Russia 'invades' Georgia as South Ossetia descends towards war
Russian tanks have entered Georgia's breakaway province of South Ossetia, pushing the troubled region closer to all-out war.
08 Aug 2008

"We won't allow the death of our compatriots to go unpunished," Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said, adding that he would "protect the lives and dignity of Russian citizens wherever they are located".

As a column of Russian tanks advanced towards Tskhinvali, Mr Lavrov called on the West to reach "the right conclusions" over the conflict, saying the Georgian offensive had been made possible by Western military aid to Tbilisi.

"Now we see Georgia has found a use for these weapons and for the special forces that were trained with the help of international instructors," he said. "I think our European and American colleagues ... should understand what is happening. And I hope very much that they will reach the right conclusions."

The military operation marks the first time Russian troops have taken action on foreign soil since the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan in 1989.
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/georgia/2524550/Russia-invades-Georgia-as-South-Ossetia-descends-towards-war.html

U.S. Attacks Russia Through Client State Georgia
Paul Joseph Watson
Prison Planet

Friday, August 8, 2008

Georgian forces, trained and equipped by the Pentagon and the U.S. government, killed 10 Russian peacekeepers early this morning in a provocation attack that has escalated into military conflict, but the subsequent corporate media coverage would have us believe that the U.S. and NATO-backed client state Georgia is a helpless victim, when in actual fact a far more nuanced geopolitical strategy is being played out.

Original reports early this morning detailed how Georgian forces had killed 10 Russian peacekeepers and wounded 30 others, which was the provocation for Russian forces to begin military operations, but the fact that Georgian forces were responsible for starting the conflagration has been completely buried in subsequent media coverage.

“Georgia and the Pentagon cooperate closely,” reports MSNBC, “Georgia has a 2,000-strong contingent supporting the U.S.-led coalition in Iraq, and Washington provides training and equipment to the Georgian military.” The latest exercise, Immediate Response 2008, which took place last month, involved no less than one thousand U.S. troops working with Georgian troops in a war game scenario. Moreover, the very “Rose Revolution” that brought the Harvard trained pro-US Georgian president Mikhail Saakashvilli to power in 2003 was wholly aided and abetted by the Central Intelligence Agency.

Russian fury at U.S. support for Georgia and Georgia’s aspirations of becoming a NATO member have flared regularly in recent months, with tensions also rising following U.S. attempts to place missile defense shield technology in Poland and the Czech Republic, which most observers agree has nothing to do with Iran and is in fact aimed at countering Russian military superiority in the region.

In addition, the pro-Israeli news source DebkaFile reports that Georgian infantry units were “aided by Israeli military advisors” in capturing the capital of breakaway South Ossetia, Tskhinvali earlier today.
http://www.prisonplanet.com/us-attacks-russia-through-client-state-georgia.html

Israel 'has a hand in S. Ossetia war'
Sun, 10 Aug 2008

Israel has provided Georgia with military assistance amid an ongoing armed conflict in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

The Israeli web site Debkafiles which is believed to have close links with the regime's intelligence and military sources, reported that last year, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili had commissioned from Israeli security firms up to 1,000 military advisers to train the country's armed forces.

According to the report, the Israeli advisors also helped Tbilisi with military intelligence and security operations. Georgia also purchased weapons, intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Israel.

The report added the Israeli advisers were deeply involved in the Georgian army's preparations to attack and capture the capital of South Ossetia on Friday.

The web site quoted "its military experts" as saying a project to pump Caspian oil and gas to the Turkish terminal of Ceyhan instead of the Russian pipeline network is in the interest of Tel Aviv.

The regime therefore has been negotiating with Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan to go ahead with the construction of pipelines to transfer oil to terminals in Ashkelon and Eilat.

The report added that Moscow had demanded Tel Aviv to halt its military assistance to Georgia and even warned the regime of a diplomatic row.

Israel, however, said that its military cooperation with Georgia had been “defensive.”

Georgia captured the capital of South Ossetia on Friday, triggering a response from Russia which has stationed its peacekeepers in the breakaway region since the 1990s conflicts.

Ties between the two former Soviet republics have been strained over several issues, including Georgia's NATO membership bid.
http://www.presstv.com/detail.aspx?id=66203&sectionid=351020202

Russians Push Past Separatist Area to Assault Central Georgia
August 10, 2008



TBILISI, Georgia — Russia expanded its attacks on Georgia on Sunday, moving tanks and troops through the separatist enclave of South Ossetia and advancing toward the city of Gori in central Georgia, in its first direct assault on a Georgian city with ground forces during three days of heavy fighting, Georgian officials said.

The maneuver — along with bombing of the Georgian capital, Tbilisi — seemed to suggest that Russia’s aims in the conflict had gone beyond securing the pro-Russian enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia to weakening the armed forces of Georgia, a former Soviet republic and an ally of the United States whose Western leanings have long irritated the Kremlin.

The escalation of fighting raised tensions between Russia and its former cold war foes to their highest level in decades. President Bush has promoted Georgia as a bastion of democracy, helped strengthen its military and urged that NATO admit the country to membership. Georgia serves as a major conduit for oil flowing from Russia and Central Asia to the West.

Russia escalated its assault on Sunday despite strong diplomatic warnings from Mr. Bush and European leaders, underscoring the limits of Western influence over Russia at a time when the rest of Europe depends heavily on Russia for natural gas and the United States needs Moscow’s cooperation if it hopes to curtail what it believes is a nuclear weapons threat from Iran.

President Bush, in Beijing for the Olympics, strongly criticized the Russian attacks, especially those outside South Ossetia, and urged an immediate cease-fire. In an interview on NBC on Monday morning, he said he had been “very firm” with both Russia’s prime minister, Vladimir V. Putin, and its president, Dmitri Medvedev.

Earlier, Vice President Dick Cheney expressed a strong warning for Russia. In a telephone conversation with the Georgian president, he said “that Russian aggression must not go unanswered, and that its continuation would have serious consequences for its relations with the United States, as well as the broader international community.” http://www.nytimes.com/2008/08/11/world/europe/11georgia.html?_r=3&hp&oref=slogin&oref=slogin&oref=slogin



Bush's War in Georgia; Will it be the Flyswatter or the Blunderbuss?
by Mike Whitney
Global Research, August 11, 2008

Washington's bloody fingerprints are all over the invasion of South Ossetia. Georgia President Mikhail Saakashvili would never dream of launching a massive military attack unless he got explicit orders from his bosses at 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. After all, Saakashvili owes his entire political career to American power-brokers and US intelligence agencies. If he disobeyed them, he'd be gone in a fortnight. Besides an operation like this takes months of planning and logistical support; especially if it's perfectly timed to coincide with the beginning of the Olympic games. (another petty neocon touch) That means Pentagon planners must have been working hand in hand with Georgian generals for months in advance. Nothing was left to chance.

The United States and Israel are both neck-deep in the "Great Game"; the ongoing war for vital petroleum and natural gas supplies in Central Asia and the Caspian Basin. So far, Putin appears to have the upper-hand because of his alliances with his regional allies–under the Commonwealth of Independent States—and because most of the natural gas from Eurasia is pumped through Russian pipelines.

An article in “Today’s Zaman” gives a good snapshot of Russia’s position vis a vis natural resources in the region:
 
“As far as natural resources are concerned Russia’s hand is very strong: It holds 6.6 percent of the worlds proven oil reserves and 26 percent of the world’s gas reserves. In addition, it currently accounts for 12 percent of world oil and 21 of recent world gas production. In May 2007, Russia was the world’s largest oil and gas producer. 
 


As for national champions, Putin has strengthened and prepared Gazprom (the state-controlled gas company), Transneft (oil pipeline monopoly) and Rosneft (the state-owned oil giant). That is why in 2006 Gazprom retained full ownership in the giant Shtokman gas field (7) and took a controlling stake in the Sakhalin-2 natural gas project. In June 2007, it took back BP’s Kovytka gas field and now is behind Total’s Kharyaga oil and gas field.” (“Vladimir Putin’s Energystan and the Caspian” Today’s Zaman)
 
Putin–the black belt Judo-master–has proved to be as adept at geopolitics as he is at “deal-making”. He has collaborated with the Austrian government on a huge natural gas depot in Austria which will facilitate the transport of gas to southern Europe. He has joined forces with German industry to build an underwater pipeline through the Baltic to Germany (which could provide 80% of Germany’s gas requirements) He has selected France’s Total to assist Gazprom in the development of the massive Shtokman gas field. And he is setting up pipeline corridors to provide gas to Turkey and the Balkans. Putin has very deliberately spread Russia’s influence evenly throughout Europe with the intention of severing the Transatlantic Alliance and, eventually, loosening America’s vice-like grip on the continent. 
 


Putin’s overtures to Germany’s Merkel and France’s Sarkozy are calculated to weaken the resolve of Bush’s neocon allies in the EU and put them in Russia’s corner. Putin is also attracting considerable foreign investment to Russian markets and has adopted “a ‘new model of cooperation’ in the energy sector that would ‘allow foreign partners to share in the economic benefits of the project, share the management, and take on a share of the industrial, commercial and financial risks’”. (M K Bhadrakumar “Russia plays the Shtokman card”, Asia Times) All of these are intended to strengthen ties between Europe and Russia and make it harder for the Bush administration to isolate Moscow. 
 


Putin has played his cards very wisely, which makes it look like the fighting in South Ossetia may be Washington's way of trying to win through military force what they could not achieve via the free market. 
 


On Saturday, President Bush issued this statement from Beijing: "We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for an end to the Russian bombings and a return by the parties to the status quo of August 6th."
 
That was it. Bush then quickly returned to the Olympic festivities. He was last spotted at a photo op with the US girls volleyball team jumping up and down on the beach-sand in his wingtips. The pretense that Bush is leading the country has seemingly been abandoned altogether. Cheney is in charge now.

George Bush playfully pats the backside of Misty May-Treanor as team mate Kerri Walsh watches 



PUTIN'S OPTIONS: Flyswatter or Blunderbuss?
 
Sometimes wars provide clarity. That's certainly true in this case. After this weekends fighting, everyone in the Russian political establishment knows that Washington is willing to sacrifice thousands of innocent civilians and plunge the entire region into chaos to achieve its geopolitical objectives. Bush could call the whole thing off right now; Putin and Medvedev know that. But that's not the game-plan. So, the two Russian leaders have to make some tough decisions that will end up costing lives. What other choice do they have?
 


Putin needs to carefully weigh his options. Then, on Monday, he should announce that Russia will sell all $50 billion of its Fannie Mae mortgage-backed bonds, all of it US dollar-backed assets, and will accept only rubles and euros in the future sale of Russian oil and natural gas. Just watch as the dollar crashes and the Dow Jones goes into a death-spiral. Why use a blunderbuss when a flyswatter will do just fine.  http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=9791

The Caucasus - Washington Risks Nuclear War By Miscalculation
By F. William Engdahl*
8-11-8

The dramatic military attack by the military of the Republic of Georgia on South Ossetia in the last days has brought the world one major step closer to the ultimate horror of the Cold War era-a thermonuclear war between Russia and the United States-by miscalculation. What is playing out in the Caucasus is being reported in US media in an alarmingly misleading light, making Moscow appear the lone aggressor. The question is whether George W. Bush and Dick Cheney are encouraging the unstable Georgian President, Mikhail Saakashvili in order to force the next US President to back the NATO military agenda of the Bush Doctrine. This time Washington may have badly misjudged the possibilities, as it did in Iraq, but this time with possible nuclear consequences.

Proxy War

In March this year as Washington went ahead to recognize the independence of Kosovo in former Yugoslavia, making Kosovo a de facto NATO-run territory against the will of the UN Security Council and especially against Russian protest, Putin responded with Russian Duma hearings on recognition of Abkhazia, South Ossetia and Transnistria, a pro-Russian breakaway republic in Moldova. Moscow argued that the West's logic on Kosovo should apply as well to these ethnic communities seeking to free themselves from the control of a hostile state. In mid-April, Mr. Putin held out the possibility of recognition for the breakaway republics. It was a geopolitical chess game in the strategic Caucasus for the highest stakes-the future of Russia itself.

