As I stated earlier, Russia has invaded Georgia-proper and is pushing south. It looks like they will attempt to seize the town of Gori, cut Georgia in two, and then size up the situation. Their political goal appears to be regime change at a minimum, if not outright annexation.
And in a heated exchange with his Russian counterpart at the United Nations, Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad of the United States accused the Kremlin of seeking to oust [Georgian President] Mr. Saakashvili.
He charged that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had said as much during a telephone conversation with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Sunday morning.
“In that conversation, Foreign Minister Lavrov told U.S. Secretary of State Rice that the democratically elected president of Georgia ‘must go,’” Mr. Khalilzad said. “I quote again: ‘Saakashvili must go.’”
Mr. Khalilzad said the comment was “completely unacceptable.”
The events that precipitated this invasion are still in dispute. What’s not in dispute is that Russian tanks are now rolling deep into Georgian territory, they have bombed the capital, the capital’s airport, the southern pipelines, have pushed into Abkhazia, and are shooting at Georgian ships in the Black Sea. Meanwhile, our president is watching Olympic sports and doing chatty interviews with Bob Costas.
“We strongly condemned bombing outside of South Ossetia,” he said in an interview mixing politics, diplomacy and sports.
“I was very firm with Vladimir Putin,” he said of his conversations with the Russian prime minister at the Olympics.
George W. Bush seems determined to finish his presidency the same way he started it…by reading a book about a Pet Goat posing for photographs with Olympic athletes while our enemies run roughshod over us. And to think that Bush looked into Putin’s soul and saw a man he could work with. To think that he is stupid enough to tell us that he was very firm with Putin when Putin left Beijing and reported to the frontlines while Bush remained to watch swimming meets and gymnastics.
Bush has invested so much in Georgia and he’s just fiddling while Putin turns it all to ashes. What a legacy. What a disgrace.
What in the hell? Russia isn’t pushing for shit except for Saakashvili and his cronies to sign a permanent ceasefire and let Tshkinvali be what it was before – essentially autonomous and independent.
Someone’s been twiddling with Saak’s medication, that’s for sure. He popped this entire thing off on his OWN and was expecting his big daddy Bush and company (and McCain signed up immediately as well with the Talking Points) to rush to the rescue.
This ENTIRE thing was engineered and set up by GEORGIA for regime change, not Russia. It was clearly planned by Georgia and looks to be in every way like one of those April Glaspie “green light” situations which will be recorded as a “misunderstanding” since it FAILED (on Tblisi’s part).
This is an entirely Cheney/neocon engineered disaster and it’s a testament to outstandingly skillful political moves on Putin/Medvedev’s part that it didn’t turn into a worldwide disaster with Moscow pulling a “Kosovo” on the whole thing, including the B-T-C pipeline.
Oh and Russia ain’t bombing shit. PLEASE tell me you aren’t getting that from Civil.ge
More links if you need ’em to back up what I’m saying.
Pax
Reuters is fairly unambiguous about bombing in Gori.
Very true and that was a single incident which missed its target and hit an apartment complex. According to bloggers on the scene it seems like Russia hit a few “command and control” sites in Georgia proper a few days ago, all within the scope of pushing back Tblisi troops. Not that I support war AT ALL or even the Russian government.
Tshkinvali is virtually flattened from Tblisi shelling and up to 1,400 are dead and one Russian bomb on a Gori apartment gets the headlines? Oof.
For a few links on this whole thing I recommend here and here.
If Russia wants/wanted to “annex” either Ossetia or Abkhazia it would already be doing so.
I’m telling you, this whole thing is ENTIRELY started and being run (including the media spinning) by that shitbag dictator Saakashvili and Russia is showing amazing restraint at this point.
Times of London
My bad for not clarifying what I meant earlier. I mean that aside from the Gori apartment strike, all the other “in Georgia proper” hits were on strictly military (and very vital) targets.
