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Taliban take control of Khar suburbs as Zardari, Nawaz, Fazl jockey for presidency
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Page 1: WoT Operations
24 00:00 Zhang Fei [1] 
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Page 2: WoT Background
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 4: Opinion
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Page 5: Russia-Former Soviet Union
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Good morning
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Gene Krupa's girlfriend
Posted by: mojo || 08/11/2008 1:18 Comments || Top||

#2  Someone else looks like her. Can't place it.

Duplicate articles followed the midnight post. Don't make Fred's life harder.
Posted by: McZoid || 08/11/2008 1:23 Comments || Top||

#3  McZerobrain, How about you leave then if you don't want to make Fred's life harder you subhuman idiotic piece of excrement?
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 1:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Wow, OS invades the separatist province of McZoid's ego and leaves it pockmarked and devastated. No word of collateral damage but refugees pushing wheelbarrows full of feces seen approaching the border of Trollistan.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 08/11/2008 4:02 Comments || Top||

#5  Healthy-looking girl, she is. Good lung capacity, apparently. If she was Gene's girlfriend, he was a lucky dog.

OS, come on, man. That is DU/DailyKos behavior. That kind of stuff is beneath you--and you know it.
Posted by: Waldemar Uneack9263 || 08/11/2008 7:13 Comments || Top||

#6  Take a break, OldSpook. Go smell the flowers, take a walk with your wife, hunt a grizzly bear. You need to work off some energy.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 10:19 Comments || Top||

#7  It would help if McZoid did the same.
Posted by: lotp || 08/11/2008 10:31 Comments || Top||

#8  True enough, lotp.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 10:48 Comments || Top||

#9  Gene Krupa's girlfriend was Batgirl?
Posted by: SteveS || 08/11/2008 10:56 Comments || Top||

#10  I continue to wonder why its Kossack behavior to say what OS did about some far right loon, but far left loons are usually attacked just as hard, if theyre not sinktrapped. Note, Im not picking a fight with the mods, who tend to try to be fair, and have a lot to do, but with the rest of the commentators, who sometimes seem more inclined to play fair with 'deviations' in one direction than in the other (and no, I wont wrt to this issue take myself as an example of a tolerated deviation on the left - Im speaking with respect to people who are hateful and antiamerican in one direction or another)
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 14:03 Comments || Top||

#11  I think OS' comments came after several weeks of postings, not for a single comment. McZoid doesn't thrill me, either, but I can tolerate him - as long as his barbs aren't aimed at me. I value OS' insights and comments, knowing something of his background. I know little or nothing about McZ, and I'm not that curious.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 08/11/2008 14:32 Comments || Top||

#12  BTW, I wonder if I should drop this nick cause its too hard to spell, and even i dont recognize "SG" as an abbreviation.
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 15:17 Comments || Top||

#13  SG- pick your own nick. It (if nothing else) easier to identify.

~Free Radical (which I picked for my own darn self.)
Posted by: Free Radical || 08/11/2008 16:12 Comments || Top||

#14  Where is Bob G from Maine? His posts were solid; constructive use of algorithms.
Posted by: Beldar Elmoger1345 || 08/11/2008 17:41 Comments || Top||

#15  BTW, I wonder if I should drop this nick cause its too hard to spell, and even i dont recognize "SG" as an abbreviation.
My Spidey sense is foreshortening, like JO8!z nose hair.
Posted by: .5MT || 08/11/2008 17:44 Comments || Top||

#16  SG, I'm not objecting to OS taking the guy down if he chooses. It's the language I'm disappointed with. I've seen trolls eviscerated here numerous times but it's generally done with logic and wit, not billingsgate. TW in particular wields a diamond molecular scalpel when she puts on the surgeon's smock.