Saakashvili called then-President Putin to demand he reverse the decision. He reminded Putin that the West had taken Georgia's side. This past April at the NATO summit in Bucharest, Romania, US President Bush proposed accepting Georgia into NATO's "Action Plan for Membership," a precursor to NATO membership. To Washington's surprise, ten NATO member states refused to support his plan, including Germany, France and Italy.

They argued that accepting the Georgians was problematic, because of the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. They were in reality saying that they would not be willing to back Georgia as, under Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which mandates that an armed attack against any NATO member country must be considered an attack against them all and consequently requires use of collective armed force of all NATO members, it would mean that Europe could be faced with war against Russia over the tiny Caucasus Republic of Georgia, with its incalculable dictator, Saakashvili. That would mean the troubled Caucasus would be on a hair-trigger to detonate World War III.

Russia threatens Georgia, but Georgia threatens Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Russia looks like a crocodile to Georgia, but Georgia looks to Russia like the cats' paw of the West. Since Saakashvili took power in late 2003 the Pentagon has been in Georgia giving military aid and training. Not only are US military personnel active in Georgia today. According to an Israeli-intelligence source, DEBKAfile,  in 2007, the Georgian President Saakashvili "commissioned from private Israeli security firms several hundred military advisers, estimated at up to 1,000, to train the Georgian armed forces in commando, air, sea, armored and artillery combat tactics. They also have been giving instruction on military intelligence and security for the central regime. Tbilisi also purchased weapons, intelligence and electronic warfare systems from Israel. These advisers were undoubtedly deeply involved in the Georgian army's preparations to conquer the South Ossetian capital Friday."

Debkafile reported further, "Moscow has repeatedly demanded that Jerusalem halt its military assistance to Georgia, finally threatening a crisis in bilateral relations. Israel responded by saying that the only assistance rendered Tbilisi was 'defensive.'" The Israeli news source added that Israel's interest in Georgia has to do as well with Caspian oil pipeline geopolitics. "Jerusalem has a strong interest in having Caspian oil and gas pipelines reach the Turkish terminal port of Ceyhan, rather than the Russian network. Intense negotiations are afoot between Israel Turkey, Georgia, Turkmenistan and Azarbaijan for pipelines to reach Turkey and thence to Israel's oil terminal at Ashkelon and on to its Red Sea port of Eilat. From there, supertankers can carry the gas and oil to the Far East through the Indian Ocean."

This means that the attack on South Ossetia is the first battle in a new proxy warfare between Anglo-American-Israeli led interests and Russia. The only question is whether Washington miscalculated the swiftness and intensity of the Russian response to the Georgian attacks of 8.8.08.

So far, each step in the Caucasus drama has put the conflict on a yet higher plane of danger. The next step will no longer be just about the Caucasus, or even Europe. In 1914 it was the "Guns of August" that initiated the Great War. This time the Guns of August 2008 could be the detonator of World War III and a nuclear holocaust of unspeakable horror.  http://rense.com/general82/dcnuke.htm

American Mercenary Captured By Russians
NATO instructor taken hostage with Georgians amid reports of U.S. military commanding thousands of mercs in proxy war
Paul Joseph Watson, Prison Planet

Monday, August 11, 2008

An American mercenary has been captured by Russian forces along with a number of Georgian soldiers according to a report from the Russian news website Izvestia, providing more evidence that the U.S. and NATO are covertly supporting the Georgian army in a proxy war with Russia.

According to the report, the mercenary is an African-American who is a NATO instructor and an ordinance specialist. He has now been transferred to the Russian base of Vladikavkaz.

The story also backs up previous reports of dead black Americans having been found in Tskhinvali, the capital city of South Ossetia.  http://www.prisonplanet.com/american-mercenary-captured-by-russians.html

 

The Russo-Georgian War and the Balance of Power
by George Friedman
August 12, 2008

The Russian invasion of Georgia has not changed the balance of power in Eurasia. It simply announced that the balance of power had already shifted. The United States has been absorbed in its wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as potential conflict with Iran and a destabilizing situation in Pakistan. It has no strategic ground forces in reserve and is in no position to intervene on the Russian periphery. This, as we have argued, has opened a window of opportunity for the Russians to reassert their influence in the former Soviet sphere. Moscow did not have to concern itself with the potential response of the United States or Europe; hence, the invasion did not shift the balance of power. The balance of power had already shifted, and it was up to the Russians when to make this public. They did that Aug. 8.

Let’s begin simply by reviewing the last few days.

On the night of Thursday, Aug. 7, forces of the Republic of Georgia drove across the border of South Ossetia, a secessionist region of Georgia that has functioned as an independent entity since the fall of the Soviet Union. The forces drove on to the capital, Tskhinvali, which is close to the border. Georgian forces got bogged down while trying to take the city. In spite of heavy fighting, they never fully secured the city, nor the rest of South Ossetia.

On the morning of Aug. 8, Russian forces entered South Ossetia, using armored and motorized infantry forces along with air power. South Ossetia was informally aligned with Russia, and Russia acted to prevent the region’s absorption by Georgia. Given the speed with which the Russians responded — within hours of the Georgian attack — the Russians were expecting the Georgian attack and were themselves at their jumping-off points. The counterattack was carefully planned and competently executed, and over the next 48 hours, the Russians succeeded in defeating the main Georgian force and forcing a retreat. By Sunday, Aug. 10, the Russians had consolidated their position in South Ossetia.

On Monday, the Russians extended their offensive into Georgia proper, attacking on two axes. One was south from South Ossetia to the Georgian city of Gori. The other drive was from Abkhazia, another secessionist region of Georgia aligned with the Russians. This drive was designed to cut the road between the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and its ports. By this point, the Russians had bombed the military airfields at Marneuli and Vaziani and appeared to have disabled radars at the international airport in Tbilisi. These moves brought Russian forces to within 40 miles of the Georgian capital, while making outside reinforcement and resupply of Georgian forces extremely difficult should anyone wish to undertake it.

The Mystery Behind the Georgian Invasion
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. This leaves two possibilities. The first is a massive breakdown in intelligence, in which the United States either was unaware of the existence of Russian forces, or knew of the Russian forces but — along with the Georgians — miscalculated Russia’s intentions. The second is that the United States, along with other countries, has viewed Russia through the prism of the 1990s, when the Russian military was in shambles and the Russian government was paralyzed. The United States has not seen Russia make a decisive military move beyond its borders since the Afghan war of the 1970s-1980s. The Russians had systematically avoided such moves for years. The United States had assumed that the Russians would not risk the consequences of an invasion.

If this was the case, then it points to the central reality of this situation: The Russians had changed dramatically, along with the balance of power in the region. They welcomed the opportunity to drive home the new reality, which was that they could invade Georgia and the United States and Europe could not respond. As for risk, they did not view the invasion as risky. Militarily, there was no counter. Economically, Russia is an energy exporter doing quite well — indeed, the Europeans need Russian energy even more than the Russians need to sell it to them. Politically, as we shall see, the Americans needed the Russians more than the Russians needed the Americans. Moscow’s calculus was that this was the moment to strike. The Russians had been building up to it for months, as we have discussed, and they struck.

The Western Encirclement of Russia
To understand Russian thinking, we need to look at two events. The first is the Orange Revolution in Ukraine.
http://www.ericmargolis.com/archives/2005/10/ukraine_the_ora.php
From the U.S. and European point of view, the Orange Revolution represented a triumph of democracy and Western influence. From the Russian point of view, as Moscow made clear, the Orange Revolution was a CIA-funded intrusion into the internal affairs of Ukraine, designed to draw Ukraine into NATO and add to the encirclement of Russia. U.S. Presidents George H.W. Bush and Bill Clinton had promised the Russians that NATO would not expand into the former Soviet Union empire. That promise had already been broken in 1998 by NATO’s expansion to Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic — and again in the 2004 expansion, which absorbed not only the rest of the former Soviet satellites in what is now Central Europe, but also the three Baltic states, which had been components of the Soviet Union.

The Russians had tolerated all that, but the discussion of including Ukraine in NATO represented a fundamental threat to Russia’s national security. It would have rendered Russia indefensible and threatened to destabilize the Russian Federation itself. When the United States went so far as to suggest that Georgia be included as well, bringing NATO deeper into the Caucasus, the Russian conclusion — publicly stated — was that the United States in particular intended to encircle and break Russia. The second and lesser event was the decision by Europe and the United States to back Kosovo’s separation from Serbia. The Russians were friendly with Serbia, but the deeper issue for Russia was this: The principle of Europe since World War II was that, to prevent conflict, national borders would not be changed. If that principle were violated in Kosovo, other border shifts — including demands by various regions for independence from Russia — might follow. The Russians publicly and privately asked that Kosovo not be given formal independence, but instead continue its informal autonomy, which was the same thing in practical terms. Russia’s requests were ignored.

From the Ukrainian experience, the Russians became convinced that the United States was engaged in a plan of strategic encirclement and strangulation of Russia. From the Kosovo experience, they concluded that the United States and Europe were not prepared to consider Russian wishes even in fairly minor affairs. That was the breaking point. If Russian desires could not be accommodated even in a minor matter like this, then clearly Russia and the West were in conflict. For the Russians, as we said, the question was how to respond. Having declined to respond in Kosovo, the Russians decided to respond where they had all the cards: in South Ossetia.

Moscow had two motives, the lesser of which was as a tit-for-tat over Kosovo. If Kosovo could be declared independent under Western sponsorship, then South Ossetia and Abkhazia, the two breakaway regions of Georgia, could be declared independent under Russian sponsorship. Any objections from the United States and Europe would simply confirm their hypocrisy. This was important for internal Russian political reasons, but the second motive was far more important.

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin once said that the fall of the Soviet Union was a geopolitical disaster. This didn’t mean that he wanted to retain the Soviet state; rather, it meant that the disintegration of the Soviet Union had created a situation in which Russian national security was threatened by Western interests. As an example, consider that during the Cold War, St. Petersburg was about 1,200 miles away from a NATO country. Today it is about 60 miles away from Estonia, a NATO member. The disintegration of the Soviet Union had left Russia surrounded by a group of countries hostile to Russian interests in various degrees and heavily influenced by the United States, Europe and, in some cases, China.

Resurrecting the Russian Sphere
Putin did not want to re-establish the Soviet Union, but he did want to re-establish the Russian sphere of influence in the former Soviet Union region. To accomplish that, he had to do two things. First, he had to re-establish the credibility of the Russian army as a fighting force, at least in the context of its region. Second, he had to establish that Western guarantees, including NATO membership, meant nothing in the face of Russian power. He did not want to confront NATO directly, but he did want to confront and defeat a power that was closely aligned with the United States, had U.S. support, aid and advisers and was widely seen as being under American protection. Georgia was the perfect choice.

By invading Georgia as Russia did (competently if not brilliantly), Putin re-established the credibility of the Russian army. But far more importantly, by doing this Putin revealed an open secret: While the United States is tied down in the Middle East, American guarantees have no value. This lesson is not for American consumption. It is something that, from the Russian point of view, the Ukrainians, the Balts and the Central Asians need to digest. Indeed, it is a lesson Putin wants to transmit to Poland and the Czech Republic as well. The United States wants to place ballistic missile defense installations in those countries, and the Russians want them to understand that allowing this to happen increases their risk, not their security.

The Russians knew the United States would denounce their attack. This actually plays into Russian hands. The more vocal senior leaders are, the greater the contrast with their inaction, and the Russians wanted to drive home the idea that American guarantees are empty talk.

The Russians also know something else that is of vital importance: For the United States, the Middle East is far more important than the Caucasus, and Iran is particularly important. The United States wants the Russians to participate in sanctions against Iran. Even more importantly, they do not want the Russians to sell weapons to Iran, particularly the highly effective S-300 air defense system. Georgia is a marginal issue to the United States; Iran is a central issue. The Russians are in a position to pose serious problems for the United States not only in Iran, but also with weapons sales to other countries, like Syria.

