Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

[North Pole]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

The Kremlin, Moscow

Beginning of the Meeting on Providing Humanitarian Assistance to the Population of South Ossetia

PRESIDENT OF RUSSIA DMITRY MEDVEDEV: In connection with the act of aggression committed by Georgia against the civilian population of South Ossetia and Russian peacekeepers, there are many complex humanitarian problems that we must deal with, in accordance with our mandate and simply in light of our duty as a nation.

Today we must consider how to provide assistance to the civilian populations and to the wounded, including, of course, medical assistance, immigration issues, and think about how we can accommodate refugees. We also need to look at the way the situation develops in a comprehensive way, given that it is a very difficult one.

And I would like to hear each of you report on what you have done and the suggestions you have on how to overcome existing humanitarian problems.


DEPUTY PRIME MINISTER SERGEI SOBYANIN: Dmitry Anatolyevich, in accordance with your orders yesterday to the government cabinet we have held several meetings to provide humanitarian assistance to victims in South Ossetia.

We have organized two facilities: a central headquarters in the Emergencies Situations Ministry [ESM] and in Vladikavkaz, where the representatives of all relevant ministries, departments and regional authorities have assembled . Yesterday we sent the necessary supplies -- I am referring to the fact that a hospital has been deployed by the ESM, to which we have sent the necessary medications and first aid.

In the past few days, as of the second or third [of August], more than twenty thousand people have made requests to the Federal Migration Service. Only in the past day and a half more than thirty thousand people have crossed the border. We really have a humanitarian catastrophe on our hands.

All refugees who contact us receive due assistance and have been reserved a place in children's camps, in places of temporary residence. Not one person has seen their request denied.

I think that Sergei Kuzhugetovich [Shoigu] has more information to report.


EMERGENCY SITUATIONS MINISTER SERGEI SHOIGU: Today the situation is as follows. We have started to allocate people to temporary accommodation in the Southern Federal District. To date twelve regions have the capacity to accommodate three and a half thousand people and this work continues. I think that by the end of the day we will have the capacity to house ten thousand people in permanent accommodation. In addition, we have deployed tented accommodation for two million people near the border points.

The situation is compounded by the fact that at present there is no water in Tskhinvali, in practice the water and sewage treatment plants have been destroyed. I am referring to those facilities used for treating water, drinking water.

In light of this fact we are putting together a shipment for water purification. Given the lack of electricity, I think that today by 4 pm we will deliver generators to Vladikavkaz, and by the day to Tskhinvali. We have set ourselves the task to determine the power necessary to run the systems that support civilian life by 12 o’clock -- I am referring to things such as medicine, water facilities again, and businesses engaged in baking bread.


The hospital which said Sergey Semenovich [Sobyanin] mentioned has been deployed, set up, and is ready to receive victims of the fighting. There is a need for additional medications and doctors, but I think that Tatyana Alekseevna will better be able to talk about this.

We can add to this the fact that already last night a substantial amount of food and disposable items were shipped off. By 4 pm today we will have brought together more than 100 tonnes of different cargoes and this work continues. If necessary, we are ready to double that figure in the course of the day.


DIRECTOR OF THE FEDERAL MIGRATION SERVICE KONSTANTIN ROMODANOVSKY: We have been working in a situation that is constantly deteriorating. We are in control of the situation and we are helping citizens, despite the fact that many come to us with virtually no documents - documents have been lost, gone missing, or been burned. Nevertheless, the migration service is providing assistance in this regard.

We created infrastructure for migrants - there is a working group deployed in Vladikavkaz and in the centre as well. We are keeping track of the situation. Citizens are deployed in 10 so-called residence centres, namely schools and technical colleges. The majority are staying with relatives. The situation is under control and we continue to conduct our activities.


DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Are you ready for complications or any additional problems?

KONSTANTIN ROMODANOVSKY: We are ready.

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Tatiana Alekseevna, what is happening with medication and other supplies?

