Georgian - South Ossetian - Russian Conflict

baywax

Oh yeah, this guy's a totally biased speculator who's a fat, out-of-shape (re:well kept) right-wing conservative giving his assumptions after getting a packet of cash from the McAin smear Obama campaign. Puleeez.

WmLambert

BTW: Val, in another forum, posted eyewitness reports in the local Russian, which I asked him to translate for us. I ran his Russian through a translator, but needed more:
[quote="Val"]Please see my explanation inside of your quote (I hope I wouldn't confuse you :) )

I realize it is all herky-jerky, but the gist is that the South Ossetian separatists were called "Russian Irregulars" by the Russians and were devastating the Georgians and non-separatist South Ossetians, causing the Georgian Peacekeepers to step in. Civilians ran away for safety, and the "drivers-awayers" were holed up in their vacant homes which were attacked. The Russians could righteously claim the Georgians killed everyone in the civilian area, without mentioning no civilians were killed.

"Who done what" is all over the place. There are South Ossetians, non-separatists and separatists, alike, who are now refugees in North Ossetia and elsewhere waiting to come back. Most Georgians who were forced out are refugees in Georgia, waitoing to return.

quadraphonics

No president of any country in the world would even consider signing a non-aggression treaty with a country that was stationing its troops on his soil. This is the equivalent of signing your country away. To claim that this represents a good-faith attempt by Russia to find a peaceful solution is absurd:

"Peacefully hand your country over to us!"
"No way."
"Well, we *tried* peaceful means..."

It's amazing how you know what all these people were thinking, and what motivated them. Too bad they don't call anyone else to share their most secret thoughts.

A silly supposition considering how badly Georgian forces were being trampled by the Russian onslaught. And speaking of the UNSC, where were Russia's efforts to build a truly legitimate, legal framework for resolving the crisis via the UN over the past 10 years? Oh, yeah, they didn't seem interested in that... but I guess denying them a fig-leaf of UNSC sponsorship for their invasion of Georgia somehow counts as war-mongering.

Then it's fortunate for me that I don't. The victims here are the civilians caught in the crossfire. What's really staggering is that so many people are determined to see *Russia* as the victim.

Georgia is not Yugoslavia. Even according to the most biased accounts, Georgian actions did not come close to the organized genocide that was underway in the former Yugoslavia.

And these comparisons are relevant how...?

Funny, I didn't know that Mexico, Canada and Cuba were America's "former territory," although I like how you lend legitimacy to their brutal occupation of various countries by consigning them to the status of "Russia's territory." It just so happens that pretty much all of those countries weren't so hot on belonging to Russia, which is a big part of what pulled NATO so far east so quickly, and why Georgia bristles even today. Also, Russia *IS* trying to put bases in Cuba right now.

[QUOTE=Art;1840145]
Your contention that the west has learned from it's previous mistakes and inhumane behaviour and is now a paragon of virtue with no imperial ambitions is naive to the point of incredulity[QUOTE=Art;1840145]

Who said anything about "paragon of virtue" or "no imperial ambitions?" I just pointed out that slavery and Nazism were defeated and repudiated in a way that authoritarianism and imperialism in Russia were not. If you can't respond to that without putting words in my mouth, don't respond at all. Could it be that America's faults, whatever they may be, are not actually the most relevant factor when it comes to Russians and Georgians shooting eachother?

meopemuk

Can you imagine how Americans would feel if after 9/11/01 leaders of Western countries were lining up in the queue to the Osama bin Laden's cave offering him and his organization membership in NATO, and America was threatened by various sanctions, because it allegedly "provoked" the attack by its Mid-Eastern policies?

Make substitutions:
Americans -> Russians
Osama bin Laden -> Saakashvili
Middle East -> Caucasus
9/11/01 -> 8/08/08

and you'll understand what is the mood in Russia right now. I don't think that the word "betrayal" comes even close.

Art

Okay, this single paragraph epitomises and exposes your total ignorance of the situation re Georgia in the past two weeks and the past 10 years. Perhaps you should read up on it first and then maybe we could have a discussion based on reality as I am not wasting any more time rebutting your fantasies.

Oberst Villa

Are you connected with people living in Russia ? If so, do people there think the US was involved in the Georgian decision to attack ? Or do they think it was a lone decision by the Georgian gouvernment ? (I assume most Russians do believe in the version that it was an unprovoked suprise attack by Georgia).

