This is ugly:
As Georgian troops launched a major military offensive Friday to regain control over the breakaway province of South Ossetia, Russia denounced the move as “aggressive” and vowed to respond.
Russian authorities said several of its peacekeepers died in a Georgian attack in South Ossetia, which borders Russia and has strong ties to its vast northern neighbor, and they vowed not to leave Russian citizens in the territory unprotected.
“The Georgian leadership has launched a dirty adventure,” a statement from Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Friday. “We will not leave our peacekeepers and Russian citizens unprotected.”
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Georgia started the fighting and warned that Russia would respond to their actions.
“Heavy weapons and artillery have been sent there, and tanks have been added. Deaths and injuries have been reported, including among Russian peacekeepers,” Putin said in comments carried Friday by Russia’s Interfax news agency.
“It’s all very sad and alarming. And, of course, there will be a response.”
Russian troops have been killed:
Numerous” soldiers of the Russian intervention forces in South Ossetia would have been killed when their base was bombed by Georgian artillery during its attack on Tskhinvali, capital of the Georgian rebel autonomous province. A spokesman of the Russian troops said this, quoted by Russian press agency Interfax. Up to now the death toll of the attack was reported to be 3 injured. According to sources in South Ossetia, the Georgian bomb attack would have made at least 15 victims, injuring many more.
According to a recent AP news alert Russian troops are moving into South Ossetia now.
Related:
Military of Georgia (Wikipedia)
Transcript: President Bush Sending Troops to Georgia – Will Rally Free World in Defense
Good morning. I’ve just met with my national security team to discuss the crisis in Georgia. I’ve spoken with President Saakashvili of Georgia, and President Sarkozy of France this morning....
Russia and Georgia Both Agree to Six-Point Plan to End Fighting
Everyone seems to be on board – for now: Georgia’s president late Tuesday agreed to a six-point plan announced by the Russian and French presidents that aims to settle the...
Georgia: Russian Attacks Continue Despite Pledge
We’ll know within a few hours if Russia is lying or if the situation on the ground needs time to get in synch with the politicians. There’s reason for concern...
John McCain Calls on Russia to Withdraw Forces from Georgia
McCain’s carefully worded statement is diplomatically sensitive but leaves no doubt that Georgia is an ally: “Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations, withdraw all forces from the...
South Ossetia Clash: Putin Declares “War Has Started” with Georgia
The Russian stock market did not approve but there are bigger problems looming this morning: The ruble dropped the most in 3 1/2 years and Russia’s 30-stock Micex Index fell...
The news analysis you need from Spike:
The US blundered into the Iraq war on the basis of dumb PR, wrong intelligence and total cluelessness about historic ethnic animosity, with every tribe taking turns at leading us around by the nose. Here we go again in Georgia, tied in by Iraq of all places.
Ossetians will fight to the death to avoid being governed by Georgians – that’s been their culture for hundreds of years and it kept them independent until Stalin gave Ossetia to Georgia. Stalin was a Georgian born in Gori, so he tossed plenty of perks, like the odd smaller country or two, Georgia’s way. Hometown boy makes good and all that.
When Stalin’s Soviet Union fell apart in 1990 the Ossetians fought Georgia for two bitter years to regain their independence from Stalin’s gift of them to Georgia. They won and in 1992 Georgia agreed to their autonomy and promised not to try to take South Ossetia by force. Russia sent in peacekeepers (no other country wanted to get involved, a wise call in retrospect) and for sixteen years the South Ossetians have been free of Georgian rule. No one else would recognize them, but at least they were free.
Good times only last so long. Georgia needed money so they sucked up to the US by sending 2000 troops as cannon fodder for Iraq. With an embattled Bush Administration trying to color the Iraq war as a “multinational” effort, those 2000 guys were plenty enough to get the Bushies on their knees in gratitude. Next thing you know, megabucks and military aid flowed Georgia’s way, with thousands of US advisors rotating in and out of the country and arms and weapons aplenty for George Bush’s new best friends.
Oh, and despite the Georgia’s loving maintenance in Gori of a huge statue of Josef Stalin, one of the worst Communist dictators and mass murderers in history, the Bushies started testifying again and again how wonderfully democratic the Georgians had become. 2000 body bags ready to go in Iraq will do that for you.
