WASHINGTON (AP) August 8, 2008 - Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice is urging
Russia to halt aircraft and missile attacks in Georgia's breakaway
region of South Ossetia and withdraw combat forces from Georgian
territory.

Rice says in a statement that the United States wants Russia to
respect Georgian sovereignty and agree to international mediation
with Tbilisi in a bid to end the crisis in the former Soviet state
that threatens to plunge the volatile region into full-scale war.
In Moscow, officials say Rice spoke with Russian Foreign Minister
Sergei Lavrov about the matter.

US-allied Georgia launched a surprise military offensive to
retake South Ossetia earlier Friday. The assault reportedly killed
hundreds of people and triggered a ferocious counterattack from
Russia, which has sent tanks across the border and reportedly
bombed Georgian air bases.

That's the way it was when at the Kremlin sat good old Yeltsin, drunk and friendly.

Things change.

... but is Russia ready for that?
After the truce is declared, all the western world will start to shoute, what bloody bustards Russians are.. Our market has already falen at 6 points, ruble's rate is exteremely falling also..
Russia had no choice, but starting this war.. but I'm not sure we'll gaine of it

Pardon me, Bush's golden boy Shakashvili started the war.

By showing determination to defend small nations like Ossetia and Abkhazia, you gain peace. You gain Russia.

If you allow the nation to be whittled down and humiliated, you gain the break-up of the country. Do you think that the neighbors do not wants pieces of Russia?

If Milosevic had been as tough as Putin and Medvedev, he would have done exactly the same in Krajina in 1990-91, and Yugoslavia would have survived.

By showing determination to defend small nations like Ossetia and Abkhazia, you gain peace.

Hey Matt. Ossetia and Abkhazia are not nations. They are region popullation with Russian. Russians there are 0.00053% of Russian popullation. It is the same as Serbia to open war with Rumania to protect a region where 5830 serbs live.
A quick response will be that Israel open war for 2 soldiers. But it is worth it. Many in Israel think the same as I do. It is not worth it. Peace with diplomatic measures is the only solution. I strongly believe that Russia has the full potential to make peace with neighbours, expecialy when they are slavic nation with the same religion, language, tradition, etc.

War is the week-minded best friend. Peace is hard to reach but is worth to try.

A nation is a body of people that is sufficiently conscious of its unity to some time seek a government of its own.

It may not even seek it now, but it may be pushed to seek it, by events. Croats are a nation even though they do not even have a different language. They are because they say so.

Ossetians and Abkhazians have different languages and traditions. They are nations. They were fine within the Soviet Union. However, local provincial people, when given autonomy, tend to get nasty against their own minorities.

Just as the Albanians, when they came to rule their local areas, got much nastier with the Serbs than the Ottomans themselves, so did the Georgians. Their behavior has made them lose any claim to rule their minorities, just as the Azeris lost their right to rule Armenians, or Kosovo Albanians lost the right to rule Serbs Gypsies, or Gorani.

The Israel issue is totally different. It is insane to start a war because a provocation turned into a border incident. They could have had the bodies by exchange of prisoners right them.

Russia however did not seek war, it sought to protect its people. It has done well. Milosevic would be president of Yugoslavia if he had done the same in 1990, to protect Serbs

The great importance of the Putin-Medvedev move is that it has given warning: don't mess with Russia. If you oppress local Russian populations, we will protect them and break up your artificial nation, artificial and unnecessary as Bosnia and Kosovo.

Russia, with this excellent move, has give warning to the NATO agrressors that the Yeltsin days are gone, and It has saved us from war with the west

Soldiers are not thrown into hopeless deadly atacks,they do not need vodka,and the must behaveand be well controlled by officers, they cannot behave like in Chechnya,otherwise they lose their high ground

Milan:
Abhazians and Osetians are swparated nations. The majority of them just recieved Russian passport ( with total support of Russian authorities, of course..)
So, when you say about nations self-determination - it is exactly the example.

Matt:
I agree. ( about break-up and humilation). That's why I say that Russia had no right ( and that's why had no choice) not to start the war (if we follow western version, that Saakashvilli just realised military operation inside of this country).
But I watch with worry whole the world uniting around the idea, that we're aggressors.

The same was at USA case during some of recent events. BUT:
- US has several powerful allies that never go across them whatever they do ( British, Israel,Eastern new europeans enthusiasts etc). So, they always have support in global dialoge ( we - not)

- US - is US. If you are as powerful as US - probably you may risk to go across the world. But can you if you're Russia?....

