Russia recognizes S. Ossetian and Abkhazian independence

CmdrWilkens · Post by **CmdrWilkens** » 2008-08-26 11:14pm

Honestly the only suprise is that this wasn't done sooner. As with others once the US decided to recognize Kosovo it just kicked the door open to a ton more of these states in dispute being recognized by other world powers in definace of US wishes. For all that European colonialism had a huge downside the hyper nationalism leading to ever smaller sovreign states isquite possibly worse. So long as we continue to subdivide the world into ever smaller tribes and nations the harder it becomes to actually recognize one another as just people.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2008-08-26 11:15pm

Vympel wrote:What a fucking retard. Does he really think that rebuilding Georgia's pitiful army (even assuming he received enough Western largesse to make it possible) will make him able to withstand another round with Russia? Russia's only getting stronger, not weaker.

Isn't Georgia's peak wartime mobilization potential smaller than Russia's standing peacetime forces? Russia has about a million under arms right now, and Georgia has 4.6 million total population, a good 270,000 of whom live in S. Ossetia and Abkhazia anyway. The comparison is like Uruguay versus Brazil, or Slovenia versus Italy.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2008-08-26 11:18pm

It's hard not to laugh at all the jackass American neo-cons who spent so many years touting the "realpolitik" angle, only to have their noses rubbed in it now. I guess it only feels good to say "whatcha gonna do about it, bitch" when someone else is the bitch, eh?

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2008-08-26 11:38pm

Darth Wong wrote:It's hard not to laugh at all the jackass American neo-cons who spent so many years touting the "realpolitik" angle, only to have their noses rubbed in it now. I guess it only feels good to say "whatcha gonna do about it, bitch" when someone else is the bitch, eh?

There's also the fact that the ideologically blinded idiots couldn't practice actual "realpolitik" to save their own asses, so it's also nice to see them become indignant when someone else shows them how it's done.

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2008-08-26 11:41pm

Darth Wong wrote:It's hard not to laugh at all the jackass American neo-cons who spent so many years touting the "realpolitik" angle, only to have their noses rubbed in it now. I guess it only feels good to say "whatcha gonna do about it, bitch" when someone else is the bitch, eh?

Foreign policy neoconservatives are not realists.

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-08-26 11:47pm

Russia had no option but to crush the attack to save lives.

Quintessentially Russian. Not "repulse", or "repel", but CRUSH.

It's like how they use "liquidate". Or at least translated

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-08-27 01:00am

Our leaders always are blunt, as I saw. Medvedev openly called Georgia's president "a lunatic" after his ravings, and the infamous tie-chewing.

Pelranius · Post by **Pelranius** » 2008-08-27 01:19am

Stas Bush wrote:Our leaders always are blunt, as I saw. Medvedev openly called Georgia's president "a lunatic" after his ravings, and the infamous tie-chewing.

Maybe Saaskashvili was paid by Murdoch to start a war so to boost ratings for the various News Corps affiliates?

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2008-08-27 01:24am

Stas Bush wrote:Our leaders always are blunt, as I saw. Medvedev openly called Georgia's president "a lunatic" after his ravings, and the infamous tie-chewing.

Tie-chewing? What???

Post by **fgalkin** » 2008-08-27 01:30am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:
Stas Bush wrote:Our leaders always are blunt, as I saw. Medvedev openly called Georgia's president "a lunatic" after his ravings, and the infamous tie-chewing.
Tie-chewing? What???

You mean you haven't seen it?

The man has finally lost it. And no wonder- you put a lawyer in the middle of a shooting war and this is what happens.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Post by **Vympel** » 2008-08-27 01:30am

Illuminatus Primus wrote:
Tie-chewing? What???

At a presser or something he was speaking and chewing on his tie like some sort of loon, I hear. I think there's a video.

Post by **fgalkin** » 2008-08-27 01:33am

Check the post above yours for video.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

Illuminatus Primus · Post by **Illuminatus Primus** » 2008-08-27 01:36am

Jesus Christ.

Pelranius · Post by **Pelranius** » 2008-08-27 01:43am

Whatever happened to good old psychiatric care in Georgia?

Don't tell me the Scientologists had Saakashvili send them all off into 'work camps'.

Pablo Sanchez · Post by **Pablo Sanchez** » 2008-08-27 01:47am

Is it possible that he legitimately is unstable? Ordinarily I wouldn't ask such a question about a head of state, because usually they have their things in order, but the Georgian offensive was such an amazingly terrible idea that I feel like I have to pose it.

