[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]YourValentine wrote: [/QUOTENAME]Is Craig a democrat, could you please place a link that shows this? All I found was that he was employed by President Reagan who was a Republican.
Here is some info about his publictaions and university work but no info about him being a Democrat.[/QUOTE]
You're right, I got my information wrong. Still he seems to be kinda anti-Bush, which tells me that we'll support the Democrats this election ;-)
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So are they pulling out or what?
I can't get a straight answer from my newspapers. Useless things :(
I can't get a straight answer from my newspapers. Useless things :(
Well, yes and no. They are pulling out of most of the country, but keeping troops in Poti (major port city) and in the 2 break-away republics of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia has now also recognized their independence from Georgia, which of course has the Georgian President so angry he could spit. The UN and most of its independent Western countries have denounced the move. Russia has frozen it's ties to NATO. The President of Russia (Medvedev) has now said "We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War," though he claims his country isn't seeking to start one.
Uh huh.
The BBC actually has decent coverage of this. Try this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7582181.stm
Uh huh.
The BBC actually has decent coverage of this. Try this article:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7582181.stm
Figures that after I posted here I'd find this. Interesting points raised.
GEORGIAN CONFLICT REVEALS MOSCOW?S BIGGEST FEAR
Posted: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 7:17 AM
Filed Under: On Assignment
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
How remote is the former Soviet republic of Georgia to most Americans?
Here's one measure: I recently received an e-mail from a viewer wondering if this Georgia was where our Georgians (as in our Carolinans or our Virginians) originally came from.
Silly, perhaps, but the comment raises a serious concern. It's true that, as the six-day conflict in Georgia - followed by a week of shaky cease-fire - unfolded, each dateline became more exotic, and unfamiliar, than the last: Tbilisi, Gori, Poti, Tskhinvali.
Every day, our dispatches tried to answer the questions we all seemed to be asking: why had a phalanx of international reporters parachuted into Georgia to cover spiraling violence in a breakaway region? Why - at the very height of hype and excitement about the Beijing Olympic Games - had so many of us come to witness what started out as just another ethnic skirmish in the Caucasus?
Of course, there was the obvious, quick answer: This war, like previous proxy wars, was really about what you could not see - or report. What kept your adrenalin pumping in the wee hours of the morning: that primal fear of a military - even nuclear - confrontation between Russia and the United States.
Fears of the mushroom cloud
That Cold War anxiety is something that some of us are old enough to remember ? the proverbial mushroom cloud on the horizon.
It's a fear we didn't talk much about, but which grew as we watched Russia attempt to redraw its battle lines with the West. And it's that collective fear, I believe, that kept the Olympics a distant second or third on most news programs during that week.
Even after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced a cessation of hostilities (saying Georgia had been sufficiently punished for its attack on South Ossetia, an enclave recognized by the U.N. Security Council as Georgian) and after U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, in effect, that the United States would not engage Russia militarily, that primal fear just wouldn't go away.
But now, with the hot war behind us, will the tinderboxes of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - the other Georgian breakaway enclave - become distant, frozen conflicts yet again?
Not likely.
On Tuesday, Medvedev said Moscow had recognized formally the independence of both pro-Moscow territories. The decision, which is not likely to be followed by many other countries, further escalates tensions with the West and puts the Kremlin in direct opposition with the U.N. Security Council. President Bush had previously issued a statement warning Russia against recognizing the two separatist regions.
Both Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have upped the ante, saying that Russia could deal with any Western attempt to isolate it and that breaking off ties with NATO was - in so many words - not the end of the world.
Gauging the risk
Some analysts suggest that Russia is trying to re-establish itself as a superpower, starting in its own backyard. If that's true, it would seem it?s going to do so by driving a wedge between it and the rest of the world.
But why would the Kremlin risk that kind of isolation, not to mention international ire, over two tiny enclaves that have been fighting the ethnic Georgians for decades?