Therefore, the United States has a problem — it either must reorient its strategy away from the Middle East and toward the Caucasus, or it has to seriously limit its response to Georgia to avoid a Russian counter in Iran. Even if the United States had an appetite for another war in Georgia at this time, it would have to calculate the Russian response in Iran — and possibly in Afghanistan (even though Moscow’s interests there are currently aligned with those of Washington).

In other words, the Russians have backed the Americans into a corner. The Europeans, who for the most part lack expeditionary militaries and are dependent upon Russian energy exports, have even fewer options. If nothing else happens, the Russians will have demonstrated that they have resumed their role as a regional power. Russia is not a global power by any means, but a significant regional power with lots of nuclear weapons and an economy that isn’t all too shabby at the moment. It has also compelled every state on the Russian periphery to re-evaluate its position relative to Moscow. As for Georgia, the Russians appear ready to demand the resignation of President Mikhail Saakashvili. Militarily, that is their option. That is all they wanted to demonstrate, and they have demonstrated it.

The war in Georgia, therefore, is Russia’s public return to great power status. This is not something that just happened — it has been unfolding ever since Putin took power, and with growing intensity in the past five years. Part of it has to do with the increase of Russian power, but a great deal of it has to do with the fact that the Middle Eastern wars have left the United States off-balance and short on resources. As we have written, this conflict created a window of opportunity. The Russian goal is to use that window to assert a new reality throughout the region while the Americans are tied down elsewhere and dependent on the Russians. The war was far from a surprise; it has been building for months. But the geopolitical foundations of the war have been building since 1992. Russia has been an empire for centuries. The last 15 years or so were not the new reality, but simply an aberration that would be rectified. And now it is being rectified.
http://www.stratfor.com/weekly/russo_georgian_war_and_balance_power

McCain adviser got money from Georgia
Wednesday, August 13, 2008 
by Pete Yost 

WASHINGTON (AP) — John McCain's chief foreign policy adviser and his business partner lobbied the senator or his staff on 49 occasions in a 3 1/2-year span while being paid hundreds of thousands of dollars by the government of the former Soviet republic of Georgia.

The payments raise ethical questions about the intersection of Randy Scheunemann's personal financial interests and his advice to the Republican presidential candidate who is seizing on Russian aggression in Georgia as a campaign issue.

McCain warned Russian leaders Tuesday that their assault in Georgia risks "the benefits they enjoy from being part of the civilized world."

On April 17, a month and a half after Scheunemann stopped working for Georgia, his partner signed a $200,000 agreement with the Georgian government. The deal added to an arrangement that brought in more than $800,000 to the two-man firm from 2004 to mid-2007. For the duration of the campaign, Scheunemann is taking a leave of absence from the firm.

"Scheunemann's work as a lobbyist poses valid questions about McCain's judgment in choosing someone who — and whose firm — are paid to promote the interests of other nations," said New York University law professor Stephen Gillers. "So one must ask whether McCain is getting disinterested advice, at least when the issues concern those nations."

"If McCain wants advice from someone whose private interests as a once and future lobbyist may affect the objectivity of the advice, that's his choice to make."

McCain has been to Georgia three times since 1997 and "this is an issue that he has been involved with for well over a decade," said McCain campaign spokesman Brian Rogers.

McCain's strong condemnation in recent days of Russia's military action against Georgia as "totally, absolutely unacceptable" reflects long-standing ties between McCain and hardline conservatives such as Scheunemann, an aide in the 1990s to then-Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott.

Scheunemann, who also was a foreign policy adviser in McCain's 2000 presidential campaign, has for years traveled the same road as McCain in pushing for regime change in Iraq and promoting NATO membership for Georgia and other former Soviet republics.

While their politics coincide, Russia's invasion of Georgia casts a spotlight on Scheunemann's business interests and McCain's conduct as a senator.

Scheunemann's firm lobbied McCain's office on four bills and resolutions regarding Georgia, with McCain as a co-sponsor or supporter of all of them.

In addition to the 49 contacts with McCain or his staff regarding Georgia, Scheunemann's firm has lobbied the senator or his aides on at least 47 occasions since 2001 on behalf of the governments of Taiwan and Macedonia, which each paid Scheunemann and his partner Mike Mitchell over half a million dollars; Romania, which paid over $400,000; and Latvia, which paid nearly $250,000. Federal law requires Scheunemann to publicly disclose to the Justice Department all his lobbying contacts as an agent of a foreign government.

After contacts with McCain's staff, the senator introduced a resolution saluting the people of Georgia on the first anniversary of the Rose Revolution that brought Mikhail Saakashvili to power.

Four months ago, on the same day that Scheunemann's partner signed the latest $200,000 agreement with Georgia, McCain spoke with Saakashvili by phone. The senator then issued a strong statement saying that "we must not allow Russia to believe it has a free hand to engage in policies that undermine Georgian sovereignty."

Rogers, the McCain campaign spokesman, said the call took place at the request of the embassy of Georgia. And McCain campaign spokeswoman Nicolle Wallace added that the senator has full confidence in Scheunemann. "We're proud of anyone who has worked on the side of angels in fledgling democracies," she said in an interview.

McCain called Saakashvili again on Tuesday. "I told him that I know I speak for every American when I said to him, today, we are all Georgians," McCain told a cheering crowd in York, Pa. McCain's Democratic rival, Barack Obama, had spoken with Saakashvili the day before.

In 2005 and 2006, McCain signed onto a resolution expressing support for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Georgia; introduced a resolution expressing support for a peace plan for Georgia's breakaway province of Ossetia; and co-sponsored a measure supporting admission of four nations including Georgia into NATO.

On Tuesday, McCain told Fox News that "as you know, through the NATO membership, ... if a member nation is attacked, it is viewed as an attack on all."

Scheunemann's lobbying firm is one of three that he has operated since 1999, with clients including BP Amoco, defense contractor Lockheed Martin Corp. and the National Rifle Association.

Scheunemann is part of the community of neoconservatives who relentlessly pushed for war in Iraq.

No one in Washington is more closely aligned with the Bush administration's decision to invade Iraq than prominent neoconservatives, who for years had regime change in Iraq as a goal as part of their philosophy that the United States shouldn't be reluctant to use its power, both diplomatic and military, to spread democracy and to guarantee world order.

Now, McCain and other politicians who pushed for the invasion are seeking to emphasize the progress, albeit fragile, of the current troop surge in Iraq.

In the months before the war began, Scheuenemann ran the Committee for the Liberation of Iraq, set up in November 2002 when public support for the looming invasion was eroding.

Before that, Scheunemann was on board with the Project for the New American Century, whose letter to Bush nine days after the Sept. 11 attacks pointed to Iraq as a possible link to the terrorists. 

http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=294833

Mikheil Saakashvili:
War Criminal
by Justin Raimondo
August 15, 2008



A politician's hubris causes untold human suffering

Amid all the geopolitical analyses and ideological posturing on the occasion of the Three-Day War between Russia and Georgia, we are losing sight of the very real human costs of this conflict: thousands of civilians killed and grievously wounded, a city, Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, in ruins, and the hopes and dreams of the inhabitants of this largely overlooked backwater dashed on the rocks of a politician's hubris.

That politician is Mikheil Saakashvili, the all too glib president of Georgia, whose slickness is so apparent that it seems to leave an oily residue on every word he utters. The decidedly apolitical, non-ideological Web site Reliefweb put it this way: "The place that has suffered most is South Ossetia which is home to both ethnic Ossetians and Georgians, the latter accounting for about a third of the population. The destruction there has been appalling and it looks as though many hundreds of civilians have died, in the first place as a result of the initial Georgian assault of August 7-8. Gosha Tselekhayev, an Ossetian interpreter in Tskhinvali with whom I spoke by telephone on August 10 said, 'I am standing in the city center, but there's no city left.'

"Ossetians fleeing the conflict zone talk of Georgian atrocities and the indiscriminate killing of civilians." They may be talking of Georgian atrocities, but we in the West have not heard them – nor will we, given the bias of our media, which is in thrall to the Georgia lobby and its U.S. government sponsors. The "mainstream" has already settled on a narrative to explain events in the Caucasus, and nothing short of a South Ossetian holocaust will wake them from their hypnotic state. The Russians, in their view, have got to be the bad guys, i.e., the aggressors. Anything that doesn't fit into that storyline is cut from the script.

Yet, as Reliefweb reports: "On August 7, after days of shooting incidents in the South Ossetian conflict zone, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili made a speech in which he said that he had given the Georgian villagers orders not to fire, that he wanted to offer South Ossetia 'unlimited autonomy' within the Georgian state, with Russia to be a guarantor of the arrangement. "Both sides said they were discussing a meeting the next day to discuss how to defuse the clashes."

That evening, however, Saakashvili went for the military option. The Georgian military launched a massive artillery attack on Tskhinvali, followed the next day by a ground assault involving tanks.

"This was a city with no pure military targets, full of civilians who had been given no warning and were expecting peace talks at any moment."

As if to underscore the utter indifference of Western media to the suffering of anyone politically incorrect enough to be pro-Russian, CNN broadcast footage of war-torn Tskhinvali even as its news announcer solemnly "reported" that the Russians were wreaking devastation on a city in Georgia proper, a classic case of the Orwellian media manipulation techniques that pass for journalism in the West. An unintended irony: the footage was a few feet from the spot where Russian peacekeepers had been slaughtered, the first victims of the Georgian assault. Or was it intended?

The tragicomic aspects of this media-induced cognitive dissonance came to the fore on Fox News the other day, when the announcer was interviewing a 12-year-old American girl who happened to be sitting in a café in Tskhinvali when Georgian bombs started raining down on her head. The announcer's eyebrows shot up when the girl thanked the Russian soldiers. After the girl and her aunt finished their recounting of Georgian atrocities, the announcer capped off his report by intoning: "There are gray areas in war."

The matter of attacking civilians is no doubt a moral "gray area" for the neocons at Fox, but what about the rest of the media – or is there no longer much of a difference, at least when it comes to the Russian question?

The Georgians were the aggressors here, and not only that, it was a particularly vicious sneak attack, undertaken while "peace talks" were supposedly taking place. As Reliefweb put it: "The attack looked designed to take everybody by surprise – perhaps because much of the Russian leadership was in Beijing for the opening of the Olympic Games. It also unilaterally destroyed the negotiating and peacekeeping arrangements, under the aegis of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe, that have been in place for 16 years. Russian peacekeeping troops based in South Ossetia were among those killed in the Georgian assault."

The Georgian offensive provoked a massive exodus to the north. Thousands fled, and with good reason. As the Guardian reports:
"Many had traveled in their nightclothes on rocky roads through the mountains and gave bloodcurdling accounts of Georgian atrocities. 'I came in the boot of a car. Georgian snipers were firing at us from the forest. My brother stayed to fight. Our grandparents' home was reduced to rubble. We don't know where they are. Nothing is left of their village. It was totally destroyed by rockets and tank fire,' Alisa Mamiyeva, 26, a teacher in Tskhinvali, said from the safety of Vladikavkaz in North Ossetia."

The South Ossetians claim 1,400 dead, thus far, most of them victims of the Georgian assault on Tskhinvali, and Vladimir Putin went so far as to accuse the Georgians of launching a "genocide." According to the BBC, however, "Russia failed to back up its claims of Georgian atrocities." Not that the West is all that interested in airing the evidence. As Variety put it in a piece on how this war is being reported, "Coverage in the U.S. and Europe is leaning heavily toward reports on the Georgian casualties of Russian bombing over the weekend. Few details are being given about the thousands said to have been killed when Georgia attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on Thursday and Friday."

