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Post 40

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 2:16pmSanction this postReply
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sOLHu,

You are still concerning yourself with what you see on the surface, and not with the deeper issues. Cause of the problem? There has been a historical riff between Ossetia and the rest of Georgia. Who is responsible? Both the national and the local leadership hold joint responsibility to resolve the internal issues of the state. Rather than being a benefactor, Russia has been pouring fuel on the fire for years, and is only truly interested in their extending their own influence and control in the region. They do not care about the Ossetians, except to the extent that they can strategically benefit from the division.

Russia is filthy (?) rich? Sadly, a more appropriate description than you might think. Russia is not the free trade partner the US and other Western nations wish them to be. You should not be so naive about Russia's goals in the region, or about Ossetia's future under Russia's influence. And it is the basic difference in their philosophy that makes them more dangerous. Philosophy counts more than all the oil dollars the Russian government can extract from its nationalized oil fields.

It is failed philosophy that will bring the most pain and death to the region.

jt
(Edited by Jay Abbott on 9/23, 2:33pm)


Post 41

Tuesday, September 23, 2008 - 11:05pmSanction this postReply
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Jay,

I cannot disagree that Russia is a benefactor from the conflict, it's pretty obious that they are, and yet I refuse to see Georgia as a victim. Georgia is at fault for attempting to resolve their 'separatist region' problems by such drastic measures. I simply can't see how one can sympasise with such brutal means.

Apart from Russian interests in the region I think you fail to recognize the need to help South Ossetians. I would not disagree that Russia is not innocent in propaganding, but in the end, once views are created (pro-Russian and anti-Georgian) aggression would (and it did) merely solidify them. I simply doubt that any S. Ossetian would speak out against Russia now. I also believe that Russia deserves credit for stabilizing the region and saving lives, simply because no further conflict can be spoken of while the World is watching. Moreover, as I argued before, if Russia were not to step in, then many more civilians, as oppose to fewer millitaries would have died.

"They do not care about the Ossetians, except to the extent that they can strategically benefit* from the division."
It's not that Russia doesn't care, it's that nobody else does, you included.  Moreover, why such interest in Georgia all of a sudden? Could it be from the loss of benefit* to NATO, US? Does it not make NATO and US bad too? as if they are persuing their own selfish interests?

Regarding Russia as a partial destabilizer (paramilitaries), I cannot say. Simply because it is in Russia's interest is a reason but not a fact. I won't deny it as a possibility, and will therefore simply suggest that if you take a weapon to defend a region you think is rightfully yours that means you feel strongly enough to die for it.

Do you think Russia is literally filthy? as in dirty and unpleasant?

What is wrong about not wanting to trade freely? There are many reasons to keep the economy partially closed, for example:
1)Protect domestic business
2)Protection of infant industries
3)Risk of increased volatility

I think you are very confused to think that any country would ever act not in its self-interest. In fact I trully believe that this is mostly how contries act, apart from provision of basic needs in time of crisis (famine and floods). On the other hand, to act in your self-interest and for a good cause (South Ossetians) is double as good.

In my opinion, there is so much negativity toward Russia because everyone thinks that it took away something that did not belong to it. That is not so. It didn't belong to anyone, even Georgia that didn't control it. The rightful owners are South Ossetians who live there and now they trully own it.

Only losers are going to accuse the profeteers and ignore a good cause.

sOLHu


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Post 42

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 4:52amSanction this postReply
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sOLHu,

Is it in your interest to be rude to me? Might I recommend some reading for you, so that we need not all spend the time explaining the basics.


Atlas Shrugged



The Fountainhead


Importance of Philosophy
Objectivism 101
Capitalism.org

Post 43

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 8:57amSanction this postReply
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Dean,

Obviously it is, because I only act in my self-interest. Why are you so wussy? Just take it and don't complain. here's a hint: Prove me wrong and it will upset me.

I read Objectivism 101, and it simply confirmed that nothing about objectivists is unique. Basically, you believe in things that any normal person does, but call yourself objectivist (because you think it sounds cool and you like to be called so) and try to make a little cult out of it.

Objectivist believes in reason, science, objectivity, and not in faith. Count me in, and 90% of the people I know. Yay!

I am aware of the defenition of capitalism (economics minor). So? What about capitalism? I don't agree with it, but you do? I don't get it.

I am not going to read those books, simply because I don't need to. I can argue my opinion without them quite well.

sOLHu


Post 44

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 4:07pmSanction this postReply
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Can we have this disruptive troublemaker sent to the Descent Forum, please?