A fight for the oil pipelines is one answer.
By absorbing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia puts even more pressure on Georgia's BTC pipeline, one of the few that transits oil through the Caucasus that is not under Russian control.
Then, take a look at Vice President Dick Cheney's itinerary next week.
The White House says he's bringing a show of support to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine on a trip that had, as its origin, a conference in Italy.
These three former Soviet republics all have pro-Western and anti-Russian leaders. All three countries signed a preliminary deal last year to extend a Ukrainian pipeline to move Caspian oil from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea, and then on to the West - again, outside Russian control.
War against an idea
But is this really all about oil? Would Russia and Georgia - and by extension, the United States - go to the very brink and back over energy? As Russian forces begin pulling out of Georgia and reporters like myself regain some distance from the front lines, another answer comes to mind. The one thing that triggers Kremlin fears more than anything else: democracy.
Democracy?s basic ingredients, the freedom to assemble, to speak, to choose - these are like kryptonite in the hands of the Kremlin?s authoritarian mega-capitalists.
How often have we heard it from Russia's crushed opposition voices? Medvedev and Putin don't want a war with the West, because their clothes and expensive watches are Western, their vacations are taken there, their yachts are made there, and their children and the children of their cronies want to be educated there. No, their war is with an idea - democracy.
Look at the new geopolitical map that's redrawing itself in the wake of the Georgia conflict - with the United States, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltics and Israel on one side. On the other is Russia, Belarus, Syria and Iran.
More than a war of power, or energy, this lays out the Kremlin's battle zone against democratic forces that - if unleashed in Russia - could destroy it. In fact, Georgia marks the new Cold War frontline between Russian autocratic rule, and democracy's Ground Zero.
Russia doesn't really fear or hate NATO. It knows very well that NATO is not the threat. The threat to Putin-ocracy - and the real threat from Georgia - is the close proximity of Western freedoms to Russia's very borders.
Russia, remember, had freedom in the 1990s, and almost drowned from too much of it. Putin and his hand-picked successor, Medevedev, won't allow that to happen again, even if it means going to war.
That's why we were in Georgia, reporting from towns with unpronounceable names, en masse. That's why the story - for a few scary days - blew away the Olympics. And that's why a simmering primal fear mixes with fascination.
GEORGIAN CONFLICT REVEALS MOSCOW?S BIGGEST FEAR
Posted: Tuesday, August 26, 2008 7:17 AM
Filed Under: On Assignment
By Jim Maceda, NBC News Correspondent
How remote is the former Soviet republic of Georgia to most Americans?
Here's one measure: I recently received an e-mail from a viewer wondering if this Georgia was where our Georgians (as in our Carolinans or our Virginians) originally came from.
Silly, perhaps, but the comment raises a serious concern. It's true that, as the six-day conflict in Georgia - followed by a week of shaky cease-fire - unfolded, each dateline became more exotic, and unfamiliar, than the last: Tbilisi, Gori, Poti, Tskhinvali.
Every day, our dispatches tried to answer the questions we all seemed to be asking: why had a phalanx of international reporters parachuted into Georgia to cover spiraling violence in a breakaway region? Why - at the very height of hype and excitement about the Beijing Olympic Games - had so many of us come to witness what started out as just another ethnic skirmish in the Caucasus?
Of course, there was the obvious, quick answer: This war, like previous proxy wars, was really about what you could not see - or report. What kept your adrenalin pumping in the wee hours of the morning: that primal fear of a military - even nuclear - confrontation between Russia and the United States.
Fears of the mushroom cloud
That Cold War anxiety is something that some of us are old enough to remember ? the proverbial mushroom cloud on the horizon.
It's a fear we didn't talk much about, but which grew as we watched Russia attempt to redraw its battle lines with the West. And it's that collective fear, I believe, that kept the Olympics a distant second or third on most news programs during that week.
