War In Georgia
DZHAVA, Georgia (AP) – Russia sent columns of tanks and reportedly bombed Georgian air bases Friday after Georgia launched a major military offensive to retake the breakaway province of South Ossetia, threatening to ignite a broader conflict.
Hundreds of civilians were reported dead in the worst outbreak of hostilities since the province won defacto independence in a war against Georgia that ended in 1992. Witnesses said the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali was devastated.
… Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally, has about 2,000 troops in Iraq, making it the third-largest contributor to coalition forces after the U.S. and Britain. But Saakashvili told CNN that the troops would be called home Saturday in the face of the South Ossetia fighting.
Georgia, which borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia, was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the breakup of the Soviet Union. Georgia has angered Russia by seeking NATO membership—a bid Moscow regards as part of a Western effort to weaken its influence in the region.
World Stuff | tree hugging sister | 
August 8, 2008 11:44 pm
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Sounds like Russia is about to add considerably to its territory. Putin, who’s really still in charge, has said often that the breakup of the Soviet Union was a tragedy. Looks like the major thrust of his policy is get all that territory back. The timing is interesting. With the Olympics and the U.S. Presidential Election, there’s going to be little attention paid to the largest Russian military incursion into a foreign land since the invasion of Afghanistan in 1979. My idea is that first it’ll be South Ossetia by the end of this month; then it’ll be Abhazia by October and in the interregnum between the election in November and the Inauguration in January, the whole of the Country will be reabsorbed into the Russian Federation.
What will the U.S. do about it? Absolutely nothing no matter who is elected(or selected) President. Russia is too big to take on and even if it wasn’t, its cooperation on issues like North Korea, Iraq, Loose nukes and a host of other issues make it untouchable as far as any sanctions are concerned. At rock bottom, this incursion by Russia into South Ossetia means that Georgia, which had plans to apply for NATO membership, will be forced to put them on hold and that its overall plan to be allied with the West will be shelved forever.
I really wish I could disagree with you, Wayne, but I can’t.
If your media belongs to professional ones, you could not miss the true information. But you either do not want to deliver the truth, or it is forbidden to you.
Didn’t you know, that Georgian heavy artillery during the first 12 hours on 07.08.2008 night (when Russians did not yet move at all) killed almost 1600 civilians in Ossetia? Russian peace-keeping troops were forced to protect the victims, although began their activities too late, the day after, when the Georgian troops had already killed and burned thousands of women and children. This is the truth.
But your media delivers only “trench propaganda” from agressor’s side in style of Dr. Goebbels.
That’s very sorry, that free and independent information does not exist in the West any more!
Prof. Dr. Mikhail Saponov
Moscow