Russia-Georgia at war

Has anyone else been following this?
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An overview:

Over the past couple of weeks, Georgia has been in a conflict with one of it’s breakaway provinces called South Ossetia. On thursday, President Saakashvilli of Georgia declared A cease-fire, but a few hours later, launched an offensive, apparently in response to S. Ossetian artillery attacks on Georgian villages. The Georgians bombarded the capital of Tskhinvali with artillery overnight, before moving into the city. The next day, the Russians, in support of S. Ossetia (which has a large Russian population) began air attacks against targets in Georgia, and crossed the border with a column of tanks. They have since taken control of Tskhinvali, and have also opened a new front in The other contested region of Abkhazia. The fighting has now moved into Gori, a town outside of S. Ossetia. The Russians claim they will not stop until the current government in Georgia has fallen. The UN has had a couple of emergency sessions, but haven’t acted yet.

The Wikipedia page:
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So far the death toll is Russia: 21, Georgia: 300, Civilians: >2000.

I have been following it from the moment it started. First, the important facts:

  1. The Osetin are a completely different people from the Georgians. They entered the Russian Empire about two centuries ago completely separately from the Georgians. The only reason why part of their territory was included inside the contemporary borders of Georgia is through the lobbying of Georgian apparatchiks in the Communist Party of the Soviet Union throughout the 20th century.

When the USSR collapsed, the Osetin refused to accept Georgian jurisdiction and pushed to rejoin Russia (the other half of their territory, North Osetia, is already inside Russia). In the early 90s, they already fought one war against Georgia. At the time, Georgia was ruled by the extreme nationalist Zviad Gamsahurdia, who committed numerous atrocities against Osetia and Abhazia. The conflict was “frozen” only through Russian mediation in 1992. The Georgian government has had no control over South Osetia since.

  1. Fully 90% of South Osetian residents willingly applied for, and received, full legal Russian citizenship. Even so, Russia did not enter Friday’s conflict until about 12-16 hours had passed. During this time, Russia first went to the UN to get them to condemn Saakashvili’s assault, and began defending the Osetin only after this avenue failed, and it became clear that they were being driven out of the city.

  2. Saakashvili attempted a scorched-earth blitzkrieg. Tskhinval has about 30,000 residents. In only the first few hours, the Georgian army killed hundreds (up to 2,000) people and created between 5-15 thousand refugees. Furthermore, they did their best to raze the city to the ground. Their first targets were hospitals, water reservoirs and the energy infrastructure. There was no way to put out the fires because there was no water. The Georgians also razed the Osetin villages on the approach to Tskhinval. Osetin eyewitnesses also report that the Georgians executed unarmed civilians and opened fire on refugee columns. All of this occurred long before Russia even arrived.


Over the past few years, Saakashvili has received $5 billion in state-of-the-art military equipment and training from the United States. This is a good example of how neoconservative ideology embroils us in conflicts that are <i>absolutely none of our business to begin with</i>. Osetia is a classic case of a <i>disputed territory</i>, where every side has its own historic claim, and nobody else knows or understands anything about it. And that’s as it should be. There is no reason why any other country would “need” to have some kind of opinion on the matter.

The Bush administration doesn’t give a shit about Georgia and Osetia. They propped up Saakashvili only because they desperately want to build American military bases around the entire Russian border in their delusional dream of “military dominance on every continent.” Saakashvili told them he’d let them do it, so they showered him with US taxpayer money – he has none of his own, the $5 billion was a <i>gift</i>. Because, you know, we don’t have any domestic problems of our own, so we’ve got so much money to spare.

So what does Saakashvili do? Naturally, being an insignificant, provincial dictator, he uses his alliance with the US as a cover for slaughtering civilians. Then, when Russia punches him in the face for killing hundreds of Russian citizens, he immediately goes running to the US and starts screeching for the US to go to war with Russia just to protect his little ethnic cleansing campaign. There is <i>no good reason whatsoever</i> why any American should have to pay for Saakashvili’s petty military ambitions.

