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I think he was implying that European nations no longer have the balls to fight a war.Bounty wrote:What's the joke?Coyote wrote:Heehee.... Europe... fighting. A war. *snicker*Kane Starkiller wrote:Gotta love when people on the other side of Atlantic get all trigger happy. Yes that's what we need in Europe, another "decisive" war. War to end all wars!!
I don't see how bringing those two thousands troops back is going to make a difference.By Matt Robinson
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GORI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgia called for a ceasefire on Saturday after Russian bombers widened an offensive to force back Georgian troops seeking control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
President George W. Bush said Russian attacks on Georgia outside South Ossetia marked a "dangerous escalation" of the crisis and urged Moscow to halt the bombing immediately.
Russia said it had seized the rebel capital, Tskhinvali, but Georgia denied the claim on the second day of fighting that threatens oil and gas pipelines seen as crucial in the West.
Russian officials said the death toll now stood at 1,500 and 30,000 refugees from South Ossetia had fled to Russia over the past 36 hours. Russia said two of its warplanes had been shot down and 12 of its soldiers had been killed.
"I call for an immediate ceasefire," Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said in Tbilisi. "Russia has launched a full scale military invasion of Georgia."
Russia's military response to the crisis dramatically intensified a long-running stand-off between Russia and the pro-Western Georgian leadership that has sparked alarm in the West and led to angry exchanges at the United Nations reminiscent of the Cold War.
Abkhazia, another pro-Russian enclave in Georgia, said its forces had begun an operation to drive out Georgian forces. One report from a pro-Georgian spokesman said Russian planes had carried out bombing raids, but the Abkhaz separatists said it was their aircraft that were involved.
Bush, Saakashvili's main ally in the West, said Georgia's territorial integrity must be respected.
"I'm deeply concerned about the situation in Georgia," said Bush, who is attending the Olympics in Beijing. "The attacks are occurring in regions of Georgia far from the zone of conflict in South Ossetia. They mark a dangerous escalation in the crisis."
STATE OF WAR
Georgia's parliament approved a state of war across the country for the next 15 days, while Russia accused the West of contributing to the violence by supplying Georgia with arms.
Ukraine, a former Soviet republic whose pro-Western government now wants membership of NATO and the European Union, had encouraged Georgia to carry out "ethnic cleansing" in South Ossetia, the Russian foreign ministry said.
Russia, which sent in tanks to back the South Ossetians, said its forces had taken the enclave's capital.
"Tactical groups have fully liberated Tskhinvali from the Georgian military ... " Tass quoted Russian Ground Forces commander Vladimir Boldyrev as saying.
Georgia said it still held the city.
"Tskhinvali is now under the complete control of our troops," Khakha Lomaia, the secretary of the Georgian National Security Council said in Tbilisi.
A Russian journalist said the South Ossetian capital had been badly damaged. "The town is destroyed. There are many casualties, many wounded," Zaid Tsarnayev told Reuters from Tskhinvali.
"I was in the hospital yesterday where I saw many civilian wounded. The hospital was later destroyed by a Georgian jet. I don't know whether the wounded were still there."
Russian jets carried out up to five raids on mostly military targets around the Georgian town of Gori, close to the conflict zone in South Ossetia, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. He saw at least one bomb hit an apartment block, killing 5 people.
A woman knelt in the street and screamed over the body of a dead man as the bombed apartment block burned nearby. Another old woman covered in blood stared into the distance and a man knelt by the road, his head in his hands.
Russia said the death toll in the two-day conflict had hit 1,500 and was rising, prompting warnings from President Dmitry Medvedev of a humanitarian catastrophe that Moscow was determined to halt by force.
"Our peacekeepeers and reinforcement units are currently running an operation to force the Georgian side to (agree to) peace," Russian news agencies quoted Medvedev as saying.
Russian troops poured into South Ossetia on Friday, hours after Georgia launched a major offensive aimed at restoring control over the province.
Russia is the main backer of South Ossetian separatists and the majority of the population, who are ethnically distinct from Georgians, have been given Russian passports.
The Russian military said more reinforcements were on their way but Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Moscow was not seeking all-out war with Georgia.
Georgia was planning to bring its entire Iraq contingent of 2,000 soldiers home as soon as the United States can provide transport, the commander of the unit said on Saturday.
