Russia Seizes Arsenal Of US Weapons In Georgia - Military

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Nemowork

We'll see how smart the Russians play it, so far their foreign PR guys have been dumb as a bag of spanners, its about the only place the Georgians have beaten them.

Securing abandoned weapons, patrolling a contested region, all of it could have been tied up with a pretty bow for outside consumption.

So far the US has pushed the Russians via proxies, the Russians have just pushed back and we'll see where the new fence line ends up.

Nemowork, you have a remarkably pro-Russian view. Its interesting, but let's just remember the facts. Georgia is an independent nation. Russia has invaded it. Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia-- these are frontiers the Russians, or rather, the Soviets, drew. The Soviets also had a unique constitution -- they were a "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" -- so the fact that Georgia is sovereign was something that the Soviets established long ago.

The notion that somehow the Russians have a right to invade a neighbor, which is trying to assert its authority within its own borders, and that they've just failed to put some attractive PR spin on it is . . . unique. Among the many things which make the Russians "look bad" is that they haven't made even perfunctory attempts in international forums to substantiate their claims of Georgian behavior. Consider the woeful Bush regime-- they spend months at the UN, coordinate UN inspection missions to Iraq . . . some of this was perfunctory, but some of it was real; by contrast, Russia says "Georgians are massacring Ossetians" and then the next day, they're attacking Georgian infrastructure and targets.

Georgia posed no threat to Russia, and had taken no action against Russian troops or territory.

The action is quite reminiscent of Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938 . . . for "Sudeten Germans" you can read "Ossetians".

[Nemowork]

On the other hand you have to think of Grenada, a minor caribean island of no importance to anybody except the Grenadians who got invaded for no pretext except having the wrong sort of government and hiring the wrong people to build a runway?

I dont hold to an American, a Russian or a brobdignavian position except for finding certainties and trying to spread a little doubt among the faithful.

If i was trying to paint an anti-Kremlin POV i could start with Vlads frankly bizarre statements about the Georgians throwing women and children under the treads of tanks (its an afghan accusation, the Russians are getting their own back) or the N. Ossetians claims that in the attack they flooded cellars to drown out civilians (as if every Georgian armoured division included a couple of fire engines for pumping, not a couple of scared civilains in a cellar in Tshkinvalli when a water main broke, propaganda spreads from the last scared person who spoke to a reporter)

Georgia posed no real threat to the Russians except for the annoyance they caused to Vlad? Fair enough, thats diplomacy but from a Russian point of the moment the Georgians started hitting tshkinvalli with Grads and killing Russian peacekeepers they passed the point of no return. From a Russian point of view Ossetia is Russian or at least an allied territory as much as Kosovo swings to the west, try to imagine the scene if Serbs had shelled a UN base containing US servicemen in their attempt to take bake that region?

Would America have passed it all by and said it was all just local politics or passed it off to the UN to arbitrate on? Or would they have done something immediate and military?

Whether Abkazia and Ossetia are Georgian or Russian is a matter of opinion, if America is going to stand behind the Stalin/communist imposition of Georgian nationality against the free will of the local population thats the business of the US government, although its funny to watch.


PS if ^^ made no sense its saturday night and i'm slightly pished, ask me in the morning what i meant

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by Nemowork

Fair enough, thats diplomacy but from a Russian point of the moment the Georgians started hitting tshkinvalli with Grads and killing Russian peacekeepers they passed the point of no return.

Its not clear whether this actually happened, or whether it was part of some provocative exchange. What is clear is that the Russians were in no danger -- they clearly had overwhelming force-- and they could have used proportionate means (an airstrike against the rocket launchers, for example). Its also clear that, as the Russians launched an invasion of Georgia the day after something happened in Ossetia, that the Russians actions were more part of a plan to invade Georgia than a spontaneous reaction to some local trouble.

Originally Posted by Nemowork

On the other hand you have to think of Grenada, a minor caribean island of no importance to anybody except the Grenadians who got invaded for no pretext except having the wrong sort of government and hiring the wrong people to build a runway?

