Russian forces sink Georgian ships

[bemildred]

Source: al Jazeera and agencies

Russian forces have sunk several vessels in Georgia's military port of Poti, Al Jazeera's Hoda Abdel Hamid has reported from the scene.

---

"We have seen more and more Russian troops coming into the area all day - a continuous build up of forces including columns of tanks and truck all along the roads here.

"They came into this area and destroyed six Georgian vessels.

"From what we understand, they came with the specific task of destroying all the military facilities of the Georgians," she said.

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/08/2008813153517926662.html

[tekisui]

1. It's not getting better.

[bemildred]

4. Israel and U.S. send aid to Georgia, as battles ensue

U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday expressed concern over Russia's continued military action in Georgian territory, and said his administration would send humanitarian assistance to the embattled region.

Israel has also sent a shipment of humanitarian aid, in the first step of what it termed a broader aid effort. The aid, sent late Tuesday on a Georgian airline, consists of two respirators and seven EKG monitors.

In an official statement on Wednesday, Bush said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit Tbilisi in a show of support for the Georgian government.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1011290.html

Political careers are on the line here, something has to be done!

[Muttocracy]

2. :(

[Blue_Tires]

3. so much for the cease fire....

:eyes:

[Xolodno]

20. Actually...

There is a cease fire, the Russians are making sure Georgia will cease fire...they won't have any choice. No weapons.

[enid602]

5. good timing on the part of the Russians

With the world so preopccupied with Bush possibly advancing on Teheran, I guess this one slipped right by.

[bemildred]

10. I had not thought of that, but it's true.

For the moment at least, this little donnybrook offers some covering fire for the Iranians, and everybody else for that matter.

This IS kind of what I expected the Russians to do, degrade Georgia's military assets as much as possible.

[ingac70]

6. Georgia shoulda knew better than to strike first.

Can't say I'm feelin' sorry for them. (namely their Pres.)

[no limit]

7. strike first in their own country? What does that have to do with Russia?

Do yourself a favor and read a little background about the sitation before you comment.

[dbonds]

9. Actually Georgia did do the first strike with the breakaway providence of their own country.

[WriteDown]

12. So you try to handle a matter in your own country....

and that gives license for Russia to just move in and take over. I know that is not what you are trying to say, but I feel that is what others are saying on DU.

[dbonds]

14. The breakaway providence was aligned with Russia.

[no limit]

Doesn't matter, its still part of Georgia, not russia

Russia could align themselves with whom ever the hell they wish, they still had no legal justification for what they did.

[ingac70]

16. Actually, the death of their peacekeepers gives them justification.

Sheesh... you sound like McSame.

[Wabbajack_]

52. The progressive stance is not pro-Russian invasion

[dbonds]

17. Georgia attacked civilians, so there was cause for Russia to act.

[WriteDown]

18. Actually....

Georgia claims that initial the mortar attacks were launched from Ossetia in June. I guess you are a big supporter of Israel when its civilian populace is attacked.

[dbonds]

21. Georgia claims were disputed by people there.

And this has nothing to do with Israel, why try to tie the two together - muddying the waters.

[WriteDown]

28. And Ossetia's claims are also disputed...

nothing concrete here. You remarked how civilians being attacked gave Russia justification. Israel is constantly having civilian targets attacked. Seems like the best matching comparison.

[dbonds]

31. Not a good match at all, different conditions.

This is more like the US invading Iraq and deposing Saddam because he was a bad guy and gassed his own people.

[Regret My New Name]

43. whaaaa? Are you saying the US was justified in invading Iraq?

wtf? I hope I'm reading you wrong... But sounds like you're saying that Russia was justified going into Georgia in the same way that the US was justified in going to Iraq...

I dunno about that, on either account.

[dbonds]

44. I am NOT saying it was justified. Only that is is a closer comparison.

[dionysus]

25. wtf is that even supposed to mean??

:crazy:

[endarkenment]

19. Actually there was a peace treaty signed between Russia and Georgia

that established the autonomy of the region under the protection of Russian peacekeeping forces. Our guy in Georgia attacked those peacekeeping forces, breaking the treaty and providing the cover for the current Russian military actions in Georgia proper. The only good question here is why we had him do this.

[bahrbearian]

27. Chimpy is why.

[endarkenment]

33. Well that about sums up my impression of this disaster.

Too bad for the Georgians that they hooked up with our moran.

[tabatha]

23. They were asked by the Ossetians for help.

Georgia marches in and killed about 2000 innocent civilians.

