Don't you just hate it when you find out that one of your very good friends waits until the Olympics have started before invading a poverty-striken country that just happens to be sitting on top of a couple oil pipelines, while killing thousands of innocent people?
This is especially inconvenient when this invasion occurs while your top foreign policy advisor and Russian expert finally is forced to interrupt her precious vacation.
"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it," declared Condoleeza Rice, U.S. Secretary of State and George Bush's best girlfriend, conveniently ignoring the United States' actions in Iraq.
"Things have changed."
Russia says it bombed Georgia, an ally of the United States, last week after the Georgian military tried to capture South Ossetia, an area where Russians reside. Russian tanks rumbled into the Georgian city of Gori last Wednesday and continued deep into Georgian territory. Georgian officials said Gori was looted and bombed by the Russians.
"The message is that Russia has perhaps not accepted that it is time to move on from the Cold War and it is time to move to a new era in which relations between states are on the basis of equality, and sovereignty and economic integration," Rice scolded those naughty Russians.
But State Department Deputy Spokesman Robert Wood stated that Russian retaliation, including wide-ranging air strikes, went far beyond any notion of trying to protect its citizens living in South Ossetia.
"I want to make very clear that the United States stands for the territorial integrity of Georgia, for the sovereignty of Georgia, that we support its democratically elected government and its people," Rice pointed out, as much to the Russians as to Georgians, who appear to feel abandoned by the United States after six days of diplomatic hand-wringing.
Today, Rice finally left for Toulon, France, where she will meet with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has led the European pressure campaign on Russia. From there she plans to go to Paris to meet with French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner; on Friday she is flying to Tbilisi, the capital of Georgia, where she will speak with the president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
"I believe that they believe that they have made some progress and we welcome that and we certainly welcome the EU mediation," Rice stated in nearly impenetrable political double-speak as she spoke to reporters at the White House before setting out on her journey.
The Russians have a different perspective, of course.
"Any civilized country would act same way," pointed out Russia's First Deputy Prime Minister, Sergei Ivanov. "I may remind you [that on] September 11 [2001], the reaction was similar. American citizens were killed. You know the reaction."
Of course, the Russians are also ignoring the fact that 911 was merely a convenient excuse for George Bush invade an oil-rich country, Iraq, instead the country, Saudi Arabia, from where the terrorists actually came from -- a country whose king just happpens to be a close personal friend of the Bush family.
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So that means Russia has a better excuse than USA had?
my point is that the world's leaders -- starting with george bush -- are a pack of lying, thieving hypocrites, who murder innocent people (but none of us really exist, except as pawns in their clumsy game of international chess).
Footnote: The US and Russia together have approximately 9600 deliverable nuclear weapons.
In fairness, the Georgians did start this latest round, by trying to act against the seperatists in South Ossetia.
I might have more sympathy for Russia if I wasn't certain that they had been stirring up the seperatists in Georgia anyway. And also if they had had a rather different attitude to their own actions against seperatists, in Chechnya.
If we're lucky, the leaders of the Western World will discover their spines, and ask Georgia if they want to join NATO. Russia are opposed to that, because they know they wouldn't then be able to do what they did.
>>Don't you just hate it when you find out that one of your very good friends waits until the Olympics have started before invading a poverty-striken country..?
Are you talking about the Georgians?
Georgia began a military offensive into South Ossetia commanded by Mamuka Kurashvili, which they said was a response to the above-mentioned alleged attacks against Georgian villages. Kurashvili stated that the purpose of the operation was to restore constitutional order in the region.[13] This caused an increased number of refugees to cross into Russia.[13][14] Interfax quoted South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity as saying his forces were confronting Georgians in the outskirts of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia; he noted that fierce fighting was under way.[citation needed] In a televised address, Georgian President Saakashvili has vowed to restore Tbilisi's control over what he called the "criminal regime" in South Ossetia and Abkhazia and reinforce order.
At 00:53 on August 8 (local time, 20:53 August 7 UTC), Georgian forces began shelling the city, which allegedly included the route along which refugees were being moved.[16] As the day progressed, Russian media reported that at least fifteen civilians had been killed in Tskhinvali.[7] The Georgian Army crossed the border of South Ossetia on the early hours of August 8 after overnight bombardment of Tskhinvali by heavy artillery (howitzers), 122 mm multiple-launch rocket systems "Grad", and large-caliber mortars. Tanks and APC supported by artillery launched a thrust towards Tskhinvali. Opposed by South Ossetian forces, Georgians advanced and by the end of August 8 controlled a significant portion of the city. At 04:45 (00:45 UTC), Georgian State Minister for Reintegration Temuri Yakobashvili announced that Tskhinvali was nearly surrounded, and that Georgia controlled two-thirds of South Ossetia's territory.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_2008_South_Ossetia_war
To GrrlScientist #2.
I totally agree. I miss the times of the Velvet Revolution at Czechoslovakia... A non-violent revolution, with only a few people hurt by riot police, it was one of the most important revolutions at the end of the 80's. The Communist Party simply stood back, and left. They relinquished power and dismantled the single-party state.
The US action in invading a sovereign nation that posed no threat to the security of the country sort of reduces any moral authority the US might have had in this situation. The simple fact is that the US could do absolutely nothing about Russia's invasion of Georgia. That's probably why the current occupant didn't cut short his trip to the Olympics. And the Russians knew full well. They recognized all the US protests as exactly what they were: impotent blather.
Bob O'H- I understand the arguments for allowing Georgia into NATO, but I think they are woefully inadequate in the face of logic not to do so. While there are many, it is worth noting that by treaty, had Georgia joined NATO, right now we would be at war with Russia. So I ask you, do you want to go to war with Russia over Georgia? The U.S., indeed, most of the world has NOTHING to gain from such a war and everything to lose.
Surrounding Russia with NATO pact countries is simply asking for disaster.
Russia invaded another country?!
Impossible.
Everyone knows that Saint Ronald of Reagan, the patron of neocons, made Russia out good friend that would never be a threat again. At least that's the neocons have been saying for the past 20 years.
The analogy to the invasion of Czechoslovakia is just pathology from the girl whose dissertation topic was Czechoslovakia, and this will serve only to propagate more confusion over the issue in the news. A Kosovo analogy would have been more appropriate, but in her mind, independence of Kosovo is defensible while independence of South Ossetia is not.
this scenario reminds me of a bunch of bratty kids fighting in the backseat of the car on a long trip. basically, they all should be dumped out of the car and forced to walk home.
No, this metaphor is not better that Rice's analogy in terms of clarifying who was the aggressor. In this case, the aid of a front-seater, perhaps even the driver, was requested by a back-seat passenger in the event that Georgia should ever cross the boundary between the back-seats. It was Georgia who crossed the line this time.
So, Russia, if the US jumped off a bridge, would you do it too?
No we (or rather you) wouldn't. Because Russia wouldn't have invaded Georgia. They don't want a war with NATO either - Putin isn't that stupid.
Over the last few years Russia has really started to flex its muscles again. At the risk of Godwinning the discussion, I think there are parallels with Germany's foreign relationships between the wars: strong action now will discourage Russia from going too far later.
There does seem to be some positive action on this front. Russia has bounced the US into giving Poland more support.