SubscribeDmitry, this is a big "fuck you" fromneeds the United Nations when the concept of nation is up for grabs?MeatbombBush, and you can pass that along to your boss Vladimir as well.
Aug 14, Asia Times:
Israel's relations with Georgia have been close, partly because there is a large Georgian Jewish community in Israel. In recent years, ties have also taken on a military dimension, with military industries in Israel supplying Georgia with some US $200 million worth of equipment since 2000. This has included remotely piloted planes, rockets, night-vision equipment, other electronic systems and training by former senior Israeli officers.
Israel is not a major supplier of arms to Georgia, with the US and France supplying Tbilisi with most of its weaponry...
Further attention was drawn to the Israel-Georgia arms trade earlier this year when a Russian jet shot down an Israeli-made drone being operated by the Georgians.
...
Asked about the motivation to initially engage in the sale of weaponry to Georgia despite concerns it might anger Russia, Yaron replied: "We did see that there was potential for a conflagration in the region but Georgia is a friendly state, it's supported by the US, and so it was difficult to refuse."http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/JH14Ak02.html
this guy writes for TechCentralStation, National Review, and the WSJ? Hmm...Yup. Totten was a founding blogger at Pajamas Media as well. He's a soft neocon--smarter than your avg. Michael Ledeen, but scratch not too far beneath the surface & you'll find unreconstructed Bushite foreign policy views.
Russia pretended to hold peace negotiations with the Georgian diplomats in Tschkinvali, but the Russian diplomats failed to arrive at the meeting. [...] The Russian diplomats gave an obviously phony excuse that they could not attend the meeting because they could not find a car, truck, or army vehicle that didn’t have a flat tire. [this is based on the reported event that a Russian diplomat could not attend because of a flat tire] [...]The Russian general then demanded that the Georgians had to declare a unilateral ceasfire and withdraw their forces from the border with South Ossetia, or Russia would not intercede as peacekeepers to stop the South Ossetian bombardments of the Georgian civilians.There's more, if you want it, at the link. Delta Whiskey Papa makes several more comments, polishing his argument until it sounds exactly like the account given Totten. Eventually, he names a cite or two though none that seem persuasive. (He claims to have sources that he can't reveal.) I got no way of knowing for certain, but this whole story has a certain CIA stink about it.
Despite having grave misgivings about the intentions of the Russians and their South Ossetian proxies, the Georgian governement was preparing to implement the unilateral ceasefire demanded by the Russian general. They were stopped, however, when they discovered from satellite photographs that the Russian 58th Army had already begun the invasion of Georgia with a large force of armored vehicles crossing the border of Georgia at the Roki Tunnel enroute to Tschkinvali and Gori. In a defensive response to the Russian invasion of Georgia through the Roki Tunnel, Georgia counterattacked the invading Russian force at a strategic bridge south of the exit from the Roki Tunnel, a hundred kilometers behind enemy lines. [This is the main argument: the Georgians counterattacked in order to save the Ossetian civilian populace. Georgia did, apparently, drop a paratroop unit near this bridge which was damaged though not destroyed.][...]
In Iraq too, the Kremlin's projection of power down through Georgia will soon be felt. Take another look at the map. If Russia is allowed to extend its reach southwards, as in Soviet times, down the Caucasus to Iran's borders, Moscow can support Iran in any showdown with the West. Iran, thus emboldened, will likely attempt to reassert itself in Iraq, Syria and, via Hezbollah, in Lebanon.Kaylan: OMG AXIS OF EVIL! WAR! WAR! WAR! WARWARWAR! (reaches for Kleenex)
I consider the development of Russia as a free and democratic country to be our main political-ideological goal. We say these words often, but only very rarely do we discover the deeper meaning of the values of freedom and democracy, justice and the rule of law, in terms of their practical refraction in our lives.Obviously he's no liberal, but it's pretty clear that he's not assembling the stormtroopers to reconstruct the Soviet Union. He's talking specifically about the real disaster of the Yeltsin years.
Indeed, there is a need for such an analysis. The objectively complex processes that are currently going on in Russia are increasingly becoming the subject of active ideological discussions. And they are connected precisely with conversations about freedom and democracy. You often hear that because the Russian people have been silent for centuries, they do not need freedom and are not used to it, and therefore our citizens supposedly require constant administrative supervision.
I would like to return those who believe this to reality, to that which exists in fact. So I will remind you of how contemporary Russian history began.
Above all it is necessary to acknowledge that the fall of the Soviet Union was the greatest geopolitical catastrophe of the century. For the Russian people it became a real tragedy. Tens of millions of our countrymen and fellow citizens found themselves outside Russian territory. The epidemic of collapse also spread to Russia itself.
Citizens' savings became worthless, old ideals were destroyed, many institutions were disbanded or hastily reformed. The country's integrity was violated by terrorist intervention and the subsequent Khasavurt capitulation [in the First Chechnya War]. Oligarchical gangs, possessing unlimited control over information streams, served only their own corporate interests. Mass poverty began to be seen as a norm. And all this happened against a background of severe economic collapse, financial instability, and the paralysis of the social sphere.
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posted by Meatbomb at 7:13 AM on August 27, 2008