Society & Events: August 2008 Archives

Rock. Earth. Gravity.

Russian convoy heads into Georgia, violating truce

A Russian military convoy thrust deep into Georgia on Wednesday and Georgian officials said Russian troops bombed and looted the crossroads city of Gori, violating a freshly brokered truce intended to end the conflict

The Georgians are out of Abkhazia and South Ossetia entirely. There is no justification for this.

"The border has been along this river for 1,000 years," separatist official Ruslan Kishmaria told AP on Wednesday. He said Georgia would have to accept the new border and taunted the departed Georgian forces by saying they had received "American training in running away."

Yes, and how long will it be before they find out they've made the same sort of bargain the Iranians did in 1978, the Germans in 1933, and the Russians in 1917? Or, to quote from popular culture: "I am altering the terms of our agreement. Pray I don't alter it any further."

By the way, Georgia has about 26,000 men total in their armed services. That's maybe one combat division and the support troops. By comparison, the map StratFor had up Monday showed six Russian combat divisions (Mechanized) plus thee armored combat brigades and two battalions of combat engineers in or very close to Georgia. That's more combat forces than the US-led Coalition has in Iraq. You don't have that kind of force in the area and ready to go by accident. This was planned, this was deliberate, and the Russian troops are doing precisely what they have been ordered to do.

Russia's deputy chief of General Staff Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn denied any tanks were in Gori. He said Russians went into the city to try to implement the truce with local Georgian officials but could not find any.

An APTN television crew in Gori saw some Russian armored vehicles Wednesday morning near a military base there. Puffs of smoke in the air indicated some military action.

Stonewall, denial, keep doing what you want while the rest of the world denies the facts, because doing so is immediately convenient. Same dance, different floor.

Georgia insisted its troops were driven from Abkhazia by Russian forces. At first, Russia said separatists - not Russian forces - had done the job. But the claim rang hollow - an AP reporter saw 135 Russian military vehicles heading toward the gorge Tuesday and Russia is the military patron for the separatists.

Nogovitsyn said Wednesday that Russian peacekeepers had disarmed Georgian troops in Kodori - the very peacekeepers Georgia wants withdrawn. Still, the effect was clear. Abkhazia was out of Georgian hands and it would take more than an EU peace plan to get it back in.

Why? Because Putin wants the Soviet Empire back, and Georgia controls the only oil pipelines that break the Russian monopoly on oil in Europe. With that pipeline as well as the Russian ones firmly in possession, Europe can either 1) dance to Putin's tune, or 2) Starve and freeze. I don't remember where I saw it, but somebody this morning said, "I have looked into (Putin's) soul, and seen three letters: KGB"

Georgia sits on a strategic oil pipeline carrying Caspian crude to Western markets and bypassing Russia. The British oil company BP shut down one of three Georgian pipelines, saying it was a precaution.

Try running Ploesti oil fields through a search engine if you want a historical parallel.

Aargghhh! tells us why the breakaway provinces are important to Georgia

Wizbang on why Georgia and similar nations are important to the US and the world.

Some history: Putin the terrible

Even if this invasion leaves a nominally independent Georgia, it will be a Russian puppet in at least this one respect, and probably in others. This is a wake-up call to the world, but we're handling it pretty much like we did this.

On Scene: A Cry for Unity in Georgia

"We are all Georgians today," U.S. presidential candidate John McCain said Tuesday. But it was eastern European leaders who showed up in force in Georgia on a sultry evening to reassure the huge crowd of Georgians. No fewer than six heads of state flew into Tbilisi to pay their respects and show their solidarity with this small nation of 4.5 million people. They included France's Nicolas Sarkozy and the Presidents of five other regional neighbors, including Poland and Ukraine. Sarkozy stayed behind closed doors, trying to hammer out a ceasefire agreement, but the others unabashedly threw in their hat with the Georgian side.

That and a dollar will get you a cup of coffee. When the other side is willing to use violence and you are not, you are at their mercy. I don't think Putin and the Russian nationalists will have any, in this case.

Time Magazine has been all over this, to its credit:
The Russian Empire Strikes Back

Failing the Georgia Test

the incursion of Russian troops beyond the secessionist province of South Ossetia represents a direct challenge by Moscow to the U.S., the European Union and NATO, reviving the old confrontation between the former Cold War adversaries.