Shroom Man 777 · Post by **Shroom Man 777** » 2008-08-27 03:25am

The tie thing could be, like, a nervous tick or something. He is in a real shit-situation (that was all his fault!) and it's understandable that he'd fidget and chew fingernails or even suck his thumb.

I think he resembles Steve Carrel a bit. While Vladimir Putin is totally Daniel Craig.

Fingolfin_Noldor · Post by **Fingolfin_Noldor** » 2008-08-27 03:52am

fgalkin wrote:The man has finally lost it. And no wonder- you put a lawyer in the middle of a shooting war and this is what happens.

Have a very nice day.
-fgalkin

More like, why and how and what possessed anyone to deal with this raving lunatic?

[R_H] · Post by **[R_H]** » 2008-08-27 07:32am

I like the EU flag in the background.

Surprised there isn't a NATO flag behind him too.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-08-27 11:31am

Its probably a nervous tic. It isn't helping, at any rate.

CaptainChewbacca · Post by **CaptainChewbacca** » 2008-08-27 11:43am

It looks like Russia isn't wasting time in expanding its sphere

CHISINAU, Moldova (AP) — Russia's ambassador to Moldova said the country's leaders should avoid a "bloody and catastrophic trend of events" in the separatist Trans-Dniester region and pointed to the example of Georgia.

Ambassador Valeri Kuzmin spoke at a news conference in the capital of the former Soviet republic of Moldova late Tuesday, hours after Russian President Dmitry Medvedev recognized the independence of the breakaway Georgian regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Kuzmin, speaking in the name of the Foreign Ministry in Moscow, acknowledged that the situation in the Russian-supported Moldovan region of Trans-Dniester, which is mainly populated by Russians and Ukrainians, differed from that of the Caucasus. He also said there was no sign of a Moldovan intention to escalate tensions.

Unlike the Georgian regions, neither Trans-Dniester nor the rest of Moldova, whose population is mostly Romanian-speaking, borders Russia.

Trans-Dniester, a long strip of territory on Moldova's eastern border with Ukraine, broke away from Moldova in 1990 and a war between Moldovan forces and separatists in 1992 left 1,500 people dead.

It is not recognized internationally, but is supported by Russia, which has 1,500 troops stationed there to guard weapons storage facilities left by the Soviet military.

Kuzmin said Russia recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia because of "Georgia's aggression against South Ossetia," and said, "Moldova should draw its own positive conclusions after the conflict in South Ossetia."

"It is simply impossible ... to have Moldova behave in a similar way to Georgia," he said in Russian.

"I believe that (in Moldova) the leaders will use their wisdom ... to not allow such a bloody and catastrophic trend of events" here, he said.

But he added he was glad "there is no intention to escalate the situation in the security zone (a demilitarized area along the Dniester River) and I believe that there shouldn't be any."

Russia's President Medvedev met with Moldova's President Vladimir Voronin on Monday in the Black Sea port of Sochi to discuss Trans-Dniester.

After the meeting, Voronin said the issue would only be solved through negotiations. He said a solution to the conflict will be drafted based on current law that gives Trans-Dniester gives broad autonomy but within Moldova's borders.

I wonder what they'll want next.

Post by **K. A. Pital** » 2008-08-27 12:19pm

Moldova won't do shit. Their communist government and the government in the separatist Transnistria are far more reasonable.

At least Voronin never made a vow to 'unify Moldova by any means' or claimed that preceding Moldovan leaders were right when they fought a war with Transnistria.

There also weren't active military provocations at the same scale Abkhazia and Ossetia had.

Pelranius · Post by **Pelranius** » 2008-08-27 01:32pm

Flying planes over Ukraine might cause a bit of a stink in the current climate.

Best to wait a couple of years if Russia actually does want to take action on the Transnistria question.

Battlehymn Republic · Post by **Battlehymn Republic** » 2008-08-27 02:37pm

Great, this is affecting my voting pattern now.

Adrian Laguna · Post by **Adrian Laguna** » 2008-08-27 03:26pm

Battlehymn Republic wrote:Great, this is affecting my voting pattern now.

Oh god, I can't stop laughing, that's dammed awesome!

Post by **NecronLord** » 2008-08-27 03:43pm

Ah McCain. "Brave young democracy" I love how Georgia is one of these, but Russia just has sinister "rulers" Yeah. Russia's rulers are jackasses. But they're elected jackasses. Just like Georgia's, just like you might end up being.