Stas said the same thing, Axis Kast, so you've got corroboration from someone else, though I imagine you think we're both in a TASS office somewhere making this stuff up on the fly in the service of the Grand Russian Conspiracy.
No. I think you’re both people on an Internet message board. And I don’t see you posting links, Marina.
I simply added in the raids which the Defense Ministry said took place, whereas Stas listed the ones which are now confirmed to have not taken place. If you'd bothered to read this fucking thread there was also an article posted where US military intelligence sources admitted that there was no evidence that the Russians had advanced on Gori. But you're too fucking stupid to read.
Afraid I wasn’t able to find this mythical article. I did find a discussion of the paucity of U.S. intelligence options vis-à-vis Georgia, but no report that firefights didn’t occur in Gori. (In fact, CNN, without any video evidence, just claimed that Georgians and Russians had clashed in Gori – despite the fact that it also explained that the Georgians had already left. All that CNN provided was a report looking at some rocket fragments from an air strike.)
I’m looking for something impartial that I can trust. If you’re going to continue to be upset that I’d prefer non-Russian sources, shouldn’t you try to, you know, actually disprove my various points about the problems with Russian news media?
P.S. If you can bribe your way out of being falsely imprisoned, that IS better than being falsely imprisoned. Let's imagine that if the very corrupt Russian government was running Gitmo--and you were in it, and innocent. Your family could pony up the money to bribe the prosecutors and guards and so on for you to be released. In America, that won't happen. Paying bloodmoney, more or less, is a bad outcome but still better than indefinite illegal detention, y'see? Obviously it would be nice if neither one happened, but in a choice between being indefinitely detained by the government, and being detained by the government until my friends could pony up a bribe, it should be ridiculously obvious that the second option is preferable.
P.S. If the innocent can guarantee their escape from legal turmoil with bribes, so too can the guilty.
Not to mention that I hate to think what Russia does to prisoners it seizes in Chechnya.
Georgia is not struggling for its independence. Come on, it's not like its getting annexed here.
Politicians make
faux pas. That’s not one I’m going to hold him especially accountable for. Especially because it wasn’t part of the quoted segment, but the author’s explanation.
Almost comically inappropriate use of 'We are all + whatever". McCain does not speak for every American on this issue.
He’s giving expressions of moral support to a country whose population centers are under bombardment and whose sovereign territory was invaded. Is that really so objectionable? I mean, as opposed to pumping his fist.
It most definitely did not use violence because Georgia chose to associate itself with the West. That simplistic, distorted view ignores the fact that Georgia was the provocateur.
No. It most definitely did not. But it
is hoping that the message gets sent. Of that, I have no doubt. One of the fringe benefits of this whole ordeal; sending a message to NATO. I think most of the people here believe that Moscow is all too pleased to show that it’s still able to police its own backyard.
As for the provocateur? Russia was the provocateur.
Reposted from the McClatchy article previously cited by Androsphinx.
U.S. officials had been warning of Russian actions designed to provoke Georgia for months.
In June, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried told the House Foreign Affairs Committee that Russia's "unremitting" political and economic pressure included closing its border with Georgia, suspending air and transportation links, imposing an embargo on Georgian agricultural exports and allowing Russian banks to operate "virtually unregulated" with unlicensed Abkhazian banks.
Earlier this year, he said, Russia strengthened official ties with separatist leaders in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, shot down an unmanned Georgian surveillance drone, sent heavy combat troops with artillery as peacekeepers to Abkhazia and dispatched military personnel to repair a rail line without Georgia's permission.
He also said senior Russian officials were assigned to the internationally unrecognized self-declared governments in the two enclaves and that senior Russian military officers operated with the separatists' military forces.
The senior U.S. official said the Russians had also dragged their feet on a recent German-led effort to head off a conflict.
A "parade" of U.S. officials, including Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, visited Tbilisi to urge Saakashvili to avoid giving the Kremlin to act, a State Department officials said.
At the end of the day, Georgia attacked South Ossetia and the Russians couldn’t ignore it. That makes Georgia stupid. And also culpable of taking action that killed Russian peacekeepers. It doesn’t make Georgia’s claim to South Ossetia illegitimate, or the peacekeepers’ presence benign. Russia knew this would happen. We knew that they knew.
And finally, they must realise 'they risk the benefits'? It's like an indirect threat against a superpower.
Are you kidding me? Because Russia is a superpower, we must never tell them that certain actions will have consequences? Even if you don’t think we should be crying “foul” over Georgia and South Ossetia, this is a terrible, even bankrupt attitude.
