http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFcaNM2J3VE "It was Georgia's fault!" "I'm sorry, but we'll have to cut you off now" lol....
Hahahahha, thats the fox news for you, the two ladies tried to describe the situation in a civilian detail, and foxnews try to silence them w/ "oh, war is bad, glad ur safe, what did u do to stay safe?" blah blah blah. but they ran outa itme apparantly, too bad TT
From where I sit, it looks like the girl was coached on what to say. Having the adult then come out with a very strong and one sided political message more or less convinced me that they're of South Ossetian separatist leanings. This was a rather crude attempt to massage media sympathy for the Russians when they were clearly the aggressors. Notice the choice and selection of words that the adult took, right out of media vocabulary; ie normal people don't talk that way, only when they're reading or have practiced from prepared texts. This whole thing is blatant and shockingly similar to what Serbia did in Croatia, Bosnia, and Kosovo; that is, engineer a "threat" to the peace loving Serbs minority living in those lands, and then using that as a pretext, move in invasion troops "to defend" innocent Serb victims. The Russians were supposedly moving in to help "restore order" and protect ethnic Russians living in South Ossetia. Russian state media has been reporting that Russian troops are now "withdrawing" back into Russia. Despite this claim, western reporters in Georgia are instead filming images of Russian troops digging in and fortifying positions deep inside Georgia (well beyond the area of South Ossetia). Inotherwords, they just took over the country. Frankly, I blame NATO for this. If they had allowed Georgia into the alliance last year, then any attack by Russian forces would mandate a NATO military response, something that Russia may not have been prepared to do. However, now the shoe is on the other foot. Russia knows that NATO is not about to go to war with Russia over a country that is not an alliance member. So in essence, while it took a huge political hit in world opinion, militarily, it was a no brainer sure win. Georgia, as an independent nation, other than on paper, ceased to exist at this point. I know a lot of young folks here don't care about politics, but they should take heed of events like this. Bad politics just cost a peoples their country. It isn't right, it isn't fair, but it is deadly real. Russia's best hope, that enough people in the world don't care about or even understand the issue to allow it to keep what it took. Georgia's best hope, that enough people in the world care and understand the issue and make life miserable for Russia unless it gives it back. Sounds a lot like Tibet right? Ralph
fox news has some very right winged and stupid politicians aka bill oreilly , the first time i had a glimpse of reality is watching fox news and other american debates. i didn't think people that high up could be that stupid and allowed to be on air. ALot of american politicians are stupid period so thats how i figured george bush got ellected. Seriously why do they let such dumb people on the air? i guess its for ratings purposes but what i really think is americans need to be treated like idiots to understand stuff they don't understand.
Far from being stupid, those right wing assholes are some of the smartest politicians around, that's why they keep themselves in office. The real stupid people are the electorate, who fail to see through their smoke and mirror and keep putting them back in office each and every time. There are two kinds of republicans, [1] the Bostonian republican, who graduate from Yale or Harvard, and only care about keeping themselves in money and power; and [2] the Hillbilly republican, who barely graduated, loves god, country, and pickup trucks and who's political savvy is too limited to see beyond the simple tricks of the Bostonian republican. The former is dependent on the ignorance of the latter to keep themselves in power. One way that we can do away with all that is to eliminate the Electoral College system of voting by appealing to the simple notion of fairness in One man One Vote. Politically, that would be suicide for the republican party, but Hillbilly republicans would be too stupid to see that. If the US ever went to a popular vote, conservatism as a matter of public opinion would die in less than a generation. Ralph
I don't really understand the situation, but from what I know, Georgia invaded that little area known as South Ossetia after Ossetia won its independence from Georgia in the 1990s. This caused, the neighbor country who looks after Ossetia, to invade Georgia. Granted that this is misleading, then I have no clue whos' fault this is, but that the fighting is pretty retarded. I saw the video of Georgia's president, who was talking about how Russia did this, and how the UN and world should recognize what's going on, that their country is being bullied, and I for one did not trust the guy at all. He seemed like a fake douche.
