I'm not sure there's are non-banning means for the moderators to handle stuff. I don't think they have any of these:
ANyway, I really have to go now, kthxbye...
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| Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia |
| Telegraph: The West must start to hit Russia where it hurts - in the roubles |
| 2008-08-13 |
| How fortunate, the armchair strategists say, that Georgia hadn't already joined Nato. For what would we have done then? How would the mutual defence on which the pact is supposed to be based have come to the rescue of plucky little Georgia? Would stealth bombers have blackened the skies over Moscow? Would 2 Para be driving the Russian bear back into North Ossetia? Quite. The events of the past four or five days in the Caucasus make one point very clearly, and we should all note it: it is of the uselessness of thumb-sucking international organisations in the face of a populous and heavily armed country that chooses to behave not in what President Bush has called a 21st-century fashion, but in an early 19th-century one. If the threat of mutually assured destruction is removed from the equation - more of that later, I am afraid - then such organisations can only function given an element of scrupulousness in international affairs among the high and mighty. There is none. You can talk about 1938; you can talk about 1914; you can even, if you want to show off, talk about 1811-12: what is in no doubt is that, several times in the modern era, the course of history has been changed by an escalation from the sort of opportunistic bullying we have seen in Georgia, and only a fool would say it would not be again. Much more at link |
| Posted by:3dc |
| #31 I'm not a mod (thankfully)...my $.02 - if a person doesn't forment ad hominen attacks on another poster I say let'em stay and run their suck no matter how silly...Aris annoyed me to no end, I'm glad he's gone because he was hopelessley arrogant, tedious to the extreme & did occasionally attack other posters - though I'm not sure I agree w/McZ I haven't seen him attack anybody the way I've seen some others attack him. Ultimately, it's Fred's site - he can ban whoever he wants for whatever reason. |
| Posted by: Hupusong Hatfield aka Broadhead6 2008-08-13 22:06 |
| #30 There's too damned many SGs in this comment thread. |
| Posted by: Waldemar Uneack9263 2008-08-13 21:11 |
| #29 another issue is sheer fatigue. The units that "broke" at Gori were, IIUC the same ones that had first gone into SO. If so theyd been fighting continuously for several days. and for at least the previous 24 hours under regular Russain attack from the air. Units break under conditions like that. IIUC there were US units in North Korea that broke as well in 1950. |
| Posted by: supergalitz 2008-08-13 16:59 |
| #28 M: The Georgian nationalist movement is hardly a wall of resolve. They ran. Georgians will run them out of office. Possibly so. But we don't know that from bits of news we're getting. We will find out just how determined they are when we resupply them with weaponry to hold off the Russians. But the fact is that vehicles need gasoline, and soldiers need food, water and ammunition. The Russians appear to blasted all the Georgian supply dumps in short order. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-08-13 16:51 |
| #27 The Georgian nationalist movement is hardly a wall of resolve. They ran. Georgians will run them out of office. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-08-13 16:44 |
| #26 M: I saw video of hundreds of abandoned Georgian military vehicles. And none were shot up. It is obvious that the military refused to fight for the nationalists. A possibility is that Georgian supply dumps and convoys were interdicted and bombed to pieces, meaning that these vehicles either ran out of gas or ammo. If Israel hadn't been resupplied by Uncle Sam during the Yom Kippur War, it would have suffered a similar fate. And in 1973, Israel was a great deal more prepared than today's Georgia for an invasion, with air superiority over its own skies. |
| Posted by: Zhang Fei 2008-08-13 16:41 |
| #25 One question I have is whether this disrupted a planned attack on Iran by Israel unless the israelis have info that Iran is passing a point of no return within the next two months or so, I cant believe they would do it under lame duck olmert rather than wait at least for the new Kadima leader. |
| Posted by: supergalitz 2008-08-13 16:31 |
| #24 Georgia's attack on So. Ossetia was launched to disrupt Russia's planned full front attack. It's unfortunate that they did so against our warnings IMO but understandable given the fact that the Russians were shelling Georgia proper via irregulars in So. O. They were also IMO clearly hoping to bring in the US militarily after Germany vetoed their admission to candidacy for NATO. One question I have is whether this disrupted a planned attack on Iran by Israel or whether, as reported, the US has vetoed arms to Israel for use in such an attack. Georgia will lose both separatist provinces. perhaps unavoidable in any case but almost certain now. They may get new armaments from the US to replace their outdated Soviet stuff. Maybe. Maybe the airfields rebuilt. But Russia will fiercely oppose either move and one way or the other will work hard to install a puppet govt of their liking. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-08-13 16:29 |
