Posted on 08/10/2008 12:20:34 AM PDT by Bokababe
...."Strategically, the Russians have been sending signals that they really wanted to flex their muscles, and they're upset about Kosovo," the diplomat said. He was alluding to Russia's anger at the West for recognizing Kosovo's independence from Serbia earlier this year.
Indeed, the decision by the United States and Europe to recognize Kosovo may well have paved the way for Russia's lightning-fast decision to send troops to back the separatists in South Ossetia. During one meeting on Kosovo in Brussels this year, Lavrov, the foreign minister, warned Rice and European diplomats that if they recognized Kosovo, they would be setting a precedent for South Ossetia and other breakaway provinces. As easily as the West could encourage a former Russian satellite toward independence and away from Russia's sphere of influence, the Russians warned, so too, could Moscow encourage pro-Russian breakaway regions like South Ossetia to follow suit.
For the Bush administration, the choice now becomes whether backing Georgia — which, more than any other former Soviet republic has allied with the United States — on the South Ossetia issue is worth alienating Russia at a time when getting Russia's help to rein in Iran's nuclear ambitions is at the top of the United States' foreign policy agenda.
One United Nations diplomat joked on Saturday that "if someone went to the Russians and said, 'OK, Kosovo for Iran,' we'd have a deal."....
(Excerpt) Read more at iht.com ...
Ping
How many votes did Russia get at the UN? None? And what organizations, anywhere, support it? None? Not one?
Oh well, the entire world, even Fiji, Upper Volta are wrong.
Good thing Russia has the love and affection of all it's neighbors. Those that know, understand and love her best.
You mean the sleeping bear just woke up. We should have demanded Russia disarm after they lost the cold war and dissolved the USSR. Instead we invested in that corrupt, mafia shit-hole.
yes, because Russia has been so helpful in reigning in Iran’s nuke program.
We were wrong in Kosovo...and Russia was right.
And now..
Russia is wrong in Georgia and we are right.
Nobody will come to Georgia’s aid...certainly not US...we are afraid of a direct clash with Russian troops...and rightly so.
Not because their troops and equipment would stand a chance against us..they would be utterly destroyed in short order. But they still have that enormous nuclear arsenal :-(
Imagine what a group of Warthogs and F-22’s would do to the Russians in Georgia in just a few hours.
If McCain were president I actually believe he would make moves to directly confront Russian troops....not a good thing. We are so screwed this election.
As distateful as it is to stand back, its all we can do.
Just as Ike had no choice in 1956 (in case anyone remembers). And that occurred with a quarter million man
US garrison in Germany and no wars ongoing elsewhere in the
world (and of course, no Russian nuclear tipped missiles
as exist today). If we involve ourselves, we will have no
staying power. Turkey won’t allow its territory to be
used for a Georgian rescue operation, its unlikely that
any of the other eastern european countries want to involve
themselves either. Russian oil/gas fuels their economies.
That part of the world is not one we can fix. We should
concentrate on those parts we can fix.
I agree, if McCain were in charge, there'd be no small element of "payback" in his policy towards Russia. He'd make them bleed if he could justify it. "Justify" being the key word.
I'll take that over a President Obama asking Putin what size chair he wants in the Oval Office...
“Russia’s help” with Iran! What are they talking about? Russia has been doing its evil best to sabotage all our efforts to keep Iran from getting nuclear weapons.
The Russians are in no way our friends, particularly the conniving, cold-hearted, sneaky KGB-man Putin.
The evolution of this problem shows that elections do matter as the 1992 Election of BJ Clinton resulted in squandering the opportunity we had in helping moving Russia into an alliance with US and then the yellow-belly Clinton manages to attack Serbia after getting rolled by the Germans and the EU crappers! Then idiot GWB manages to continues the same mistake....WTH is wrong here?
Thank you. That is the most correct and concise analysis of this situation anyone could ask for.
Perhaps our incompetent Secretary Of State would even understand it.
Our position in Kosovo has been so very wrong from the first and now it has borne more bitter fruit.
Innocent people in both Kosovo and Georgia have suffered because of incompetent US foreign policy motivated more by political correctness than principle.
We have ample proof, starting with Madeline Albright, that The Secretary of State is too important to be just another Affirmative Action appointee.
But I am afraid that future presidents will see this as a new tradition and continue to make the same poor appointments that Clinton and Bush have made.
This is the official line of Pravda West The NY Times. IHT is owned by the Times, wherein still roams the ghost of Walter Duranty, it seems.
Okay. More liberalism here.
WE are responsible for the actions of others.