The blatant media bias displayed by the "mainstream" news organizations is more than matched by the shameful cover-up of Georgian atrocities by the mainline "human rights" organizations, first and foremost Human Rights Watch. In the most brazen display of willful ignorance since Walter Duranty overlooked the Soviet gulags, HRW spokeswoman Anna Neistat told the Guardian that Ossetian claims of Georgian atrocities were "suspicious": "The figure of 2,000 people killed is very doubtful. Our findings so far do not in any way confirm the Russian statistics. On the contrary, they suggest the numbers are exaggerated."

Neistat avers that no more than 44 were killed and around 200 were wounded in the Georgian attack on Tskhinvali. Perhaps she should talk to International Red Cross spokeswoman Anna Nelson, who reports area hospitals "overflowing" with the dead and the wounded.

The voices of the Ossetians are barely reaching the West, but when they do – as in this Australian Broadcasting Corp. news report – they underscore the sheer ugliness of HRW's appalling apologetics: "One woman told how a family of four including two children tried to flee from a Georgian tank but it 'fired on their car and they were all burned' to death, said Angela, who like all the refugees only gave her first name. In another incident, a woman eight months pregnant and two family members fleeing from the city under attack were hit by tank fire and 'nothing remained of them,' Angela said.

"She saw the Georgian tanks roll into Tskhinvali, the soldiers shouting 'Hail Saakashvili,' who is the president of Georgia. 'They destroyed the city,' added Inna, 33, who said she could not understand how the Georgian troops 'could do that to civilians.'
"'You see your friend's home burning and there's nothing you can do. You just watch and cry, it's a genocide,' Inna said. An old woman among the refugees said all she had left was the dress she was wearing. 'My house is destroyed,' she said."

More important than the hypocrisy and ideology-induced moral myopia of the "human rights" crowd, however, is the very real human suffering that is being pointedly overlooked. These are real people being killed and rendered homeless, people who now live in terror and uncertainty while we in the West sit around discussing the geopolitical implications as if individual human beings were pieces on a chessboard.

The U.S. is now delivering "humanitarian" aid under the aegis and protection of the U.S. military, a gesture that underscores the Bizarro World absurdity of a foreign policy that has us arming the Georgians and then paying to clean up the damage done by our proxies. This is truly an odd sort of "humanitarianism," one inextricably linked to the inveterate sadism of our foreign policy.

This "humanitarian" gambit is just that: a device designed to legitimize our growing intervention in the region. While Defense Secretary Robert Gates is clearly not at all thrilled by the prospect of U.S. soldiers entering the battle zone, it seems unavoidable, at some point, since we'll be supervising "humanitarian" flights and relief efforts. (Not to mention future military joint exercises involving U.S. and Georgian forces, such as the ones that concluded shortly before the war commenced.) With Russian troops intent on staying in Ossetia, Abkhazia, and other regions such as Adjaria eager to take this opportunity to break free of the Georgian central government, the likelihood of renewed fighting is high.  http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13304

Encircling Russia
by John Churian
May 7, 2004

The latest expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation by taking in seven countries, all except one of them members of the erstwhile Warsaw Pact, is a step closer to the encirclement of Russia by the Western military alliance.

ON March 29, United States President George W. Bush formally welcomed seven new members to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) at a ceremony in the White House. The new members are Bulgaria, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Romania, Slovakia and Slovenia. Except Slovenia, all of them were part of the Warsaw Pact, which was the military counter-weight to NATO in Europe during the Cold War. Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were part of the Soviet Union.

President of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics Mikhail Gorbachev was given an assurance by the West prior to the dismantling of the Berlin Wall that NATO too would be disbanded eventually. Many in the West argued that with the disappearance of the so-called Communist threat, the rationale for the existence of NATO no longer existed. In retrospect, Washington had long-term plans aimed at ensuring its continued military dominance in East and Central Europe.

NATO was formed on April 4, 1949, by 12 countries - Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Iceland, Italy, Luxembourg, the Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, the United Kingdom and the United States. The first formal expansion of NATO took place in 1999, when three former Warsaw Pact members, Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic, were welcomed into the alliance.

Moscow, while not publicly pressing the panic button, has reasons to be worried. Russian Defence Minister Sergei Ivanov has said that his country will be forced to revise its defence policy unless NATO revised its military doctrine. "Why is an organisation that was designed to oppose the Soviet Union and its allies in Eastern Europe still necessary in today's world?" he asked. The Russian leadership had made it clear to the U.S. that it considers the recent expansion as an unfriendly step and an extension of U.S. hegemony into Central-Eastern Europe. With the U.S. pulling all the strings in NATO, that means the setting up of U.S. military bases and deep penetration by the U.S. of the military and security systems of East Europe. NATO encirclement will also mean that U.S. missiles will be seconds away from Moscow and U.S. spy planes will be constantly snooping on Russian defence and scientific installations.

Even some NATO members, notably France and Germany, are not too happy with the unseemly haste with which the new members have been brought in. The seven new members form part of what U.S. Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld has characterised as "new Europe". The U.S. hopes to downsize further the influence of Western Europe in NATO as it completes the encirclement of Russia. With the addition of the new members, NATO's access to the Kalingrad region as well as the Black Sea will be further circumscribed.

By European standards, barring Slovenia, the new members are relatively poor but are all part of President Bush's "coalition of the willing" in the so-called `War on Terror'. Membership of NATO was one of the inducements offered to these countries. U.S. Senator Chuck Hagel had described the new NATO members as the "Coalition of the Bought" last year. In lieu of their token participation in Iraq, the Bush administration had given these countries a lot of inducements, including the setting up of a $100-million Central European Investment Fund, enhanced trade status and easier access to international capital. Many of the new members joined the "coalition of the willing" without taking their Parliaments or people into confidence. NATO is being expanded when older NATO members such as Spain, which is the sixth biggest contributor of troops, have given notice that they are withdrawing troops from Iraq. The new NATO members have so far contributed only a token number of soldiers.

The Russian Defence Minster, in a signed article, has said that Russia has valid reasons to be concerned about NATO's ongoing expansion, particularly if it goes ahead with the plan to build big military bases in Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia. "The alliance is gaining greater ability to control and monitor Russian territory. We cannot turn a blind eye as NATO's air and military bases get much closer to cities and defence complexes in European Russia," he wrote. Russia has also expressed its concerns about NATO's new priorities, which are contrary to its charter and stated goals. At the NATO summit held in Prague in 2002, the alliance agreed to undertake military operations even outside the territory of member-nations, whenever deemed necessary, without a United Nations mandate. "Any NATO actions not approved by the U.N. should therefore be considered illegal - including `preventive wars' like that in Iraq," wrote Ivanov. He told the Russian media in early April that he regretted that NATO was "much more concerned about the deployment of military bases and strike aircraft as close to the Russian borders as possible."

The next round of expansion could involve Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Uzbekistan and other Central Asian countries, completing the geopolitical encirclement of Russia. Some Russian commentators say that the eastward expansion of NATO constitutes the biggest threat to their country since the Great Patriotic War (Second World War ). Before its neighbours joined NATO, Russia had nothing to fear from their armies. Now it has to confront the might of NATO at its doorstep. Statements by Western leaders that they consider Russia as "a partner not an enemy" will no longer be taken seriously.  http://www.hinduonnet.com/fline/fl2109/stories/20040507001405000.htm

Poland decides it will accept U.S. missile-interceptor base
Friday, August 15, 2008

Warsaw, Poland -- Poland reached an agreement with the United States on Thursday to base American missile interceptors on its soil, the Polish prime minister said, going ahead with a plan that has angered Russia and threatened to escalate tensions with the region's communist-era master. Speaking in an interview televised on news channel TVN24, Prime Minister Donald Tusk said the United States had agreed to help augment Poland's defenses with Patriot missiles in exchange for placing 10 missile defense interceptors in the eastern European country. The United States has also reached an agreement with the Czech Republic's government to place a radar component of the missile defense system in that country.  http://www.cleveland.com/news/plaindealer/index.ssf?/base/news-2/1218789099323820.xml&coll=2

Russia: Poland risks attack due to U.S. missiles
Infuriated Moscow issues threat in reaction to deal on interceptor base
Fri., Aug. 15, 2008

WARSAW, Poland - A top Russian general said Friday that Poland's agreement to accept a U.S. missile interceptor base exposed the ex-communist nation to attack, possibly by nuclear weapons, the Interfax news agency reported.

The statement by Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn was the strongest threat that Russia issued against the plans to put missile defense elements in former Soviet satellite nations.

"Poland, by deploying (the system) is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent," Nogovitsyn, the deputy chief of staff, was quoted as saying.
He added, in clear reference to the agreement, that Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons "against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them."  http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/26203430/

Tuesday Aug. 19, 2008
Rice: Military power is "not the way to deal in the 21st century"

It's hardly news that the U.S., like many countries, espouses standards that it routinely violates, but still, even in light of such routine hypocrisy, wouldn't you think that this, from Condoleezza Rice today, on an airplane to U.S. reporters while traveling to a NATO meeting, would be too brazen to utter:

"Russia is a state that is unfortunately using the one tool that it has always used whenever it wishes to deliver a message and that's its military power. That's not the way to deal in the 21st century."

Whatever one's views are on the justifiability of each isolated instance, it's simply a fact that the U.S. invades, bombs, occupies, and interferes in the internal affairs of other countries far more than any other country on the planet. It's not even a close competition.

Just during the time Rice has served in the Bush administration, we bombed, invaded and occupied Afghanistan; did the same to Iraq; repeatedly bombed Somalia, killing all sorts of civilians; fed bombs to Israel as they invaded and bombed Lebanon; top political officials (led by John McCain and Joe Lieberman) have repeatedly threatened, and advocated, that the same be done to a whole host of other countries, including Iran and Syria. That's to say nothing of the virtually countless interventions and bombings in the pre-Bush, "peacetime" years -- from the Balkans and Panama to Somalia, Iraq, Libya, Sudan, and on and on and on.

Other than our media elite, is there anyone who doesn't recognize how absurd it is for Rice to be issuing a sermon like that? Who is the target audience for that? And what does it say about our political discourse that Rice knows she can say things like that with a straight face -- and, before her, that John McCain can do much the same -- without its being pointed out how darkly laughable it is? -- Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/opinion/greenwald/2008/08/19/rice/index.html

"In the 21st century, nations don’t invade other nations." - John McCain 
http://thinkprogress.org/2008/08/13/mccain-21-century/

"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century." - GW Bush  http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/presidentbush/2008/08/georgia-russi-1.html



U.S. Navy Ships Head to Georgia

Two U.S. Navy ships, including a guided missile destroyer USS McFaul, and a U.S. Coast Guard cutter are getting underway to transport humanitarian assistance supplies to Georgia, U.S. European Command (EUCOM) said on August 21.

It said USS McFaul (DDG 74) departed from Souda Bay, Crete, on Wednesday and the cutter Dallas (WHEC 716) will depart later this week.
McFaul and Dallas are scheduled to transit into the Black Sea and arrive in Georgia within a week, according to the U.S. European Command.
 
The announcement comes after it was reported that Turkey gave its go-ahead to sail through its straits into the Black Sea.

“The ships will transport thousands of blankets, hygiene items, baby food and infant supplies to save lives and alleviate human suffering,” U.S. European Command said.
The Associated Press reported quoting unnamed U.S. official in Turkey that USS Mount Whitney would be among those three vessels expected to arrive in Georgia.  http://civil.ge/eng/article.php?id=19239
-------------------------------------------------------

MOUNT WHITNEY (MTW) serves as the Command Ship for Commander, SIXTH Fleet/ Commander, Joint Command Lisbon/Commander, Striking Force NATO and has a complement of 150 enlisted personnel, 12 officers and 150 Civilian Mariners from Military Sealift Command.

