Russia Bombs Civilians in Gori
The New York Timesreports that Russian aircraft have bombed civilian targets, two apartment buildings, outside the breakaway region of South Ossetia, in Georgia proper. Even the Russian side admits that at least 1,500 civilians have been killed, and Georgia claims to have shot down 10 Russian war planes flying over Georgian territory.
A Georgian man mourned a dead relative in the town of Gori
This act of barbarism by Russia must not stand. It is no different than Hitler or Stalin invading Eastern Europe. If we do not stand against it now today, we will face it again tomorrow, this time much closer to home.
Gori, Under Siege
Do you dare to imagine how Russia would have reacted if a foreign country had marched tanks and troops into Chechnya on the side of the rebels and then launched sorties against Russian cities like Krasnodar and Sochi in support of ousting the Russians? Russia now deserves exactly that response.
Make no mistake, this is Vladmir Putin’s Waterloo, no differently than the incursions by Stalin and Hitler outside their borders were theirs. Any moral ascendancy Russia had to demand a free hand in Chechnya was lost in Gori, Georgia, and the barbaric KGB regime in Moscow was finally, utterly exposed.
UPDATE #1: President Bush has spoken out loud and clear: “Georgia is a sovereign nation, and its territorial integrity must be respected. We have urged an immediate halt to the violence and a stand-down by all troops. We call for the end of the Russian bombings.” Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin has left the Olympics and is taking charge of the assault on Georgia, clearing making a mockery of the so-called “Medvedev presidency.” Putin is going to do in Georgia exactly what he condemned the U.S. for doing in Iraq, with the main difference being that the president of Georgia is a democratically elected leader who hasn’t been condemned by the world as the Iraqi dictator had been. Russia is utterly exposed by its actions, laid bare before they eyes of the world.
UPDATE #2: As if the Putin regime specifically wanted to make fools out of those Russophile idiots who claimed it was limiting its assault to the Ossetia region, the Associated Press now reports that Russia is bombing the Georgian capital of Tbilisi and moving against Abkhazia, another breakaway republic which is totally uninvolved in the Ossetia action. Reuters says a civilian airport was also hit outside Tbilisi. This kind of crazy, self-destructive action is what you get when you have a government run by proud KGB spies with no opposition of any kind. It’s what you got in the USSR.
NOTE: For information about Georgia and its struggles with Russia, check out Georgia Daily and Georgia Times newspapers.
La Russophobe 
Yes – sides are being drawn at Putin’s Waterloo.
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L867335.htm
Typical Russian paranoia at work while instigating the invasion and take over of a tiny country with next to no military. Russians are a disgrace the human race, the less the better. Where’s Stalin to keep the numbers down?
That was quite insensitive.
That’s the end of Saakahshvili. Next thing you know, the Georgian nationalists will accuse him of being Armenian, and hound it out of the country. SO and Abkhazia are lost to Georgia, and there’s dick they can do about it, and there’s dick the Americans will do about it, and for the rest of central asia: well, they have been watching Georgia for a while, and now that the Americans drop them, they know who’s really regional hegemon.
LR can foam and rave all she wants – Georgia has overplayed a reasonably strong hand by launching an unnecessary attack into territory it hasn’t controlled for over a decade.
Silly buggers.
Oh, and BTC – well, that gamble probably will have been a failure, too.
Nice work, Russia. Undoing in a week what the Washington boys and girls tried to build in ten years.
Too bad for all the people dying, though. Particularly since all of this is a foregone conclusion.
I love the Russophile commenters, presumably Russian (given the broken English, shaky attempts at vulgarity and slang, etc). Better than watching cartoons! These guys combine ranting, abuse, chauvinistic blather into a caricature of their Kremlin masters’ collective behaviors on the international scene. And then, seem puzzled that people can’t respect or like their smelly great landmass…
The 1,500 figure mentioned in the post refers to the number of people killed in Georgian shelling of South Ossetia, so it doesn’t really serve your argument.
