Fighting in Georgia

[Zissou]

You're too young for ROBOTECH. You missed out because it was awesome.

Rick Hunter laid the smack down with his Veritech Fighter.

And the hot chick of the show was LCDR. Lisa Hayes.


Wow. We ruined a pretty good thread.

 

[OUSOONER]

You're too young for ROBOTECH. You missed out because it was awesome.

Rick Hunter laid the smack down with his Veritech Fighter.

And the hot chick of the show was LCDR. Lisa Something.

MAYBE too young for Robotech, but I was NOT too young for M.A.S.K.

 

[bluesig1]

It's funny that Russia wants to support a break away in Georgia, but was and is against Bosnia being broken up

 

[picklesuit]

Russia is definitely the bad guy here in this situation. Georgia is no innocent and has definitely done some provocative things over the past few months, but this is definitely a case of big bad 'Mother Russia' throwing it's weight around against a part of the former USSR that they think never should have been let go.

The fight right now is over South Ossetia, which is an integral part of the Georgian state and has only stayed nominally independent because of Russian 'peacekeepers' (using the term very loosely). The Ossetians are not ethnic Russians but are ethnically distinct from other Caucasians and Georgians, and speak a language derived from Farsi. The have historically looked to Mother Russia for protection and as an ally. They even helped the Soviets take over the short lived Georgians state after Russian revolution.

And just to make it clear, Chechnya was/is an integral part of Russia, not an independent state like Georgia. And it took the Russian 4-5 years and two wars to take it back. Really shows how far they have sunk in terms of military capability. While we will probably not intervene now, if Russia attempted to occupy Georgia completely it would probably not stand. They are probably smart enough not to do so either.

At the end of the Cold War there was fighting between the Ossetians and Georgians and the Russians stepped in and 'mediated' the conflict. Since then South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been protected and helped by the Russians, who are more than happy to keep an uppity former part of their empire in its place. It was only well after Georgia became an independent state that Russia offered passports to South Ossetians and Abkhazians, so it is very disingenuous to claim that the South Ossetians are 'Russian' citizens.

And to take Russian claims of 'ethnic cleansing' is almost laughable, I wouldn't trust a Russian official nowadays as far as I could throw them. The fact that Fox News and others report this at face value, along with 'ethnic cleansing' claims exemplifies very poor reporting. Ossetians actually forced many Georgians (Abkhazians too, who were condemned by the UN and OSCE for doing so) who were resident in South Ossetia out after the conflicts in the early 90's, and I imagine that Ossetians are not being 'cleansed' but are fleeing the very heavy fighting. I would if I were not fighting.

And to note again, Georgia is definitely some shirking violet that is completely innocent. But outside of the Baltic states, it is the most democratic of all the former Soviet republics that has had free and fair elections, and a truly democratically elected President and parliament. Their President might be a little hot-headed sometimes, but has consistently pulled his country back from the brink of going to war several times in the past few months. This is in the face of blatant Russian and South Ossetian provocations that would have been responded to by most other countries as a declaration of war.

All in all, the Georgians are on the right in this conflict. Russia has acted an aggressor, along with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, for several years and would love to put its former territory in its place, which it may do. Georgia has been a good ally in more ways than one, its troops constitute the third largest contingent of troops in Iraq now, and it is a free country on the border of one that becomes increasingly autocratic by the day.

Wow...didn't know much about that region...thanks for the info Flash. How do YOU know so much? I can barely keep up with current news most days, I can only get so much history in (like 1 book a month)...

 

[OUSOONER]

Flash runs a sweat shop of Malaysians who provide him with up to date information of what is going on around the world. On the side he has a prominent Degree-mill business.

 

[Orion4life]

Just so we're straight on this, the UAV shootdown happened 3-4 months ago, not as part of the most recent fighting.

Brett

I thought that the UAV shootdown 3-4 months ago was part of the beginning of rising tension between Russia and Georgia because it happened over this disputed region....but more than likely, I'm mistaken. Either way, thanks for the clarification.

 

[LazersGoPEWPEW]

April O'Neil from TMNT. Casey Jones!!!!!!

and in an effort to contribute to the ongoing discussion I am slightly fearing that Russia is pulling the old iron curtain out of the linen closet.

 

[Coota0]

 

[Picaroon]

Gotta love AW... this entire thread is great.

 

[Junkball]

Wow. May I humbly reccomend a thread split...and a towel...definitely need a towel.

EDIT: Oh...and interestingly enough, the first Google result for this beautiful woman happens to be topless...wow...go Google!

I love those "different" moral standards. Also, doesn't the towel require knife hands first, at least at OCS?

 

[invertedflyer]

NATO/EU/OSCE is basically stating that, while both sides seem to have played a part, clearly Russia has taken the attack outside of the scope of S. Ossetia, bombing the town of Gori, an oil pipeline, and the black sea port of Poti. I've also heard unsubstantiated reports of some bombs dropped on Tbilisi... anyone find anything on this? Agree with others that they probably won't threaten the autonomy of Georgia as a whole, although they seem to be taking to the idea of attacking some of its infrastucture anyway!