RUSSIA did this, but it is OUR fault. More of the same mindset of “We FORCED Japan to attack us at Pearl Harbor by placing embargoes on exports to them because THEY invaded Manchuria.”
I kind of like this liberal mindset. Basically, you can do ANYTHING as long as you can find some kind of justification that explains it.
Simply disgusting.
More stupidity here. Russia has made it abundantly clear they want a nuclear Iran, and they don't give a flying eff what anyone thinks. Why those dumb asses can justify this beyond a few pieces of Judased Silver is beyond me. They like to talk about the capitalist money grubbers, at least we tried to view self interests beyond some soiled currency most of the time.
They are going to regret it in the end.
Russia's HELP??? With friends like Russia, who needs enemies?
The real danger to all of us is our dependence on OPEC oil - and the Saudi and Gulf Muslim funding of worldwide jihad and its gobbling up of our finacial institutions.
Iran is all talk...and little action-— we have been deceived.
Royally by by both parties and by our own state dept cabal.
You need a reality check - stop spouting off generalizations that mean nothing!
The south Ossetians broke off from Georgia in 1989...and since then the new Soros financed Georgian govt destabilized the region.
The Paranoid Islamic Turks would like nothing better than for the US to get more involved.
After all with the Georgian-Turkish pipeline burning as we speak they have a direct stake in all this.
The US as usual since the breakup of the SU is making disastrous alliances and maintaining disastrous past alliances.
Agreed, we backed the wrong dog in the Kosovo mess.
US hade choice between Russia nad Millitant Islam.
US choosed Islam in 1999 for its ally and you got 9/11...
Time to pick other ally.
Sskashvilli is no more than street-thug that sent his country into disaster.
Also, he is a lawyer.
I have sympathy for dying Christians here, not dictator in Tbilisi.
Funny thibng. Americans were upset by preyious dictator from Georgia. Stallin, but the like this one...
Just because America isn't to blame for everything, doesn't mean that we aren't to blame for what we have done. That's not called "Liberalism", that's called "Responsibility", and it's something that grown-ups should have -- an understanding that our actions have consequences.
When the Cold War ended and we won, instead of positively assisting Russia in becoming a responsible power, we got our jollies humiliating her and cornering her -- and we have been doing that for the last 16 years. We have been continually poking the Bear in the eye, laughing, and then bitching about the consequences.
This fight is between Georgia and Russia, and it's none of our business. Backing Georgia in this would be absolutely foolish -- all ego and no brains, to prove a point that no one gives a damn about.
And yes, McCain, if president, would "probably be sending troops right now" which is why he isn't getting my vote and Chuck Baldwin is! We need a grown-up in office.
Those poor people can not find peace for once - Ossetia was devided by another Georgian - Stalin and it`s south part he attached to Georgia and northern is with Russia (several years ago we all saw what terrorists did to school children there in Beslan).
Of course, he have chosen the best moment for that - the beginning of Olympiad (wich is the second fly killed by one media strike - blame exclusively on Russia and cry - they play games in China while people are dying)...notice how the all the media were reserved of this question at first - the commentators even asked him "Why did you start the war??"...and now, well, another melody: Russia attacked Georgia or Russia used disproportional force...
khmmm really really, have I dreamed or some 9 years ago was used massive disproportional force of 19 countries (!!!) against one tiny 8-milion citizen state of Serbia becuse of hoaxed Racak massacre?...
will now be sent OEBS mission with W.C. the expert for staged massacres? will now sanctions be put upon Russia? or even bomb? I don`t thinks so...
and Serbia din`t bomb the province capital let alone murdered 1500 civilians in 2 days
There are about 90% of russian citizens that live in South Ossetia and Russia claim the right to protect her people...well, among strategic territory and pipe-lines in her backyard of course...
I read many times the connection with Kosovo, but in some way there is not real one, just well, technical - the province that do not want to be attached with the rest of the state...
the thing is that Kosovo was always serbian territory and for 1500 inhabitated with Serbs, serbian statehood was created there and the main part of serbian cultural and historical identity, by the time and foreign invaders and communists population changed, the kind of population that is religiously and culturaly different, agressively invaded the territory that they should have not...
Ossetia is not in any case and that kind of sence connected with Georgia - different nation that lives on it`s own territory and most of the citizens are russian...
it resembles more to the "Storm" project - ethnic cleansing of Krajina where from more then 260 000 people were expelled from Croatia with help of nato bombers...
One thing is certain - innocent die while "Big" ones are playing another chess-game and muslims are happy again since it is that Christians are killing each other...
Give me a break.
