blackwater, (Blackwater? where did THAT come from??) It was Kokoity himself that announced their arrival.
wardogs

Skip,

Can you summarize (pretty please with sugar on top), I can't youtube tonight; regular font size would be fine, really LOL

1:37am UK, Monday August 11, 2008

The Georgian city of Gori is under "massive" attack from Russian artillery and planes and ground forces are preparing for an assault, a Georgian interior ministry spokesman has told the AFP news agency.

http://news.sky.com/skynews/Home/Wo...nd+Made+Homeless+By+Conflict+In+South+Ossetia

yes

Sassy, lol, this thread is skipping along........... grins........


Nope, the Russian response has been militarily overwhelming and decisive. They have been pissed for a long time as the skips of the West have been trying to impose Hegemony on a weakened Russia, flouting Russia's interests and often legitimate requests, and just a few days ago refused and threw back in Russia's face an attempt to stop the fighting.........

when it looked like Georgia had the upper hand............


This is from wiki, and has been reported here in some of the posts:


"However, by the day's end, Saakashvili ordered a unilateral ceasefire. Saakashvili called for talks "in any format"; reaffirmed the long-standing offer of full autonomy for South Ossetia; proposed that Russia should guarantee that solution; offered a general amnesty; and pleaded for international intercession to stop the hostilities.[43] Georgia reiterated that it was prepared to engage in direct talks with the de facto government of Tskhinvali without any conditions.

Following the cease fire, Georgia began a military offensive into South Ossetia commanded by Mamuka Kurashvili



Get that? The day before the Georgian tank offensive, the Georgian President offered a cease fire. Then invaded.


They spit in the face of Russia, deliberately targeted Peace Keepers (Russian) who had been there for years..........


Naw, they won't stop yet. They've seen the US and Israel flaunt UN resolutions for years. And it is starting to appear that US personal were in the spearhead. I am waiting to hear of dead or captured Isreali war personnel. I can't imagine anything infuriating Putin more than to know that Israeli and American forces were involved in the invasion of S. Ossetia.

If the 'ethnic' cleansing stories are true, and that hundreds perhaps thousands of S. Ossetians were murdered at the beginning.............



NBC, about the advanced weaponry. I would have expected it to have been used by now if it was there. But if anything like that IS used, it will support my suspicions that this Georgian invasion was prompted at the highest levels.


There is NO WAY Georgia has been mobilizing for a month, with US advisors and BlackWater there, and our people not knowing about it.

Crude Oil Rises on Excessive Drop, Supply Threat in Caspian Sea

By Nesa Subrahmaniyan

Aug. 11 (Bloomberg) -- Crude oil rose from a 14-week low in New York as traders deemed last week's 7.9 percent drop as excessive and the Russia-Georgia conflict raised concern that Caspian Sea supplies may be disrupted.

Russian bombers targeted the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline supplying Azeri crude across Georgia and Turkey to the Mediterranean Sea, Georgian Economy Minister Eka Sharashidze said yesterday. Georgia is a key link in a U.S.-backed ``southern energy corridor'' that connects the Caspian Sea region with world markets, bypassing Russia.

http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601087&sid=aVWmKi27Q4aA&refer=home