Georgia launched an invasion, yes. The question of who started the series of events that escalated to an invasion isn’t so simple.
No one has disputed that.
How was that a cause of the trouble, again?
That’s odd, you refer to attacks on Georgia as being “alleged”, “small arms” attacks, that are just a “couple of farmers feuding over land”. Attacks by Georgia don’t get all these qualifiers. Yet another of your odious double standards.
Like I said, read the report. There was plenty of escalation, and plenty of attacks, on both sides. You had Georgia covered, it’s worth noting that they weren’t cartoonish villains (or ethnically cowards, as you wrote), they were trying to end a situation that had become intolerable, they just chose a poor means to do so. Surely you, with your love of seeing things from the other guy’s side, can understand that.
They did complain about Russia’s supposed peacekeepers being party to the dispute, violating the agreement, violating their airspace, and so on. Nothing changed, so they invaded. It was a bad decision.
That would only be one-sided if the report doesn’t also identify and critique Georgian misdeeds…as you’ve made clear, that’s not the case.
No, but they were coming from South Ossetia. Sending troops into South Ossetia is an invasion. If you’re going to invade, the sensible thing is to try and take control of the other nation/enclave altogether, so as to stop all such attacks. An act of war is an act of war, why chase a couple artillery guns around a field somewhere while the enemy counter-attacks and destroys you?
If Canada started lobbing shells into Seattle from Vancouver, but their government and primary military forces were in Toronto, if the U.S. invaded with the goal of seizing control of Canada, we’d go for Toronto.
Pointing out that they didn’t attack for no reason is excuse-making? In that case, what have you been doing for Russia for dozens of pages now?
Three quotes cited by Batutista from the EU Commissioned Report that are taken out of context.
Here it is in full context as these type of things must be.
And here the lack of context was eliminated and is eliminated by most posters finding Russia “EQUALLY” guilty overall… Russia is only equally guilty with Georgia in part two. Not in reaction to the ‘guilty party’ that started the whole thing.
It is dishonest and wrong to declare that the Russian people favored an ‘invasion’ of Georgia. I’m sure Russians heartily on the whole fully endorsed the defensive and punitive military strike into and against the Sakaashvilli government’s ‘massive’ artillery and tank assault on civilian targets in Tskhinvali on the night of August 7, 2008. That opinion piece has nothing to support its accusation that the Russian public at large would support Medvedev launching an invasion of Georgia without it being a defensive action as well as intended to destroy the military capability that was offensively used to kill Russian Federation soldiers in a cowardly unjustified, illegal attack that Georgia clearly started the five day war.
You can defend the dishonest misrepresentation of the Russian population as a whole in that opinion. I’m not drinking the Kool-Aid that biased writer is peddling.
But the EU commissioned report did tell us that Georgia attacked Tskhinvali for no justifiable or legitimate or defensive reason and it was not in compliance with international law.
Georgia can come up with all the ‘reasons’ in the world to justify their cowardly massive artillery assault on civilian targets, but they are worthless justifications and the words of a lying murderous government.
When you ‘Point Out’ Georgia’s reasons for massively shelling innocent civilians does that mean you buy them? What is your intent for ‘pointing out’ the reasons a killer gives for doing it?
False. They are not two separate independent statements. ‘As a result’ ties the two together.
This is a false statement: “The 2008 invasion of Georgia sharply increased the popularity of Dmitri Medvedev, who was filling in as president for Putin.”
Why did you separate that into two statements?
I duspute the ‘as a result’ part.
Your confusion about ‘invasion’ was explained in the EU commissioned report that I have cited.
Does anyone disagree with the EU Commissioned Report here:
“21.) When considering the legality of Russian military force against Georgia, the answer needs to be differentiated. The Russian reaction to the Georgian attack can be divided into two phases: first, the immediate reaction in order to defend Russian peacekeepers, and second, the invasion of Georgia by Russian armed forces reaching far beyond the administrative boundary of South Ossetia.”
Are you thinking of the right article? This one made no accusation that the Russian public would support some alternate-reality invasion of Georgia that occurred under different circumstances. That the Russian people approved of the actual invasion of Georgia, at least in the form of increasing their approval of Medvedev, well, that’s just a fact.
The article’s point is that previous military actions Putin was involved in worked out very well for him, and it’s predicting that this one won’t, because of a difference between this one and the previous ones: the international response. There is no moral judgment on the Russo-Georgian War there, you are imagining things. Things that, conveniently, allow you ignore the entire article.
Sort of, it found that Georgia would have been justified, but for its treaty obligations:
How can a justification be “worthless”? It can be insufficient to meet some legal standard, but “worthless”?
Don’t forget a dash of ethnic hatred…
…that really sells your opinions.
I “buy” that their reasons were what they said they were, yes. My intent is to dispute your characterization of the Georgian side as madmen.
You can’t see the difference in these two statements?
“**That event **had lifted his popularity greatly, and each anniversary he reminisced on television about the tough, solitary decision he made to **send the army **into Georgia while Mr. Putin was away in Beijing.”
“The 2008 invasion of Georgia sharply increased the popularity of Dmitri Medvedev, who was filling in as president for Putin.”
OK. Its clear that you dispute my view that a head of state that orders a massive artillery and tank assault against a populated city, killing and wounding many human beings in an illegal and unjustified attack, is a madman.
He probably thinks that a country can’t “invade” another country as an act of self-defense. Or, he’s redefining common English words again in order to defend his indefensible statements.
A madman is someone who’s insane, not someone who disagrees with you as to what sort of events justify a military attack. You called Bush a madman as well, IIRC. Words mean things.
I never know what’s the result of a language barrier, what’s ignorance, and what’s frantic back-pedaling to avoid ever admitting error.
In case it’s ignorance, here, NotfooledbyW, are a few invasions done in self-defense:
Are you thinking of