No, this is something different and considerably out of character for OS. There must be something pretty serious on his personal side going on outside the 'Burg and the stress is being relieved here. Whatever it is, I hope he works through it quickly and successfully so he can return to his previous equilibrium.
Posted by: Sleating Big Foot6595 || 08/11/2008 18:56 Comments || Top||

#17  Why thank you, Sleating Big Foot6595! You do know how to turn a girl's head. :-) I think OldSpook is frustrated because he isn't on the inside this time, getting ready to do what must be done, at a time when it really, really matters.

superstitiousGalitzianer, I like your nym, now that I know you're really our dear liberalhawk in civilian clothing. As long as you stick with just one, I shouldn't get too confused.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 19:11 Comments || Top||

#18  She played Krupa's girlfriend in "The Gene Krupa Story". Sal Mineo played Krupa.
Posted by: Harcourt Shetch2380 || 08/11/2008 22:08 Comments || Top||


Africa Horn
Nigerian ship hijacked in Somalia
(Xinhua) -- Somali militants have hijacked a Nigerian merchant ship, holding its captain, Graham Egbegi, and its crew hostage, local media reported Sunday. The militants are demanding a ransom of 1 million U.S. dollars for their release.

Trigo Egbegi, the captain's elder brother, disclosed this in a text message to the News Agency of Nigeria (NAN) on Saturday in Lagos. Egbegi, a journalist and Secretary of the Nigeria Boxing Board of Control, said the captain was allowed to contact his family after five days in captivity. He said the ship, Yenagoa Ocean, belonging to ESL Integrated Services, had berthed in Mogadishu to seek medical attention for some crew members who were sick.

Egbegi said the ship was on its way from Dubai through the Pacific when it was hijacked. He said the captain had earlier obtained a clearance to head for Mogadishu for the treatment, adding after the ship's berthing, the militants stormed the ship and seized it. He said although the captain and his crew were well, the militants, who had reportedly contacted the ship's owners, had been threatening to kill them unless the ransom was paid.

Narrating their son's ordeal to newspaper The Guardian, spokesman of the Egbegi family, Trigo Egbegi, said Captain Egbegi and his crew went to Dubai to take delivery of the vessel, Yenagoa Ocean, via the Pacific route and on their way back to Nigeria, "Mogadishu was the nearest city to them and they decided to berth in the city for urgent medical attention to the man," he said. "They radioed the Mogadishu port and got permission to berth there. On their way, the ship was intercepted by pirates, who seized and took the crew to an unknown destination. Now the pirates are demanding for a $1 million ransom, failure which they have threatened to kill all the crew,'' Egbegi said.

He revealed that the owners of the ship, ESL Integrated Services, have been doing their best to ensure that the ship and its crew were released, "but up till now, they have not succeeded. Now, we have been left with no other option than to alert the federal government and Nigerians on the plight of the crew," he said.

Egbegi, who said he had found it difficult to get in touch with the managing director of ESL Services because he was said to have traveled out of the country, said the family depends on the Federal Government to help it secure the release of Captain Egbegi and his crew.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
Eight dead in Algeria car bombing
Explosives packed into a vehicle detonated outside a police station in northern Algeria, killing eight civilians and wounding eight others, the national radio said Sunday. An officer fired on the vehicle as it was approaching the police station in Zemmouri, on Saturday night, causing the car to explode before it hit the building, the radio report said, citing security officials.

It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack, and the radio report gave no further details.

Zemmouri is located in the Boumerdes region, about 50 kilometers (30 miles) east of the capital, Algiers.

An August 3 bombing at a police station in another northern city, Tizi Ouzou, injured more than 20 people. Police responded with a security sweep in which 12 Islamists were killed in the restive Kabylie region, east of Algiers, the Interior Ministry said Saturday.

Algeria's al-Qaeda affiliate -- al-Qaeda in Islamic North Africa -- claimed responsibility for that attack, and said it had been a suicide car bombing. The group, formerly known as the GSPC, grew out of an insurgency in the 1990s. The violence was prompted by the army's cancellation of 1992 legislative elections that an Islamist party was poised to win.