HEALTH AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENT MINISTER TATYANA GOLIKOVA: Dmitry Anatolyevich, in addition to the information that Sergei Kuzhugetovich [Shoigu] already reported, today literally by 12 o’clock a regular EMS plane, carrying 6 tonnes of cargo provided by our Russian Centre for Medical Disasters, Protection, will be dispatched: its cargo includes a hospital with 12 resuscitation places to be deployed and other supplies which have been calculated for about 10 days. The second plane will carry about another 15 tonnes of cargo: bandages, analgesics, suture materials and so on - everything that is needed, such as blankets. And the third plane will contain teams of doctors who will work on location. Furthermore, we have sent relevant professionals who can assist in organising medical care and providing social assistance, because it is not only the health Ministries of the republics of the Southern Federal District that are involved in this, there are also other bodies of social protection working on these issues.

Indeed, we now have organised them all, and all the regions of the Russian Federation who are nearby are working on this, and providing necessary places to relocate people. As a rule, we have placed refugees in social institutions, in schools, and in kindergartens - in short, we are doing everything possible to ensure that people in this situation feel comfortable, if I may put it that way.

DMITRY MEDVEDEV: Our challenge now consists in helping overcome the consequences of this humanitarian catastrophe, and naturally on all those fronts that you just mentioned. And those responsible for the humanitarian catastrophe in South Ossetia should be brought to justice, including before international law.

Source: http://kremlin.ru/eng/speeches/2008/...3_205067.shtml


YouTube - Russia mourns victims of Ossetian bloodshed

[yerazhishda]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

YouTube - Russia mourns victims of Ossetian bloodshed

Did you see the kid at 1:30? He was rattling off about Ossetian history and the current conflict like it was nothing!

[Yedtarts]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

On August 12, 2008, Pravda ridiculed Bush, “Bush: Why don’t you shut up.”

Americans may think they are a superpower before whose presence the world trembles. But not the Russians.
Those Americans stupid enough to think that America’s “superpower” insures its citizens from danger need to read the total contempt shown for President Bush in Pravda:

“President Bush,
Why don’t you shut up? In your statement on Monday regarding the legitimate actions of the Russian Federation in Georgia, you failed to mention the war crimes perpetrated by Georgian military forces, which American advisors support, against Russian and Ossetian civilians

“President Bush,
Why don’t you shut up? Your faithful ally, Mikhail Saakashvili, was announcing a ceasefire deal while his troops, with your advisors, were massing on Ossetia’s border, which they crossed under cover of night and destroyed Tskhinvali, targeting civilian structures just like your forces did in Iraq.

“President Bush,
Why don’t you shut up? Your American transport aircraft gave a ride home to thousands of Georgian soldiers from Iraq directly into the combat zone.

“President Bush,
Why don’t you shut up? How do you account for the fact that among the Georgian soldiers fleeing the fighting yesterday you could clearly hear officers using American English giving orders to “Get back inside” and how do you account for the fact that there are reports of American soldiers among the Georgian casualties?

“President Bush,
Why don’t you shut up? Do you really think anyone gives any importance whatsoever to your words after 8 years of your criminal and murderous regime and policies? Do you really believe you have any moral ground whatsoever and do you really imagine there is a single human being anywhere on this planet who does not stick up his middle finger every time you appear on a TV screen?
Do you really believe you have the right to give any opinion or advice after Abu Ghraib? After Guantanamo? After the massacre of hundreds of thousands of Iraqi citizens? After the torture by CIA operatives?
Do you really believe you have any right to make a statement on any point of international law after your trumped-up charges against Iraq and the subsequent criminal invasion?

“President Bush,
Why don’t you shut up? Suppose Russia for instance declares that Georgia has weapons of mass destruction? And that Russia knows where these WMD are, namely in Tblisi and Poti and north, south, east and west of there? And that it must be true because there is ‘magnificent foreign intelligenc’ such as satellite photos of milk powder factories and baby cereals producing chemical weapons and which are currently being ‘driven around the country in vehicles’? Suppose Russia declares for instance that ‘Saakashvili stiffed the world’ and it is ‘time for regime change?

