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Russia invades Georgia

Wire said:
The message Russia is sending to it's neghbours is the same what Hitler sent when taking bites from Czechoslovakia. (Swedish foreign minister said that, not me: http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5giaShBm79g_Ie5SiGsSI4Plg_n4Q)
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THere was no need to Godwin this thread.

There is no need to compare any of this to the Third Reich.

How about a little more independent, out of the rut thinking, and a few less cookie cutters?

(Not upset with you, Wire, it's just that this constant reference to Adolf and his chums is mental laziness at work. )

DR
 
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[sarcasm on]
I can't help feeling that we (aka Superpower USofA) aren't letting down our ally "Georgia-who-sent-troops-to-Iraq" a teeny weenie bit. Is Georgia on the receiving end of some miscommunication?

Why, they almost seemed to think that if they got adventuresome with their neighbors there would be some kind of military or material assistance forthcoming. Almost reminds me of how we communicated with our ally Iraq a few years ago on a matter of invading a neighbor.

Well, fortunately Bush is on top of the situation this time. He is cleverly reading China the riot act over not allowing house churches - surely a clever ruse hiding his secret hands-on diplomatic efforts to help resolve the escalating crisis.

GWB's response to the Georgia crisis:
"No state, man or woman should fear the influence of loving religion."

[sarcasm off]
 
webfusion said:
http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1010187.html
Georgian military commanders are thanking private Israeli trainers for providing the means and know-how to counter the Russians.
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CapelDodger said:
Allegedly.
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"Faltering forces of infidels cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find themselves under siege. Therefore, in reality whatever this miserable Rumsfeld has been saying, he was talking about his own forces. Now even the American command is under siege."
 
DEBKAfile also reported on the israeli military advisers:

DEBKAfile said:
DEBKAfile discloses Israel’s interest in the conflict from its exclusive military sources:

Jerusalem owns a strong interest in Caspian oil and gas pipelines reach the Turkish terminal port of Ceyhan, rather than the Russian network. Intense negotiations are afoot between Israel Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azarbaijan for pipelines to reach Turkey and thence to Israel’s oil terminal at Ashkelon and on to its Red Sea port of Eilat. From there, supertankers can carry the gas and oil to the Far East through the Indian Ocean.

Aware of Moscow’s sensitivity on the oil question, Israel offered Russia a stake in the project but was rejected.

Last year, the Georgian president commissioned from private Israeli security firms several hundred military advisers, estimated at up to 1,000, to train the Georgian armed forces in commando, air, sea, armored and artillery combat tactics. They also offer instruction on military intelligence and security for the central regime. Tbilisi also purchased weapons, intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Israel.

These advisers were undoubtedly deeply involved in the Georgian army’s preparations to conquer the South Ossetian capital Friday.

In recent weeks, Moscow has repeatedly demanded that Jerusalem halt its military assistance to Georgia, finally threatening a crisis in bilateral relations. Israel responded by saying that the only assistance rendered Tbilisi was “defensive.”

This has not gone down well in the Kremlin. Therefore, as the military crisis intensifies in South Ossetia, Moscow may be expected to punish Israel for its intervention.
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In other news, the RIA Novosti website is unreachable for the last ~13 hours, at least from Germany.
 
quixotecoyote said:
"Faltering forces of infidels cannot just enter a country of 26 million people and lay besiege to them! They are the ones who will find themselves under siege. Therefore, in reality whatever this miserable Rumsfeld has been saying, he was talking about his own forces. Now even the American command is under siege."
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Harsh words indeed.
 
I wondered how long until The Jews got blamed for this also.
My concern is that Putin will take a page from Hitler's play book and now use minorities as an excuse to intervene all over what used to be the Soviet Union and NATO.
And with the usual gang of Neo Marxist in the West Cheering them on.
 
Childlike Empress said:
DEBKAfile also reported on the israeli military advisers:
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Of course there are Israeli advisers and weapons out there. Selling weponry to dodgy regimes in receipt of a US military subsidy is very much their metier.

I would question the claims being made of, for instance, an entire Russian division being destroyed during the heroic Georgian "relocation" to the rear. If it really happened we'll know about it soon enough - it could hardly be concealed from satellites.

Would these be the same Israelis and equipment that performed so lamentably in South Lebanon recently? Probably.
 
CapelDodger said:
I would question the claims being made of, for instance, an entire Russian division being destroyed during the heroic Georgian "relocation" to the rear. If it really happened we'll know about it soon enough - it could hardly be concealed from satellites.
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Agreed. Reminds me of good old comical Ali...