Even after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev announced a cessation of hostilities (saying Georgia had been sufficiently punished for its attack on South Ossetia, an enclave recognized by the U.N. Security Council as Georgian) and after U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates said, in effect, that the United States would not engage Russia militarily, that primal fear just wouldn't go away.
But now, with the hot war behind us, will the tinderboxes of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - the other Georgian breakaway enclave - become distant, frozen conflicts yet again?
Not likely.
On Tuesday, Medvedev said Moscow had recognized formally the independence of both pro-Moscow territories. The decision, which is not likely to be followed by many other countries, further escalates tensions with the West and puts the Kremlin in direct opposition with the U.N. Security Council. President Bush had previously issued a statement warning Russia against recognizing the two separatist regions.
Both Medvedev and his mentor, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, have upped the ante, saying that Russia could deal with any Western attempt to isolate it and that breaking off ties with NATO was - in so many words - not the end of the world.
Gauging the risk
Some analysts suggest that Russia is trying to re-establish itself as a superpower, starting in its own backyard. If that's true, it would seem it?s going to do so by driving a wedge between it and the rest of the world.
But why would the Kremlin risk that kind of isolation, not to mention international ire, over two tiny enclaves that have been fighting the ethnic Georgians for decades?
A fight for the oil pipelines is one answer.
By absorbing Abkhazia and South Ossetia, Russia puts even more pressure on Georgia's BTC pipeline, one of the few that transits oil through the Caucasus that is not under Russian control.
Then, take a look at Vice President Dick Cheney's itinerary next week.
The White House says he's bringing a show of support to Georgia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine on a trip that had, as its origin, a conference in Italy.
These three former Soviet republics all have pro-Western and anti-Russian leaders. All three countries signed a preliminary deal last year to extend a Ukrainian pipeline to move Caspian oil from the Black Sea to the Baltic Sea, and then on to the West - again, outside Russian control.
War against an idea
But is this really all about oil? Would Russia and Georgia - and by extension, the United States - go to the very brink and back over energy? As Russian forces begin pulling out of Georgia and reporters like myself regain some distance from the front lines, another answer comes to mind. The one thing that triggers Kremlin fears more than anything else: democracy.
Democracy?s basic ingredients, the freedom to assemble, to speak, to choose - these are like kryptonite in the hands of the Kremlin?s authoritarian mega-capitalists.
How often have we heard it from Russia's crushed opposition voices? Medvedev and Putin don't want a war with the West, because their clothes and expensive watches are Western, their vacations are taken there, their yachts are made there, and their children and the children of their cronies want to be educated there. No, their war is with an idea - democracy.
Look at the new geopolitical map that's redrawing itself in the wake of the Georgia conflict - with the United States, Poland, Ukraine, Georgia, the Baltics and Israel on one side. On the other is Russia, Belarus, Syria and Iran.
More than a war of power, or energy, this lays out the Kremlin's battle zone against democratic forces that - if unleashed in Russia - could destroy it. In fact, Georgia marks the new Cold War frontline between Russian autocratic rule, and democracy's Ground Zero.
Russia doesn't really fear or hate NATO. It knows very well that NATO is not the threat. The threat to Putin-ocracy - and the real threat from Georgia - is the close proximity of Western freedoms to Russia's very borders.
Russia, remember, had freedom in the 1990s, and almost drowned from too much of it. Putin and his hand-picked successor, Medevedev, won't allow that to happen again, even if it means going to war.
That's why we were in Georgia, reporting from towns with unpronounceable names, en masse. That's why the story - for a few scary days - blew away the Olympics. And that's why a simmering primal fear mixes with fascination.
Good article:
Russians losing propaganda war
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in Tbilisi on 13 August 2008
Most of the Western media are based in Georgia
The Bush administration appears to be trying to turn a failed military operation by Georgia into a successful diplomatic operation against Russia.
It is doing so by presenting the Russian actions as aggression and playing down the Georgian attack into South Ossetia on 7 August, which triggered the Russian operation.