A little off-topic: Could you recommend one or two Russian news sources that more or less represent Russian "public opinion" ? Every now and then I have a look at "Argumenti i Fakti" (trying to learn Russian, but without much success) - is it popular in Russia ?

meopemuk

Though I am an ethnic Russian I didn't live in Russia proper. I have a number of relatives there, though our contacts are sporadic and I didn't have a chance to ask them about latest events. I had some exchanges with immigrants from former USSR living and working around me.

I think it should be clear to anyone that Saakashvili (unless he is a complete madman) could not perform this stunt all by himself. He should have known better what the reaction of Russia would be. He was warned by Russians many times not to do exactly what he did.

My personal opinion is that he was encouraged by the US. The agressive American PR campaign in support of Saakashvili seems to confirm that. Perhaps Bush became bored with Iraq and Afghanistan which seem to go nowhere and decided to start a new game in his quest for domination? Perhaps he has a big geopolitical plan of dividing the world into opposing camps (Europe and America on one side, Russia and China on the other) in preparation for the Armageddon? I have no idea.

Or perhaps things are not so apocaliptic and Saakashvili "simply" decided to retake South Ossetia by force. He could have succeeded if Russians hesitated to respond for a couple more days.


"Argumenti i Fakti" was extremely popular during "perestroika". I think they even got to the Guinness Book of Records as a periodical with the highest circulation in the world.

I am not a political junkie, and I didn't pay much attention to the current Russian press before this event, which made me furious. You can try www.yandex.ru for compilation of articles from different sources (including US and Georgian). A good source of video footage and commentaries in English is www.russiatoday.com. I have 6 Russian TV channels at home from DirecTV, but I pay smthng like $60/month for that. Some would say that Russian media is not credible, because it is state-controlled. But I can say with some authority that most Russians agree with what they see on TV during last 11 days. What is that? The media accurately reflects people's opinion? Or the population is brainwashed by the media? I would vote for the former.

For a strong anti-Kremlin and pro-Western stance you can try Garry Kasparov's www.theotherrussia.org in English.

russ_watters

The US may be in the low-end of western countries on that scale, but it is still in the range for western countries. I'm proud of the progress the former soviet republics have made and their recent conversion is part of the reason they are so close to the top. I hope they keep their idealism towards democracy a long time before socialism starts creeping back in.

The point is that Russia, on the other hand, is near the bottom of the entire scale. Staggeringly low for a country that supposedly has freedom of the press. Their press shouldn't even be consulted, much less trusted as a source of news.

meopemuk

Interesting, why your independent and trusted media sources do not attempt to go to Tshinvali and see for themselves what is the situation on the other side (I am currently browsing CNN and BBC websites and see that all their operations are inside Georgia proper)? If (as you perhaps may claim) Russian authorities do not let them in, why don't they cry outloud and demand the entry? This makes me to suspect that Western media just doesn't want to see the scenes of devastation in Tshinvali and doesn't want to talk to the residents of the city. This doesn't fit into their convenient black-and-white picture.

quadraphonics

Well, why don't you take a look at the Los Angeles Times website:

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationwo...,5306223.story

Or the Boston Globe:

http://www.boston.com/news/world/eur...ss_at_georgia/

Or the Kansas City Star:

http://www.kansascity.com/451/story/753677.html

Or ABC News:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2...17/2337791.htm

Or the International Herlad Tribune:

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/...d-Laborers.php

Or the New York Times:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/18/wo.../18tblisi.html

If you want to ignore Western media, that's your prerogative, but don't try to twist your own ignorance of its contents into an argument that it should be ignored.

quadraphonics

I think it's important to recall that war is a fundamentally political act, and so its goals and success or failure must be judged in political, and not solely military, terms. While it is possible that Saakashvili thought he really stood a good chance of retaking South Ossetia by force, it's unlikely that such a simple, risky move was the primary object of the war. Whenever a small state sandwiched between superpowers acts, it acts as much to affect the disposition of the surrounding powers as to win the actual battles in question (which are necessarily very limited in scope).