Gori is where their huge radar tracking station is that led to 1 maybe 2 Russian planes getting shot down, possibly with an SA-5 (GAMMON) missile, which if proven is huge. That’s why they bombed it.
Unlike Georgia which shelled the shit out of a town filled with civilians Tshkinvali, including the hospital AFTER a ceasefire was agreed upon.
Pax
This morning the BBC is reporting that the Russians stopped at the border of South Ossetia and haven’t advanced into Georgia. It sounds like they are gathering up information to bring charges of war crimes against Georgia for their treatment of Ossetian civilians during their brief invasion.
When the smoke clears we’ll see who’s lying. Boo, you may just have been a victim of the fog of war.
In a few months when the Georgians see what their adventurism got them they’ll be ready for a regime change whether or not there’s any Russians in Tblisi.
As far as I can tell, the Reuters article describes aerial bombardment, which was to be expected, given the precedent set by the United States and NATO. The article says nothing about a ground assault.
Well, well the U.S. perfected the doctrine of regime change so we have no finger to point at Russia.
Apparently the first to shed blood, the Georgians lost the moral high ground and gave Russia the causus belli it sought.
This article lays out Saakashvili’s corrupt kingdom… 70% of the budget went to arms.
we overlook what is good for the goose is good for the gander. This conflict is overlaid by the Kosovo precedent and underscored by the existing hate between Russians and Georgians for each other.
there are certain other precedents too that has been set by our Israeli ally, like it or not. When ONE Israeli gets killed by a Palestinian, whole villages in Palestine are leveled.
When in 34 day war, Israel went into Lebanon clusterbombing civilians, I recall it took the U.S. and UK over a week before calling for a ceasefire…wink, wink, nod – nod to Israel.
We ain’t got a finger or a leg to stand on. We laid the table and the bear came to dinner.
Thanks for this information.
At this point, that Russia is pushing south into Georgia proper is just a rumor. The NY Times has backtracked on the article you link to, as I show here.
Russia intervening in its neighbor Georgia — whose secession from the Soviet Union was not legal by the way — is a case of “our enemies run[ning] roughshod over us”? What are you smoking?
In case you haven’t heard or have forgotten, the Cold War is over. We are no longer in an ideological life-or-death struggle with Russia. Russia is just a regional superpower which, after Yeltsin, has declined to become one of our client states. Since it has refused to become our client state, it is our enemy, according to the prevailing wisdom of the Washington foreign policy establishment.
But you don’t live in Washington. So how did you manage to drink the Washington Kool Aid? (Sorry to mix drug metaphors.)
you really have a very idealistic and naive view of the world. Do you seriously not understand what is happening in Georgia? We’ve been treating Russia as our enemy for at least 10 solid years. Whether we should have done that is a completely separate issue. If the Russians are demanding regime change as the price of withdrawal you can be sure this isn’t going to be settled in a way acceptable to the West. Russia is flexing. And our entire setup with Azerbaijan and Georgia is in jeopardy. You interpret this as a friendly disagreement?
It seems like the left has become seized with myopia where if Bush had anything to do with it it must be bad and can’t be considered US policy.
Georgia had the third biggest contingent in Iraq from among the coalition of the willing. They were a NATO candidate. Now watch. Watch what Russia does. Because they aren’t going to leave things the way they were. I’ll grant you that they biggest losers here are going to be some Western oil execs and people that worry about prestige. But we’re being humiliated and BP’s property is at stake. Expect things to escalate.
I don’t expect things to escalate as far as the US goes, if for no other reason than that Israel doesn’t have a stake in Georgia. Russia complained to Israel about its supplying arms to Georgia, and Israel relented. As Perry Anderson has pointed out, even under Bush, US foreign policy tends to be rational, except where Israel is concerned. (You see, I confirm your view that I am a leftist, since who else but leftists reads the New Left Review?)
The US has no business being in Azerbaijan or Georgia. I say that not because I am a leftist, but because I am an American patriot. Not dismantling NATO after the collapse of the Soviet Union was to make the decisive move that from now on, the US is to be an empire and not a republic, thus realizing the worst fears of the Founders.
