It’s hard to avoid the suspicion that Putin has set Russia back on a Soviet trajectory. At the moment, Russia’s military has control of the Georgian city of Tskhinvali which is the capital of the region of South Ossetia.
Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili appealed for international mediation after Russia claimed full military control of South Ossetia’s capital, which it invaded Friday after Georgia launched an assault on the rebel statelet.
Moscow, which says the assault killed 2,000 civilians and displaced 34,000, says it is fulfilling its peacekeeping mandate under 1992 accords that ended Georgia’s civil war. But some analysts, including a former US diplomat, believe that Russia’s true strategic goal may involve redrawing the map in its old Soviet spheres of influence.
“The Georgians were too quick to move, they rolled the dice to regain control. But that doesn’t justify a [Russian] act of aggression and invasion to take the [Georgian] regime down,” says Ronald Asmus, a former Clinton administration official responsible for NATO expansion. “This is a watershed in relations with Russia, comparable to the [1979] Afghan invasion, since it is the first time they have sent troops illegally out of their borders.”
Russia continues to pour troops into the area; mounted a naval blockade of Georgia in the Black Sea; and its air force has bombed the outskirts of Tblisi, the Georgian capital. This seems like the sort of thing that could get really, really ugly.
Update Russians have advanced beyond the logical stopping point for just settling matters in South Ossetia and have assaulted the city of Gori in central Georgia.
A senior Western diplomat said it was unclear whether Russia intended a full invasion of Georgia. “They seem to have gone beyond the logical stopping point†to retake the separatist regions, he said.
How long USA and so called “democratic countries†will cover the truth about this war?Around 1000 USA marines and military instructors use to train georgian`s troops before this war.USA,ISRAEL,UKRAINE, sold weapon to Georgia in huge volume.At this days african -americans military instructors were found dead in South Ossetia.New Hitler,Saakashvili who killed 2000 people mostly kids,elderly people has protection from USA,ISRAEL,UKRAINE,GB and some “friends countriesâ€.Genocide by Saakashvili rewarded by countries who sold weapon to this dictator.Newspapers,tv,radio telling the same story about Russian invasion,but nobody says,that this war was planned event,long time before by good paid dictator Saakashvili.Why western people do not have information from South Ossettia,but fake video by tv companies? This is moment of truth and sooner or later people and countries who did it will be punished by God.
An artcile which speaks to Serge’s point.
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66203§ionid=351020202
This post begs for analysis. Why should we care?
I’d have to think our choices are running pretty thin all over. Good or bad, whether you like it or not, whether you agree with it or not, if we remain steadfast in the pursuit of equal rights worldwide we will ( and are) the worlds police force. Either crush ’em or cave to ’em……it’s not exactly rocket science…
The time is coming, and we will all be tested, democrat and republican and all our goofy rhetoric won’t mean a damn thing.
Lotta spooky shit going on out there in the world Doug….kinda makes Indiana seem pretty insignificant in the big picture.
This one’s beyond me. I’m not sure I can automatically assume Russia is the “bad guy” here just because it’s the bigger more powerful country. Too many complexities I don’t know enough about, especially the nature of Georgia’s leadership.
You know, I can’t believe I’m saying this (I’ll get tagged a pinko & all) but maybe we should have left well enough alone when the USSR wanted to install a socialist (but relatively stable) government in Afghanistan. Sometimes if we assume we have to counteract anything the big bad Russians do without figuring out what’s actually going on, we get more than we bargained for.
Russia is already headed down the path of authoritarianism. And has been for years. This is only the first visible international consequence. Goodbye civil society. Goodbye independent media. Goodbye gubernatorial elections. Hello Stal…oops I mean Putin.