The violence, which killed as many as 200,000, had been waning until the GSPC's affiliated with al-Qaida in recent years. Many recent attacks in Algeria have targeted the national security services and military, while others have struck foreigners.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in North Africa

#1  The wonderful religion of peace.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/11/2008 9:13 Comments || Top||


Caucasus/Russia/Central Asia
Russia gives Georgia an ultimatum
SENAKI, Georgia: Russia issued an ultimatum to Georgia on Monday to disarm its troops along the boundary with the pro-Russian separatist enclave of Abkhazia as Russian tanks rolled across the internal border and occupied a military base in western Georgia.

The move was a sign that fighting could escalate on a second, western front after the conflict initially broke out last week around South Ossetia, the separatist enclave farther east.

President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia said its forces had "completed a significant part of the operations to oblige Georgia, the Georgian authorities, to restore peace to South Ossetia," according to a transcript of his remarks with Anatoly Serdyukov, the defense minister, on the Kremlin Web site.

Separately, Russia said it was seeking an emergency meeting with NATO to discuss the crisis.

But the Russian Defense Ministry said that armored vehicles and troops had overrun a military base in the Georgian town of Senaki, about 40 kilometers, or 25 miles, south of the Abkhazian border, suggesting that Russian troops had already begun to move south from the enclave into Georgia proper.

The Russian ultimatum, issued by Major General Sergei Chaban, commander of Russian peacekeeping forces in Abkhazia, called for Georgian troops to disarm in the Zugdidi district, along the border between Abkhazia and Georgia.

Russia has poured extra forces into Abkhazia, where it now has at least 9,000 troops and 350 armored vehicles.

Giga Bokeria, a Georgian official close to President Mikheil Saakashvili, said the ultimatum raised alarms that Russian troops would now make a broader push into Georgian territory in the west of the country. Many Georgian troops have been tied up in fighting farther east, near South Ossetia.

A pivotal question in the conflict, which has involved heavy fighting since late last week, is whether Russia would push beyond those regions and farther into Georgia.

On Sunday, a reporter for The New York Times saw an armored personnel carrier emblazoned with the letters MT, the Russian abbreviation for peacekeepers, on the street in Senaki and on Monday saw tanks and troops occupying the military base there. However, there was no immediate sign of fighting.

To the east, civilians were fleeing Gori, a city south of South Ossetia that is a major staging area for the Georgian military. In Tbilisi, an ambulance driver from Gori showed video footage on his mobile phone of fire in the city and said Russian troops had taken over; Russia denied having any troops there.

Residents were also fleeing the port city of Poti, said Karina Tsotsoria, a Georgian woman living in Moscow, who said she had just spoken on the phone to her husband, Badri, who had fled their home when he saw television footage of approaching Russian tanks.

"He's afraid," she said. "We don't know what their goals are. How can you be sure, when tanks approach your city, that they won't shoot?" She expressed anger, pointing out that Poti is far from South Ossetia, where the fighting began.

Saakashvili issued a furious denunciation of Russia on Monday, accusing it of "ethnic cleansing" and saying the Kremlin's actions constituted "the preplanned, cold-blooded, premeditated murder of a small country."

He equated Russian military action with war crimes committed in the Balkans in the 1990s. "What else can happen for the world to wake up and see what's at stake?" he said at a news conference in the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. "Didn't we have enough experience from the Balkans?"

Russian officials say Georgia provoked the assault on its troops by attacking South Ossetia last week, causing heavy civilian casualties.

The Kremlin said that its actions since then have been intended to strike at Georgian military forces that fired on its peacekeeping troops in South Ossetia and that it did not intend a broader offensive deeper into Georgia.

But Georgian officials said that over the weekend Russia had expanded its attacks on Georgia, moving tanks and troops through South Ossetia and advancing toward Gori.

That maneuver, the Russian bombing of Tbilisi, and then the occupation of a Georgian military base in Senaki seemed to suggest that Russia's aims in the conflict after four days of fighting had gone beyond securing South Ossetia and Abkhazia to weakening the armed forces of Georgia, a former Soviet republic and an ally of the United States whose Western leanings have long irritated the Kremlin.

On Monday, in a conference call with reporters, Saakashvili said Georgian and Russian troops had fought fierce battles overnight as Russian tanks advanced toward Gori before being driven back, with heavy casualties on both sides. Russian planes also bombed targets across Georgia on Monday, including roads and bridges, he said, before fleeing to a bomb shelter because Russian planes were flying over the presidential palace in Tbilisi.