Heh.
We have a tremendous amount of business in Azerbaijan and Georgia, which is exactly the source of this dispute. The Caucuses have been on fire for the last 16 years precisely because we have decided to invest in the Caspian Basin. And we became an empire in 1946-7 when we assumed responsibility for Greece and Turkey. It’s not a new development.
I guess you are not aware of the distinction between a hegemon and an imperial power, which maintains its control over other states purely through force? In 1946-7, the US was a hegemon, not an imperial power.
Russia could live with the US as hegemon. But the US didn’t let Russia join the game.
“If Russia is demanding regime change as a price of withdrawal…”
But where is Russia demanding regime change? In the media, not in Russia, not coming out of the mouths of Russian officials but coming out of Georgian officials and their friends in the west.
Georgia misplayed the game badly. They thought they could take back South Ossetia while everyone was paying attention to the Olympics.
Russia mopped them up in South Ossetia, and their infantry seem to have stopped at the border. They bombed all those shiny new weapons systems that Condi brought the Georgians, leaving them to be no threat to the Ossetians or the Russians. Game over.
The southern cordon sanitaire has been shattered.
It seems to me that Georgia has been allowing itself to become a client state of the US/Oil Axis via “aid” money and “troop training.”
I don’t quite get your point; why is US humiliation an issue? We are a bad imperialist state, running roughshod across the globe since 1947. Um, installing GWB/Cheney wasn’t an international humiliation already?
Link to an English-language report from Russia here (Youtube).
For some darn good coverage from a mostly neutral source see Der Spiegel (in English)
Pax
That Russia Today is a real trip! It’s like a mirror image of the BBC. Dem Russkies do speak damn good English!
and even more amazing, the Murdoch press is more or less defending the Russians!?
Georgia: Reckless Saakashvili took on Russian Goliath Putin – Times Online
But Booman, regime change is good! It worked in Iraq!
<sarcasm>
I’ve been watching this since late Thursday night when the shelling of S. Ossetia began.
Its very clear to me that:
Booman, I’ve read your site for a long time. I generally agree with your assessments, but I think you are absolutely wrong when you state that “The events that precipitated this invasion are still in dispute”. Absolutely false. The events that precipated this was the US MIC surrounding Russia, and Russia seeing an easy opportunity to roll some of this back with a huge FU to the US neocons and anyone else acquiescing to the US imperial demands in the former Soviet Union. The bear is flexing its muscle, something we haven’t seen in awhile.
One more note. If Russia successfully annexes/subjugates Georgia to its liking, it makes it that much closer to a direct land link to Iran, leaving only Azerbaijan in the path. Personally, I think this is a big deal.
One other note. All parties involved, the US, Georgia, Russia and some would say Israel, are guilty of this tragedy, minus the civilians. I do place more blame on the US, because we shouldn’t have been there in the first place.
Bleh. I’d donate one of my nuts if the global MIC could be dismantled.
Hope none of our Green Berets were harmed in the making of this film.
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I’m sorry BooMan, you are rehashing western propaganda similar to the reaction of our future president McShame or Hussein. Doesn’t promise to be a bright future for American foreign policy in the next decade. A bit of introspection wouldn’t hurt.
The facts on the ground in Abkhazia are as follows. The president of Abkhazia Sergei Bagapsh is a dictator like Georgian Saakashvili. There is an uncomfortable truce with a number of skirmishes like downing a Georgian UVA (made in Israel) earlier this year. There is a UN Mission and Russian peacekeeping force along a stretch of disputed land in the Kodori Gorge separating the two ‘states’. Abkhazia has called on Russia and the UN to remove its peacekeepers, who have left along with most civilians living in this area. The Abhazian troops are poised and have announced they will move into this area and take possession, now that Georgia is preoccupied with its military aggression in S Ossatia.
Commander in Chief Saakashvili is spending all of his time dumping propaganda trash over western viewers, especially the gullible and naive American citizens. Both presidential candidates included. That’s true horror.
