Trouble in South Ossetia escalates

[Illuminatus Primus]

ghetto edit- that is of course the Kodori valley. The absent-minded typo may have been unclear in case you tried to look it up, so I'm correcting it.

The Russians shouldn't turn this into some bullshit-romantic crusade for Mother Russia and go about liberating Abkhazia completely (while Duchess masturbates herself with her noble grandpappy's Mosin-Nagant) while they are at it. The guaranteeing of South Ossetian autonomy is pretty close to the status quo ante bellum, and considering Georgian aggression, a fair conclusion. A second front shouldn't be opened, and a general war should be avoided. Of course our bellicose neocons should shut the fuck up, too.

[Netko]

So besides a single appearance in a paper for the entire conflict what else were their exploits? If this was such a mainstream SS-loving group as you claim, there would be far more information on them; maybe even 2 newspaper articles. No wonder any search for this group leads one to the Telegraph article posted on Srbian nationalistic websites.

Besides, the article says this is a movement led by Albanians. And would Fox know the difference between SC and Albanian? Doubtful. He had to be told by UN officers about the power structure in this group. All in all I think this is pretty weak evidence.

Additionally, reading that article, one notices that the unit in question was a foreign volunteer (read: mercenary) unit - those existed on all sides and nobody gave a shit what the people manning them thought or what symbolism they espoused. Aside from the few actual pros, and a sprinkling of idealists, of course the rest of such volunteers were extremists of one sort or another - most regular people don't exactly go volunteer in foreign wars. I'm almost certain that you could find foreign volunteer units rife with neo-Nazi symbology on both the Croatian (from Germany, Britain, Australia, Chile and other "Western" nations) and Serbian (Russian, Ukranian, Greek) sides. That is one of the reasons (along with low reliability, usage of non-standard personal kit complicating logistics, non-integration in the regular chain of command and combined arms etc.) why Croatia mostly (I'd almost say fully, but I'm not certain) phased out such troops by '93. The Bosniaks couldn't be so picky - take a look at the maps available at Wiki of the Bosnian war and the available armaments of the Bosniaks and you'll notice that they essentially remained an light infantry (foot-mobile) army up until Dayton and as such had a use for such troops until the end of the war.

This, however, does exactly nothing to prove your point that "Bosniaks (presumably a significant percentage of them) worshiped the ideal of the SS Hanjar Division".

As for Alija, nice of you to find the exact document I was talking about. To not waste space, I'll point you to the Wiki article on the document (yes, I know its wiki, but this article is well sourced, and has the best overview of the issue I could find online in English). Of note should be that his defenders include Western and, especially, Croatian academics (during the Croat-Bosniak conflict, the propaganda machine was pushing the Islamist angle hard), so it isn't like he's being defended by biased Bosniaks. Of note should be the paragraph:

Izetbegovic and the “Islamic fundamentalism”

From the journalistic notion of “Islamic fundamentalism”, concentrating political extremism (whether traditionalist or revolutionary) and the radical, cultural and political anti-Occidentalism, Izetbegovic moves away in different ways.
First, he attacks the idea of the violent taking power in order to create an Islamic society from the top. At the contrary, postulating a population in which the majority being Muslim even if only by name, an Islamic society could be created only by a long process of religious training and moral persuasion.
Secondly, Izetbegovic did not reject western civilization in itself, even if he criticize the rapid and coercive secularization of Turkey under Ataturk (based, in his opinion, on the prejudice that every Islamic thing was culturally primitive) and even if he raged against the «so-called progressives, westernizers and modernizers» that would apply the same policy elsewhere. But such political judgements don’t delve into a radical sense: «since its foundation – he writes – Islam engaged, without prejudices, in studying and gathering the summa of knowledge inherited by previous civilizations. We don’t understand why today’s Islam should take a different approach toward the conquests of the euro-american civilization, with which it has so many contacts». Same concepts that Izetbegovic specifies in the treaty Islam between East and West, in which he praises Renaissance art, Christianism, anglo-saxon philosophy and social-democratic tradition; all elements impossible to praise for a “fundamentalist”. [4]

.

