South Ossetia: Cold War II?

[Incognitus]

:crazy:

I thought about making a topic about the current events moments after they began to unfold, but I don't really need to discuss it because I'm happy with other boards and listening to Akido. I was also wondering how long it would be until someone made one, especially considering how many threads we have about ridiculously inane things - or at the very least a small thread attacking Georgia or Those Commie Bastards, or demanding to know what various members think should be done. Or a joke thread about the number of Americans who think that the Russians have just entered Georgia, and are about to conquer the rest of the southern states. ( :thumb

I'm sick and tired of waiting.

 

[kyonides]

maybe because the news we can find here are filtered by CNN which may also be controlled or influenced by the US. Government... Maybe because both sides lie and can't just wash their dirty hands and consciences, who knows?

 

[Incognitus]

lol. Yeah, the topic wasn't really about why we don't have a thread about South Ossetia, but about the situation in general.

Have you seen that CNN have been caught attempting to pass off images of Tskhinvali as Gori? The BBC has been caught doing the same thing, and the AP have been handing out dodgy photographs to all and sundry. To be honest, CNN really needs to sack their staff and find some people who can understand basic geography: I stopped paying attention after I realised they were discussing the Russian invasion of South Ossetia. :|

Thanks for replying though. I was hoping, at the very least, we'd get a "OMG Commies attak georgia!!11! Florida and Alobama are next! Nato must bomb minsk" sort of comments... but no such luck.

 

[kyonides]

I remember some camera man so a video on the news that he videotaped and felt angry because they said it showed a city destroyed by the Russians. He was sure that he taped that in T'shavili... wow, I forgot the name of their capital city he he he... and not in Gori as the Georgians said then. He also mentioned the Georgians attacked that city of T... not the Russians...

 

[___]

Honestly it's so current an event there's not much useful information, besides some nonsense punditry and asinine comments by presidential wannabes (and I'm not just talking about GW).
If anyone here has some real solid references to have a discussion about, please post; otherwise I'll end up popping this into general discussion.

 

[rey meustrus]

My impression on the situation is that whatever Russia is doing, they've been planning it for a long time, and have likely thought of anything the US would do to oppose it.  They are in control right now, and our government isn't doing anything to exert control themselves--they're just sitting back and trying to look anti-communist.  Now as for what I think is right for it, I honestly don't know, as there isn't any information about it, like has been said already.  I'm extremely skeptical of anything that our western news organizations have to say about the conflict, especially after hearing about outright lies in this thread (the geography problems)

 

[kyonides]

Well, mewsterus, according to this article Russia was planning to invade Georgia since April "shortly after Georgia and Ukraine were denied a MAP" (a Membership Action Plan that NATO should have offered but didn't).

This part of the article might be interesting...

Strengthened Ties

Russia's provocations became more pronounced after the NATO summit, with Putin -- in the last month of his presidency -- signing on April 16 a decree authorizing the Russian government to strengthen diplomatic and aid links with Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Georgia's pro-Moscow separatist provinces.

 

[Incognitus]

Georgia attacked T'shavili and murdered a lot of civilians, including Russian peacekeepers. The Russian peacekeepers are in South Ossetia with a UN mandate: the Georgians have been fermenting trouble in South Ossetia for sometime now, trying to bring it back under their control despite South Ossetia's desire to remain a part of Russia.

Russia appealed to the UN Security Council, with a proposal for Georgia's immediate withdrawal. It was vetoed by the US, UK and France.

Russia took things into their own hands and drove the Georgians out of South Ossetia, and are currently driving around Georgia dismantling the Georgian military.

In the recent months, Georgia has been preparing action that looks as though they have been planning this for some time, but apparently nobody anticipated such a strong Russian response.

Georgia is winning the Media War.

And sorry Mr. N: I intending this to be a open discussion about the whole situation, as well as an angry note that we did not have a topic on what could essentially be the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand.

 

[___]

Yeah current events don't usually play well in here, notice there hasn't been any activity on the elections here in the U.S. lately either. Keep the information coming, with links and references if you can, so there's a factual foundation for discussion.
My personal impression so far is that this isn't as big a deal as alarmists are making it out to be. If the United States can get away with invading a sovereign UN member state halfway around the world without even following its own constitutional laws regarding declarations of war, my gut tells me Russia can get away with this one without international entanglements.

 

[Incognitus]

It's hard to post links because I'm following it mostly on Akido, which is a rabidly anti-Putin channel for Russian expats. They've been really good on the coverage, and are very angry at Saakashvili for setting back the independence of Soviet bloc nations by at least a decade. But then what do you expect from an ultra-nationalist, running a police state whose wife has said models himself on Stalin?

Apparently the Russians look like they have bunkered down, but they're not building permanant military bases at the moment.

http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29075&nbsp; <- She's not the only American who has been thanking Russian troops for saving them from the Georgians. If you have a quick look around Youtube, you can find various others. I'm on a slow internet at the moment so I can't find something I'd particularly recommend but looking around you can see lots of things that the lamestream media won't show.

I'm trying to find the interview that Saakashvili did with the BBC. The interviewer got him to admit that Georgia had started the bombing campaign against a civilian target. They're also caught him telling bear-faced lies several times. What they didn't manage to get is why he thought he could start it and what he thought would happen - whether he was green-lighted by Washington or NATO or promised support (which he got in the UNSC at least)
The Russians claim to have captured documents in Gori where recently military exercises by Georgia in association with the US/Israel and NATO were held which they claim prove it was merely a dress-rehersal. Given the weight of history this is very convincing, but I'd rather wait for more details on that front before becoming commited. I want to know what Seymour Hersh scares up on this, for instance because he always nets good military sources.