(Bloomberg) – About 2,500 Russian peacekeepers were deployed on the border between Abkhazia and the rest of Georgia before the conflict began, according to the Russian government. They serve under a under a Commonwealth of Independent States mandate. A United Nations observer mission has been deployed on the border since 1993.
VP Cheney Tells Georgia Russian ‘Aggression’ Mustn’t Go Unanswered
UN concerned war will spread to Abkhazia
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Shakshvilli started a war. He has lost it. At some point his people will get rid of him. Unless all that military equipment the US will resupply him with is turned on his own people and he does have alittle previous there.
Just as with Chechinya, Russia’s moving back into Georgia.
Ukraine’s next up.
It remains to be seen whether the Ukraine will be as foolhardy as Georgia has been.
If the Ukraine is capable of learning, it will reflect upon what happened recently to Georgia, and will give up its idiotic desires to get into NATO, an obsolete organization the continued existence of which is the expression of America’s inability to accept its own decline.
The Ukraine also has a larger ethnic Russian population than Georgia (from a friend’s reports to me) and there are a lot of people living there who have fonder memories of the old Soviet Union than current capitalistic realities. There is a core political group descended from the fascist collaborators in WWII and the ABBN afterwards, and they are opposed by old socialists and younger people who admire Western Europe’s social democracies.
The long short, I don’t think that there will be a groundswell of support for the Ukraine to go to war against Russia. They aren’t that angry and they aren’t that stupid.
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Headline from Moscow:
Russia’s Medvedev: operation in S.Ossetia near conclusion
Headline from Tbilisi:
Russia expands Georgia blitz, deploys ships
Russian tanks heading for Gori was based on a rumor, many civilians have left the city. It’s clear, Georgian troops are retreating and demoralized. Georgia has met its fate and a double defeat: S Ossatia and Abkhazi territory. Russia and the ethic people have suffered but won a clear victory.
‘Invasion of Georgia’ a ‘3 a.m. moment’
≈ Cross-posted from my diary — Heated Cold War Exchange at UNSC ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I agree with soj, Alexander and Safi. Georgia screwed themselves by investing in U.S. military hardware instead of investing in their own economy. They needed to figure out an accommodation with Russia but instead they let their desire to suck up to the U.S. get the better of them. Their bad.
You, Booman, need to step back and examine your assumptions as you misfired on this one.
Anyone who’s told by a Bush that they’re an ally had better watch out. Just ask the Shiites how well the uprising against Saddam Hussein went when Bush Senior allowed them to be slaughtered. Or the Kurds: that weent really well for them too.
Georgia is an ally of convenience because they were naive enough to support the war in Iraq by sending troops. As thrilling as it is to see Dick Cheney poke out his head and threaten the Russians, I really don’t see what options the US has. We’re certainly not going to make any extraordinary actions to save their bacon, a fact the georgians seem to be grasping belatedly.
And just for the record, Jerome a Paris’ analysis seems very well informed. It differs substantially from yours. However, I am not informed enough to know who’s correct. Interestingly, you seem to believe “his take is basically correct” while taking a different position on whether this is an uncalled for aggressive invasion or a response to provocation.
Jerome: “Russia has explicitly stated that bringing countries like Ukraine and Georgia, long parts of its empire, into NATO, would be seen as an aggressive act. Is that such an irrational position to take? (I mean, look at US policy towards Cuba…) And yet the US is pushing hard to do that, despite these explicit warnings. Who is being provocative and clamoring for conflict – those that bring military forces to the borders of Russia, or those that say they consider this threatening and will react unpleasantly if it goes on?”
Booman: “I don’t pretend to be an expert on the former Soviet Socialist Republics but I do get the strong sense that Russia is so bloated with income from high energy prices that they are feeling very aggressive and looking to force the United States and Britain out of their former territory. The invasion of Georgia appears to be a gambit to take over control of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline and the Black Sea ports that are transit points for Caspian energy supplies.”
either way, i do feel that this comment:
…anyway, off to work.
