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Media fails to cover what's going on in Georgia
Waterlily
Member UncommonPosts: 3,105
Just pointing this out since most media seem more concerned with the olympics than with what is happening in Ossetia.
I can't believe the only channels that are covering it are CNN and BBC and the rest is too busy covering the opening ceremony in China.
edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/08/08/georgia.ossetia/index.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/7549594.stm
Comments
The resurgence of the Soviet Empire? http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080808/ap_on_re_eu/georgia_south_ossetia
The story
Georgia's president said Friday that his country is under attack by Russian tanks and warplanes, and he accused Russia of targeting civilians as tensions over the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia appeared to boil over into full-blown conflict.
"All day today, they've been bombing Georgia from numerous warplanes and specifically targeting (the) civilian population, and we have scores of wounded and dead among (the) civilian population all around the country," President Mikhail Saakashvili told CNN in an exclusive interview.
"This is the worst nightmare one can encounter," he said.
Read full article »
american troops are in georgia?
georgian troops are in iraq.
i see.
why wont russia leave georgia alone?
besides the our troops and georgie troops element, what other elements are there to this equation?
what did georgie do besides seek independence?
-I will subtlety invade your psyche-
I honestly don't care. I say let them deal with it on our own. And, when we do, we will see the hypocrisy of the world asking where the US is to step in. And when they do, we say "It's not our problem".
This
World has to be weened sooner or later...I'm sorry that it has to cost lives, but I'm just so damn tired of our country being asked to do stuff about things like this and then getting bashed for it because OH MY GAWD THEIR DOIN IT ALL WRONG.
Beggars can't be choosers, simple as that.
Your argument is like a two legged dog with an eating disorder...weak and unbalanced.
America is trying to bring all the old Eastern block states into NATO.
Georgia and Ukraine for example.
Clearly this is not in anyway acceptable to Russia. (And quite likely to force the U.K. to quit also).
Russia has so far responded to these advances by reducing it's fuel subsides to Georgia.
The Ossetians, who are seeking independance from Georgia are traditionally very allied to Russia. Georgia has a long history of trying to break away from Russia, while Ossetia has always sided with them and were instrumental in the re-capture of breakaway Georgia after the Russian Revolution.
Georgia was a founder member of the Soviet Union and at this time the Ossetian Autonomous Zone was created within Gerogia. Up until then they had been independant countries.
Ossetia is an economic dependancy of Russia. Russia provides domestic gas to all the homes in Ossetia for no profit.
Like Ossetia, Georgia is an energy dependent of Russia. The pipeline to Georgia runs through Ossetia, and the indepencancy seekers in Ossetia keep blowing it up. This pipeline ends up in Europe and just as the Ossetians use it to blackmail the Georgians, the Georgians use it to blackmail the Russians.
Ossetia has it's own government and president and has held repeated successful referendums for independence from Georgia since the 1990's. These referendums have sparked violence in which hundreds were killed.
Russian troops were deployed to the region in a peacekeeping capacity after the first of these referendums and successfully negotiated a truce.
The Georgian ethnic minorities in Ossetia have always voted against independence in referendum of their own.
Many South Ossetians hold Russian passports. Stalin was an Ossetian.
Along with South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Ajaria are also seeking independence from Georgia. They too have repeatedly petitioned the world for recognition as independent states in the wake of Kosovo's recognition as indepnedent from Serbia.
With the advent Georgia's renewed attempts ot join NATO, The Kremlin has recognising Ossetia as independant, and South Ossetia has rejected outright Gerogia's attempts ot create a power sharing government in favour of full independence.
Yesterdays artillery bombardment of the Ossetian capital city was in response to a roadside bomb attack on Georgian forces by Ossetian rebels in which 6 soldiers were killed.
This
World has to be weened sooner or later...I'm sorry that it has to cost lives, but I'm just so damn tired of our country being asked to do stuff about things like this and then getting bashed for it because OH MY GAWD THEIR DOIN IT ALL WRONG.
Beggars can't be choosers, simple as that.
Your country needs to learn when to mind it's own business.
The Russians don't need your help.
If you continue to fuck around with Russia, getting "bashed" is going to be the least of your problems.
You can expect active Russian airbases in Cuba within 6 months if you continue sticking your nose in where it isn't welcome.
Russia has just been looking for an excuse to go into Georgia. Now they have it. Ossetia has always been a Russian leaning part of Georgia and I am sure the leaders of Ossetia provoked this. This will get ugly. There is no love between Russia and Georgia.
This
World has to be weened sooner or later...I'm sorry that it has to cost lives, but I'm just so damn tired of our country being asked to do stuff about things like this and then getting bashed for it because OH MY GAWD THEIR DOIN IT ALL WRONG.
Beggars can't be choosers, simple as that.
Your country needs to learn when to mind it's own business.
