A Shot Across Nato's Bows - Russian tanks enter Georgia - Georgians enter South Ossetia - all out war?

For the time being, I am just going to stick to trying to establish a basic truth. Riadach, are you seriously saying that "hand to hand fighting" damaged every building in the capital, a town of 30,000 people ?

Are you saying the Guardian and BBC reports are lies ?

cactus flower wrote:

For the time being, I am just going to stick to trying to establish a basic truth. Riadach, are you seriously saying that "hand to hand fighting" damaged every building in the capital, a town of 30,000 people ?

Are you saying the Guardian and BBC reports are lies ?

No, but I am considering the semantic range of the word 'damaged'.

Did 70% of the buildings suffer rocket/shell/bomb/artillery damage, or did they suffer the grenade and machine gun damage one would expect in urban warfare?

Riadach, I take it you didn't look at the CNN footage of "Gori".

You are the only person I have seen suggest that there was heavy hand to hand fighting in Tskhinvali. The Georgians killed Russian peacekeeping troops and then ran when the reinforcements came. If you want to believe black is white I cant help you.

I don't know anything about Armenia and its bloggers but this is the best analysis I've read so far -

http://realarmenia.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/informatioan-wars-georgia-and-the-west-goebbels-would-have-been-happy/

The thing that most convinces me that the US did back this is that the Georgians were so well coached to lie from the off.

cactus flower wrote:

Riadach, I take it you didn't look at the CNN footage of "Gori".

I looked at the video footage given yes, and I did not see anything that would back up the claim that 70% of the buildings were damaged by shells or rockets. I saw a few buildings, not an entire cityscape, therefore I'm not in the perfect position to judge. I'm still not convinced that this was what it was claimed to be either.

Quote :

You are the only person I have seen suggest that there was heavy hand to hand fighting in Tskhinvali. The Georgians killed Russian peacekeeping troops and then ran when the reinforcements came. If you want to believe black is white I cant help you.

The Georgians took Tskinvali initially, are you suggesting that the S. Ossetian militias did not put up a fight? I'm not sure that the assertion that they ran immediately from Russian reinforcements is backed up by evidence either. Why are you so certain the Russians did not fire into the city first or at least there was combat in the city to drive them out? Armies tend not to retreat until they are attacked.

Quote :

I don't know anything about Armenia and its bloggers but this is the best analysis I've read so far -

http://realarmenia.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/informatioan-wars-georgia-and-the-west-goebbels-would-have-been-happy/

The thing that most convinces me that the US did back this is that the Georgians were so well coached to lie from the off.

One does not need to have US backing in order to begin a propaganda campaign. If you want me to persuade me that the Americans did back this, then I will need to see what gain they saw that would counterract putting the pipeline in danger.

The title of that above piece and the subsequent content are ironic in the extreme.

Squire wrote:

Perhaps consider also a client state that is now totally dependant on your presence.

Russia has not over run Georgia so what exactly have they gained? A supportive population that was slaughtered and fled north and whose houses have been destroyed. That just does not make sense. Why would they allow such destruction if they had planned this? They are not stupid.

There is a foul game afoot. We will probably not get to the bottom of who did what, in what order and why, but I don't think there is any doubt now that Georgia did launch a major offensive and it would appear that the USA had prior knowledge.

There is something in all this that just does not add up. Either there is something very clever and cynical, or just perhaps it maybe a major blunder by an idiot.

Still think we should be calling for justice.

The Russians think they have gained something. They think that the prospect of the pipeline from Turkmenistan to the Black Sea via Georgia is dead in the water.
I don't think that the US expected Russia to react as much as they did - but even so, the US has gained several advantages

1. A well-honed and well-rehearsed propodanda victory.
2. US military planes have landed in Georgia
3. They have taken a very good look at the Russian mobilisation from the point of view of strengths and weaknesses.

Did anyone notice this event at the beginning of the Olympics?
Another US-backed Muslim group.
Do you think George is a secret convert?

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/C/CHINA_BORDER_RAID?SITE=NYSAR&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT

riadach wrote:

cactus flower wrote:

Riadach, I take it you didn't look at the CNN footage of "Gori".