Booman — I don’t understand your attitude about this. Russia is a vast, rich, strong country that got the shit kicked out of it at the end of the last century by a combination of internal failings and external enemies. It’s people suffered.
Some years later, their fortunes revived thanks to oil and a ruthless regime.
Meanwhile, the shitkickers (us) tried to reorganize the world to keep Russia down. A combination of internal incompetence and external enemies has greatly weakened us, so the revived Russia wants try to regain some ground.
I can and do worry about the Ossetians, Georgians and others who find themselves in the way of the great power meat grinder. I don’t have any sympathy with any of the powers in this though. And I certainly don’t feel I have any interest, as a citizen of the US or as a citizen of the world, in encircling and threatening Russia. This doesn’t work for peace.
Oh no, here come the Russians! OMG!!
yup. Here they come.
“Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages,” Putin said in Moscow. “And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds — these leaders must be taken under protection.”
Here is an overt assertion of Russian intentions: Throwing back in our face our pathetic excuses for our Iraq war, Putin uses the same justification for a plan to take (capture) the Georgian president, and perhaps even give him kangaroo trial like the one we gave Saddam Hussein.
Clearly, Georgia is to be occupied, and the government replaced, by force. The Georgians will have to scramble if they want to surrender on terms.
This bothers you. Well, what should we do–lob nuclear bombs?
The US just does not have a lot of options. Of course we could just give up the Georgia/Ukrainian part of our imperial push, with a smile for all, recognizing that we have not lost anything that was actually ours.
Except for pride–but it is way to late to do anything about that.
I’ve got limited knowledge of this region, but man, I keep getting archduke assassination vibes.
Real History Lisa gave a link that I found well worth the time, The History of Oil, which explains the whole archduke moment and response in a very different way than many of us are taught.
Here’s a video (in English) from an American living in the region calling Bush and Saakashvili for what they are – WAR CRIMINALS.
Pax
The San Francisco Chronicle stories, AP dispatches by someone named MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI, read like Georgian propaganda. For ex, this morning’s story expresses puzzlement because right before the war Russia hadn’t been bunching its troops near the border. Of course they didn’t. They weren’t the ones who invaded!
I think that Russia has legitimate concerns about South Ossetia and Abkhazia and the treatment of ethnic Russians. It will be interesting how the genocide charges play out. My guess is that they’ll be ignored, like Isebegovic’s and Tudjman’s handiwork in Yugoslavia were ignored.
But more important for Russia, it controls the flow of most of the oil and gas that goes from Baku et al west to Europe. As I’ve mentioned many times here, there is an oil pipeline that Big Oil is trying to run south from the old Central Soviet Republics. Through Afghanistan. Which is why we are still there six years after bin Laden left. You know, came for bin Laden, stayed for the oil. Only maybe after all we came for the oil in the first place.
You can almost see Obama negotiating with Big Oil. “Look, this Iraq occupation is bankrupting us for your profits. We can maybe keep something going there on a smaller scale. Some bases and leave Halliburton in place. But I’ll give you the pipeline through Afghanistan.” That looks like the deal, and as bad as it sounds, it’ll be better than McCain’s version of the future.
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Military maneuvers on both sides of the border in the month of July! Read the link below or Georgia Gearing up for “Immediate Response” and Russia flexing muscles with “Caucasus Frontier 2008”
“The exercise will mostly take place on the territory of Chechnya, North Ossetia, Ingushetia, Kabardino-Balkaria, and Karachayevo-Circassia.”
From my diary:
[Churkin]: On 7 August, the day when Georgia had launched military actions against South Ossetia, there had been a joint Georgia-United States military exercise under the name “Immediate Response“.
Map of Ossetia and the Caucasus region
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."“our enemies run roughshod over us.“
Run rougshod over YOU?! Excuse me?! I thought the Russians were running roughshod over Georgia.
Seriously, BooMan everything is NOT about you guys.