I dont hold to an American, a Russian or a brobdignavian position except for finding certainties and trying to spread a little doubt among the faithful.

I think that you can fairly point to parallels in Grenada, and more pointedly in Panama. Putin is trying to draw the analogy to Serbia/Yugoslavia -- he leaves out the bit about the UN watching for years as slaughter went on before intervention.

My objection to Russia's behavior in Georgia doesn't mean that all US behavior has been legit-- it fairly plainly hasn't. But it is striking that where US intervention has occurred, we had much less of a heavy hand. Panama is really, genuinely independent, and al Maliki seems to have no problem saying that the US is going to have to get out of Iraq.

But the fact that the US has been a bully at times is not a "free pass" for Russia to destroy a well functioning democracy. The logic of that, that one bad act validates all bad acts, immediately leads to a "race to the bottom" in behavior

[lost in melb.]

Originally Posted by Nemowork

We'll see how smart the Russians play it, so far their foreign PR guys have been dumb as a bag of spanners, its about the only place the Georgians have beaten them.

Not their area of specialty

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Nemowork, you have a remarkably pro-Russian view. Its interesting, but let's just remember the facts. Georgia is an independent nation. Russia has invaded it. Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia-- these are frontiers the Russians, or rather, the Soviets, drew. The Soviets also had a unique constitution -- they were a "Union of Soviet Socialist Republics" -- so the fact that Georgia is sovereign was something that the Soviets established long ago.

The notion that somehow the Russians have a right to invade a neighbor, which is trying to assert its authority within its own borders, and that they've just failed to put some attractive PR spin on it is . . . unique. Among the many things which make the Russians "look bad" is that they haven't made even perfunctory attempts in international forums to substantiate their claims of Georgian behavior. Consider the woeful Bush regime-- they spend months at the UN, coordinate UN inspection missions to Iraq . . . some of this was perfunctory, but some of it was real; by contrast, Russia says "Georgians are massacring Ossetians" and then the next day, they're attacking Georgian infrastructure and targets.

Georgia posed no threat to Russia, and had taken no action against Russian troops or territory.

The action is quite reminiscent of Hitler's invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1938 . . . for "Sudeten Germans" you can read "Ossetians".

I don't see how you can make a comparison there. Georgia invaded the disputed territory of South Ossetia which has a lot of russian nationals and a day later the Russians responded as they said they would.

Their present stance is probably designed to teach the Georgians a lesson.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by lost in melb.

I don't see how you can make a comparison there. Georgia invaded the disputed territory of South Ossetia which has a lot of russian nationals and a day later the Russians responded as they said they would.

Their present stance is probably designed to teach the Georgians a lesson.

And Hitler's stance at Lidice was to "teach the Czechs a lesson"; more generally, its not clear that Putin's lesson is anything other than domination. Georgia seems more sinned against than sinner-- what exactly have they done to Russia? Ossetia is inside Georgia, by the lines that the Soviets drew, and which the Russians recognize. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ossetia became a quasi autonomous region-- somewhat like Kurdistan in Iraq.

The Sudeten analogy is very close. You'll note that in Abkhazia, another portion of Georgia, in which the Russians haven't even alleged a provocation, the Russians have rolled in with an Abkhazian nationalist government. The similarities to Henlein in Czecho are pretty close, and not original to me-- the Swedish foreign minister, hardly a neocon, first made that observation.

Zbig Brzezhinski spoke about this recently -- he draws the analogy closer to Finland

Zbigniew Brzezinski: Fundamentally at stake is what kind of role Russia will play in the new international system. Unfortunately, Putin is putting Russia on a course that is ominously similar to Stalin's and Hitler's in the late 1930s. Swedish foreign minister Carl Bildt has correctly drawn an analogy between Putin's "justification" for dismembering Georgia -- because of the Russians in South Ossetia -- to Hitler's tactics vis a vis Czechoslovakia to "free" the Sudeten Deutsch.

