Gog and Magog in the news

[HisDaughter]

"After the Georgian leadership lost their marbles, as they say, all the problems got worse and a military conflict erupted," Medvedev told Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin.

"This is a serious warning, a warning to all," he added. "And I believe we should handle other existing conflicts in this context."

I have noticed and I'm too tired to try and find the quotes from other articles tonight, that the Russians sure aren't lead to use any diplomacy or political correctness when they talk.   
  Quite barbaric.

[Shammu]

Russia seeks Chinese support as West warns of new dangers
By Damien McElroy
27 Aug 2008

Russia sought to bolster its diplomatic position in its stand off with the West over Georgia today by dispatching President Dmitry Medvedev to meet his Chinese counterpart.

Mr Medvedev was to meet President Hu Jintao at a Central Asian security summit in Tajikistan in an encounter that is unlikely to yield the sort of criticism that Russia has attracted from Europe and America over its actions in the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

China has kept a diplomatic silence over events in Georgia so far. Foreign Ministry spokesman, Qin Gang refused to endorse Russia's decision to recognise the two enclaves. "We have noted the latest developments of the situation, and we hope relevant parties find a proper resolution of the issue through dialogue."

But Russia also continues to play its military cards in the region. A senior military spokesman said that Moscow had ordered the navy to monitor Nato vessels in the Black Sea.

Russian relations with the West continue to deteriorate. A Kremlin statement hinted that President Medvedev held a tense telephone call with the German Chancellor Angela Merkel. "Dmitry Medvedev gave an exhaustive explanation in relation to questions Angela Merkel had on this issue, confirming Russia's commitment to realising agreed principles," it said.

Afterwards the German cabinet said it would send an additional 15 military personnel as observers to Georgia.

The French foreign minister, Bernard Kouchner, declared that Europe could never accept the Russian-backed independence declarations by the two regions and warned that Moscow would set its sights on Ukraine if it was unchallenged over Georgia. "That is not impossible," he said. "I repeat that it is very dangerous, and there are other objectives that one can suppose are objectives for Russia, in particular the Crimea, Ukraine and Moldova."

David Miliband, the foreign secretary, arrived in the Ukrainian capital, Kiev today for a visit designed to demonstrate Western support for the former Soviet republic, which hosts Russia's Black Sea fleet at the Crimean port of Sevastopol.

Russia's ambassador to another divided country in the former Eastern bloc, Moldova held up the example of Georgia as a warning over its internal divisions. Valeri Kuzmin told the Moldovan leadership to avoid a "bloody and catastrophic trend of events" in a separatist region of Trans-Dniester. It broke away from Moldova in 1990 and is supported by Russia but is not recognised internationally. Russia has 1,500 troops stationed there to guard weapons facilities.

Russia seeks Chinese support as West warns of new dangers

[Shammu]

Russia and China continue to forge ahead with billions of dollars in new investments that will enable Iran to finance its military buildup and fund terrorist groups. Washington has had some success in persuading European allies not to go forward with projects that would provide capital for Iranian weapons-of-mass-destruction programs and terror.

Chinese oil giant Sinopec, in which the firm agreed to purchase Iranian natural gas and help develop one of Iran’s largest oil fields. In exchange, Tehran agreed to export 150,000 barrels of oil per day to China at “market prices.” THE BOTTOM LINE is that, even as Washington and its allies work to tighten sanctions against Tehran, RUSSIA & CHINA, permanent members of the U.N. Security Council, are doing everything they can to negate any beneficial effect that sanctions could have.

[Shammu]

Russia threatens military response to US missiles

Tue Aug 26, 2:53 PM ET

MOSCOW - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is warning his country may respond to a U.S. missile shield in Europe through military means.

Medvedev says that the deployment of an anti-missile system close to Russian borders "will of course create additional tensions."

"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 officials have already warned of a military response to the U.S. plans, but the statement by the Russian leader was likely to further aggravate already tense relations with the West. The comments come after Medvedev recognized two Georgian regions as independent nations, prompting criticism from the U.S. and Europe.

Russia threatens military response to US missiles

[Shammu]

Western nations warn Russia to `change course'

By JIM HEINTZ, Associated Press Writer 28 minutes ago

TBILISI, Georgia - Western leaders warned the Kremlin on Wednesday to "change course," hoping to keep the conflict from growing into a new Cold War after tensions broadened to imperil a key nuclear pact and threaten U.S. meat and poultry trade with Russia.

Moscow said it was NATO expansion and Western support for Georgia that was causing the new East-West divisions, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States for using military ships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.

Meanwhile, Georgia slashed its embassy staff in Moscow to protest Russia's recognition of the two separatist enclaves that were the flashpoint for the five-day war between the two nations earlier this month.

The tensions have spread to the Black Sea, which Russia shares unhappily with three nations that belong to NATO and two others that desperately want to, Ukraine and Georgia. Some Ukrainians fear Moscow might set its sights on their nation next.

In moves evocative of Cold War cat-and-mouse games, a U.S. military ship carrying humanitarian aid docked at a southern Georgian port, and Russia sent a missile cruiser and two other ships to a port farther north in a show of force.

The maneuvering came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had said his nation was "not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War." For the two superpowers of the first Cold War, the United States and Russia, repercussions from this new conflict could be widespread.

Russia's agriculture minister said Moscow could cut poultry and pork import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, hitting American producers hard and thereby raising prices for American shoppers.

Russians sometimes refer to American poultry imports as "Bush's legs," a reference to the frozen chicken shipped to Russia amid economic troubles following the 1991 Soviet collapse, during George H.W. Bush's presidency.

And a key civil nuclear agreement between Moscow and Washington appears likely to be shelved until next year at the earliest.

On the diplomatic front, the West's denunciations of Russia grew louder.

Britain's top diplomat equated Moscow's offensive in Georgia with the Soviet tanks that invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring democratic reforms in 1968, and demanded Russia "change course."

"The sight of Russian tanks in a neighboring country on the 40th anniversary of the crushing of the Prague Spring has shown that the temptations of power politics remain," Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.

Western leaders have accused Russia of using inappropriate force when it sent tanks and troops into Georgia earlier this month. The Russian move followed a Georgian crackdown on the pro-Russian South Ossetia.

Many of the Russian forces that drove deep into Georgia after fighting broke out Aug. 7 have pulled back, but hundreds are estimated to still be manning checkpoints that Russia calls "security zones" inside Georgia proper.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a phone call to immediately fulfill the EU-brokered cease-fire by pulling all troops out of Georgia.

The Kremlin rejected Western criticism, and Tuesday even suggested the conflict could spread. It starkly warned another former Soviet republic, tiny Moldova, that aggression against a breakaway region there could provoke a military response.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Russia of trying to redraw the borders of Georgia. His foreign minister went further, suggesting Russia had engaged in "ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia, one of the two Georgian rebel territories.

And the seven nations that along with Russia make up the G-8 issued a statement that underlined Russia's growing estrangement from the West.

The seven — United States, Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and Italy — said Russia's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries violated the Georgia's territorial integrity.

Two weeks ago, officials had told The Associated Press that the G-7 were weighing whether to effectively disband what is known as the G-8 by throwing Moscow out.

Georgia's prime minister put damage from the Russian war at about $1 billion but said it did not fundamentally undermine the Georgian economy. Georgia, which has a national budget of about $3 billion, hopes for substantial Western aid to recover.

The United Nations has estimated nearly 160,000 people had to flee their homes, but hundreds have returned to Georgian cities like Gori in the past week.

In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, boxes of aid were sorted, stacked and loaded onto trucks Wednesday for some of the tens of thousands of people still displaced by the fighting. Some boxes were stamped "USAID — from the American People."

