The opposition in Georgia finally found its voice, thanks to the international investigations into Saakashvili's policies and attention from the Western media (Photo by Spiegel)
What really happened to provoke the recent crisis in the Caucusus--a crisis that gravely set back Western relations with Russia--is bound to get more scholarly scrutiny with the passage of time. This latest report, in any event, is not going to help the Georgian picture.
Regardless, isn't it amazing how things have changed since August? The price of oil collapsed, and with it the urgency over pipeline routes and prices in Central Europe. Because of the financial panic, Russia's sense of invulnerability has been set back. Public perceptions of the Kremlin leadership may be deteriorating along with the market--though Russia is not yet in a recession like America is experiencing. And the U.S. has a new president-elect. President Medvedev's challenge to that new president-elect has not gone down as well in Russia as might have been expected. In short, hardly anyone is really thinking about Georgia now. What a shift!
International Herald Tribune reports:
Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression. Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia's inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.
Visit the extended post to read the IHT article.
Georgia's claims on war with Russia questioned
By C. J. Chivers and Ellen Barry
International Herald Tribune
Friday, November 7, 2008
TBILISI, Georgia: Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.
Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia's inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.
The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia's insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has characterized the attack as a precise and defensive act. But according to observations of the monitors, documented Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Saakashvili's main justifications for the attack.
Senior Georgian officials contest these accounts, and have urged Western governments to discount them. "That information, I don't know what it is and how it is confirmed," said Giga Bokeria, Georgia's deputy foreign minister. "There is such an amount of evidence of continuous attacks on Georgian-controlled villages and so much evidence of Russian military buildup, it doesn't change in any case the general picture of events."
He added: "Who was counting those explosions? It sounds a bit peculiar."
The Kremlin has embraced the monitors' observations, which, according to a written statement from Grigory Karasin, Russia's deputy foreign minister, reflect "the actual course of events prior to Georgia's aggression." He added that the accounts "refute" allegations by Tbilisi of bombardments that he called mythical.
The monitors were members of an international team working under the mandate of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, or OSCE. A multilateral organization with 56 member states, the group has monitored the conflict since a previous cease-fire agreement in the 1990s.
The observations by the monitors, including a Finnish major, a Belorussian airborne captain and a Polish civilian, have been the subject of two confidential briefings to diplomats in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, one in August and the other in October. Summaries were shared with The New York Times by people in attendance at both.
Details were then confirmed by three Western diplomats and a Russian, and were not disputed by the OSCE's mission in Tbilisi, which was provided with a written summary of the observations.
Saakashvili, who has compared Russia's incursion into Georgia to the Nazi annexations in Europe in 1938 and the Soviet suppression of Prague in 1968, faces domestic unease with his leadership and skepticism about his judgment from Western governments.
The brief war was a disaster for Georgia. The attack backfired. Georgia's army was humiliated as Russian forces overwhelmed its brigades, seized and looted their bases, captured their equipment and roamed the country's roads at will. Villages that Georgia vowed to save were ransacked and cleared of their populations by irregular Ossetian, Chechen and Cossack forces, and several were burned to the ground.
Massing of Weapons
According to the monitors, an OSCE patrol at 3 p.m. on Aug. 7 saw large numbers of Georgian artillery and grad rocket launchers massing on roads north of Gori, just south of the enclave.
At 6:10 p.m., the monitors were told by Russian peacekeepers of suspected Georgian artillery fire on Khetagurovo, an Ossetian village; this report was not independently confirmed, and Georgia declared a unilateral cease-fire shortly thereafter, about 7 p.m.
During a news broadcast that began at 11 p.m., Georgia announced that Georgian villages were being shelled, and declared an operation "to restore constitutional order" in South Ossetia. The bombardment of Tskhinvali started soon after the broadcast.
According to the monitors, however, no shelling of Georgian villages could be heard in the hours before the Georgian bombardment. At least two of the four villages that Georgia has since said were under fire were near the observers' office in Tskhinvali, and the monitors there likely would have heard artillery fire nearby.
Moreover, the observers made a record of the rounds exploding after Georgia's bombardment began at 11:35 p.m. At 11:45 p.m., rounds were exploding at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between impacts, they noted.
At 12:15 a.m. on Aug. 8, General Major Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers in the enclave, reported to the monitors that his unit had casualties, indicating that Russian soldiers had come under fire.