Now, I don't agree with the guy, and find his writings a bit creepy, but it simply is not true that he was an Islamic fundamentalist (although I'll grant you that he's more towards that end of the spectrum then the liberal end) or that he was planning on turning BiH into a Taliban-style (Sharia) Islamic shithole. Even if he was that, the current cultural traditions in place in Bosnia (predominant secularism, cultural-only adherence to Islam, same Westernism that is present in the rest of ex-Yu) are simply such that any attempt at such a state would be impossible inside the Bosniak community, not to mention the overall multi-ethnic BiH (not to mention that neither Croatia nor Serbia would allow it).

[CaptainChewbacca]

What do the diagonal lines across some nations on the map signify?

[Netko]

Ghetto edit: my post was is response to the Duchess, I accidentally deleted a quote of her post in editing.

[Duckie]

What do the diagonal lines across some nations on the map signify?

Ethnic composition, I believe. Ajaria might be shaded because it's an autonomous region within Georgia- it came close to going South Ossetian and Abkhazian-esque, but the Georgians tempted it back into the fold with offers of autonomy.

[Duckie]

The Russians shouldn't turn this into some bullshit-romantic crusade for Mother Russia and go about liberating Abkhazia completely (while Duchess masturbates herself with her noble grandpappy's Mosin-Nagant) while they are at it. The guaranteeing of South Ossetian autonomy is pretty close to the status quo ante bellum, and considering Georgian aggression, a fair conclusion. A second front shouldn't be opened, and a general war should be avoided. Of course our bellicose neocons should shut the fuck up, too.

Sounds like Abkhazia gets tough shit then, because they don't deserve whatever South Ossetia gets?

[Netko]

Its interesting to note that with the loss of that single missle boat the Gerogian Navy's effective surface combatant strength was cut in half.

They do get points for bravery, sailing out against a force (Black Sea Fleet) that is nominally led by a cruiser and several destroyers, not to mention consisting of a number of frigates and corvettes.

At the same time, this once again underscores the horrible imbalance of forces - this isn't a David vs. Goliath matchup, this is an ant vs. Goliath. The Georgians should be awarded a national Darwin award for this.

[Illuminatus Primus]

The Russians shouldn't turn this into some bullshit-romantic crusade for Mother Russia and go about liberating Abkhazia completely (while Duchess masturbates herself with her noble grandpappy's Mosin-Nagant) while they are at it. The guaranteeing of South Ossetian autonomy is pretty close to the status quo ante bellum, and considering Georgian aggression, a fair conclusion. A second front shouldn't be opened, and a general war should be avoided. Of course our bellicose neocons should shut the fuck up, too.

Sounds like Abkhazia gets tough shit then, because they don't deserve whatever South Ossetia gets?

You act like the default assumption is there OUGHT to be a war and there OUGHT to be escalation and EVERY ethnic group deserves self-determination as an ethnic group. If Georgia isn't respecting its citizen's rights, that's an issue for Georgia to reform its institutions and rule of law. It is not carte blanche for Russia to rearrange the borders of its neighbors because it decided it was a fair determiner of self-rule and determination (a joke considering the Kremlin is an opaque, unaccountable, self-referencing ruling class). Just because Russia neighbors some place, doesn't mean that state is now somehow semi-sovereign. Russophiles seem to act like everything that was once part of the Soviet or Russian sphere is now permanently a protectorate, subject to revision at will. Bullshit.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

The Russian Army has no reason to stop until both Ossetia and Abkhazia are completely liberated entirely from their Georgian occupiers, which means the next theatre of operations after the cleansing of Tskhanvali of the Georgian forces will necessarily be the Kodori Valley.

:roll: Yes escalation is such a good thing. I mean its war, and its good for the people over there, right? God, when are you going to extract your head from your too-purple-for-Doug-MacArthur, over-the-top histrionic, faux-sophisticated ass? You're the only person on this forum who insists on hoisting yourself up by your own petard so high and pontificating so pompously. Its disgusting. Its real easy for you in Washington State to agitate on behalf of a people who you have tenuous ties to at best (and if we were to extend to the other denizens, I suppose Mike hopes for PRC domination of the East, and I stand for the Reconquista of the Southwest; identity and racial politics are such good ideas), who actually stand to get fucking killed one way or another, and for what, so you can prop up the appearance of being passionate and cultured to a fucking Internet forum named after sci-fi battleships and full of dick jokes? Jesus fucking Christ. You are pathetic.