| #23 Back on topic. Besides the obvious losses, is there a positive to Georgia in all of this? International sympathy, unification of a fractious parlament behind Saak or a fast track to NATO membership do to Western guilt about doing nothing? Of course what was the US to do anyhow? Do we go to war with Russia and lose a valuable player in the War on Islamic terrorism? I'm as militant as they come, but Georgia's attack was as disproportionate as the Russian response. I hate to say it guys but we need Russia as a China hedge and vice -versa. |
| Posted by: Rightwing 2008-08-13 16:08 |
| #22 AS - I want one of those toys... I used to have one but I forgot where I put it. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-13 15:27 |
| #21 I don't think running afoul of you and OldSpook, or Pappy is grounds for pooplisting. Nobody's poop-listed him. Yet. Then again, this is pretty damn funny, considering it's coming from someone using a disposable name via an anonymizer. |
| Posted by: Pappy 2008-08-13 15:20 |
| #20 New day, lets have civilized rational discourse. It has always been a head scratcher, to me, with the European Union which whenever it comes to a vote does not pass, the expansion of NATO without the logistics to back it up, and new talk about a Mediterrainian Union. All these cross threading of alliances is baffling to a layman nevermind a country's foremost responsibility of protecting its citizens. To me it looks like a cocktail of water, vinegar, and baking soda which just got shaken around this last week. All I know about this conflict, not to agree with the excuse mongering in this article but had the same questions, is what can be found on the internet which of course is about as trustworthy as a barry oh statement. What I do understand is that there are some countries who understand the old way of conducting war and that should be recognized. "The cleared path is the popular way (last 20 years of western war) but the beaten trail (all the other years and techniques of war) is the proven way". |
| Posted by: swksvolFF 2008-08-13 12:24 |
| #19 I saw video of hundreds of abandoned Georgian military vehicles. And none were shot up. It is obvious that the military refused to fight for the nationalists. I saw video of abandoned Georgian vehicles, too. Some of them were damaged some not. I wasn't able to look into the vehicles to see the fuel gage but some of them could have run out of fuel. McZoid, your assertion that it is obvious that the Military refused to fight for the government has no basis for belief. In one video they were under attack by Russian bombers and were out in the open I'd get out and find cover, too. |
| Posted by: Deacon Blues 2008-08-13 12:14 |
| #18 AS - I want one of those toys... |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-08-13 12:08 |
| #17 I did not call for McZ to be banned. I said dealt with I'm not sure there's are non-banning means for the moderators to handle stuff. I don't think they have any of these: ANyway, I really have to go now, kthxbye... |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-13 11:18 |
| #16 SG - well than thats fine, but then you cant get upset with OS for a going on a cursing spree against him. Ditto, you cant keep sinktrapping pro-jihadi comments (I mean well of course you CAN, but not without looking rather arbitrary, which may or may not be a concern) I mean its either anything goes, or it isnt. And note, I did not call for McZ to be banned. I said dealt with, and I imagine there are multiple ways of doing that. |
| Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-13 11:05 |
| #15 You guys are really getting steamed up over this McZoid thing. You can't expect to never be annoyed by anyone. Not at home, not at work, not here or anywhere else for that matter. If you don't dig what he has to say, skip over it until he says something remotely lucid. I'm not defending him, he may be the world's biggest dumbass, but last time I checked, there were about 4.5billion people in a dead heat for that title. You guys can't just start moaning for the mods when someone says something you don't like. |
| Posted by: Speck Gonque9221 2008-08-13 11:01 |
| #14 "Oh my, it's so easy to pick on McZoid. If you really want to put him out of your misery, why don't you come up with a clever argument that proves him obviously wrong." Problem is weve DONE that, repeatedly, and he keeps posting as if hed never heard what we've said. I dont mean that he doesnt concede that we are right - I mean he doesnt even modify or improve his arguements, he just posts the same BS over and over in the same form. Responding with the same counters each time gets pretty boring. And even THAT would be tolerable (well by intraweb standards) if he at least kept it to threads where its kind of ontopic, but he doesnt. he posts it where its quite irrelevant. Plus of course, the bigotry, usually implied, sometimes explicit. |
| Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-13 10:55 |