@dudalb: Ever heard of DEBKA? Not exactly an antisemitic organisation... :rolleyes:
 
CapelDodger said:
I would question the claims being made of, for instance, an entire Russian division being destroyed during the heroic Georgian "relocation" to the rear.
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The correct word for that is "Frontverkürzung" (shortening the front) - this thread was Godwinized already? :)

Anyone seen Wolf Blitzer's interview with Saaskashvili today on CNN? It was pathetic to see how he evaded every question. Specifically, when Blitzer asked how the Georgian troops were doing, he said: "The Georgian troops are doing fine. But the fighting must stop. People are being killed! Ehhm, civilians are being killed!"

OMG what news. People being killed in a war, unimaginable. And then of course he came with the pathetic comparisons with Afghanistan, Budapest 1956 and Prague 1968.

He also claimed there were about 100 Russian tanks on the SE Abkhaz border. At least, that's were he pointed with his pencil to the large map hanging on the wall behind him. Anyone heard more about that?
 
Matteo Martini said:
This is a new kind of war that is all about energy.
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It's a very old kind of war, about determining spheres of influence between Great Powers in strategically important areas. When Russia was weak, after the collapse of communism during the nineties, the US expanded its sphere eastwards. Now Russia is in the ascent, while the US is stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq. So Russia is making use of the occasion to push back the US's sphere.

And the US is pretty much impotent to do anything about it. It has made (or at least implied) promises it can't keep.
 
egslim said:
It's a very old kind of war, about determining spheres of influence between Great Powers in strategically important areas. When Russia was weak, after the collapse of communism during the nineties, the US expanded its sphere eastwards. Now Russia is in the ascent, while the US is stuck in Afghanistan and Iraq. So Russia is making use of the occasion to push back the US's sphere.

And the US is pretty much impotent to do anything about it. It has made (or at least implied) promises it can't keep.
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And we don't even know when China feels strong enough as a result. Which makes me wonder what their official stance is regarding the Georgia Conflict?
 
Oliver said:
And we don't even know when China feels strong enough as a result. Which makes me wonder what their official stance is regarding the Georgia Conflict?
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Indifferent "concerns": China calls for ceasefire in South Ossetia

edit: Just found this from Asia Times:

Jul 30, 2008
Russia takes control of Turkmen (world?) gas

From the details coming out of Ashgabat in Turkmenistan and Moscow over the weekend, it is apparent that the great game over Caspian energy has taken a dramatic turn. In the geopolitics of energy security, nothing like this has happened before. The United States has suffered a huge defeat in the race for Caspian gas. The question now is how much longer Washington could afford to keep Iran out of the energy market. [...]
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http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JG30Ag01.html
 
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dudalb said:
My concern is that Putin will take a page from Hitler's play book and now use minorities as an excuse to intervene all over what used to be the Soviet Union and NATO.
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You mean Stalin's play book, since he played so much better than Hitler. Not that Russia's actions are much different from what NATO did in Kosovo.

We have to accept that a resurgent Russia has more power over its nearest neighbours than a US that's on the side of the world and stuck in two civil wars. Bang goes the laughable concept of the "hyperpower".

Once people have accepted that and stop living in a fantasy world, then we can move our foreign policies forward to advance our own interests again.

And with the usual gang of Neo Marxist in the West Cheering them on.
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That gang seems to exist mostly in your imagination. Marxism is pretty much dead.

Though I consider Putin an opponent, I admire his political skills for their formidability. It would be intellectual dishonest not to. As well as plain dumb to underestimate a powerful opponent.

From a humanitarian perspective, Georgia's treatment of the Ossetians (shelling their villages, half the population fled northwards) basically eliminated their moral right to claim Ossetian territory.
 
Oliver said:
Which makes me wonder what their official stance is regarding the Georgia Conflict?
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CNN showed some footage of the UNSC session this afternoon, but they didn't show what China had to say. For the rest, it was comedy gold, if it didn't involve people dieing.

The Georgian ambassador complained that Georgia already had instituted a cease-fire this morning, and that Russia was bombing all over the place, not just in/around South Ossetia. The US ambassador backed him. The French ambassador merely called for a cease-fire to be instituted.

The Russian ambassador answered to the Georgian accusations that Georgia had begun shooting at the South-Ossetians and the (Russian) peacekeeping troops. And he said that those peacekeeping troops were serious about there mission, and didn't just back away at the first shots - unlike those wussies in Srebrenica. As to the bombing of various other targets he reminded of the beginning of the Kosovo war: the bombings of Belgrade and various other targets in Serbia were also quite out of range of the battlefront.

The CNN reporter speculated that it could be another couple of days before they came to a ceasefire arrangement. He reminded also of the Lebanon war, where the US was so kind for Israel to postpone ceasefire some days.

So you see: what goes around, comes around.
 
Oliver said:
And we don't even know when China feels strong enough as a result. Which makes me wonder what their official stance is regarding the Georgia Conflict?
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They won't like the timing coïnciding with their Great Moment of the Olympics, but otherwise they have no reason to care.
 
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