Explosions were seen in the fields around Gori around 12:35 p.m. Monday. There was no evidence of bombing in civilian areas of the town, a major military and transportation hub. But from high ground, plumes of white smoke and clouds on the outskirts were visible. It was unclear whether the explosions were caused by airstrikes or by shelling.

Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France was expected to arrive in Gori on Monday as part of a European mission to try to mediate the conflict. Kouchner has been trying to arrange a cease-fire and Saakashvili said Georgia had signed one.

But the Russian Foreign Ministry said it would agree to a cease-fire only if Georgia pulled its troops out of South Ossetia and signed an agreement banning the use of force against the territory. Saakashvili has made reuniting the territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia with Georgia a centerpiece of his presidency.

On Monday, an Abkhaz official said that Abkhaz forces, backed by Russian paratroopers, would kill Georgian troops if they did not leave Kodori Gorge, the only part of the territory where Georgia has military forces. Abkhaz troops blocked the gorge and proposed the formation of a humanitarian corridor to allow Georgian troops and civilians to leave safely, the Abkhaz defense minister, Mirab Kishmariya, told the Russian news agency Interfax.

"If the Georgian troops don't take advantage of this opportunity, then an operation to eliminate them will begin," the minister said.

Russia's escalation of the fighting, after Georgia offered a cease-fire and said it had pulled its troops out of South Ossetia, set the stage for an intense diplomatic confrontation with the United States.

Two senior Western officials said that it was unclear whether Russia intended a full invasion of Georgia but that its aims could go as far as destroying its armed forces or overthrowing Saakashvili.

"They seem to have gone beyond the logical stopping point," one senior Western diplomat said, speaking on condition of anonymity under normal diplomatic protocol.

The fighting raised tensions between Russia and its former Cold War foes to their highest level in decades. President George W. Bush has promoted Georgia as a bastion of democracy, helped strengthen its military and urged that NATO grant the country to membership. Georgia serves as a major conduit for oil flowing from Russia and Central Asia to the West.

But Russia, emboldened by windfall profits from oil exports, is showing a resolve to reassert its dominance in a region it has always considered its "near abroad."

The military action, which has involved air, naval and missile attacks, is the largest engagement by Russian forces outside its borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union.

Andrew E. Kramer reported from Gori, Georgia; Anne Barnard from Moscow; and Michael Schwirtz from Senaki, Georgia. Reporting was contributed by Nicholas Kulish from Tbilisi, Georgia; Helene Cooper from Washington; Joseph Sywenkiy from Gori, Georgia; and Katrin Bennhold and Tom Rachman from Paris.
Posted by: john frum || 08/11/2008 20:14 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Hmmm...Vlad and Dmi don't trust NATO? Could it be that the defenders of Western Civilization engineered sovereignty for the narco-entity of Kosovo, while Arabs are moving to cleanse Jews and Christians from the Middle East?

Didn't Clinton sign a document recognizing Serbian sovereignty over a demilitarized Kosovo? Didn't said document cause Serbs to remove their entire tank force out of that province? (Nevermind that Wesley Clark wanted to attack Russian troops who facilitated the withdrawl."

If a person who is blind and deaf is asked to describe and elephant, and only examines the creature's tail they he could claim an elephant is rope-like. Jimmy Carter myopia lives. Whatever happened to impartiality and objectivity?
Posted by: McZoid || 08/11/2008 20:47 Comments || Top||

#2  " humanitarian corridor to allow Georgian troops and civilians to leave safely"

Ethnic cleansing at its best - on the end of a Russian backed and supplied bayonet.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 20:50 Comments || Top||

#3  McZoid for you to ask for objectivity is laughable. You are so resoundingly bigoted and stupid that you are virtually self negating.

You poor ignorant fool. Do you now see the jackbooted thuggery and ethnic cleansing that you have promoted?