It's not an escalation, there's already been Russian bombing runs on the Georgian positions there, Abkhazia has a defensive treaty with South Ossetia, so their entering the war was automatic on the Georgian surprise attack, and they have already undertaken combat operations. To call their liberation of their occupied territory an "escalation" is ludicrous. And with that point put paid, there is no escalation at all that I am advocating.

[Axis Kast]

It's not an escalation, there's already been Russian bombing runs on the Georgian positions there, Abkhazia has a defensive treaty with South Ossetia, so their entering the war was automatic on the Georgian surprise attack, and they have already undertaken combat operations. To call their liberation of their occupied territory an "escalation" is ludicrous. And with that point put paid, there is no escalation at all that I am advocating.

Only in the strange and exciting world of Marina does Abkhazia, an unrecognized breakaway republic, "liberate," while Georgia invades.

Only in the strange and exciting world of Marina does Russia, once owner of all Georgia, return to "set things right," while Georgia, once owner of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, violate others' freedoms.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

No foreign power is going to wrest control of South Ossetia and Abkhazia from the Russians, if this war continues apace. They have established de facto possession and, as a consequence of this presence, will probably be granted de jure possession of at least South Ossetia in whatever negotiated outcome results.

That said, we have on trial here your positions on what is legitimate or illegitimate, not mine. Your position is, apparently as a consequence of your severe insanity, rather difficult to pin down. Are we to infer from your arguments on Karelia that historical possession confers legitimacy on a nation’s government in certain territory? Or, given your emphasis on Georgian (and Bosnian) behavior, does the more moral of the two sides obtain the right?

Or maybe, *gasp!* the most suitable solution for any problem is one based on the context of that situation, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach! Maybe we should INVESTIGATE THE LOCAL SITUATION and try to make the best and most ethical decision based on the circumstances of that particular region! But no, Comical Axi needs to have a one-size-fits all Absolute Law governing the disposition of territories, because he's a fucking neocon fuckhead.

If the Russian Army has a right to respond when its peacekeepers die and its citizens-of-convenience are killed, Georgians have a right, inherent in their recognized sovereignty over Abkhazia and South Ossetia, to launch military operations designed to bring about their more total subjugation. Just as Russia did, hundreds of years ago. Because you do realize that Russia followed those “16th century siege rules” pretty much to the letter when they went about conquering their neighbors from Moscovy, right?

In the 16th century. Civilization has advanced considerably since then, and people in those areas have also gotten used to living as Russians for 400 years or so. Re: Mike's point.

How, exactly, was anything supposed to happen but human rights abuses on a grand scale had nobody stopped the Serbs?

The NATO response should have been based impartiality, the Russian interest in Serbia as a bellweather should have been respected to avoid the Russians seeing this as an assault on their sphere of influence, and by avoiding turning Sebria into an enemy we could have avoided the fucking Kosovo mess, where the expulsions only started AFTER we started bombing.

The facts are that Saddam Hussein was a bad, bad man. Are you willing to concede that American military activity in Iraq is moral?

Not in the current context, dumbshit. Stuff your absolutes.

Not to mention that it is essentially an unwritten law of sovereign nations, from the dawn of the concept in 1648, not to ceede sovereignty over lands under their de jure management except under duress, a point aptly made by Mohammed Ayoob, among others.

And that's why there's a war, duh.

I’ve explained to you, quite patiently, why Russian sources can be considered biased. I’ve asked for an English-language news source so that I can draw my own conclusions in confidence. I’ve also pointed out that I don’t want Georgian newscasts, either. Both those nations are fighting a war. Elevation in the propaganda content of their news organs is a given. And that is actually aside from the vast evidence that Russian news media is in a sickly state.

