Georgian Crisis, interesting article

[Steel_Tomb]

I just stumbled across an article about the cause of the recent war in Georgia, makes quite an interesting read IMHO. Its quite long, but worth it.

http://www.michaeltotten.com/archive...th-about-1.php


By the way, are Russian "peacekeepers" still inside Gori/Poti? If so, why the hell haven't they been kicked out? Keeping forces within areas close to the boarders is PERHAPS acceptable in one way, but to keep them that deep into Georgian terrioty? Whats going on with the UN & EU? They seem to have shoved this off into the "to do" tray and left it!

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...574812,00.html

Without comment. Before this place blows up again like the last time.

[UnderseaLcpl]

I won't be the one to blow it up. This is between Russia and Georgia.

[Skybird]

http://www.spiegel.de/international/...578273,00.html

"The West begins to doubt the Georgian leader":

Five weeks after the war in the Caucasus the mood is shifting against Georgian President Saakashvili. Some Western intelligence reports have undermined Tbilisi's version of events and there are now calls on both sides of the Atlantic for an independent investigation.

(...)

The attempt to reconstruct the August five-day war continues to revolve around one key question: Which side was the first to launch military strikes? Information coming from NATO and the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) now paints a different picture than the one that prevailed during the first days of the battle for the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali -- and is fueling the doubts of Western politicians.

(...)

One thing was already clear to the officers at NATO headquarters in Brussels: They thought that the Georgians had started the conflict and that their actions were more calculated than pure self-defense or a response to Russian provocation. In fact, the NATO officers believed that the Georgian attack was a calculated offensive against South Ossetian positions to create the facts on the ground, and they coolly treated the exchanges of fire in the preceding days as minor events. Even more clearly, NATO officials believed, looking back, that by no means could these skirmishes be seen as justification for Georgian war preparations.

(...)

The details that Western intelligence agencies extracted from their signal intelligence agree with NATO's assessments. According to this intelligence information, the Georgians amassed roughly 12,000 troops on the border with South Ossetia on the morning of Aug. 7. Seventy-five tanks and armored personnel carriers -- a third of the Georgian military's arsenal -- were assembled near Gori. Saakashvili's plan, apparently, was to advance to the Roki Tunnel in a 15-hour Blitzkrieg and close the eye of the needle between the northern and southern Caucasus regions, effectively cutting off South Ossetia from Russia.

At 10:35 p.m. on Aug. 7, less than an hour before Russian tanks entered the Roki Tunnel, according to Saakashvili, Georgian forces began their artillery assault on Tskhinvali. The Georgians used 27 rocket launchers, including 152-millimeter guns, as well as cluster bombs. Three brigades began the nighttime assault.

The intelligence agencies were monitoring the Russian calls for help on the airwaves. The 58th Army, part of which was stationed in North Ossetia, was apparently not ready for combat, at least not during that first night.

(...)

The Georgian army, on the other hand, consisted primarily of infantry groups, which were forced to travel along major roads. It soon became bogged down and was unable to move past Tskhinvali. Western intelligence learned that the Georgians were experiencing "handling problems" with their weapons. The implication was that the Georgians were not fighting well.


The intelligence agencies conclude that the Russian army did not begin firing until 7:30 a.m. on Aug. 8, when it launched an SS-21 short-range ballistic missile on the city of Borzhomi, southwest of Gori. The missile apparently hit military and government bunker positions. Russian warplanes began their first attacks on the Georgian army a short time later. Suddenly the airwaves came to life, as did the Russian army.
Russian troops from North Ossetia did not begin marching through the Roki Tunnel until roughly 11 a.m. This sequence of events is now seen as evidence that Moscow did not act offensively, but merely reacted. Additional SS-21s were later moved to the south. The Russians deployed 5,500 troops to Gori and 7,000 to the border between Georgia and its second separatist region, Abkhazia.

The Georgian president is also coming under pressure in his own country, as the united front that developed during the Russian invasion crumbles. Those who have long criticized Saakashvili and his senior staff as an "authoritarian regime" are speaking out once again. Back in December 2007, Georgy Khaindrava, a former minister for conflict resolution who was dismissed in 2006, told SPIEGEL that Saakashvili and his circle are people "for whom power is everything." A few weeks earlier, Saakashvili had deployed special police forces in Tbilisi, where the opposition had staged large demonstrations, and declared a state of emergency. At the time, Khaindrava expressed concerns that Saakashvili could soon attempt to bolster his weakened image with a "small, victorious war" -- against South Ossetia.

In May 2006, former Foreign Minister Salomé Surabishvili had already cautioned against her former boss's actions. The "enormous arms buildup" he had engaged in made "no sense," Surabishvili said, adding that it created the impression that he planned to resolve the conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia militarily.

(...)

[Skybird]

In a speech at the German Historian Institute DHI in Moscow yesterday, highly respected former German president Richard von Weizsäcker (88), beside Helmut Schmidt the Grand Seigneur of German politics, defended Russia's reaction to the Georgian assault as "defense of your people being a very legitimate intention". With regard to the anglosaxon demand of Georgia joining NATO, he said that with regard to it's ressources and protections of these, Russia necessarily has very legitimate security concerns against NATO coming that close, violating these would not be an intelligent thing.

Weizsäcker is no babbling dumbhead, but one of the smartest and most educated persons of integrity in German politics ever.

This comes at a time when the doubts on the dubios role of Georgia's hysteric autocratic leader Saakashwili are mounting and it becomes more and more clear that he has been blatantly lying about the aggressive Georgian role that lead to the 5-days-war in August; and the fool coming under more and more fire in his country itself. the West should make it a precondition for finacial aide to Georgia that a.) the man resigns from all political activities, and b.) no military goods are delivered to Georgia for the time being. Then it could be left to the Georgians themselves to bring Saakashvili to justice at court.

[Jimbuna]

A time for both sides to take stock and reflect on past actions without the interference of third parties. :hmm: