Support for Independent Kosovo Haunts U.S. in Georgia
August 9, 2008
The United States has supported the Kosovar Muslims of Serbia against the wishes of Belgrade and Moscow for more than a decade. From Bill Clinton’s bombing campaign against Serbs forces in Kosovo to the Bush Administration’s support for a newly independent breakaway republic in February of this year, United States foreign policy has firmly established what it considers the right of regional entities to secede from the the larger nations in which they exist. Now that policy has come back to haunt the United States and one of its most staunch allies.
Georgia is a small nation that spans two continents and stretches from the Black Sea to near the Caspian Sea. It is a strategically located hub for oil transport and the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline crosses its territory. Georgia is strongly pro-U.S. and has petitioned for inclusion in NATO. After the United States and Britain, Georgia was the largest coalition provider of troops in Iraq. When President Bush visited Georgia, the street leading to Tbilisi International Airport was renamed George W. Bush Avenue. Georgia is a strong ally of the United States.
As of yesterday, Georgia is also at war with Russia. This from the BBC today…
Russian jets have carried out strikes on military targets in the central Georgian town of Gori, close to the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
Georgian officials say 60 people were killed when bombs hit two blocks of flats in the town.
The Georgian parliament has meanwhile approved a presidential decree declaring a state of war for 15 days.
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The crisis began spiralling when Georgian forces launched a surprise attack on Thursday night to regain control of South Ossetia, which has had de facto independence since the end of a civil war in 1992.The move followed days of exchanges of heavy fire with the Russian-backed separatists.
In response to the Georgian crackdown, Moscow sent armoured units across the border into South Ossetia. Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said about 1,500 people had been killed so far, including 15 of his country’s soldiers.
Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili denounced the claims of a high civilian death toll as an “egregious lie”.
South Ossetia, like Kosovo, is a breakaway region that has claimed autonomy from the rest of the nation. Georgia, of course, considers South Ossetia to be part of its national territory. Ossetian rebels declared South Ossetia to be an independent republic in 1992 and Russian “peace keepers” have been in the region for years basically supporting South Ossetian separatist government. Georgia has attempted to develop South Ossetia’s autonomous status within the Georgian state, but the separatist rebels have demanded complete independence. Russia has antagonized Georgia by declaring South Osstians to be Russian citizens and providing them with Russian passports.
Seperatist rebels have made several cross border raids on Georgian forces and then retreated behind the shield of Russian peace keepers. Yesterday, Georgia launched a major offensive to retake control of breakaway South Ossetia. Russia responded by sending in armed convoys and military combat aircraft into Georgia. The fighting escalated quickly with Russian air attacks staged against Georgian cities not in the South Occetian separatist area. Today Russian military aircraft bombed the Georgian town of Gori.
An Associated Press reporter who visited Gori shortly afterward saw several apartment buildings in ruins, some still on fire, and scores of dead bodies and bloodied civilians. The elderly, women and children were among the victims.
“Georgia is facing Russia’s military aggression,” [Georgian President] Saakashvili said, noting that Russian forces were attacking areas outside South Ossetia. “Georgian authorities support a cease-fire and separation of the warring parties.”
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Overnight, Russian warplanes bombed the Vaziani military base on the outskirts of the Georgian capital and near the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline, Georgian Interior Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said. He also said two other military bases were hit, and that warplanes bombed the Black Sea port city of Poti, which has a sizable oil shipment facility.Georgia, meanwhile, said it has shot down 10 Russian planes, including four brought down Saturday, according to Kakha Lomaya, head of Georgia’s Security Council.
The first Russian confirmation that its planes had been shot down came Saturday from Russian Col. Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, who said two Russian planes were downed. He did not say where or when.
Georgian Armor in South Ossetia
Meanwhile, Russia warns the west to stay out of the conflict.
Dmitry Rogozin, [Russia's Special Envoy to NATO] linked Georgia’s attack against South Ossetia with NATO’s recent summit in Romania stressing that they dropped a hint to the Georgian President: Georgia will get NATO admission, and Mikhail Saakashvili understood he could launch the attack.
Mr Rogozin added, “Though NATO doesn’t want to show it truly sides with Saakashvili, at the latest summit the President got a permit to start a military operation.”
“What Russia is doing in Georgia is open, unhidden aggression and a challenge to the whole world,” he said. “If the whole world does not stop Russia today, then Russian tanks will be able to reach any other European capital.”
Mr Saakashvili, who has invoked the ire of Moscow for his desire to bring Georgia into NATO, said Georgia was being attacked by Russia because “we want to be free and we want to be a multi-ethnic democracy”. He recalled the country’s 2,000 soldiers fighting with coalition forces in Iraq, saying they were needed at home, and was preparing to bring in martial law.