I looked at the video footage given yes, and I did not see anything that would back up the claim that 70% of the buildings were damaged by shells or rockets. I saw a few buildings, not an entire cityscape, therefore I'm not in the perfect position to judge. I'm still not convinced that this was what it was claimed to be either.

Quote :

You are the only person I have seen suggest that there was heavy hand to hand fighting in Tskhinvali. The Georgians killed Russian peacekeeping troops and then ran when the reinforcements came. If you want to believe black is white I cant help you.

The Georgians took Tskinvali initially, are you suggesting that the S. Ossetian militias did not put up a fight? I'm not sure that the assertion that they ran immediately from Russian reinforcements is backed up by evidence either. Why are you so certain the Russians did not fire into the city first or at least there was combat in the city to drive them out? Armies tend not to retreat until they are attacked.

Quote :

I don't know anything about Armenia and its bloggers but this is the best analysis I've read so far -

http://realarmenia.wordpress.com/2008/08/13/informatioan-wars-georgia-and-the-west-goebbels-would-have-been-happy/

The thing that most convinces me that the US did back this is that the Georgians were so well coached to lie from the off.

One does not need to have US backing in order to begin a propaganda campaign. If you want me to persuade me that the Americans did back this, then I will need to see what gain they saw that would counterract putting the pipeline in danger.

The title of that above piece and the subsequent content are ironic in the extreme.

The irony is all at the expense of the Georgians and the US:

Quote :

The protracted standoff in South Ossetia is something much greater than just a regional conflict. Nor has it ever been exclusively a conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia. It also has axiological, moral, and geopolitical dimensions. The unexpectedness and unjustifiable atrocity of the current war, the careful planning of its military and informational offensives show clearly that one of the objectives was to provoke Russia’s inadequate response. Moscow was expected to act inadequately, and those who planned the aggression calculated the options open to Russia.

Option 1: Russia’s nonintervention and a withdrawal of the peacekeepers (or the limitation of their activity to the defense of their checkpoints). By the way, this mode of behavior was typical for peacekeeping forces of various levels throughout the conflict in Yugoslavia. Operation Storm and Operation Flash launched by the Croatian army in May-August, 1995 against the unrecognized Republic of Serpska Krajina were particularly similar to the Georgian offensive in South Ossetia.

One of the results of the above operations was the total (and, as I firmly believe, deliberate) demise of the entire UN system of peacekeeping and region security measures. The world literally watched the flight of 250,000 Serb civilians and the bombardment of refugee convoys by Croatian warplanes. The Serb population in the region decreased by 90.7% following the Croatian offensive which was silently OKed by the international community (1)! Confident of the US support, Saakashvili’s regime hoped to achieve a similar result in South Ossetia. Croatia practically turned into a mono-ethnic state. No matter what had been promised, at that time Serbs saw no help from either the Serbian Republic or Belgrade. It is well-known what happened to the Pale and Belgrade leaders later – betrayal is never rewarded by happiness.

Russia chose to act otherwise.

In the horrible days of the tragedy, Russians not only truly fulfilled their peacekeeping obligations, but – above all – they also did not betray their countrymen in South Ossetia. This means a lot!

Option 2: desired by the US instigators of the war and the Georgian aggressor: Russia’s direct involvement in an armed conflict with Georgia. The failure of the expectation made Saakshvili change his plans on the first day of the war.

On August 9, the Georgian Fuhrer gave a 10-minute interview to CNN, which opened an obviously synchronized anti-Russian campaign in the Western media. Currently, the main theme is that Russia used all of its military might against the tiny Georgia. Having such dedicated followers could make Nazi propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels happy. As for Saakashvili, he has learned by heart not only Goebbels’s notorious commandment “A lie repeated 100 times becomes the thruth”, but also the ninth comandment of national socialism which said “Do what must be done in the name of the New Gemany without shame! ” (2). In the case of Saakashvili, it could read the same but with “the New Georgia” instead.

