Georgia

[KDR_11k]

1. lol American nukes. IT'S FREAKING RUSSIA. You realize what happens when you nuke Russia? Wanna side with Russia? Well, nuking tiny countries doesn't go down well either. And using all your super high-tech stuff? Costs money, wasting more of that on countries you have no reason to care about is stupid. Like raiding mexes with a Liche.

2. Seems that the Russians are the only news source, they've disabled Georgia's internet so there's no information other than what the Russians permit. Tombom's picture there shows text where everything is referenced as coming from Russia.

3. Alledgedly Russia would give citizenships to almost anyone in Ossetia which would mean the Russians killed there were Russians on paper only.

[yuritch]

Well, those people have no Georgian citizenship, but have Russian one. So who they are, Georgians or Russians?
Thing is, that province (and 2 others like it, Northern Ossetia and Abkhazia) was never a part of Georgia after the collapse of USSR (they had autonomy status inside Georgia before then), they declared their independence immediately after Georgia declared its own (but no one recognized it). So they were never citizens of Georgia either, and back then any citizen of exUSSR could choose whatever citizenship he wanted in the newly formed states. So they took Russian passports.
After all of that the conflict started, it was raging during the early 1990s until a temporary ceasefire was achieved and Russian peacekeeping force was stationed there to separate conflicting sides. Now with Russian-Georgian split that was going on for quite some time already (AFAIR more than a year by now), Georgians apparently decided they could ignore those troops. And entered the conflict zone again. And allegedly killed 10 or so Russian peacekeepers. So now they have Russian army going after them.

[Sleksa]

Russia claiming that they're rushing (see what I did there) to Ossetia's aide due to Georgia abusing a seperatist member state is the most hilariously hipocrytical thing I've seen since the last Republican sex scandal. Russia, that makes a hobby of routinely blasting seperatist(terrorist?) Chechnya into oblivion.

Well it is a fact that georgia attacked south ossetia first
(according to finnish papers, and cnn.com), and that russian peacekeepers were shot(alledgely)

Also if you want to bring up chechenya into this discussion, we could make new topics for vietnam, afganistan, nuking of japan, iraq, arming israel to kill palestinians, the pig's bay incident on cuba ETC ETC.

The us stands on no moral ground to judge russia ~~

3. Alledgedly Russia would give citizenships to almost anyone in Ossetia which would mean the Russians killed there were Russians on paper only.

Well, ossetia is divided into 2 pieces, north and south, and the north IS a part of russia already, so i'd say that the russians there are more than "russians on paper"

Either way, apparently the Israelis are arming the Georgians, and it's all happening around Iran's back door, so things have the potential to get pretty dodgy.

US has a military base in georgia, where they have (alledgely) trained the georgians, and all the guns coming from israel are propably of US origin anyway

[[Krogoth86]]

Here is something to make you wonder:
About three weeks ago (it was reported around July the 21st) the US government ordered 500,000 plastic coffins for Georgia. Yet again quite some coincidence in what the US government does...

http://moderndayexodus.com/?p=349

[pharoph]

this could be the unfolding of something.. bad.. nothing the secret service cant handle.

[[Krogoth86]]

Yeah - you really can start being creative on this and even apart from that this order just isn't normal but here a guess list (well the first things are facts) for all conspiracy fans:

• In May the Georgian government asks the US for help
• in July 500,000 coffins (especially made for diseases and biological warfare) are ordered by US located in Georgia
• I think about End of July / Beginning of August lots of US fleets train naval warfare and blockades all aimed around a possible war with Iran
• chemical / biological warfare in Georgia which Iran gets blamed for (if they were accused of having stolen them from Iraq it even would be more funny)
• War vs. Iran (finally and well ... yet again another war)

Enjoy!

[pharoph]

there has to be some more things to it like country (a) wants to help country(b) because of the war there having. country (a) declare war on country (c). as it continue to unravel more alliances will forum and new countries entering the war. hopefully. the big war wont start until after the olimpics

[KDR_11k]

Meh, this is Georgia's problem, we (the NATO) shouldn't send anything down there. We're not the world police and we have enough to do at the moment anyway.

[FLOZi]

Do bear in mind that Georgia is currently applying for NATO membership...

[PicassoCT]

To understand they why and whatfor get a Underground Map of Georgio... Oil here, Gas there.. Gunfire everywhere..

By a electric Car to end this War..

[Peace]

Weird and complicated situation. Many different motives behind this.

Russia sure are overstepping their bounds since they're bombing a lot of stuff inside Georgia but Georgia did infact attack first. There was a treaty which said this particular "Ossetia going independent thing" wasn't going to be solved with violence so Georgia broke that agreement. If Russia just drove Georgia out of Ossetia it would be perfectly legit imo.

I wonder what impact, if any, this will have on Georgia joining EU and NATO? I mean Russia has been cranky about those ambitions for a long while and Georgia goes and do something like this? Just odd...
Probably not a coincidence that this is happening while the entire world is looking the other way either (the olympics)

Anyone who thinks the US or any other western country is going to intervene with armed forces is just plain stupid.

[Relative]

I'm just worried this might turn into a regional war if the Russians decide to push it any further. If they go too far NATO may finally execute its main purpose, "to keep the Russians out", and it might drag the US into another war as it seems they have their finger right in the middle of this pot:

http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/08/d ... itary.html

[Argh]

Holy smokes... I go out of town for the weekend, and this happens

Man, after reading about what's going on, I hope that both sides quit shooting and begin negotiations, pronto. Talk about a stupid war

Neither side gains anything worth having, from a strategic point of view, by continued fighting, imo. The various facts about who really shot first, etc., are irrelevant, as this wasn't worth shooting over in the first place.