Why should I cater to the refusal of the average American to learn foreign languages? I'll talk with Fima about where some translations might be available, and not from official government-owned sources, either. But it's also very clear with that Ralph Peters article that the American "media" is ten times more fucking biased than the Russian media. He sounds like he's making a bigger deal out of this than the fucking Georgians themselves are! And you want to trust sources like that more than the Russian sources? Whatever.

You posted an article from 1993 about a single division that was established during or right after a war in which most of the fighting was done by partisans and, almost as often, by criminals.

Let me also point out that, in spite of this 1970 treatise, Bosnia-Herzegovina is not governed under Sharia Law.

Because the Serbs at least managed autonomy and most of the old core of these types of scum was gutted, certainly; the end result was better than it could have been, to be sure. But how exactly is a government which even hires 6,000 mercenaries who style themselves as an SS division being moral?

And we should now call a Congress to weigh in on China’s borders, I imagine? Hold on. Let me get my shako.

China hasn't just fallen apart at the seams, dumbass.

About Russian and Chinese outrages? No. Just a failed attempt, by you, to tarnish Bosnia.

I don't need to tarnish them, they tarnished themselves.

The problem isn’t that it was a surprise attack. The Georgians are not required to notify South Ossetian forces for a friendly skirmish. The problem is that they shelled a civilian target.

I’m also going to assume that the South Ossetians didn’t give friendly notice when they chose to shell their Georgian neighbors in the case of the example I have adduced.

Even if the Ossetians themselves did intentionally target civilians, that does NOT give the Georgians the right to slaughter Ossetian civilians, and the Russians have been quite judicious in their own use of force, with only the typical collateral damage we've dished out in Iraq and Serbia, etc.

Actually, I thought I was being rather clear-minded when I took exception to the idea that Georgian behavior is somehow unprecedented or unusual. I didn’t say that it made them fantastic people; I pointed out that it’s hardly the Georgians alone that do it, and that there are rarely consequences for the transgressors of such actions. Applying them here is entirely arbitrary.

It's nice when it happens, though, isn't it? And the Russians have a nice big hammer to make it happen with.

Make up your mind. Either, forcible incorporation of various polyglot peoples is acceptable within de jure borders, and Georgia is right to have cracked down on South Ossetia, or it is not, and Georgia is wrong. Russia isn’t the only nation that somehow gets to benefit from the idea of perfect, responsible empire.

Or maybe Russia is a MORE responsible polyglot nation than Georgia, and therefore incorporates them? Ossetia, after all, is not going to become an independent country either way.

Either China has legitimate claim over those it governs because it made its will law by occupying those regions with the PLA over a long period of time, or it does not, because, like the Chechens, it has committed atrocities. You really need to choose one and stick with it, Marina. You're starting to come off the tracks here.

Yeah, just like Broomstick said that and was conceding and apologizing a couple hours later? You just all have big hate-ons for Russia.

So go ahead and prove him wrong. You know. With evidence. If he’s such a cocksucker, that shouldn’t be hard. I guess the EU’s observer also sucks cocks.

If the Russians were impartial, good. The Georgian savagery deserves it.

[Illuminatus Primus]

You would understand, Kast, if you bolstered identity and self-esteem with purple and bellicose rants substantiated by pretentious references to your noble and racial heritage. Duh.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Only in the strange and exciting world of Marina does Abkhazia, an unrecognized breakaway republic, "liberate," while Georgia invades.

Only in the strange and exciting world of Marina does Russia, once owner of all Georgia, return to "set things right," while Georgia, once owner of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, violate others' freedoms.

Axi, my dear boy, you have missed your calling.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

You would understand, Kast, if you bolstered identity and self-esteem with purple and bellicose rants substantiated by pretentious references to your noble and racial heritage. Duh.

I'm trying to see where my inviting Broomstick to piss on my grandfather's grave and calling my family a bunch of abusive fucks fits into this, except for the small problem that it doesn't, so you're just punching a strawman as usual.

[Illuminatus Primus]

You would understand, Kast, if you bolstered identity and self-esteem with purple and bellicose rants substantiated by pretentious references to your noble and racial heritage. Duh.