So what happened? Turns out Georgia’s East Coast college educated President Saakashvilli knows how to work PR magic with the Bushies but he doesn’t know how to run a country. Never did it before, seems like. Georgians looking for jobs and a good life were getting tired of endemic corruption, broken promises, sinking economy… well, you know, kind of like the Bush Administration. So what’s a close friend of George Bush going to do to raise his popularity? What would George do? Hey! There’s the answer! Invade a smaller country!
Losing to the Ossetians in 1992 took a bite out of Georgian pride, so Saakashvilli promised his party and his people he’d restore that pride by taking South Ossetia back. Problem was, after sixteen years of running their own show the Ossetians had gotten kind of used to being independent. Worse yet, after becoming pariahs as far as Georgia was concerned they had turned to their other neighbor, Russia, for food, fuel, passports, foreign aid and all that other good stuff. Russia was happy to oblige, made promises to Ossetia, lots of Russians settled there (cheaper than Moscow, you know, and a lot better weather), well, the usual drill when big countries pick up a new client. All that first date stuff.
Saakashvilli also made the mistake of trying to buff up his image inside Georgia and with the Bushies by poking Russia in the eye at every opportunity. Worked well in Georgia but you really have to ask yourself if that was smart given the total lack of any sense of humor in the Russian leadership about getting poked in the eye. Even the Bushies finally realized they had a loose cannon on their hands. Too late, comrades, too late!
Last Thursday night as the Ossetians and all the rest of the world was sitting down to watch the Olympics on TV, Saakashvilli launched a really well executed, sneak attack tank and air assault on South Ossetia. Caught them totally by surprise and took the capital of South Ossetia almost before the Ossetians could put down their vodka and get up from the TV. Didn’t know the Georgians had that in them! But you know how those sneak attacks work great when they catch some bozo by surprise. Worked great at Pearl Harbor, too.
Turns out Georgia had detailed intelligence gathered by flying drones over South Ossetia for months prior. Just two months ago three drones were shot down, so you know they had a lot more than just three. Russia and Ossetians should have been tipped off by that, but it looks like they never imagined Georgia would come storming across the border with tanks, killing anyone that got in their way. Dumb Russians!
It gets worse. Those stupid Russians had a bunch of peacekeepers in South Ossetia who never got the memo about when the enemy comes in with tanks and all you’ve got is side arms you get the heck out of Dodge. Time to cut and run just like the West did in Rwanda. It’s not your fight, man, so just run back to the TV, keep watching the Olympics and let the Georgians do what they came to do.
Stupid Russians didn’t get that memo. The Russian peacekeepers lined up against the Georgian tanks, pulled out their pistols and got cut to pieces, about a hundred of ‘em killed outright. Stupid Russians. Don’t they know being a peacekeeper is about running away from a fight? Maybe they were just mad about having to miss TV coverage of the Olympic opening ceremony and were too liquored up to realize the Georgians were shooting to kill.
Well, you know how unreasonable the Russians get when you kill a few hundred of their people. You hear people say thousands got killed, but despite the odor of corpses in the streets of South Ossetia it’s hard to add up more than a few hundred, counting the handful of peacekeepers and a bunch of Ossetian and Russian civilians. Those Russians should drink less vodka and get a better sense of proportion when they complain about genocide.
But, heck no, that’s not the Russian way. They just have no sense of proportion at all, acting real mad when you run them over with tanks. Hey, don’t they know that Georgia is a democracy and the Georgian president went to Columbia and is a good friend of Bush? Don’t they know that Georgia wouldn’t have pulled a sneak attack and killed all those people unless they were provoked real bad by those horrible Ossetians? Nope. All that impeccable Bush logic was a lost cause with the Russians.
Well so those totally insensitive Russians started driving tanks across the border from Russia into Ossetia as fast as they could. Lucky for the Ossetians the Russians had plenty of tanks because the border to Ossetia is only about five miles from the Russian war zone with Chechnya and Ingushetia. The Russians have been fighting a war there for about twenty years against Islamic crazies so they had plenty of tanks on hand.
In case anyone forgets, the Chechens are those wonderful people who think an effective military strategy is to seize 500 people in a hospital as hostages, killing as many of them as they can to get the Russians riled up. Works great! The Chechens also introduced the innovation of chainsawing the limbs off hostages on video to show they mean business. That sure gets your attention as well. So, anyway, given the Chechens are about the only group on the planet who scare the innards out of RUssians that meant Russia had plenty of tanks and Chechen war battle-hardened troops available just a few miles away that could rush into South Ossetia. And so they did.