In the Black Sea, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, carrying 34 tons of humanitarian aid, docked in Batumi. The missile destroyer USS McFaul was there earlier this week delivering aid, and the U.S. planned to leave it in the Black Sea for now.

A spokesman for Putin, quoted by Interfax news agency, observed: "Military ships are hardly a common way to deliver such aid."

The U.S. has used military ships to deliver humanitarian aid before, including in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The U.S. Embassy in Georgia had earlier said the Dallas was headed to the port city of Poti but then retracted the statement. A Georgian official said the port in Poti could have been mined by Russian forces.

Poti's port reportedly suffered heavy damage from the Russian military. In addition, Russian troops have established checkpoints on the northern approach to the city, and a U.S. ship docking there could have been seen as a direct challenge.

Meanwhile, the Russian missile cruiser Moskva and two smaller missile boats anchored at the port in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, some 180 miles north of Batumi. The Russian Navy says the ships will be involved in peacekeeping operations.

Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that NATO has already exhausted the number of forces it can have in the Black Sea, according to international agreements, and warned Western nations against sending more ships.

"Can NATO — which is not a state located in the Black Sea — continuously increase its group of forces and systems there? It turns out that it cannot," Nogovitsyn was quoted as saying Wednesday by Interfax.

Western nations warn Russia to `change course'

[Shammu]

Medvedev looks east for support on Georgia
Wed Aug 27, 2008 7:16pm EDT

Jon Boyle

MOSCOW (Reuters) - Russian President Dmitry Medvedev looked east on Thursday for support for Moscow's tough line over Georgia, which has inflamed relations with the West and prompted talk of a new Cold War.

The Kremlin leader flew to Tajikistan for a summit of a regional security forum with China and four Central Asian states at which the crisis in Georgia was likely to be discussed.

Moscow's allies in the former Soviet Union, Asia and elsewhere usually side with the Kremlin against the West on contentious issues, but have been notable for their silence since Russia fought a brief war with Georgia this month.

Citing the need to avert a "genocide" against civilians, Moscow sent troops and tanks into Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia and a second pro-Moscow region, Abkhazia, this month.

On Tuesday the Kremlin recognized them as independent states, prompting Georgia to withdraw all but two of its diplomats from Moscow. The Georgian parliament was to debate the future of ties with its giant northern neighbor on Thursday.

Georgia's close ally, the United States, and European powers have demanded Russia respect a French-brokered ceasefire and withdraw all its troops from Georgia, including a Moscow-imposed buffer zone whose legitimacy is disputed.

The Group of Seven rich nations, in a joint statement on Wednesday, also condemned Russia's recognition of Georgia's rebel regions and what it described as its excessive use of military force in Georgia.

Analysts see Moscow's actions as a bid to halt expanding Western influence in the Caucasus, a major oil and gas transit route from the Caspian Sea to the West that bypasses Russia.

The biggest prize for Russia would be to win the support of China when Medvedev meets President Hu Jintao at the summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) in the Tajik capital Dushanbe.

SEPARATIST FEARS

The SCO is dominated by Russia and China and comprises Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan. It claims the role of a security guarantor in Central Asia, earning the sobriquet "NATO of the East" by some observers.

Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesman Qin Gang told reporters in Beijing that South Ossetia would likely be discussed. But with most SCO members facing separatist rebellions of their own, outright support for Moscow's actions is seen as unlikely.

"China, which has own separatists, will be the biggest problem," said Alexei Mukhin, head of the Centre of Political Information think-tank. "The recognition of Abkhazia and South Ossetia is unacceptable for Beijing."

Beijing regards Taiwan as a renegade province and bristles at talk of anyone opening diplomatic relations with Taipei. The other four SCO members have their own reasons to adopt a "wait-and-see" position.

The four, all in ex-Soviet Central Asia, have built their foreign policy strategies on trying to maintain a balance between loyalty to Moscow and building ties with the West.

Analysts say the most Medvedev can hope for is that SCO leaders will say they understand Russia's motives, without going any further.

Moscow said it did not fear being isolated over recognizing Georgia's rebel provinces, saying drumming up support for its position was not its primary goal.

"We're not going to twist anyone's hands to make them support (recognition)," said Dmitry Peskov, spokesman for Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin.

WORRIED NEIGHBOURS

Russia's continued military presence in Georgia has angered the West -- European leaders are to discuss their response at an emergency summit on Monday.

Moscow says the troops are needed to protect civilians from Georgian aggression and that their presence is provided for under a French-brokered ceasefire, a view disputed by Paris.

The Georgia crisis has alarmed other former Soviet republics with sizeable Russian minorities, particularly Ukraine and the Baltic states. French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner said on Wednesday that Russia might have its eye on neighboring countries such as Ukraine and Moldova.

British Foreign Secretary David Miliband, on a visit to NATO aspirant Ukraine, said Medvedev had a big responsibility not to start a new Cold War.

But in reality, the West has little leverage over a newly confident Russia rolling in cash from high oil and gas prices.

Many Europeans states rely heavily on Russia for its hydrocarbons, transit routes to resupply Western forces in Afghanistan and diplomatic support for international pressure over Iran's nuclear program.

Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, who like Saakashvili has irked Moscow by seeking to join NATO and move out of Moscow's orbit, has condemned Russia's war with Georgia.

Yushchenko told Reuters he wanted to raise the question of increasing Russia's rent on its Sevastopol base in Ukraine's Crimea region, the headquarters of the Russian Black Sea fleet.

Moscow says any renegotiation would break a 1997 deal under which Moscow leases the base for $98 million a year until 2017.

Medvedev looks east for support on Georgia

[Shammu]

Georgia begs the West for help as Russia recognises rebel regions
August 27, 2008
James Hider in Akhalgori, and Catherine Philp, Diplomatic Correspondent

The champagne corks were popping and there was dancing in the streets yesterday as the tiny Georgian territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia celebrated Russia’s decision to recognise them as independent states.

But President Medvedev’s announcement was greeted elsewhere with widespread condemnation, and President Saakashvili of Georgia likened it to the way the Nazis carved up Czechoslovakia in 1938 — which led to the Second World War.

In a sombre television address, Mr Medvedev declared: “I have signed decrees on the recognition of the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Russia calls on other states to follow its example.”

In Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, office workers thronged the streets, drinking champagne while celebratory gunfire rang out. A giant green, white and red Abkhazian flag adorned the main square. “We feel happy. We all have tears in our eyes. We feel pride for our people,” said Aida Gubaz, a 38-year-old lawyer. “Everything we went through, now we are getting our reward.”

As America, Britain, France and Germany denounced Russia’s unilateral move, President Saakashvili held an emergency session of Georgia’s national security council. He described the Russian declaration as an annexation and accused his giant neighbour of seeking to provoke renewed fighting that would allow Russian armoured divisions to move around Tbilisi, the capital, and wipe Georgia off the map. “I have appealed to all leaders concerned to speed up Georgia’s Nato and EU integration,” he said — adding that he had received some positive signals from Western allies.

Russia’s recognition of the two disputed territories is seen widely as a payback for the West’s recognition of Kosovo’s independence from Serbia, a Russian ally. That stinging blow to Russian diplomacy, combined with the eastwards expansion of Nato in recent years, has raised the stakes in a power struggle that now stretches from the Balkans and Eastern Europe to the Caucasus and beyond.

Earlier Mr Saakashvili had told The Times that Russia was trying to build up forces near Akhalgori, only 20 miles (32km) from Tbilisi. From there, he said, they could control the hills around the capital in the same way the Serbian forces ringed Sarajevo in the Bosnian war. Asked if he feared a fresh Russian invasion, Mr Saakashvili said: “If there is no strong reaction from Europe, at any moment.”

He said that Vladimir Putin, at the time the President of Russia, had threatened him in 2006 with turning South Ossetia into “northern Cyprus”, a breakaway republic that has endured for three decades despite being recognised only by Turkey.

“I think the West has to rethink its strategy, Putin has been thinking about his strategy for a long time,” said Mr Saakashvili, who claimed that Russian forces had deployed SS20 missiles aimed at his chancery in the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali.

He called on the West to squeeze Russia by freezing foreign assets and denying Russian officials visas. “These are people in Moscow for whom there are two things, nationalism and capitalism,” he said. “All their money is in the West.” Mr Saakashvili said Britain had already denied visas to several senior Russian officials, without naming them.

He also called for the international community to cancel Russia’s right to host the 2014 Winter Olympics in the Black Sea resort of Sochi, just up the coast from Abkhazia.

“It reminds me of the 1936 Olympics,” he said, referring to the games held in Berlin and hosted by Adolf Hitler. He also compared Moscow to Hitler’s regime when he likened Russia’s diplomatic and military backing for South Ossetia and Abkhazia to Nazi Germany’s annexation of the Sudetenland in 1938.

The best way for the West to halt Russian encroachments, he said, was to accept Georgia into Nato at a December meeting and grant a massive reconstruction project to jumpstart the shattered economy.

“We are in a very precarious situation right now,” he said. “We need assistance now.”

Georgia begs the West for help as Russia recognises rebel regions

[Shammu]

Russia 'Not Afraid' of a New Cold War
Russian President Says His Country Does Not Want a new Cold War, But Is Not Afraid of One Either

MOSCOW, Aug 26, 2008 —

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in the midst of one of the lowest points in the Russia-West relationship since the breakup of the Soviet Union 17 years ago, said Tuesday that his country did not seek a new Cold War  but neither was it afraid of one.

"We are not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a new Cold War," Medvedev was quoted as saying Tuesday by the ITAR-Tass news agency. "But we don't want it and in this situation everything depends on the position of our partners."

The statement comes hours after Medvedev recognized the independence of two Georgian rebel provinces, defying the West. The recognition  which Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice described as "extremely unfortunate"  follows a short but intense war with Western-allied Georgia earlier this month.

"If they want to preserve good relations with Russia in the West, they will understand the reason behind our decision," Medvedev said.

Medvedev said that he had signed a decree on the decision to recognize the separatist regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Few other nations are likely to follow the move.

Rice said the United States continued to regard both breakaway regions as "part of the internationally recognized borders of Georgia."

Speaking in Texas, White House spokesman Tony Fratto on Tuesday said Russia is making a number of "irrational" decisions that puts its place in the world at risk.

Fratto said the U.S. will use its veto power on the U.N. Security Council to make sure any effort to change the provinces' international status is "dead on arrival."

On the heels of Russia's first post-Soviet invasion of a foreign country, recognition was another stark demonstration of the Kremlin's determination to hold sway in lands where its clout is jeopardized by NATO's expansion and growing Western influence.

Meanwhile, the the United States dispatched military ships bearing aid to a port city still controlled by Russian troops.

Rice also accused Medvedev of failing to honor his nation's commitments under an internationally backed cease-fire.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel said Russia's recognition of the breakaway areas was "absolutely not acceptable." She insisted Medvedev's decision violates international agreements.

Medvedev 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.

In response, Russian tanks and troops drove deep into the U.S. ally's territory in a five-day war that Moscow saw as a justified response to a military threat in its backyard and the West viewed as a repeat of Soviet-style intervention in its vassal states.

"This is not an easy choice but this is the only chance to save people's lives," Medvedev said Tuesday in a televised address announcing Russia's recognition of the breakaway territories.

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

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

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.

Medvedev ignored Western warnings against recognizing the independence claims of the two regions, which broke from Georgian government control in early 1990s wars and have run their own affairs with Russian support.

After Russia's parliament urged the move in unanimous votes Monday, the U.S. State Department said recognition would be "unacceptable" and President Bush urged the Kremlin against it.

Russia 'Not Afraid' of a New Cold War

[Shammu]

Russia is Selling Hezbollah surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles

Posted on Thu Aug 28, 2008 at 08:53:26 AM PST
By: Elias Bejjani

Hezbollah's Leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah warned that his terrorist armed militia is now much, much, stronger than before the devastating war that took place in 2006 between his militia and Israel. He rhetorically and pompously alleged that his militia would destroy Israel if its army wages any attacks against Lebanon.

Nasrallah issued this threat last Saturday at a Boy Scout ceremony in Beirut, as a response to Israel's Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's remark last week that "if Lebanon becomes a Hezbollah state, then we won't have any restrictions" in striking the country.  Olmert claimed that during the last war, Israel did not use all of its firepower because the enemy was Hezbollah and not its host country Lebanon.
 
Nasrallah would not have been in this threatening position if the free world countries, Arab nations and the UN General Council have been seriously addressing the numerous violations against the UNSCR Resolutions 1559 and 1701 Hezbollah, Syria and Iran committed.
 
Israel and the rest of the Middle East countries, as well as the USA and its European allies, are all fully aware that Hezbollah has been stockpiling all kinds of lethal weapons in its huge arsenal, and preparing for another war against Israel once the Iran masters instruct its leadership to instigate it.
 
Nasrallah, other prominent Hezbollah Military and religious dignitaries, as well as the Iranian Mullahs, are not keeping their hostile and aggressive schemes a secret. On the contrary they all have made them public and in crystal clear straightforward warnings and threatening messages. They have been saying loudly that in case Iran's nuclear facilities are attacked by Israel or the USA, Israel will be an actual target for Hezbollah's missiles.
 
One wonders why, for heaven's sake, all the free world countries and the UN are cajoling and appeasing this terrorist militia, and accordingly succumbing more and more to its threats and blackmails. They all with deadly silence have witnessed time after time Hezbollah's blatant infringements on all the UN Resolutions regarding Lebanon, especially UNSCR 1559 and UNSCR 1701 that stipulates the disarmament of this militia, and for the implementation of the Armistice Accord between Lebanon and Israel.

Not even one free world country lifted a finger when Hezbollah recently conquered West Beirut, and attempted to take over Mount Lebanon. And now they are again so indifferent while Hezbollah is adding to its arsenal Russian advanced surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles.
 
The Italian newspaper "Corriere della Sera" reported last week that Hezbollah's terrorist organization representatives visited Russia in early July, and signed a deal to purchase surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles. The newspaper stated that three high-ranking Hezbollah officials showed great interest to buy Russian weapons which have been effective in the recent 2006 war with Israel.
 
Noting that the three men entered Russia with Iranian passports, and visited the Sixth International Russian Weapon Exhibition under the status of distinguished guests.

In an interview with the Israeli newspaper "Maariv", the Italian reporter who broke this piece of news stated that Hezbollah's representatives kept a very low profile during the visit, and did in fact sign a number of private contracts to buy air defense systems and anti-tank missiles after the exhibition was closed.

Very briefly, and without any personal opinion or analysis, this important report states openly that Hezbollah, the terrorist organization is violating clause eight of  the UNSCR 1701 which stated: "No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government."
UNSCR 1701 clause eight :"
8. Calls for Israel and Lebanon to support a permanent ceasefire and a long-term solution based on the following principles and elements:
*Full respect for the Blue Line by both parties;
*security arrangements to prevent the resumption of hostilities, including the establishment between the Blue Line and the Litani river of an area free of any armed *personnel, assets and weapons other than those of the government of Lebanon and of UNIFIL as authorized in paragraph 11, deployed in this area;
*Full implementation of the relevant provisions of the Taif Accords, and of resolutions 1559 (2004) and 1680 (2006), that require the disarmament of all armed *groups in Lebanon, so that, pursuant to the Lebanese cabinet decision of July 27, 2006, there will be no weapons or authority in Lebanon other than that of the Lebanese state;
*No foreign forces in Lebanon without the consent of its government;
*No sales or supply of arms and related materiel to Lebanon except as authorized by its government;
*Provision to the United Nations of all remaining maps of land mines in Lebanon in Israel's possession;

Why are the UN and the Lebanese authorities turning a blind eye to this dangerous matter, which is a clear breach of UNSCR 1701 and Lebanese laws?

