Thread: American troops found amongst Georgian dead

Airborne wrote:

2 sides to everything MW... you believe who you want. I want the truth and will not get it from our MSM or out Government

Hmmm.........but you will get it from communist Russia and the UK.

and yours is from Time mag, Condi Rice, George Bush ... again... I'll look for the truth on my own (Both Sides) if our government is using my money, I want the truth... not half baked info

This is a tale of US expansion not Russian aggression

War in the Caucasus is as much the product of an American imperial drive as local conflicts. It's likely to be a taste of things to come

All comments (592)
Seumas Milne The Guardian,
Thursday August 14 2008

The outcome of six grim days of bloodshed in the Caucasus has triggered an outpouring of the most nauseating hypocrisy from western politicians and their captive media. As talking heads thundered against Russian imperialism and brutal disproportionality, US vice-president Dick Cheney, faithfully echoed by Gordon Brown and David Miliband, declared that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered". George Bush denounced Russia for having "invaded a sovereign neighbouring state" and threatening "a democratic government". Such an action, he insisted, "is unacceptable in the 21st century".

Could these by any chance be the leaders of the same governments that in 2003 invaded and occupied - along with Georgia, as luck would have it - the sovereign state of Iraq on a false pretext at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives? Or even the two governments that blocked a ceasefire in the summer of 2006 as Israel pulverised Lebanon's infrastructure and killed more than a thousand civilians in retaliation for the capture or killing of five soldiers?

You'd be hard put to recall after all the fury over Russian aggression that it was actually Georgia that began the war last Thursday with an all-out attack on South Ossetia to "restore constitutional order" - in other words, rule over an area it has never controlled since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor, amid the outrage at Russian bombardments, have there been much more than the briefest references to the atrocities committed by Georgian forces against citizens it claims as its own in South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali. Several hundred civilians were killed there by Georgian troops last week, along with Russian soldiers operating under a 1990s peace agreement: "I saw a Georgian soldier throw a grenade into a basement full of women and children," one Tskhinvali resident, Saramat Tskhovredov, told reporters on Tuesday.

Might it be because Georgia is what Jim Murphy, Britain's minister for Europe, called a "small beautiful democracy". Well it's certainly small and beautiful, but both the current president, Mikheil Saakashvili, and his predecessor came to power in western-backed coups, the most recent prettified as a "Rose revolution". Saakashvili was then initially rubber-stamped into office with 96% of the vote before establishing what the International Crisis Group recently described as an "increasingly authoritarian" government, violently cracking down on opposition dissent and independent media last November. "Democratic" simply seems to mean "pro-western" in these cases.

The long-running dispute over South Ossetia - as well as Abkhazia, the other contested region of Georgia - is the inevitable consequence of the breakup of the Soviet Union. As in the case of Yugoslavia, minorities who were happy enough to live on either side of an internal boundary that made little difference to their lives feel quite differently when they find themselves on the wrong side of an international state border.

Such problems would be hard enough to settle through negotiation in any circumstances. But add in the tireless US promotion of Georgia as a pro-western, anti-Russian forward base in the region, its efforts to bring Georgia into Nato, the routing of a key Caspian oil pipeline through its territory aimed at weakening Russia's control of energy supplies, and the US-sponsored recognition of the independence of Kosovo - whose status Russia had explicitly linked to that of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - and conflict was only a matter of time.

The CIA has in fact been closely involved in Georgia since the Soviet collapse. But under the Bush administration, Georgia has become a fully fledged US satellite. Georgia's forces are armed and trained by the US and Israel. It has the third-largest military contingent in Iraq - hence the US need to airlift 800 of them back to fight the Russians at the weekend. Saakashvili's links with the neoconservatives in Washington are particularly close: the lobbying firm headed by US Republican candidate John McCain's top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, has been paid nearly $900,000 by the Georgian government since 2004.

But underlying the conflict of the past week has also been the Bush administration's wider, explicit determination to enforce US global hegemony and prevent any regional challenge, particularly from a resurgent Russia. That aim was first spelled out when Cheney was defence secretary under Bush's father, but its full impact has only been felt as Russia has begun to recover from the disintegration of the 1990s.

Over the past decade, Nato's relentless eastward expansion has brought the western military alliance hard up against Russia's borders and deep into former Soviet territory. American military bases have spread across eastern Europe and central Asia, as the US has helped install one anti-Russian client government after another through a series of colour-coded revolutions. Now the Bush administration is preparing to site a missile defence system in eastern Europe transparently targeted at Russia.

By any sensible reckoning, this is not a story of Russian aggression, but of US imperial expansion and ever tighter encirclement of Russia by a potentially hostile power. That a stronger Russia has now used the South Ossetian imbroglio to put a check on that expansion should hardly come as a surprise. What is harder to work out is why Saakashvili launched last week's attack and whether he was given any encouragement by his friends in Washington.