Each side blamed the other for the outbreak of fighting in the pro-Moscow enclave, which broke from Georgia when the Soviet Union was nearing collapse in the early 1990s.
Neither the balls nor the means I'd say. Most European states see their military as a place where they can make convenient budget cuts.hongi wrote:I think he was implying that European nations no longer have the balls to fight a war.Bounty wrote:What's the joke?Coyote wrote: Heehee.... Europe... fighting. A war. *snicker*
As far as I'm concerned, this whole mess has been orchestrated by the Russian government for their own gain, so I really do not give a flying fuck how many of their soldiers die, conscripted troops or not. The responsibility for that lies squarely at the Kremlin. It is Russian policy at every border they have to constantly engage in provocation and to use all manner of underhanded measures to do harm, economic or otherwise so that Russians can benefit and the other side ground under their heel as much as possible. So if they get blowback every once in a while, it is completely to be expected that those who have been the target of said Russian policies are going to wish them every ill outcome possible.The Duchess of Zeon wrote:You know, I've been pretty gung-ho for this from the opposite side, but at least I have the fucking ethical decency to want it to be minimal casualty. You're just a fucking worthless whore of a shitstain to actively desire the death of conscripted troops, whatever the fuck you think of their government.Edi wrote: The more Russian soldiers die in this, the better. It's a foregone conclusion what happens to Georgians and South Ossetians, military and civilian alike.
Independent state of South Ossetia? Never heard of it. Or do you also believe that Federal troops were wrong to “conspire” against the freedom of the white peoples of the American South between 1861 and 1865?Fuck off. The Russians are not invading anyone--they are coming to the aide of the independent state of South Ossetia, most of whose population is of Russian citizenship, and which is being occupied by the support of the American Imperialists and their anti-Slav sentiments.
Is this rank denial that atrocities were carried out against Bosnia and Croat populations by ethnic Serb forces during both Balkan conflicts?The United States is indeed a vast exporter of evil, particularly against slavs. I won't dispute you there at all; I opposed the Bosnian intervention, the Kosovo war, etc, since the moment I could talk, and they were the main reasons I hated Clinton, just like I despite Chimpus for his and his administration's mind-numbing support of the Georgian butchers in this developing conflict.
The Russians so far admit to losing two aircraft - an Su-25, and bizarrely, supposedly a Tu-22 of some sort. This is probably an error.A roar filled the air. Suddenly, from the horizon, two Russian war jets homed into view, their wingtips tilted towards the scrubland of northern Georgia as they screamed through the skies.
"Take cover, it's another wave," the Georgian commander shouted.
His men, a company of soldiers deployed on a lonely stretch of road close to Tskhinvali, the rebel capital of Georgia's breakaway region of South Ossetia, flung themselves to the ground and rolled into the thick thorn bushes that stretched towards the foothills of the Caucasus Mountains.
Anti-aircraft guns opened fire in staccato bursts before the ground started to rumble as the jets discharged their payloads. From both sides of the road, the soldiers began to fire their Kalashnikovs, a futile and desperate gesture against the might of the Russian Air Force.
"Russians!" yelled a young soldier, his grimy face streaked with sweat, as he jabbed a finger towards the retreating jets. "Russians," he told me again, more softly this time, as though scarcely able to believe that his tiny country was effectively at war with its giant ex-Soviet neighbour.
Gradually, the firing began to stop. Soldiers, chests heaving with exertion and adrenaline, rolled onto their backs and began to smoke.
Earlier in the day, Georgian troops scattered along the frontline seemed convinced that victory was within their grasp.
After an order was given to launch a full-scale assault on South Ossetia's Moscow-backed separatists in the early hours of the morning, Georgian forces appeared to make easy progress.
This, after all, was not the ragtag army that was forced to retreat in humiliation by Ossetian irregulars in 1992, but the well-equipped military force trained by the United States and blooded in Iraq.
Ranged against them was a small but determined rebel force, funded and armed by their Russian allies but still heavily outnumbered, driven by conviction that their sliver of territory, only one and a half times the size of Luxembourg, would never be part of Georgia.
