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| Cluster Bombs—The True Mark of Democracyhttp://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5je4oTliESokD-zge0diVbbczCPIgD92TT2VG0 — HRW got an acknowledgment from Georgia that they used cluster bombs. Russia has never acknowledged such a thing (but, honestly, yeah). Now, neither one of the countries has said they won't do it.
But, if you were to look at things from a slightly different perspective, usage of cluster bombs seems to be a feature of democracies of all kinds—somehow totalitarian states seem to be too chill to bother. | | |
| Some People Get ItHi
«No, said the Clinton foreign policy team, we’re going to cram NATO expansion down the Russians’ throats, because Moscow is weak and, by the way, they’ll get used to it. Message to Russians: We expect you to behave like Western democrats, but we’re going to treat you like you’re still the Soviet Union. The cold war is over for you, but not for us.
“The Clinton and Bush foreign policy teams acted on the basis of two false premises,” said Mandelbaum. “One was that Russia is innately aggressive and that the end of the cold war could not possibly change this, so we had to expand our military alliance up to its borders. Despite all the pious blather about using NATO to promote democracy, the belief in Russia’s eternal aggressiveness is the only basis on which NATO expansion ever made sense — especially when you consider that the Russians were told they could not join. The other premise was that Russia would always be too weak to endanger any new NATO members, so we would never have to commit troops to defend them. It would cost us nothing. They were wrong on both counts.”
…
As The Washington Post’s longtime Russia watcher Michael Dobbs noted: “On the night of Aug. 7 ..., Saakashvili ordered an artillery barrage against Tskhinvali and sent an armored column to occupy the town. He apparently hoped that Western support would protect Georgia from major Russian retaliation, even though Russian ‘peacekeepers’ were almost certainly killed or wounded in the Georgian assault. It was a huge miscalculation.”» | | |
| Where Am I Now?Hi
I live in a downtown of a beautiful city.
It has about 20 million people by day and around 15 million during the night.
It's full of ever hurrying people, beautiful women, mad money and general desire to feel life.
My commute is three subways stations long. Moscow Subway as of 1935 (opening) would suit me just fine.
There're more than half a dozen churches in a half a mile radius away from my window. Some of them are XVI century or older.
Somehow, methinks that moving here was one of the best things I ever did in life. | | |
| The Mess In OssetiaHi
This is not an objective analysis—if I could provide that I won't be working where I work right now.
This is an effort to show how things look from this side of the fence and how people here feel about what happened.
Some background notes:
1. Ossetians really don't like Georgians. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Georgian-Ossetian_conflict provides some background on this, but in essence, there's a group of people in the Caucasus. They are largely present in an area that spans Russia and Georgia. In Russia they live in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Ossetia, while in Georgia they live in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia. I can't really tell how much they like or dislike Russians but they definitely like Russians more than like the Georgians.
2. After the 92 war, Russian peace keepers entered the picture. The peacekeeping process was set up with Georgians, Russians and Ossetians patrolling the areas together and ensuing some degree of order.
3. Ossetians living in South Ossetia have relatives and are generally very close to North Ossetia. After a few referenda, the Ossetian population of South Ossetia expressed its desire to join North Ossetia and integrate into Russia. North Ossetia is, by the way, one of the best off parts of Russian Federation in the area, with the highest levels of income per capita, urbanization, etc.
4. Many Ossetians have chosen to obtain Russian and not Georgian passports, to register legal entities and cars in Russia (effectively as part of North Ossetia) and to largely ignore Georgian authority.
5. Abkhazia is in a similar position: people there have Russian passports, ignore Georgian authority and want to be in RF. I do not believe that they can register stuff in Russia but, in essence, they're more Russia than Georgia.
6. Moscow has time after time after time refused to accept them into the Union as that would provoke a large scale mess.
7. The civil wars that ravaged Georgia in the early nineties were rather brutal—in essence, local militias were performing ethnic cleansings till the moment Russian peace keepers would arrive and use heavy armor to stop the majority of the bloodshed.
What seems to have happened?
1. In the days before the 8th Georgians started shelling Tskhinvali. Ossetians, AFAIK, replied back.
2. On the eight the real Georgian forces started pulling in, Georgian peace keepers packed up and left, Georgian artillery started leveling the city off.