Nice and simple, isn’t it, President Bush?“
So, why don’t you shut up? Oh and by the way, send some more of your military advisors to Georgia, they are doing a sterling job. And they look all funny down the night sight, all green.”

The US is not a superpower. It is a bankrupt farce run by imbeciles who were installed by stolen elections arranged by Karl Rove and Diebold. It is a laughing stock, that ignorantly affronts and attempts to bully an enormous country equipped with tens of thousands of nuclear weapons.

[Armanen]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Ossetia Crisis Should Serve as Lesson for Military-Minded Propositions


YEREVAN (Armenpress)--Russia's ambassador to Armenia Thursday said that the South Ossetian situation should be a lesson for those opting to resolve conflict through the use of force, and ruled out scenarios like the aftermath of Georgia's attack on South Ossetia, as a means to resolve other conflicts, such as Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The recent Georgian-Ossetian situation may serve as a good lesson to all countries that want to resolve conflicts through the use of force,” said Ambassador Nikolay Pavlov, speaking at a press conference at the Russian Embassy in Yerevan.

Pavlov did not comment on official Baku's announcements that Georgia's incursion into South Ossetia served as precedent for “restoring territorial integrity” and resolving conflicts militarily.

“I do not want to comment on such statement,” said Pavlov, reiterating that the best way to resolve the Karabakh conflict was the continuation of the peace talks under the OSCE Minsk Group's auspices.

“It is important that negotiations between the two countries continue with foreign ministers and the president of both countries continue to meet with each other. This provides hope that the Karabakh conflict will be resolved peacefully,” said Pavlov.

Meanwhile, Armenia's Foreign Ministry announced that an additional 1,520 Armenian citizens returned to Armenia from Georgia in the past day, while some 695 foreign citizens were evacuated to Armenia during the said time period.

http://www.asbarez.com/index.html?showarticle=34051_8/15/2008_1

[Anonymouse]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Russia marks its red lines
By F William Engdahl

What is playing out in the Caucasus is being reported in the United States media in an alarmingly misleading light, making Moscow appear the lone aggressor after it sent troops into the breakaway Georgian region of South Ossetia following a Georgian offensive on that territory.

The question is whether President George W Bush and Vice President Bush Cheney are encouraging Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to force the next US president to back the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) military agenda of the current Bush administration. Washington may have badly misjudged the possibilities, as it did in Iraq, and there are even possible nuclear consequences.

The underlying issue is the fact that since the dissolution of the Warsaw Pact in 1991, one after another former member as well as former states of the Soviet Union have been coaxed and in many cases bribed with false promises by Washington into joining the counter organization, NATO.

Rather than initiate discussions after the 1991 dissolution of the Warsaw Pact about a systematic dissolution of NATO, Washington has steadily converted NATO into what can only be called the military vehicle of an American global imperial rule, linked by a network of military bases from Kosovo to Poland to Turkey to Iraq and Afghanistan.

In 1999, former Warsaw Pact members Hungary, Poland and the Czech Republic joined NATO. Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania and Slovakia followed suit in March 2004. Now Washington is putting immense pressure on the European Union members of NATO, especially Germany and France, that they vote in December to admit Georgia and Ukraine.

The roots of the conflict

The specific conflict between Georgia and the two breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has its roots in the following. First, the Southern Ossetes, who until 1990 formed an autonomous region of the Georgian Soviet Republic, seek to unite in one state with their co-ethnics in North Ossetia, an autonomous republic of the Russian Soviet Republic and now the Russian Federation.

There is an historically grounded Ossete fear of violent Georgian nationalism and the experience of Georgian hatred of ethnic minorities under then-Georgian leader Zviad Gamsakhurdia, which the Ossetes see again under Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili. Saakashvili was brought to power with US financing and US covert regime-change activities in December 2003 in what was called the "Rose Revolution". Now, the thorns of that rose are causing blood to spill.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia - the first a traditional Black Sea resort area, the second an impoverished, sparsely populated region that borders Russia to the north - each has its own language, culture and history. When the Soviet Union collapsed, both regions sought to separate themselves from Georgia in bloody conflicts - South Ossetia in 1990-91, Abkhazia in 1992-94.
In December 1990, Georgia under Gamsakhurdia sent troops into South Ossetia after the region declared sovereignty. This Georgian move was defeated by Soviet Interior Ministry troops. Then Georgia declared the abolition of the South Ossete autonomous region and its incorporation into Georgia proper. Both wars ended with ceasefires that were negotiated by Russia and policed by peacekeeping forces under the aegis of the recently established Commonwealth of Independent States.