 

[Scribblette]

Noone mentions the oil in here, though. I don't know what possessed Georgia to go in and provide the trigger Russia needed to waltz right on in. Especially if there's a UN mandate for Russian peacekeepers to be there full stop as mentioned above.

Apparently there are big pipelines that pass through Georgia and thus bypass Russia en route to Europe, and the West doesn't want Russia holding that economic power over them. Remember all the gas & energy nonsense that Russia/Europe had a little while ago when they cut off power to the Czechs for whatever reason it was?

Wars are about imbalances - be it trade, land, or any other sorta power.

Oh, and dickheads. I forgot about that.

 

[Dissonance]

omg i liv in altanta and on the nwz it sais that rusia invaded but i dont see tanks no were in teh stret whats gonig on????

 

[Incognitus]

Noone mentions the oil in here, though. I don't know what possessed Georgia to go in and provide the trigger Russia needed to waltz right on in. Especially if there's a UN mandate for Russian peacekeepers to be there full stop as mentioned above.

Apparently there are big pipelines that pass through Georgia and thus bypass Russia en route to Europe, and the West doesn't want Russia holding that economic power over them. Remember all the gas & energy nonsense that Russia/Europe had a little while ago when they cut off power to the Czechs for whatever reason it was?

Wars are about imbalances - be it trade, land, or any other sorta power.

Oh, and dickheads. I forgot about that.

Agree with you on that last point.

For all the blather about the Russian's going after the oil line, they don't actually seem to be doing much of that, although they could try and sweep it up in the settlement. I doubt Russia wants or needs to increase their size of the OPEC pie: don't only do they have enough to keep thousands of western imperialists sweating beneath their sheets at night, but the last time they attempted to do so, it led to the complete collapse of their society and left them with problems which they are still tackling today. You don't mess with da OPEC.

Russia have stated that they're happy for Georgia to be independant, but what they don't want is all the former bloc states joining in. Ukraine, for instance, guarentees everyone across the Russian Federation their pensions. Not only that, but they don't want NATO on their doorstep. Foreign policy in America has never really changed from the Cold War: it's still (and more emphatically considering the rise of the Neo-Con movement) to "contain" Russia - it's the very modern incarnation of Manifest Destiny.
From a modern Russian point of view, it's a bit like the Cold War ended, but Russia wants to expand the Warsaw Pact into Mexico and Latin America.

Russia cut Czech's oil because the Czech's agreed to host part of the US' missile "defence" system - you have to be a complete IDIOT to think that this is actually aimed at "rogue states".
Whether or not it was an official decision is debatable: Trasnet claim it was due to market and technical difficulties. There's scant physical evidence available that Trasnet was taken orders from the Kremlin, and Putin made a personal demand that Trasnet to return fuel levels to their normal levels (even at the expense of other principalities). However it's impossible to know if he was just grandstanding. Of course, the fact that Trasnet is ever so slightly privately owned should be taken into consideration - if there is one thing we've seen over the last couple of months it is that oil companies have no qualms with using political crisis to pump up their profits.

 

[kyonides]

but Russia wants to expand the Warsaw Pact into Mexico and Latin America

mmm, I guess the only countries interested would be Cuba, Venezuela and maybe Brazil, the rest are either useless in such a conflict or depend too much on US "aids" and "FTA" so they wouldn't even try to "betray" the US government.

I found this old article (08.10.2008) about Russian Navy ships approach Georgia's sea border. Later a Canadian spokeswoman said something about Canada sending some ships to the Black Sea Canada denies report on Black Sea ship

Turkey allows U.S. ships to take aid to Georgia
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080821/ ... f3b62.html

REFILE-Ukraine says Russian ships to return to port
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LJ525487.htm

NATO ships enter Black Sea for exercises
http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2008/08/ ... ck-Sea.php

I even heard that the Georgian president tried to kill himself...

 

[Incognitus]

I even heard that the Georgian president tried to kill himself...

Seen the BBC footage of him trying to eat his tie?


http://www.themoscowtimes.com/article/1 ... 370269.htm

Scrutinise it's veracity as you will. It's an interesting little article of which, I feel, people should be aware. And hey, It worked for the KLA....

 

[kyonides]

Here's an interesting report (I guess).

Tskhinvali Damage Overview

 

[Incognitus]

I've updated the title. Maybe now there will be more debate about the current political climate. Alternatively we can all go back to talking about meaningless things?

 

[___]

Sorry Incog, I would love to participate more here but I haven't been convinced that this conflict has relevance to me, or that anything approaching objectivity can be achieved at this point.

 

[Incognitus]

Sorry Incog, I would love to participate more here but I haven't been convinced that this conflict has relevance to me, or that anything approaching objectivity can be achieved at this point.

Well, I'd disagree given that many people are talking about the "second Cold War", and the fact that Israel wanted to use Georgian airstrips for their assault on Iran...

Just a quick update:
The South Ossetians have named a tentative figure of 1694 dead.

http://en.rian.ru/world/20080917/116868632.html

 

[Incognitus]

just can't wait for mccain to bring georgia into nato

Er... why?

I mean... don't get me wrong: I'm all for allowing a landlocked Central Asia banana republic into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation. >_>