And FYI, this is about Georgia, not the balkans, so try staying on sopic, or you lose furhter what little (if any) credibility you have by engaging in a propaganda technique of dragging in alternate topic instead of answering the question at hand. That's evasion thereby negating your arguments -and basically losing the argument at hand.

Your further "argumentum ad nauseam" also shows you to be losing the arguements you place repeatedly with the same error.

So McZoid, answer: is Russia right to have invaded and subjugated the entire country of Georgia - and please back it up with reasons and reasoning, not just bald statments and your usual lie-filled anti-muslim diatribes about the "balkans" and saudi arabia. That's equivocation (which is invalid and means you lose yet again).
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 21:02 Comments || Top||

#4  Russian pushes rocket launchers to Georgia

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/LB679227.htm

Let OS explain what this means. Tbilisi, the new Grosny
Posted by: Sherese Jones6358 || 08/11/2008 21:39 Comments || Top||

#5 
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 22:11 Comments || Top||

#6  CHINESE MIL FORUM > GEORGIA ASKS CHINA FOR HELP [UNSC Resolution]. No official comitment or response yet from China at this time as per Georgia's request.

Also from SAME > POSTERS' DEBATE > RUSSIA's DOUBLE/MULTIPLE MOTIVES as per South Ossetian Conflict appears to primarily be:
* TO STOP/PRECLUDE EUROS = NATO FROM BYPASSING RUSSIA VIA CENTRAL ASIAN OIL PIPELINE [thru Georgia], i.e. RUSS WANTS TO SEE EURO-$$$ LOVE.
* OVERT WARNING TO US-NATO TO STOP
"BULLYING" AND "CONTAINING" RUSSIA, OR ELSE, espec as per US GMD-BMD [USGMD milfacs in Georgia] + NATO membership for former Soviet SSRS !?

REMINDER > RUSSIA = VLADVEDEV views AL QAEDA + TALIBAN AS DE FACTO US PROXIES, thus ISLAMIST MILITANT-TERR "SURGES" IN CENTRAL ASIA = PAN- ASIA in general is for Russ synonymous wid US = PRO-US MILPOL IMPERIALISM AGZ RUSSIA + EURASIA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 22:12 Comments || Top||

#7  WAFF.com threads > PAKISTAN DOESN'T EXPECT SINO-PAKISTAN RELATIONS TO LAST [Will China usurp or dominate Paki in LT?] + TURKISH AND PAKISTAN DEFENCE DEALS + TURKISH COBRAS IN GEORGIA [agz Russia] + PAKISTAN EXPANDING ITS NUCLEAR OPERATIONS [weapons-grade =plutonium NucFac/NucRex].
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 22:19 Comments || Top||

#8  Kosovo is not a narco-state, whatever else it might be. The Serbs were removed from Kosovo because we knew what they'd do if they were allowed to do it. Please note their track record in Bosnia.


And the Arabs have been looking to cleanse the Middle East for a substantial period of time. It isn't a new problem.



OS is right: this is about Georgia. Kosovo, however, will be used to justify the Russian attack. The Rooskies will claim that the renegade 'autonomous provinces' want freedom, just as the Kosovars did, and 'want' to be part of Mother Russia. That might even be true. They'll be incorporated into Russia. 



The question is whether Georgia will lose its independence entirely. I think they just might. While it's completely wrong from the standpoint of both morality and international law, the Russians likely won't care and will relish the opportunity to use this disproportionate response to teach all their little neighbors a lesson.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/11/2008 22:31 Comments || Top||

#9  My money is on a withdrawal after they batter the Georgians some more. They'll enforce S. Ossetia and Abkhazia "independence" of course with UN or Euro troops stationed in a DMZ buffer.