Russia has its own business to tend to, specifically the deaths and misery inflicted on millions and millions of people that their hateful ideology has been responsible for, the reverberations of which are still being felt, and because of the communist scumbag like Putin, we will probably feel more of.
We had no responsibility for anything except standing against them in the world court and providing support for bringing that twisted and sadistic ideology to its knees and helping the reins of power get handed back to the people They were, as Ronald Reagan called it, an “Evil Empire” keeping millions of people enslaved and trying to find more ways to do it to more people.
What Russians did or didn’t do to or for their country is THEIR OWN ISSUE.
I would say the Russians got off scot free for what they did to humanity, as did China. The Nazis, who were complete amateurs in comparison when it comes to quantity of body counts, look like pikers compared to Russia and China. The Russians and the Chinese somehow escape the maledictions that are routinely attached to the Nazis. Interesting how that happened.
Nothing personal here, but please spare me about the poor neglected Russians who didn’t get to suck at the American financial teat. They occupy one of the richest countries in resources on earth. We gave them the concept of capitalism, what they bastardized it into is their business, not ours.
As for the Georgian situation, we are not going to get involved with it. Any freedom loving person would be backing Georgia, but that doesn’t mean we are going to war over it, and only an idiot thinks we will.
As for Chuck Baldwin, it is your vote. Do with it as you wish.
This is payback not only for “Kosovo independence”, but for the “color revolutions”—rose for Georgia, orange for Ukraine, etc.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Color_revolution
These “revolutions” have a lot more to do with the globalism of Soros and some of the theoreticians in our State Depertment, NGOs, etc. than with freedom. We NEVER should have done them. Now they’re biting us Americans back, since BOTH major party candidates in our Presidential election are globalists with Soros connections.
The Sebian “yellow” (quisling) youth organization Otpor participated in some of these “revolutions” in other countries, with Soros backing. I prefer the Christian and patriotic Serbian youth organization Serbian Gates, which gave talks in Serbian Orthodox churches here in the US about a year ago!!!!
Ah. Generalizations that mean nothing?
You obviously cannot read english. My issue is that some people (sounds like you as well) want to lay this at the feet of the USA.
What happens over there is THEIR responsibility, not ours.
Typical liberal whining. Now we see it on FR from people like you.
Correct...one of the Otpor members discusses on his blog about this G-RF situation...he said that Soros found is in Georgia since 1994, that 2 Otpor members were in Georgia and that some Georgians spent several days in Belgrade...somehow Otpor regrets now...don`t forget that nobody was killed on 5th Octobar in Belgrade and that Otpor was just one part of those who participated in the demonstrations against Sloboleon (Serbs will never forgive him for abandoning Serbs in Krajina and Bosnia) - I took part as a student, but not as a memeber of any organization or party...
I just wonder how many wars will produce this Soros financed export-import of demoNOcracy...
Tskhinvali is not Sarejevo in 1914. South Ossetia will not be the start-line of the Third World War. But it is a ghastly mess, all the more depressing because the West is partly to blame. In diplomacy, strategy and geopolitics, our political leaders have been guilty of multiple failures over many years. First, diplomacy. President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia is a headstrong fellow. Reference has been made to his Harvard education as if that should ensure sound judgement. Alas, however, the President's tutor was not the greatest of Harvard diplomatists, Henry Kissinger – but Anthony Eden at Suez. Mr Saakashvili has only one defence against the charge of criminal irresponsibility: a plea of insanity ... There is a further diplomatic problem. Georgia would like to join Nato, for obvious if naive reasons. Most Georgians have persuaded themselves that if they were Nato members, we would defend our freedoms shoulder to shoulder with theirs, on the Georgian-Russian frontier. That is nonsense. The moment Nato extended guarantees to Georgia or the Ukraine would be the moment Nato either ceased to exist as a credible defensive alliance or – more likely – turned into an organised hypocrisy. It would become a two-tier structure, in which new members were invited to contribute troops but not offered protection when they most needed it. ... By 1990, there was a powerful case for scrapping the West's Cold War concepts while keeping our weapons systems, just in case. Despite their reputation for intransigence, Ronald Reagan and Margaret Thatcher would have been ready to exploit new opportunities. They would have understood the need to move beyond Nato, now that it had served its original purposes. By the early 1990s, there was a need for a new system of collective security in Europe, embracing the Russians. Once Moscow had renounced the ill-gotten gains of 1944-45, we should have welcomed the Russians back to a Europe which had been spiritually impoverished by their absence. ... Instead, we have a sullen and truculent Russia demanding respect with menaces. It is possible to make some excuses for all this. The Russian version of history moves from the sacrifices of the Great Patriotic War to the voluntary renunciation of Empire, neither of them receiving adequate gratitude from the West. More recently, on a smaller scale, there is the independence of Kosovo. If Kosovo, why not South Ossetia or Abkhazia? Most Russians do not accept that they have done anything wrong. The Putin-Medvedev administration has a higher popularity score than George Bush and Gordon Brown put together. ...