Even more ominous is the analogy of what Putin is doing vis-a-vis Georgia to what Stalin did vis-a-vis Finland: subverting by use of force the sovereignty of a small democratic neighbor. In effect, morally and strategically, Georgia is the Finland of our day

[lost in melb.]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

And Hitler's stance at Lidice was to "teach the Czechs a lesson"; more generally, its not clear that Putin's lesson is anything other than domination. Georgia seems more sinned against than sinner-- what exactly have they done to Russia? Ossetia is inside Georgia, by the lines that the Soviets drew, and which the Russians recognize. After the fall of the Soviet Union, Ossetia became a quasi autonomous region-- somewhat like Kurdistan in Iraq.

The Sudeten analogy is very close. You'll note that in Abkhazia, another portion of Georgia, in which the Russians haven't even alleged a provocation, the Russians have rolled in with an Abkhazian nationalist government. The similarities to Henlein in Czecho are pretty close, and not original to me-- the Swedish foreign minister, hardly a neocon, first made that observation.

Zbig Brzezhinski spoke about this recently -- he draws the analogy closer to Finland

I wasn't necessarily saying that the lesson was justified but that's their aim, I think, rather than reintegrating Georgia. They are too bound into the world economy to risk the backlash of trying to restore the Soviet Empire. It just won't hold...

Another question is - to what extent is Putin and co. in charge of the army? Seems like it's own beast at times.

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by lost in melb.

Another question is - to what extent is Putin and co. in charge of the army? Seems like it's own beast at times.

Oh, he's in charge. I don't see any signs of anything else. My Russian friends grudgingly admire him "he's getting Russia the respect we haven't had", and he's often compared to Peter the Great. The military is ecstatic, but there's no sign that the military is calling the shots.

Putin is what the Soviets used to call a "world historical figure" -- he's #1 and there's isn't a #2.

Moreover in the Soviet system, the military was never politically powerful-- that's what the Commissars were all about. The Soviets took great pains to avoid the emergence of an independently powerful military. The Russians are not the Soviets, but there doesn't seem to be any change in civil military relations.

Putin doesn't prance around in uniform . . . he's clearly a civilian leader, albeit a very powerful one. His base is with the security services, which have always been more powerful in Russia than the Army.

The only Army guy I can think of with any sign of a political career was General Alexander Lebed . . . but he died in an "accident" (?) in 2002

[TheLancinator]

I am completely baffled by all the people claiming that Georgia 'invaded' South Ossetia. Please explain to me how you can invade yourself?

Let me see if I can figure out where all of you are coming from. Say all the illegals in Texas (all of who would hold Mexican citizenship) decided to cause an uprising in the state of Texas (since there are factions of the Mexican population that believe a whole section of the southwest United States actually belongs to Mexico). If the United States had no option but to send in the military to quell this uprising, the US would be 'invading' Texas? And if the Mexican government didn't like what they saw, according to certain people in this thread, they (the Mexicans) would be justified in sending in an overwhelming military force across international borders?

I don't think I can fully grasp your logic....

[deepsepia]

Originally Posted by TheLancinator

I am completely baffled by all the people claiming that Georgia 'invaded' South Ossetia. Please explain to me how you can invade yourself?

South Ossetia had a kind of civil war in the 1990s, which ended with a cease fire, and with Russian "peacekeepers" deployed there. Ossetia is to Georgia as Kosovo or Bosnia were to Serbia, kind of. There's a good review of the history of Ossetia's relationship with Georgia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian-Ossetian_conflict

The basis for US policy to post Soviet borders is diplomatically and historically complex. South Ossetia is to Georgia as Kosovo or Bosnia are to Serbia, sort of; there is an historical and diplomatic basis for South Ossetia's position-- if the Russians had confined their intervention to protecting Ossetia, I'd have said "OK, they have a point". But that's not what they're doing . . .