3. Peace keepers HQ were shelled, hospital was shelled so was the local university. The university was also set on fire.
4. Georgians have allegedly performed ethnic cleansings. Ossetians, too, reportedly, when they got a chance but it's not clear who actually did what in this regard.
5. 150 Russian peace keepers had limited number of armored vehicles and generally were not in a state that would let them conduct military actions indefinitely under the shelling of a reasonably large artillery group and were there, well, to keep peace. Ossetian militiamen were generally able to fight off Georgians as well as they could in street fighting but the (relatively large) number of artillery units and tanks rendered Tskhinvali largely captured by the Georgian forces at one moment.
6. Russian 58th Army happens to be the main Russian collection of forces in the North Caucasus and is one of Russian Ground Force's most effective units—primarily due to the fact that since the First Chechen War some (or all) of its units are actually fighting.
7. The (main) Russian forces entered South Ossetia after it became clear that Georgians are fully determined to take whatever they can at any cost; loss of civilian life and international treaties seemed to mean nothing to them.
8. At the time when the 58th Army was moving into the SO, parts of the Black Sea fleet started moving into the Georgian and Abkhazian waters.
9. 4th Air Army was helping the 58th out from the air. Due to the underestimation of the amount of Georgian Anti-Air forces, some loss of planes and pilots ensued. After Georgian AA systems went offline, Russian planes have effectively controlled the airspace.
10. After the destruction of the main Georgian group of forces around Tskhinvali, the Georgian military went to be disorganized mess not able of conducting any kind of military operations. It was reported that the Georgian forces thought they would capture Tskhinvali in one day (which would be inevitable if not for the 58th) and had little idea what to do if that was not to work out.
At this juncture a decision was made: Russian forces went beyond South Ossetia proper and started doing what made sense militarily but will make diplomats sweat a lot.
11. The Russian military, meanwhile, started doing its job—getting rid of the possible military thread. While Georgian politicians were actively lying, creating a media mess and generally saying meaningless things (like declaring cease fires while their artillery (or whatever was left of it) was trying to fire at targets), targets were worked on.
12. Russian Black Sea was approached by a pair of Georgian Missile boats. One of them was sunk, the other one went back to Poti. After the second approach (when no Georgian ships were sunk), a raid group was formed that went into Poti and destroyed anything in the port that could be of military importance. Whichever Georgians ships were there were damaged to the furthest extent possible.
13. All kinds of military or dual-use targets were bombed across Georgia. There're reports of some civilian buildings destroyed but they seem to be the indirect consequences of working on the targets, not the intended targets.
14. Intelligence units went around and found that the Georgian military has disintegrated and has essentially abandoned its positions and fled to «defend Tbilisi».
At this juncture, everything military is pretty much over. Russian military stays around for a few more days, Abkhazians use the Georgian lack of organization and improve their position (that's a whole separate story), South Ossetians start returning back to their homes.
A few pieces of hilarity:
Mr. Saakashvili is one hell of a brave man http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bWlQ_fzECl4.
He also got an interesting taste: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LRnbOlhEZj0.
Some serious additional reading:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/7863e71a-689e-11dd-a4e5-0000779fd18c.html — Russian Foreign Minister explaining the way government saw things.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/95713d6c-6966-11dd-91bd-0000779fd18c.html — one of the Western views of the mess (the guy who wrote it is rather good, read his other FT stuff, if you got time, for example: http://www.ft.com/cms/s/1/213e3158-3d02-11db-8239-0000779e2340.html).
http://www.theherald.co.uk/features/featuresopinon/display.var.2427410.0.Why_the_west_has_got_it_so_wrong_over_Georgia.php — yet another Western view.
I'm rather willing to answer questions (seeing how now I got Internet access at home that is somewhat reliable), if you got any.
TL; DR: Georgia made a bet and lost.
P. S.
Once again, I didn't promise objectivity; however, IMHO, this is much more coherent than what the Georgian government tried to make people believe.
P. P. S.
I really wonder what Mr. Saakashvili approval rating is right now. | | |
| I Will Write About Ossetia TonightBut before, a few links.
http://u-96.livejournal.com/1468058.html -- trophies. I love the American assault rifles (who would have thought?! Surprise, surprise!) and rows of tanks.
http://drugoi.livejournal.com/2703619.html -- this is pretty self-explanatory | | |
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