It’s a mess and has been for a while and people like you are clueless.
But hey-—just keep dreaming.
Sure, has been a mess for a while. I suspect it is people like you who made it that way.
What a dufus you are. No arguments (there are none) no evidence (none either) - just hostile statements grabbed from thin air.
I believe you were the first one out of the gate with ad hominem attacks.
Very intelligent: “dufus”. My feelings are so hurt.
Get those terms straight: Russia is not the Soviet Union. There are probably more reds in the US than in Russia today.
The Bolsheviks (Soviets) were a conglomeration of ethnicities: Poles, Azeris, Jews (non religious), Ukrainians, Georgians, Russians, Uzbeks, ad nauseum and plenty Americans and Euros who went over there to help massacre too.
The Bolsheviks in the first few years under Lenin butchered 20,000 Russian Orthodox priests not to mention hundreds of thousands of Russian Peasants who would not conform to the Red party!
The Soviet Union used to be—it's gone.
Try a basic history book—read Solzhenitsyn. Do something to shed light in your peanut.
Yes. Of course. Russia is NOT the Soviet Union. Yeah, it must have been that OTHER country over there that slowly gobbled up its neighbors...who could that have been? Oh yeah, it was a COLLECTIVE movement. All those little countries just decided to band together and become the Soviet Union. Russia was just a minor player there.
So the Russians had a minor part in the Soviet Union, and they made all those people do all those nasty things for all those years, but now they are all gone.
Funny how that works. We could never find any Nazis in Germany after the fall of the Third Reich. We could never find any Baathists in Iraq, and we could never find anyone admitting to be a member of the Communist Party. Gee, curious coincidence, eh?
Having read Solzhenitsyn, probably long before your sorry butt, I suggest you read it again. Not that I think it will sink in.
How about this for your peanut dumb ass? What do you think Putin is? Oh, he’s a REFORMER, right? All that Mother Russia and KGB stuff is in the past. He’s a good guy, now.
Grow up.
From you ramblings it is obvious you have not read any Russian dissident literature written during and after the soviet era.
The Marxists Leninists a multi ethnic bunch - and all were atheists.
You need to think more and shout less amd really try to think what this mean -—Solzhenitsyns’s words
“For us in Russia communism is a dead dog. For many people in the West, it is still a living lion.”
Oh really? What does religion and ethnicity have at ALL with the original point I made? Nothing. And how does that quote from Solzhenitsyn apply to Russia's role in both the revolution and the 74 years of Soviet existence?
Just let bygones be bygones? What are those TU-95's flying all over the place during the last year or so? Isn't that what those OTHER guys, the SOVIETS were doing all those years? Oh, this is just Pooty Poot trying to make the world consider Russia as a world player, driven by the same inferiority complex he and others like him had during the Cold War when those who knew better could see that the Soviet Union was a third world economy, and the only reason anyone cared about what it did was because of its military and political shenanigans around the world.
I am sure there is nobody in that mess called Russia that is pining for the good old days.
My country spent a lot of blood and treasure fighting the Soviet Union during nearly fifty of those year, consumed both directly and in a bunch of proxy wars. There are people like Putin still pulling the strings.
You can tell people not to worry about the man behind the curtain, but you are going to have to accept that as long as there are bloodless people like Putin in power over there, the rest of the world is going to consider the Russians only a step away from the dangerous totalitarians they had been all those years.
bkmark
Unfortunately, you are punishing the victims, not the perpetrators. The vast majority of Russians suffered from communism, and those who perpetrated it on that population are mostly dead. If you were to find them, single them out and hang them from the highest tree, then we (you and I, both) and the average Russian would be cheering their deaths -- and the Russians most of all, since they were their greatest victims -- not us!
"They were, as Ronald Reagan called it, an “Evil Empire” keeping millions of people enslaved and trying to find more ways to do it to more people."
"Were" is the operative word here. I loved Reagan too, but this isn't 1980 anymore. It was perfectly appropriate for Reagan to be a bastard to Russia when they were "the Evil Empire", but they lost, we won, move on! We have more to fear from socialism encroaching on America from within now, than we do from Russia shoving it down our throats. We are doing this to ourselves now.
