The Truth About Russia in Georgia;
Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.
Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.
[…]
“A key tool that the Soviet Union used to keep its empire together,” Worms said to me, “was pitting ethnic groups against one another. They did this extremely skillfully in the sense that they never generated ethnic wars within their own territory. But when the Soviet Union collapsed it became an essential Russian policy to weaken the states on its periphery by activating the ethnic fuses they planted.
Journalism that blows the MSM out of the water – again.
You change the word Russian to Liberal in the “ethnic bomb” para and what do you see?
The Communist/left playbook…
I’m not sure you can believe anything people from that part of the world say. They all have their own version of the truth. Lying is pounded into them from birth, a result of Soviet oppression.
The only people who really know the truth are the ones with the billion dollar satellites, and they’re not talking.
MSM got it wrong again? Wow, how unexpected!
Russians playing rough? Ditto.
On the bright side the Americans have a bloody great warship standing off the coast of Georgia, just to remind Mob Boss Putin who’s got the biggest stick around. “Nice army ya got there, Vladimir. Be a shame if anything… happened to it.”
Michael Totten, like that other Michael (Yon), continues to do an excellent job. If you agree with me about that, please join me in sending him (or them) some money to enable them to continue the jobs that they’ve been doing at considerable risk to their lives.
Russia may be empire building – and it is focused on what they define as a large Russian population in S. Ossetia – but Georgia is also claiming the territory. The Ossetians, both North and South, may feel differently. I wonder if there are other tendencies at work.
The area has a long history of being bounced back and forth between being claimed by Russia and Georgia..and then, the rising local nationalism of the Ossetians.
So, I wonder if we really have all the facts about these THREE ‘wills’ that are operating in the region: the nationalist claims of Russia and Georgia – and the ethnic nationalist claims of the Ossetians.
Good write-up. I have read and listened to other similarly enlightened commentary to the effect that Czar Putin had this scheme in the works for months.
Key is the obvious length of time the Russian army would have needed for the logistical work that is a prerequiste to such a large military operation. It isn’t a video game.
The Olympic distraction, and the US financial crisis presented Putin with a window to move KP2 to KP4, and he did so.
I did not fail to notice that the Russian armor poured into Georgia immediately. The logistics for such an effort are boggling. That observation in itself lends credence to the notion that this was orchestrated by Russia.
HMCS Ville de Quebec in the Black Sea?
“The ship, with a crew of about 250 (including a CH-124 Sea King helicopter detachment), left her home port of Halifax on July 17 and will conduct operations in the Mediterranean Sea, Black Sea and Adriatic Sea as part of Operation SEXTANT. This operation is Canada’s contribution to SNMG1, one of four fleets that patrol the high seas and train to ensure readiness for service with the NATO Response Force, a formation of ships, aircraft and ground troops capable of responding to a range of crises at short notice.”
…-
[Canadian] “Frigate deploys on anti-terrorism mission”
http://www.navy.forces.gc.ca/cms_operations/operations_e.asp?id=670
I claim no expertise but intuitively the story of Georgia starting a war with Russia never sounded right. Stories of “Bot-war” attacks, a conveniently positioned military and missile attacks is more in line with my gut.
The trouble with Totten’s report is that it won’t fin in a 15 second sound bite and besides, Togo just won a medal.
Sometimes, in this day and age of mass information (and dis-informatoin) coming at you from all angles at the speed of now, it is well worth the extra time and energy to read what the likes of Totten, Yon and Styen have to say. The real story is out there but it just won’t fit between the commercial breaks. The truth is out there (sorry Mulder).
The MSM is too busy not reporting on the Nutters on Parade in Denver.
3w.youtube.com/watch?v=i-DoxqvqjxM&eurl
Fred
after watching that????
2 words…
Got CS?
😀
Totten’s version is more believable. Now the parts of the story add-up!
The problem is, on this view the Russians were pretty clearly acting in reponse to the refusal of NATO this spring to fast-track Georgia as a member. The Russians were given a clear signal that Georgia was going to be isolated for the next little while, but not indefinitely, and that they had a window of opportunity if they moved now which would not stay open.
This is a problem because we have to conclude that, had the Georgians been green-lighted for NATO, the Russians would not have moved. And since it was the Americans who wanted Georgia in, and the Europeans who resisted, it makes it clear that the Americans were right and the whole thing is basically Europe’s fault. And we’re simply not allowed to think such things.