By 12:35 a.m. the observers had recorded at least 100 heavy rounds exploding across Tskhinvali, including 48 close to the observers' office, which is in a civilian area and was damaged.
Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, a spokesman for the Russian Defense Ministry, said that by morning on Aug. 8 two Russian soldiers had been killed and five wounded. Two senior Western military officers stationed in Georgia, speaking on condition of anonymity because they work with Georgia's military, said that whatever Russia's behavior in or intentions for the enclave, once Georgia's artillery or rockets struck Russian positions, conflict with Russia was all but inevitable. This clear risk, they said, made Georgia's attack dangerous and unwise.
Senior Georgia officials, a group with scant military experience and personal loyalties to Saakashvili, have said that much of the damage to Tskhinvali was caused in combat between its soldiers and separatists, or by Russian airstrikes and bombardments in its counterattack the next day. As for its broader shelling of the city, Georgia has told Western diplomats that Ossetians hid weapons in civilian buildings, making them legitimate targets.
"The Georgians have been quite clear that they were shelling targets the mayor's office, police headquarters that had been used for military purposes," said Matthew Bryza, a deputy assistant secretary of state and one of Saakashvili's vocal supporters in Washington.
Those claims have not been independently verified, and Georgia's account was disputed by Ryan Grist, a former British Army captain who was the senior OSCE representative in Georgia when the war broke out. Grist said that he was in constant contact that night with all sides, with the office in Tskhinvali and with Wing Commander Stephen Young, the retired British military officer who leads the monitoring team.
"It was clear to me that the attack was completely indiscriminate and disproportionate to any, if indeed there had been any, provocation," Grist said. "The attack was clearly, in my mind, an indiscriminate attack on the town, as a town."
Grist has served as a military officer or diplomat in Northern Ireland, Cyprus, Kosovo and Yugoslavia. In August, after the Georgian foreign minister, Eka Tkeshelashvili, who has no military experience, assured diplomats in Tbilisi that the attack was measured and discriminate, Grist gave a briefing to diplomats from the European Union that drew from the monitors' observations and included his assessments. He then soon resigned under unclear circumstances.
A second briefing was led by Young in October for military attachés visiting Georgia. At the meeting, according to a person in attendance, Young stood by the monitors' assessment that Georgian villages had not been extensively shelled on the evening or night of Aug. 7. "If there had been heavy shelling in areas that Georgia claimed were shelled, then our people would have heard it, and they didn't," Young said, according to the person who attended. "They heard only occasional small-arms fire."
The O.S.C.E turned down a request by The Times to interview Young and the monitors, saying they worked in sensitive jobs and would not be publicly engaged in this disagreement.
Grievances and Exaggeration
Disentangling the Russian and Georgian accounts has been complicated. The violence along the enclave's boundaries that had occurred in recent summers was more widespread this year, and in the days before Aug. 7 there had been shelling of Georgian villages. Tensions had been soaring.
Each side has fresh lists of grievances about the other, which they insist are decisive. But both sides also have a record of misstatement and exaggeration, which includes circulating casualty estimates that have not withstood independent examination. With the international standing of both Russia and Georgia damaged, the public relations battle has been intensive.
Russian military units have been implicated in destruction of civilian property and accused by Georgia of participating with Ossetian militias in a campaign of ethnic cleansing. Russia and South Ossetia have accused Georgia of attacking Ossetian civilians.
But a critical and as yet unanswered question has been what changed for Georgia between 7 p.m. on Aug 7, when Saakashvili declared a cease-fire, and 11:30 p.m., when he says he ordered the attack. The Russian and Ossetian governments have said the cease-fire was a ruse used to position rockets and artillery for the assault.
That view is widely held by Ossetians. Civilians repeatedly reported resting at home after the cease-fire broadcast by Saakashvili. Emeliya B. Dzhoyeva, 68, was home with her husband, Felix, 70, when the bombardment began. He lost his left arm below the elbow and suffered burns to his right arm and torso. "Saakashvili told us that nothing would happen," she said. "So we all just went to bed."
Neither Georgia nor its Western allies have as yet provided conclusive evidence that Russia was invading the country or that the situation for Georgians in the Ossetian zone was so dire that a large-scale military attack was necessary, as Saakashvili insists.