With heavy artillery and Grad rockets, Georgian forces pounded Tskhinvali through the hours of darkness before ground troops entered the town and engaged in intense hand-to-hand fighting.
By dawn, Georgia controlled much of the town and had severed communications between the rebels and the outside world. By word of mouth, the South Ossetian military command relayed the message that over 1,000 people had been killed in the onslaught. It was an allegation that, in a region prone to hyperbole and claims of genocide, was impossible to verify. Russia also claimed that ten of its soldiers, ostensibly stationed in South Ossetia as peacekeepers, had also been killed.
But as the day wore on it became apparent that Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili's gamble of Russian non-intervention had backfired. Retaliating swiftly, Russia commenced a combined aerial and land assault on Georgian forces, launching Moscow's first foreign military intervention since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan.
Suddenly two European nations, one a key ally of the United States and Nato aspirant, were in a state of war.
Russian fighter jets bombed Gori, hometown of Stalin and the closest Georgian settlement to the frontier, sending plumes of smoke into the air. Later in the day, the Russians widened their assault not just in the frontline region but also close to the Georgian capital Tbilisi, where a military base two miles from the airport also came under attack. The Russian army had recently been evicted from the base by Georgia's pro-western government and this was Russia's revenge.
"It's not South Ossetia we are at war with, it's Russia," the company's commander said, shaking his head at the magnitude of his statement.
From Vladikavkaz, the capital of adjoining North Ossetia, which lies in Russia, phalanxes of Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers rumbled towards Tskhinvali to provide ground support.
Deeply angry with Georgia's pro-western policies since the Rose Revolution of 2003, Moscow's fury has grown as its neighbour made a concerted push towards Nato membership. This was an explosive message of intent that Georgia, long decried in Moscow as a terrorist state, would be punished - even flattened if need be.
As the Russian soldiers advanced, the gunfire and shelling in Tskhinvali once again intensified and it became apparent that the Georgians were in retreat.
By nightfall, as artillery fire continued to echo through the hills, South Ossetian forces boasted that they had retaken most of the towns, a claim that again could not be verified although Georgian officials conceded that they had lost some territory.
In Georgian towns near the frontline, civilians huddled in small groups, their eyes nervously scanning the skies. Only the most resilient had stayed, their numbers boosted by bus drivers who had ferried reservists, called up two days ago, to the conflict zone.
Ambulances, their sirens wailing, sped along the streets, discharging wounded soldiers at the military hospital in Gori, a leafy town set beneath an ancient hill fortress.
Exhausted soldiers, talking in low voices or staring blankly into space, propped up walls in the town. An atmosphere of tension and expectation hung heavily in the air.
"The fighting has been hard and it will get harder yet," one young corporal said. "We will win though, just like David slew Goliath."
The same resigned determination seems to have settled over the town's inhabitants.
"We want peace," said Nino Zuabashvili, a shopkeeper. "But we are fed up with being bullied by Russia. What is Georgia's is Georgia's and every one of us is prepared to die to protect our sovereignty."
How do you type this nonsense? So it's the Russians who carried out a full-scale offensive into South Ossetia with artillery and heavy armor that just so happened to fall on the eve of the Olympics, i.e. the time most opportune for the world's attention to be elsewhere?As far as I'm concerned, this whole mess has been orchestrated by the Russian government for their own gain
Maybe the situation there was orchestrated by Russian government (that would not surprise me really), but I don't think they can orchestrate Georgian offensive. So for the current fighting I think the Georgians are directly responsible, Russians maybe indirectly in the long run, although as Stas pointed out, Russian involvement there may be preventing civil war with the ethnic cleansing as the follow up.Edi wrote:As far as I'm concerned, this whole mess has been orchestrated by the Russian government for their own gain, so I really do not give a flying fuck how many of their soldiers die, conscripted troops or not. The responsibility for that lies squarely at the Kremlin. It is Russian policy at every border they have to constantly engage in provocation and to use all manner of underhanded measures to do harm, economic or otherwise so that Russians can benefit and the other side ground under their heel as much as possible. So if they get blowback every once in a while, it is completely to be expected that those who have been the target of said Russian policies are going to wish them every ill outcome possible.