| #13 Wow, what an example of what I was trying to point out. You beat me in argument by simply not replying to what I say and pretending that wins the argument. The only problem with it is that it's a jamming strategy, it's useless to anyone hoping to actually get information out of the online fora. (But for one half of the argument, that's a bug not a feature). |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-13 10:50 |
| #12 It just seems like another form of bullying to me. He got on the wrong side of a click and since these stories with Georgia started popping up, he's taken a lot of heat for everything he's written. |
| Posted by: Uppity Wigger 2008-08-13 10:41 |
| #11 This is an online forum. I can't "prove" here that the SUn is made up of hydrogen, a person _pretending_ to be polite can just carry on as if nothing happened, never posting a response, and continue with his argument that it's really made out of radioactive egg yolk instead. This is the first environment I've seen where it's possible to "win" arguments by simply refusing to acknowledge the existance of other arguments. It's a cheap rhetorical trick that works well in online fora but has no truck with the truth whatsoever. |
| Posted by: Abdominal Snowman 2008-08-13 10:34 |
| #10 Zenster got banned from Rantburg, not because he ran afoul of mods or other regulars, but because his repetitious assertions degraded the possibility of conversation by anyone else. And because he increasingly chose assertions designed to be provocative in unhelpful ways. McZoid is coming close to doing that himself, as with the napalm comment. At some point real soon he will be asked to find another playground if it keeps up. And, I should add, that will occur whether he is posting under his usual IP address or via an anonymizing server in Germany. |
| Posted by: lotp 2008-08-13 10:31 |
| #9 Oh my, it's so easy to pick on McZoid. If you really want to put him out of your misery, why don't you come up with a clever argument that proves him obviously wrong. What has he done that is so wrong? Refused to stand up front in the cheerleading section? If you try to get every poster who annoys you kicked off the site it would be a lonely place indeed. He uses the nationalist line a lot, too much in fact, but I don't think running afoul of you and OldSpook, or Pappy is grounds for pooplisting. Hell, lets ban everyone who introduces a discordant note in the blissful harmony that is Rantburg. |
| Posted by: Uppity Wigger 2008-08-13 10:25 |
| #8 mods, McZ is again spamming with irrelevancies, nonsence and implied bigotry. If you want to keep things civil here, I suggest considering dealing with him. |
| Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer 2008-08-13 09:25 |
| #7 3dc: Afghanistan is ideal for napalm. Most mortar attacks are executed apart from civilian areas. A flammable liquid (technically gel) ignites over a large area. I do agree that Napalm was used less than cautiously in Vietnam. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-08-13 05:32 |
| #6 Back on duty already, McFSB? |
| Posted by: Phesing the Younger2027 2008-08-13 04:15 |
| #5 How about a simple thing like.. a realistic exchange rate? |
| Posted by: mojo 2008-08-13 03:03 |
| #4 McZoid - a good argument for all sorts of deniable weapons systems. We need to build and install them ASAP. Rods from the Great Satan would be a good start. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-08-13 01:47 |
| #3 I saw video of hundreds of abandoned Georgian military vehicles. And none were shot up. It is obvious that the military refused to fight for the nationalists. There is a current ceasefire, or actually 2 unilateral ceasefires. As promised, the Russians didn't take land outside of the 2 protectorates that they handed to Georgia as a member of the Commonwealth of Independent States. The intervention ends Georgia's perverse breach of commitments to protect national minorities. Russia applied the Helsinki Accords in Western Asia. The West should have protected the 2,000,000 Christians that our leaders allowed to be cleansed out of the Holy Lands. NATO? Only a handful of members responded when GWB invoked Article 5 against Taliban/al-Qaeda. Meanwhile, Turkey remains a worthless member, even as it occupies parts of Europe. |
| Posted by: McZoid 2008-08-13 01:17 |
| #2 CHINESE MIL FORUM Thread > WHY THERE WILL BE NO WAR [USA] WITH RUSSIA [OR CHINA].For all its power and diplom-correct rhetoric, the USA is instrinsically reluct to militarily intervene in small States or regions right next to major Nuke-Armed Rivals, i.e. RUSSIA + CHINA??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-08-13 01:06 |
| #1 IT ENDS WITH: Only America has the muscle, the will and the sense of leadership to deal with this. Look at the pathetic response from our own Prime Minister and the pretender to his post, the Foreign Secretary: we can have no dog in this fight to uphold democratic values. The world has become used to despising the United States for its foreign policy since 2001. If it wishes to live safely, it had better reverse that opinion, and start to engage constructively in the search for a means to show Russia that appeasement does have an end. |
| Posted by: 3dc 2008-08-13 00:52 |