As the most sophisticated Command, Control, Communications, Computer, and Intelligence (C4I) ship ever commissioned, MTW incorporates various elements of the most advanced C4I equipment and gives the embarked Joint Task Force Commander the capability to effectively command widely dispersed air, ground and maritime units in an integrated fashion.
http://www.mtwhitney.navy.mil/default.aspx

USS McFaul
Armament: two MK 41 VLS for Standard missiles, Tomahawk; Harpoon missile launchers, one Mk 45 5-inch/54 caliber lightweight gun, two Phalanx CIWS, Mk 46 torpedoes (from two triple tube mounts)



Russian Black Sea Fleet
http://flot.sevastopol.info/eng/ship/today.htm

Russia recognizes breakaway Georgian regions
Tuesday, August 26, 2008 
The Associated Press

MOSCOW (AP) — Russia formally recognized the breakaway Georgian territories at the heart of its war with Georgia on Tuesday, drawing immediate condemnation from the West as the United States dispatched a military ship bearing aid to a port city still patrolled by Russian troops.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was unapologetic about his decision and said he did not fear a Cold War. He said Georgia forced Russia's hand by launching an attack targeting South Ossetia on Aug. 7 in an apparent bid to seize control of the breakaway region.

"This is not an easy choice but this is the only chance to save people's lives," Medvedev said Tuesday in a televised address a day after Russia's Kremlin-controlled parliament voted unanimously to support the diplomatic recognition.

The U.S. was taken surprise by the speed of the Russian response on recognition and escalated it by having Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice threaten a U.N. Security Council veto should Russia ask for international recognition of its move. "Abkhazia and South Ossetia are a part of the internationally recognized borders of Georgia and it's going to remain so," Rice said.

Britain, Germany and France also criticized the decision.

Medvedev later said Russia did not seek or fear a new Cold War and that it was up to the West to avoid it.

"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War, but we of course don't want it." Medvedev told the Russia Today television channel. "In this situation everything depends on the position of our partners ... in the West."

"If they want to preserve good relations with Russia in the West, they will understand the reason behind our decision and the situation will be calm," Medvedev added.

He also promised a military response to U.S. plans to install a missile defense system in Poland and the former Czech republic. Washington insists the system is designed to counter the threat from Iran or North Korea, but Russia says it is aimed at blunting Russia's nuclear capability.

"We will have to react somehow, to react, of course, in a military way," Medvedev was quoted as saying Tuesday by the RIA-Novosti news agency.

Russian forces have staked out positions beyond the de-facto borders of the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The two territories have effectively ruled themselves following wars in the 1990s.

While Western nations have called the Russian military presence in Poti a clear violation of an EU-brokered cease-fire, a top Russian general countered Tuesday that using warships to deliver aid was "devilish."

"The heightened activity of NATO ships in the Black Sea perplexes us," Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn said in Moscow. The United States says its ships are carrying humanitarian aid but suspicion persists in Russia that they are delivering military materiel clandestinely.

Many of the Russian forces have pulled back from their positions in Georgia, but hundreds at least are estimated to still be manning checkpoints that Russia calls "security zones."

Two of those checkpoints are near the edge of Poti, one of Georgia's most important Black Sea ports — one by a bridge that provides the only access to Poti. The Russian military is also claiming the right to patrol in the city.

Angering Russia, the United States sent the missile destroyer USS McFaul to the southern Georgian port of Batumi, well away from the conflict zone, to deliver 34 tons of humanitarian aid on Sunday.

The McFaul left Batumi on Tuesday but would remain in the Black Sea area, said Commander Scott Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. Navy's 6th Fleet in Naples, Italy.

The U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, meanwhile, was headed for Georgia with a shipment of aid.

Embassy spokesman Stephen Guice did not give details on which ship would aim to enter Poti, but it appeared likely the smaller Coast Guard ship would aim to dock, with the McFaul possibly remaining on guard at sea.

While he did not link it with the U.S. ships, Nogovitsyn said a unit of Russian naval ships was off Sukhumi — the capital of another separatist Georgian region, Abkhazia, on the Black Sea north of Poti. He said the ships were observing the pullout of Russian troops from Georgia.

Nogovitsyn told reporters that 10 ships from NATO nations were currently in the Black Sea and that eight more are to join them soon.

"They have very serious arsenal on their ships," Nogovitsyn said. "The Black Sea is just a small pool for their arms with the range of 2,500 kilometers."

The United States and other Western countries have given substantial military aid to Georgia, angering Russia, which regards Georgia as part of its historical sphere of influence. Russia has also complained bitterly about aspirations by Georgia and Ukraine to join NATO.

Medvedev said Georgian Presdent Mikhail Saakshvili was so bent on gaining control of South Ossetia that he resorted to "genocide."

"Georgia chose the least human way to achieve its goal — to absorb South Ossetia by eliminating a whole nation," Medvedev said.

Hundreds of jubilant Ossetians and Abkhazians spilled onto the streets in their regional capitals after his announcement, waving national flags, firing shots in the air, cheering and dancing traditional Caucasian dances. "This is the happiest day of my life," said Julia Babyeva, 19, as she celebrated the news in the devastated South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

But in Tbilisi, Saakashvili called Russia's decision an attempt at a landgrab.

"It is the first attempt in Europe, since Nazi Germany and Stalin, of a big country to annex the territory of another country," Saakashvili said.

Both breakaway regions rely heavily on Russia for pensions and government subsidies. Most people in the two regions have been given Russian passports, and already consider themselves citizens of Russia.

Russia's military presence seems likely to further weaken Georgia, a Western ally in the Caucasus region, a major transit corridor for energy supplies to Europe and a strategic crossroads close to the Middle East, Iran, Afghanistan, Russia and energy-rich Central Asia.

Georgia lashed out at Russia, as expected.

"Russia is trying to legalize the results of an ethnic cleansing it has conducted, to oppose it to the West," Georgia's state minister on reintegration, Timur Yakobashvili, told The Associated Press. "But it will result in Russia's isolation from the world."

In London, British oil company BP PLC announced Monday it has reopened the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, which runs through Georgia.

The pipeline, which provides some 1 million barrels per day of Caspian Sea crude to international markets, had been closed for more than two weeks after a fire on its Turkish stretch. Kurdish rebels claimed responsibility for the blaze.  http://www.usatoday.com/news/world/2008-08-26-Russia-Georgia_N.htm?csp=34

Women waving Russian and South Ossetian flags, in Tskhinvali, South Ossetia, on Tuesday.

Putin: US orchestrated Georgia conflict, suggests motive was to affect US president election
Aug 28, 2008



Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin accused the United States on Thursday of instigating the fighting in Georgia and said he suspects a connection to the U.S. presidential campaign — a contention the White House dismissed as "patently false."

In a decision he said was unrelated to unraveling Russia-U.S. ties, Putin also ordered that 19 American poultry producers be barred from selling their products to Russia. He said the unnamed companies ignored demands that they correct alleged deficiencies.

Putin, the former president and architect of an assertive foreign policy that has stoked East-West tension, suggested in an interview with CNN that there was an American presence amid the combat with a potential domestic U.S. political motive.

"We have serious grounds to think that there were U.S. citizens right in the combat zone" during Russia's war with the U.S.-allied ex-Soviet republic, he said the interview broadcast on state-run Russian television. "And if that's so, if that is confirmed, it's very bad. It's very dangerous."  http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=319585

August 29, 2008
U.S. citizen was among Georgian commandos - Russian Military

A U.S. passport was found in a building in South Ossetia occupied by Georgian troops, a Russian military spokesperson revealed on Thursday. After Russian peacekeepers cleared the heavily defended building, a passport belonging to a Texan named Michael Lee White was discovered inside.

Deputy Chief of Russia's General Staff Anatoly Nagovitsyn showed photocopies of the passport to media in a press briefing on Thursday.

“There is a building in Zemonekozi - a settlement to the south of Tskhinval that was fiercely defended by a Georgian special operations squad. Upon clearing the building, Russian peacekeepers recovered, among other documents, an American passport in the name of Michael Lee White of Texas," said Nagovitsyn.
Neither the owner of the passport nor his remains were found at the scene, despite a thorough search.

"I do not know why he was there, but it is a fact that he was in the building, among Georgian special forces troops,” Nagovitsyn said.
http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29636


Russia: US still looking for WMDs in Iraq?
Fri, 29 Aug 2008

Russia has slammed what it calls the UN Security Council's hypocritical stance on the independence of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Russian Ambassador to the UN Vitaly Churkin has accused the world body of adopting a double standard approach in dealing with the issue.

He said members of the Council are ignorant about the essence of the Caucasus conflict, Russia Today reported on Friday.

The remarks were made after a Thursday's meeting of the Security Council during which the Western powers criticized Moscow's recognition of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"Russia violated the security zone patrolled by UN peacekeeping forces deployed by the UN Security Council," said Alejandro Daniel Wolff, US Representative to the UN. "In Abkhazia, Russia is violating not only the territorial integrity of Georgia, but also the integrity of this Council."

The US also said Russian troops should have never entered the territory of Georgia, a sovereign member of the international community.

Churkin, however, hit back by referring to the US invasion and occupation of Iraq.

"I would like to ask the distinguished representative of the United States about....Weapons of Mass Destruction. Have you found them in Iraq yet or are you still looking for them?" Churkin said.  http://www.presstv.ir/detail.aspx?id=67878&sectionid=351020602

U.S. tells Russia: Give us back our Humvees!
August 29, 2008

The U.S. military wants Russia to return five Humvees that were confiscated while being shipped to the Georgian military. The vehicles were seized earlier this month, with the U.S. claiming the vehicles were taken at a Georgian port awaiting shipment inland.

But the Russian side has suggested the Humvees, which it says were detained near the Georgian port of Poti during a peace-making operation, were carrying “interesting” military equipment. 


Now the U.S. wants the vehicles to be returned or at least get compensation. 
On Wednesday, General James Conway, the commandant of the U.S. Marine Corps, was asked at a Pentagon news conference what he intended to do about the Russian capture, worth $540,000.


"I think we're going to send the Russians a bill and tell them, you know, 'Either pay up or give us back our vehicles, guys,'" he replied.  

But Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of Russia's General Staff, said he is not eager to return the five Humvees. He said the Russian military had closely examined them and found “a lot of interesting stuff”.  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29654

 

author said:

On Alex Jones Sunday show, (now in rebroadcast mode until 9 am pacific time tomorrow,) He has two guests on the mess the NeoCons have started.  Richard Cook and Paul Craig Roberts.

Danger of Nuke war is still a possibility since South Ossetia is Russian and Bush is talking shit, after goading Georgians to Ethnic cleanse the region of Russians.
 
Kuchinich should add another line to his Impeachment proceeding against Bush and Cheney.

Obomber is not going to improve things, maybe widen War into Pakistan, etc.

What a Depressing Election Year!

I'm going to vote for Cynthia Mckinney of the Green Party. At least She is honest.

Depressing, indeed. Gotta love Cynthia, though.  :)

It's Time for Real Change - How the Democrats Helped Bush Hijack the Country
By CYNTHIA McKINNEY
August 27, 2008

Our country has been hijacked and the Democrats have proven themselves to have been in on the plan. When it came to the Constitution, the Democratic leadership showed us that aiding and abetting illegal spying on us was more important to them than protecting our civil liberties.

When it came to war and occupation, the Democratic leadership showed us that financing an illegal and immoral war, based on lies, was more important to them than the people's desire for peace.

And when the people, hurting from the financial mismanagement of this country, called for accountability for the crimes that have been committed against the people here, against the global community, against nature, itself, the Democratic leadership took impeachment off the table!

Grassroots Democratic Party activists want a livable wage! A "Medicare-for-all" type of health care system, repeal of the Bush tax cuts that have ushered in the greatest income inequality in this country since the Great Depression. But the Democratic Party has shown itself to be incapable of providing even a semblance of the values even of its own activists.

The Democratic Party's national leadership didn't even mention Hurricanes Katrina and Rita survivors in their Congressional agenda for the first 100 days.

The Democratic Party's national leadership gave us the Iran Naval Blockade bill, the Violent Radicalization and Homegrown Terrorism Prevention Act, and telecom immunity. They continue to fund war and occupation to the tune of $720 million a day while our children graduate from college tens--or even hundreds--of thousands of dollars in debt. Entire cities are going into receivership while the Democratic leadership in Congress gives the Pentagon one half trillion dollars annually with no accountability, no strings attached. That's over and above spending for war.

Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo are the hallmarks of the new U.S. gulag Democrats are helping to create.

They want us to believe that China and Russia are our enemies, in addition to the 60 countries on Dick Cheney's list. They want us to believe that workers, who come to this country to support thier families after Democratic leadership in the country saddled workers with NAFTA, are our enemies. But we are here today to declare that we know who the real enemies are: those false patriots that George Washington warned us of, who wrap themselves in the flag while betraying our values.  http://www.counterpunch.org/mckinney08272008.html

 

In Rebuff to Russia, IMF Is Set to Lend Georgia $750 Million
by Andrew Higgins
September 2, 2008

TBILISI, Georgia -- When Russia sent troops into Georgia last month, the West balked at joining the fight. But now that the shooting has ended, Western nations are mobilizing to thwart a key Russian war aim: regime change in Tbilisi. Their weapon is cash.

The International Monetary Fund is set to reach a preliminary deal this week that will throw the former Soviet republic a $750 million credit line, according to officials close to the negotiations. Both the U.S. and Europe are also working on big assistance packages that Georgia hopes will provide $2 billion or more.

The money aims to calm the nerves of foreign investors -- crucial to Georgia's economic stability -- and help Georgia finance the repair of war damage. More important, Western cash will help shore up the pro-Western government of President Mikheil Saakashvili.

Mr. Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer whom Russia has reviled as unhinged and a war criminal unworthy of office, addressed tens of thousands of flag-waving supporters Monday in Tbilisi's Freedom Square. He vowed "peaceful resistance" to Russian troops still in Georgia. Demonstrators also gathered at Russian checkpoints and staged a rally in Poti, a Georgian Black Sea port, where a small contingent of Russian troops still remains.

Seeking to rally Western support, the government has put up huge banners across Tbilisi denouncing Russia. Written in English -- a language most here don't understand -- they plead: "Stop Russia." As crowds of protesters thronged Tbilisi streets to shout anti-Russian slogans and wave Georgian flags, a military truck lumbered through the city with the burnt-out wreckage of an armored personnel carrier.

Vice President Dick Cheney will travel to Georgia this week in a trip that could help lay the groundwork for a stiffer Western response to the Russian incursion. Mr. Cheney, who will also visit Ukraine and Azerbaijan, is expected to stress the depth of U.S. interests in Georgia.

Some experts say the U.S. may step up military assistance to Georgia, perhaps by supplying more military trainers. More broadly, an administration official said Washington is seeking "a long-term strategic framework" for the region in light of Russia's new assertiveness.

Russia trounced Georgian forces in the brief war last month. It has since recognized two breakaway regions of Georgia as independent states and has defied Western pressure to pull out all its troops. So far, however, Moscow has failed to achieve what many see as perhaps its principal war aim: the removal of Mr. Saakashvili and his government.

In Moscow Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov urged the U.S. and its allies to drop support for the "Saakashvili regime." Siding with Mr. Saakashvili, he said, "will be a mistake of truly historic proportions."  http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122031738133489225.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Who Controls the Loot?
by Harry Throssel

"The Ministry of Plenty concerns itself with starvation" - George Orwell, 1984.

It's common knowledge the International Monetary Fund, World Bank, and World Trade Organisation have a big hand in the distribution of the world's wealth, in deciding who's rich and who's not. But who are they and who controls them?

John Pilger wrote "What followed (World War II) was the simultaneous defeat and recolonisation of the European empires by American capital. A government-subsidised production boom during the War left the world's wealth in American hands. Bretton Woods marked the American conquest of most of the world, and later "the Bretton Woods Agreement" gave America's military and corporate establishments unlimited access to minerals, oil, markets, and cheap labour. The WB and the IMF were invented to implement this strategy. Their base is Washington, where they are joined by an umbilical cord to the US Treasury. Their members' voting power is determined by their wealth: thereby America controls them." Frederic Clairmont wrote "What Bretton Woods bequeathed to the world was a lethal totalitarian blueprint for the carve up of world markets."  http://www.globalpolicy.org/socecon/bwi-wto/imf/2002/0925loot.htm

Cheney Departs on Caucasus Tour
September 2, 2008

Vice President Dick Cheney left today on a four-nation tour focused largely around reassuring US allies in the Caucasus in the wake of this month’s Georgia-Russia conflict. Cheney will be visiting Azerbaijan, Georgia, Ukraine, and Italy.

And while Cheney is expected to meet with Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, an important sign of support at a time when he is experiencing serious internal unrest and Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has labeled him a “political corpse,” the most important stop is seen to be the oil-rich nation of Azerbaijan.

America has invested heavily in finding a route for Azerbaijan’s significant oil and gas resources that wouldn’t require traversing either Russia or Iran. That route has taken two major forms: a pipeline through Georgia into Turkey, and rail links from Azerbaijan to Georgia’s Black Sea ports. The same route is also seen as key for a planned natural gas pipeline, which America has hoped would break Russia’s virtual monopoly on the transit of gas from Central Asia to Europe.

But the pipeline route has turned out considerably less stable that Azerbaijan had hoped. Earlier this month the PKK sabotaged the pipeline in Turkey, shutting it down for repair. Then Russia invaded Georgia in response to an attack in South Ossetia. The fighting damaged a bridge, severing Azerbaijan’s main rail link to Georgia. This had left Azerbaijan with only one source for western export: a much smaller capacity pipeline into Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.

The instability has done serious harm to Azerbaijan’s heavily energy export-based economy, to the point where UPI quoted an anonymous official as saying Iran would be the “best economical and safest route” for energy exports, and though this would still cut Russia out of the exports, it would also run afoul of American sanctions against Iran. Azerbaijan has maintained a tense relationship with Iran over the years, but they have assured that they will not allow the US to use their nation as a staging ground for an attack on Iran.
~ Jason Ditz  http://news.antiwar.com/2008/09/02/cheney-departs-on-caucasus-tour/

Russia: US needs Georgia to strike Iran
Wed, 03 Sep 2008

A senior Russian official says the White House assists Georgia in a bid to secure Georgian territory for a potential attack on Iran.

In an interview with Press TV on Wednesday, Russian Duma Deputy Sergei Markov said Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili 'brought some support from Israel' before he launched an attack on South Ossetia.

Georgian military forces launched a large-scale military offensive against South Ossetia on August 7. Russia, in response, moved its forces into the region.

The conflict in South Ossetia claimed the lives of some 2,000 people and displaced 40,000 others.

When asked if an attack on South Ossetia was a prelude to an attack on Iran, the State Duma Deputy said, "We know that this war in South Ossetia is somehow connected with the aggression of Washington against Iran, possible bombing of Iran."

The US and Israel have long threatened to launch air strikes against Iranian nuclear installations under the pretext that Tehran, a signatory to the nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT), has plans to develop nuclear weaponry.

This is while the UN nuclear watchdog has confirmed that Iran enriches uranium-235 to a level of 3.7 percent - a rate consistent with the construction of a nuclear power plant. Nuclear arms production requires an enrichment level of above 90 percent.

Currently suffering from electricity shortage, Iran has been forced to adopt a rationing program by scheduling power outages - of up to two hours a day - across both urban and rural areas in the country.  http://www.presstv.ir/Detail.aspx?id=68383&sectionid=351020101

September 3, 2008
September Surprise - Get ready for it…

For months, I've been warning in this space that an American attack on Iran is imminent, and now I see that the Dutch have reason to agree with my assessment. Their intelligence service reportedly has pulled out of a covert operation inside Iran on the grounds that a U.S. strike is right around the corner – in "a matter of weeks," according to De Telegraaf, a Dutch newspaper.

Remember, the Israelis have been threatening to strike on their own for months: what's changed is that now, apparently, the U.S. has caved in to what is a blatant case of blackmail and has agreed to do the job for them.

We haven't heard much about Iran lately, at least compared to the scare headlines of a few months ago, when rumors of war were swirling fast and furious. The Russian "threat" seems to have replaced the Iranian "threat" as the War Party's bogeyman of choice. What we didn't know, however, is that the two focal points are intimately related.

According to this report http://www.metimes.com/Security/2008/09/02/commentary_israel_of_the_caucasus/f5e1/ by veteran Washington Times correspondent Arnaud de Borchgrave,  the close cooperation of the Israelis with the Georgian military in the run-up to President Saakashvili's blitz of South Ossetia was predicated on a Georgian promise to let the Israelis use Georgia's airfields to mount a strike against Iran.

Saakashvili, a vain and reckless man, now has even more reason to go behind Uncle Sam's back and give the Israelis a clear shot at Tehran. With this sword of Damocles hanging over the heads of the Americans, the rationale for a more limited, shot-across-the-bow strike by the U.S. becomes all too clear.

The stage is set, rehearsals are over, and the actors know their lines: as the curtain goes up on the first act of "World War III," take a deep breath and pray to the gods that this deadly drama is aborted. ~ Justin Raimondo  http://www.antiwar.com/justin/?articleid=13401

The ship is the Navy’s most advanced command, control and intelligence vessel, capable of coordinating a major attack over a wide region.  http://www.wsws.org/articles/2008/may2008/iran-m21.shtml

September 5, 2008
US warship at Georgian port partly held by Russia

The flagship of the U.S. Navy's Mediterranean fleet anchored outside a key Georgian port Friday, defiantly bringing in tons of humanitarian aid to a city still partly occupied by hundreds of Russian troops.

The USS Mount Whitney was the first Navy ship to travel to Poti since Georgia's five-day war with Russia last month.

The continued presence of Russian troops here has been a major point of friction between Russia and the West, which insists Russia has failed to honor a deal to pull forces back to positions held before fighting broke out Aug. 7.

The Mount Whitney will unload aid at Poti's commercial port Saturday, right next door to Poti's badly damaged naval base. Georgia's fleet was basically wiped out by the Russians.

Two U.S. ships have already come and gone from Georgia carrying humanitarian aid in recent weeks, but they anchored at Batumi, to the south, a smaller port with no Russian military presence.

Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other officials have suggested the U.S. is delivering weapons to Georgia along with humanitarian aid. But Cpt. John Moore, commander of the task force of ships that have brought aid to Georgia, said Moscow's suspicions were unfounded.

"There are absolutely no weapons of any sort on these ships," he said. Aid included blankets and powered milk.

Moscow had signaled it would not impede the ship's movement. But, contrary to earlier reports, Lt. Col. John Dorrian, a spokesman for the US European Command, said Russians won't be inspecting the aid shipment.

"That will not be allowed," Dorrian said. "The port of Poti is Georgian sovereign territory."

In Moscow, Russian Foreign Ministry official Andrei Nesterenko offered a measured response to Mount Whitney's arrival.

"There is no talk of military action," he said Friday, but again questioned why the United States was using warships.

"It is unlikely that warships of this class can deliver humanitarian aid in great quantities," Nesterenko said.
http://realtime.com/realtime_news/22829356_us_warship_carries_aid_to_georgian_port_of_poti____.html?pageid=nandu.home&pageregion=A4

U.S. sails into troubled waters
http://www.reuters.com/news/video?videoId=90202&feedType=VideoRSS&feedName=TopNews&videoChannel=1


USS Mount Whitney arrives at Poti



September 5, 2008
Cool reception for Cheney in Azerbaijan
American Vice President Dick Cheney’s visit to the Azerbaijani capital, Baku, appears to be have been unsuccessful for Washington, unlike his visit to Tbilisi.

Neither President Ilkham Aliyev nor the Prime Minister, Artur Rasizade, were there to greet Cheney at Baku airport. Instead, he was met by the country’s First Deputy PM and the Foreign Minister.

The Kommersant newspaper reports that Cheney was very annoyed by the results of the meeting with President Aliyev and even refused to attend a ceremonial supper in his own honour.  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/29961



Georgia linked to Nato early warning system
Nato's early-warning surveillance system has been plugged into Georgia's air-defence network in the first evidence that the US-led alliance is shoring up the country's shattered military.