That said, I think that an important part of the backdrop here is NATO's rejection of Georgian membership (under European objections) at the recent NATO summit. This presumably left Saakashvili with the impression that the EU was lukewarm about eastward expansion of NATO, and without much sense of urgency or unity on the question of the security disposition of Georgia (and Ukraine). If so, a confrontation with Russia, which was bound to make Russia look bad in Europe, is just the thing. If he can grab South Ossetia and hang onto it, so much the better, but he must have calculated that his alliance with the US, and support from NATO, would allow him to at least preserve his polity and some semblence of the status-quo-ante. He'd have been crazy to expect a direct American intervention against Russia, and the surprised response from the US seems to be pretty strong evidence that America did not anticipate this move.

So, judged on those terms, it seems that Georgia has actually won this war: it lit a fire under Europe's *** on the question of his country's security disposition, with NATO now aligned in Georgia's favor, and other Eastern European states scrambling to strengthen their defenses over Russian objections (see Poland). Meanwhile, Russia's stock market took a massive hit, is suffering isolation from various prestigious international organizations, and is widely perceived as an aggressive, violent power. Expect Europe to intensify efforts to lessen dependence on Russian energy, and become more supportive militarily of the Baltic and other Eastern European states. Meanwhile, gas prices have leveled off, and American troops are expected to begin leaving Iraq within the next year, which will put that much more pressure on Russia. Sure, Georgia lost the battle for South Ossetia, but so what? They didn't control South Ossetia prior to the war, and it's not like everyone didn't already know that the Russians could easily crush them if they so chose. In the end, this looks like a win for Georgia and a loss for Russia.

Gokul43201

Human Rights Watch: http://www.hrw.org/english/docs/2008...ussia19620.htm

Oberst Villa

Thanks a lot for the links, meopemuk. I think that irrespective of the question how credible Russian media are, the way that they make the Russian public perceive reality will be a very decisive factor for the Russian - US/European relations during the next weeks. I just hope they will not deteriorate any further, but I'm not optimistic at the moment.

meopemuk

Thanks for the links. After these accounts (which definitely cover just a small portion of the whole picture) are you going to blame Russia for starting the conflict? Should the president sending "Grad" rockets and tanks against (what he claims to be) his own people be considered a "beacon of democracy" or a "mass murderer"?

Gokul43201

meopemuk,

I don't know if you read those articles. Most of them say that Russian claims of around 2000 deaths in Tskhinvali seem to be highly exaggerated (some speculate the exaggeration was intended to spur the S. Ossetians towards taking revenge). HRW also says that 2000 deaths is unlikely - and it's not in their interests to underestimate loss of life (on any side of the conflict).

meopemuk

I don't think that a few journalists and observers can perform a full body count over vast territory of South Ossetia. HRW is careful to report only things they saw by their own eyes. I think that there will be official figures supported by documents and witnesses soon.

The doubts about the number of casualties mainly come from the testimony of a doctor in the Tshinvali hospital who had only 40 recorded deaths in her log. However, keep in mind that there are also credible accounts about residents trapped in their basements for three or four days. They couldn't dare to go outside even to get fresh water at the risk of being shot. So delivering death bodies to the hospital for proper registration was, understandably, not their first priority. (On www.russiatoday.com there was an interview with a mother who spent 3 days with the body of her killed son in the basement. Can you imagine that?) And after several days passed in the summer heat, bringing the corpses to the hospital didn't make much sense either. So, they were mostly buried in backyards.

Let us however assume (just for the purposes of discussion) that the number of civilian deaths is measured in dozens rather than in hundreds. Does it make Saakashvili actions more acceptable? Does it mean that Russians should have sitten on their hands waiting for the body count to exceed some magic threshold? What is this threshold?

If I remember correctly, 2006 Israel-Lebanon war started from killing 3 Israeli soldiers and abducting 2 (note, they were soldiers not civilians). This was followed by a full-scale Israeli invasion, bombardment of infrastructure, and (estimated) 1000 civilian deaths. Israel is still a darling of US administration as it always was.

There are also suggestions that Russia could have solved the crisis by peaceful means. What? Convene an international conference? It is immoral (and probably illegal) to waste
even a minute of time when people are dying and crying for help.

meopemuk

There is interview with another doctor of the same Tshinvali hospital, who says that 2000 is a credible estimate of casualties.

http://www.kp.ru/daily/24147/364201/