Georgia president signs cease-fire with Russia; says West invited invasion.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080815/ap_on_re_eu/us_russia_georgia

TBILISI, Georgia - A reluctant Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Friday he signed a cease-fire agreement with Russia and declared in the presence of the chief U.S. diplomat that the West had behaved in ways that invited the invasion.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had been assured that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign an identical document. The United States says the pact protects the former Soviet republic's interests despite concessions to Moscow.

"With this signature by Georgia, this must take place and take place now," Rice said. She did not say what, if anything, the United States would do if Russia defies the truce.

Near tears at times, Saakashvili said he will "never, ever surrender" in the showdown with much-larger Russia.

when does the iron curtain go up?

This maniac was the one who invaded disputed territory and bombed civilians! Jesus.

which is unfortunately stocked full of Russians at the moment. What Russia did by coming to the "rescue" is precisely the manner in which Hitler invaded first the Sudetenland and then others; claim that the pretext was to "protect our citizens who are in foreign lands".

Saakashvili is not the bad guy here.

:rofl:

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

by American neocons looking for another way to keep the MI complex and oil profits rolling along--under the guise of "promoting democracy", of course. He was duped. He really thought we'd be fighting the Russians on his country's behalf--as if his shitty-ass-nothing little nation was worth starting WW3 between two nuclear powers.

He's a nationlist who started a war and massacred ethnically distinct civilians.

If you want somebody to analogize to Hitler, look right there.

Your Hitler analogy is missing something - - namely, the Czechs first invading territory and killing civilians.

:spray:

go here
http://forums.hannity.com

You are a bunch of fucking morons.

It is hard to believe how ignorant some of you sheeple are. To be siding with Russia in this is madness, or childish ignorance. Take yer pick

Gee whiz, better grab a big bottle of Ethnic Cleanser.

BTW Ossetians are not Russians. They just look to Russia for protection.

and made him think we would or could back up his raid in Ossetia. And, I suspect that person was McCain.

The Russians were in Ossetia as part of a peace-keeping force -- just as we had a presence (which I believe we no longer have) in Bosnia some years back.

Sometimes nobody is wearing the white hat. Ossetia broke away from Georgia back in 1991-1992. Both Georgia and Russia claim the area. Russia may have lost the propaganda war in the U.S. on this one, but it looks like Russia won it in Ossetia.

European newspapers are skeptical of both sides on this one. They may have both been itching for trouble. That would not be a first. It's happened frequently throughout history. Trouble elsewhere distracts the attention of people from their own problems.

We've got lots of problems right here and McCain has no answers to offer us -- so encourage a little war in Georgia -- and Abracadabra the difficult problems here disappear from the top of the news.

Great campaign strategy for McCain. Horrible for the people of Ossetia and Georgia. And Saakashvili is a naive true believer caught in the cross-fire.

How is he NOT a bad guy?

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L737912.htm

07 Aug 2008 23

MEGVREKISI, Georgia, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Georgia pounded the capital of its breakaway South Ossetia province with heavy weapons on Thursday after a ceasefire broke down within hours and separatists said they were under siege.

"Georgian troops are storming Tskhinvali (the capital). They are bombing the city," South Ossetia's separatist leader, Eduard Kokoity, told Russian news agencies.

A Reuters reporter saw intense fire from heavy weapons at different locations skirting Tskhinvali. The reporter heard heavy fighting coming from the direction of the city.

The night sky was lit up blue and red by explosions and Georgian forces appeared to be firing Katyusha rockets.

--------------------------------------------------------------------

He sounds like a GREAT guy!

that he was misled by Scheunemann, McInsane, Rove, Cheney, and whoever else was "encouraging" him to poke the Bear in the snoot.

Stupid move #2: Believing the US when we say "we got your back".

The Georgia leader is just an Epic Fail.

He'd spoken for soooooooooooooooooo very long he'd prolly already pee'd himself twice.

edit - missed a few o's out

"There's a Full Moon eclipse tonight. Smirk. Other than republicon occultists, who kNoWs what manner of eViL skullduggery goes down with the darkening of the Moon? Who who whooty poot who? Enigmatically and occultly yours,"

- Ronald Reagan's Dead Republicon Astrologer*


* Courageously channeled by Ye Olde Spirale Hawke, who consumed the requisite 1/2 doz. lemon-cream doughnuts as a prophylactic measure to protect his precious bodily fluids before psychically penetrating the vast netherworld of republicon occultism.

The Russians are leaving.

So what the hell is he talking about?

:shrug:

McGrumpy and his foreign policy advisor Randy Scheuneman...??

this really should kill McCain's campaign, if it weren't for American Pravda.