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Post 45

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 4:44pmSanction this postReply
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I think he thinks he's looking for an argument.



Post 46

Wednesday, September 24, 2008 - 7:35pmSanction this postReply
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I love Monty Python, this skit especially. That was very enjoyable. ty

Glad to see you are still here Ted. :)


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Post 47

Thursday, September 25, 2008 - 9:21amSanction this postReply
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Who Attacked First in Georgia?

from TIA Daily

During the end of August, I ran into several articles that claimed that it was the Russians, not the Georgians who attacked first in South Ossetia. Several of them were public statements (and one was a private statement) by Prime Minister Mikheil Saakashvili that the Russians attacked first.

I did not write anything about any of these accounts because they offered no evidence of what actually happened, and only partial evidence on the state of mind within Saakashvili's government in the hours before the shooting started.

This article makes it clear what happened:

Western intelligence determined independently that two battalions of the [Russian] 135th Regiment moved through the tunnel to South Ossetia either on the night of Aug. 7 or the early morning of Aug. 8, according to a senior American official.

New Western intelligence also emerged last week showing that a motorized rifle element was assigned to a garrison just outside South Ossetia, on Russian territory, with the aim of securing the north end of the tunnel, and that it may have moved to secure the entire tunnel either on the night of Aug. 7 or early in the morning of Aug. 8, according to several American officials who were briefed on the findings.

Two battalions of the 135th Motorized Rifle Regiment (which would constitute over half the mobile fighting force of the entire regiment) were ordered to the frontier into the disputed Georgian territory of South Ossetia in the pre-dawn hours of August 7. When at least one of these two battalion crossed the frontier before sunrise, this violated two requirements of Russia's cease fire agreement with Georgia: that no Russian forces may be moved into the territory without advanced notification to the Georgian government and that no Russian forces may move at night.

They probably crossed the frontier because the unit commander, Col. Andrei Kazachenko, decided on his own initiative to order his troops and their armored personnel carriers to take up positions on both ends of the Roki Tunnel. The north end of the tunnel is on the frontier, so those forces might technically not have been inside South Ossetia. But the south end of the tunnel is several miles inside the disputed Georgian territory.

News of this announced Russian troop movement conducted under cover of darkness alarmed the government of Georgia—all the more so because it occurred at the main highway route from Russia into the South Ossettia, the route that leads to the provincial capital of Tskhinvali and to the strategic Georgian town of Gori, at the central crossroads of the country.

What the Georgian government knew of events came from intercepted cell phone calls between a South Ossetian border guard and the border patrol headquarters. We can assume that the South Ossetia border guard post was heavily infiltrated by local ethnic Russian militiamen who were collaborating with Russian troops and were personally acquainted with them. The relaxed and compliant manner of the border guard regarding the dozens of BMP armored personnel carriers—which mount guided anti-tank rockets and a 100 mm high-velocity anti-tank cannon—packed with hundreds of Russia soldiers that were milling about the entrance to the Roki Tunnel leaves no doubt about the loyalty of the border guards at the tunnel and his superiors back at headquarters:

BORDER POST AT TUNNEL ENTRANCE: "The commander, a colonel, approached and said, 'The guys with you should check the vehicles.' Is that OK?"

SUPERIORS AT BORDER PATROL HEADQUARTERS asked who the colonel was.

BORDER POST AT TUNNEL ENTRANCE: "I don't know. Their superior, the one in charge there. The BMPs and other vehicles were sent here and they've crowded there. The guys are also standing around. And he said that we should inspect the vehicles. I don't know. And he went out."

A border guard guarding the border in this manner and talking about the arrival of a large mechanized infantry force as if they were expected must have further alarmed the government in Tbilisi. The Russians had coordinated with the pro-Russian South Ossetian militia the unscheduled nighttime arrival of large column of armor and troops at the border.

For the government in Tbilisi, the second intercepted cell phone call from the Roki Tunnel was all they needed to hear to reach what seemed to them to be the obvious conclusion.

SUPERIORS AT BORDER PATROL HEADQUARTERS: "Listen, has the armor arrived or what?"

BORDER POST AT TUNNEL ENTRANCE: "The armor and people"

SUPERIORS AT BORDER PATROL HEADQUARTERS: Have they had gone through?

BORDER POST AT TUNNEL ENTRANCE: "Yes, 20 minutes ago."