[TheLancinator]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

South Ossetia had a kind of civil war in the 1990s, which ended with a cease fire, and with Russian "peacekeepers" deployed there. Ossetia is to Georgia as Kosovo or Bosnia were to Serbia, kind of. There's a good review of the history of Ossetia's relationship with Georgia at
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian-Ossetian_conflict

The basis for US policy to post Soviet borders is diplomatically and historically complex. South Ossetia is to Georgia as Kosovo or Bosnia are to Serbia, sort of; there is an historical and diplomatic basis for South Ossetia's position-- if the Russians had confined their intervention to protecting Ossetia, I'd have said "OK, they have a point". But that's not what they're doing . . .

All of that may be true, but the Internationally recognized borders are pretty clear (and they were clear during the USSR as well)...these 'disputed' areas are firmly inside of Georgia's borders





Georgia has the same borders now as it did then....one cannot 'invade itself'....

[Nemowork]

Originally Posted by deepsepia

Its not clear whether this actually happened, or whether it was part of some provocative exchange. What is clear is that the Russians were in no danger -- they clearly had overwhelming force-- and they could have used proportionate means (an airstrike against the rocket launchers, for example). Its also clear that, as the Russians launched an invasion of Georgia the day after something happened in Ossetia, that the Russians actions were more part of a plan to invade Georgia than a spontaneous reaction to some local trouble.

http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...11-rferl07.htm

Georgian Assault On South Ossetia Calls To Mind Russia's Flawed Strategy In Chechnya

August 11, 2008
By Liz Fuller

Like the 1994 Russian invasion of Chechnya, the bloodshed of the past few days in South Ossetia and the disproportionate Russian military retaliation against Georgia could almost certainly have been avoided.

While the South Ossetian leaders may well, as Stratfor suggested on August 8, have been acting in defiance of their puppet masters in Moscow in violating the August 7 cease-fire, the Georgian leadership has contributed to the escalation of tensions over a period of months, if not years. Not only has Tbilisi repeatedly ruled out signing a formal nonaggression pact with either South Ossetia or Abkhazia, a refusal interpreted by both unrecognized republics as signaling its determination to use force when a favorable opportunity arose; Georgian leaders opted instead for grandstanding, moralizing, and seizing on every opportunity to goad and sideline Russia.

In the fall of 1994, then-Russian President Boris Yeltsin repeatedly rejected the advice of his moderate civilian advisers to meet with Chechen President Djokhar Dudayev in the hope of reaching agreement on relations between Moscow and the Chechen Republic Ichkeria and thus averting a full-scale war. In early August, following a series of exchanges of fire in South Ossetia in which several Ossetian residents of Tskhinvali were killed, the Georgians again refused -- as they had consistently done for a period of two years -- to participate in talks, tentatively scheduled for August 7, within the framework of the Joint Control Commission on preventing an escalation of the conflict. That commission comprises representation from Georgia, South Ossetia, Russia, and North Ossetia.

But despite a formal statement on August 6 from France, which currently holds the EU Presidency, calling for immediate talks "within the existing negotiation format," the Georgians, intent on minimizing the Russian role, insisted instead on bilateral talks with the South Ossetian leadership, which the latter rejected.

Late on August 7, the day on which the conflict-management talks were to have taken place in a bid to prevent an escalation, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili declared a unilateral cease-fire. In the same televised address, he declared his love and respect for the Ossetian people "irrespective of what you may have done in the past in relation to the Georgian state," and he called on Moscow to act as formal guarantor of South Ossetia's "autonomy" within Georgia.

The Ossetians have for the past 15 years rejected successive Georgian offers of "broad autonomy," which they construe as a reimposition of the "second-class citizen" status they suffered and resented for decades as an autonomous region within the Georgian SSR.

South Ossetian units violated the cease-fire later that evening by subjecting the Georgian populated villages of Tamarasheni to the north and Prisi to the east of Tskhinvali to mortar fire. Georgian Minister for Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili told Georgia's Rustavi-2 television earlier on August 7 that the Ossetians "are shooting at us from civilian facilities, from schools and hospitals in order to try to describe the damage caused during the retaliatory fire as barbaric acts by the Georgian side."