David Frum has a report from another source saying the same thing…
Premeditated Attack on Georgia?
In the Jamestown Foundation’s Eurasia Daily Monitor, Pavel Felgenhauer offers the most authoritative case that the Russian attack on Georgia was premediated well in advance.
Moscow declared that it was forced to go to battle by the initial Georgian attack in South Ossetia (RIA-Novosti, August 8). But there is sufficient evidence that this massive invasion was preplanned beforehand for August (see EDM, June 12). The swiftness with which large Russian contingents were moved into Georgia, the rapid deployment of a Black Sea naval task force, the fact that large contingents of troops were sent to Abkhazia where there was no Georgian attack all seem to indicate a rigidly prepared battle plan. This war was not an improvised reaction to a sudden Georgian military offensive in South Ossetia, since masses of troops cannot be held for long in 24-hour battle readiness. The invasion was inevitable, no matter what the Georgians did.
It seems the main drive of the Russian invasion was Georgia’s aspiration to join NATO, while the separatist problem was only a pretext.
http://frum.nationalreview.com/post/?q=NzBhMjQwN2RhZDUwODk1NDc1NzhkOTcwNWQ2NGIwZjY=
Yesterday I read that Russia has excelerated passing out passports to the Russian minority in Ukraine. This really is the future time bomb that’s going to reverberate for years. Poland is safe, but, most of the old USSR satellite states have entrenched ethnic Russian minorities – 29 percent of the population of Latvia, 26 percent of Estonia and 8 percent of Lithuania – seeded over the decades of Soviet expansion.
Wow. How many moronic talking heads on the tv, shallow and fact challenged newspaper and magazine articles would we have to read/listen to just to equal one Michael Totten dispatch? Thank God for the well of information, the uncommon voices of the Michael Tottens, Kate, other bloggers and peers comments provided by the internet. You can define ignorance any more by where people get their news.
Anyone who ever believes that Russia, under an ex KGB President, will play by any rules is sadly naive. Communists are the ultimate fanatics, they cannot TOLERATE living in a world where men and women are free people (not state slaves). Georgia has a people enabling President who has brought hope and enthusiasm for better times ahead to the people of Georgia. President Saakashvili is a mud pie in Putin’s eye. Putin has gone off his rocker to avenge the slight to his fanatical belief system.
Putin and the thugs who run Russia are no strangers to terrorism; for their own fun and for control of people. The Putin thugs will stop at nothing – it is their track record, why would it change?
Glenn Beck has had President Saakashvili on his program twice, the president told the world via Glenn Beck’s program what it was all about two weeks ago. Am I the only person here who watches Glenn Beck?
Michael Totten THANKYOU for this excellent explanation. Thank-you for caring enough about human beings to go to Georgia, find the truth, and bring it to us. The Communist aim is Global Communism (same as Mo Strong and his minions and the Taliban – end result is the same for all tentacles of Communism). If we do not stand up now and help the Georgians, the Georgians will be long gone and not there to help us when the tentacles reach over (internally and externally) to North America.
“At this Moment” We are all Georgians.
This is ridiculous – Russia funds rebels inside a sovereign country, recognized as such, then invades when Georgians deals with rebels inside their borders.
Then the West/Dubya gets blames a la that nutcase Pat Buchanan, and others.
The Eastern propaganda machine is operating at peak efficiency, likely it has never let up.
These facts were out there prior to the Russian propaganda campaign kicking in.
The laughable thing is that while the incompetent
MSMers of the west were screwing the pooch the Russians were bitching and moaning about how unfair the western media were to them.
Now THAT is irony.
“At this Moment” We are all Georgians.
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!
The road to South Ossetia runs through Kosovo. Payback’s a bitch, neocons.
Bush and NATO are going to sit there, eat sh*t and say it tastes like chocolate pudding, unless they want a nuclear war. This is Russia’s area of influence, and they have put up with enough American meddling in their sphere of influence…Kosovo anyone?
Friggin warmongering neocons can’t even figure out how to end the wars they started in Iraq and Afghanistan, much less go up against an adversary with up-to-date weaponry. Remember: Hitler and Napoleon also thought the Russians were going to be pushovers.
