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How the Georgian Conflict Really Started
Wall Street Journal ^ | August 28, 2008 | MELIK KAYLAN

Posted on 08/28/2008 9:02:18 AM PDT by djsherin

'Anybody who thinks that Moscow didn't plan this invasion, that we in Georgia caused it gratuitously, is severely mistaken," President Mikheil Saakashvili told me during a late night chat in Georgia's presidential palace this weekend.

"Our decision to engage was made in the last second as the Russian tanks were rolling -- we had no choice," Mr. Saakashvili explained. "We took the initiative just to buy some time. We knew we were not going to win against the Russian army, but we had to do something to defend ourselves."

I had just returned from Gori, which was still under the shadow of Russian occupation. I'd learned there on the ground how Russia has deployed a highly deliberate propaganda strategy in this war. Some Georgian friends sneaked me into town unnoticed past the Russian armored checkpoints via a little used tractor path. We noted that, during the day, the tanks on Gori's streets withdrew from the streets to the hills. Apparently, the Russians thought this gave the impression, to any foreign eyewitnesses they chose to let through, of a town not so much occupied as stabilized and made peaceful.

(Excerpt) Read more at online.wsj.com ...


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; News/Current Events; Russia
KEYWORDS: caucasus; geopolitics; georgia; origins; russia; southossetia; war
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To: FreeInWV
So you condone genocide?

Genocide? Are you sure you know what that word means? There were less than a couple hundred killed.

The rebels were attacking Georgian troops. Georgia responded by shelling the seat of power for those leading an armed rebellion.

Putin has been trying to spin Georgia's act as something evil and horrible to cover for Russia's invasion of another sovereign nation.

These rebels weren't just harmlessly minding their own business. They were constantly violating the cease fire, but when the Georgian's responded in force, they were considered the aggressors.

Putin makes an absolutely ridiculous accusation that somehow a limited military action against a group of armed rebels is somehow genocide and the communist loving media repeats the lie without mentioning how relatively few people were killed in this so called genocide.

21 posted on 08/28/2008 11:01:20 AM PDT by untrained skeptic
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To: FreeInWV; 1rudeboy

***So you condone genocide?***

Wait, aren’t the South Ossetians and Georgians ethnically the same?


22 posted on 08/28/2008 11:09:54 AM PDT by djsherin
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To: FreeInWV
Interesting, this morning on TV I saw the Russian president saying the US started the war in Georgia

Russia's rhetoric rivals Iran's

23 posted on 08/28/2008 11:17:18 AM PDT by Syncro (Tagline: optional, printed after your name on post)
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To: TigersEye

great pics! thanks


24 posted on 08/28/2008 11:42:59 AM PDT by mistfree (The man who does not make any mistakes does not usually make anything.")
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To: mistfree

Sure.


25 posted on 08/28/2008 12:01:01 PM PDT by TigersEye (This is the age of the death of reason.)
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To: McGruff
you need to get out more.

http://michaeltotten.com/ on 26 August 2008.

Short version http://www.city-journal.org/2008/eon0820mt.html om 20 August 2008.

26 posted on 08/28/2008 12:23:50 PM PDT by fireforeffect (A kind word and a 2x4, gets you more than just a kind word.)
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To: djsherin

BTTT!


27 posted on 08/28/2008 2:45:27 PM PDT by neverdem (I'm praying for a Divine Intervention.)
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To: elhombrelibre

I still sort of like Pat Buchanan but he sure is stepping in these days. He admires these tough guy dictators


28 posted on 08/28/2008 3:52:14 PM PDT by dennisw (That Muhammad was a charlatan. Islam is a hoax, an imperialistic ideology, disguised as religion.)
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To: djsherin; aragona

“I got a call from the minister of defense that Russian tanks, some 200, were massing to enter Tskhinvali from North Ossetia,” ==

Saaki lies again. No tanks enter no Tskinvalli or S.OSetia until day Aug08, 10-12 hours after his attack on Tskinval.
Seems like the leader of the “democratic” Geogria not only coward but lier too.


29 posted on 08/29/2008 6:05:57 AM PDT by RusIvan (Saakashilli is should be tried as the war criminal)
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