Saakashvili is finished politically. He may have support now, but that is just Georgian patriotism when under attack. Defeat requires a scapegoat.
Posted by: john frum || 08/11/2008 23:06 Comments || Top||

#10  I would say now is a good time to activate the selective service and do a lottery. Don't actually draft anyone yet, but do a lottery, and bring back the REFORGER exercises with a small exercise right now.
Posted by: crosspatch || 08/11/2008 23:09 Comments || Top||

#11  Dunno, JF. I suspect "General Comment" spoke for a lot of Russians when he posted this:

I think that in its response to Georgian attack, Russia is being too timid. It should not confine itself to strikes just in S.O. territory and nearby Gori, for example, but should completely destroy Georgian military's command and control infrastructure throughout Georgia.
[post #123 15:50 Russian Ground Forces Assault Vital Georgian City]

A hostile, intact Georgian government and Army supplied by the US through Turkey would be extremely embarrasing to the Russian government, not to mention expensive. And it would send exactly the wrong message to the "near-abroad" countries, wouldn't it?

Putin and Medvedev have a lot riding on a crushing victory at this point. The Russian leaders must answer to their constituencies, too.

Turkey will be the decisive player in the coming days.
Posted by: mrp || 08/11/2008 23:26 Comments || Top||

#12  A couple of things Russia should do: (i) get out of the SALT treaty, replace engines on its medium range Iskander missles to extend their range beyond 500 km and move them into Kaliningrad to get ready to attack the interceptor sites, (ii) re-establish the radar listening post on Cuba, (iii) develop and put on Cuba interceptor missiles of its own as a "defensive" weapon - after all that's what americans have been telling us - its defensive, so no harm no faul; (iv) continue to rearm its ICBMs with hypesonic maneuvarable warheads; (iv) increase reliance on the submarine launched ICBMs and keep putting those new subs into service . . . and it should be alrighty after that, safe and sound.
Posted by: blimpity_blimpity_bla || 08/11/2008 23:27 Comments || Top||

#13  blimpity_blimpity_bla
If thats your game then we in the US need to take Cuba and Chavez down now.
Posted by: 3dc || 08/11/2008 23:34 Comments || Top||

#14  blimpity_blimpity_bla - You forget the Illudium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator - they need one of those too!
Posted by: Halliburton - Asymmetrical Reply Division || 08/11/2008 23:37 Comments || Top||

#15  It's not a game, unfortunately an expensive response to the U.S. missile defense. Or you are one of those who believes annoying Condi Rice with her "trajectory" theory. You know what I am talking about? To justify the location of the interceptors in Poland . . . and the radar in Chech republic.
Posted by: blimpity_blimpity_bla || 08/11/2008 23:40 Comments || Top||

#16  Halliburton, ha-ha very funny. But you know what - that would be good too!
Whatever, the new boomers are entering the service, so . . .
Posted by: blimpity_blimpity_bla || 08/11/2008 23:43 Comments || Top||

#17  SW: While it's completely wrong from the standpoint of both morality and international law, the Russians likely won't care and will relish the opportunity to use this disproportionate response to teach all their little neighbors a lesson.

It occurs to me that our pro-democracy stance might have to be altered somewhat. If we're not confronting Russia, we would normally downgrade relationships with dictatorships. If we're confronting Russia, we need to establish better relationships with all the dictatorships than surround Russia. These dictatorships understand that Russia could march in and take their land at any moment. The only reason they're allied with Russia is because they fear our pressure over democratic reforms (the same kind of pressure that brought the Ayatollah Khomeini to power). Bottom line is that we need to stop being so moralistic about democracy with respect to the countries on Russia's borders. Changing our policy will crack the Shanghai Cooperation Organization wide open, since the Central Asians know that the major threats to their territorial sovereignty are Russia and China, both members.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/11/2008 23:44 Comments || Top||

#18  Here's an interesting comment from the Italian foreign minister:

But Frattini warned: “Asking for (the emergency summit) means moving toward a condemnation of Russia, a position that would be negative for all of Europe.” He added: “It’s important that the Europe of 27 not divide itself into factions and small groups. It should be a bridge between the United States and Russia if it wants to have a political role with any weight.”