Georgia has released telephone intercepts indicating that a Russian armored column apparently entered the enclave from Russia early on the Aug. 7, which would be a violation of the peacekeeping rules. Georgia said the column marked the beginning of an invasion. But the intercepts did not show the column's size, composition or mission, and there has not been evidence that it was engaged with Georgian forces until many hours after the Georgian bombardment; Russia insists it was simply a routine logistics train or troop rotation.
Unclear Accounts of Shelling
Interviews by The Times have found a mixed picture on the question of whether Georgian villages were shelled after Saakashvili declared the cease-fire. Residents of the village of Zemo Nigozi, one of the villages that Georgia has said was under heavy fire, said they were shelled from 6 p.m. on, supporting Georgian statements.
In two other villages, interviews did not support Georgian claims. In Avnevi, several residents said the shelling stopped before the cease-fire and did not resume until roughly the same time as the Georgian bombardment. In Tamarasheni, some residents said they were lightly shelled on the evening of Aug. 7, but felt safe enough not to retreat to their basements. Others said they were not shelled until Aug 9.
With a paucity of reliable and unbiased information available, the OSCE observations put the United States in a potentially difficult position. The United States, Saakashvili's principal source of international support, has for years accepted the organization's conclusions and praised its professionalism. Bryza refrained from passing judgment on the conflicting accounts.
"I wasn't there," he said, referring to the battle. "We didn't have people there. But the OSCE really has been our benchmark on many things over the years."
The OSCE itself, while refusing to discuss its internal findings, stood by the accuracy of its work but urged caution in interpreting it too broadly. "We are confident that all OSCE observations are expert, accurate and unbiased," Martha Freeman, a spokeswoman, said in an e-mail message. "However, monitoring activities in certain areas at certain times cannot be taken in isolation to provide a comprehensive account."
Comments
I have an impression that -shniks, which is same as ex KGB-shniks outnumber the quantity of population of the entire Georgia, as same nicknames disseminate same lies on every blog where Russian-Georgian war is discussed. The population of Georgia is only 4 million and occupies 69 thousand square kilometers twelve of which is currently under Russian occupants’ control. Russia occupies 17 million sq km and possesses every leverage that is necessary to make disappear such a small country as Georgia.
Russia - that killed millions of people during October and November revolutions of Bolsheviks, millions of peoples it killed during 1937 repressions and shot down Polish officers in 1940, drove over with tanks in Budapest through civilians and burned under gunpowder bombings Afghan villagers in kishlaks (mountains), eradicated the entire ethnicity of Chechens and left alive only the minority of the people who were pro-Russians – suddenly becomes an innocent angel that supports minor nations that the world never heard about before.
I see people active on this kind of blogs that have no idea about Georgia, about so called South Ossetia and Abkhazia too. None of them have read a single page from the history of Georgia. They do not know that it is a 5th time when population is forcibly thrown away from Abkhazia. This throw-away process begun in early 19th century and was called Muhajirs which is migration in Arabian. Abkhazia was redeemed either by pro-Ottoman and afterwards by pro-Russian populations brought artificially from different parts of these empires. Indigenous, Pro-Georgian populations have been under pressure and active propagandistic manipulations since these empires begun exerting influence on the South Caucasus.
Caucasus Mountan Chain which separates Europe from Asia is on average 5000 meters high from the sea level. Anyone here could you please tell me how come that anything southwards to this high mountain chain, where Georgia lies could be anything but Georgia. There was no historically active migration crossing such natural barrier. It is big RUSSIAN LIE that attempts to reinvent the history of the Caucasus.
Russia discredited Caucasus when it needed moral justification to slaughter Chechens in 90s. It worked so successfully that almost every average European with a modest education associated Caucasus with everything terrible that a mankind can imagine.
PLEASE NOTE IT IS A RUSSIAN SHOW STAGED IN YOU TELLIES. WAKE UP EUROPE AND U.S. TERE WILL BE ANOTHER SLAUGHTER OF A NATION IN DECEMBER 2008 IF GEORGIA IS TOLD NO TO MEMBERSHIP ACTIVATION PLAN (MAP) FOR NATO.
