Sunday, August 10, 2008
While CNN covers The 2008 Gumball Rally, a war rages on in Georgia.
*OH SNAP! CNN commemorates Isaac Hayes with long clips of his appearance on South Park. Wow.*
Anyways...
World leaders have appealed for a ceasefire in the conflict, which erupted after Georgia launched a huge offensive aimed at imposing its control over the rebel province with its large Russian population.
Separatist leaders in the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali claim that more than a thousand people have been killed in Georgian shelling.
"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".
Georgia claims that Russian aircraft have bombed two of its airbases, and that it has shot down five Russian jets.
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia described the situation as "war". "Russia is fighting a war with us in our own territory," he said in an interview with CNN.
Moscow has denied sending aircraft into Georgian territory, but indicated that its forces have engaged with Georgian troops.
Sergei Lavrov, Russia's foreign minister, accused the Georgians of carrying out "ethnic cleansing" on the people of South Ossetia, most of whom have Russian passports.
The conflict threatens to draw in other world powers, with Mr Saakashvili considered a key ally of the West. The US has declared that it supports Georgia's "territorial integrity".
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."(More Info)
Could this be Russia warming up its military, possibly flaunting their strength just like China shooting down a satellite in SPACE with a missile last year?
While Vice President Dick-Rider Cheney threatens Russia with soft rhetoric, former Georgian Foreign Minister Salome Zurabishvili points out the U.S.'s military support of Georgia's military and also says, "says the American military is 'monitoring' the current situation and 'supervises' the 'strategic' aspects of the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline."
Georgia Tests It's U.S. Provided Weapons Against Protesters
When will the American mainstream media stop covering up important world events from the population?
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Jay Midnyte: This is very un-settling indeed. The issues involved are fairly small and the Russian Republic has had a "hands-off" attitude towards the Central Asian FSU states to this point. Chechnya is a whole other story. Chechnya did not claim sovreign status in 1991 which they could have done with some negotiation. They always could have had the same status as the Komi region in the North and the Amur region along the Chinese border as an independent state much as any state in the US or more accurately like Scotland to England.
It is especially surprising given the fairly cozy relationship Russia and Georgia have had up to now given the role Eduard Shevardnadze played along with Yeltsin in pushing Gorbachev further and further along the reform path to the ultimate dissolution of the USSR, which allowed for Medvedev's government today.
It's a fool's errand for both Russia and Georgia. It must serve some purpose such as new violence in Central Asia being a bullish factor in crude oil markets.
Colombia and Venezuela have had reasonable beef with each other and all-out war has been avoided so far. Re-annexing Georgia does Russia no good and Georgia had no need to reassert sovreignty it already had.
We'll see how it plays out, but one thing's for sure, THIS IS OBAMA'S "AUGUST SURPRISE." I hope he's sitting with Brzezinski and Lake right now figuring out his angle on this because it is pointing out a weakness in his pre-convention strategy. He has bullshitted his way through the last 6 weeks instead of doing his economic and foreign policy homework. It's not fair that he has to because Obama sleeping is a better foreign policy president than McCain is wide awake, but the voters haven't appreciated that yet.
Bush has made a clear signal that the US has Georgia in this game. That means Obama's' kind of stuck. He can either agree with everything McCain says about the region or he can seem "UnAmerican."
Obama knew that "war" would be a card the Republicans would play he just got snookered into worrying about Iran and never bothered to look elsewhere. Given that he had that celebratory trip to Europe and then this happens, he looks terrible.
And instead of getting ahead of this, he makes the absolute wrong move of trying to win White America back by coming out with this anti-Affirmative Action foolishness.
My hat's off to Torrance because he kind of anticipated something like this with Obama and McCain. If Obama doesn't LEAD on SOMETHING and Torrance's viewpoint represents maybe 2 of the 9 percentage point edge Obama picks up from African-American voters, who either stay home or vote for Barr or McKinney, Obama's done.
Americans of any stripe can apparently tolerate McCain. The rest of the world cannot and desperately needs a strong and confident Obama in the Oval Office who can avert a re-ignition of the cold war and take the first few baby steps toward healing the economy.
No Obama, no help from the rest of the West for you folks. Outside of a small handful of Western countries, the West will either be neutral or pro-Russia in this especially now that Russia is a Western capitalist state.
Now, I know why there was a tidal wave of money in the futures markets for McCain this week with no perceptible changes in US opinion. The markets anticipate these things way before the pollsters and the people do.
I like Obama fine and I wish I could still vote in the US, but there has never been a riper moment than right now for Ron Paul's message. Ron Paul could brush something like this off saying the US is not the world's policeman and leave it at that. Obama's going to have to find a very clever finesse. I think he can but it'll be an effort for him whereas for Ron Paul that would be another day at the office.
see
told u
them news papers on my blog for a reason
turkish daily news - been front page since thursday
I C now Torrance.
Kelso hopefully Obama addresses this, but most likely not.
Interesting for me//
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