We call on the UN Security Council and the Lebanese government to open an immediate judicial inquiry into what was published in regards to the Hezbollah-Russian missile deal

Meanwhile Hezbollah that recently was given veto power in the newly appointed Lebanese government keeps openly and on daily basis carrying on its illegal activities at all levels and in all domains.
 
Hezbollah, the Iranian Army in Lebanon, is devouring Lebanon's institutions bit by bit through force, money, terrorism and intimidation, and enforcing day after day the Iranian Mullah's "Wilayat al-Faqih" religious-sectarian education, doctrine and culture.

In the same context of  Hezbollah's on going flagrant violations to all Lebanese and international laws, it has for the last two years been publishing media reports and announcements about the death of  its fighters "under the Martyrdom operations" tag.
 
Not even one of these mysterious reports and announcements indicated how, when and where these fighters "martyrs" were killed. The Lebanese Government, the Lebanese politicians, and the country's judiciary have all been keeping silent about this "Martyrdom" phenomenon. Meanwhile some reports stated lately that these so called "fighters" are dying either during training they are undergoing in Iran, or through guerrilla operations in Iraq against the US army.
 
The last of these mysterious reports was published by the Lebanese National Agency on August 23/08 under the title:" The Islamic Resistance carried a burial procession for a Martyr In Arab Saliem". The Arabic report stated that the "Islamic Resistance" and the Arab Saliem southern town residents participated in the burial procession that was carried out for "Martyr Jihadist", Ali Hassan Abu Zayied, who was killed while performing his Jihadist operation". The report did not say where, how or when this "Hezbollah Jihadist" was killed. 
 
In this same context, but in the regional realm, Jim Kouri, in a report he published in the "Renew America web site", wrote on August 23/08: "Coalition forces picked up two suspected associates of the Kataib Hezbollah criminal network during operations this morning in Baghdad's New Baghdad district, military officials reported during a teleconference with bloggers and Internet journalists. Acting on intelligence tips, coalition forces raided the home of a suspected Kataib Hezbollah propaganda expert who is believed to have uploaded more than 30 attack videos to the criminal ring's now-defunct Web site. Coalition forces entered the house, where they detained two of the wanted man's brothers, who are believed to be involved in his criminal enterprises. Coalition forces have detained more than 15 suspected members of Kataib Hezbollah in the last two months, officials said. Kataib Hezbollah is reported to receive funding, logistics, and weapons such as improvised rocket-assisted mortars from Iran. The group also is believed to receive guidance or direction from the Quds Force of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps".

The crucial question here, does Lebanon really has a functional and free Government and a Judiciary? If so, both and with no hesitation must prove their authority in practice by pursuing these critical reports with impartially, courage, seriousness, national conscience, and in full accordance with the country's law. The same applies to the UN General Council who should immediately look into the matter and address the UNSCR 1701 violations committed by Hezbollah, Syria and Iran.

Russia is Selling Hezbollah surface-to-air and anti-tank missiles

[Shammu]

The Truth About Russia in Georgia
Michael Totten
August 26, 2008

Virtually everyone believes Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili foolishly provoked a Russian invasion on August 7, 2008, when he sent troops into the breakaway district of South Ossetia. “The warfare began Aug. 7 when Georgia launched a barrage targeting South Ossetia,” the Associated Press reported over the weekend in typical fashion.

Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn't start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994. At the same time, the Russian military sent its invasion force bearing down on Georgia from the north side of the Caucasus Mountains on the Russian side of the border through the Roki tunnel and into Georgia. This happened before Saakashvili sent additional troops to South Ossetia and allegedly started the war.

Regional expert, German native, and former European Commission official Patrick Worms was recently hired by the Georgian government as a media advisor, and he explained to me exactly what happened when I met him in downtown Tbilisi. You should always be careful with the version of events told by someone on government payroll even when the government is as friendly and democratic as Georgia's. I was lucky, though, that another regional expert, author and academic Thomas Goltz, was present during Worms' briefing to me and signed off on it as completely accurate aside from one tiny quibble.

Goltz has been writing about the Caucasus region for almost 20 years, and he isn't on Georgian government payroll. He earns his living from the University of Montana and from the sales of his books Azerbaijan Diary, Georgia Diary and Chechnya Diary. Goltz experienced these three Caucasus republics at their absolute worst, and he knows the players and the events better than just about anyone. Every journalist in Tbilisi seeks him out as the old hand who knows more than the rest of us put together, and he wanted to hear Patrick Worms' spiel to reporters in part to ensure its accuracy.

“You,” Worms said to Goltz just before he started to flesh out the real story to me, “are going to be bored because I'm going to give some back story that you know better than I do.”

“Go,” Goltz said. “Go.”

The back story began at least as early as the time of the Soviet Union. I turned on my digital voice recorder so I wouldn't miss anything that was said.

“A key tool that the Soviet Union used to keep its empire together,” Worms said to me, “was pitting ethnic groups against one another. They did this extremely skillfully in the sense that they never generated ethnic wars within their own territory. But when the Soviet Union collapsed it became an essential Russian policy to weaken the states on its periphery by activating the ethnic fuses they planted.

“They tried that in a number of countries. They tried it in the Baltic states, but the fuses were defused. Nothing much happened. They tried it in Ukraine. It has not happened yet, but it's getting hotter. They tried it in Moldova. There it worked, and now we have Transnitria. They tried it in Armenia and Azerbaijan and it went beyond their wildest dreams and we ended up with a massive, massive war. And they tried it in two territories in Georgia, which I'll talk about in a minute. They didn't try it in Central Asia because basically all the presidents of the newly independent countries were the former heads of the communist parties and they said we're still following your line, Kremlin, we haven't changed very much.”

He's right about the massive war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, though few outside the region know much about it. Armenians and Azeris very thoroughly transferred Azeris and Armenians “back” to their respective mother countries after the Soviet Union collapsed through pogroms, massacres, and ethnic-cleansing. Hundreds of thousands of refugees fled savage communal warfare in terror. The Armenian military still occupies the ethnic-Armenian Nagorno-Karabakh region in southwestern Azerbaijan. It's another so-called “frozen conflict” in the Caucasus region waiting to thaw. Moscow takes the Armenian side and could blow up Nagorno-Karabakh, and subsequently all of Azerbaijan, at any time. After hearing the strident Azeri point of view on the conflict for a week before I arrived in Georgia, I'd say that particular ethnic-nationalist fuse is about one millimeter in length.

“Now the story starts really in 1992 when this fuse was lit in Georgia,” Worms said. “Now, there's two territories. There's Abkhazia which has clearly defined administrative borders, and there's South Ossetia that doesn't. Before the troubles started, Abkhazia was an extremely ethnically mixed area: about 60 percent Georgian, 20 percent Abkhaz, and 20 percent assorted others – Greeks, Estonians, Armenians, Jews, what have you. In Ossetia it was a completely integrated and completely mixed Ossetian-Georgian population. The Ossetians and the Georgians have never been apart in the sense that they were living in their own little villages and doing their own little things. There has been inter-marriage and a sense of common understanding going back to distant history. The Georgians will tell you about King Tamar – that's a woman, but they called her a king – and she was married to an Ossetian. So the fuse was lit and two wars start, one in Abkhazia and one in South Ossetia.”

South Ossetia is inside Georgia, while North Ossetia is inside Russia.