Cheerleaders for our enemies………morons.
hey lberia.
last time Ronnie Reagan raised the stakes on the ruskies their economy burned out.
remember , US technology could give Putin a nuke en ema and still keep the gold on the kremlin domes.
ruskies are still a bunch of backward drunken louts with neanderthal eyebrows and skulls thicker than mike tyson.
re: maz2 (HMCS Ville de Quebec in Black Sea?)
read this:
HMCS Ville de Quebec escorts 5,000 tonnes of food to Somalia
Unfortunately, I have reasons to believe that Totten is wrong, not to say lying. Simply because I am still sort of an insider from the perspective of news from the former USSR, and personally know people in the know of situations. If you closely follow Totten’s career, you’ll realize that he’s pro-‘independent’ Kosovo, and that sums it up for me. We bombed the wrong side in Kosovo, we should not support the wrong side in Osetia.
I am waiting this out for a while. To much misinformation in any war at the start. Fact is , when have the Russians ever been straight talkers?
As well there is the oil fields both sides covet. If there is a Nationalistic movement as well, it must be utter confusion there. Putin has his own reasons to instill fear in the nations that left there Empire & surround him. This is probably a more deep game than at first blush. Just a gut feeling as well.
it’s very interesting that the Serbian government has just announced (today) their support for the internationally accepted boundaries of Georgia (going against Russia). Serbia cannot backup Russia because they would be contradicting themselves on Kosovo (as are the Russians). So I don’t think Russia is much of a friend of Serbia’s – other than trying to use them as a strategic pawn.
Serbia and Kosovo are pushing hard now for membership in the EU and integration into Europe (Serbia even gave up Karadzic to push EU membership forward). So Serbia and Kosovo are moving away from Russia.
More sage non-wisdom from lberia. The thread discussion is the INVASION BY RUSSIA OF GEORGIA, and the best this troll can come up with is “neo con warmongers.”
He must vote Liberal.
Oops, that should read INVASION OF GEORGIA BY RUSSIA. I shouldn’t blog so early in morning.
Comments re: el-beria out to lunch. Nothing new here, though.
“If you closely follow Totten’s career, you’ll realize that he’s pro-‘independent’ Kosovo, and that sums it up for me. We bombed the wrong side in Kosovo, we should not support the wrong side in Osetia [sic].”
What part of “selling pornography openly on the streets of Prizren” don’t you understand? What part of “uncovered women dancing with unrelated men holding bottles of locally-brewed beer during independence celebrations” don’t you understand? What part of “no Albanian [fascist] double-headed eagle on the flag and arms of Kosovo” don’t you understand? What part of “Catholic churches untouched and undisturbed” don’t you understand?
Thank you “ccon” at 7:32am for your info. Veeery interesting.
As for S’iberia’, he would rather have 37 million people become the largest stateless minority in Europe again (Ukraine).
My favourite quote from Richard Milhous Nixon: any war between Russia and Ukraine “would make Bosnia look like a Sunday school picnic”!
Never again will Ukraine be under the Kremlin’s boot!
Glory to Ukraine! Glory to Her Heroes!
I take it that kozak is talking to me…
Maybe the catholic churches were indeed untouched, but only as a gesture of gratitude towards NATO. The orthodox churches were being destroyed before my eyes and their number is in the hundreds. But that’s not what I am concerned about, not at all. I am concerned of UCK murdering fleeing Serbian refugees and robbing them of their belongings while shouting ‘Allahu akbar’.
And you know what’s the funniest thing, kozak? If Russia goes to war against Ukraine, I will be fighting under the yellow and blue banner.
Aaron: “If Russia goes to war against Ukraine, I will be fighting under the yellow and blue banner.”
Yeah? Good riddance.
+ + +
You have to admire the way that the Poles, Georgians, Ukrainians, Latvians etc. — a bunch of gangsters, thugs, and ex-communists (like non-Russians Trotsky, Brezhnev, Andropov, Dzerzhinsky, Stalin, Beria, Krushchov, etc) — have managed to con Canada, the US and Western Europe into a future war with the Russians that they themselves, out of their cowardice and corruption — never dared fight with. [Okay, with the exception of the many of them who fought for Hitler…]
One of the most magnificent cons in all of history.