I'm trying to see where my inviting Broomstick to piss on my grandfather's grave and calling my family a bunch of abusive fucks fits into this, except for the small problem that it doesn't, so you're just punching a strawman as usual.

I'm just saying what most everyone thinks about you. And I'm sorry, it is barbaric and stupid to substantiate your feelings with emotion, especially when that emotion is derived from racial identity. And sorry, the nobility of Russia was a bunch of assholes, who liked to buttfuck their press-ganged serf infantrymen when they weren't squeezing them dry back home.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

So besides a single appearance in a paper for the entire conflict what else were their exploits? If this was such a mainstream SS-loving group as you claim, there would be far more information on them; maybe even 2 newspaper articles. No wonder any search for this group leads one to the Telegraph article posted on Srbian nationalistic websites.

Besides, the article says this is a movement led by Albanians. And would Fox know the difference between SC and Albanian? Doubtful. He had to be told by UN officers about the power structure in this group. All in all I think this is pretty weak evidence.

Additionally, reading that article, one notices that the unit in question was a foreign volunteer (read: mercenary) unit - those existed on all sides and nobody gave a shit what the people manning them thought or what symbolism they espoused. Aside from the few actual pros, and a sprinkling of idealists, of course the rest of such volunteers were extremists of one sort or another - most regular people don't exactly go volunteer in foreign wars. I'm almost certain that you could find foreign volunteer units rife with neo-Nazi symbology on both the Croatian (from Germany, Britain, Australia, Chile and other "Western" nations) and Serbian (Russian, Ukranian, Greek) sides. That is one of the reasons (along with low reliability, usage of non-standard personal kit complicating logistics, non-integration in the regular chain of command and combined arms etc.) why Croatia mostly (I'd almost say fully, but I'm not certain) phased out such troops by '93. The Bosniaks couldn't be so picky - take a look at the maps available at Wiki of the Bosnian war and the available armaments of the Bosniaks and you'll notice that they essentially remained an light infantry (foot-mobile) army up until Dayton and as such had a use for such troops until the end of the war.

This, however, does exactly nothing to prove your point that "Bosniaks (presumably a significant percentage of them) worshiped the ideal of the SS Hanjar Division".

As for Alija, nice of you to find the exact document I was talking about. To not waste space, I'll point you to the Wiki article on the document (yes, I know its wiki, but this article is well sourced, and has the best overview of the issue I could find online in English). Of note should be that his defenders include Western and, especially, Croatian academics (during the Croat-Bosniak conflict, the propaganda machine was pushing the Islamist angle hard), so it isn't like he's being defended by biased Bosniaks. Of note should be the paragraph:

Izetbegovic and the “Islamic fundamentalism”

From the journalistic notion of “Islamic fundamentalism”, concentrating political extremism (whether traditionalist or revolutionary) and the radical, cultural and political anti-Occidentalism, Izetbegovic moves away in different ways.
First, he attacks the idea of the violent taking power in order to create an Islamic society from the top. At the contrary, postulating a population in which the majority being Muslim even if only by name, an Islamic society could be created only by a long process of religious training and moral persuasion.
Secondly, Izetbegovic did not reject western civilization in itself, even if he criticize the rapid and coercive secularization of Turkey under Ataturk (based, in his opinion, on the prejudice that every Islamic thing was culturally primitive) and even if he raged against the «so-called progressives, westernizers and modernizers» that would apply the same policy elsewhere. But such political judgements don’t delve into a radical sense: «since its foundation – he writes – Islam engaged, without prejudices, in studying and gathering the summa of knowledge inherited by previous civilizations. We don’t understand why today’s Islam should take a different approach toward the conquests of the euro-american civilization, with which it has so many contacts». Same concepts that Izetbegovic specifies in the treaty Islam between East and West, in which he praises Renaissance art, Christianism, anglo-saxon philosophy and social-democratic tradition; all elements impossible to praise for a “fundamentalist”. [4]

.