Even Russians who should know Georgia better say that it is a Muslim country with a 40 million population hostile to Russia. Instead it is a country that adopted Christianity in 312 AD and has only 4 million population decreasing every year in the conflicts arranged by Russian secret services in the so called breakaway republics of Georgia.
I am very much surprised when people criticize G. Bush for doing something wrong in the Caucasus. Come on guys, he has not done anything there, Georgia was not supported by US, it is all crap. Georgia is resisting Russia from 1801 when Tsarist Russia brought Georgia under its empire and announced it as one of its provinces. More than 100 rebellions happened against Russia since then and around 300 000 people died. It is a great number for such a small country.
Russia-supported criminals (no matter which ethnicity they had) begun shelling the villages populated by pro Georgian inhabitants in August right from the military bases where Russian “peace-keepers” were deployed. Georgia replied to defend its citizens on its own territory. Georgia never crossed the internationally recognized borders. Ossetian paramilitaries used to kill, rape and abduct almost on daily basis innocent civilians in the areas of the conflict zones from early 90s when some irresponsible idiots begun to call these conflicts frozen and no one was paying ever attention to the non-frozen lives of the people tortured by Russian war-keepers.
Please remember Georgia regards Ossetians living on its territory as its own citizens and I have seen many villages in different regions of Georgia where Ossetians live in peace and prosperity with ethnic Georgians. Same with Abkhazs, almost 450 000 Abkhazs were forced to leave in 1992 their private homes. Their status is refugee now living on the rest of the territory of Georgia. Russia-hired Boeviks that now pretend to be Abkhazs and claim independence is a mockery and big fake staged by KGB-shniks to prove the slow thinking Europe that Caucasus is wild, emotional, inhuman and animalish.
Anyone supporting Russia in this terrible historical campaign is misled and lied. Everyone that talks about this war should be responsible of what is said as it will decide the destinies of many people in December 2008 when NATO ministerial will make a decision whether to grant Georgia MAP or not.
So do not believe in what these KGB spies tell you, their motto is “THE TRUTH IS WHAT IS BELIEVED BY THE MAJORITY” and they will use every mean to make a lie a truth that works for their brutal bolshevik interests.
Be cautious, Communism is coming!
Posted by: John Kafka | November 10, 2008 9:43 PM
John Kafka, what you are talking about? Or do you really know what you are talking? Quite unmeaning and wrong things...
Posted by: Glenn G | November 11, 2008 4:39 AM
We will always have war....
so sad but true
Posted by: Звукоизоляция глушителей шум | November 11, 2008 5:11 AM
http://blog.wired.com/defense/2008/11/georgias-claims.html
Wired again claims vindication that the OSCE independent observers and the International Herald Tribune/New York Times reports have vindicated what their writer David Axe said about the conflict. You could say the same about the Russia Blog, which is why crazies like La Russophobe are working overtime to discredit C.J. Chivers' article. La Russophobe knows that it's devastating to her case that Saakashvili was a helpless victim of Russian aggression and nobody really cares about Georgia anymore anyway during this global credit crisis. LR is trying to pretend that she never said Georgia was totally innocent, but that is what she said. And the harder part of her case is: why is Saakashvili's problem our problem?
None of this is to say that we ought to have cheered Russian tanks rolling into Gori beyond Ossetia's borders or Chechen or Ossetian paramilitaries kicking out all Georgians in the disputed area. But it is a far cry from having fake conservative Beltway schemers and backstabbers like Randy Scheunemann lobby the U.S. into a New Cold War to totally selling Georgia as a nation down the river.
It was Saakashvili's deeply unpopular government that ran his country into the ditch by trying to turn it into an outpost of NATO, rather than a neutral power between Russia, Turkey and the West, all of whom have interests in the Caucuses.
Enough of analyzing every decision made from Kyev to Tblisi in terms of "will it benefit Russia or NATO"? Maybe it's time for these governments to worry more about their own disappearing populations and less about the Western alliance or sending troops to Iraq.
America cannot be all things to all people. The flip side of the coin of a government that can bail everyone out is a government that tried to bailout the Iraqis, Afghans et al in the last eight years. Toppling Saddam and the Taleban were both justified actions, but what followed may not have been a bridge too far.
Posted by: Steve J. Nelson | November 11, 2008 12:57 PM
@John Kafka
Typically US/European bias and racism against Russia.
Communism was a Jewish political movement supported by western countries and international bankers primarily from New York.