Over the past several days, the independent and objective Western media have been launching an all-out mankurtization campaign. The term mankurt was introduced into modern languages by well-know Soviet-era novelist Chinghiz Aitmatov in his The Day Lasts More Than a Hundred Years. According to an ancient Turkic myth, a fresh raw camel hide would be put as a cap on the thoroughly shaven head of a captive meant to be turned into a slave. The slave with his hands tied and with a large wooden stock around his neck preventing him from reaching his head would be left in a desert for several days. Once the hide would start drying it would shrink and bind to the head, thus causing intolerable sufferings further strengthened by thirst. In a while the victim either died or lost the memory of the past life and became a perfect slave having no independent will and totally subdued by its master.

In the modern world, the complex procedure of suppressing human will and ability to think and to analyze has become extremely simple and is known as brainwashing.

Judging by the dirty lies about the war waged by the Georgian leadership against civilians and Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, the biased Western media and political leaders of the Euro-Atlantic civilization regard their own citizens as mankurts. The global success of brainwashing during the Croatian, Bosnian, Kosovo, Chechen, Iraqi, Crimean, Transdnistrian and other crises is renowned. The aggression of mankurts was invariably directed at the nations designated by the masters - Serbs, Russians, Iraqis… What could prevent Georgia from resorting to the familiar technology?

Here is an example: the interview given to CNN by Russian envoy to the UN Security Council V. Churkin, in which he condemned the barbarian conduct of the Georgian aggressor, was aired with a caption saying that Russia was bombing Georgian towns, and the title remained on the screen throughout the broadcast. German philosopher Arthur Schopenhauer would have explained the current policies adopted by Western media as follows: “invariably, the source of lies is the intention to dominate others by suppressing their will in order to reaffirm one’s own. Consequently, lies as such stem from injustice, greed, and anger”.

Western journalists who never visited South Ossetia and used the footage from Russian media consistently avoided mentioning the following appalling figures: 2,000 people – over 15% of the population of South Ossetia – had been killed in less than 24 hours. The international community so preoccupied with human rights issues does not seem to be concerned about the people trapped without water, electric power, and food under the ruins of Tskhinvali.

Why is it that Russia is the only country to supply humanitarian aid to South Ossetia? What has happened to your hearts, humane Europeans? Have you forgotten how to use Internet? Do you no longer have satellite TV? Are you really so afraid of alternative information sources?

***
To an extent, my criticism of the Western media and their audiences applies to Russian news agencies and TV channels as well. We must be doing a fairly poor job if it is so easy to portray Russia as the aggressor and the suppressor of the Caucasus!

It is common knowledge that whoever has information has power. In the case of Russia, the issue is extremely serious: its national security and the protection of its national interests are impossible without informational security, which must be promoted by everyone here from the President to a provincial newspaper journalist. Anyhow, we are people, not mankurts!

_____________________
(1) Z. Lilic. Prospects for Peace and Cooperation. Serbia, Belgrade, 1996, #29, p. 7.

(2) Thus Spoke Goebbels. Selected Papers of the Reich Minister of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda. //Goebbels J. Die ausgewählte Reden und Artikel. - http://hedrook.vho.org/download/goebbels.rar

http://en.fondsk.ru/article.php?id=1539

Filed under: world | Tagged: genocide, Georgia, gori, information warfare, news, osetia, politics, south ossetia, tskhinvali, war

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Read the first part Cactus.

Quote :

The war in South Ossetia is a war of medieval atrocity unleashed by a country whose culture is based on Orthodox Christianity, a country claiming to be “a young democracy” and seeing itself as part of the “humane” Europe. The aggression launched by the current Georgian regime and its puppeteers is marked by extraordinary cruelty and cynical lies. Tbilisi would have never dared to do what it did without the support of the US.

