Posted on 08/08/2008 10:43:34 AM PDT by Jeff Head
You might have missed my underlying message but some here didn’t. I do understand about our training of the Georgians.
"Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me..."
Hahah. True about the hours. Do the communists still pretent to pay people and people still pretend to work? At least now you can check out britanny and see if she was a drug whore again this month. It’s not all that surprising to me there are quite a few here. They’re practicing. I am going to spend more time on there boards. I love mind games and the Democrats are too easy to see through these days.
The Russians will destory Georgian towns in S. Ossetia.
You may be neutral on this, but I'm not.
We all want to be Russians Elenil. There is a little Russian in all of us just trying to get out.
TY. Here’s a wikipedia link for anyone concerned:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgia_(country)
FRegards ....
Nah, I love the motherland - there is a lot of natural beauty and architecture there just like the United States.
I just can’t stand it’s leadership this century, or for the last 1,000 years for that matter. Russia had the best opportunity this last decade to actually power share the globe with the USA and create a lasting peace for all mankind but they just. dont. learn. ever. What a waste of grace for a vanquished foe and money in 1999 of dumping money in there. A lot of us have learned our lesson.
August 8, 2008
Analysis: energy pipeline that supplies West threatened by war Georgia conflict
A section of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline 30 miles south Tbilisi, Georgia, under construction in 2003
Robin Pagnamenta
The conflict that has erupted in the Caucasus has set alarm bells ringing because of Georgia's pivotal role in the global energy market.
Georgia has no significant oil or gas reserves of its own but it is a key transit point for oil from the Caspian and central Asia destined for Europe and the US.
Crucially, it is the only practical route from this increasingly important producer region that avoids both Russia and Iran.
The 1,770km (1,100 miles) Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which entered service only last year, pumps up to 1 million barrels of oil per day from Baku in Azerbaijan to Yumurtalik, Turkey, where it is loaded on to supertankers for delivery to Europe and the US. Around 249km of the route passes through Georgia, with parts running only 55km from South Ossetia.
The security of the BTC pipeline, depicted in the James Bond film The World is Not Enough, has been a primary concern since before its construction.
The first major attack on the pipeline took place only last week - not in Georgia but in Turkey where part of it was destroyed by PKK separatist rebels.
Output from the pipeline, which is 30 per cent owned by BP and carries more than 1 per cent of the world's supply, is likely to be on hold for several weeks while the fire is extinguished and the damage repaired.
But the threat of another attack by separatists in Georgia itself is very real.
Only a few days before the Turkish explosion, Georgian separatists threatened to sabotage the pipeline if hostilities continued.
The latest eruption of violence could easily spur fresh attacks. The BTC pipeline, which is buried throughout most of its length to make sabotage more difficult, was a politically highly charged project. It was firmly opposed by Russia, which views the Caucasus as its own sphere of influence and wants central Asian oil to be exported via its own territory.
Russia also backs the South Ossetian and Abkhazian separatists in Georgia and relations between Moscow and Tbilisi have curdled into outright hostility in recent months.
The BTC pipeline, which cost $3 billion to build, is a key plank of US foreign policy because it reduces Western reliance on oil from both the Middle East and Russia.
Don’t disagree the hammer and sickle are back but you plan for things not rush in. Look at a map and the distance between us and Georgia, that might put it into perspective for you. And once we send in air, they send in more air. Timing is everything.
Our government seems to be acting like a Cerebus these days. It’s a shame because for every action...
Do we really want to get down in the mud and wrestle with the Russian Bear right now? I think the chances of us intervening in this are pretty much nil. We also have the “We Are The World” Chinee to worry about. They have been acting downright surly, considering they’re hosting the olympics, which most of us are essentially boycotting, IINM.
I don’t know if I can go as far as calling us bankrupt, but you may be right. Like the brittle shell that was the former USSR the air may be let out of our balloon quite suddenly.
Course, if we ARE bankrupt, and we write off all the debts we owe “the planet” everybody would go down in a heap real quick.
It doesnt have to be too modernized to bomb a tiny country like georgia. At least they got 2 of them today.
Agree ichabod. See other posts on the thread about the Bear, think we must sit out and do some serious planning, get a hell of a lot more domestic energy cranked up and recover economically a bit. On economy we are deflating and will see temporary depressionary conditions for a short time. Greed in Washington cut too deep along with fighting two battlefields simealtanously. We’re going to have to clean our own house out first and our enemies know it.
This site, excerpted, has a report from today:
“Early Saturday, Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital was bombed by warplanes during the night and that bombs fell in the area of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline. He also said two other Georgian military bases were hit and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.
Utiashvili said there apparently were significant casualties and damage in the attacks, but that further details would not be known until the morning.”
Also, another site reported that 1200 US special ops forces were present at the Vaizani base for training exercises with Georgias forces...they arrived on TUESDAY. I hope they are ok, the base having come under Russian air attack. ALso, earlier sources mentioned as many as 1000 US Marines were previously in the country.
Georgia is the third biggest contributor of forces in Iraq, with 2500 there. They have been recalled to Georgia because of the emergency.
It’s the Cold War gone violent. I knew it would happen sooner or later.
I thought our soldiers were there last month but were all out as of earleir this week. Do we still have soldiers there?
I agree. Not a good idea.
OOPS! earleir should be earlier
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.