That is genocide.

The US intervened in Kosovo because of genocide.

If you think Georgia should have been allowed to continue with ethnic cleansing on helpless civilians, then OK.

[ingac70]

15. Russian peacekeepers have been there since '92. n/t

[Matteon]

30. We did the same thing

Unfortunately that is the standard we set with the invasion of Iraq.

[pampango]

29. Many countries have launched "first strikes" against dissident forces

within their own borders. The North attacked the South in the US Civil War, Sudan is still attacking Darfur, Serbia attacked several provinces in Yugoslavia, Nigeria attacked the Ebo people, and Russia attacked Chechnya.

There are many, many countries that have done this at one time or another. Does that make it right? No, but the real mistake Georgia made was attacking dissident forces in provinces that were ethnically linked to a large and powerful neighboring country that would welcome the chance to teach Georgia a lesson.

If our South had had the support of England, the North might have been wise to just let those breakaway states leave and not force them to remain part of the country. If the people of Darfur had a large, powerful ally, the Sudanese government would not be getting away with their genocide. Chechnya had no such supporter, while the some of the "breakaway provinces" in Yugoslavia did eventually get the support of NATO and the US.

[WriteDown]

32. Spot on pampango...

Glad to read an informed and objective post.

[Thothmes]

41. The way I read American History,

The Confederate forces in Charleston SC fired on Federal property first. Maybe I have missed something. Where did Federal Forces actually open fire on installations or units of the the Confederate states prior to Fort Sumpter?

[atreides1]

11. I Have Read a Little Background

And no one has clean hands.

[ingac70]

13. I have, and Russia had been peace keepers there since 1992...

after Georgians ethically cleansed the region... you are the one that needs to read up.

Maybe this will help...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/country_profiles/3797729.stm

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia#Georgian-Ossetian_conflict

[jayfish]

34. A Bit Simplistic. Try This One.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Georgia-Russia_crisis

All hands are dirty but siding with Vladimir Putin is not the way to go. The enemy of my enemy is not my friend!

Jay

[Gregorian]

22. According to President Mikheil Saakashvili they fired "ten seconds" after the tanks fired.

This was on the BBC last night. I have far more faith in Georgia's president than in Putin. Putin wants to recreate the Soviet Union.

[tabatha]

26. Well, then why have they kept their hands off Ossetia until now.

[jayfish]

35. Because...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_Georgia-Russia_crisis

The Georgian Ministry of Defense said on July 7, 2008 a group of up to ten militiamen were apparently prevented from placing mines on a Georgian-controlled by-pass road linking the Georgian villages in the north of Tskhinvali with the rest of Georgia. The Georgian side opened fire and the group was forced to retreat towards the nearby South Ossetian-controlled village. On July 8, 2008 South Ossetia reported that it had detained four “officers from the artillery brigade of the Georgian Ministry of Defense” close to the village of Okona in the Znauri district at the administrative border the night before.<84> Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told police to prepare an operation to free the four soldiers, but they were released before an operation was launched.<85>

Russian military jets flew into the Georgian airspace through South Ossetia on July 9, 2008 and then returned back to Russia. The next day, the Russian authorities confirmed the flight and said, in an official statement, the fighters were sent to prevent Georgia from launching an operation to free the four soldiers detained by South Ossetia.<86> In response, Georgia recalled its ambassador to Moscow "for consultations", stating that it was "outraged by Russia's agressive policies."<87>

The incident coincided with the visit of the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Tbilisi where she pledged the U.S. support for Georgia's bid to join NATO. She said that granting NATO Membership Action Plan to Georgia would help resolve the Abkhaz and South Ossetian problems. The statement caused a negative outcry in Moscow: the Russian foreign minister Sergey Lavrov responded, during his meeting with the de facto Abkhaz president Sergey Bagapsh, that Georgia’s NATO integration process "may undermine the conflict resolution" process.<88> On July 11, 2008 Deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze called for an urgent UN Security Council meeting on the conflict zones.<89>