Even in Ancient Greece, there was an understanding that wars can be fair or unfair. The civilized West, part of which Georgia is trying to be, is obsessed by human rights and believes to be superior to the Greeks, but this does not prevent some (Georgia) from perpetrating genocide and others (Europe and the US) – from encouraging the aggressor.
The analysis of the way the aggression began - without a formal declaration of war – and of the overall conduct of the Georgian leadership makes one ask a number of questions. One of them is: can a crazy fanatic be regarded as a human being? The answer is – definitely not! The crimes committed in South Ossetia – the killings of women, children, and senior citizens, the deliberate extermination of civilians – are instances of inhuman conduct.
Specialists in ethical anthropology (Boris Didenko) either explain this type of behavior by brain disease or attribute it to the specifics of conduct of super-aggressive human species. In the latter case, their intentions simply cannot be changed. In the Russian language, such individuals are called non-men. These are monstrous creatures more dangerous than any wild beasts.
The protracted standoff in South Ossetia is something much greater than just a regional conflict. Nor has it ever been exclusively a conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia. It also has axiological, moral, and geopolitical dimensions. The unexpectedness and unjustifiable atrocity of the current war, the careful planning of its military and informational offensives show clearly that one of the objectives was to provoke Russia’s inadequate response. Moscow was expected to act inadequately, and those who planned the aggression calculated the options open to Russia.

Now, fair and balanced it is not. It has not only swallowed the Russian line hook line and sinker, but goes further by seeking to dehumanise the Georgian people as well as making points that are irrelevant (declarations of war are not required within ones own territory, or in the case that one is not the aggressor). If this is not blatant propaganda, then I do not know what is. I find it very hard to read the arguments built upon this, when it asks me to accept a premise that as yet remains unproven.

I'm with Youngdan on this one, though I'm not in me 20's (wish I was). The Georgians were set up (though they happily wandered into the snare).

I'm not picking any side as being a moral entity.

Might be an idea for the Irish government to hand out some more iodine.

I reckon this particular conflict is only the latest salvo in a much bigger picture. There's an endgame being played out here. We've Poland agreeing to host US missiles and the Russians saying that it opens them up to invasion. We've the US and Israel looking to nuke Iran. We've the US making daily incursions into Pakistan and dropping munitions in a non-friendly fashion. Africa ... Iraq ... Afghanistan ... China playing its cards very close to its chest - traditional ally/bootlicker of Russia holding the US by the short and curlies with regard to debt (not to mention the US having bled itself dry, financially and with regard to world status, in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we're looking at little Georgia armed by the US and Israel squaring off against the Russians in what seems to be a suicidal move. Nothing adds up if one looks at isolated pictures. Shouldn't forget Central and South America in this picture either.

A chaos mathematician would have a hard time figuring this one out. It'd be hard even to spot the butterfly.

Despite the complexity, I'm seeing this in a very black & white way. We should distance ourselves from Sarkozy and the other w@nkers in the EU that are taking up cheerleading positions. Ireland should announce neutrality (in the legal sense of the word) and become a voice of reason in the impending maelstrom.

Hermes wrote:

I'm with Youngdan on this one, though I'm not in me 20's (wish I was). The Georgians were set up (though they happily wandered into the snare).

I'm not picking any side as being a moral entity.

Might be an idea for the Irish government to hand out some more iodine.

I reckon this particular conflict is only the latest salvo in a much bigger picture. There's an endgame being played out here. We've Poland agreeing to host US missiles and the Russians saying that it opens them up to invasion. We've the US and Israel looking to nuke Iran. We've the US making daily incursions into Pakistan and dropping munitions in a non-friendly fashion. Africa ... Iraq ... Afghanistan ... China playing its cards very close to its chest - traditional ally/bootlicker of Russia holding the US by the short and curlies with regard to debt (not to mention the US having bled itself dry, financially and with regard to world status, in Iraq and Afghanistan. And we're looking at little Georgia armed by the US and Israel squaring off against the Russians in what seems to be a suicidal move. Nothing adds up if one looks at isolated pictures. Shouldn't forget Central and South America in this picture either.

A chaos mathematician would have a hard time figuring this one out. It'd be hard even to spot the butterfly.

Despite the complexity, I'm seeing this in a very black & white way. We should distance ourselves from Sarkozy and the other w@nkers in the EU that are taking up cheerleading positions. Ireland should announce neutrality (in the legal sense of the word) and become a voice of reason in the impending maelstrom.