President Saakashvili, a U.S.-educated lawyer, has asked for diplomatic and other support from the United States in the current fighting with Russia. The United States, however, has tied its own hands by supporting Kosovo’s independence from Serbia against the wishes of the Russians. Either the U.S. supports the right of autonomous ethnic regions to withdraw from established nations or it does not. It is now very difficult for the United States to assist one of its most staunch allies in a fight to hold the nation together. This a high price to pay in exchange of the creation of an independent, Muslim dominated, Kosovo in the middle of Europe.
A victim of Russian air attack in the Georgian city of Gori.
McLaren :
Date: August 11, 2008
Dead on, R.D. Aside from learning, or re-learning, a hard lesson, now the U.S. is between the proverbial rock and hard-place.
I would hold out some glimmer of faith that Europe understands what they have wrought. By letting their backyard conflicts fester and boil over, and by relying on the U.S. to cover their asses because preparing for war is so last-century, Russia is emboldened.
The Georgian president is right: If this goes unchecked, it is only a matter of time before another area is invaded. And as Russia sees very little cost in these actions, they will only grow more aggressive. The Gathering Storm, Part II.
craig hill :
Date: August 12, 2008
McLaren suffers from Bush-media propagandaitis. The Georgian dictator, a slavish puppet to the Bush administration, has spent 70% of his suffering nation’s meager funds on a huge military, despite the lack of basics like electricity in the nation’s capitol, which suffers from rolling blackouts. Saakashvili is dedicated to the Bush agenda, which includes sending troops to Iraq and Afghanistan, even going so far as naming the main drag to the airport Geo W Bush Ave.
Saakashvili attacked Russian UN peacekeepers (look it up!) protecting South Ossetia from his terrorism, which includes torturing his own citizens for protesting the fraud of his own election.
As the map above SHOWS, Ossetia is split between Russia and Georgia, which has been ethnically cleansing the autonomy-seeking Southern half. It is the Georgian dictator who attacked them 8/8/08 under the cover of the opening of the Olympics, killing some 1500 Ossetians, and it is that to which Putin reacted. Georgia’s offense is being supplied by NATO, i.e., the US under the criminal Bush regime (try to pretend it isn’t) in an attempt to re-cast Russia as villain, the Cold War Redux, ergo keeping the Gravy Train of Death aka the Congressional-Presidential Nexus of Endless War running full throttle unhindered.
Don’t be a Dupe of the likes of Bush!
R.D. Walker :
Date: August 12, 2008
You are pretty confused here Craig…
First off, Saakashvili is not a dictator. Not by a long shot. He is the democratically elected president of Georgia and is fully accountable to and recallable by the people of Georgia.
Secondly the so called “Russian peace keepers” are not peace keepers at all. They are an occupying military force in Georgia territory protecting a South Ossetian “government” made up of Russian siloviki who are using the region for purposes that have nothing to do with Ossetian nationality. Saakashvili did conduct a raid on the region but it was a justified – if ill conceived – assault on a region of Georgia being used by insurgents. The Russian “peace keepers” were providing cover for the insurgents and a trigger for Russian retaliation if the Georgians attempted to do anything about it.
The only ethnic cleansing going on in Ossetia – both north and south – is through its occupation and control by ethnic Russians who run both parts.
You can continue to fantasize that Saakashvili is a dictator and get your panties in a bunch because he has the audacity to ally himself with the President of the United States but you just look like a fool. To defend Putin and call President Bush a criminal just reveals you to be a delusional moonbat and not worthy of serious attention.
We are not dupes of Bush so much as you are being duped by your own sad case of Bush Derangement Syndrome.
Saratov :
Date: August 13, 2008
Kosovo is similar to Georgia but, North Mitrovica is similar to South Ossetia.
As the United States Institute for Peace says, “No solution for Kosovo can last without a solution for Mitrovica.”
http://www.usip.org/pubs/usipeace_briefings/2006/0724_mitrovica.html
Serbs number only 130,000 of Kosovo’s nearly two million population. Half of Kosovo’s Serbs live in North Mitrovica and its hinterland up to the border of Serbia proper.
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/library/news/2007/08/mil-070810-voa06.htm
McLaren :
Date: August 15, 2008
*sigh*
Craig: As I recall, we have rolling blackouts in California. Does this prove that Bush is spending all our tax money on an offensive military build-up or does it prove that liberal gibberish begets a lower standard of living?
As for Georgia arming itself, gee, I wonder why?!
As for the “Bush regime” being criminal, prove it. It may be incompetent from time to time, but criminal is reserved for those who poison other world leaders and assassinate journalists and critics of a political agenda. Putin ring a bell?
Now run along….and get some help for that blistering case of BDR.
R.D. Walker :
Date: August 15, 2008
McCaren: You have to admit, it is fun to have the likes of Hill show up here and be-clown himself. I am disappointed that he didn’t come back.
We can be confident that Peter Welch’s staffers have been here to read the post I made about Hill. We have had several hits directly to that post from an IP registered to the House of Representatives Information Services. The hits appear to have originated from an email being passed around.
I am sure they had fun with it too since Hill makes the liberal Welch look like John Birch.