Excuse me, but "...after Ossetia won its independence?" LOL... I must have been out of town as I missed that one. South Ossetia, while declaring themselves independent, is rather like Taiwan (who de facto, also believes itself independent). The political reality is far from it. While the conflict in the early 90's basically made South Ossetia a relatively autonomous region, the politics has never been settled. "Peacekeepers" from Georgia, Russia, and native South Ossetians was an interim solution reached that allowed monitoring and forestalled continued bloodshed. The political equation was left as is, an unanswered question without any real solution. All remained relatively calm until Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvili recently started to spell out what he determined to be the needed direction; that is, to regain control of Georgian separatist regions (namely South Ossetia and Abkhazia). Russian interests lie in regaining control over these areas too, as separatists there have often sought Russian assistance as a bulwark against Georgian sovereignty. This is rather similar to how Taiwan runs to the US to defend itself against the PRC. The US uses Taiwan to exert its influence in the region. Taiwan allows this because it knows that without the US, it wouldn't stand a chance against the PRC. South Ossetia is friendly to Russia simply because it wants to remain free and independent from Georgia. What is happening now is rather like the PRC invading Taiwan, and the US pounding the crap out of the PRC. Georgia invaded South Ossetia, to take back a breakaway province, and the Russians saw this as a chance to burnish its influence in the region by pounding the shit out of Georgia. The irony of this is when the Russians were faced with Chechnyan separatism, they went in full force and bombed the bejesus out of the region rather than allow the area's inhabitants autonomy. After a generation of brutal conflict, Chechnya is now under a Russian puppet government that reportedly uses torture, summary executions, rape, and murder to maintain civil order and allegiance to the Russian political sphere. The political fallout from all this is that the smaller former Soviet republics are being cowed by Russian brutality and are literally begging on hands and knees for NATO (read this as US led alliance) protection. While they may have bargained hard for allowing US influence before, they won't anymore while they're effectively sitting beneath a Russian Sword of Damocles. The cold war just got a lot hotter. Ralph
Some of these are a few days old but it gives a good synopsis of events: [1a] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dSsBzXll3Ns&feature=related [1b] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gLbLcl8dG8U&feature=related [1c] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y0UCLOP1CWs&feature=related [2a] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZWGic1aIwR4&feature=related [2b] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Drb-84Cd2yY&NR=1 [3] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C5b6w6TC-P8&feature=related [4] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iYkFsfiwlj4&feature=related [5] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-IpayVYqq-o&feature=related Pro Russian - South Ossetian [6] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6yAUqikSik&feature=related Pro Georgian [7] http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EfE1vz6_6wE&feature=related [8] http://www.linktv.org/video/2845?gclid=CLvi4pLDnpUCFQQrFQodLlSukA Videos 1-4 are relatively neutral news sources, 5-6 are partisan views, one from each side; 7 is a recap of the positions and what the world opinion is. 8 is more political commentary. Ralph
i read newspaper only when im bored at night (online mostly, sfgate.com) but thanks a bunch lol those are interestin videos
Regardless of political borders, Georgia fired first, and they fired on civilians first... South Ossetia required aide, Russia came in at their defense, while also in pursuit of their own agenda of securing old territory... Essentially, Georgia's at fault, but Russia should stop pushing into Georgian Territory...
(I don't think armed "civilians" organized into a militia is the same thing as regular Sammy civilian. But that's a whole 'nother argument that I won't even bother with.) I think there's certainly been a lot of political brinksmanship to say the least, but in this case Georgia overplayed its hand, and badly. Georgia, since the dissolution of the former Soviet Union, had been getting pretty cozy with the US, much to Russia's dislike. As a pointed matter, many of the Russian bombs and missiles aimed at Georgia had anti-US slogans painted on it. This sentiment had initially started way back in the first gulf war. For those of you that are too young to remember, in Iraq One, US forces made a laughing stock mockery out of the Soviet trained forces of Iraq. Russian generals sat red faced as they watched the vaunted Republican Guard (the best that Saddam had, probably as good as any category A Soviet Unit) get the shit kicked out of it. They only survived because Bush (the elder) was afraid of public opinion turning anti-US if we continued to bomb the fleeing Iraqi army. So, for the last decade or so, Russia has been quietly revamping its military to go up against US forces; to make up for their perceived shame from their poor surrogate Iraqi showing. In this latest conflict, since US forces aren't involved, then US trained Georgian forces will suffice as the next best thing. Georgian forces have recently enjoyed cooperative military missions with US forces in Iraq, bringing up their formerly obsolete Soviet styled troops to somewhat US standards. This may have given Georgian politicians a perception of invulnerability or false sense of security. Their weakest point is that, in reality, they're not the US military; in essence, they're far from it. They don't have US armor, nor do they have the luxury of US air or naval power, or depth of reserves, nor satellite intelligence. Nor does Georgia enjoy the implied security of a political tripwire like the US troops station in the Republic of Korea (whose presence guarantees a severe American military response should the north attack again). In going into South Ossetia to reclaim or protect Georgia's sovereignty, Saakashvili seriously miscalculated and the Russians took his political ineptitude to task. They were essentially waiting to pounce and he opened the door to it. Despite world protestations, Russia isn't going to budge on this. The Russians (in their former Soviet guise) have had a long history of taking over their neighbors and using armed force to perpetuate it. Just a short walk through the events in Hungary and the former Czechoslovakia will readily provide evidence of this. Russian forces have announced that they will maintain posts in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, in effect annexing provinces that were a part of Georgia. This is essentially an unabashed land grab. Sure, they're going to couch the thing in flowery or righteous politically correct language, but de facto, they're telling the world, "we did it, and there isn't a damned thing that you can do about it, so fuck off..." Oh, and a reminder of what Soviet politics have done for the world, China is communist today because of Soviet foreign policy. Ralph