To the list you've made Hermes, you could add the provocation against the Chinese, that I linked to up above.
I had feared some kind of spectacular, in relation to China and the games, but instead the Chinese incident was small and it was Georgia.
Personally I respect your neutrality, but neutrality in South Ossetia would have been rolled right over by the tanks.

Here is a slip of the tongue that gives you a clue into what he was told. All leaders like Cowan are on the same gameplan http://www.vloggingtheapocalypse.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=685&title=GEORGIA_PRESIDENT_SPEAKS_OF_NWO_ON_CNN

Putin has rejected this gameplan. Seeing is believeing

youngdan wrote:

Here is a slip of the tongue that gives you a clue into what he was told. All leaders like Cowan are on the same gameplan http://www.vloggingtheapocalypse.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=685&title=GEORGIA_PRESIDENT_SPEAKS_OF_NWO_ON_CNN

Putin has rejected this gameplan. Seeing is believeing

Can't see the video, youngdan - what does it say?

Cactus. When I post millions rush in to view and crashs the video link. It suggests that Saac.. believed that the NWO was moving along nicely. He should have been asked what exactly he meant by the NWO but it was CNN.

CF wrote:

To the list you've made Hermes, you could add the provocation against the Chinese, that I linked to up above.
I
had feared some kind of spectacular, in relation to China and the
games, but instead the Chinese incident was small and it was Georgia.
Personally I respect your neutrality, but neutrality in South Ossetia would have been rolled right over by the tanks.

Spot on about the Chinese CF. We could extrapolate a multitude of bodies here. Even if we just confine ourself just to nuclear powers we have a very frightening picture.

Agreed too about the tanks rolling over neutrality in South Ossetia. In fairness though, neutrality is impossible in a battle zone. Neutrality can define and limit battlezones. My stance on this issue has nothing to do with self preservation, it's got everything to do with limiting the upcoming war zones and the possibility of being in a position to defuse conflicts before they begin. We most certainly do box above our weight internationally and if we act early enough we can influence a lot of people internationally to pressure their governments to get with the program.

If we can put out the fires that are currently threatening to engulf all, we can then look towards punishing the guilty. This conflict is very unlike the conflicts in the Middle East. Fair enough, innocents are dying in large numbers. This time though, despite the current propaganda, world opinion is quite 'educated' or rather set and large scale conflict is a very distinct possibility. Our faux neutrality is not viewed in the light that it once was, except by ourselves. We need to either shit or get off the pot this time.

That link is working now Cactus

youngdan wrote:

Here is a slip of the tongue that gives you a clue into what he was told. All leaders like Cowan are on the same gameplan http://www.vloggingtheapocalypse.com/viewVideo.php?video_id=685&title=GEORGIA_PRESIDENT_SPEAKS_OF_NWO_ON_CNN

Putin has rejected this gameplan. Seeing is believeing

Nice one youngdan. This proves you have at least one convert. Where is Ibis ? IBiiiis !

Mr. Saakashvili has learned perhaps by now that his allies are not allies. He should not be standing on roofs without his flak jacket as Bloomberg commentators did not have a good word to say about him yesterday.

The genies may all try to get out of the bottle as did the radical Islamists - the US has stirred up and unleashed and tried to utilise some of the most backward and vicious ideologies and regimes, but does it have the economic power and political cohesion needed to keep them under control ?

riadach wrote:

Read the first part Cactus.

Quote :

The war in South Ossetia is a war of medieval atrocity unleashed by a country whose culture is based on Orthodox Christianity, a country claiming to be “a young democracy” and seeing itself as part of the “humane” Europe. The aggression launched by the current Georgian regime and its puppeteers is marked by extraordinary cruelty and cynical lies. Tbilisi would have never dared to do what it did without the support of the US.