What this blog needs to do instead of engaging in inflammatory is explain who began military action in this round of fighting and how it will ultimately benefit. My impression is that Georgia began the large-scale military operation and Tbilisi will ultimately suffer by losing massive amounts of armaments and conceding the portions of South Ossetia it held before. Saakashvili gambled with the lives of his people and it looks that he has lost.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS:: Your impression is deeply mistaken. Russia plunged troops onto Georgian soil without the permission of the Georgian government claiming they were there to “repair railways” — something Russia would never have tolerated in Chechnya by foreigners. This came on the heels of firing missiles into Georgian territory and being condemed widely by the world community. We HAVE reportd that, and we will thank you to actually read this blog before commenting on it. Russia has now bombed civilian apartment buildings in Georgia proper, far from the disputed Ossetia territory, and killed hundreds of Georgians there. What’s more, the only reason any civilians were killed in Ossetia by Georgians is that Russia armed them and encouraged them to revolt even as it denied Chechnya that very same right.
Thanks for your haughty and ridiculous attempt to set our agenda, but your attempt to deflect attention from that undisputed fact is the only problem this blog has.
News update: Georgia is trying to capitulate (‘cease fire’). So much for Russia’s “Waterloo”. The attack on the Roki tunnel failed (rumor had it that the Georgians had succeeded in blowing it up), and Georgian troops were forced to retreat. Abkhazia is about to take over Kodori.
Had Saakashvili been more patient and not acted this wildly, things would look much better.
Russia wanted the crisis, and Saakash delivered it. If things go as Russia has planned, the US strategy for Central Asia will have failed completely. 15 years of work wasted.
Gotta give it to the Kremlin: they know what they are doing.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS: The point about “Waterloo” was not that Georgia was going to defeat Russia in battle, which is ludicrous. If you actually read what we write before commenting, that will help a lot. The point was that Putin has polarized and alienated the entire world and provoked a new cold war he cannot survive. Talk about acting wildly! Russia has driven the entire world into the McCain camp! Thanks a lot, Mr. P.!
I see that the rooshan-sovok cyberterrorists are out in full force.
Here is a very interesting take on what, actually, is South Ossetia – a collection of KGB types intent on fomenting conflict and making money, at the cost of peoples’ lives.
http://www.rferl.org/content/South_Ossetia_Crisis_Could_Be_Russian_Chance_To_Defeat_Siloviki/1189525.html
Because there is no way the regime in South Ossetia can be in any sense called “separatist.” Who there is a separatist? The head of the local KGB, Anatoly Baranov, used to head the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Russian Republic of Mordovia. The head of the South Ossetian Interior Ministry, Mikhail Mindzayev, served in the Interior Ministry of Russia’s North Ossetia. The South Ossetian “defense minister,” Vasily Lunev, used to be military commissar in Perm Oblast, and the secretary of South Ossetia’s Security Council, Anatoly Barankevich, is a former deputy military commissar of Stavropol Krai. So who exactly is a separatist in this government? South Ossetian “prime minister” Yury Morozov?
However, alas, I also cannot say this regime is “pro-Russian.” On the contrary, all the recent actions of Eduard Kokoity, the leader of the breakaway South Ossetian government, have run counter to the interests of Russia in the Caucasus — beginning with his embarrassing Russia in the eyes of the international community and ending with his ratcheting up the tensions in the very region where Russia might begin to come undone. South Ossetia is not a territory, not a country, not a regime. It is a joint venture of siloviki generals and Ossetian bandits for making money in a conflict with Georgia. For me, the most surprising thing in this entire story is the complete lack of any strategic goals on the part of the South Ossetians.
As soon as Russia tamped down the war in Abkhazia, tensions in South Ossetia started rising. South Ossetian forces start shelling Georgian villages, and as soon as Georgia returns fire, the airwaves are filled with accusations of “Georgian aggression.” No one pays attention to the fact that when this happens, Kokoity is not on the front lines or visiting the injured in a hospital — he’s 1,000 kilometers away in Abkhazia, apparently offering the Russian siloviki his people as hostages, as another card to be played to inflame the situation and make a few more dollars.
Again — nothing that is going on in South Ossetia makes any sense from the point of view of strategy. It only makes sense as a means of making money. And we aren’t talking about small sums. Running a gas pipeline through the mountains from Russia — a precaution in case Georgia decides to cut off the 70,000 residents — cost $570 million. And then there is the secret budget Russia has allotted for the struggle — estimated at somewhere around $800 million. And don’t forget the pensions and wages for state-sector workers, who officially number some 80,000 but whose actual numbers are not more than 30,000.