The United States Shares the Blame for the Russia-Georgia Crisis

Washington established two precedents: use of force without approval of the United Nations Security Council and the division of a sovereign nation without U.N. consent. Both precedents emerged out of Kosovo's quest for independence from Serbia, which led in 1999 to U.S.-directed NATO airstrikes against Serbia to drive Serbian military and police forces out of its Kosovo province. The Clinton administration and NATO conducted the strikes--both in Kosovo and in Serbia proper, where the attacks targeted not only security units but also civilian infrastructure, like power stations--over Russia's strong opposition in the Security Council. Russia today is repeating NATO's 1999 justification of its action in arguing that Georgia conducted ethnic cleansing and genocide in South Ossetia and that Moscow was obliged to respond because of its role as a peacekeeper.

I'm not so certain of his second point - that Bush administration officials support for Georgia was a cause. First, there is a real need to be willing to support allies in ways that actually cost something. Otherwise, all you have is a friendship of the moment. Second - and this is critical - Georgia did not attack Russia. They only attempted to regain their own breakaway provinces. The Russians had been doing everything possible to lay the groundwork for annexation since Putin's accession, but South Ossetia and Abkhazia were part of Georgia, according to all the international accords.

John McCain saw the reality immediately, to his resounding credit, while his opposition once again betrayed his authoritarian bias

On Friday, Russian tanks and troops moved through the Roki Tunnel, across an internationally-recognized border, and into the Georgian province of South Ossetia. Two years ago, I traveled to South Ossetia, my friends, and we went through this barricade, and as soon as we got into this place, which the Russians are maintaining hundreds and now thousands of troops, there's this huge billboard and it said, 'Vladimir Putin, Our President.' Have no doubt about Russian ambitions in this area.

The Russian government stated it was acting only to protect Ossetians, and yet, on Saturday, its bombing campaign encompassed the whole of Georgia. Hundreds of innocent civilians have been wounded and killed -- possibly thousands. Military bases, apartment buildings, and other infrastructure all came under Russian fire. And the Russian Black Sea Fleet began concentrating off of the Georgian coast.

Russian hackers continue attacks on Georgian sites

Attacks by Russian hackers against Georgian Web sites, including one hosted in the United States, continued Tuesday even as Russian President Dmitri Medvedev ordered a halt to hostilities against Georgia.

How long does it take to stop a computer-based attack? The answer may be up there in the range of whole entire seconds - mostly from the need to communicate with the person running it and enter the commands necessary.

Richard Fernandez on the reports that the computer attacks preceded even the Georgian assault.

Is Ukraine next?

The U.S. has long seen Georgia and Ukraine as counterweights to Russia's influence in the region. Opposition leaders in the two countries came to power after U.S.-backed popular protests in 2003 and 2004. Their ascension advanced an American strategy of expanding NATO to include both countries and securing energy routes from the Caspian Sea that bypass Russia. The BP Plc-led Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline to Turkey runs through Georgia.

This is nothing less than the opening shots of a new campaign for world domination on the part of Putin. His actions are too consistently aimed in that direction to deny it.

American Troops Help Defend Georgia (127 trainers)

Israel understands what's happening: Israeli Military Sales To Georgia Continue

Victor Davis Hanson says it best: Moscow's Sinister Brilliance

There will be no Russian demonstrations about an "illegal war," much less nonsense about "blood for oil," but instead rejoicing at the payback of an uppity former province that felt its Western credentials somehow trumped Russian tanks.

and

Indeed, tired of European lectures, the Russians are now telling the world that soft power is, well, soft. Moscow doesn't give a damn about the United Nations, the European Union, the World Court at the Hague, or any finger-pointing moralist from Geneva or London. Did anyone in Paris miss any sleep over the rubble of Grozny

and

The Russians have sized up the moral bankruptcy of the Western Left. They know that half-a-million Europeans would turn out to damn their patron the United States for removing a dictator and fostering democracy, but not more than a half-dozen would do the same to criticize their long-time enemy from bombing a constitutional state.

and

From what the Russians learned of the Western reaction to Iraq, they expect their best apologists will be American politicians, pundits, professors, and essayists -- and once more they will not be disappointed. We are a culture, after all, that after damning Iraqi democracy as too violent, broke, and disorganized, is now damning Iraqi democracy as too conniving, rich, and self-interested -- the only common denominator being whatever we do, and whomever we help, cannot be good.

Big Lizards has some good suggestions as to a future plan of action. Nothing in the way of immediate military action, but that's not realistically on the table for logistical reasons.

Q and Oalso speaks sanity.

The pause that deposes

Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov refused to negotiate with Georgia's elected government, saying publicly that Mikheil Saakashvili "has to go", while President Dmitri Medvedev ordered his troops to "crush" any remaining Georgian resistance.

If that sounds like peace, it's the peace of the graveyard:

Does anyone else remember that the word for "peace" in Russian is the same as the word for "world"? (Mir)