As part of efforts to develop closer military ties with Georgia the US is also planning to set up a trust fund into which alliance members can donate money to assist Georgian military forces. “It's basically Nato passing the hat around,” an official said.  http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4678456.ece

Russia to keep 7,600 troops in 2 Georgian regions "for a long time"
http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=336734

New countries gain Russian troop pledge
September 9, 2008

Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia will be replaced by regular army troops, according to Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov. The announcement came after Russia established formal diplomatic relations with the newly independent countries. Meanwhile, Russian checkpoints in Georgia are being closed down.

The news was announced by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov during a joint media conference with his counterparts from the new states. 


"First of all, we have exchanged notes and have agreed to establish diplomatic relations between Russia and Abkhazia and Russia and South Ossetia," Lavrov said.

"We are setting up ties at the ambassadorial level. Secondly, we have discussed the drafts of agreements between Russia and South Ossetia and Russia and Abkhazia on friendship, co-operation and mutual assistance". The documents mentioned by the Russian foreign minister will coordinate all kinds of cooperation including military.



The move follows Moscow’s decision to recognise the republics’ independence after Georgia attempted to gain control of South Ossetia last month by force. 



Meanwhile, Georgian deputy Foreign Minister Grigol Vashadze called the agreement ‘just a farce’:

“The real goal for Russia is military bases in those two Georgian regions. But sooner or later - and we think, sooner - the embassies and the bases will have to go”.

Newborn states hope for international recognition



Leaders of the two newly recognised republics say they already have candidates for the posts of ambassadors. They are also thankful for the recognition of their independence, saying that Russia's position was a key step in their future.



"Initially we were just surviving, constantly under threat – but now we are facing the task of development, the instrument for which are being prepared now," Abkhazia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Shamba noted.



He also expressed hope that other countries, including European states, will in time re-think their position, and in his opinion everything will depend on what kind of example the newly recognised republics will demonstrate to the rest of the world. 



Shamba's South Ossetian counterpart Murat Dzhioev echoed him saying the republic will work with other countries individually and with international organisations as part of the process in seeking other countries’ recognition of South Ossetia. In his opinion many countries will follow Russia's suit. 



Nicaragua recently became the second country to recognise their independence.  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/30141

September 9, 2008
Russian Navy set for U.S. backyard exercise

The Russian Navy has confirmed that a fleet of warships belonging to the Russian Northern Fleet is preparing to cross the Atlantic Ocean and head for the Caribbean.

The squadron, led by the Northern Fleet’s flagship Pyotr Veliky (named after Peter I of Russia or Peter the Great) - one of the world’s largest heavily-armed nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers - will participate with the Venezuelan fleet in the Caribbean naval exercise in November.
This will be Russia’s first manoeuvre in the U.S. backyard in nearly 20 years.

Russia and Venezuela agreed in July 2008 to conduct this exercise when Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez visited Moscow. Due to the fact that the agreement was made a month before the U.S. ordered its warships to enter the Black Sea, Moscow and Caracas deny any connection between the presence of the U.S. command ship near Russian borders and the Russian fleet heading to America’s doorstep.

In addition, Hugo Chavez has approved Russian nuclear-capable strategic bombers to use Venezuelan military airfields. These actions could be seen as Russia hinting to the U.S. that, despite surrounding Russia with U.S. military bases, America is just as vulnerable to attack as any other country.  http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/30157


The Kirov class cruisers were intended to destroy US Navy carrier battle groups

U.S. Fourth Fleet in Venezuelan Waters
In an interview with Cuban television, Bolivian President Evo Morales remarked that the U.S. naval force constituted "the Fourth Fleet of intervention."  http://www.counterpunch.org/kozloff05242008.html

September 17, 2008
Cornering the Russian Bear - Another unnecessary war
by Thomas Gale Moore

As we know, the Bush administration has gifted us with two wars. It has also promulgated the "Bush Doctrine," which asserts the nation's right to launch a preventive strike against any country that could potentially threaten the U.S. At the same time, this administration has supported expanding NATO to include former parts of the Soviet Union, such as Georgia and Ukraine. Since the fall of the Berlin Wall, the West has moved its presence closer and closer to Moscow itself. The Baltic states, which border Russia, have been brought into the European Union and NATO. Poland, together with Bulgaria and Hungary, once elements of the Soviet Bloc, are now members of the EU and NATO.

In addition, the administration has pressured and bribed Poland, as well as the Czech Republic, into authorizing our military to establish anti-missile weapons and advanced radar in the two countries. Although Washington claims that those bases are intended solely to protect against Iranian rockets – which are not advanced enough to threaten the U.S. – Moscow believes that they are being installed with Russian weapons in mind. As a result, Russia feels increasingly that it is being surrounded and pushed into a corner. That is very dangerous. If the Russians were to adopt the Bush Doctrine, they might launch a preemptive strike against America.

Sen. McCain has called for expelling Russia from the G8 group of industrial nations and preventing it from joining the World Trade Organization. McCain also wants to establish a League of Democratic states that would not include Russia or China. Which countries are democratic enough to qualify, he has failed to specify. All of these steps isolate Russia further from the West.

Vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin asserted in her interview with Charles Gibson of ABC news that Georgia and Ukraine deserve to join NATO. Should Russia attack one of them, she acknowledged, we would be obligated to go to its assistance. In other words, we would have to launch a war on Russia. Through 40 years of the Cold War we managed to avoid a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. It would be devastating and tragic if now we were to become embroiled in a war with Russia, which has nuclear weapons, plus the intercontinental missiles powerful enough to deliver them to the U.S.

If you are hiking in the woods and come across a wild animal, you should always give it a way to escape. Once cornered, the animal will attack you. The same advice applies when dealing with a dangerous country. Never corner it. Unfortunately that is exactly what this administration has been doing with Russia.

We have already seen the results of attempting to bring Georgia into NATO. The Russians felt cornered. After we encouraged the Georgian regime to attempt to bring back the wayward territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Moscow felt justified in sending troops into Georgia. Had Bush prevailed and secured Georgia's membership in NATO, we would have been obliged to send troops to help Georgia.

In Churchill, Hitler, and the Unnecessary War, Pat Buchanan stresses British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain's promise to the Polish government, a military dictatorship reputedly as anti-Semitic as the Nazis, that Britain would go to war to defend Poland, handing those unsavory rulers the power to force Britain into war. Given the British guarantee, Warsaw was unwilling to negotiate with Germany. Extending NATO to Ukraine or Georgia would allow those unstable states to force the U.S. and other NATO countries into war with Russia.

Ukraine's membership would be even more of a provocation than Georgia's. The Crimean Peninsula is a flash point. In 1954, the peninsula was transferred from Russian to Ukrainian administration, partly as a reward to Ukraine, partly because the peninsula was geographically closer to Ukraine. With the breakup of the Soviet Union, Ukraine claimed the peninsula. The population, however, generally speaks Russian, not Ukrainian, and identifies more with Moscow than with Kiev. In 2001 the population of Crimea was about 52 percent Russian, 24 percent Ukrainian, and 18 percent Tatar, with other groups making up the balance. Under a 20-year treaty with Ukraine that expires in 2017, the Russian navy is stationed in Sevastopol. This provides Moscow with a year-round warm water port with access not only to the Black Sea but ultimately to the Mediterranean. Were Ukraine to join NATO, Russia would be expected to abandon its naval base. Clearly, it would be very unwilling to do so and would probably encourage the local population to demand independence from Ukraine.

There have been several attempts by the population of the Crimea to become independent. The peninsula now has considerable autonomy. Recently it has been alleged that Russia has been issuing passports to those in the Crimea who request them. In South Ossetia the Russians have given their passports to anyone who wanted one, leading to the claim that the Russian army was simply protecting its own nationals.

The Bush administration has led America into two interminable wars. It has threatened Iran with attacks and has been attempting to box in Russia by adding more countries to NATO, thus giving small, backward countries with unstable governments the power to ignite another war. The U.S. cannot afford a third conflict, either in money or in human lives. We should neither include these states in NATO nor should we build the anti-missile systems in Eastern Europe. By cooperating with Russia, we might be able to achieve a great deal of good in the world, but cornering the Russian bear might lead to catastrophe.  http://www.antiwar.com/moore/?articleid=13466



Russia Signs Defense Pacts With South Ossetia, Abkhazia
September 17, 2008



MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed treaties with Georgia's South Ossetia and Abkhazia on Wednesday that commit Moscow to defend the breakaway regions from any Georgian attack.

The treaties formalize military, diplomatic and economic co-operation between Moscow and the separatist regions, which Russia recognized as independent states after its brief war with Georgia last month.

In Tbilisi, a senior Georgian diplomat said Russia had annexed sovereign Georgian territory, and a U.S. State Department official said Russia should honor previous commitments it had made to Georgia's territorial integrity.

Western states accused Russia of a disproportionate response after it sent its troops into Georgia last month and then recognized the two regions.

Moscow said it had a moral duty to act to defend them from what it called a genocide by Georgia's military in South Ossetia, which had tried to retake the region by force.

"The documents we have signed envisage that our countries will jointly undertake the necessary measures for counteracting threats to peace ... and opposing acts of aggression," Medvedev said after a lavish signing ceremony in the Kremlin.

"We will show each other all necessary support, including military support," Medvedev said.

"A repeat of the Georgian aggression ... would lead to a catastrophe on a regional scale, so no one should be in doubt that we will not allow new military adventures."  http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSLH47192520080917

Recognise Georgian regions says Ukraine's Crimea
September 17, 2008

SIMFEROPOL, Ukraine, Sept 17 (Reuters) - Parliament in Ukraine's Crimea peninsula, defying the country's pro-Western leaders, called on the national parliament to follow Russia's example and recognise Georgia's two separatist regions.

Crimea, a Ukrainian region with a degree of self-government, is populated mainly by ethnic Russians and Russian-speakers and local leaders have often adopted pro-Russian positions or even sought to rejoin Russia.

Some analysts suggested that Russia's conflict with Georgia over South Ossetia could rekindle pro-Moscow or even separatist sentiment in Crimea.

The local assembly voted 79 to 8 to urge Ukraine's national parliament to recognise the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Only Russia and Nicaragua have done so, an action denounced by the United States and European Union.

Ukraine's pro-Western leaders, committed to joining NATO, denounced Moscow's intervention in South Ossetia in support of what Moscow says are Russian nationals there. They deny any suggestion that a similar conflict could erupt in Crimea.

Crimea became a part of Russia in the late 18th century and was formally handed to Soviet Ukraine in 1954, when the collapse of the Soviet Union was unthinkable.

The region remains autonomous, though Ukrainian authorities cracked down on separatism in the mid-1990s.

Russian nationalist politicians call periodically for the return of at least Sevastopol, the Crimean port where Russia's Black Sea fleet is based under a lease agreement.  http://wiredispatch.com/news/?id=355278

U.S. intelligence gathering ship enters Sevastopol harbor
9-16-08

SEVASTOPOL, September 16 (RIA Novosti) - The U.S. Pathfinder ship entered on Tuesday the Sevastopol harbor that is home to the Ukrainian navy and Russia's Black Sea Fleet, a Russian naval source said.

"This is the second planned visit of Pathfinder at the invitation of Ukraine in the past 10 days," the source said.

USNS Pathfinder (T-AGS 60) is an oceanographic survey ship owned by the Military Sealift Command and has a civilian crew and scientists on board.

According to official statements, Pathfinder is searching for a ship which sank in the harbor during World War II.

However, Russian intelligence believes that ships of the Pathfinder class could be used for reconnaissance and intelligence gathering purposes.

"We have reliable information confirming that the [Pathfinder] ship has arrived in the Black Sea primarily to conduct intelligence gathering operations in support of the NATO naval task group currently deployed in the area," the source said.

Russian intelligence experts suspect that the ship may be carrying surveillance equipment that could survey the depths and the condition of the sea shelf and monitor the movement of submerged submarines at a distance of up to 100 km (over 60 miles).