Yet the evidence from South Ossetia about that attack indicates that it was extensive and damaging.
Blame game
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford has reported: "Many Ossetians I met both in Tskhinvali and in the main refugee camp in Russia are furious about what has happened to their city.
"They are very clear who they blame: Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili, who sent troops to re-take control of this breakaway region."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on 13 August 2008
Has Moscow learned yet how to play the media game?
Human Rights Watch concluded after an on-the-ground inspection: "Witness accounts and the timing of the damage would point to Georgian fire accounting for much of the damage described [in Tskhinvali]."
One problem for the Russians is that they have not yet learned how to play the media game. Their authoritarian government might never do so.
Most of the Western media are based in Georgia. The Russians were slow to give access from their side and this has helped them lose the propaganda war.
Georgia, meanwhile, was comparing this to Prague in 1968 and Budapest in 1956. Even the massacre at Srebrenica was recalled.
Mud sticks
The comparisons did not fit the facts, but some of the mud has stuck and Russia has been on the international defensive.
The visit by the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Georgia is a signal of support for Mr Saakashvili.
Significantly, she is not paying a matching visit to Moscow but will return directly to the United States where she will brief President George W Bush in Texas.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on 13 August 2008
Washington has accused Russia of widening the conflict
She has refused to condemn Georgia and barely acknowledged Russia's point that it had to protect its peacekeeping forces (a battalion-sized unit allowed in South Ossetia along with Georgian and North Ossetian and South Ossetian forces under a 1992 agreement).
Instead she blamed Russia for widening the conflict by bombing beyond what the 1992 deal called the "zone of conflict" in South Ossetia.
She said: "This is something that, had it been about South Ossetia, could have been resolved within certain limits.
"Russian peacekeepers were in the area; that is true. And Russia initially said it needed to act to protect its peacekeepers and its people.
"But what Russia has done is well beyond anything that anyone could say is for the protection of those people and for those peacekeepers."
HAVE YOUR SAY
Russia's relations with the US may recover. Its relations with the "near abroad" are shattered forever
Stephen Thake, Valletta, Malta
Send us your comments
The Americans have sent in planes full of humanitarian aid, again a symbol of support.
But they have sent no military supplies. Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said: "I don't see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation. Is that clear enough?"
US diplomacy is also concentrating on the issue of sovereignty and territorial integrity - which means that South Ossetia and the other restless region, Abkhazia, must remain within Georgian borders. Russian has questioned this.
Moscow's anger
This widens the whole question into one of Russian behaviour generally, which is much surer ground for the Bush administration. The US will continue to press for eventual Georgian and Ukrainian membership of Nato.
The Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain also sees in this conflict an opportunity to put Russia in the dock, declaring: "We are all Georgians now."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) and Dmitry Medvedev at G8 in Japan on 9 July 2008
Germany, at least, has been notably reluctant to find fault with Russia
All this is likely to anger Moscow, which will feel that it has a case and that it is being ignored. Right from the start it said that the operation was not an invasion.
The adverse effect on US-Russia relations, about which Mr Gates warned, is going to be a two-way process.
There are signs, though, that there is some sympathy for Russia within the European Union - although not among the Eastern European states who still fear Russia and not in the British government, which has matched the US line about Russian "aggression".
But German Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeing Russian leaders and while she too will urge them not to challenge borders, the German government has been notably reluctant to blame Russia.
Russians losing propaganda war
By Paul Reynolds
World affairs correspondent, BBC News
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in Tbilisi on 13 August 2008
Most of the Western media are based in Georgia
The Bush administration appears to be trying to turn a failed military operation by Georgia into a successful diplomatic operation against Russia.
It is doing so by presenting the Russian actions as aggression and playing down the Georgian attack into South Ossetia on 7 August, which triggered the Russian operation.
Yet the evidence from South Ossetia about that attack indicates that it was extensive and damaging.