If so, it has spectacularly backfired, at savage human cost. And despite Bush's attempts to talk tough yesterday, the war has also exposed the limits of US power in the region. As long as Georgia proper's independence is respected - best protected by opting for neutrality - that should be no bad thing. Unipolar domination of the world has squeezed the space for genuine self-determination and the return of some counterweight has to be welcome. But the process of adjustment also brings huge dangers. If Georgia had been a member of Nato, this week's conflict would have risked a far sharper escalation. That would be even more obvious in the case of Ukraine - which yesterday gave a warning of the potential for future confrontation when its pro-western president threatened to restrict the movement of Russian ships in and out of their Crimean base in Sevastopol. As great power conflict returns, South Ossetia is likely to be only a taste of things to come.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree ... ia.georgia

Airborne wrote:

and yours is from Time mag, Condi Rice, George Bush ... again... I'll look for the truth on my own (Both Sides) if our government is using my money, I want the truth... not half baked info

I'm not really sure it's the truth you're looking for. Could it be that you're looking for a reason, any reason, to continue bashing Bush and our government? I don't like Bush anymore than you do. However, I'm not going to blame him or my country for absolutely everything that goes wrong in this world. That's all I've got to say on the issue. You can now continue your one-sided propaganda war against Georgia and the United States (sorry for the interruption).

His actions not only decimated this countrys economy, but is causing a world recession. It's not only what you do it's also what you dont do.

There has been No government controls on anything, food, immigration, and yes he evn signed into law a bill that gave banks the right to push loans to low income familys (Including Illegal Aliens) that led up to the sub prime debackle

I could go on and on... the man is not only grossly incompetant he is a war criminal and needs to be on trial in front of the world court for his actions

I want him on trial... make no mistake about that.

Our military is in shambles, equipment worn out, we are borrowing money from China at the toon of a couple of Billion a month that my grand kids children will be paying for and I am going to sit back and say nothing... I dont think so

oh, and I am not alone in my thoughts... because you disagree doesnt make me right or wrong... just a differant view on what we see

This nut case is the gift that keeps on giving 365 days a year

Originally Posted by MW

Airborne wrote:

and yours is from Time mag, Condi Rice, George Bush ... again... I'll look for the truth on my own (Both Sides) if our government is using my money, I want the truth... not half baked info

I'm not really sure it's the truth you're looking for. Could it be that you're looking for a reason, any reason, to continue bashing Bush and our government? I don't like Bush anymore than you do. However, I'm not going to blame him or my country for absolutely everything that goes wrong in this world. That's all I've got to say on the issue. You can now continue your one-sided propaganda war against Georgia and the United States (sorry for the interruption).

Keep up the Bush bashing, Airborne! Bush isn't worthy of the benefit of doubt after what he's done to this country..the man is a walking lie.

Airborne, I honestly don't know what you know about Russian history of dominance over smaller neighbors. One of my close relatives is very legally here from Estonia, which saw its ethnic gypsies thrown into concentration camps. There are still mass graves that have not been excavated after the Red Army shot or starved them to death.
And the Soviets used to bring in empty trains with signs saying "supplies for starving Estonians, and loaded up the food, crops, cattle to take them back to Russia which was near starvation. Now that is real fair.
May I suggest you do some more extensive research, for those who forget history are bound to repeat the mistakes of the past.

I'm not Pro Russian... far from it... I want the truth... no more one sided info force feed by the government controlled MSM brain washing people

If we are guilty for war crimes.. so be it.. bring on the trials... if Russia is guity.. bring on the trials

What I am sick of is People Screaming USA, USA as this country goes over a cliff because of meddling where we dont belong

This country is in SEVERE financial trouble ... our back yard is funky from corrupt politicians and a National Security Plan thats just as corrupt. Its far past time to clean house

We dont get to bomb other people, take others lives in the name of what

Staying a globalist power... you cant say be a democratic country or the bombs will fall.

I am a retired soldier ... I am sick of war, I am sick of suffering. We are not the worlds 911 ... hell we dont even protect our own citizens from foreign invasion

over 70,000 dead from the Illegal Alien Invasion

Thousands of woman and children raped / Abducted

No... I am holding our government accountable for every action that is wrong

we cannot be a moral authority internationally if our politicians do it by corrupt means. No... I want the full truth... not a half baked truth

as a second point... I could give a rats A$$ about Russia, thats not my business.

My business is the conduct of our country... make no mistake about it.. I'm P_ssed _ff

Our reputation with the world is tainted.. we have blood on our hands because of oil, greed and corruption.

I have a four year degree with quite a bit of knowlege in the US and world events... I have also travelled around the world a couple of times

It can no longer be our way or the highway ... I am sick of war, I am sick of corruption, I am sick of greed....

when this country collapses from financial ruin.. and Americans wake up and say what the hell just happened.. I want everyone to know who did what when the trials begin

Airborn,

I firmly believe that we would not be in the current economic situation, if we had not gone to war in Iraq. We had a balanced budget and money to spare, when we launched that war. The cost were too high, the citizens are paying and we better walk away from it owning a big chunk of Iraq's oil.

I'm upset about the war in Iraq. It was a business venture paid for by the American taxpayer. That war has been about Oil from Day One.

A lot of people want to blame Bush, but there were a lot of Democrats involved in launching that war too. They can't seem to remember that they voted for it either.

Also, Russia has been pounding on the rebelious provances and countires to their south for a long line. Often, I can't blame them. They have deals with those countries for supply lines and they try to blackmale Russia from time to time. They ask for it and Russia gives it to them.

I'm not saying that is what is going on the in case of Georgia, becuase I have not been following it.

Russia has some serious southern border issues.

Dixie