It is not clear where the late-night South Ossetian fire on the two Georgian-populated villages originated, but Georgia did not respond with precision strikes to neutralize the Ossetian shooters. Armed forces that meet NATO standards, as Tbilisi claims its army does, should surely have been able to do so.

Instead, Georgian units began bombarding the town using mortars and, according to "Jane's Defense Weekly" on August 8, GRAD truck-mounted multiple-barreled rocket launchers, the most damaging heavy artillery in their entire arsenal. On August 7, Georgian Deputy Interior Minister Ekaterine Zguladze told journalists that Georgian police posts in South Ossetia had orders not to use heavy artillery "even when [they] are defending themselves," but she did not explain why they should have had such artillery available to them in the first place.

Initial reports early on August 8 said the Georgian artillery bombardment was concentrated on government buildings in the center of Tskhinvali, but by midday that day Reuters was reporting that much of the city was in ruins. The number of civilians killed over two days of fighting (August 8-9) has been estimated at between 1,000-2,000. Colonel General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, who is deputy commander of the Russian Armed Forces General Staff, told regnum.ru on August 9 that the high death toll was the direct result of using heavy artillery.

On August 10, however, Georgian government officials blamed the devastation of Tskhinvali on Russian bombing raids, without explaining why the Russians would have bombed their own citizens. The need to protect the South Ossetian population, almost all of whom hold Russian passports, was the rationale cited to justify the Russian military intervention.

Georgian rhetoric over the past four days has been reminiscent of Russia's rationalization in late 1994 of the bombing of Grozny. In both cases, the stated objective was "to restore constitutional order." In a statement on August 8, the Georgian parliament reiterated that argument, referring to the South Ossetian leadership as "criminals" and to those South Ossetians who took up arms to defend their homes and families as "illegal armed bands" -- the exact phrase the Russian authorities routinely use with reference to the Islamist resistance in the North Caucasus.

Also on August 8, more than 24 hours before Georgian officials claimed the destruction of Tskhinvali was the result of Russian bombing, Georgian Prime Minister Lado Gurgenidze acknowledged extensive damage to infrastructure in Tskhinvali and elsewhere in South Ossetia. He pledged to make available the financial resources to rebuild the city, just as the Russians offered to rebuild Grozny after leveling it to the ground in 2000.


Copyright (c) 2008. RFE/RL, Inc. Reprinted with the permission of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 1201 Connecticut Ave., N.W. Washington DC 20036. www.rferl.org

It seems somebody asked the same question of the Georgians originally.

[lost in melb.]

I suspect the truth lies somewhere in between russian and georgian propaganda...

[Nemowork]

Usually does, the initial reports of 2000 dead were taken from the panicked reports of civilians running away from a war but its a nice round number and good for media reports and speeches, more sensible reports put the dead under a hundred in Tsckinvalli although theres some being mentioned by Georgian forces in the countryside nearby but i havent seen any photo evidence or credible sources.

The town is pretty much shot out but after 2 days of Georgian shelling and close range tank combat its hard to say who did what when.

As for the looting, its hardly unexpected, apparently the Russians have a real liking for 'western' trophies like NATO bayonets (favourite) or US web gear and jackets, belts are popular but anything to say that your a combat veteran. A good few of the heavy weapons will go for testing or the museum at Kubinka.

Assuming all that looting is bad of course the British army will have to give all that stuff we pinched off the Argentinians back, the US army will have to prosecute itself for acquiring Iraqi Hind helicopters for training and your going to have to prosecute a good few US veterans for stuff they got in Germany, Japan and Vietnam.

[treesmoke]

From what the Wiki said it doesn't seem like the Georgian government/people didn't do anything to give reason for South Ossetia to want to seperate. Just that Georgia broke away and took that part of land with them.

[Harpoon]

You cant value wiki's opinion any more than any other.. Its written by normal guys who have opinions and changes daily..
The more I learn I agree that Georgia didnt invade anyone because it was within their own borders..