Now, I don't agree with the guy, and find his writings a bit creepy, but it simply is not true that he was an Islamic fundamentalist (although I'll grant you that he's more towards that end of the spectrum then the liberal end) or that he was planning on turning BiH into a Taliban-style (Sharia) Islamic shithole. Even if he was that, the current cultural traditions in place in Bosnia (predominant secularism, cultural-only adherence to Islam, same Westernism that is present in the rest of ex-Yu) are simply such that any attempt at such a state would be impossible inside the Bosniak community, not to mention the overall multi-ethnic BiH (not to mention that neither Croatia nor Serbia would allow it).

I generally consider the breakup of Yugoslavia to be a tragedy, and greatly lament the replacement of an at least secular regime with endless little violently warring ethnic states for no truly good reason, but, alas, that it did happen was inevitable it seems, and I am simply trying to get across the point that to say the Serbs were completely evil and unjustified is just typical American cheerleader propaganda, and that to say the Bosniaks did not commit atrocities is completely false... The argument is more or less directed against Neo-Con sorts like Axi, Ralph Peters in a broader sense, etc.

That the SS Handzar Division existed in the 1990s is, surely, beyond doubt? And surely, too, the Bosniak government made a conscious choice to employ it, yes? They voluntarily employed a unit of 6,000 men who proudly took on the identity of an SS unit and fought in a war of atrocities in the name of that SS unity, and the Bosniak government chose to integrate them into their armed forces for the duration of that conflict. Those are indisputable facts.

[Illuminatus Primus]

That should be "substantiate your opinions with emotion".

[Ma Deuce]

So... by that reasoning the US should give back a substantial portion of Texas and Arizona to Mexico (probably California and New Mexico as well), and Quebec should be an independent nation.

Amusingly, when I move to Canada (it seems more likely these days than France, for sundry reasons mainly involving that I have to factor someone important in my life, not just me), it will be as a Francophone to Quebec, which means that I have toyed with the idea of running for political office with the Bloc. I'd find that a really awesome position to be in, actually.

I know this is off topic, but I will not sit silent when ignorant foreigners voice support for Quebec sovereignty without having a clue about it, especially one who wants to move here with the express intention of becoming a Quebec nationalist traitor.

Of course this is simply another case of you demonstrating your profound ignorance of just about everything, so allow me to educate you. First of all, only 35% of Quebecers actually support sovereignty at this time (which is quite close to the percentage of Chechens who support soverignty from Russia), according to a recent poll: this is because the federal government is currently sucking their cock (the Harper Conservative government has declared Quebec "a nation within Canada"), as successive governments have been doing since the time of Trudeau. Most Quebec francophones understand that as long as Ottawa bends over for them, that they will gain nothing by separating.

Secondly, don't think for a second that a vote for the Bloc is necessarily a vote for sovereignty: Many Quebecois who vote for the Bloc do so because the Bloc will encourage the Federal government to suck Quebec's cock even harder and funnel taxpayer money from the rest of the country into the province: a complete injustice that Quebec, one of the "have" provinces gets more money from the Federal equalization program than they pay into it, meanwhile the other "have" provinces (such as Ontario and Alberta) must pay more than they receive, all because Quebec can whine harder than everyone else. Even with the rest of the country bending over backwards to accommodate them, those Quebecois with separatist tendencies still whine about how they're the oppressed minority (apparently, the irony of how they do everything to make life miserable for Quebec's anglophone minority is lost on them).

PS: If it wasn't clear from the rest of my bile-driven rant, I hope Immigration Canada finds an excuse to deny your application, should you ever try to move here.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm just saying what most everyone thinks about you. And I'm sorry, it is barbaric and stupid to substantiate your feelings with emotion, especially when that emotion is derived from racial identity. And sorry, the nobility of Russia was a bunch of assholes, who liked to buttfuck their press-ganged serf infantrymen when they weren't squeezing them dry back home.

I'm not entirely sure I believe that report of Stas', though I know a couple torpedo boat commanders in the Second Pacific Squadron had catamites onboard for the doomed voyage to Tsushima. Speaking of which the excellent historical work The Tsar's Last Armada goes into some detail on the homosexual counterculture that was very influential in the late Tsarist era government.