The Russians don't need your help.
If you continue to fuck around with Russia, getting "bashed" is going to be the least of your problems.
You can expect active Russian airbases in Cuba within 6 months if you continue sticking your nose in where it isn't welcome.
Your country needs to learn when to sit down and shut up after asking for help, along with the rest of the world that calls for our aid and then cries that the big bad United States wants to play policeman. There's is no denying that this occurs.
You don't ask for financial aid from a rich man, and then after accepting the aid, try to tell him that all of his financial investments are stupid and wrong.
Your argument is like a two legged dog with an eating disorder...weak and unbalanced.
This
World has to be weened sooner or later...I'm sorry that it has to cost lives, but I'm just so damn tired of our country being asked to do stuff about things like this and then getting bashed for it because OH MY GAWD THEIR DOIN IT ALL WRONG.
Beggars can't be choosers, simple as that.
Your country needs to learn when to mind it's own business.
The Russians don't need your help.
If you continue to fuck around with Russia, getting "bashed" is going to be the least of your problems.
You can expect active Russian airbases in Cuba within 6 months if you continue sticking your nose in where it isn't welcome.
First, I believe you didn't read my post. We don't want our country to help. Let them blow themselves up. We don't care.
Second, who cares if Russians are in Cuba?Their bases would be rubble if we were threatened by them. They may get some shots off, but our arsenal of 10,000 nukes would be opened and used.
As I said this has been heating up for a few years now and the world has not been paying attention. Putin would love the opportunity to stop Georgia from joining NATO. When Georgia sent troops across the border last night after Ossetian separatist killed 6 of its soldiers with an IDE the Russians saw this as the perfect excuse to roll into Ossetia to back the separatist. Why?
Because of this man - Mikheil Saakashvili. He has been a thorn in Putin's plans since he took over the presidency when Shevardnadze resigned. Saakashvili is very pro democracy and leans heavily toward US and not Russia.
Putin does not want Georgia to join NATO. It would weaken Russia's influence in the rejoin. As if it was strong at all to begin with. Many peoples in that area have no love of the Russian government. So Putin has been backing the seperatist movement in Ossetia. He timed this just right. Wait until the Olympics when the world would be focused on Beijing and then have the separatist start something. If you think Russia will settle for just taking over Ossetia...think again. He will no doubt push to take Saakashvili out of the picture. With him out of the way...Georgia looses its chance to join NATO.
Abkhazia and Adjara are autonomous regions of Georgia. You can bet that they take advantage of this situation. Just watch. This little war could become a major conflict very quickly.
How does this little girl know so much about this. I have many friends from and in Georgia. I am going to try to call one of them today. She lives just outside Tbilisi.
/sigh @ this thread
This
World has to be weened sooner or later...I'm sorry that it has to cost lives, but I'm just so damn tired of our country being asked to do stuff about things like this and then getting bashed for it because OH MY GAWD THEIR DOIN IT ALL WRONG.
Beggars can't be choosers, simple as that.
Your country needs to learn when to mind it's own business.
The Russians don't need your help.
If you continue to fuck around with Russia, getting "bashed" is going to be the least of your problems.
You can expect active Russian airbases in Cuba within 6 months if you continue sticking your nose in where it isn't welcome.
First, I believe you didn't read my post. We don't want our country to help. Let them blow themselves up. We don't care.
Second, who cares if Russians are in Cuba?Their bases would be rubble if we were threatened by them. They may get some shots off, but our arsenal of 10,000 nukes would be opened and used.
Dekron is partially correct...I think that most Americans WANT to care...but every time we care, and we try to do something about it at the behest of the "global communtiy" we get bitched at, so we are just a lttile bit jaded...It's like a man who keeps going back to a woman that keeps cheating on him...He wants to love her, but she just makes it so damn hard.
Your argument is like a two legged dog with an eating disorder...weak and unbalanced.
They have more nukes than you Dekron. I think's something like 8 for your every 1.
They can turn your bases into rubble too. Not to mention your cities.
Your power has limits and if you keep pushing the Russians, they are going to show them to you.
@Draenor, you come from a benevolent and giving country. You contributions to charititable causes are immense and world changing.
But you don't know when to mind your own business.
What exactly are all these things you've been doing at the behest of the global community?
Most of things you do are anything but at the behest of the global communty. Usually quite the opposite. You are a very strong country and more than any other country on earth you are able to completely ignore the global community.
The Global community isn't asking you to militarily expand closer to Russia. It isn't asking you to start WW3. It isn't asking you to help Georgia oppress it's minorities. If you do nothing, that will be a big improvement from what you have been doing, than what the Global community has all along been asking you not to do.
In the end only power checks power. So if you move your forces up to the Russian border, expect them to respond in kind.
You see my point then. Neither side would launch an attack for fear they would destroy each other.