“The fuse was not just lit in Moscow,” he said. “It was also lit in Tbilisi. There was a guy in charge here, Zviad Gamsakhurdia, a little bit like [Serbian Nationalist war criminal in Bosnia Radovan] Karadzic. He was a poet. He was an intellectual. But he was one of these guys who veered off into ethnic exclusivism. He made stupid declarations like Georgia is only for the Georgians. If you're running a multi-ethnic country, that is really not a clever thing to say. The central control of the state was extremely weak. The Russians were trying to make things worse. There was a civil war between Georgians and Tbilisi. But the key thing is that here there were militias, Georgian militias, and some of them pretty nasty.”

Thomas Goltz then interjected his only critique of Patrick Worms' explanation of events that led to this war. “It started in 1991,” he said, “but it went into 1992 and 1993, as well.” Then he turned to me. “This guy, [Zviad] Gamsakhurdia, was driven from power from across the street. They bombed this place.” He meant the Marriott Hotel. We stood in the lobby where Worms had set up his media relations operation. “There's a horrible picture in my Georgia book of this facade.”

“Of this building?” I said.

“Yeah,” Goltz said. “That was December 1991. He fled in December 1991.”

“Where did he go?” I said.

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[Shammu]

“To Chechnya,” Goltz said. “Of course. He led the government in exile until he came back in 1993 then died obscurely in the mountains, of suicide some people say, others say cancer. Then he was buried in Grozny.” He turned then again to Patrick Worms. “1991,” he said. “Not 1992.”

“1991,” Worms said. “Okay.”

So aside from that quibble, everything else Worms said to me was vouched for as accurate by the man who literally wrote the book on this conflict from the point of view of both academic and witness.

“So in 1991,” Worms said, “things here explode. And basically it gets pretty nasty. Thomas can tell you what happened. Read his book, it's worth it. And by the time the dust settles, there are between 20,000 and 30,000 dead. Many atrocities committed by both sides, but mostly – at least that's what the Georgians say – by the Abkhaz. And the end result is everybody gets kicked out. Everybody who is not Abkhaz or Russian gets kicked out. That's about 400,000 people. 250,000 of those still live as Internally Displaced Persons within Georgia. As for the rest: the Greeks have gone back to Greece, the Armenians to Armenia, some Abkhaz to Turkey, etc.

“When it's over,” he said, “you've got two bits of Abkhazia which are not ethnic Abkhazia. You've got Gali district which is filled with ethnic Georgians. And you've got the Kodori Gorge which is filled with another bunch of Georgians. So there the end result was a classic case of ethnic-cleansing, but the world didn't pay much attention because it was happening at the same time as the Yugoslav wars. Ossetia was different. Ossetia also had a war that started about the same time, and it was also pretty nasty, but it never quite succeeded in generating a consolidated bit of territory that Ossetians could keep their own. When the dust settled there, you ended up with a patchwork of Georgian and Ossetian villages. Before the war, Ossetians and Georgians lived together in the same villages. After the war they lived in separate villages. But there were still contacts. People were talking, people were trading. It wasn't quite as nasty as it was in Abkhazia.

“Now fast forward to the Rose Revolution,” he said.

The Rose Revolution was a popular bloodless revolution that brought Georgia's current president Mikheil Saakashvili to power and replaced the old man of Georgian politics Eduard Shevardnadze who basically ran the country Soviet-style.

“The first thing that Misha [Mikheil Saakashvili] did was try to poke his finger in [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's eyes as many times as possible,” Worms said, “most notably by wanting to join NATO. The West, in my view, mishandled this situation. America gave the wrong signals. So did Europe.”

“Can you elaborate on that a bit?” I said.

“I will,” he said. “But basically the encouragement was given despite stronger and stronger Russian signals that a Georgian accession to NATO would not be tolerated. Fast forward to 2008, to this year, to the meeting of NATO heads of state that took place in Bucharest, Romania, where Georgia was promised eventual membership of the organization but was refused what it really wanted, which was the so-called Membership Action Plan. The Membership Action Plan is the bureaucratic tool NATO uses to prepare countries for membership. And this despite the fact that military experts will tell you that the Georgian Army, which had been reformed root and branch with American support, was now in better shape and more able to meet NATO aspirations than the armies of Albania and Macedonia which got offered membership at the same meeting.

“Just a little bit of back story again, in July of 2007 Russia withdrew from the Conventional Forces Treaty in Europe. This is a Soviet era treaty that dictates where NATO and the Warsaw Pact can keep their conventional armor around their territories. Russia started moving a lot of materiel south. After Bucharest, provocations started. Russian provocations started, and they were mostly in Abkhazia.

“One provocation was to use the Russian media to launch shrill accusations that the Georgian army was in Kodori preparing for an invasion of Abkhazia. Now if you go up there – I took a bunch of journalists up there a few times – when you get to the actual checkpoint you have a wall of crumbling rock, a wooden bridge, another wall of crumbling rock, a raging torrent, and a steep mountainside filled with woods. It's not possible to invade out or invade in unless you've got air support. Which is why the Abkhaz were never able to kick these Georgians out. They just kept that bit of territory.”

He paused and looked over at Thomas Goltz as though he was bracing for a critique.

“I'm just doing what I've done already,” he said, “but this time I'm getting advice from an expert on how I'm doing.”

Thomas Goltz silently nodded.

“Kodori provocations,” Worms continued, “and other provocations. First the Russians had a peacekeeping base under a 1994 agreement that allowed them to keep the peace in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia. They added paratroopers, crack paratroopers, with modern weaponry there. That doesn't sound a lot like peacekeeping. A further provocation: they start shooting unmanned Georgian aircraft drones out the sky. One of them was caught on camera by the drone as it was about to be destroyed. The United Nations confirmed that it was a Russian plane that did this. It probably took off from an airbase that the Russians were supposed to have vacated a few years ago, but they never let the OSCE [Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe] in to check.

“The next provocation: On April 16 Putin signs a presidential decree recognizing the documents of Abkhazians and South Ossetians in Russia and vice versa. This effectively integrates these two territories into Russia's legal space. The Georgians were furious. So you have all these provocations mounting and mounting and mounting. Meanwhile, as of July, various air corps start moving from the rest of Russia to get closer to the Caucasus. These are obscure details, but they are available.

“Starting in mid July the Russians launched the biggest military exercise in the North Caucasus that they've held since the Chechnya war. That exercise never stopped. It just turned into a war. They had all their elite troops there, all their armor there, all their stuff there. Everyone still foolishly thought the action was going to be in Abkhazia or in Chechnya, which is still not as peaceful as they'd like it to be.

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[Shammu]

“The Georgians had their crack troops in Iraq. So what was left at their central base in Gori? Not very much. Just Soviet era equipment and not their best troops. They didn't place troops on the border with Abkhazia because they didn't want to provoke the Abkhaz. They were expecting an attempt on Kodori, but the gorge is in such a way that unless they're going to use massive air support – which the Abkhaz don't have – it's impossible to take that place. Otherwise they would have done it already.

“So fast forward to early August. You have a town, Tskhinvali, which is Ossetian, and a bunch of Georgian villages surrounding it in a crescent shape. There are peacekeepers there. Both Russian peacekeepers and Georgian peacekeepers under a 1994 accord. The Ossetians were dug in in the town, and the Georgians were in the forests and the fields between the town and the villages. The Ossetians start provoking and provoking and provoking by shelling Georgian positions and Georgian villages around there. And it's a classic tit for tat thing. You shell, I shell back. The Georgians offered repeated ceasefires, which the Ossetians broke.

“On August 3, the head of the local administration says he's evacuating his civilians. You also need to know one thing: you may be wondering what these areas live off, especially in Ossetia, there's no industry there. Georgia is poor, but Ossetia is poorer. It's basically a smuggler's paradise. There was a sting operation that netted three kilograms of highly enriched uranium. There are fake hundred dollar bills to the tune of at least 50 million dollars that have been printed. [South Ossetian “President” Eduard] Kokoity himself is a former wrestler and a former bodyguard who was promoted to the presidency by powerful Ossetian families as their puppet. What does that mean in practice? It means that if you are a young man, you have no choice. You can either live in absolute misery, or you can take the government's dime and join the militia. It happened in both territories.

