Georgians Eager to Rebuild Army

New York Times ^ | September 2, 2008 | C. J. Chivers and Thom Shanker

[Lasha]

but I will see what happens when next time Russia recognizes Basque country, or Tirol, or northern Italy... only then precedent set in Georgia will be of importance to you, but it will be too late

[austrian]

but I will see what happens when next time Russia recognizes Basque country, or Tirol, or northern Italy... only then precedent set in Georgia will be of importance to you, but it will be too late.

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wow i have to admit now you have really impressed me with your knowlege. i would have never thought that someone across the pond does know about the “very little” dispute between Italy and austria about southern tirol. but this is really not that important for austria nor is it for italy anymore. but i´m really impressed.

[austrian]

OK, let me get this straight... Baltic states have more importance because they are part of NATO and EU. Georgia wants to become part of NATO, French and German president block MAP and Russia pretty much uses this to invade the country...

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it´s natural that EU states are more important to the Union than non EU states. and for georgia. recent actions just proofed that germany and france did the absolut right thing to block georgias NATO wish. this is why they will do it again. only god knows what the president of georgia would have done if he had been backed by a nato membership. this could have brought the world on a brink to WWIII because NATO would have been forced to protect georgia. and after all i have seen this “leader” of georgia should better not have the power to held NATO and the russians hostage only because his own interessts.

[austrian]

it was very interesting to discuss with you.
but i have to stop right now because i have to go to work.
greets

[austrian]

jesus christ i´m totally confused today ;-)
the last post was directed to you

[RusIvan]

but I will see what happens when next time Russia recognizes Basque country, or Tirol, or northern Italy... only then precedent set in Georgia will be of importance to you, but it will be too late ==

The precendent was established not in Georgia but in Serbia (the Kosovo precendent).

[Parrot_was_devastating]

June 18th 2008.....Georgians stop a Russian truck headed to supply Russian peacekeepers.

Russians arrested!

Russian ATGM [anti tank missiles] removed from captured truck.

Parrot: This,...allong with many evidences...such as the full scale South Federal District military manuevers in July,...with Elite units,...having their full mechanized armor flown in,...and their ammo stockpiles particular to their brigades,....confirms the premise,..that Russia drilled,....and then flipped it Live on the Georgians!

Russia has an attitude now,...but yet,..its just resurfaced.
Chechens bloodied Russia,....Russia sought ceasefire,,...and then signed a peace treaty leaving Chechnyu independent.
Russia invaded in 1999...and secured their win in 2000.
Seems like Russian foreign policy is to invade/attack when it suits them,....treaty's mean nothing type thing. Former FSB director and prime minister of Russia Sergei Stepashin said in an interview to Novaya gazeta that "the decision to invade Chechnya was made in March 1999"..[wiki]

I applaud your stand MarMena,......Russia will extort,..and by force....when it suits them.
Georgia should be armed and trained to defend with quality weapons....quality!
Seeing that Europe is caving in allready.....[Gee who would have thunk : )],....all the more reason to commit to Georgia.

[MarMema]

DOWN THE RIVER WITH VLAD

Kind of funny, came across it accidentally doing a search for other things, and just had to share....

[1rudeboy]

Nothing is funnier than watching people make excuses for something which would have happened anyway in the absence of the excuse. Or are you suggesting that Georgia would not have been invaded if Kosovo's independence had gone unrecognized?

[MarMema]

Ossetians live in other parts of Georgia and are happy there. With Georgians. I think the ones who lived in South Ossetia should move to North Ossetia if they want to be Russian.

Leave the land for Georgia. Whenever it was given to Georgia, it is now Georgian land. Russia will never keep it.

It is a lowlife tactic to go into another country and give them passports, then put them on the dole, and look the other way while smuggling takes place.

Oh btw, I hope you don't mind if we recognize Ingushetia as an independent country. And Chechnya. Looks like it has become a project. I hope it happens.

[MarMema]

Well there is one thing I am finding to be funnier - watching the russian stock market crash a bit more each day and their ruble go to hell in a handbasket....ahem, but on to another post...

