Posted on 08/28/2008 7:29:03 AM PDT by F-117A
Both sides had an interest in escalating the conflict, say political analysts. Russia wanted to show that Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia’s president, was an irresponsible firebrand who could not be trusted with the responsibilities of Nato membership. Georgia, meanwhile, wanted to paint Russia as the imperial aggressor it has traditionally been in the Caucasus, which would have strengthened Tbilisi’s case for Nato membership.
Each can be seen to have acted swiftly, with a great deal of preparation, later trying to make their behaviour appear spontaneous. Mr Saakashvili, despite repeated denials, clearly drew first. But Russia was not far behind, indicating that Georgia’s president may have fallen into a well laid Russian trap.
Mr Saakashvili has been widely pilloried for a drastic miscalculation in invading Tskhinvali on August 7, provoking the Russian incursion to defend the town’s citizens. He continues to insist that Moscow was to blame. “The first thing that happened was that the Russian tanks came in,” Mr Saakashvili told the Financial Times at the weekend. So far, the Georgian government has not been able to produce evidence to back up this claim.
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However, Mr Saakashvili’s account of this sequence is seemingly called into question by the public statements of his own senior military staff. At 11.05pm local time, General Mamuka Qurashvili, the chief of peacekeeping operations at the Georgian defence ministry, made a nationwide televised broadcast, announcing the end of the ceasefire and the beginning of a massive Georgian operation against South Ossetia. But he did not mention the presence of a Russian invasion force, instead saying the target of the operation was South Ossetian insurgents.
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(Excerpt) Read more at ft.com ...
Ironically, the main thing keeping Georgians from turning against him is the presence of the Russian army."
Most important read is this article:
http://www.michaeltotten.com/archives/2008/08/the-truth-about-1.php
To blame the Georgians in this is like saying that we started WW II with Japan or wanted it just as much, because we drew first blood when we attacked one of their approaching submarines.
Were the Czechs taunting Hitler in the Sudeten too?
The Russians had this planned long ago. They waited for a sensitive, transitional period in US administrations and during the Olympics. They incited a retalitory move by the Georgians using the South Ossetians, whereupon they rolled in their prepositioned tanks.
Simple but effective - classically Russian.
Client militias firing off 120mm mortars at Georgian villages supposedly isn't starting something? Large columns of armor passing through the mountain tunnel from Russian territory, onto Georgian territory? Etc.
The only "crime" the Georgians committed was having the gall to actually try to resist the Russians militarily...
Georgia invasion 'planned since April'
Putin is such a genius he just unified the whole nation of Georgia behind their president. Strategery at its finest.
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