For anyone not paying attention, Georgian troops attacked South Ossetia the night of the Olympics opening ceremonies, using Su-25 attack aircraft and heavy artillery to kill hundreds, if not thousands of civilians. I guess this was Georgia's take on 911.

Anyway, the Russians were justified to intervene to stop the killing of civilians, and they kicked Georgia's butt.

I must confess I haven't paid a lot of attention to this story; I essentially have been hearing a lot of sound bites from politicians that are not terribly informative. Is there a good article somewhere that appears to present an objective summary of what is going on, including the causes?

Wow!!! Explorer routing for the Russian tank invasion. Cool!!!

Laguy, try Nobel Peace prize winner Mikhail Gorbachev's take on the events in Georgia, a different view than what the US media is saying:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/11/AR2008081101372.html?sub=AR

Mangaman-

I guess according to Goravhev it would be ok for us to invade Cuba based on common geography and history.

This issue I hope is not a prelude for actions to come. This is what was happening in the 1930's and Europe just looked the other way hoping there was nothing more to follow.

Thanks Mangaman for the link.

As to Beachman, once again he made a statement that is entirely illogical, i.e., the one about Goravhev (sic). Is he really this dumb, or is it just an act to get attention?

Mangaman; Nice link. Here is what has NOT made the Fox news shows:

"What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenseless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.

Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a "blitzkrieg" in South Ossetia.

In other words, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expecting unconditional support from the West, and the West had given him reason to think he would have it. Now that the Georgian military assault has been routed, both the Georgian government and its supporters should rethink their position."

I don't give Fox news viewers much credit for brains. Rumor is that some of them were out looking for Russian tanks on the outskirts of Atlanta.

The Bush administration has been trying to get the cold war started again, it makes me wonder just who gave the Georgian president the green light to do something like this. He obviously expected the West to come to his aid.

RG.

http://www.dailykos.com/story/2008/8/16/31435/2844/753/568761

A 12 year old girl tells it like it was about the war in South Ossetia, on FOX News.

Beachman says something stupid again:

"I guess according to Goravhev it would be ok for us to invade Cuba based on common geography and history."

I guess if Cuba were to attack Miami with planes and tanks, maybe Gorbachev would agree that a counterattack against Cuba would be appropriate.

When your country is being "liberated" by a Russian tank invasion, you are pretty much a screwed individual. No winners in this conflict except bad guys. Everyone looses.

When your country is being "given freedom" by a US tank invasion that's just there "to find weapons of mass destruction" I would think you're pretty much a screwed individual as well, unless after being "freed" you agree to work manual labor for Haliburton.

One of the drawbacks to us starting a war and invading a country under false pretenses is that we can't really say much if another country does the same.

Actually I think this would be more analogous to the Kosovo conflict in the Russian eyes. Quasi-client state of a major power (Georgia/US, Serbia/Russia) launches a brutal crackdown against a separatist rebel territory within their own country. (Kosovo, South Ossetia). Outside forces attack the country having the civil war taking the side of the separatists and against the vehement and bitter opposition of the other major power. (US-NATO bombing Serbia into submission, Russia invading Georgia). What will inevitably follow is a bullshit cease fire. The separatists will rape murder and ethnically cleanse the remaining non-separatist population from the region. (all ethnic Serbs killed or driven out of Kosovo, all ethnic Georgians killed or driven out of South Ossetia). The dumbass leader who launched the original crack down against the separatists will remain in power for a while but will be thrown out of office in a year or so. (Milosevic,Saakashvili) Sometime down the road the country will be split up. (Kosovo declared independence and US quickly recognized it, South Ossetia will declare it's independence and Russia will quickly recognize it)

Everyone loses.

With the big difference that Georgia is on the border of Russia, not 4500 miles away, and that over the years Georgia has been invaded, conquered, freed, conquered some more, etc, basically in and out of various Russian empires over the centuries.

It may have been a rope-a-dope on the part of the Russians, maybe not, but from where I sit it appears that those two "semi-autonomous Georgian provinces" really don't want to be part of Georgia. I don't know if they necessarily want to be part of Russia either - now maybe so, if/when the Russian economy tanks again probably not - but it does appear that the Russians have a legitimate gripe. Of course was their reaction over the top harsh? Probably, then again, the US doesn't have the moral high ground anymore to make those kinds of judgments. Now, if the Russians accidentally destroy a pipeline or something and pisses Hailiburton and KBR off, then maybe we'll go to DEFCON 2 and see what happens.