The two main factions of Communism were Georgian Mensheviks and Jewish Bolsheviks.
Stalin himself was Georgian
20 years prior to the Bolshevik revolution there was an international campaign against the Czar just as there is now against Putin and Medvedev to install Communism in Russia setting up underground Marxist groups in Russia, holding conferences in Europe, Financing the Japanese Navy to attack Russia and using economic warfare holding back international loans.
When western backed Jewish Bolsheviks killed 20 million Russian’s were was the condemnation.
The majority of the Bolshevik government including the founders of its most notorious government like the KGB and the gulags were Jewish.
The same Jewish majority in government can be seen in the post WW2 satellite states.
“Russia discredited Caucasus when it needed moral justification to slaughter Chechens in 90s”
Western intelligence had been training Chechen militants 2 years prior to the first war in international training camps in Bosnia and military bases in Turkey.
They were doing the same thing the Nazis were doing WW2 called Operation Blue to train Islamic militants in Yugoslavia to inter Russia in the South and capture the Caspian oil Reserves.
During the first war various countries and intelligence agencies including the Pakistani ISI were supporting and training Chechen militants.
There was never an independent Chechen state.
The Chechen regime was a mafia dictatorship whose gangs were attacking and assaulting the ethnic Russian population of Grozny including rapes and kidnapping even holding Russians as slaves.
The mafia in Russia under the protection of the regime had a safe haven from which they could operate essentially carving out there own state which they can operate with impunity.
Russian’s had troops stationed there and removed them in the early 90’s and only sent them back when things got so bad there was a civil war between the rival Chechen factions and to protect the ethnic Russian population from being killed.
“eradicated the entire ethnicity of Chechens and left alive only the minority of the people who were pro-Russians”
That’s an ABSOLUTE LIE. The bombed out capital Grozny which was 50% ethnic Russian where 90-95% of the fighting occurred was damaged due to ground fighting not aerial bombardment as Russians didn’t use any. Chechnya’s second city which basically untouched was majority 90%+ ethnic Chechen.
And stories of “massacres and atrocities” are propaganda just like those levelled against the Serbs which turned out to be absolutely false there is no evidence to back up these stories.
We have plenty of atrocities committed against Russians. Chechens and there international terrorist buddies videotaped them.
How about the fact there financed through organised crime like sex trafficking, drug smuggling, kidnapping and ransom, etc.
It is the Russians that have been eradicated.
It is the entire Russian population 150,000 plus that has been ethnically cleansed from Chechnya land which has always been historically Russian including other small indigenous groups.
How about the fact that Chechens were running terrorists training camps in the neighbouring Dagestan region.
Al Qaeda is pure fiction. The camps in Afghanistan were setup to train Chechen and international Islamic militants to fight Russia for the second war they were preparing including the use of chemical and biological weapons.
In 2003 the US moved militants from Afghanistan to the Panski Gorge in Georgia it was even covered in main stream news “the new home of international terrorism”.
A suggest you read Paul Murphy’s book Wolves of Islam a former CIA counter terrorism agent in Russia to get the real true background.
As far as Georgia goes these regions were never part of Georgia and incorporated into the Russian empire eventually along with Georgia but not into Georgia.
It was Stalin a Georgian who incorporated the 2 regions without the consent of there populace into Georgia and even then given autonomous status.
In 91/92 the Georgian leadership abolished there autonomous status and sent in troops under the slogan “Georgia for Georgians”
They were eventually defeated the Abkhaz and Ossetian forces as part of a deal brokered by the UN Russian peacekeepers were bought in and the two states held a referendum voting overwhelmingly for independence.
Despite the peacekeeping agreement Georgian forces have constantly tried to recapture the two regions.
“lease remember Georgia regards Ossetians living on its territory as its own citizens and I have seen many villages in different regions of Georgia where Ossetians live in peace and prosperity with ethnic Georgians”
Then why did they try to ethnically cleanse South Ossetia.
Why did Georgian forces use Georgian villages as cover to fire on Russian and Ossetian forces?