Neither Bush nor the EU has any moral authority in this matter whatsoever. Hearing them talk about Georgian sovereignty is pretty funny when you consider that <i>just this year</i>, they destroyed Serbian sovereignty and gave Serbia’s land away to a band of separatists – and the Kosovo separatists were far more violent and aggressive than the Osetin. At the time, everybody with half a brain warned that this would create a dangerous precedent – and so it did!

Any American voter should use this occasion to think. Is it really worth giving away $5 billion to some petty thug, whose name you can’t pronounce, in a country that you can’t locate on a map, so this petty thug might then indiscriminately murder a bunch of people whom you have never heard of, and then try to hide behind your back like a little girl the moment his plan backfires? Is that really something you want our country to be a part of? Are you so rich, so well off, that you can afford to do this?

SK, where do you usually get your news from?

I closely watched both the American and Russian wires as the events were transpiring. Before Russia entered the conflict, their stories were quite similar. Now, no one denies that Tskhinval was destroyed, but many reports began to vaguely describe it as “damage caused by the fighting” or something like that, whereas the damage was already known hours before Russia’s arrival. Saakashvili deliberately destroyed Tskhinval with the intent of driving the population of South Osetia out of Georgia and over the Russian border. But if Europeans admitted this, they’d also have to recant their support for Saakashvili – so, many European reports ignored Saakashvili’s assault when it happened, then obfuscated the fact that it ever occurred in later reports. Still, some European governments are quite ambivalent about supporting Saakashvili, as a German official stated today.

Interestingly, foreign soldiers have been found alongside dead Georgian bodies:

Several of the dead foreigners were racially black. Meaning they’re either from Africa(unlikely), or African-Americans… and if the latter, pretty much proof of American involvement in this.

It may surprise you to know that there are European-Africans as well as Africans and African Americans.

Not in Georgia. Whoever they are, they’re mercenaries of some kind, probably from the U.S. Its possible they could be from Western Europe, but its more likely they’re working for an American security firm, given the very, very close ties between the U.S. and Georgia.

So you’re not even considering the possibility that there might have been Georgian soldiers who happened to be black?

Right. There aren’t many blacks in Georgia, if any at all. Besides, they’ve been identified as foreigners, meaning they’re not wearing Georgian army uniforms.

I have a strange feeling this is going to be the opening for WWIII sooner or later.

Nah, the Kosovo incident has been going on without any huge results, I don’t think this will have much of an impact either (unfortunately).

No but this can give a reason for the US to attack Russia finally.

For what legitamate would the US want to attack Russia? The US could have used the excuse that US intellegence thought Osama bin Laden was hiding there years ago if we wanted to.

Because the media told us the Russians are evil. EVILZORS

Back on topic:
I just did some extra research and the President of Georgia has only been in power since January and has probably been looking for an excuse to do this since April, when Russia was helping out Abkhazia and didn’t take Saakashvili’s demands to recognize it’s current borders seriously.

Edit: Google ad up top was for a Russian dating service XD

Saakashvili has been in power ever since 2003, when he led a coup to overthrow the Georgian government. He was elected president in 2004 with a Soviet-like 96% of the vote. Later, in 2007, he was declared winner of a much closer election, after a murky affair in which he attempted to imprison his former ally, who accused him of corruption. The reconquest of Abhazia and Osetia has been part of his platform from the very beginning, he has been “looking for an excuse” and stockpiling arms since he took office.

I thought it’d be a mix-and-match but it never hurts asking.

My bad… I stopped going back historically after I saw a quick article about him being elected democratically in January 2008. The US Department of State’s site information clashes slightly with the info your providing, but I guess that’s got to be expected. I’m glad that you have information from multiple countries’ sources, now I’m not as confused from trying to sort actual truth from the department site.

Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here…this is the War Room! D:

Hey, what better thread to quote Dr. Strangelove? >.>

lol that was a great movie.