Saakashvilli planned on taking South Ossetia overnight and he almost made it. Darned peacekeepers wouldn’t run, though, and that slowed him up just enough for the routes into Russia to stay open and allow the aforementioned Chechen war battle-hardened troops to come streaming into Ossetia. There weren’t many of them (too few roads) but man, were they honkin’ mad at how the Georgians had interrupted their much-anticipated viewing of Olympic beach volleyball. Don’t get much nookie in those Chechen war zones you know, so they weren’t happy about being deprived their bikini athletic experience.
There was also that small matter of how Russians go postal when you kill a few hundred of their people in a sneak attack, and the usual indignation when the Russian military gets caught by surprise and made to look like fools. Yep, those Chechen war battle-hardened troops were in a mean mood.
In fact they blew the Georgians out of South Ossetia in about 24 hours even though the Georgians outnumbered the inital Russian troops about ten to one. Heavy casualties on all sides, not that the Russans cared. No suprise the Russians kept coming and blasted their way into Georgia itself, streaming more and more armor across the border until, surprise! Russia held about a ten to one advantage over Georgia. With characteristic Russian understatement, a tank commander was heard to comment to a journalist, “Anyone who attacks Russia we will destroy.”
As you might expect the Bushies were totally surprised their unhinged client pulled a stunt like invading South Ossetia. What to do? Job one is to make it clear It Was Not George Bush’s Fault. Blame the Russians, which the Russians eagerly helped the Bushies do by making sure they sent spokespeople who couldn’t speak a word of English and when they did acted like their own worst enemies. Good job, Russians! Bush rolled out the script that a peaceful, democratic ally got attacked by a revived Soviet bear and now we have got to… what?
Well, you know the Bush doctrine. First part, build a missile system in an unrelated country like Poland. Second part, make sure no Mexican immigrants can get a job. Well, OK, no Mexicans there but we do have Ossetians. Let’s put the screws on them as the fall guys. They made the Georgians invade them. There, that makes sense! Final part, let’s get the US military involved so we can start another war. Perfect!
And, just like with Iraq an imbecile media is going to follow the above script when the Bushies feed it to them at the briefings. You know those reporters: deep down inside they all are uncertain about the length of their equipment so as soon as any president starts a shooting war they all like it when manpower and weaponry go on display. After a while (like a lot of bad dates) the hangover sets in and the media starts to regret what they agreed to the night before. Not too many media guys will admit to how happy they were for Bush when he dragged us into Iraq, will they?
We now have the spectacle of American arms and American prestige committed to defending Stalin’s partition of a tiny country, Ossetia. It’s a screwball world when it is the Russians that are trying to overturn Stalin’s diktat and to restore independence to that small country. Way to go George Bush! You put us on the side of Stalin! That’s a real cool historical legacy every American should want.
But wait, there’s more! We now have the Bush administration committing American arms and prestige to defending a, get this, sneak attack timed to take advantage of the opening of the Olympics. Hey, that’s wonderful. That’ll show the world our commitment to peace and freedom. Makes the Russians look bad, too, the way our client (go Georgia!) caught them napping.
So, backing a sneak attack and supporting Stalin’s world view is the American way, and getting Americans involved in yet another war where we are being played for fools by unstable clients will be the parting gift of the Bush administration. Is that what everyone wants?
Then again the Russians are being “disproporionate,” as if they didn’t get the memo about rolling over and playing dead. Dumb Russians. No sophistication at all. And, they got less medals than us. If that wasn’t a good reason to build more missile systems in unrelated countries and start more wars we can fly drones and get killed in, I don’t know what is.
I can hear some readers muttering, “OK, wise guy, what would you have us do?” Hey, that’s easy.
First off, we can’t blame the Georgians for anything because that would make us look bad. Repeat after me: the Georgians were provoked. The Russians made them defend themselves. We told them to resist being baited but gosh darn it, those Russians went too far. They did something terrible. Not sure what it was yet but we’ll come up with something in a couple of days.
Second, it wasn’t a sneak attack. No. You got that completely wrong and as soon as I get done PhotoShopping this you’ll see it was the Russians that attacked first. They invaded a smaller country. The Georgians were relaxing in their tanks, peacefully resting after cleaning up the South Ossetian neighborhood from some unsightly bodies, drinking whatever it is that Georgians drink when the Russians attacked them.