This "warning" in western eyes mean that Russia - is still an alert. A sourse of aggression.
America always thought it is. But some influentive NATO members weren't agree with them.
Now thins changed and they all will be easy to unite against Russia with all the futher steps ( cold war).
Russian economy is not ready for another cold war...

Do not gurge about solders' behavior basing on western papers.
The same stories you heard about Russian federal solders we heard about chechens and arab extremists, fighting on terrorists' side..

BTW, we do not have to belive current war mass media reports also!
Both, Russian and western.

Liquor was used by all armies to get the soldiers to get up and go die in hopeless attacks in WW1.

It is a fact, however, that discipline of Russian soldiers is notoriously poor and that they drink and misbehave, as they did in Eastern Europe in 1944-45 and in Afghanistan and Chechnya. That is the main reason for their difficulties there. Hang a soldier guilty of some particularly awful atrocity, and the problem will begin to be solved.

"Do not punch a bear on the nose unless it is tied down."

That was #1 lesson drawn by the BBC on August 11.

This war has has definitely convinced the Europeans, who do not have unemployed small town kids willing to go see the world as cannon fodder, not to mess in the Caucasus. If the Anglos want to get killed in desert of Asia, let them, but this is too close to Europe, and so the Great Game of expanding NATO to Russia's border is over.

With a big smile or without, the Europeans will buy your gas and oil, don't worry.

Matt, in what century do you live??^) What do you mean, "hang a solder"?

Concerning Russian solders - probablly in Auganistan and Chechnya - you're right ( though, I don't have an idea, where did you get such an oppinion!?). But that's different.. it where hard time for the country (people experienced it in all part of life), moreover these wars weren't taken as real wars by people.. just local conflicts.

If you say about Soviet Army - it was one of the toughest dicipline there.

And about liquer: Soviet solders also had such a practice during WWII. Each solder recieved 100 g of spirit ( it had been supposed that they would double it with water and get vodka, but they had taken it pure) right before moving to atack. But what does it have incommon with discipline?

Everyone reads what he wants to read...

Optimist Matt reads: "Do not touch a bear..."
Pessimist COmsomolec: .. before it is tied down"

I'm getting ready for the worst......

Russia is not Iraq. If Saddam Hussein had had a couple of nukes, no one would have bothered him.

Same for Yugoslavia. All they had to do was buy some centrifuge and hire some Soviet scientists and technicians. Even if they did not have the bomb, NATO would not have thought of bothering them.

Had not noticed Comsomolec's last message.

I once read the story of how a Serb colonel, before entering Albanian town, told his men, with his hand on his revolver: "Anyone who beats or robs an Albanian will be shot with this gun."

Unfortunately many Serb commanders did not say that in 1912--or in 1992. Result: atrocities and a bad name for Serbia. Bosnian Muslims and Albanians did worse, and they got medals and praise from the Hague Tribunal for it.

Still, the only way to have a good name--and to win--when you are small and have no friends in the Western press, is to fight clean, and the only way to fight clean is for the soldiers to know they will get hung for misbehaving. Hanging worked 100 years ago, it still works today.

Can't belive, I hear it from a man who knows western propaganda technologies so well!

You may hang all the Serb army - but still american and british common people will watch only an episode with something like crying Albanian baby near a house on fire. And this picture will follow all the news on TV..


You'll be gurged according to what is seen by TV and not according to real events..

Comsomolec, it's "judged", not "gurged".

Now, leaving morality aside, don't you think that my job would be so much easier if we did not shell mosques and "disappear" prisoners? If we did not allow soldiers to become drunk killers, if I only had to work on the list of "disappeared" Serbs, not on a list of "disappeared" Albanians? By the way, that means the "desaparecidos", people taken by death squads. In modern English "to disappear" has taken a second meaning as a transitive verb.

Chavez in Venezuela, Ortega in Nicaragua, they don't run death squads, so writing for the defense is very easy.

In Kosovo and in Macedonia, Albanians were disappeared, and the defense job becomes much more complicated.

Of course if we really behave correctly, they will fake massacres, as they did in Racak. They also do "false flag" jobs, see Markale Market bombings and Bread Line bombing in Sarajevo. See

http://www.historycommons.org/timeline.jsp?timeline=western_support_for_islamic_militancy_tmln&western_support_for_islamic_militancy_tmln_alleged_false_flag_operations=islamic_militancy_balkans

Of course! That's what I'm talking about!
Actually, the only reason of fighting clean - is just moral side. To be honest above yourself ( and, what is more important - to be honest in the History's eyes, in the eyes of decsendents. The example of your project proves, that oneday all sides of the truth will be clear)

And all the previows arguments are out of sense.. your "clean fighting" never makes you a name in the eyes of western people.