I can't argue about the US having surrendered allot of moral high ground in recent years. You are right on that point. However if there is one country that has far less moral high ground than we have left, that would be Russia.

Myself, I seriously doubt I could tell the difference between a Georgian or an Ossetian if I met one. I'd be willing to bet that the Georgians doing the fighting and the Ossetians doing the fighting are all a bunch of assholes so I really would have a hard time picking sides in that conflict. I have no clue why they don't like each other so I'd be inclined to let them fight amongst themselves and stay out of it.

One additional point - the Russians have never bothered to claim the moral high ground. They traditionally have cared less. They tend to take a hard line by default, regardless of the situation. Pumping gas into a building to free hostages? Sure, a few of them died but a few lived to.

While rarely agreeing with Russian act first/think never Cro-Magnon methods, you do have to admit they make things easy to parse. They don't worry about pretenses or covering their action. "Little country make us mad, we bomb, we invade. Kill, Kill". Takes a lot less effort than the way we do it. Then again, a nation of drunks needs a lot less persuading.

IMHO - this is probably one of the most informative articles on the whole mess in Georgia - S. Ossetia.
http://exiledonline.com/south-ossetia-the-war-we-dont-know/ .
In it, Mark Ames slams both sides. Until recently, Mark was the Editor of "Exile", an irreverent English language newspaper in Moscow. A short while ago, the paper was forced to shut down (you can draw your own conclusions why) so Mark is not exactly a puppet of Russia.

While we're at it, Mark has some choice word to say about John McCain as well.
http://exiledonline.com/georgia-gets-its-war-onmccain-gets-his-brain-plaque/
Don't get me wrong, until this all started, I was leaning favorable towards John McCain, but the man is starting to scare me with some of his talk. Not that I have heard anything a whole lot more reassuring from Mr. Obama on the subject.

Finally, I sent an email to a friend of mine in Moscow, who is a well educated Russian business executive about age 46, asking him what he thought about the situation. He had this to say,

Regarding whole story: It's a long story, and I'm not ready to write a detailed analysis here, but the matter is between USA and Russia and their areas of interest of course, and not between Russia and Georgia. Russia has nothing against Georgia, but Saakashvili was such an obvious puppet of Mr Bush... so, IMHO, Russia got the chance to show strength and to pay back for all abuses from USA diplomacy (starting from 1990-s) and did it quite perfectly... do not want to discuss it much, it's a dirty game, like everything in politics, but this round Russia seems to win (at least The Times and others consider so). I am not happy about the whole matter, and am sorrowful about those who were killed, wounded or lost their house... I wonder how is "public opinion" about this matter in USA in general and among oil professionals in particular - bacuse I consider the Baku-Ceyhan pipe is also a part of the story.

I'm OK, but my daughter was staying in Abkhazia for summer vacations and, as it was clear that it's next in turn after Ossetia, I preferred not to take any risk so mother went and brought her to Moscow... though no war in this area, people (especially tourists) were not happy and were leaving, so long lines at bornder and need to pay tips, but finally they left without many problems. They said, distant shooting & bombing was heard quite OK.

I'm not saying it's necessarily the truth, but it's always interesting to hear from a real live person rather than a "talking head" in the media. What he says rings true. Like it or not, this country (USA) has a rich history of meddling in the affairs of other countries. Who's to say that someone from the CIA wasn't sitting with the Georgian President urging him to go ahead and attack the South Ossetian capital believing that the Russians would roll over just like they did with Kosovo? It would not surprise me one bit. The shame of it is that we have done this sort of thing time and time again during both Republican and Democrat administrations and each time the result is the same.

I have read that the Georgian President was lured into a cunning trap set by Russia to throw the first punch in this conflict. Now, I'm starting to wonder if maybe it's Russia that got suckered into the US State Department's trap. Think about it.

(Message edited by riojake on August 16, 2008)

(Message edited by riojake on August 16, 2008)

(Message edited by riojake on August 16, 2008)

The preemptive strike on Iraq will go down as the biggest blunder in American history. We opened Pandoras box. Any country can invade another. Russia should just say that they were terrorist and had WMDs. They were fighting them there before they fought in Russia. If the US questions the WMDs just pull out some fake intelligence report from Nigeria. It worked pretty good for the Bush administration. The big question is will this be the start of the second cold war? Im definitely moving to Brasil if so....

Who needs WMD when you can claim Genocide? I'm right right behind you Rich - relocate to Brazil. I'm going to Moscow and Turkmenistan in September and expect to get a earful. Hopefully the devushki will not discriminate.
I suppose I can always tell them I'm Canadian....