Third, the Russians have a totally disproportionate response going. Get out of Georgia, out of Ossetia and go back to Siberia or someplace. We’ll bury their dead and the Georgian dead as well. No, wait, there won’t be any Russian dead after I get done PhotoShopping this. Oh, and all those Georgian and Ossetian guys rampaging and holding up SUVs in the war zone, that’s a job for the Georgian police. They’ll do a much cleaner job of holding up those SUVs, just like they did before the war.
Fourth, let’s get Georgia into NATO. It’s a great idea to involve unstable countries in NATO so in case John McCain gets elected he’ll have lots of reasons to go to war. Republicans like that, you know, so you have to plan for the future.
Fifth, let’s build a missile system in Poland. This is completely, totally necessary to defend the Germans and the French against Iranian missiles and spending trillions of dollars on that is a great way to make sure the French never run out of reasons to ridicule the falling dollar. It also gives the Russians something to aim their nukes at besides us.
Finally, let’s ask Russia to throw the G7 out of the G8 and to pull out of the WTO. It is too embarrassing that we’re the only country that needs the WTO anymore since our economy depends upon manufacturing in China. This will fix that by removing any need for the WTO. And, once Russia throws the G7 out of the G8, since they are the only country that is energy-independent in the G8 we’ll be spared the humiliation of having the G7 fall apart when the aforementioned Germans and French and all the rest get down on their knees to Russia’s control of the energy they need.
Oh, and let’s make sure to impose Stalin’s plan for Ossetia. Last thing we want is to guarantee free elections to let the Ossetians choose if they want to be free of war, to be their own country or to join whatever country they want.
Spike, over and out!
I wonder if this site has been attacked by KGB agents, or brainwashed by criminal Putin’s propaganda.
Otherwise how else sane people can defend what russia is doing? giving out passports freely to foreign cutizens, while their own citizens who came back from other former SU republics are required to pay bribes to get passports?
No matter what Georgia would do russians would have started the war. it was all planned from april when germany and france blocked the acceptance of goergia and ukraine to NATO.
I sure hope russian kgb criminals will get at the end what they deserve for their endless crimes. Killing journalists, killing former kgb guys who had honesty to run and tell the world what kgb is all about, killing their own people in Chechnya.
I just want to puke listeting all their lies on TV. “Defending Russian citizens” my ass. You killed 200,000 real russian citizens during the war in Chechnya so that putin could get his ratings up, and now you are “defending russian citizens” and “peacekeepers”.
Hey guys,
please font listen to those kgb agents and brainwashed russians… Look what they are saying, Georgians killed UN peacekeepers… Do you mean russian peackeepers? If they killed UN peackeepers do you think the world would not know about this?
russian occupants continue to rob goergian villages. their own government keeps them hungry, they go around and rob citizens. WHAT A SHAME! KGB should be prosecuted by international law.
Eltsin was so right when he threw out those KGB guys from service. But now they are all back, thanks to this criminal putin…
Georgians Did Not Start the War: The Russians Did! And the Russians Did it Because Russia is Very Sick Today With Xenophobia and Nostalgia for the Soviet Empire!
Since beginning of August 2008, the Russian “Peacekeepers” together with Ossetian illegal militia have been ethnically cleansing Georgian villages and killing innocent civilians! Just think about this…
Many experts and diplomats wondered whether the Russian government is sick with xenophobia and with the nostalgia of “good, old Soviet Union” is trying to revive the forgotten empire. Or maybe they are just playing a very stupid game that will have extremely severe consequences to the future of Russia and its citizens.
It is not a new fact that the people from Caucasus republics are constantly being discriminated in Russia, are targets of Russian neo-Nazi groups and live second class citizens lives. The Russian government never tried to understand the mentality, culture and social norms of the people from the Caucasus region. Throughout history the Russian empire or the Soviets or Putin’s regime have been applying one rule to the Caucasus region in order to maintain control over it: divide and conquer! Putin successfully fueled ethnic tensions between various Caucasus nationalities, so they all had to look up to the Russians for help and the roots of this policy date back to Tsar’s Russian Empire, when the Russians were only able to take control over Caucasus with the help of Caucasus nations, primarily the Georgians. The Georgians thought they were doing a favor and Tsar would leave them alone to govern their own lives, but the Georgians were wrong.