Anybody who thinks Russia's confrontation with the West is another Cold War has been misled. In a real Cold War, two countries have comparable military budgets, but this is definitely not the case with Russia and the United States. Much like al-Qaida, the main resource available to the Kremlin is malicious intentions.

"But South Ossetians will probably never concede that tens of thousands of Ossetians who live peacefully in Georgia proper. Has it ever occurred to them that the notoriously bloodthirsty Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili hasn't attacked Ossetians in Gori, Tbilisi or Poti, where they are vulnerable and unprotected by South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity?"

[PhilDragoo]

WHO Des Moines just played Ronald Reagan citing Taiwan sending us the politburo transcript wherein they said the Shanghai Communiqué was "just a scrap of paper", that China would develop a relationship with the United States and then invade Taiwan and the U.S. would do nothing because it is a "paper tiger"--because it fired MacArthur when he wanted to invade China, because it is self-absorbed.

The Clintons cut the military 40%; Obama will make that seem small--everyone's seen his 52-second video.

And Obama wants to cut the missile defense.

Palin knows about that stuff; I belief we have some of that stuff in her front yard.

We don't hear so much about Yamantau Mountain and Biopreparat now.

Everything is rosy. Just ask any journalist in Russia.

They will tell you.

I am sure.

See? Walter Duranty was right. Nice Bear. Nice Bear.

[redstateconfidential]

Well he is the perfect Rus leader and embodies everything they admire in a man.Bully, thug, loudmouth, braggart, murderer and boor.Wow,..kinda like all the Russians I ever known.

[redstateconfidential]

You can always hide in those tunnels Harry Lime was familiar with.

[Lurker]

And a well trained citizenry who could insure that there was a rifle behind every blade of grass.

L

[MarMema]

Everything is rosy. Just ask any journalist in Russia. They will tell you.

right after they get their will in order, that is.

[MarMema]

Wasn’t that something? I was amazed when I saw it.

[MarMema]

Ahem, we have already said we would rebuild their army with them, and Russia is not happy about it. Yawn.

[Lasha]

The whole point is that Russian president would not have done anything, which would have meant that Saakashvili would not have done anything either! With their “victory” at Bucharest Russians armed Kokoity and ordered him to start shelling Georgian villages... how would you like if Italians were to give Tirol arms to start shooting at Austrian villages - probably not very much.

The bottom line is; no one asks Europe to sever all relations with Russia, but there are tons of things in between you can do. e.g. Austria is a headquarter of one of the larger real estate companies which is purely FSB shop - why don't you guys investigate them. Because there was no FCPA type legislation in Europe, a lot of European companies, including, BTW very prominent Austrian banks have engaged in a rather questionable transactions with countries of former Soviet Union - why wouldn't you now investigate of all of this under new AML legislation which EU seems to be so proud! EU needs to hit them where it hurts the most... and these are not even Russian gas sales but accounts of Russian government officials comfortably sitting in account, including Austrian banks... what's wrong with that... most of that money came from arms trade or illegal activities anyway, so investigating such should not be a problem - in bloody fact that what EU legislation actively calls for!

And lastly, European Parliament certainly does not appear to share your views - see the resolution they adopted just yesterday...

[Lasha]

The precendent was established not in Georgia but in Serbia (the Kosovo precendent).===

That's one load of crap and you certainly know it. Kosovo happened to be just good pretext for Putin to do what he was planning to do long time ago. Even back in 2006, when there was no Kosovo independence talks he was drawing parallels between Northern Cyprus and Abkhazia... he had this on his agenda way too long now; why did Russia withdrew from common arms treaty that was preventing it to have more than 200 tanks in southern Russia? I think we know the answer now... and besides, even if Kosovo did not happen and Northern Cyprus would have fallen through, it would be very easy to FSB to blow up three buildings, one in Tskhinvali, one say in Krasnodar and one in the outskirts of Moscow to say that Georgian terrorists did this and that would have been enough justification to invade the country... come on, they were already doing it; remember, when a LPG small tank blew up in Gagra this summer everyone was very quick to find “Georgian trail” in this incident, even though local new paper reported this as a household incident... there was rather sarcastic remarks about this on Lenta.ru....