“Russia-supported criminals (no matter which ethnicity they had) begun shelling the villages populated by pro Georgian inhabitants in August right from the military bases where Russian “peace-keepers” were deployed. Georgia replied to defend its citizens on its own territory. Georgia never crossed the internationally recognized borders. Ossetian paramilitaries used to kill, rape and abduct almost on daily basis innocent civilians in the areas of the conflict zones from early 90s when some irresponsible idiots begun to call these conflicts frozen and no one was paying ever attention to the non-frozen lives of the people tortured by Russian war-keepers.”
There have been international monitors stationed there since the 90’s and they have never made this accusation I think your getting Chechen friends mixed up with the Ossetians.
“Please remember Georgia regards Ossetians living on its territory as its own citizens and I have seen many villages in different regions of Georgia where Ossetians live in peace and prosperity with ethnic Georgians. Same with Abkhazs, almost 450 000 Abkhazs were forced to leave in 1992 their private homes. Their status is refugee now living on the rest of the territory of Georgia. Russia-hired Boeviks that now pretend to be Abkhazs and claim independence is a mockery and big fake staged by KGB-shniks to prove the slow thinking Europe that Caucasus is wild, emotional, inhuman and animalish.”
Great fiction you have there Abkhazians are the ones native to Abkhazia not Russians brought in Georgians tried to Georgify Abkhazia and they repelled this.
“Even Russians who should know Georgia better say that it is a Muslim country with a 40 million population hostile to Russia.”
Know serious Russian has ever said this.
It is a fact that Georgia is a predominantly Muslim 60% and it government is majority Jewish.
“PLEASE NOTE IT IS A RUSSIAN SHOW STAGED IN YOU TELLIES. WAKE UP EUROPE AND U.S. TERE WILL BE ANOTHER SLAUGHTER OF A NATION IN DECEMBER 2008”
You obviously have not read the above article.
These are international bodies that admit that Georgia’s version of events are untrue that there was no provocation and Georgia started the war.
Even George Soros Human Rights Watch the man who put the Georgian leadership in power, had to concede that Georgian forces committed war crimes and was the aggressor.
The OSCE is an independent monitoring group and although pressured to say nothing admitted that Georgias version of events are untrue.
“Russia-supported criminals (no matter which ethnicity they had) begun shelling the villages populated by pro Georgian inhabitants in August right from the military bases where Russian “peace-keepers” were deployed”
That is a lie. There had been border skirmishes between Georgian and Ossetian forces.
A week before the war Russia drafted a UN resolution calling on both sides to denounce violence which was blocked by the US.
Georgia and Russian diplomats were holding ceasefire agreements then there was an agreement between the two sides.
Fighting was halted then Georgian forces blitzed the capital of South Ossetia and fired on Russian peacekeeping base which is UN recognised and in violation of international law.
The truth is on Russia’s side so you have to back up your claims with obvious lies.
Posted by: james | November 11, 2008 2:57 PM
John Kafka's comment brought some amusement to my day!
Especially the "Be cautious, Communism is coming!" part
Thanks John, but next time keep your mouth shut!
But i guess since I am airing a pro-Russian opinion in your opinion i will automatically be branded an "KGB-shnik" (even though I am from Australia) so I guess, I weren't even bother refuting the 100 odd points of mis-information you've written earlier!
Posted by: A.A. | November 18, 2008 1:01 AM
James & Co.
Mr. Kafka misrepresents what happened in 1801. If anything, Georgia sought to become a Russian protectorate, out of a fear of Turkey. At the time, Abkhazia was a semi-independent kingdom affiliated with Turkey. There was a period prior to 1801 when South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Georgia were pretty much one entity.
After 1801, the Georgian monarchy intermarried with the Russian variant. During the Soviet era, the Georgians were comparatively (to other Soviet peoples) well represented in the CPSU.
The post-Soviet relationship between Russia and Georgia has been challenged. In the last decade when Russia was noticeably weak, Western NGOs nurtured Georgian political and military leaders into a neocon/neolib way of seeing the world. Russia arguably made some mistakes along the way. The decision on whether to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia at this time is (IMO) an example.
In the US, some elements continue to rely too heavily on mass media outlets like The NYT. The other week, an MSNBC show cited The discussed NYT report like it was new information (evidence showing Gerogia to be at fault in its strike on South Ossetia). The reality is quite different.
The record shows that there was some outstanding commentary on the subject, which a number of high profile outlets ignored.
Posted by: Michael Averko | November 19, 2008 9:06 PM