I agree with General Khlynov, Gori is in the line of fire, the civis should of left. War doesn’t wait and Georgia started the shooting. Civi’s are dying on both sides but most Georgians are so blindly nationalist their not realising their government is no different in corruption from the Congress, Parlaiment, or the Kremlin.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS: Anyone who looks at the map can plainly see that Gori is not in the line of fire. Would Russians admit Krasnodar was “in the line of fire” of NATO invasion of Chechnya? But even if you were correct, Russia is now bombing the airports outside of Tblisi. Are they also in the line of fire? It’s moving on Abkhazia. Is that in the line of fire? Your neo-Soviet “logic” will bring Russia to the same fate as the USSR.
China does not seem to care about what Russia is doing. Germany is ambiguous. Even the Americans are ambiguous.
Bad relations with the US government don’t hurt Russia – it barely trades with the U.S. Russia’s main trading partner are Germany and the EU in general. Nothing they will do.
This is a defeat for the US in Central Asia. Outmaneuvered by the Kremlin.
Moral condemnation means nothing. What matters are facts on the ground, and Russia is currently creating them.
LA RUSSOPHOBE RESPONDS: How predictable. You can’t decide whether the U.S. is condemning Russia or whether it doesn’t matter that it is. How neo-Soviet of you! But your nervousness and confusion is quite understandable given the psychotic behavior of the government you seem to adore. China is delighted to see Russia alienate all its potential European allies, it will make it that much easier for China to seize Siberia. Russia will now get exactly the same treatment from the NATO countries that the USSR got, treatment that brought the USSR to its knees. Instead of trying to avoid that, you are in neo-Soviet denial and essentially encouraging it. That is sickness.
China to seize Siberia? Jeez – I thought only rabid Russian nationalists suffer from that delusion. If you really believe the Chinese are going to militarily attack Russia, you are truly delusional.
And, no, American condemnation means nothing if not backed by action. And – there is no action.
The battle for Central Asia will be lost in Georgia. And America lost it, for better or for worse. Get used to it. There probably was no way for America to win it in the first place.
And Europe is far to eager to maintain good relations with Russia than to jeopardize it over Georgia, which has nothing to contribute to Europe (apart from moral credit, which buys nothing).
And something I don’t understand is this: why would you be upset if Russia gets the same treatment as the USSR by NATO countries? Why would you be in favor of avoiding that? Don’t make no sense to me.
LA RUSSOPHOBE:
Your statements are profoundly imbecilic and not really worth responding to. You offer nothing of value to this blog, no facts, no links, nothing but your empty, arrogant, insular rhetoric. You seem quite silly to us. But we’ll make one more attempt.
Chamberlain said it was “delusional” to think Hitler would attack Poland, didn’t he? A few days ago, many might have said it was “delusional” to think Russia would use strategic bombers to attack Tbilisi, or blow up apartment buildings in downtown Gori. But it has done so. China’s population will expand outside its borders and Siberia is the only way it can go. Russia loses a million from its population every year, and soon will be in no position to resist. The Chinese will be able to simply move in without firing a shot.
These events are still unfolding. For you to expect “action” to have been taken already is simply childish. The West has issued an ultimatum and given Russia the chance to pull back. When the dust settles, if necessary, cold war retaliation will begin just as in Soviet times. You seem oblivious of the fact that such retalation totally destroyed the USSR. If you think Russia is militarily or economically positioned to hold Central Asia by force over time as the USSR once did, you are a hysterial lunatic.
Russia’s relations with Europe, which views Russia as barbaric, were already seriously deteriorating because of Russia’s weaponization of energy. Seeing this carnage, world leaders are condemning Russia in the strongest terms, and seeing America in a totally different light.
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4497344.ece
Russia only matters becuse of energy; now, Europe sees the need to wean itself from Russian energy and return to the cold war and finish the job.
You don’t understand why we don’t want to see Russia destroyed because you have not taken the time to actually read this blog. Instead, you simply launch hysterial baseless tirades because of your vacuous, empty assumptions about what we believe. We want Russia to be a happy, successful country. Many of us have spent time living there, and hate to see our friends destroyed. Our blog makes that perfectly clear, but you choose not to read it. That makes you an ignoramus.
You’re an ignorant imbecile and you degrade this blog with your gibberish. Please get lost.