“On top of that, for the last four years the Russians have been dishing out passports to anyone who asks in those areas. All you have to do is present your Ossetian or Abkhaz papers and a photo and you get a Russian passport on the spot. If you live in Moscow and try to get a Russian passport, you have the normal procedure to follow, and it takes years. So suddenly you have a lot of Ossetian militiamen and Abkhaz militiamen with Russian passports in effect paid by Russian subsidies.

“So back to the 3rd of August. Kokoity announces women and children should leave. As it later turned out, he made all the civilians leave who were not fighting or did not have fighting capabilities. On the same day, irregulars – Ingush, Chechen, Ossetians, and Cossacks – start coming in and spreading out into the countryside but don't do anything. They just sit and wait. On the 6th of August the shelling intensifies from Ossetian positions. And for the first time since the war finished in 1992, they are using 120mm guns.”

“Can I stop you for a second?” I said. I was still under the impression that the war began on August 7 and that Georgian President Saakashvili started it when he sent troops into South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali. What was all this about the Ossetian violence on August 6 and before?

He raised his hand as if to say stop.

“That was the formal start of the war,” he said. “Because of the peace agreement they had, nobody was allowed to have guns bigger than 80mm. Okay, so that's the formal start of the war. It wasn't the attack on Tskhinvali. Now stop me.”

“Okay,” I said. “All the reports I've read say Saakashvili started the war.”

“I'm not yet on the 7th,” he said. “I'm on the 6th.”

“Okay,” I said. He had given this explanation to reporters before, and he knew exactly what I was thinking.

“Saakashvili is accused of starting this war on the 7th,” he said.

“Right,” I said. “But that sounds like complete bs to me if what you say is true.”

Thomas Goltz nodded.

I later met wounded Georgian soldiers in a Tbilisi hospital who confirmed what Patrick Worms had told me about what happened when the war actually started. I felt apprehensive about meeting wounded soldiers. Would they really want to talk to someone in the media or would they rather spend their time healing in peace?

My translator spoke to some of the doctors in the hospital who directed us to Georgian soldiers and a civilian who were wounded in South Ossetia and felt okay enough to speak to a foreign reporter.

“Every day and every hour the Russian side lied,” Georgian soldier Kaha Bragadze said. “It must be stopped. If not today, then maybe tomorrow. My troops were in our village, Avnevi. On the 6th of August they blew up our troops' four-wheel-drives, our pickups. They blew them up. Also in this village – it was August 5th or 6th, I can't remember – they started bombing us with shells. Two soldiers died that day, our peacekeepers. The Ossetians had a good position on the hill. They could see all our positions and our villages, and they started bombing. They went to the top of the hill, bombed us, then went down. We couldn't see who was shooting at us.”

“Which day was this?” I said. “The 5th or the 6th?”

“I don't remember,” he said. “But it started that day from that place when two Georgians were killed.”

“Were they just bombing you the peacekeepers,” I said, “or also civilians and villages?”

“Before they started bombing us they took all the civilians out of their villages,” he said. “Then they started damaging our villages – houses, a gas pipe, roads, yards. They killed our animals. They evacuated their villages, then bombed our villages.”

Another Georgian soldier, Giorgi Khosiashvili, concurred

“I was a peace keeper as well,” he said, “but in another village. I was fired upon on August 6th. On the 5th of August they started shooting. They blew up our peacekeeping trucks. They put a bomb on the road and when they were driving they were blown up. They also mined the roads used by civilians. On the 6th of August they started bombing Avnevi. And at this time they took the civilians out of Tskhinvali and sent them to North Ossetia [inside Russia].”

“I saw this on TV,” said Alex, my translator. “They took the civilians, kids, women, and put them on the bus and sent them to North Ossetia.”

A civilian man, Koba Mindiashvili, shared the hospital room with the Georgian soldiers. He, too, was in South Ossetia where he lived outside Tskhinvali.

“When they started bombing my village,” he said, “I was running away and the soldiers wounded me. They robbed me and shot me in the leg with a Kalashnikov. I don't know if it was Russians or Ossetians. They took my car, took my gold chain, and shot me.”

“They didn't care if it was a house or a military camp,” Giorgi Khosiashvili said. “They bombed everything.”

“You actually saw this for yourself?” I said.

“Yes,” he said. “I saw it. It was the Russian military airplanes. If they knew it was a Georgian village, they bombed all the houses. Many civilians were killed from this bombing.”

“It was Russians or Ossetians who did this?” I said.

“It was Russians,” he said. “The Ossetians don't have any jets.”

Back at the Marriott Hotel in downtown Tbilisi, Patrick Worms continued fleshing out the rest of the story. “Let me tell you what happened on the 7th,” he said. “On the 6th, while this is going on, the integration minister who was until a few months ago an NGO guy and who believes in soft power things, tried to go there and meet the separatist leadership. The meeting doesn't happen for farcical reasons. The shelling intensifies during the night and there is, again, tit for tat, but this time with weapons coming from the South Ossetian side which are not allowed under the agreement. By that time, the Georgians were seriously worried. All their armor that was near Abkhazia starts moving, but they are tanks, they don't have tank transporters, so they move slowly. They don't make it back in time. On the 7th, this continues. That afternoon, the president announces a unilateral ceasefire, a different one from the previous ones. It means I stop firing first, and if you fire, I still won't fire back. That holds until the next part of the story.

“On the evening of the 7th, the Ossetians launch an all-out barrage focused on Georgian villages, not on Georgian positions. Remember, these Georgian villages inside South Ossetia – the Georgians have mostly evacuated those villages, and three of them are completely pulverized. That evening, the 7th, the president gets information that a large Russian column is on the move. Later that evening, somebody sees those vehicles emerging from the Roki tunnel [into Georgia from Russia]. Then a little bit later, somebody else sees them. That's three confirmations. It was time to act.

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[Shammu]

“What they had in the area was peacekeeping stuff, not stuff for fighting a war. They had to stop that column, and they had to stop it for two reasons. It's a pretty steep valley. If they could stop the Russians there, they would be stuck in the tunnel and they couldn't send the rest of their army through. So they did two things. The first thing they did, and it happened at roughly the same time, they tried to get through [South Ossetian capital] Tskhinvali, and that's when everybody says Saakashvili started the war. It wasn't about taking Ossetia back, it was about fighting their way through that town to get onto that road to slow the Russian advance. The second thing they did, they dropped a team of paratroopers to destroy a bridge. They got wiped out, but first they managed to destroy the bridge and about 15 Russian vehicles.

“The Georgians will tell you that they estimate that these two actions together slowed the Russian advance by 24 to 48 hours. That is what the world considered to be Misha's game. And you know why the world considers it that? Because here in South Ossetia was the head of the peacekeeping troops. He hasn't been in Iraq, he's a peace keeper. What have they been told for the last four years? They lived in a failed state, then there was the Rose Revolution – it wasn't perfect but, damn, now there's electricity, there's jobs, roads have been fixed – and what the Georgians have had drummed into them is that Georgia is now a constitutional state, a state of law and order. And everybody here knows that Ossetia is a gangster's smuggler's paradise. The whole world knows it, but here they know it particularly well. The peacekeepers had a military objective, and the first rule of warfare when you're talking to the media is not to reveal to your enemy what you're going to do. So they weren't going to blather into a microphone and say well, actually, I'm trying to go through Tskhinvali in order to stop the Russians. So what did he say instead? I'm here to restore constitutional order in South Ossetia. And that's it. With that, Georgia lost the propaganda war and the world believes Saakashvili started it. And the rest of the story...you know.”