What the fuck does the Bush Doctine have to do with Georgia's artillery barrage? Put down the excitable histrionics, and the purple faux-Russian-solidarity panegyrics, and chill out. Jesus. Why don't you type out "God Save the Tsar," that'd at least be funny.The Duchess of Zeon wrote:And while people in this thread fap to their Russophobia, the hospital, university, and regional parliament in Tskhinvali have all been destroyed by artillery bombardment from the Georgian Army, along with numerous residential districts, in a heroic continuation of the Bush doctrine by the glorious warriors of the Georgian State.
The Georgians launched a massive artillery bombardment of the rebel city. That's some orchestration (Personally, sounds like a load of bullshit to me, but it's the EVIL RUSSIANS, so they must have orchestrated the whole thing).As far as I'm concerned, this whole mess has been orchestrated by the Russian government for their own gain
Hah, I got that book 2 weeks ago. Great book, and there are much more interesting examples in it than this. (Which I can't legally comment on, nachtAnguirus wrote:So I purchased a book in B&N yesterday entitled "Stupid Wars." I laughed my head off while reading it, as it consists of humorous descriptions of ill-planned, disastrous armed conflicts throughout history.
Then I checked my e-mail and saw this was going on.
).
Norseman wrote:Neither the balls nor the means I'd say. Most European states see their military as a place where they can make convenient budget cuts.hongi wrote:I think he was implying that European nations no longer have the balls to fight a war.Bounty wrote: What's the joke?
By being willing to fight to their last breath to keep the Russians out whenever they get squirrelly.Broomstick wrote:Edi - the Finns are a rather remarkable group for NOT being absorbed into the USSR and, despite centuries of having a border with Russia and all that entails, not falling prey to the temptations of provocation.
How do you guys do it?
Because, whatever it is, a lot of other people are NOT doing it, with disastrous consequences.
The last war had Russia invade with 10:1 numerical superiority, planes and heavy armour. The casualty ratio was almost exactly 10:1 in Finland's favour.Coyote wrote:By being willing to fight to their last breath to keep the Russians out whenever they get squirrelly.Broomstick wrote:Edi - the Finns are a rather remarkable group for NOT being absorbed into the USSR and, despite centuries of having a border with Russia and all that entails, not falling prey to the temptations of provocation.
How do you guys do it?
Because, whatever it is, a lot of other people are NOT doing it, with disastrous consequences.
. Don't forget almost 0 involvement in any real wars, and lack of institutional experience against other modern armies for decades. Last real one that wasn't a civil war or guerrilla or tiny shit hole was what, the Falklands war for England? Look what a mess that was.Coyote wrote: Bingo. If by "European war" implies a war with the rest of Europe getting involved, expect little.
Now, after hosting two of the most major, bloody, nasty, brutal wars in history I don't necessarily blame Europeans for being tired of the whole business.
Actually, here in Sweden at least, that is almost always mentioned along with an explanation for why, when the subject is brought up.There was also that brief 'alliance with Hitler' thing in the 1930's no one likes to talk about now...
Part of it is history. We were a part of Sweden from the 1100s to 1809 and frequently used as a battlefield between Sweden ad Russia, which is one reason why hatred of Russia is so deeply entrenched here. It was originally fueled by the events known in Finnish as Isoviha (the Great Hatred) and Pikkuviha (Small Hatred), periods where Finland was under Russian occupation and the population subjected to all kinds of brutalities at whim.Broomstick wrote:Edi - the Finns are a rather remarkable group for NOT being absorbed into the USSR and, despite centuries of having a border with Russia and all that entails, not falling prey to the temptations of provocation.
How do you guys do it?
Because, whatever it is, a lot of other people are NOT doing it, with disastrous consequences.
(Once again, I think my grandparents fleeing Russia was one of the best damn things to ever happen to my family, as much as they hated it at the time.)
Did you happen to miss this:Vympel wrote:How do you type this nonsense? So it's the Russians who carried out a full-scale offensive into South Ossetia with artillery and heavy armor that just so happened to fall on the eve of the Olympics, i.e. the time most opportune for the world's attention to be elsewhere?As far as I'm concerned, this whole mess has been orchestrated by the Russian government for their own gain
I suppose you'll say the Russians have been getting the South Ossetians to attack Georgian troops across the de facto border with a view to this happening, as opposed to the Georgians just being continually butt-sore for 17 years at the separatists fighting them off and finally trying to do something about it.