A South Ossetian envoy on July 11, 2008 declared that South Ossetia was capable of repelling any attack by Georgia without help from Moscow and also said the mainly Russian peacekeeping contingent in the Georgian-South Ossetian conflict zone should be increased.<90> The Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement the same day that measures have been taken “to increase combat readiness” of the Russian peacekeeping forces stationed in Abkhazia. It also said that security had been tightened at the Russian peacekeepers’ base camps, observation posts and checkpoints, and “additional training” of the peacekeeping personnel had been conducted “to explain regulations of use of firearm while on duty.”<91> Nika Rurua, Deputy Head of the Parliament’s Security and Defense Committee, warned Georgia would shoot down Russia’s military aircraft should they appear in its airspace again; and an initiative was considered to this effect. It was decided instead to appeal to the world community on the matter. Media reports published information about Russia’s alleged plans to seize the Kodori Gorge specifying that the details of the operation were worked out by Russian high-ranking military officials, with Abkhazia’s President Sergey Bagapsh. Russia is reportedly planning to respond by revealing the details of a planned military invasion of South Ossetia by Georgia to release their detained officers.<92>

On July 14, 2008 Georgia's deputy defense minister Batu Kutelia said Georgia plans to expand its military more than 15 percent to 37,000 soldiers following events in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The additional manpower would be used to defend Georgia's airspace and the Black Sea coast.<93> On July 15, 2008 the U.S. and Russia both began exercises in the Caucasus though Russia denies the timing was intentional.<94> The Russian exercises included training to support peacekeepers in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Georgia claimed the exercises were a manifestation of Russian aggression against it.<95> Also on July 15, Abkhazia and South Ossetia were said to be planning to join the Union of Russia and Belarus, a spokesman for the Union said both regions have talked about joining the Union, but that they would need to be recognized as independent and become observers before they could join the Union as members.<96><97> Georgia said on July 16, 2008 that if Russia did not accept a German plan for resolving the conflict Georgia would be forced to "unilaterally bring an influence to bear on the deployment of armed forces in Abkhazia."<98>

According to media reports, on July 19, 2008 a Georgian police post was attacked by Abkhaz militias using grenades, one of the militiamen died from a grenade exploding accidentally. Abkhaz officials condemned the reports as false.<99> Georgian media also reported on July 19 that a battalion of Russian troops had moved into the lower Kodori Gorge.<100> Georgia's Defense Ministry claimed Russian troops encroached on Mamison and Roksky passes in Abkhazia and South Ossetia respectively and are in combat alert. Abkhazia's Foreign Minister said no new troops were brought in over the quota.<101>

A U.N. report issued July 23, 2008 on the period between April and July 2008 noted discrepancies with the Georgian attack of a shooting in Khurcha on the day of Georgian elections. In particular the report noted the way the incident was filmed suggested the attack was anticipated. The report said reconnaissance flights by Georgia were a violation of the ceasefire, but said the shooting down of those fights also constituted a breach of the ceasefire. Concerning a military buildup by Georgia the UN report said it found no evidence of a buildup but noted observers were denied access to certain areas of Abkhazia controlled by Georgia including the Kvabchara Valley.<102>

On July 28, 2008 a spokesman for the Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia said South Ossetian forces had blocked peacekeepers and OSCE observers from the village of Cholibauri which is close to where Georgia says South Ossetia is building fortifications.<103> On July 29, 2008 South Ossetia said two South Ossetian villages had been fired on by Georgian forces in response to South Ossetia reinforcing its positions on the perimeter of the conflict zone.<104> Georgia said the same day that Georgian posts on the Sarabuki heights were attacked by South Ossetian forces with no injuries reported.<103>

At the end of July South Ossetia confirmed it had been setting up military fortifications in the conflict zone and acknowledged this violated previous agreements, but claimed it was in response to similar actions by Georgian forces.<105>

[JuniorPlankton]

39. So true

I think at some point he said that the break up of the Societ Union was the greatest calamity of the 20th century.
:scared:

[dbonds]

8. We need to stay out of this.

Yes Russia wants to overthrow people in league with PNAC that are running Georgia now. This isn't doesn't concern the US, it is about Georgia, PNAC, and Russia. And it is likely Russia could be right on this one.

[pampango]

37. And Hitler just wanted to overthrow Poland's government which was in league with England

and whatever their version of PNAC was. (England was the big colonial power, so the must have had a "PNAC" of some sort.)

FDR evidently believed (or felt that Congress believed), as you do, that it "doesn't concern the US, it is about Poland, "PNAC", and Germany. And it is likely Russia could be right on this one." So we stayed out of Poland and it was gone pretty quickly.

I suppose the argument was made back then that Poland was right next to Germany and if they pissed off Germany for some reason, then they deserved whatever they got.

[dbonds]

38. You really don't know what PNAC is do you?

Sorry, you need to learn some facts before going off on wild tangents. This isn't Hitler. This is about Bushco/PNAC setting up a puppet government in Georgia (or at least getting them on board with their ideas) in order to control the oil flow. Wasn't Rove just in that area a couple weeks ago? Hmmmm, wonder what kind of distraction he was planning. Oh, wait, all this is war shit is supposed to be good for McInsane.