Even in Ancient Greece, there was an understanding that wars can be fair or unfair. The civilized West, part of which Georgia is trying to be, is obsessed by human rights and believes to be superior to the Greeks, but this does not prevent some (Georgia) from perpetrating genocide and others (Europe and the US) – from encouraging the aggressor.
The analysis of the way the aggression began - without a formal declaration of war – and of the overall conduct of the Georgian leadership makes one ask a number of questions. One of them is: can a crazy fanatic be regarded as a human being? The answer is – definitely not! The crimes committed in South Ossetia – the killings of women, children, and senior citizens, the deliberate extermination of civilians – are instances of inhuman conduct.
Specialists in ethical anthropology (Boris Didenko) either explain this type of behavior by brain disease or attribute it to the specifics of conduct of super-aggressive human species. In the latter case, their intentions simply cannot be changed. In the Russian language, such individuals are called non-men. These are monstrous creatures more dangerous than any wild beasts.
The protracted standoff in South Ossetia is something much greater than just a regional conflict. Nor has it ever been exclusively a conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia. It also has axiological, moral, and geopolitical dimensions. The unexpectedness and unjustifiable atrocity of the current war, the careful planning of its military and informational offensives show clearly that one of the objectives was to provoke Russia’s inadequate response. Moscow was expected to act inadequately, and those who planned the aggression calculated the options open to Russia.

Now, fair and balanced it is not. It has not only swallowed the Russian line hook line and sinker, but goes further by seeking to dehumanise the Georgian people as well as making points that are irrelevant (declarations of war are not required within ones own territory, or in the case that one is not the aggressor). If this is not blatant propaganda, then I do not know what is. I find it very hard to read the arguments built upon this, when it asks me to accept a premise that as yet remains unproven.

Do you realise that sounds a little odd? Is waging war on a region of one's own country acceptable? Say Brian Cowen ordered the shelling of Cork City without any advance warning ? and if you are still saying this is not what happened to Tskhinvali, you and Future Taoiseach are the last two people alive who think that.

He was a convert from a long time ago. Educated in the West and the next thing you know he is president in a velvor or orange revolution and Shevinadzi is gone. Mass propaganda and brainwashing. The interesting thing is if the Russians can grab him and put him on trial. The prosecutor could ask him who exactly are pushing this NWO that they are all talking about.. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1319745137496669030&ei=OxGnSNXYH4P04ALXlZkj&q=NWO&vt=lf

One thing for sure, he is doo-lally, and an embarrassment to anyone associated with him, as well as of course a criminal.

I wonder how long he will be allowed to keep talking:

"There are Russian tanks under my bed and they've stolen my duvet"

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Uv5cqh26CC0&feature=related

Another donkey

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSQFySxzznw&feature=related

If this does not shed some light on why the Georgian thought the outcome would be favourable nothing will https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lkKbE9qCzQo&feature=related

He might be thinking that the blood which must be spilt will possibly include his.

cactus flower wrote:

riadach wrote:

Read the first part Cactus.

Quote :

The war in South Ossetia is a war of medieval atrocity unleashed by a country whose culture is based on Orthodox Christianity, a country claiming to be “a young democracy” and seeing itself as part of the “humane” Europe. The aggression launched by the current Georgian regime and its puppeteers is marked by extraordinary cruelty and cynical lies. Tbilisi would have never dared to do what it did without the support of the US.

Even in Ancient Greece, there was an understanding that wars can be fair or unfair. The civilized West, part of which Georgia is trying to be, is obsessed by human rights and believes to be superior to the Greeks, but this does not prevent some (Georgia) from perpetrating genocide and others (Europe and the US) – from encouraging the aggressor.
The analysis of the way the aggression began - without a formal declaration of war – and of the overall conduct of the Georgian leadership makes one ask a number of questions. One of them is: can a crazy fanatic be regarded as a human being? The answer is – definitely not! The crimes committed in South Ossetia – the killings of women, children, and senior citizens, the deliberate extermination of civilians – are instances of inhuman conduct.
Specialists in ethical anthropology (Boris Didenko) either explain this type of behavior by brain disease or attribute it to the specifics of conduct of super-aggressive human species. In the latter case, their intentions simply cannot be changed. In the Russian language, such individuals are called non-men. These are monstrous creatures more dangerous than any wild beasts.
The protracted standoff in South Ossetia is something much greater than just a regional conflict. Nor has it ever been exclusively a conflict between Georgia and South Ossetia. It also has axiological, moral, and geopolitical dimensions. The unexpectedness and unjustifiable atrocity of the current war, the careful planning of its military and informational offensives show clearly that one of the objectives was to provoke Russia’s inadequate response. Moscow was expected to act inadequately, and those who planned the aggression calculated the options open to Russia.