It's not like there is anything in Ossetia that's of serious strategic interest, to either party I would think, unless there's something important about the geography (ground that can be defended easily, major river, etc.) that I've missed during my cursory reading about the causes of this. It looks like it's just a conflict over the ownership of a region that seems more driven by petty politics over ethnic makeup and breast-beating than anything worthwhile.

Russia could gain major points by calling a halt to hostilities quickly, and calling for international peacekeepers to hold the ground. Further fighting will wreck the infrastructure of the area, as they simply do not have the precision-strike capabilities of the U.S. armed forces.

Further fighting will just drain the Russian's slim military budget, wreck hardware they can't replace, and permanently damage relations with a nation that should be a peaceful trading partner, while also further damaging their fragile relationship with the G8, tbh.

On the U.S. end, I don't think that anybody in our government supports any sort of military intervention at all. If anything, my reading of the various statements made reflect the same confusion and disappointment that I feel right now, in both sides' behavior. Helping the Georgians prepare in a "what-if" way is one thing... actually sending them active help is another thing entirely. The first is politics, the second is just pissing away money over a conflict that's not worth the bother, imo.

There would be absolutely no public support for helping the Georgians beyond what has already been done, either, unless new facts came to light that put the Russian actions in a different context. Russia's actions resembled a heavy-handed attempt at an anschluss, yeah... but it's also very clear that there is no real advantage to be gained by anybody by this stupid war. It's kind've like U.S. deciding to support Quebec's independence movement through military force, or something equally stupid...

For a fairly fair-handed assessment of the overall situation and the actions of the various parties, I'd suggest this link:

http://lefarkins.blogspot.com/2008/08/w ... setia.html

[imbaczek]

My guess is that the Georgian offensive was merely a preemptive strike. Russia has one thing they care about in the region - it's an oil and gas pipe that Russia doesn't control, and it's the only one like that left around there. I'd be pleasantly surprised if the war ceased before that installation is put out of order.

disclaimer: haven't read the thread.

[Zoombie]

I just finished reading a book called "Stupid Wars"

It ends with the failed coup against Gorbachev. I feel that if the book was written in 2020, it would include this war.

Nato should stay out...last thing I want to see is a repeat of the fifties.

[Gota]

MY god our guns are killing russians!!! I was born in russia.
lol TBH u all got it wrong.
Russia wants that territory to itself and has done eevrything in its power to get it and now she probably will...they did everything from aiding with equipment and giving out free russian citizenships to the people living in that territory.
You people fail to realise one thing.
Russians still hate america and they dont like the european eunion.
The population doesnt really know why but from its dumb ignorant opinions u can speculate as to what the russian government(oligarchy) will do next.
Its same old story of russia vs all especially usa.
They still think they are in the cold war.
I know cause i was in russia when the war broke(this one not the cold one).

[BaNa]

not so different from Kosovo

Except Albania isn't a world power like Russia is.

I personally have great fear from this whole thing. It wasn't 20 years ago that we still had Russian troops in Hungary. It is kind of hard to imagine them as "peacekeepers", anywhere. Especially an ex-soviet country. We who have been fucked by those buggers have all rights to bloody keep them off our soil. I imagine the georgians feel the same way.

[yuritch]

Neither side gains anything worth having, from a strategic point of view, by continued fighting, imo.

Not quite so. The region in question contains the only tunnel that connects it to Russia. Gain control of that, and it will be very hard to move any forces from Russia there. Georgians attempted a sabotage on the tunnel (and even announced it succeded), but failed. The other way in from Russian side is by a long mountain road that has very low throughput and is very easy to make abmushes on.
Plus there's another thing on the stake as well. That is, Russian reputation. Russia gained a bad reputation by repeatedly failing to protect its announced 'allies'. Yugoslavia/Serbia was not protected twice (last time was when Kosovo seceded). If the S.Ossetia wasn't helped (Russian officials repeatedly said they will do whatever in their power to prevent fighting there in the past), then who will take Russian stand on anything seriously? And who will want to ally with them? So now they had shown they indeed help their allies, by whatever means necessery. Even if the ally is something as small as S.Ossetia that would have been completely subdued by Georgian forces in a few days otherwise. That's not exactly the kind of 'good guy' reputation of course, but the one of country that keeps its word.
And as for oil pipeline, that one is out of use for some days already. Someone (supposedlu Kurds) blew up one of the pump stations on it (located in Turkey) a few days ago (before the shooting started), so the war doesn't have any additional effect on it.

[Dragon45]

[Wolf-In-Exile]

yuritch and sleksa are correct, Georgia is the one that started shelling the capital of Ossetia, forcing Russia to respond.
Russia has been trying to prevent bloodshed between Georgia and Ossetia, as many Ossetians are practically Russian citizens.
Ossetia also voted to join Russia instead of Georgia, which has been trying to claim Ossetia for a long time.

Georgia's motives for attacking are because they wish to join the European Union, and it cannot do so while it has territorial disputes (Ossetia and Abkhazia).
Georgia also counted on US support by trying to make it look like they're the victims of Russian aggression, knowing the US's antagonistic attitude towards Russia.

On the other hand, Russia also has an interest in Ossetia and Abkhazia, but weren't willing to resort to military force to protect those interests. At least, until Georgia started attacking Ossetia.
So, there really isn't a doubt that Georgia is the aggressor, despite the heavy bias of Western media against Russia.