Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

[Armanen]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Good articles...here's some key points I got out of them.

- As evidenced by the SO war, there is no military solution to bring back "beakaway republics" into line.

- One hopes that Azerbaijan would realize this, but due to their belligerence and thirst for revenge, there is a strong possibility that they might attack Armenia and NKR anyway, creating much destruction, death and human misery.

- The Armenian government is not doing nearly enough on the civil, military and foreign affairs fronts to dissuade Azerbaijan from acting irrationally.

That's it in a nutshell. Other than the obvious task of keeping our military one or two steps ahead of azerbaijans which we seem to be doing, we should also really look into training thousands of able bodied men for the reserves, because we will need them. Also, establishing bomb shelters, because I wouldn't put it past the azeris to target Yerevan, especially Kentron.

[crusader1492]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

http://reporter.am/pages/2008-08-23/...ons-tatul.html

http://reporter.am/pages/2008-08-23/georgia-lessons-emil.html

http://reporter.am/pages/2008-08-23/editorial-war-preventable.html

http://reporter.am/pages/2008-08-23/batumi.html

Good articles...here's some key points I got out of them.

- As evidenced by the SO war, there is no military solution to bring back "beakaway republics" into line.

- One hopes that Azerbaijan would realize this, but due to their belligerence and thirst for revenge, there is a strong possibility that they might attack Armenia and NKR anyway, creating much destruction, death and human misery.

- The Armenian government is not doing nearly enough on the civil, military and foreign affairs fronts to dissuade Azerbaijan from acting irrationally.

[Armanen]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

http://reporter.am/pages/2008-08-23/georgia-lessons-tatul.html

http://reporter.am/pages/2008-08-23/georgia-lessons-emil.html

http://reporter.am/pages/2008-08-23/editorial-war-preventable.html

http://reporter.am/pages/2008-08-23/batumi.html

[Federate]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Pretty good map summarizing the entire war

[crusader1492]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

This won't sit well wil Sakasvilli:

US concedes Kremlin’s first military response in Georgia was “legitimate”
DEBKAfile Special Report

August 22, 2008, 6:24 PM (GMT+02:00)


US Ambassador John Beyrle in Moscow
The US ambassador to Moscow, endorsing Russia's initial moves in Georgia, described the Kremlin's first military response as legitimate after Russian troops came under attack.

This was the first positive statement by an American official about Moscow’s first response to the Georgian invasion of South Ossetia, after a string of condemnations from the heads of the Bush administration. It came from US ambassador John Beyrle, who arrived in Moscow last month, in an interview published by the Russian daily Kommersant Friday, Aug. 22.

DEBKA-Net-Weekly disclosed Friday in its lead article that Washington and Moscow are working quietly and intensively to set up a summit between President George W. Bush and Russian prime minister Vladimir Put to bring crisis-ridden US-Russian relations back on an even keel. (Both Powers Push for a Bush-Putin Summit.)

Ambassador Beyrle’s words were the first public departure by a US official from the critical remarks of Moscow’s conduct heard uniformly from Bush, Condoleezza Rice and Robert Gates.

The ambassador said Washington had not sanctioned Georgia’s initial actions when on Aug. 8, after a succession of tense skirmishes, Georgian forces attacked South Ossetia, triggering a massive Russian reaction when its peacekeepers came under fire.

“We did not want to see a recourse to violence and force and we made that very, very clear,” said Beyrle. “The fact that we were trying to convince the Georgian side not to take this step is clear evidence that we did not want all this to happen,” he said.

DEBKAfile: This was the first US admission that Georgia was the aggressor in South Ossetia and showed cracks in their hitherto solid support for president Mikhail Saakashvili.

Beyrle said Washington still supports Russia's bid to join the World Trade Organization – an official departure from implied American threats to punish Moscow by international isolation.

The US ambassador’s interview was run in the same Russian paper which quoted Syrian president Bashar Assad on Wednesday, as announcing he was willing to accept Russian missile bases in his country. Beyrle’s words look like a bid to halt the deterioration in Russo-American relations before they veer out of control in a second global arena.

In another telling remark, the US ambassador said: “We have seen the destruction of civilian infrastructure, as well as calls by some Russian politicians to change the democratically-elected government of Georgia. That is why we believe that Russia has gone too far.”

The subtext here, say DEBKAfile’s sources, is that if Moscow continues to pull troops out of Georgia and does not threaten the country’s integrity and regime, Russian and US leaders can do business.

DEBKAfile reported Wednesday, Aug. 20: Back-door US-Russian contacts to de-escalate war of words - after Moscow threatens to nuke Poland

Both powers have begun acting to cool the rhetoric and review relations, after spokesmen in Washington - and especially Moscow - raised the threat level of their oratory to its highest pitch since the Cold War’s end.

[crusader1492]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

The US is starting to come to its senses?

Back-door US-Russian contacts to de-escalate war of words - after Moscow threatens to nuke Poland
DEBKAfile Special Report and Analysis

August 20, 2008, 11:21 AM (GMT+02:00)


Russia's Dep. Chief of Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn raises the tone of threats
DEBKAfile reports that both powers have begun acting to cool the rhetoric and review relations, after spokesmen in Washington - and especially Moscow - raised the threat level of their oratory to its highest pitch since the Cold War’s end.

The coming DEBKA-Net-Weekly, out Friday, will elaborate on this effort.

To subscribe to DEBKA-Net-Weekly click HERE .

Friday night, Aug. 15, Russia’s deputy chief of staff Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned Poland it was “exposing itself to a strike 100 percent.”