In other words, let's pretend Russian expansionism isn't a problem. No problem. We can play that game, too. We can pretend right along with them. Russia's a lot closer to Italy than it is to the US.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/11/2008 23:45 Comments || Top||

#19  Buy the way, I don't really believe that much in asymetrical responses . . . they work mostly in ground warfare - guerilla type warfare. Russia should do what it can to do things symmetrically. Since China is expected to surpass the U.S. GDP by two-fold by 2050, China should help Russia in that department.
Posted by: blimpity_blimpity_bla || 08/11/2008 23:47 Comments || Top||

#20  Just saw a state dept type on Fox late news talking about this. He was p-ssed off. They now seem to understand that the russians had planned this for some time. Russian troops were in both provinces under the guise of humanitarian work... fixing a railroad ... so it could be used for troops and ammo etc. Hopefully we will hear more about this.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 23:47 Comments || Top||

#21  Zhang Fei. You are a brilliant man! (or a woman?) If you reconsider your stance on democracy and will be willing to pander to any and each dictatorship that surrounds Russia, then why not just accept Russia as is, imperfect as it is. I fail to see the point. Why don't you just admit that you simply hate the russians for the sake of it, so that we can end this highly intellectual pretense.
Posted by: blimpity_blimpity_bla || 08/11/2008 23:53 Comments || Top||

#22  BB: Since China is expected to surpass the U.S. GDP by two-fold by 2050, China should help Russia in that department.

By that time, I expect China to help itself to Mongolia, then Siberia. They're closer, and China does have historical claims to both. By that time, Russia will simply be a Chinese satellite state.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/11/2008 23:54 Comments || Top||

#23  blimpity_blimpity_bla - careful - you're heading deeper into fantasyland with GDP projections four decades ahead. China passes the if two events occur - they absorb the Russian far east, and the US of North America doesn't come into existence. Both occurring is unlikely, but one most likely will.

Oh - and they have some work to do on that whole "rule of law" thing. Admittedly they've had quite a while to work on it, and since a Shakespeare or Magna Carta seem to arise every millenia or so, you'd think the odds favor it, but it has'nt happened yet.
Posted by: Halliburton - Asymmetrical Reply Division || 08/11/2008 23:55 Comments || Top||

#24  bb: Zhang Fei. You are a brilliant man! (or a woman?) If you reconsider your stance on democracy and will be willing to pander to any and each dictatorship that surrounds Russia, then why not just accept Russia as is, imperfect as it is. I fail to see the point. Why don't you just admit that you simply hate the russians for the sake of it, so that we can end this highly intellectual pretense.

The Central Asian dictatorships aren't Imperial Russia, an expansionist country with limitless territorial ambitions. Which is saying something, since at 17m sq km, Russia is 70% larger than the second largest country in the world.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/11/2008 23:57 Comments || Top||


US military surprised by speed, timing of Russia military action
The US military was surprised by the timing and swiftness of the Russian military's move into South Ossetia and is still trying to sort out what happened, a US defense official said Monday.

Russian forces surged into the breakaway region last week after weeks of clashes, threats and warnings between Tblisi and Moscow which culminated August 6 in a two-day Georgian offensive into South Ossetia. That the two countries were on a collision course was no surprise to anyone, but the devastating Russian response was not expected, officials said.

"We were tracking it earlier in that week and we knew that things were escalating," said a military official, who asked not to be identified. "I can tell you it moved quicker than we anticipated that first day."

But how it unfolded is still unclear, clouded by conflicting claims from both sides.

"I think a lot of what you're asking needs to be ironed out," said the official. "Some of these little issues are definitely still big questions in this event -- What was the intent? Who started it? Why did they start it? And why weren't they prepared to defend what they started?"

President George W. Bush, who urged Moscow to cease fire and return to pre-August 6 positions, charged in a televised statement that Russia's intention appeared to be depose Georgia's democratically elected president.

But the extent of the Russian operation remained unclear to US officials on Monday.

Georgian officials said Russian troops had moved out of South Ossetia into Georgia proper, occupying the city of Gori while Georgian troops were retreating to the capital. But US defense officials said they were unable to corroborate the Georgian claims. "We don't see anything that supports they are in Gori," said a defense official. "I don't know why the Georgians are saying that."