Really, he couldn't see he was being used? In this geopolitical chess game, he doesn't see his role as a pawn?! What did he expect, air cover?


In this simple chronicle, there is something quite mysterious: Why did the Georgians choose to invade South Ossetia on Thursday night? There had been a great deal of shelling by the South Ossetians of Georgian villages for the previous three nights, but while possibly more intense than usual, artillery exchanges were routine. The Georgians might not have fought well, but they committed fairly substantial forces that must have taken at the very least several days to deploy and supply. Georgia’s move was deliberate.

The United States is Georgia’s closest ally. It maintained about 130 military advisers in Georgia, along with civilian advisers, contractors involved in all aspects of the Georgian government and people doing business in Georgia. It is inconceivable that the Americans were unaware of Georgia’s mobilization and intentions. It is also inconceivable that the Americans were unaware that the Russians had deployed substantial forces on the South Ossetian frontier. U.S. technical intelligence, from satellite imagery and signals intelligence to unmanned aerial vehicles, could not miss the fact that thousands of Russian troops were moving to forward positions. The Russians clearly knew the Georgians were ready to move. How could the United States not be aware of the Russians? Indeed, given the posture of Russian troops, how could intelligence analysts have missed the possibility that the Russians had laid a trap, hoping for a Georgian invasion to justify its own counterattack?

It is very difficult to imagine that the Georgians launched their attack against U.S. wishes. The Georgians rely on the United States, and they were in no position to defy it.

http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/russo_georgian_war_and_balance_power

http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSL563909920080805?pageNumber=1&virtualBrandChannel=0

Tue Aug 5, 2008 2:49pm

AVNEVI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgia on Tuesday denied preparing for war in its breakaway South Ossetia region following deadly weekend clashes that have raised fears of a new war in the Caucasus.

Russia said it would not be indifferent if there was further violence on its border, escalating a war of words in a region where Moscow and the West are vying for influence over vital energy transit routes.

"If events develop according to the worst-case violence scenario, Russia will not allow itself to remain indifferent, considering that Russian citizens live in South Ossetia, particularly in the conflict zone," Interfax news agency quoted Russian special ambassador Yuri Popov as saying.

But Georgia rejected accusations of indiscriminate shelling of Ossetian-held areas over the weekend, and denied it was preparing for conflict.

Here's the blowback in a nutshell:

Russians Leave, Then Return to Seized Georgian City
Medvedev Receives Separatist Leaders

By Tara Bahrampour
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 15, 2008; Page A17

TBILISI, Georgia, Aug. 14 -- Georgia remained in a state of uncertainty Thursday as Russian troops retreated from and then returned to the city of Gori and spent much of the day destroying or carrying away captured Georgian military equipment. Elsewhere in the country, Russian tanks and trucks rolled along country roads toward unknown destinations, watched by local people.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov declared that Georgia could "forget about" ever regaining the two secessionist regions that are at the heart of the conflict. At the Kremlin, President Dmitry Medvedev warmly received the political leaders of the zones, which Georgia and the United States insist remain part of Georgia.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/08/14/AR2008081400779.html?hpid=topnews

So which Georgia is trying to get into NATO now? The one with secessionist regions or without?

The Russian leadership are capable of much worse than any neocon alive can ever imagine and must be contained. This is a case where it's imperative to side with the lesser of two evils. Just ask Alexander Litvinenko and Viktor Yushchenko.

have deliberately PROVOKED Russia to begin with, by pointedly interfering in Georgia for years and arming them! Is Russia potentially dangerous? Fuck yeah! Are they acting badly? Yeah! Do we want a nuclear war started over Georgia? Fuck no! That's why we're NOT going to put troops in to fight in Georgia, and Saakashvili will twist in the wind. Bush, Cheney, McManiac, the whole neocon crew, just wrote a WAYY bigger check than we can cash. Russia knows it, and they're going to keep rubbing our noses in it.

..it is decidedly NOT imperative to side with Saakofshitski....this is an internal Russian/Georgian issue to deal with...Shitforbrainski tried to sneak into South Ossettia when he thought no-one was looking and is now whinging because he got his ass kicked. HARD. And to make matters worse, the people he thought were his friends have only harsh language to offer as weaponry...He got punked, and the shame of it is that if Crash McCain and his high-paid whore/consultant hadn't lead this gullible moron down the garden path, several thousand innocent people murdered by Georgian forces would still be alive...


So, no. We shouldn't 'side with the lesser of two evils'.

Russia didn't invade Ossetia, Georgia did just like the US invaded Iraq. The bush admin supported Kosovo's claim to independence so they haven't a leg to stand on if they try and claim the opposite when it comes to South Ossetia and a larger separatist territory, Abkhazia.

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