By 11:30 PM the next evening Georgian artillery opened fire on the Russian mechanized battalion stationed in Tskhinvali and moved into the capital with elements of three infantry brigades. This is probably as fast as the Georgian Army could assemble and mount a serious and coordinated counterattack to what the government in Tbilisi thought was a full mechanized regiment of Russian invaders inside South Ossetia.

Based on the inadequacy of the Russian forces on hand in the region and the number of top Russian military and civilian officials who were out of position, it is clear that the Russian government was not planning an invasion of Georgia. When war erupted, it took two days for the Russians to fly in two regiments of paratroopers and get them into battle.

What happened is that Col. Andrei Kazachenko decided to use almost the entire mobile force of the 135th Regiment to support what would have been a normal rotation; replacing one of his battalions in Tskhinvali with another. During a period of heightened tensions, the Colonel probably thought it was a good idea to use a third battalion, positioned at the south end of the Roki Tunnel, to provide force protection during the movement of the relief battalion through the tunnel and the constricted valley terrain of the highway south of the tunnel.

Thus, there is considerable truth in the claim by a senior Russian military official, General Uvarov that the Georgians acted rashly and without a clear understanding of their own intelligence. At a tactical level, this was an accidental war.

But at a strategic level, the war occurred because the government in Tbilisi saw and understood the danger of a string of malevolent events. The return to dictatorship by Putin's regime, Russia's resurgence as a world power as the world's top oil exporter, Russia's extensive and continuing agitation inside two Georgian provinces, and Russia's attempt to annex the two provinces by incrementally giving more and more residents Russian passports and by incrementally placing more and more units of the Russian Army on their soil as bogus "peacekeeping" forces—all while passing more and more guns to ethnic Russian militias hostile to Tbilisi.

Thus the account of deputy assistant secretary of state for the Caucasus, Matthew J. Bryza, accurately recalls the very reasonable assumption in Tbilisi that Russia had decided to dispense with the policy of incremental occupation and annexation and was moving large formations of troops to swallow South Ossetia in one quick gulp:

During the height of all of these developments, when I was on the phone with senior Georgian officials, they sure sounded completely convinced that Russian armored vehicles had entered the Roki Tunnel, and exited the Roki Tunnel, before and during the cease-fire.

I said, under instructions, that we urge you not to engage these Russians directly.

[Georgia's foreign minister Eka Tkeshelashvili] sounded completely convinced, on a human level, of the Russian presence. "Under these circumstances," she said, "We have to defend our villages."

The fact was that the Russians were maintaining their policy of incremental occupation and annexation of South Ossetia, but were doing it in the usual crude, clumsy, ham-fisted, and intimidating style of Russia. But in mounting a full military counter-strike to answer what, in fact was only a heavy-handed method of troop rotation, the Georgian government was not being impulsive. They weren't reacting out of bare fear. They were reacting to years of strategic aggression.

The old saw applies to Georgia: "Just because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you." Hundreds of years of invasions have conditioned every small nation that borders Russia to be paranoid. And that does not mean that Russia isn't out to get them.

—Jack Wakeland

Copyright © 2008 by Tracinski Publishing Company
PO Box 8086, Charlottesville, VA 22906

Post 48

Thursday, September 25, 2008 - 10:33amSanction this postReply
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Like I said before, accumulating armour and bombarding civilians are two different things. Military can fight all they want, but why kill those not involved? And anyway, here's a report that was written BEFORE the bombardment.

Thursday 07 August 2008
Georgian forces have started an operation to "restore constitutional order" in the breakaway province of South Ossetia, Russia's Interfax news agency quoted a top Georgian commander as saying on Friday.
 
"Despite our call for peace and a unilateral ceasefire separatists continued the shelling of Georgian villages," it quoted Mamuka Kurashvili as saying. "We are forced to restore constitutional order in the whole region."
 
He did not specify the action Georgia planned to take but Tbilisi does not recognise the separatist government and has pledged to restore its control over the province.
 
The agency quoted separatist leader Eduard Kokoity as saying his forces were confronting Georgians in the outskirts of the regional capital, Tskhinvali. "Fierce fighting is under way," he said.

FRANCE 24 is not responsible for content from external Internet sites. Copyright © 2008 FRANCE 24. All rights reserved.

http://www.france24.com/en/20080807-new-fighting-erupts-between-georgia-rebels-south-ossetia

 

I believe you know what happened then.

 


Post 49

Thursday, September 25, 2008 - 10:41amSanction this postReply
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here's another one

http://www.caucaz.com/home_eng/depeches.php?idp=1929&PHPSESSID=df4e939cd1a29e...


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