"Nothing personal here, but please spare me about the poor neglected Russians who didn’t get to suck at the American financial teat"
Agreed, nothing personal, but who said anything about "sucking at the American financial teat"? I don't think that we owe financial support to anyone (including Saudi Arabia who has never failed to take what they think is "their share" while they bleed us dry at the gas tank!) I was simply suggesting that we live up to our word, in that we stand for something more than just "raw power". That there are ideals that we aspire to, and would help others on their way to that goal, too.
"As for the Georgian situation, we are not going to get involved with it."
The more I have read, the more I understand that Georgia doesn't "burp" without US permission. If Georgia attacked S. Ossetia, they had our permission if not encouragement to do so. Georgia brought home 2,000 troops from Iraq to do this and we helped bring them back.
We ARE involved, God Help us! Let's just hope that this does not involve more American soldiers dying, nor anyone else!
Thank you for your reasonable response. My issue is mainly with the author of the article (and others) blaming the US for anything going on over there.
I don’t blame anyone else for our intervention in the Middle East. As an American, I accept full responsibility as a citizen for the actions of my country. And I think we are not only justified but are doing the right thing.
I expect other people to do the same. I do not hate or dislike Russians, Georgians, South Ossetians or Moldavians. The ones I know individually, i have very high regard for indeed.
But I detest and dislike the corruption and totalitarianism that seems prevalent in that part of the world, and Putin, well, he is KGB to the core and everything that goes along with it.
What he is having his military do now is a little different from simply rattling his saber or puffing out his chest which is what the TU-95 flights were, mostly.
In this, he has invaded a sovereign country. And while I may not understand some of the subtleties of what is going on, it is absolute rubbish to say or even imply the US is responsible. If you read my original post, THAT is what I have an issue with.
That is what I have an issue with.
You are brainwashed and are living in the past.
America once stood for ideals but I’m afraid that the kleptocracy and one worlders have been leading us down the wrong path. The rest are sucked into the system and cannot get us out.
The truth is that Russia is our friend and we refuse to accept that friendship. We would rather make deals with those who send their men and women flying into our buildings...and wearing bomb belts.
Sad
Jesus Christ. What kind of reality do YOU live in? Russia is our FRIEND? Are you deluded?
If Russia was a friend of the West, it would be trying to help keep Iran from developing nuclear weapons. Instead they are helping them and hindering us.
You are either the type who will scream loudest when they get the bomb, or you think it is their sovereign right to have one.
Either way you are wrong. You are the one who needs to open your eyes.
What he is having his military do now is a little different from simply rattling his saber or puffing out his chest which is what the TU-95 flights were, mostly.
In this, he has invaded a sovereign country. And while I may not understand some of the subtleties of what is going on, it is absolute rubbish to say or even imply the US is responsible. If you read my original post, THAT is what I have an issue with."
I don't disagree that this is a whole lot different than Russian sabre-rattling. But what I am trying to point out is that we are forgetting that it was Georgia who attacked S. Ossetia, and attacked civilians and some peace-keepers, in an area that has been relatively peaceful for a very long time. Why? Georgia knew that Russia would come to the aid of the S. Ossetians, guns blazing --and probably attack Georgia as punishment. Why would the Georgians invite such a thing now? And given that they are such a close US ally, do we really think that they made the decision to provoke the Bear, alone? We can't say that it is to "spread freedom" since even Abkhazia seems to support the Russians on this.
I don't presume to have the answers here, only a whole lot of questions, but something about this whole thing doesn't smell quite right -- and not just from the Russian side. It is far too easy to be automatically manipulated into "the big, bad Russians" conclusion -- which may be correct -- or may not be correct, in this case.
The problem is that, no matter how effective our weapons and troops would be, and even without nukes, there would be heavy casualties on our side: Russian equipment is good and they know how to use it. These people are not Saddam’s Iraqi army.
And we are, for some reason, we are extremely sensitive to casualties and the Sov, er, Russians are not. They can take a hit and keep on fighting. We take a hit, and our troops will keep on fighting but our political leadership will collapse.
"South Ossetians nearly unanimously approved a referendum on November 12, 2006 opting for independence from Georgia. The referendum was hugely popular, winning between 98 and 99 percent of the ballots, flag waving and celebration marked were seen across South Ossetia, but elsewhere observers were less enthusiastic. International critics claimed that the move could worsen regional tensions, and the Tblisi government thoroughly discounted the results."
So if Georgia had a right to split from Russia (which I agree that it did), then why doesn't S. Ossetia have the same right? It has apparently been an autonomous province for a long time, and the Ossetians even have their own language.
When you start scratching the surface of this conflict, it does get a bit more complex than just "freedom-loving Georgians" and "bullying Russians".
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