Posted on 08/15/2008 1:55:52 PM PDT by lupo-de-mare
Territorial Integrity of Georgia Impossible without Territorial Integrity of Serbia
“Preserving the territorial integrity of Georgia will not be possible without preserving the territorial integrity of Serbia in Kosovo and Metohija province”, Russian Ambassador to NATO Dimitry Rogozin said in Brussels.
“It is unacceptable to recognize the unilateral independence of Kosovo province from Serbia and, at the same time, keep repeating the territorial integrity of Georgia must be respected when it comes to South Ossetia and Abkhazia”, Rogozin said at the press conference.
“If we all respect the territorial integrity of Serbia in regards to its Kosovo province, then we are also going to honor the territorial integrity of Georgia. But if someone doesn’t respect Serbia’s territorial integrity and sovereignty over Kosovo and Metohija, then they better shut up about the territorial integrity of Georgia”, Rogozin said.
He stressed that West won’t be able to “pretend nothing happened in South Ossetia, as if there was no bombardment of the civilian population, massacre of minorities and murder of the Russian peacekeepers committed by Tbilisi”.
On the other hand, “what NATO did in Yugoslavia — slaughter of civilians, destruction of the bridges on Danube, razing the Belgrade television and the rest, takes away their right to criticize Russia for any present of future actions,” Russian Ambassador said.
“Our critics behave like wolves, wanting to eat their sheep when hungry. But we are not a sheep, we are the Russian bear,” Rogozin said.
(Excerpt) Read more at balkanblog.org ...
So what does this have to do with Russian tanks in Poti?
The Russians are reading the anti Bush US press and realized they had yet another false justification for invading Georgia and all the rest of them.
No matter what you think of the NATO bombing of Serbia, the Russians cannot pretend to be protecting Kosovo when they have decimated their own Islamic separatist's.
i really get a chuckle out of some of these goofy justifications and direct comparisons which essentially all blame the U.S....... and they stem for the most part, from U.S. sources.
The trigger to this entire event is Kosovo. The Russians said months ago that breaking the Kosovo “enclave” off....as a separate state from Serbia, was wrong. So here we are. NATO and the US will do nothing to protect Georgia, and they knew that.
In a few weeks...prepare for another enclave in some other country to cry out for help from the Russians. They will arrange a second operation to show the US and NATO that the Kosovo deal isn’t finished yet. Add in the Poland missile deal....and we’ve got a royal mess for someone to clean up....and it won’t be Bush.
He has a point.
And we all recall what the Russians did when the chechens requested independence. Ok.
So if you are mad at your neighbor, would you kick a child living down the street who was friends with your neighbor?
So is there any surprise that our enemies and detractors play the same game?
Tell me again where Georgia invaded its neighbors?
Ask the Croats about Serbia, there, bud.
"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus
That said we also need to be canny and cagey about who we protect. Looks like Lithuania is going out to prosecute Holocaust survivors. We also need to send Lithuania a message that protection for their a**es is not gauranteed, given their behavior.
I think you are confused. Russia would have prefered for Serbia to be able to decimate its Islamic separatists, rather than have NATO thrust itself into the Balkans on the excuse of false Muslim accusations of genocide against the Serbs.
You might want to take my little quiz on world affairs:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-bloggers/2061876/posts
Very good point. Let’s make a deal...give Kosovo back to Serbia and expel all Albanians therein, and then respect Georgia territorial sovereignty. Oh, and let’s also expel all Arabs from all of Israel, just to be consistent.
Well stated Dimitry, I believe the technical term is "Hoist by one's own petard".
What is happening within the Anti-Bush American think tanks, is that they blame Russian obstinacy on the Kosovar independence from Serbia.
The Serbians are not happy about it and the Russians are simply parroting the voices of those who have tried to make it the connecting reason for the Russian invasion of Georgia.
The Russians have said from the beginning that they were protecting Abkazia's Islamic population from the Georgians who are trying to erase them as one of the paramount reasons for punishing Georgia, but the reality is that Georgia has not bothered them in this event, even though it is their territorial right. As this becomes more clear in the subsequent investigations to come, the Russians realized they needed another line of reasoning for their justifications so when they saw the Kosovar liberation discussion in the American press, they decided it was as good as it gets and have adopted it, but the fact is, they could care less about the Islamic populations as they have demonstrated many times. They are seething with hypocrisy when they claim to be doing the same thing that NATO did to protect against forces that would commit genocide. There was no attempted genocide, nor was it even contemplated.
Now I am simply calling their bluff and as I said, no matter how you feel about the Serbian bombing, and personally I saw it as a mistake and it could have been handled differently but, the Russians don't really have a issue they can intellectually use without looking like hypocrite's.
However, that does not seem to matter to some.
Man! They are coming out of the woodwork tonight.
What's really hilarious is that I heard Weasely Clark trying to make the same justifications after he nearly started WWIII by coming very close to engaging the Russians during NATO's most excellent adventure in Serbia.
There is no possible justification that can be used for what the Russians are engaged in, and there won't be one.
Kosovo wasn't a "trigger" -- it's an excuse. Russia could give a rat's patoot about Kosovo or Serbia -- all these "ethnic separatists" are simply pawns in Russia's power plays. Triggers to be pulled when convenient.
Cold Heat is correct -- the story of ethnic cleansing in S. Osettia hasn't stood up to scrutiny -- so the lament about Kosovo is now the siren song of the Kremlin thugs.
Next up: the "ethnic separatists" in Ukraine.
Thank you.
There are no moral equivalences between civilized men and barbarians. Iran isn't England, Serbia isn't Georgia, Venezuela isn't Mexico, and Russia isn't the United States. The damned are damned, by themselves. They can change their moral status tomorrow by reforming their actions. But when they won't, they are just damned, and have no right to anything from any of us.
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