He said any new US assets in Europe could come under Russian nuclear attack. At the Black Sea resort of Sochi, Russian president Dimitry Medvedev dismissed the claim that the US missile interceptors in Poland were a deterrent against rogue states like Iran as “a fairy tale,” insisting they were aimed against Russia. President George W. Bush said "The Cold War is over… Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century."

He said Russia’s invasion of Georgia had damaged its credibility and the US stands with the people of Georgia and called for the withdrawal of “invading forces from all Georgian territory.”

DEBKAfile’s political sources report that, as in most cases when international tensions and violence reach dangerous levels, the big powers have instituted secret diplomacy to cool the situation before it gets out of hand in order to formulate new modes of conduct and relations.

This process began with Rice’s visit to France and Tbilsi.

In five hours of arm-twisting, she persuaded Saakashvili to accept clarifications to the ceasefire accord which contradict Washington’s spirited assurances for Georgia’s “territorial integrity.”

Russian troops allowed to remain in Georgia would be “very limited to a light patrolling ability, such as a few kilometers outside of South Ossetia.”

Furthermore, “Russian peacekeepers” would be allowed to “implement additional security measures” until international security can be put in place.

This clause authorizes on behalf of the US and Europe the narrow security strips, which DEBKAfile’s military sources revealed two days ago the Russians are establishing 300-500 meters deep outside the South Ossetian and Abkhazian borders with Georgia.

This American concession was designed as initial impetus for quiet diplomacy with Russia on a settlement in Georgia.

The other concession, which will unfold in time, is the removal of the Georgian president, another of Moscow’s conditions for ending the crisis. While Bush declared the Cold War is over, Saakashvili heaped verbal coals on the standoff with Russia to keep it ablaze.

[crusader1492]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Another rail blast...

Explosion severs Azerbaijan-Georgia-Europe fuel railway link
DEBKAfile Special Report

August 24, 2008, 2:14 PM (GMT+02:00)


Fuel train on fire near Gori
The train hit a mine Sunday, Aug. 24 at the village of Skra, 5 km west of Gori, on the main track of the railway line linking Eastern and Western Georgia – a vital trade route for oil exports from Azerbaijan to European markets.

Responsibility for the sabotage has not been determined. The blast deals a serious blow to Georgia’s efforts to recover from its ten-day war over South Ossetia in the face of the continuing Russian military presence.

Georgian officials suggested Russian forces which pulled out of the area two days ago left a road mine on the railroad.

Azerbaijan restored its oil consignments via Georgia only two days ago; their interruption during the fighting robbed the Saakasvhili government of valuable revenue, which the attack has suspended again.

In another development Sunday, the guided missile destroyer USS McFaul docked at the Georgian port of Batumi carrying supplies such as blankets, hygiene kits and baby food. Two more US ships are due to dock later this week.

The American vessels were supposed originally to put in at the Black Sea port of Poti, 80 km to the north, but changed direction to avoid meeting Russian troops who are fortifying their positions at Poti further up the coast.

Russia says it entitled to keep its forces in a buffer zone around the breakaway territories of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, citing the truce and other international agreements as covering unspecified “additional security measures,” over and above their pre-conflict positions. French President Nicolas Sarkozy, Moscow claims, approved the buffer zones which they organized before the ceasefire was signed (as revealed by DEBKAfile on Aug. 17)

Russia acknowledges that Poti is outside the ceasefire’s terms and its peacekeeping mandate.

Saturday, the Russian missile cruiser Moskva returned to its base in Ukraine. DEBKAfile reported on Aug. 20 from official Russian sources that the warship was part of a large flotilla heading for the Mediterranean port of Tartus in Syria.

The defense ministry in Moscow later detached the Moskva from the contingent and sent it back to the Black Sea.

[Federate]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Here's what the official buffer zone looks like on a map:

[North Pole]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Georgian people can be proud of their man!....

Saakashvili asked the U.S. to send him a plane in the heat of the conflict
It turns out Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili planned to leave the country

Vladimir Vorsobin — 21.08.2008

The information barrier in Georgia has complicated the local population's ability to understand how the events truly unfolded in South Ossetia. For over two weeks, the Georgian intelligence has maintained control over foreign news sources.
All Russian sites and "enemy TV" have been blocked. However, the government's official propaganda was dealt a serious blow yesterday when the country's only Russian-language newspaper Vecherniy Tbilisi published an interview with renowned political scientist Ramaz Klimiashvili.

Klimiashvili said that "based on information from the presidential chancellery and U.S. governmental structures, Mikhail Saakashvili requested that a plane be sent in for him when the threat neared of Russian forces taking Tbilisi."

READ MORE -- http://www.kp.ru/daily/24150.4/366384



Saakashvili loses presence of mind

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWlQ_fzECl4

YouTube - Saakashvili eats his tie

Russia opens ‘genocide’ criminal case on South Ossetia events

TSKHINVAL, August 14 (Itar-Tass) - The Russian Prosecutor’s Investigative Committee has opened a criminal case over the fact of murder of Russian citizens in South Ossetia under the Criminal Code article “genocide,” Igor Komissarov, an aide to the committee’s chairman, told Itar-Tass.

http://itar-tass.com/eng/level2.html?NewsID=12962157&PageNum=0

YouTube - RT interview with Paul Craig Roberts

[crusader1492]

Re: Georgian-South Ossetian conflict

Yeah, they're in the same boat as saudi arabia. Without their oil they would be treated worse than Belarus

Well, as of right now, they "defacto" don't have oil since the BTC pipeline is not operating. I hope this stays the case.