Now, fair and balanced it is not. It has not only swallowed the Russian line hook line and sinker, but goes further by seeking to dehumanise the Georgian people as well as making points that are irrelevant (declarations of war are not required within ones own territory, or in the case that one is not the aggressor). If this is not blatant propaganda, then I do not know what is. I find it very hard to read the arguments built upon this, when it asks me to accept a premise that as yet remains unproven.

Do you realise that sounds a little odd? Is waging war on a region of one's own country acceptable? Say Brian Cowen ordered the shelling of Cork City without any advance warning ? and if you are still saying this is not what happened to Tskhinvali, you and Future Taoiseach are the last two people alive who think that.

If a part of your country is taken over by a criminal cabal which has usurped the offices of state, then indeed it is acceptable. How much of an advanced warning did Michael Collins give the IRA occupied four courts in 1922?

Leaving aside the specifics of 1922, that is not comparable. South Ossetia was, by legal Treaty signed by Georgia, Russia and South Ossetia, a semi-autonomous State with its own legal government. It has a separate language and culture from Georgia and has consistently sought its independence.

Do your posts not de-humanise South Ossetians as a 'criminal cabal' ? Ordinary civilians including children and old people were deliberately subjected to shelling without warning. Why is that acceptable? Were they criminal?

Dividing countries up and allocating them in the interests of big powers rarely seems successful. Self determination of nations imo is a better option, even when they are small. If they then find themselves not viable they could apply to merge according to their own choice.

Quote :

Leaving aside the specifics of 1922, that is not comparable. South Ossetia was, by legal Treaty signed by Georgia, Russia and South Ossetia, a semi-autonomous State with its own legal government. It has a separate language and culture from Georgia and has consistently sought its independence.

The comparison was to suggest that in certain instances it is acceptable, even necessary, to begin war in ones own country, or within the regions nominally within ones own control. The Ossetian government has never seriously tried to come to a negotiated settlement over its status within Georgia, all too easily relying on Russia support as a bargaining chip. It has never voted in favour of independence in a clear and transparent and internationally recognised election. Would you trust any administration that undermines democracy in order to pursue its own ends?

cactus flower wrote:

Do your posts not de-humanise South Ossetians as a 'criminal cabal' ? Ordinary civilians including children and old people were deliberately subjected to shelling without warning. Why is that acceptable? Were they criminal?

It makes out that the administration of South Ossetia has been usurped by a group of officials who heed neither international nor local law. This government is not a democratic one, as can be seen from the turn out it contrived at its last elections, and how it refuses to allow ethnic Georgians to participate. It almost certainly rigged its autonomy vote given its choice of 'independent international observers' bordered on the ridiculous. It has tried to drive out opposition through burning houses and attempting to assasinate political opponents. It is famous in the region for being a route through which drugs and guns are smuggled. It was from these people, the Georgians wished to wrest control, not from South Ossetians. Indeed the Georgians have been in contact with opposition Ossetians in a view to establish an autonomous state a long the lines of Ajaria, nearly costing the leader his life. And on top of that, it seems that ethnic Georgians were under attack by this same administration, though that may be disputed. One then has a situation whether it is appropriate to allow these individuals to harm stability within ones borders and what is the price that needs to be paid to prevent this? Could they have removed this threat without the military action they employed? I doubt it. Any incursion to settle the area would have met with serious resistence.

Quote :

Dividing countries up and allocating them in the interests of big powers rarely seems successful. Self determination of nations imo is a better option, even when they are small. If they then find themselves not viable they could apply to merge according to their own choice.

Let them have a referendum then, a proper one this time, with international monitors and the full involvement of the ethnic Georgians within South Ossetia. That however, seems impossible under the current regime.

Link to Gorbachev's Washington Post Article

Apologies if this has already been posted.

More questions of media censorship on this have come up in Canada

Pepe Escobar from the RealNews gave some brilliant insights into this conflict on the 12th.