The situation hardened into "frozen conflicts", like that over Cyprus between Greece and Turkey. By late 2005, Georgia signed an agreement that it would not use force, and the Abkhaz would allow the gradual return of 200,000-plus ethnic Georgians who had fled the violence. But the agreement collapsed in early 2006, when Saakashvili sent troops to retake the Kodori Valley in Abkhazia. Since then, Saakashvili has escalated preparations for military action.

Critical is Russia's support for the Southern Ossetes. Russia is unwilling to see Georgia join NATO. In addition, the Ossetes are the oldest Russian allies in the Caucasus who have provided troops to the Russian army in many wars. Russia does not wish to abandon them and the Abkhaz, and fuel yet more ethnic unrest among their compatriots in the Russian North Caucasus.

In a November 2006 referendum, 99% of South Ossetians voted for independence from Georgia, at a time when most of them had long held Russian passports. This enabled Russian President Dmitry Medvedev to justify his military's counter-attack of Georgia on Friday as an effort to "protect the lives and dignity of Russian citizens, wherever they may be".

For Russia, Ossetia has been an important strategic base near the Turkish and Iranian frontiers since the days of the czars. Georgia is also an important transit country for oil being pumped from the Caspian Sea to the Turkish port of Ceyhan and a potential base for Washington efforts to encircle Tehran.

As far as the Georgians are concerned, South Ossetia and Abkhazia are simply part of their national territory, to be recovered at all costs. Promises by NATO leaders to bring Georgia into the alliance, and ostentatious declarations of support from Washington, have emboldened Saakashvili to launch his military offensive against the two provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Saakashvili and likely Cheney's office in Washington appear to have miscalculated very badly. Russia has made it clear that it has no intention of ceding its support for South Ossetia or Abkhazia.

Proxy war

In March, as Washington went ahead to recognize the independence of Kosovo in former Yugoslavia, making Kosovo a de facto NATO-run territory against the will of the United Nations Security Council and especially against Russian protest, then president (now Prime Minister) Vladimir Putin responded with Russian Duma (parliament) hearings on recognition of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway republic in Moldova.

Moscow argued that the West's logic on Kosovo should apply as well to these ethnic communities seeking to free themselves from the control of a hostile state. In mid-April, Putin held out the possibility of recognition for the breakaway republics. It was a geopolitical chess game in the strategic Caucasus for the highest stakes - the future of Russia itself.

Saakashvili called Putin to demand he reverse the decision. He reminded Putin that the West had taken Georgia's side. This past April at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, US President George W Bush proposed accepting Georgia into NATO's "Action Plan for Membership", a precursor to full NATO membership. To Washington's surprise, 10 NATO member states refused to support his plan, including Germany, France and Italy.

They argued that accepting the Georgians was problematic, because of the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. They were in reality saying that they would not be willing to back Georgia as, under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which mandates that an armed attack against any NATO member country must be considered an attack against them all and consequently requires use of collective armed force of all NATO members, it would mean that Europe could be faced with war against Russia over the tiny Caucasus Republic of Georgia, with its incalculable dictator, Saakashvili. That would mean the troubled Caucasus would be on a hair-trigger to detonate World War III.

Russia threatens Georgia, but Georgia threatens Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia looks like a crocodile to Georgia, but Georgia looks to Russia like the cat's paw of the West. Since Saakashvili took power in late 2003, the Pentagon has been in Georgia giving military aid and training. Not only are US military personnel active in Georgia today, according to an Israeli-intelligence source, Debkafile, in 2007 Saakashvili "commissioned from private Israeli security firms several hundred military advisers, estimated at up to 1,000, to train the Georgian armed forces in commando, air, sea, armored and artillery combat tactics".

