Posted on 08/08/2008 6:41:18 AM PDT by Grzegorz 246
TBILISI, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Russian jets bombed the Vaziani military airbase outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Friday, a senior Georgian security official told Reuters.
"No one was wounded but some buildings have been destroyed," said Kakha Lamaia. The airbase is some 25 kilometres (15 miles) from Tbilisi.
"They have declared war against us," said Lamaia.
This will probably be the “SECRET WAR”. Russia will claim they are liberating Georgia, just like we liberated Iraq. The media won’t want to talk about it.
The Russians have a legitimate sphere of influence in the region. They have legitimate security concerns...Chechneya is right next door. So is Azerbaijan. Iran and Syria directly south of these.
The US should just stay out of this.
You are spot on.
Ezk 38-39. Read it folks!! Gog/Magog is on the rise.
I’m not saying they are wimps, I’m just saying they suck.
Yet, there are some significant differences in the scenarios.,
1st, our campaign was exclusively and air campaign and the Serbians could do very little about it. The Georgians are much more at par with Russia and it doubtful that an air campaign will be able to accomplish with Gerogia what we accomplished with Serbia...even if it was wrong.
2nd, the Russians are inviading on the ground with tanks. That opens the door to a lot of other scenarios...Russia occupying Georgian soil and not just the break-away province and Russia having to do so to win. In such a scenario, there is a much greater chance that othere Eurpopean countries and the US will come to Georgia's aid in one way or another...logistically, materially, and even with combat support.
3rd, Russia and it potential aim under Putin of rebuilding som,e vistage of the USSR (under a new name) is a histroical issue that all the former Soviet Republics will see as a horrible precedent and that they will want to help avoid...so there is the potential for even more help for Georgia.
None of which existed for Serbia. Even Rusia itself, who had strong histroical ties, did not step in militarily for Serbia...though it may have been a near thing.
A potentially dangerous, very dangerous situation and Bush is going to have to talk hard to Putin and get away from that "I saw into his soul", BS, because I believe it will take some very, very hard negotiating and probably demonstrations for Putin to back down. I do not see Putin backing down from this, now that forces have been committed and Russian blood spilt, very easily at all.
“The US should just stay out of this.”
Until when? Hasn’t history taught us that we really need to keep on top of Russian expansionism?
What if they decide they want “protect Russian citizens” in Estonia, a NATO member, next?
Russia has a strategic interest in controlling its borders... 10% of Georgia is Muslim. France is only 5%-10% and they have no control what so ever.
I’m sure there are tacit go-heads from western nations to take control so to avoid another Serbia type mistake.
I think you can count on that from the media. Despite the fact that this is a *very* precarious situation given the entanglements between the US, Russia and Georgia, there’s been surprisingly little coverage on any of the news networks so far.
I think they’d rather it just go away, so they can get back to their reports on the ‘warmongering’ United States and the ‘eeeeevvvvvviiiiilllll’ Republican administration.
We probably told Russia to get with it....
Russia is not just bombing Georgia, they are invading Georgia. Huge difference between this and Serbia...and we were not morally justified in what Clinton did in Serbia. so there is no moral justification.
In addition, Georgia has been a very strong and steadfast supporter of us in the War against the Islamic Jihad. They have a large contingent in Iraq (2400 troops) and have been our ally. We cannot afford to allow them to just be trodden under by the Russians...and neither can Europe.
If we do, then we will embolden Russia (under that former KGB nut, Putin) to look for even more of the former Soviet glory and wherew will he look next?
No, IMHO, we have to support Georgia and make it clear that there will be a huge cost to Russia if they continue offensive operations against Georgia.
There are all kinds of material and logistic support we can give Gerogia to make it very difficult and very costly for Russia, and IMHO we should do so.
Sat info, AEW help, intelligence, defensive weapons systems, etc., etc.
I think there might be another Checheya coming into to play here
Why didn’t Russia just impose sanctions on them? That would have surely solved the problem? How many U.N. resolutions did they go through? What kind of global coalition did they gather up?
As I understand it, the Russian air attacks suffered some pretty good losses.
That's another area where the Serbian comparison will not hold. Georgia is much more capable of defending itself against Russian air attacks than Serbia was against us.
McCain's comments on this were pretty strong too.
I just have to wonder (as should we all), who a guy like Putin would put more credence in, would have more serious respect for, and would take more seriously as regards this type of situation, McCain or Obama?
The answer is patently obvious.
Nuts.
This is going to get very ugly. God help us.
I just hope our guys are out of the way.
We don’t have enough in place to do much more than start WWIII.
What this means is that this recent attack by Russia would have been considered an attack on ALL NATO states and would effectively put the US/UK/Germany/France/Italy at war (finally) with Russia.
No, this is Russia acting like Russia, not the Soviet Union.
Sound kind of familiar?
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