“Let me make a couple of comments,” Goltz said.

“That,” Worms said, “to the best of my knowledge, is all true.”

“Let's just start at the ass end,” Goltz said to me. “This is your first time to the lands of the former Soviet Union?”

“Yes,” I said.

“The restoration of constitutional order,” he said, “may sound just like a rhetorical flourish with no echo in the American mindset. What it means in the post-Soviet mindset is what Boris Yeltsin was doing in Chechnya. This was the stupidest phrase this guy possibly could have used. That's why people want to lynch him.”

Goltz was referring to the head of the Georgian peacekeeping forces in South Ossetia. He turned then to Patrick Worms. “Your presentation was deliciously comprehensive. Perhaps it was...we'll ask our new friend Michael...too much information out of the gate to absorb.”

“I absorbed it,” I said.

“Okay,” Goltz said.

“Am I making any mistakes?” Worms said to Goltz. “Am I forgetting anything?”

“Well,” Goltz said, “there are some details that I would chip in. Who are the Ossetians and where do they live? This is the question that has been lost in all of the static from this story. This autonomy [South Ossetia] is an autonomous district, as opposed to an autonomous republic, with about 60,000 people max. So, where are the rest of the Ossetians? Guess where they live? Tbilisi. Here. There. Everywhere. There are more Ossetians – take a look around this lobby. You will find Ossetians here. Of those Ossetians who are theoretically citizens of the Republic of Georgia, 60,000 live there and around 40,000 live here.”

“What do they think about all this?” I said.

“They're scared as gotcha2,” Goltz said.

“Are they on the side of those who live in South Ossetia?” I said.

“No,” he said. “One of them is Georgia's Minister of Defense. [Correction: Georgia's Minister of Defense is Jewish, not Ossetian.] Georgia is a multi-ethnic republic. And the whole point of the Ossetian ethnic question is this: South Ossetia is part of Georgia.”

“Are reporters receptive to what you're saying?” I said to Worms.

“Everyone is receptive,” he said. “Everyone, regardless of nationality, even those who love Georgia, genuinely thought Saakashvili started it.”

“That's what I thought,” I said. “That's what everyone has been writing.”

“Yes,” he said. “Absolutely. We've been trying to tell the world about this for months. If you go back and look at the archives you'll see plenty of calls from the Georgian government saying they're really worried. Even some Russian commentators agree that this is exactly what happened. Don't forget, they sent in a lot of irregulars, Chechens, Cossacks, Ossetians, Ingush – basically thugs. Not normal Chechens or Ingush – thugs. Thugs out for a holiday. Many Western camera crews were robbed at gunpoint ten meters from Russian tanks while Russian commanders just stood there smoking their cigarettes while the irregulars...that happened to a Turkish TV crew. They're lucky to still be alive. Some of the Georgians were picked up by the irregulars. If they happened to be female, they got raped. If they happened to be male, they got shot immediately, sometimes tortured. Injured people we have in hospitals who managed to get out have had arms chopped off, eyes gouged out, and their tongues ripped out.”

Russian rules of engagement, so to speak, go down harder than communism. And the Soviet era habits of disinformation are alive and well.

“You also have to remember the propaganda campaign that came out,” he said. “Human Rights Watch is accusing the Russian authorities of being indirectly responsible for the massive ethnic cleansing of Georgians that happened in South Ossetia. The Ossetians are claiming that the Georgians killed 2,000 people in Tskhinvali, but when Human Rights Watch got in there a few days ago and talked to the hospital director, he had received 44 bodies. There was nobody left in that town. Plus it's the oldest law of warfare: have your guns in populated areas, and when the enemy responds, show the world your dead women and children.

“Right,” I said. “That goes on a lot where I usually work, in the Middle East.”

“Yes,” he said. “That's exactly what the Russians were doing.”

I can not post the link because of paypal donations.

[Shammu]

Georgia War Shows Russia `Force to Be Reckoned With'

By Sebastian Alison

Aug. 28 (Bloomberg) -- When British General Sir Michael Rose commanded United Nations forces protecting Bosnia in the mid-1990s, he gained first-hand knowledge of Russia's army, which participated in the mission.

``They were worse than useless,'' the 68-year-old retired officer said in an interview.

Not any more.

Russia's five-day drubbing of the U.S.-trained and equipped Georgian military this month followed a 5 trillion ruble ($200 billion) buildup undertaken in 2006 and lessons learned from misadventures in Afghanistan and Chechnya.

``Today they're a reinvented institution and a military force to be reckoned with'' after ``10 years of humiliation and pressure from NATO,'' Rose said.

The resurgent military deployed in Georgia gives Russia a credible threat of force as it seeks to check the pro-Western aspirations of its neighbors. Backed by the U.S., the North Atlantic Treaty Organization in April promised Georgia and Ukraine, both former Soviet republics, eventual membership in the military alliance.

``The Russians regard the Georgian episode as merely the start of a sustained campaign to restore their country's sphere of influence,'' wrote Jonathan Eyal, director of International Security Studies at London's Royal United Services Institute, on its Web site. ``It is now impossible to persuade the East Europeans that a Russian threat is remote.''

Booming Economy

Supported by a booming, oil-fueled economy, Russia has been increasing military spending since Vladimir Putin, now prime minister, became president in 2000, said Konstantin Makiyenko, a Russia defense analyst for the Center for Strategy and Technology Analysis.

The 2006 buildup increased spending further. Russia's annual military budget likely will rise to 1.029 trillion rubles this year and 1.267 trillion rubles in 2009, up from 841 billion rubles in 2007, according to Finance Ministry data published Aug. 22 by UralSib Financial Corp.

The budget is cloaked in secrecy, so it isn't known exactly how the money is spent. Makiyenko said the armed forces in recent years have procured more advanced weapons, including T-90 battle tanks, Iskander missile complexes, the S-400 air defense system and more than 30 fighter jets.

Russia also has raised pay for its troops, which numbered 1.13 million in June, according to Defense Ministry spokesman Yury Ivanov. Russia plans to cut the payroll, mainly by reducing non-combat positions, to 1 million by 2013 so it can increase wages more as its conscript army is honed into a more professional force.

Weaponry Display

The military is ``gaining in strength and power like all of Russia,'' President Dmitry Medvedev said May 9, presiding over its biggest weaponry display since the Soviet era, in Moscow's Red Square on the 63rd anniversary of the World War II victory over Germany.

A day earlier, Putin urged Parliament to keep increasing spending because ``only a battle-ready, well-equipped military with strong morale can defend'' Russia's ``sovereignty and integrity.''

The renewed strength allowed an estimated 10,000 troops to storm into Georgia almost unimpeded. Columns of troops and armaments rolled through South Ossetia, the pro-Moscow breakaway region that sparked the war after Georgia tried to retake it. Fighter jets bombed military bases as tanks ruined parts of the regional capital, Tskhinvali.

Stalin's Birthplace

Within three days, Russia controlled a third of Georgia, including the port of Poti and the central city of Gori, birthplace of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin.

Russian General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, said no new arms were tested during the war. Instead, the Russians used T-72 tanks fitted with explosive- reactive armor, BMP-1 and BMP-2 infantry vehicles, BTR-80 armored personnel carriers and MT-LB multipurpose tracked vehicles, said Jane's Information Group, a defense intelligence service. It also used self-propelled guns and rocket-launchers.

Georgia suffered more troop casualties -- 215 killed and 1,200 wounded -- than Russia, with 64 killed and 323 wounded, according to figures from both governments.

About 2,100 South Ossetian civilians also died, Nogovitsyn said. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman Boris Malakhov said the military minimized collateral damage, comparing its performance favorably with NATO's 1999 air attack of Serbia, when bombs fell on hospitals, a television tower and the Chinese Embassy in Belgrade.