If you just look at the facts, and ignore the PNAC part. Russia was justified in the initial invasion. If you look at the US example in Iraq, Russia is justified in wanted regime change in Georgia. Georgia is under the impression that their deals with Bushco will cause the US to help them. On the bigger motivation side of it, Russia is probably also wanting to control the same oil that Buscho does coming out of the Georgia port. This isn't fucking Germany in the 1940's, this is a dick waving war over oil and the US should stay out of it. If Bush, Cheney and McInsane want to fight it they can go there personally and fight but leave our kids here.

[pampango]

40. Alright, so England's PNAC would have been POBC ("old British century") or something like that.

If Russia is justified in wanting regime change in Georgia (based on our illegal invasion of Iraq?), are we justified to want regime change in Venezuela or Cuba? (I'm sure that Bush and the boys want that, but are they justified in wanting it?)

You are entitled to your opinion that Georgia is not worth our involvement. Russia wants to control the flow of as much oil as it can and that pipeline is currently outside of their control. And we want to prevent that. I am sympathetic to the desire to just let them have the damn pipeline, if they want it that bad, but there are people living in Georgia, too and they might not want Russia determining their government. It's not just the location of a pipeline.

[rayofreason]

45. "puppet government"?????

You obviously know nothing about Georgia.

[dbonds]

46. You haven't been paying attention

http://www.usacc.org/content.php?type=page&id=2&chi=5&par=3

[rayofreason]

47. Need a geography lesson?

Georgia is not Azerbaijan.

The Georgian government is democratically elected.

[piedmont]

48. Azerbaijan? AZERBAIJAN????

You just lost all credibility.

[populistdriven]

50. Many here at DU use the "But its a Democracy" club like they are Neocons Reinventing the Middle East

[pampango]

51. Interesting post. Is your point that Georgia is not a democracy or

that in pursuing our foreign policy we should not care whether a foreign government is democratic or not? I think that spreading/supporting democracy should not be our number 1 foreign policy priority, but it should be part of a broad progressive foreign policy.

One doesn't have to a RW Neocon to use a country's democratic form of government as one criteria to decide whom to back in an international dispute. There are often more important issues in individual disputes, but letting the RW own the "democracy" issue is not good politics nor good foreign policy.

[populistdriven]

54. there is plenty of empirical evidence that the parliamentary system of government is better

who are we do push one over the other?

[pampango]

55. Fine. Let's just not discount the value of promoting democracy (parliamentary system or any other)

in our foreign policy.

While there may come a time when we might have an overriding reason to side against a government with a democratic system in a dispute, I would hope that is a very infrequent occurrence.

[Lucky 13]

24. Damn. This isn't good.

Maybe if we weren't fighting wars on 2 fronts already, we could be of some assistance.

[tuckessee]

49. Those so called "wars" we're fighting already....

....ain't jack shit compared to what we're going to get if we lock horns with the Red Army on land they consider their own.

The Russians not only can contest our air power but can project their own.

And they aren't afraid to take substantial casualities. They'll feed cannon fodder into meat grinder w/o giving it second thought.

It'll be first time we've faced a real army since the Battle of the Bulge (Dec-Jan 44/45) or Okinawa (Apr-June 45).

It won't go well. Expect us to go nuclear quickly in a big way.

[Lucky 13]

53. Well great. Now I can't sleep at night.

How hard is it not to pick a fight with Russia?

[pampango]

56. Who have the Russians fought since WWII...the Afghans, the Chechens, the Hungarians, the Czechs?

They have got a much larger army (they have a draft) of conscripts and can indeed endure substantial casualties.

Any war between us would not go well for either of us. Our precision weapons could cause havoc on their ground forces. Then can contest our air power, but they probably would not control the air for long. They may well be tempted to go nuclear before we do.

Obviously, a Russia-US conflict needs to be avoided at practically all cost, but by BOTH sides because they both realize the devastation that they would suffer.

[Joe Chi Minh]

36. Tell me Vladimir is not destabilising a foreign country. That would be too awful.

But that's how one of our TV reporters referred to it - a little tongue-in-cheek - I thought. Well, he was a little more specific about its favoured relationship. That's got to be against Canon Law.

[bemildred]

42. Yeah, where would they get such a outlandish idea from anyway?

Did they hire Kissinger or something?