BBC article.
How should the West react? Would it not be hypocritical to deny them independence after the recent events in the Balkans? If we do permit it, are we storing up trouble for when South Ossetia wants to join with North Ossetia? Perhaps we could turn it around and invite the new countries to start the process of joining the EU?
Unfortunately, yes, which is why we’re screwed.
As painfully mixed as Bosnia/Serbia/Kosovo are, South Ossetia isn’t. It’s mixed all right, just not as much (I can’t find good data, but I think Georgians are actually a majority there!). Russia really wants to annex Ossetia, and this will simply cause the same problem down the line, as the Georgians get pissed at Russian domination and revolt.
I’m wondering now if the Russian Gov’t will happily let Chechnya go, since they are so concerned about making ethnic minorities happy.
According to wikipedia, Ossetians outnumber Georgians by two-to-one.
Does anyone remember how the Russians unilaterally “joined” the peacekeeping force in Kosovo in 1999?
Maybe give it a few more weeks and Bush will come up with something similarly subtle?
If NATO can bomb Serbia and take Kosovo away, then the Russians can do the same thing. You can’t have it both ways.
Which is precisely what the Russians said at the time - explicitly referencing South Ossetia.
In Russia, national liberation armies gang-rape YOU!
Putin is now saying the US orchestrated the conflict to benefit one of the presidential candidates and that Russia then had no choice but to invade. Strange, I’d always thought him bright before.
Well, think about it this way:
-Russians who never got over their suspicions of the west will believe him
-He didn’t name which presidential candidate. What do you think the odds are that it’ll turn out to have been whichever one won?
What’s sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander. I support the independence of Abkhazia or South Ossetia, even their annexation into Russia, so long as a 75% super-majority in the relevant district agree.
And the same for Chechen secession from Russia, & any Tatars that want to leave, same deal.
Without the latter, however, Putin can go suck eggs.
In the CNN interview I watched with Putin, he only put this forward as food for thought and not as a fact. He said that there were grounds to suspect that it could be so, and calls it a hypothesis. Part two of the interview covers that issue.
CNN interview part 1
CNN interview part 2
CNN interview part 3
Did he present it as anything more than that somewhere else?
One of McCain’s chief strategists lobby firm had the Georgia contract.
Aide advises while Firm lobbies
Yea - sure they did. Of course it was Wag The Dog. Does anyone seriously believe Georgia started a war with Russia off its own bat? Without a US nod and a wink?
:dubious:
So, what’s the equivalent of the Racak massacre in South Ossetia (and no, ridiculous casualty reports in South Ossetia from Russian sources aren’t particularly convincing)? NATO didn’t just “bomb Serbia” on a whim—don’t be so facile. It seems like there’s a lot of equivocation between situations that bear only a small degree of similarity. NATO intervention in the Balkans—Europe’s tinderbox—to prevent atrocities, and drive out a megolomaniac, somehow justifies massive Russian intervention in a situation they themselves have been fomenting? Er no.
As for “you can’t have it both ways”, well, isn’t this exactly what the Russians are themselves doing? How many Russian territories wish to secede?
I agree that it is definitely a possibility, though I meant to address the media seemingly putting words in Putin’s mouth. A suspicion is hardly a strong accusation in my mind.
In the Racak massacre 40 or 50 were killed. It’s not very likely the attack by Georgia resulted in less deaths so I fail to see your point.
Georgia started a war with Russia so as to violently assert control over people and territory they have never controlled. They lost. Tough shit.
You cannot be serious. What is it with you and equating situations that bear no similarity to each other?
Racak was a single incident amongst many. That only 40 or 50 died in that one instance is neither here nor there.
Racak was a massacre, whereas the Georgian offensive was in response to shelling and roadside bombing by South Ossetian partisans. The two simply aren’t comparable no matter how you try and paint it.
How many deaths actually resulted from Georgia’s initial foray into the breakaway territories is up-in-the-air, as far as I can gather. Russia’s propaganda machine in the days immediately following the attacks was a wonder to behold. Hospitals in South Ossetia report only 44 deaths in their morgue (estimated to be the majority of those killed in the areas affected) due to the Georgian attacks. It’s unclear to me on what ground you claim that the initial attack produced significantly more deaths than Racak alone.