Blame game
The BBC's Sarah Rainsford has reported: "Many Ossetians I met both in Tskhinvali and in the main refugee camp in Russia are furious about what has happened to their city.
"They are very clear who they blame: Georgia's President Mikhail Saakashvili, who sent troops to re-take control of this breakaway region."
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on 13 August 2008
Has Moscow learned yet how to play the media game?
Human Rights Watch concluded after an on-the-ground inspection: "Witness accounts and the timing of the damage would point to Georgian fire accounting for much of the damage described [in Tskhinvali]."
One problem for the Russians is that they have not yet learned how to play the media game. Their authoritarian government might never do so.
Most of the Western media are based in Georgia. The Russians were slow to give access from their side and this has helped them lose the propaganda war.
Georgia, meanwhile, was comparing this to Prague in 1968 and Budapest in 1956. Even the massacre at Srebrenica was recalled.
Mud sticks
The comparisons did not fit the facts, but some of the mud has stuck and Russia has been on the international defensive.
The visit by the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to Georgia is a signal of support for Mr Saakashvili.
Significantly, she is not paying a matching visit to Moscow but will return directly to the United States where she will brief President George W Bush in Texas.
US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice in Washington on 13 August 2008
Washington has accused Russia of widening the conflict
She has refused to condemn Georgia and barely acknowledged Russia's point that it had to protect its peacekeeping forces (a battalion-sized unit allowed in South Ossetia along with Georgian and North Ossetian and South Ossetian forces under a 1992 agreement).
Instead she blamed Russia for widening the conflict by bombing beyond what the 1992 deal called the "zone of conflict" in South Ossetia.
She said: "This is something that, had it been about South Ossetia, could have been resolved within certain limits.
"Russian peacekeepers were in the area; that is true. And Russia initially said it needed to act to protect its peacekeepers and its people.
"But what Russia has done is well beyond anything that anyone could say is for the protection of those people and for those peacekeepers."
HAVE YOUR SAY
Russia's relations with the US may recover. Its relations with the "near abroad" are shattered forever
Stephen Thake, Valletta, Malta
Send us your comments
The Americans have sent in planes full of humanitarian aid, again a symbol of support.
But they have sent no military supplies. Defence Secretary Robert Gates has said: "I don't see any prospect for the use of military force by the United States in this situation. Is that clear enough?"
US diplomacy is also concentrating on the issue of sovereignty and territorial integrity - which means that South Ossetia and the other restless region, Abkhazia, must remain within Georgian borders. Russian has questioned this.
Moscow's anger
This widens the whole question into one of Russian behaviour generally, which is much surer ground for the Bush administration. The US will continue to press for eventual Georgian and Ukrainian membership of Nato.
The Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain also sees in this conflict an opportunity to put Russia in the dock, declaring: "We are all Georgians now."
German Chancellor Angela Merkel (R) and Dmitry Medvedev at G8 in Japan on 9 July 2008
Germany, at least, has been notably reluctant to find fault with Russia
All this is likely to anger Moscow, which will feel that it has a case and that it is being ignored. Right from the start it said that the operation was not an invasion.
The adverse effect on US-Russia relations, about which Mr Gates warned, is going to be a two-way process.
There are signs, though, that there is some sympathy for Russia within the European Union - although not among the Eastern European states who still fear Russia and not in the British government, which has matched the US line about Russian "aggression".
But German Chancellor Angela Merkel is seeing Russian leaders and while she too will urge them not to challenge borders, the German government has been notably reluctant to blame Russia.
This whole thing is just Russia getting back at the EU and the USA for Kosovo.
The two break away republics would be better off under possible Russian oppression rather than under Definite Georgian oppression.
I think Russia was justied for their retalitory invasion of Georgia. Was Russia supposed to give Georgia a slap on the wrist and admonish the Georgian president to not do that again (and leave his military intact)?
I think not.