Anyway, I'm the one who's at least been able to provide sources, not merely emotions, whereas most of the people in this thread attack those sources as being obviously invalid since they're Russian, instead of trying to provide their own sources that demonstrate they're invalid, which they would be required to do under the debating rules, showing this entire thread is just a giant clusterfuck.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

So... by that reasoning the US should give back a substantial portion of Texas and Arizona to Mexico (probably California and New Mexico as well), and Quebec should be an independent nation.

Amusingly, when I move to Canada (it seems more likely these days than France, for sundry reasons mainly involving that I have to factor someone important in my life, not just me), it will be as a Francophone to Quebec, which means that I have toyed with the idea of running for political office with the Bloc. I'd find that a really awesome position to be in, actually.

I know this is off topic, but I will not sit silent when ignorant foreigners voice support for Quebec sovereignty without having a clue about it, especially one who wants to move here with the express intention of becoming a Quebec nationalist traitor.

Of course this is simply another case of you demonstrating your profound ignorance of just about everything, so allow me to educate you. First of all, only 35% of Quebecers actually support sovereignty at this time (which is quite close to the percentage of Chechens who support soverignty from Russia), according to a recent poll: this is because the federal government is currently sucking their cock (the Harper Conservative government has declared Quebec "a nation within Canada"), as successive governments have been doing since the time of Trudeau. Most Quebec francophones understand that as long as Ottawa bends over for them, that they will gain nothing by separating.

Secondly, don't think for a second that a vote for the Bloc is necessarily a vote for sovereignty: Many Quebecois who vote for the Bloc do so because the Bloc will encourage the Federal government to suck Quebec's cock even harder and funnel taxpayer money from the rest of the country into the province: a complete injustice that Quebec, one of the "have" provinces gets more money from the Federal equalization program than they pay into it, meanwhile the other "have" provinces (such as Ontario and Alberta) must pay more than they receive, all because Quebec can whine harder than everyone else. Even with the rest of the country bending over backwards to accommodate them, those Quebecois with separatist tendencies still whine about how they're the oppressed minority (apparently, the irony of how they do everything to make life miserable for Quebec's anglophone minority is lost on them).

PS: If it wasn't clear from the rest of my bile-driven rant, I hope Immigration Canada finds an excuse to deny your application, should you ever try to move here.

Jesus fucking christ, couldn't anyone tell that I was making a joke in response to one of Broomie's more outrageous comments during her shit-fest against me? Take some valium, dude.

[CJvR]

While the Russian notion of where Ossetia and Abkhasia ends is likely to be closer to the masturbation fantasies of their local puppets Russia have absolutely zero intrest in breaking Georgia to badly. Without the threat of Georgia hanging over the Abkhazians and Ossetians the Russians would simply get two more gangs of traitorus separatist assholes inside Russia instead of loyal separatist assholes outside Russia.

Perhaps Georgia should kick Putin in the nuts and hand the areas over to Moscow...

[Ma Deuce]

Jesus fucking christ, couldn't anyone tell that I was making a joke in response to one of Broomie's more outrageous comments during her shit-fest against me? Take some valium, dude.

I'm sorry, but you're simply so fucking insane that it is absolutely impossible to tell when you're "joking": Tell me, were you also joking when you gleefully explained how you'd have partitioned the Baltics between Germany, Russia and Poland?

[Admiral Valdemar]

I see a BBC reporter convoy was deliberately targeted by an Su-25.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I'm sorry, but you're simply so fucking insane that it is absolutely impossible to tell when you're "joking": Tell me, were you also joking when you gleefully explained how you'd have partitioned the Baltics between Germany, Russia and Poland?

No. That would be a reasonable way for a German ruler in the 1930s to regain the Danzig corridor, a crucial factor in German sovereignty, at the time, without plunging Europe into a massive war. Any government in power at the time could not have done anything except act to regain the corridor, and in my opinion such a partition would be the only way to do so without causing a war that would kill millions of people (I do happen to have humanitarian impulses, though nobody may believe me).

[The Duchess of Zeon]

I see a BBC reporter convoy was deliberately targeted by an Su-25.

Whose? Both sides operate them.