The Belmont Club has been an excellent resource in the following the happenings. Also be sure to read the comments. It’s hard to see, if Putin and his puppet in the presidency are intent in extinguishing Democratic governments, how this shouldn’t reignite the cold war. At some point, the governments of the west are going to have to stand up to Putin. That’s going to be hard when Europe has become dependent on Russia for energy.
14 thoughts on “Coverage of the Situation In Georgia”
Comments are closed.
The situation over in Georgia will be beneficial to the US in the long run, but is going damage Bush in the here and now. There is a lot of leverage that can be weighed against Russia over this issue and there oil resources in this given space and time will not save them.
I believe this will be tremendous blunder for Russia who has been arguing for the US to not put a missile shield into Eastern Europe. Previously many of the Eastern European countries were leary about this and may not be so leary now considering Russia’s willingness to bomb civilians. I will hand it to the media in the their frank and vivid documentation of Russia’s savagery, now if they would just take the same tac with John Edwards.
Yet another reason not to let Obamarama anywhere near the White House.
As if we needed another one.
While Russia’s role in this certainly isn’t benign, I don’t like the ‘the enemy of our enemy is our friend’ logic that seems to be leading people to conclude that the Republica of Georgia is the ‘good guys’ in this.
What makes Georgia a less than savory ally? Their main sin in this was taking the Russian bait and giving the Russians the excuse they needed to pound them. That we advised them caution, and they didn’t listen, is why this is not going to involve the United States, but this certainly tells us that Russia is back, and it’s not going to be pretty.
I posted on the Georgia situation at The Belmont Club since I have been reading his stuff since he was on Free Republic. Here is what I posted.
This is an engineered invasion by Russia under the excuse of protecting South Ossetia/Russian citizens. This is a classic causa belli to protect Russian citizens by allowing S. Ossetian’s and Abkazia’s to get Russian passports.
Russia has been fomenting trouble ever since the BZC pipeline was approved and construction started This pipeline allows oil and gas to flow from the Caspian Sea to the Mediterranean Sea. They bombed the oil terminal and the oil tankers and the shipbuilding facilities in Poti, the seaport on the Black Sea. Russian has bombed the pumping facilities of the BZC pipeline in this attack.
Turkey had an attack by Turkish PPK Kurds on the BZC pipeline in Ezbrium on Aug 6th, 2008. It damaged a valve and over 12,000 bbl has been lost and the pressure has run down from the pump in Baku. This pipeline was activated on 2006 and Russia has been causing increased problems from 2006 in Georgia. The pipeline is supposed to get to full commercial production in 2009. This is a total end run around Russia monopoly on Europe gas and oil pipelines.
Russia has been playing at economic oil warfare for several years. Turkmenistan had a change in leadership and then went from selling to Western oil companies to giving the contracts to Gazprom the Russian company. Medevev just got the Libya oil contracts.
Russia has been going after oil in the Arctic and claiming territory there now that the Artic Ocean is opening near Russia.
Russian also has the original imperialistic ambitions to reclaim the Republics it lost in 1991. Notice that they now claim that Ukraine has helped Georgia by selling weapons. Russia tried to get their puppets installed in Ukraine and Georgia elections and lost both times.
This is an opportunity to get Georgia back under Russian control. Next will be the Ukraine. S. Ossetia may have initiated this conflict by artillery against Georgian villages knowing that Russia had built up the military presence with over 150 tanks on the other side of the Roki Tunnel. Somewhat like little brother taking on his enemy with big brother standing behind him.
S. Ossetia is the excuse it has no value, but Georgia pipeline does, plus it stops a Western ally on Russia’s flank. Russian control over this area allows direct route to Turkey and control of the straights.
Do you think an Obama administration will do anything about Russia taking Georgia, Ukraine and then Turkey? NATO is a paper kitten and has no strength other than America.
Georgia thought this may be they best time with Bush still in power to stir things up. They obviously hope to take S Ossetia fast and get control of the Roki Tunnel in the Georgian side to prevent Russian armor. They were not fast enough.
Whether Geroge deserves to be our ally isn’t the issue. It’s whether an alliance with them is good for us. I think it’s pretty obvious that a direct military conflict between the US and Russia would be disastrous for our country. So I don’t see the use in setting up situations likely to lead to exactly such a conflict.
Because Georgia has the only pipelines from the east that aren’t under Russian control. If Putin can take control over all the energy feeding into Western Europe, he can essentially dictate to them. They would not dare cross Russia, unless they want to go without gas to cook and heat their houses.
Well, that’s certainly a good reason for EUROPE to ally with Georgia (or build more pipelines)
It’s too small a world these days to suggest that we can just guard our concerns with no care or thought given to what’s happening in the rest of the world. That worked when we had two oceans to protect us. Oceans, I might add, which up until the early part of this century were guarded by the Royal Navy. Those days are over.
Okay, let me put it differently: suppose Russia wants to occupy the whole of the Republic of Georgia and isn’t going to stop until they have control of the entire country. Do you think the US should start a war with Russia to prevent this?
No, I don’t. But it should have very serious consequences on American-Russian relations. It’s not worth starting a shooting war over, but it is worth reigniting the cold war.
Yes, but if taking over Georgia only results in economic sanctions or worse relations, than Georgia isn’t really our ally, and it’s better for both us and them if we don’t pretend they are.
Imagine if Bush had gotten his wish and Georgia was a NATO member. Under Article V we’d be obligated to militarily respond, which means we’d now be facing a choice of starting a shooting war with Russia or telling the world that we’ll back out of mutual defense treaties.
Well, strictly speaking, we didn’t let them into NATO because they had a border dispute in regards to South Ossetia, but were they a member of NATO, the Russians would have had to consider that in their strategic calculation.
I’ve someone claim something in regards to Taiwan, that we should cease any military aid to them. Of course, this might actually cause a war if mainland China thinks they have the go ahead to invade…