My old unit (4th LAR) actually did a 2 week AT with Georgian troops back in 2006. I should call up one of my buddies who was there and see what he thinks of all of this. Kind of interesting if you watch the videos though, some georgian troops are clad in Marine-style woodland digis and covers.

U.S. deputy ambassador to the UN speaks in the following second half of this video:

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7552178.stm

BTW, IMO BBC is the the most fair and balance...found myself turning of the TV and relying on their on-line video reports and articles.

 

[OUSOONER]

This article pretty much gives a good summary of what's happened the last couple days and what could happen in the immediate future.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7552012.stm

 

[DSL1990]

Russia is definitely the bad guy here in this situation. Georgia is no innocent and has definitely done some provocative things over the past few months, but this is definitely a case of big bad 'Mother Russia' throwing it's weight around against a part of the former USSR that they think never should have been let go.

The fight right now is over South Ossetia, which is an integral part of the Georgian state and has only stayed nominally independent because of Russian 'peacekeepers' (using the term very loosely). The Ossetians are not ethnic Russians but are ethnically distinct from other Caucasians and Georgians, and speak a language derived from Farsi. The have historically looked to Mother Russia for protection and as an ally. They even helped the Soviets take over the short lived Georgians state after Russian revolution.

And just to make it clear, Chechnya was/is an integral part of Russia, not an independent state like Georgia. And it took the Russian 4-5 years and two wars to take it back. Really shows how far they have sunk in terms of military capability. While we will probably not intervene now, if Russia attempted to occupy Georgia completely it would probably not stand. They are probably smart enough not to do so either.

At the end of the Cold War there was fighting between the Ossetians and Georgians and the Russians stepped in and 'mediated' the conflict. Since then South Ossetia and Abkhazia have been protected and helped by the Russians, who are more than happy to keep an uppity former part of their empire in its place. It was only well after Georgia became an independent state that Russia offered passports to South Ossetians and Abkhazians, so it is very disingenuous to claim that the South Ossetians are 'Russian' citizens.

And to take Russian claims of 'ethnic cleansing' is almost laughable, I wouldn't trust a Russian official nowadays as far as I could throw them. The fact that Fox News and others report this at face value, along with 'ethnic cleansing' claims exemplifies very poor reporting. Ossetians actually forced many Georgians (Abkhazians too, who were condemned by the UN and OSCE for doing so) who were resident in South Ossetia out after the conflicts in the early 90's, and I imagine that Ossetians are not being 'cleansed' but are fleeing the very heavy fighting. I would if I were not fighting.

And to note again, Georgia is definitely some shirking violet that is completely innocent. But outside of the Baltic states, it is the most democratic of all the former Soviet republics that has had free and fair elections, and a truly democratically elected President and parliament. Their President might be a little hot-headed sometimes, but has consistently pulled his country back from the brink of going to war several times in the past few months. This is in the face of blatant Russian and South Ossetian provocations that would have been responded to by most other countries as a declaration of war.

All in all, the Georgians are on the right in this conflict. Russia has acted an aggressor, along with South Ossetia and Abkhazia, for several years and would love to put its former territory in its place, which it may do. Georgia has been a good ally in more ways than one, its troops constitute the third largest contingent of troops in Iraq now, and it is a free country on the border of one that becomes increasingly autocratic by the day.

so i wonder who attacked first? the russians say it was the georgians. the georgians say it was the south ossetians. flash says it was the russians. so in a day and age when everyone has a cellcam, even goatherders and beggars, why can't we get a straight answer to this question????? there's got to be someone who attacked first because as the us deputy ambassador said on the tv, there was a "status quo" for awhile. anyways, i'm in the wikipedia generation LOL so i check and it seems the first shot was either the georgians or the south ossetians on aug 1 but it was the georgians who who ramped it up on aug 7 and then the russians really ramped it up on aug 8 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_War#Timeline

 

[Fog]

This isn't rocket-science for any of us. The Georgian government [apparently] foolishly used military force to try to re-take a province within its own nation that has been aided & occupied by Russian forces for 16 years. The Russian government has used this situation to launch an all-out assault throughout Georgia with the apparent intent to (a) retake & incorporate into Russia both South Ossetia & Abkhazia on a permanent basis, (b) destroy the infrastructure of the rest of Georgia and (c) likely to bring down the present government of Georgia and install one sympathetic to Russia.
I would guess that Putin's strategic goal in all this is to demonstrate to all the other former soviet republics that this is Russia's area of dominance in the world and that they should not persist in a silly attempt to suck-up to the West & make alliances with countries like the U.S. It seems to be working so far.

 

[scoolbubba]

Where do we fall in all of this? With mother russia up to her bad old tricks, are we going to sit by the way and let her start gobbling up her former satellites? I think I read something like this happening back in the 40s, after we made a deal with one devil to take care of another devil. The starting circumstances were different. Something about spheres of influence, balance of power, and any other euphemistic double speak the State Department likes to use to say "well, not this time, but if you do that at least 18 more times in Pro-Western democracies, we might have to try to think about a way to write a position paper about it, maybe!"

As I recall reading, letting the Russkies play hardball then didn't bode well for a lot of Eastern Europeans for the next 50 years. Why should it be any different this time?