It was reported further, "They also have been giving instruction on military intelligence and security for the central regime. Tbilisi also purchased weapons, intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Israel. These advisers were undoubtedly deeply involved in the Georgian army's preparations to conquer the South Ossetian capital Friday."

Debkafile also reported, "Moscow has repeatedly demanded that Jerusalem halt its military assistance to Georgia, finally threatening a crisis in bilateral relations. Israel responded by saying that the only assistance rendered to Tbilisi was 'defensive'."

The Israeli news source added that Israel's interest in Georgia had to do as well with Caspian oil pipeline geopolitics. "Jerusalem has a strong interest in having Caspian oil and gas pipelines reach the Turkish terminal port of Ceyhan, rather than the Russian network. Intense negotiations are afoot between Israel, Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan for pipelines to reach Turkey and thence to Israel's oil terminal at Ashkelon and on to its Red Sea port of Eilat. From there, supertankers can carry the gas and oil to the Far East through the Indian Ocean."

This means that the attack on South Ossetia is the first battle in a new proxy warfare between Anglo-American-Israeli led interests and Russia. The only question is whether Washington miscalculated the swiftness and intensity of the Russian response to the Georgian attacks of August 8.

So far, each step in the Caucasus drama has put the conflict on a yet higher plane of danger. The next step will no longer be just about the Caucasus, or even Europe. In 1914 it was the "Guns of August" that initiated the Great War. This time, the Guns of August 2008 could be the detonator of World War III and a nuclear holocaust of unspeakable horror.

Most in the West are unaware how dangerous the conflict over two tiny provinces in a remote part of Eurasia has become. What is left out of most media coverage is the strategic military security context of the Caucasus dispute.

Since the end of the Cold War in the beginning of the 1990s, NATO and most directly Washington have systematically pursued what military strategists call nuclear primacy. Put simply, if one of two opposing nuclear powers is able to first develop an operational anti-missile defense, even primitive, that can dramatically weaken a potential counter-strike by the opposing side's nuclear arsenal, the side with missile defense has "won" the nuclear war.

As questionable as this sounds, it has been explicit Pentagon policy through the last three presidents from father H W Bush in 1990, to Bill Clinton and most aggressively, George W Bush. This is the issue over which Russia has drawn a deep line in the sand, understandably so. The forceful US effort to push Georgia as well as Ukraine into NATO would present Russia with the specter of NATO literally coming to its doorstep, a military threat that is aggressive in the extreme, and untenable for Russian national security.

This is what gives the seemingly obscure fight over two provinces the size of Luxembourg the potential to become the 1914 Sarajevo trigger to a new nuclear war by miscalculation. The trigger for such a war is not Georgia's right to annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Rather, it is US insistence on pushing NATO and its missile defense right up to Russia's door.

F William Engdahl is author of A Century of War: Anglo-American Oil Politics and the New World Order (Pluto Press) and Seeds of Destruction: The Hidden Agenda of Genetic Manipulation (www.globalresearch.ca. He may be reached through his website, www.engdahl.oilgeopolitics.net.

(Copyright 2008 F William Engdahl.)

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Central_Asia/JH13Ag05.html

Particularly illuminating are the portions in bold.

[North Pole]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Russia vs Zionist World.........




For more information visit: www.rense.com



Russo-Georgian Conflict Originates With Soros Subversion

by Dr K R Bolton
Editor, Restoration

8-14-8

George Soros, the currency speculator is one of the primary elements in subverting traditional societies in order that they better fit into a new world order. Soros backs on a world scale what might loosely be termed the contemporary version of the 'New Left'. He brings down governments via subversion, moral rot and revolution through financial patronage, akin to what Jacob Schiff the New York banker did to Russia through the funding of revolutionary propaganda.1 However Soros' revolutions are far more widespread than that of Schiff.