Russia is seriously concerned over the increased presence of NATO naval forces near its main naval base in the Black Sea, which hosts at least 50 warships and smaller vessels, along with 80 aircraft.

The base has been a source of friction between Russia and Ukraine in recent years, as Ukraine's pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko has sought NATO and EU membership for the country and demanded that the Black Sea Fleet must leave the base after a bilateral lease agreement expires in 2017.  http://en.rian.ru/russia/20080916/116831865.html

The Cold War That Wasn't
Unreliable Sources
by MARK AMES
October 22, 2008 (excerpt)

You may not have noticed it, but a couple of weeks ago, the New York Times slipped in a story that completely contradicted a narrative that it had been building up for two straight months, one that was leading America into another war--a so-called "New Cold War." The article exposed the awful authoritarian reality of Georgia's so-called democracy, painting a dark picture of President Mikhail Saakashvili's rule that repudiated the fairy tale that the Times and everyone else in the major media had been pushing ever since war broke out in South Ossetia in early August. That fairy tale went like this: Russia (evil) invaded Georgia (good) for no reason whatsoever except that Georgia was free. Putin hates freedom, and Saakashvili is the "democratically elected leader" of a "small, democratic country."

Yes, it was only a month ago that we were stupid and crazy enough to think that the United States had no choice but to launch a costly new cold war against a nuclear power, even though we still haven't closed the deal on a couple of mini-wars against Division-III opponents, and we were on the verge of bankruptcy. Ah, to be blissfully naïve--and bloodthirsty at the same time--wasn't it wonderful?

As the South Ossetia war raged in early- and mid-August, the Times published an editorial labeling Georgia's invasion as "Russia's War of Ambition"; it also published a series of hysterical op-eds, including William Kristol's comparing Russia to Nazi Germany (Hitler's charred skull must be spinning in its museum case from being turned into the cheapest cliché in the hack's analogy box), and another from Svante E. Cornell of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins--the same corruption-plagued institute that ABC News discovered was taking money from Kazakhstan's tyrant for issuing positive reports about that authoritarian oil-rich country.

Cornell 's piece argued that Russia attacked Georgia not in response to Georgia's invasion of the breakaway South Ossetian province but rather because Russia was just plain evil--and, in the style of evil villains everywhere, Russia had no motive other than to show "the consequences post-Soviet countries will suffer for standing up to Moscow, conducting democratic reforms and seeking military and economic ties with the West."

The hysteria of two months ago already seems so dated and even bizarre, from our mid-meltdown vantage--as if reading the hysteria from a black-and-white era.

And yet even as the hysteria gave way to serious questioning, and that dangerously simple narrative crumbled, the Times never recanted or corrected itself, never even had a fake mea culpa moment as it did after Iraq--an admission that came years too late. Instead of recanting, the Times took the sly road, slipping an article in between the meltdown stories that essentially told its readers, "Yeah, we screwed the pooch on Georgia, hope ya didn't notice, and, uh, have a nice day."

Ever since I went down to South Ossetia to see the war for myself, I'd developed a kind of sick curiosity to see just how the Times and all the others were going to extricate themselves from the credibility-hole they'd dug. I had a feeling it was going to come, because Saakashvili was not only a blatant liar but an incredibly bad liar. I was in South Ossetia at the close of the war--I saw the destruction that the "freedom-loving" Georgians wreaked, and the bloated, rotting corpses on the streets of the province's capital city, Tskhinvali--so I was particularly interested in how long the sleazy tale of good vs. evil would last, and how the major media would squirm their way out of their biggest journalistic fiasco since the Iraqi-WMD blooper. Would the Times let their ombudsman out of the cage for another fake apology? "Oops! Who'da thunk our esteemed newspaper coulda screwed up this big twice in a row, dragging America into yet another war all on account of our inability to do our job as journalists?! Look, we just want to say we're sorry and move on, m'kay? So, have you moved on yet? Because we have."

And this is where the secular-humanist god of the liberal media intervened. The Times and everyone else who peddled the neocon/Saakashvili line was saved from facing up to their colossal failure by an even bigger disaster, the worst disaster to hit this country since 9/11: the global economic meltdown. Someone's prayers were answered.

One of the prayer kingdom's biggest secrets is how common these "I hope a disaster comes and saves me" whispers are. For example, when I was a college student, every time finals week approached, I wanted to get hit by a car. Final exams meant facing the unbearable shame of four wasted months. So I'd slip on my headphones, zig off of the sidewalk and zag into Berkeley's traffic-clogged streets like an unleashed Irish setter, waiting for some hippie to splatter me on his VW van windshield. If it meant spending the next twenty years on a feeding tube, that seemed a fair tradeoff.

But the hippie drivers, with their insane respect for pedestrians, wouldn't cooperate. Like the evangelical Christian's apocalypse, my prayed-for mega-disaster that would save me from my private mini-disaster never arrived.

In that sense, the Times and all the other Saakashvili pom-pom-ers were lucky: the VW van that never hit me during finals week leveled the entire planet's financial well-being, saving journalism's biggest names from owning up to their failure. And the unmistakable evidence for this failure just keeps pouring in: today, for example, Reporters Without Borders ranked Georgia near the bottom of its press freedom index--well below notoriously despotic nations like Tajikistan, Gabon and even Hugo Chávez's villainous Venezuela. So yes, thank [NAME OF OMNISCIENT BEING] for the financial meltdown, because even though it may mean pink slips for many of the reporters and editors who screwed up the Georgia story, I have a funny feeling that when they're standing in the soup kitchen line a few months from now, they'll be thinking with relief, "Homelessness may suck, but it's a small price to pay for avoiding the colossal shame I was about to face over the Georgia war story. Thank you, global depression! You've made this journalist happy!"  http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081103/ames

Scott Horton Interviews Mark Ames
October 30th, 2008

Mark Ames, author of “The Cold War that Wasn’t” in The Nation, discusses the dominant narrative and ideological underpinnings in the U.S. press regarding the recent Georgian attack on South Ossetia and subsequent Russian counterattack on Georgia, the attempt to portray Russia as the aggressor by floating the idea of a first-strike cyber war despite the lack of any evidence, the alleged poisoning of Ukraine’s Victor Yushchenko and the current dispute between Yushchenko and Yulia Timoshenko over her reaction to the Georgia war, the poisoning of Alexander Litvinenko, NATO expansion into Eastern Europe, the precedent set by U.S. intervention in Kosovo, the danger of putting “defensive” missiles in Eastern Europe while the U.S. foreign policy establishment contemplates first strike capability, U.S. NED support for the Russian National Bolsheviks, the “shock therapy” robbery of Russian resources under Yeltsin’s autocracy in the 1990s and the consequences.
http://dissentradio.com/radio/08_10_28_ames.mp3



I survived the Georgian war. Here's what I saw. I blame Georgia's leaders.
by Lira Tskhovrebova
October 8, 2008

TSKHINVALI, SOUTH OSSETIA - In a speech before the United Nations last month, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili implored world leaders to set up an international investigation to find out the truth about the war in South Ossetia.

I couldn't agree more. But I think the results of an honest investigation would reveal a very different "truth" than what President Saakashvili claims.

I know this because I was in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on Aug. 7 when Georgian troops marched into the city and killed my friends and neighbors. I huddled with my family in terror for three nights while Saakashvili's tanks and rockets destroyed hundreds of our homes, desecrated cemeteries, gutted schools and hospitals.

I also have good reason not to trust what Saakashvili says. For three days before the attack I had been getting calls from many Georgian friends warning me to get out. They said Saakashvili was planning an attack. Most of the Georgians living in South Ossetia left because they knew what was coming.

On the night of Aug. 7, Saakashvili went on television and assured the frightened civilian population of South Ossetia that he would not attack us. This was long after the time Saakashvili now claims Russians had begun "invading" Georgia.

Ossetians went to bed relieved and thankful for a peaceful night.

Less than two hours later, according to credible international accounts, his artillery, bombers, and three brigades of ground troops unleashed what I can only describe as a fierce hell on our city. In the moment, we knew only our fear as we hid. Afterward I spoke with hundreds of Ossetians to find out what was done to us.

My friend's elderly father tried to douse the flames set by Georgian fire on the home he had built with his hands. His leg was severed by shrapnel from Georgian weapons. He bled to death while his disabled wife crawled from their burning home.

Ossetians saw Georgian tanks firing into basements where women and children hid for safety They saw fleeing families shot down by Georgian snipers. We learned that the Georgian military had used Grad rocket systems and cluster bombs against Tskhinvali.

Yes, I would very much like to see an international commission investigate the truth of what happened.

When I came out from hiding, thanking God that the Russians had saved our lives, I was dismayed by the reaction of the international media to what had happened. There was nothing about Ossetian deaths and the unprovoked horrors inflicted by Saakashvili's military. It made my heart sick.

The truth has been crushed by Georgia's powerful public relations machine as mercilessly as Georgian tanks rolled over the defenseless civilians of Tskhinvali.

I know that Americans are a generous and fair people. But Americans haven't been told the truth about what happened to us. Americans don't understand that Ossetians are an independent, Christian Orthodox people with a deep history in our land. The world talks only about Georgian freedom. What of freedom for my people? Does our suffering, do our voices, mean nothing?

I don't blame the Georgian people for what happened to us. The vast number of Ossetians and Georgians want to live in peace. I blame Georgia's leaders.

Saakashvili has persuaded the world that he is a "beacon" of democracy and openness. But he won't even tell his own people the truth. My Georgian friends weren't allowed to see any Russian news sites during the conflict because all of those sites were blocked by Saakashvili's government.

I know we are a small people, and I make no claim to understanding the experts in geopolitics with their theories and pronouncements about the great powers. But I have fought for women's rights in Ossetia for 12 years and I believe in the truth.

In a recent article, Saakashvili cynically dismissed Ossetian suffering and deaths because, he said, Russia had "lied" about how many of my people were killed by the Georgian military.

It breaks my heart to even engage in this discussion. No one – including Saakashvili – knows how many Ossetians were killed by his Army. I have friends who buried loved ones in their backyards because there were no alternatives. Many people are still missing.

Does Saakashvili believe his vicious attack on a civilian city was justified if he only killed a few hundred rather than a few thousand? Do Americans realize that a military trained and equipped by the US government attacked a civilian population as they slept in their beds? Can they justify sending another billion dollars to Georgia and nothing for those Georgia attacked?

I have made an urgent appeal to the world for humanitarian relief for our people at the website helpossetianow.org. I beg the United States and the world to find out the truth. Please hear our voices.  http://www.csmonitor.com/2008/1008/p09s02-coop.html





Russian navy to hold war games
November 02, 2008

THE Russian navy will hold war games in the Indian Ocean in a bid to boost its global presence, a navy spokesman says, announcing Moscow's latest move to flex its military muscle.

Ships from the Pacific Ocean Fleet and forces from the Northern Fleet will meet and carry out joint military exercises in the Indian Ocean basin,'' navy spokesman Igor Dygalo today said in a statement.

Mr Dygalo did not specify when the exercises would take place, but he said warships from Russia's Vladivostok-based Pacific Ocean Fleet would leave "shortly'' for the Arabian Sea, docking in various ports on the way.

He called the Indian Ocean manoeuvres part of an effort to raise the Russian navy's worldwide profile before the end of the year.

"In the remaining months of 2008, Russian Navy Central Command will increase the presence of Russian Navy forces in the world ocean in the interests of strengthening stability and security in its various regions,'' he said.

This month, a flotilla of Russian warships from the Northern Fleet, based in the Arctic port of Severomorsk, are to hold exercises with the Venezuelan navy in the Caribbean Sea.

The flotilla, led by the massive nuclear-powered missile cruiser Peter the Great, stopped in Libya last month as part of a global show of Russian might not seen since the Cold War.  http://www.news.com.au/heraldsun/story/0,21985,24589165-5005961,00.html