Posted on 08/11/2008 4:35:33 PM PDT by Flavius
In retreat, the Georgian soldiers were so tired they could not keep from stumbling. Their arms were loaded with rucksacks and ammunition boxes; they had dark circles under their eyes. Officers ran up and down the line, barking for them to go faster.
All along the road was grief. Old men pushed wheelbarrows loaded with bags or led cows by tethers. They drove tractors and rickety Ladas packed with suitcases and televisions.
As a column of soldiers passed through Gori, a black-robed priest came out of his church and made the sign of the cross again and again.
One soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov.
“We killed as many of them as we could,” he said. “But where are our friends?”
It was the question of the day. As Russian forces massed Sunday on two fronts, Georgians were heading south with whatever they could carry. When they met Western journalists, they all said the same thing: Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
Well, they can expect awesome speeches, and I imagine the rest of the borders states with Russia should understand that they are alone as well. I suppose this was partially the point of this little Russian stretching of legs.
I don’t think Georgia is a member of NATO or the EU.
No they just assumed that if they are pro western that means something. But no one told them it means nothing.
Off course now they know.
“Where is the United States? When is NATO coming?”
Interesting questions. They should ask their own leaders whether the United States and Nato were informed of the ill-made plans to capture the territory while all the world leaders were away at Beijing?
I can picture the editors at the New York Times. “Write two stories, one blasting the US for getting involved, and another blasting the US for not getting involved. We’ll decide which one to run when we see what happens”.
Even if Geogria was a member of NATO, methinks the the Eurowienies would find an excuse to do nothing.
Georgia is not a member of NATO.
Not sure NATO is ready to crank up WWIII over a poorly planned attempt at cross checking the Russians.
Did they really expect Putin to just let it go? They are RIGHT THERE across the border.
About like Mexico trying to recapture Texas.
I love how we send hundreds of billions of dollars in aid and military assistance to anti-america states when they have a tsunami or AIDS problem - yet we aren’t helping a pro west state?
nytimes alert.
Patton was right - we should have incorporated the Germans into our army and taken them right after WWII, when we had the men, material, momentum, and leadership. It would have been less costly in treasure, possibly in lives (think Vietnam, Cambodia, North Korea, and all the innocents murdered by Stalin and Mao) as well as having destroyed the financial and ideological base from which our own internal enemies, the Democrat Party, have sprung.
I understand why no one wanted to do it - we had just won a huge war that cost 330,000 American lives, the second costliest war we ever fought. If we had nuked Moscow, and advanced the combined American and German forces into Russia, the world would have been a completely different place. Of course, my opinion is worth the paper it's written on in this forum.
One more thing. If you think the liberals are annoying now, how do you think they'd act if we attacked Russia? They'd finally work up the balls to stage the coup they've always wanted to stage, but never had the courage. Then we'd be fighting them inside our own borders. Of course, the fight with them would be a real battle, of the kind we can easily win.
I know, I know, I'm a nut case.
With millions of illegals already in Texas, recapturing it would probably be pointless. Texas is part of the balkanization of the American southwest...And beyond.
well thats all fine, my only point is that these new “free” pro democracy and EU chart member Ovaltine club prospects.
Should understand that they are not to in anyway upset the bear on their border.
Incidentally how enthusiastic will the Poland and/or Czech republic be with the new missile shield on their turf.
I heard NPR's Daniel Schorr pompously saying the USA hasn't done anything.... as if this were a situation that has gone on forever.
Idiot, he would be saying the opposite if we DID do anything.
Don't ask me why I was listening, it was an accident.
Where is the West, where is NATO”?
Suing for peace to try and salvage something out of this war, that being a Democratic Georgian State, not a Moscow puppet.
War is politics by other means, the Georgians, though righteous, made a grave error, better to cut losses then to prod the Bear when you cannot fight well.
I bet there are Chechens smiling bitterly at the moment.
Well...those former Soviet Republics can kiss their short lived freedom goodbye, by the West doing absolutely nothing they have been condemned to become Russian puppet states.
The Cold War has officially started again.
How long is going to take people to realize that Russia started this? They have been planning this for a long time and it’s obvious to anyone who has paid any attention to the situation.
Depends Blue Scourge, if they continue on their present paths, then more then likely, if they deviate, and take the Swiss model of a seriously armed citizenry and neutrality, then perhaps not.
How long is going to take people to realize that Russia started this? They have been planning this for a long time and it’s obvious to anyone who has paid any attention to the situation.”
Exactly, this thing was scripted down to the hour. Mortar fire, incursions into Georgian airspace, shooting down of UAV’s in Georgian airspace, the movement of artillery and more “peacekeepers” into Georgia before anything was done against South Ossetia. And the invasion just so happened as many heads of state were gathered in Beijing.
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