Soros has established a network of think tanks, lobbies and fronts to promote sundry causes, from feminism and abortion, to narcotics liberalisation and the stream of 'velvet revolutions' that have resulted in 'regime change' throughout the former Soviet bloc. 2

Soros declares George Bush to be a threat to world peace because of the gung ho gunboat diplomacy Bush directs towards 'rogue states'. But Soros foments more fundamental discord and conflict through his patronage of subversion and revolution. It is significant that he is one of the chief financial backers of Obama's presidential campaign, along with a mass of other plutocrats. Obama is a typical e.g. of how a 'man of the people', America's equivalent to a System Leftist, is fronting for Big Money. 3

In 2003 Soros targeted Georgian President Eduard Shevardnadze for overthrow. Soros' aim is the destruction of Russia as a world power. Eliminating Russian influence and replacing it with new regimes hostile to Russia is his goal.

In 2003 Mark MacKinnon writing in the Canadian Globe & Mail succinctly described how Soros applied his revolutionary formulae to overthrowing Shevardnadze, writing of how Soros' Open Society Institute,

"Sent a 31-year-old Tbilisi activist named Giga Bokeria to Serbia to meet with members of the Otpor (Resistance) movement and learn how they used street demonstrations to topple dictator Slobodan Milosevic. Then, in the summer, Mr. Soros's foundation paid for a return trip to Georgia by Otpor activists, who ran three-day courses teaching more than 1,000 students how to stage a peaceful revolution."4

The youthful activists are a living e.g. of how the Left has always served the interests of the Money power, whether Bolsheviks, Social Democratic liberals, or strident nihilists of the SDS variety. This was long ridiculed as "right-wing conspiracy theory" but now operates for all discerning people to see, even mainstream journalists.

Commenting on the "Velvet Revolution"5 that had just passed over Georgia, MacKinnon described the operations that went into play, following the same patterns as they had in other Soros targeted states6:

"The Liberty Institute that Mr. Bokeria helped found was instrumental in organizing the street protests that eventually forced Mr. Shevardnadze to sign his resignation papers. Mr. Bokeria says it was in Belgrade that he learned the value of seizing and holding the moral high ground, and how to make use of public pressure - tactics that proved so persuasive on the streets of Tbilisi after this month's tainted parliamentary election.

READ MORE -- http://rense.com/general83/soros.htm

[crusader1492]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Russia Seizes Arsenal Of US Weapons In Georgia - Military


MOSCOW (AFP)--Russian forces have seized a "large arsenal" of U.S.-made weapons in the western Georgian city of Senaki including hundreds of assault rifles, a military spokesman said Friday.

"In Senaki, we seized a large arsenal of weapons including 664 U.S.-made M-16 rifles" and a number of M-40 sniper rifles, General Anatoly Nogovitsyn told a news conference in Moscow. "There were 1,728 weapons total."

It seems that the US is becoming more and more culpable in the war crimes directly committed by the Georgians. Coupled with these weapons, if the Russians parade captured American mercenaries to the world, perhaps the west will at least shut up.

It seems, as of now, that the Russians are losing the propaganda war.

BTW, speaking of propaganda, I was just watching the "700 club" on TV and the commentator, besides conveying that that the Georgians are angels and the Russians are evil, said that Georgians were the first nation to adopt Christianity...but, he forgot to mention that Georgia has attacked and killed thousands of its fellow Christian neighbors and purposely targeted Churches (hospitals, schools, vital infrastructures) in the combat zone.

...SOB neocon fake pious lying scum...what else can you expect from them?

[Federate]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Some footage of Russians in Poti and Senaki:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7562962.stm - Senaki and Poti including footage of destroyed Georgian navy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7562959.stm - Footage of actual detonation of Georgian navy ship in Poti

[RSNATION]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Some footage of Russians in Poti and Senaki:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7562962.stm - Senaki and Poti including footage of destroyed Georgian navy

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7562959.stm - Footage of actual detonation of Georgian navy ship in Poti

Georgia's navy will soon be the same size as Armenia's

[Armanen]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

falwell is burning in hell right now and robertson will soon join him there as well, not to mention all the other so called "moral majority" f*cks!