You seem to know a lot about the situation baff. Not too many people do. Nice work.
You can add CBC as well.
Looks like the Soviets are returning to form: not too surprising since Putin has been working on that for his entire presidency and beyond.
Now they're making inroads into Georgia. I'm sure the West will wring its hands and ultimately do nothing about it. Poor Georgia: they believed the BS the West told them and thought they'd be protected from the return of Soviet aggression. I'm afraid they're about to learn how wrong they were.
So far the Soviet (errr.....Russian) response has been measured. Several hundred armored vehicles have entered the area in support of the Soviet (errr....Russian) peacekeepers and the Soviets (errr.....Russians) have targeted a few airbases and towns in response to the Georgian military targeting Soviet (errrr....Russian) peacekeepers and seperatist civilian targets.
Trust me on this one, if the Soviets (errrr.....Russians) wanted to swallow up Georgia it would be gone so quickly that all you would hear is one loud burp. Right now they are just making a diplomatic point that Georgia should just sit down and STFU.
I'm sure President Bush will make a statement to General Secretary (errr....Comrad) Putin about Soviet (errr....Russian) interference in Georgian matters that Putin will politely respond to with "sit down and STFU", similiar to how the Chinese responded to Bush's comments made in Thailand.
As to why the Soviets (errr....Russians) don't like NATO that close to Moscow, they are a little bit paranoid about their borders after the Mongols, Napoleon, and Hitler. Kruschev never liked the idea of going to bed at his dacha in the Crimea knowing American missiles were just across the drink in Turkey.
By the way, one of the places that the Soviets (errr....Russians) bombed was the birthplace of Josef Stalin. Maybe they secretly took a bit of delight in that.
You see my point then. Neither side would launch an attack for fear they would destroy each other.
The west isn't in this fight Dek.
We are busy.
As a US citizen, what concerns me presently is that there are about 2,000 Georgian troops in the Middle East as part of the Coalition there, and Georgia has asked us to put them on our own planes and send them back. So that puts us in a sticky situation, when we really want nothing to do with this conflict.
And to the OP, I especially enjoy that when I go to CNN's website, the main page has a story about John Edwards having an affair, and the Russia/Georgia situation is off to the side. People may be dying in Georgia, but I really won't sleep at night now that I know John Edwards admitted to an affair.
Yeah they wil be deployed in the British sector.
We've been trying to reduce our deployment by 2,000 for over a year now.
Bah.
Its really kind of sad, I went into work today, im a US naval submariner just to show that i work with the people who should know when this shit happens. And my LCPO saw it on yahoo or something lastnight and just about everyone else knew the olympics were happening but nothing else.
Its all over the news. I watched three straight hours of it on Fox News today and this morning.
People who have to create conspiracy and hate threads to further a cause lacks in intellectual comprehension of diversity.
didnt notice there was a second thread about this ..... anyways, i dunno why georgia feels it has to ask for U.S. planes to fly their men back, it sounds like a plan to get us into the conflict and onto Georgia's side, and im a little irked they had the nerve to ask that.
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thanks for your response baff.
i personally think russia wants/wanted this.
similar to our president/administration wanted- wants to shape the middle east.
i can't trust putin. however, we all have our agendas.
i think americas are far more noble than any others, in the long run.
of course, im biased.
as is the average russian citizen.
-I will subtlety invade your psyche-
olddaddy,
I don't disagree with your analysis, but there are some things I'd like to add to it.
Primarily, looking at the overall situation, it seems to me that the Soviets (er, Russians) have been using South Ossetia as a sort of Cat's Paw. When Georgia broke away from the weakened Soviet Empire, the Soviets encouraged South Ossetia to resist the Georgian government and gave them the means to do so. As insurance, they sent in their own "peace-keepers" to prevent Georgia from forcefully straightening it out.
As a result, this region has been de facto autonomous practically since Georgia become an independant country. Furthermore, Russia could keep a presence there and continuously forment trouble in Georgia via it's now established Cat's Paw.
In the meantime, Russia has done everything it could to make life difficult for Georgia while at the same time not going so far as cause excessive umbrage in the West. Georgia could never rest easy as to its sovereignty with South Ossetia in the state it was in.
As an American, I tend to view Georgia's position more favorably than that of the Russians. However, part of being a sovereign nation is being able to defend your land: if you can't, via one method or another, then you will fail as a nation. This is Georgia's test to be able to hold what it claims as its own. I think the Russians will all but snap up South Ossetia unless Georgia fights tooth-and-nail to keep it, and Georgia might still end up losing it anyway.
I doubt Russia undertook this without having weighed the probable reactions of Georgia's supposed allies: the fact that they're doing this anyway (even in a "measured" way) tells me that they believe the West wont intervene in any significant way. Time will tell if they are right in their assessment.