After the collapse of Soviet Union the Russian government successfully fueled ethnic tensions between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, Georgians and Ossetians, Georgians and Abkhazians, Ingushis and Ossetians, etc… This was the only strategy and the only game the Russian rulers played by: fuel hatred, divide the territories, resettle and arm the people so there will be no peace until the Russian soldier places his foot in the region. And of course, the Russian army is known for their outstanding performance in “peacekeeping” missions that have carried out, being involved in genocide, ethnic cleansing (Georgians in Abkhazia, South Ossetia, Chechen civilians), rape, murder, torture and the list goes on. At the end it seems that the Russian “peacekeeping mission” is not that peaceful at all.
It is evident that the Russian political system always been in shape of a Pyramid, where all the political and economic control spheres of country is divided between a leader (Czar, or Secretary General or Prime Minister) at the top, who has a direct control and right hand support of secret service at one angle and military at the other. This is the heart of the Russian political life and everything else develops around it. With a strong propaganda machine, complete control over Russian citizens is assured, as well as “democratic” elections where one candidate always receives the vast majority (if not all) of the votes and there never seems to be opposition to the candidate. And what about the President Medvedev? He is just another toy in Putin’s closet…
Putin decided to send a strong signal to the world and wished to overthrow the Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, but he failed. He strongly believes that the fate of the Georgian people depends on his wishes and is determine to shape the borders of another sovereign country. This move directly threatens the World Order established after World War II. The current World Order is not perfect, but so far, with its deficiencies it is working.
After the brief war with Georgia, the Russian government tried to justify its move by saying that the Georgians started the war. Here is the first lie! The Georgian government has been saying since beginning of August 2008 that the situation in South Ossetia is escalating and the Russian “peacekeepers” are staging provocations together with illegal armed forces of South Ossetian separatist regime. They started killing Georgian police officers and firing artillery shells at the Georgian villages located in South Ossetia, but the world was preoccupied with getting ready for the opening ceremony of Beijing 2008 Olympics.
When the Georgian government officials told the Europeans in Brussels that we were at the brink of war, the Europeans politely warned the Georgians not to use the word “war” in the city of Brussels, because they do not like the word “war.” It seems that old Europe is getting older each day and with the age, because numerous warnings and cries by the Georgian officials fell on the deaf ears of old Europe. Never mind the fact that it took Hitler conquering Poland and Czechoslovakia, before the Western Europe realized this was a war.
And what about the Americans? The American society is in the midst of elections, the Democrats want to see Europe take more responsibility for security in Caucasus region, the Republicans are divided and worried about gay marriage and abortion rights… The friends of Georgia in new Europe are trying everything to force the old Europe take harsher approach towards Russia, but Europe is dependent on Russian natural gas and oil.
Giving up on a young democracy does not seem plausible for the Europeans, but the old Europe is scared of the new Russian bear. The new Russia is controlled by a xenophobic psychopath who has decided to break all the rules of the game, in order to change those rules. And the question comes: how can you stop a bully? Everyone can keep condemning the Russian government, but that paper will wind up in Putin’s toilet again… The only way to stop a bully is bully up against the bully – simple rule of life.
With the recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the Russian government has proven the world that they will violate international laws whenever they feel like it and they will use aggression in the name of peace as they did in Prague 1968. If the world would not stand up for Georgia, who will be the next prey of the hungry Russian bear? Maybe Ukraine? Or Moldova? Or who knows… The Russian government is as unpredictable as the weather in England…
The Georgian people are united and stand united, we have survived the onslaught by Mongols, Persians, Arabs, Turk-Seljuks throughout the history and we have still survived and we are not scared of the Russian bear either.
Just last question to Mr. Putin. Mr. Putin, if you are so concerned about the freedom of small minorities, why not recognize the independence of Chechnya? Then Daghestan? Then Ingushetia? And then all the other autonomous republics where the citizens do not even speak Russian? Think about that at first and then lets discuss the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, after 300,000 Georgian refugees return to their own homes.
And to my fellow Abkhazian and South Ossetian brothers and sisters. Yes, there will be dancing and celebration in Sokhumi and Tskinvali. Yes, you will be smiling and waving flags – Georgian flags of course…