I think Russia was justied for their retalitory invasion of Georgia. Was Russia supposed to give Georgia a slap on the wrist and admonish the Georgian president to not do that again (and leave his military intact)?
I think not.
Here is another good article:
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-russia-georgia_rodriguezaug27,0,3964803.story
Here is a good argument (from the above article) for recognizing the independence of the two breakaway provinces:
"On the surface, Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has little practical value.
Both enclaves aligned themselves with Moscow years ago, after bloody civil wars with Georgian forces in the late 1990s left them functioning as unrecognized, de facto independent states."
Here is an article showing the South Ossetia
dislike of Georgian oppression:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/world/europe/09breakaway.html
"The Ossetians, who number about 60,000, are part of the patchwork of ethnic groups that inhabit the mountains of the Caucasus. They have long yearned for separation from Georgia, appealing to Russia, their northern neighbor, for support."
Celebration in the streets after Russian recognition of breakaway republics ...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10529215
"Hundreds of jubilant Ossetians and Abkhazians spilled into the streets of their regional capitals Tuesday, waving national flags, firing shots in the air, cheering and dancing traditional Caucasian dances.
"This is the happiest day of my life," said Julia Babuyeva, 19, as she celebrated in Tskhinvali, the devastated South Ossetian capital."
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/chi-russia-georgia_rodriguezaug27,0,3964803.story
Here is a good argument (from the above article) for recognizing the independence of the two breakaway provinces:
"On the surface, Russia's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia has little practical value.
Both enclaves aligned themselves with Moscow years ago, after bloody civil wars with Georgian forces in the late 1990s left them functioning as unrecognized, de facto independent states."
Here is an article showing the South Ossetia
dislike of Georgian oppression:
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/09/world/europe/09breakaway.html
"The Ossetians, who number about 60,000, are part of the patchwork of ethnic groups that inhabit the mountains of the Caucasus. They have long yearned for separation from Georgia, appealing to Russia, their northern neighbor, for support."
Celebration in the streets after Russian recognition of breakaway republics ...
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/section/2/story.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=10529215
"Hundreds of jubilant Ossetians and Abkhazians spilled into the streets of their regional capitals Tuesday, waving national flags, firing shots in the air, cheering and dancing traditional Caucasian dances.
"This is the happiest day of my life," said Julia Babuyeva, 19, as she celebrated in Tskhinvali, the devastated South Ossetian capital."
I've come to the conclusion that Russia is right.
If the Americans can have an independent Kosovo, then Russia has every right to see their allies in the breakaway republics independent.
Upon hearing that Western leaders called the declarations of independence "uncacceptable" and so on, I was truly enraged. How was Kosovo "acceptable"?
If the Americans can have an independent Kosovo, then Russia has every right to see their allies in the breakaway republics independent.
Upon hearing that Western leaders called the declarations of independence "uncacceptable" and so on, I was truly enraged. How was Kosovo "acceptable"?
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Poo again wrote: [/QUOTENAME]I've come to the conclusion that Russia is right.
If the Americans can have an independent Kosovo, then Russia has every right to see their allies in the breakaway republics independent.
Upon hearing that Western leaders called the declarations of independence "uncacceptable" and so on, I was truly enraged. How was Kosovo "acceptable"?
[/QUOTE]
One mistake doesn't justify another mistakes to be made. ;-)
If the Americans can have an independent Kosovo, then Russia has every right to see their allies in the breakaway republics independent.
Upon hearing that Western leaders called the declarations of independence "uncacceptable" and so on, I was truly enraged. How was Kosovo "acceptable"?
[/QUOTE]
One mistake doesn't justify another mistakes to be made. ;-)
[QUOTE][QUOTENAME]Poo again wrote: [/QUOTENAME]This whole thing is just Russia getting back at the EU and the USA for Kosovo.[/QUOTE]
...and the rest of the world getting back at Russia for...well, basically everything since 1917 at the latest.
...and the rest of the world getting back at Russia for...well, basically everything since 1917 at the latest.