`Confident Military'

``The Russian incursion into Georgian territory -- and the air campaign against Georgian military targets -- show a confident Russian military,'' Jane's analyst Nathan Hodge wrote in a report. ``This is not the degraded Russian military of the 1994-1996 Chechen War, when Russian fighting units were plagued by corruption, poor leadership and lack of funding.''

Putin, 55, came to power after a decade of economic chaos following the Soviet Union's collapse in 1991 hollowed the once- vaunted Red Army. Morale and pay were so low during the second war against Chechnya separatists, starting in 1999, that soldiers sold arms and ammunition to rebels, Russian novelist and journalist Vladimir Voinovich wrote in 2003. Some officers sold their men to Chechen warlords as slaves, he wrote.

Nogovitsyn said Russia learned strategic lessons from that war. ``Chechnya taught us many things, including how to use units as part of battalion tactical groups,'' he said Aug. 19.

Russia plans to garner additional lessons from Georgia. Medvedev, 42, on Aug. 18 said the war should be used to develop new approaches to arms procurement and assigned Defense Minister Anatoly Serdyukov to come up with them.

`Practical Action'

``There will be a decisive switch towards practical action,'' Nogovitsyn said. ``When there were no resources, we shuffled papers in academies, but now a new era has started. We will teach our troops whatever they need to know'' with exercises that replicate battle conditions and aircraft that ``no longer sit on the runway.''

Makiyenko, the defense analyst, said the military could have been even more effective in Georgia. The kind of weaponry ``it really needed was not there,'' he said. Modern aircraft, intelligence and communication should be the military's new focus, he added.

Russia's military is unlikely ever to match the might of the U.S. and NATO. Russia devoted 3.9 percent of its gross domestic product to the military in 2005, compared with 4.1 percent by the U.S., according to the CIA's World Factbook. But the U.S.'s GDP is $14 trillion, almost 11 times Russia's. NATO's 26 members have a combined GDP of about $25 trillion.

``Ultimately Russia's ability to spend on its military is dwarfed by NATO,'' said Nick Day, a former British intelligence officer who's now heads Diligence LLC, a business-intelligence firm.

Georgia War Shows Russia `Force to Be Reckoned With'

[Shammu]

Western Nations Warn Russia to `Change Course'
West warns Russia to `change course;' fallout from conflict stretches from nukes to chicken
By JIM HEINTZ
The Associated Press

TBILISI, Georgia

Western leaders warned the Kremlin on Wednesday to "change course," hoping to keep the conflict from growing into a new Cold War after tensions broadened to imperil a key nuclear pact and threaten U.S. meat and poultry trade with Russia.

Moscow said it was NATO expansion and Western support for Georgia that was causing the new East-West divisions, and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin lashed out at the United States for using military ships to deliver humanitarian aid to Georgia.

Meanwhile, Georgia slashed its embassy staff in Moscow to protest Russia's recognition of the two separatist enclaves that were the flashpoint for the five-day war between the two nations earlier this month.

The tensions have spread to the Black Sea, which Russia shares unhappily with three nations that belong to NATO and two others that desperately want to, Ukraine and Georgia. Some Ukrainians fear Moscow might set its sights on their nation next.

In moves evocative of Cold War cat-and-mouse games, a U.S. military ship carrying humanitarian aid docked at a southern Georgian port, and Russia sent a missile cruiser and two other ships to a port farther north in a show of force.

The maneuvering came a day after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev had said his nation was "not afraid of anything, including the prospect of a Cold War." For the two superpowers of the first Cold War, the United States and Russia, repercussions from this new conflict could be widespread.

Russia's agriculture minister said Moscow could cut poultry and pork import quotas by hundreds of thousands of tons, hitting American producers hard and thereby raising prices for American shoppers.

Russians sometimes refer to American poultry imports as "Bush's legs," a reference to the frozen chicken shipped to Russia amid economic troubles following the 1991 Soviet collapse, during George H.W. Bush's presidency.

And a key civil nuclear agreement between Moscow and Washington appears likely to be shelved until next year at the earliest.

On the diplomatic front, the West's denunciations of Russia grew louder.

Britain's top diplomat equated Moscow's offensive in Georgia with the Soviet tanks that invaded Czechoslovakia to crush the Prague Spring democratic reforms in 1968, and demanded Russia "change course."

"The sight of Russian tanks in a neighboring country on the 40th anniversary of the crushing of the Prague Spring has shown that the temptations of power politics remain," Foreign Secretary David Miliband said.

Western leaders have accused Russia of using inappropriate force when it sent tanks and troops into Georgia earlier this month. The Russian move followed a Georgian crackdown on the pro-Russian South Ossetia.

Many of the Russian forces that drove deep into Georgia after fighting broke out Aug. 7 have pulled back, but hundreds are estimated to still be manning checkpoints that Russia calls "security zones" inside Georgia proper.

German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed Russian President Dmitry Medvedev in a phone call to immediately fulfill the EU-brokered cease-fire by pulling all troops out of Georgia.

The Kremlin rejected Western criticism, and Tuesday even suggested the conflict could spread. It starkly warned another former Soviet republic, tiny Moldova, that aggression against a breakaway region there could provoke a military response.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy accused Russia of trying to redraw the borders of Georgia. His foreign minister went further, suggesting Russia had engaged in "ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia, one of the two Georgian rebel territories.

And the seven nations that along with Russia make up the G-8 issued a statement that underlined Russia's growing estrangement from the West.

The seven — United States, Britain, France, Canada, Germany, Japan and Italy — said Russia's decision to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent countries violated the Georgia's territorial integrity.

Two weeks ago, officials had told The Associated Press that the G-7 were weighing whether to effectively disband what is known as the G-8 by throwing Moscow out.

Georgia's prime minister put damage from the Russian war at about $1 billion but said it did not fundamentally undermine the Georgian economy. Georgia, which has a national budget of about $3 billion, hopes for substantial Western aid to recover.

The United Nations has estimated nearly 160,000 people had to flee their homes, but hundreds have returned to Georgian cities like Gori in the past week.

In the Georgian capital of Tbilisi, boxes of aid were sorted, stacked and loaded onto trucks Wednesday for some of the tens of thousands of people still displaced by the fighting. Some boxes were stamped "USAID — from the American People."

In the Black Sea, the U.S. Coast Guard cutter Dallas, carrying 34 tons of humanitarian aid, docked in Batumi. The missile destroyer USS McFaul was there earlier this week delivering aid, and the U.S. planned to leave it in the Black Sea for now.

A spokesman for Putin, quoted by Interfax news agency, observed: "Military ships are hardly a common way to deliver such aid."

The U.S. has used military ships to deliver humanitarian aid before, including in the aftermath of the 2004 Asian tsunami.

The U.S. Embassy in Georgia had earlier said the Dallas was headed to the port city of Poti but then retracted the statement. A Georgian official said the port in Poti could have been mined by Russian forces.

Poti's port reportedly suffered heavy damage from the Russian military. In addition, Russian troops have established checkpoints on the northern approach to the city, and a U.S. ship docking there could have been seen as a direct challenge.

Meanwhile, the Russian missile cruiser Moskva and two smaller missile boats anchored at the port in Sukhumi, the capital of Abkhazia, some 180 miles north of Batumi. The Russian Navy says the ships will be involved in peacekeeping operations.

Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn warned that NATO has already exhausted the number of forces it can have in the Black Sea, according to international agreements, and warned Western nations against sending more ships.

"Can NATO — which is not a state located in the Black Sea — continuously increase its group of forces and systems there? It turns out that it cannot," Nogovitsyn was quoted as saying Wednesday by Interfax.

Western Nations Warn Russia to `Change Course'