They gambled and fucking lost, big time. In the process, they've ruined their chances of joining NATO, probably forever.
That's from my previous post and the post you are replying to was my reply to the Duchess wrt that post and the sentiments expressed at the end of it (snipped from this quote as irrelevant to our conversation). Try reading things in context. Yes, Georgia made a fucking stupid move, but to hold them solely responsible for the fucked up state of things there is beyond naive and ridiculous. Especially when you take into account what Axis KAst posted above about Russians unilaterally handing out citizenships to residents of another country to trump up their excuse for an invasion.Edi wrote:It's a stupid move and just presents Russia with a reward for all the intentional trouble it has stirred in the region for the past 17 years. It has consistently supported the separatists, arming them, training them, giving them other military support, intelligence and other resources and enabled them to commit attacks on Georgians. So in effect they have waged 17 years of war by proxy against Georgia until they got an excuse for a full-scale invasion.
And what 'occasional situation' would that be, exactly? "Send troops to Georgia" really doesn't strike me as a sensible plan; Europe was involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were involved in the whole Balkan affair, what more do you expect, precisely? Sure, compared to the US most European nations spend small change on their militaries, but as I see it, the USA is the outlier here, not Europe. What more do you want Europe to be capable of doing?Coyote wrote:Now, after hosting two of the most major, bloody, nasty, brutal wars in history I don't necessarily blame Europeans for being tired of the whole business... but the postwar habit of truncating the military at every corner leaves them woefully unable to deal with the occasional situation that crops up where shooting is involved.
I remember reading in a book when I was in the army about a secret gun hiding/caching project as well, it was entierly illegal and violation of the peace treaty and the instigators where caught, the soviets found some caches I believe and wanted the perpetrators harshly punished which I think they got. But I don't think the whole of the project ever stopped as it was so decentralized and only the guys at the top got arrested. It was meant to arm an insurgency for guerilla warfare incase the soviets ever tried invading again. I remember the book mentioned that the soviet military leaders from this decided that trying to occupy Finland would never be worth the cost.Edi wrote:After that, it was a constant tightrope balancing act to stay neutral and make sure the Soviets didn't get any reason to find new territorial ambitions, but we managed to pull it off until the Soviet Union fell apart.
Cute, so once they get Moscow to rid them of Tiblisi then the next step will be to rid themselves of Moscow...Vympel wrote:It's not exactly an uncontroversial fact that South Ossetia is pretty ethnically homogenous and their desire to join with their brethren in the north is why they broke away from Georgia to begin with...
If there is a need to send troops to Georgia to stabilize a cease-fire, and give some reason to make Russia pause and consider before launching another strike, is anyone in the EU really able to do this? Most of Europe doesn't even have the airlift capacity to do this-- except, as you mentioned, Britain and France, who may feel like they are shouldering the burden and risk while everyone else writes a check from their air-conditioned apartments.SiegeTank wrote:And what 'occasional situation' would that be, exactly? "Send troops to Georgia" really doesn't strike me as a sensible planCoyote wrote:Now, after hosting two of the most major, bloody, nasty, brutal wars in history I don't necessarily blame Europeans for being tired of the whole business... but the postwar habit of truncating the military at every corner leaves them woefully unable to deal with the occasional situation that crops up where shooting is involved.
Let's be realistic, here, Europe had to be prodded into the Balkans. For the most part, in the begining, it was just accepting refugees and waiting for the whole thing to blow over.Europe was involved in Iraq and Afghanistan, we were involved in the whole Balkan affair, what more do you expect, precisely?
The EU could save a ton of money by standardizing everything from ships to planes to tanks to uniforms, with only the little shoulder-patch flag being different, and by using a common pool of major strategic assets (ie, airlift, sealift). Folks love to talk smack about how the EU economy pwnzorz the US economy-- by that standard, some heavy sea and airlift assets should be chump change.Sure, compared to the US most European nations spend small change on their militaries, but as I see it, the USA is the outlier here, not Europe. What more do you want Europe to be capable of doing?
(Besides, those European nations with a vested interest in sending the occasional troop contingent abroad typically do have that capability (Great Britain and particularly France come to mind).)