"That assessment is ongoing," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

The United States has among the most powerful tools for monitoring brewing conflicts, from spy satellites to reconnaissance aircraft and drones capable of scooping up radio signals or capture real-time images of forces on the ground. But the extent to which they were trained on this remote conflict before it turned violent is not known.

The Russians, however, warned on August 3 of a growing threat of "large scale military conflict" between Georgia and South Ossetia.

The State Department issued a mild statement on August 5 urging Moscow to refrain from provocative actions, but gave no hint that it was aware that military action either by Georgia or Russia was in the offing. Officials have suggested the fighting was not seen as an immediate threat, in part because there were only about 95 US troops and 35 civilian contractors in the country training Georgian troops for Iraq. And they were not near South Ossetia.

Some 1,650 US troops conducted a joint exercise with the Georgian military in mid-July. But they were out of the country when the hostilities flared.

At around the same time, the Russian military deployed 8,000 troops to the North Caucases for counter-terrorism exercises that Moscow said were unrelated to the tensions with its southern neighbor.
Sure. Just happened to be there.
The US defense official said about 8,000 to 10,000 Russian troops have moved into South Ossetia. They also have flown SU-25, SU-24, SU-27 and TU-22 fighters and bombers during the campaign.

But the official said there was no obvious buildup of Russian forces along the border that signaled an intention to invade. "Once it did happen they were able to get the forces quickly and it was just a matter of taking the roads in. So it's not as though they were building up forces on the border, waiting," the official said. "What are their future intentions, I don't know. Obviously they could throw more troops at this if they wanted to," he said.
It does suggest that the Rooskies had planned this operation for some considerable period of time and were just waiting for a provocation. No way Rooskie logistics and execution allow for a lightning operation from a standing start.
Posted by: john frum || 08/11/2008 19:46 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Surprised my ass - somebody dropped the ball over and over- a low level S-2 should have seen this coming. That is total BS and ass covering. I guess they don't have the interenet in that guys office.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 19:53 Comments || Top||

#2  If you couldn't connect the dots on this, you need to be cleaning vegetables in the mess.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 19:53 Comments || Top||

#3  This was a classic, bait and conquer operation.

Russia used "insurgents", most likely with KGB, attacked Georgia until that country responded. Russia, with pre-positioned units, launched an rescue and intervention for their "peacekeeping" units. Once that was accomplished, a continuing hostile Georgia is invaded with the goal of "regime change".
The whole thing is brilliant and worthy of Machiavelli and Georgia took the bait hook, line and sinker. Now they were the "aggressors" and Russia will only be chastised for not stopping at the Georgian border.
The US will not save its ally and definitely will not go to war with Russia over them. The only thing we could do is put, "observers" or "peacekeepers" to distribute humanitarian goods (see at least a Striker Brigade) and some Patriot batteries at well advertised strategic points with the warning to Russia that they can overfly, buzz and look at our troops all they want, but one bomb falls from a Russian bomber and we will clear the Georgian skies of Russian planes.
Other than that, Georgia is lost.
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/11/2008 20:07 Comments || Top||

#4  We had trainers/advisors (whatever the hell you want to call them) in country and have the most sophisticated spying equipment on the planet, I am not buying we had no idea what was up.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 20:12 Comments || Top||

#5  All too true Darth, but a few other observations.

If the Russians' do NOT complete the job asap, there are a world of opportunities for any number of interested parties to reply. I doubt there will be any Russian move to accept "relief" or "humanitarian" intervention, and considering how fast they've gotten already, shouldn't they be equally liable for that work as well (a goose/gander thing admittedly, but it's the "western standard").

Also, when can we exchange ambassadors with Abkhazia and South Ossetia - that's what this is about, right?

Also, also, why does North Ossetia need to exist - if South Ossetia can be independent, why not the North? (Did someone mention Chechnya?)

Finally, what exactly does a UN resolution mean? Did we get one of those thingies for Iraq? Why? Let's ask the Ethiopians and Italians for a quick review, shall we?

Russia should learn a lot from this, some of which they may not like.
Posted by: Halliburton - Idiot Suppression Division || 08/11/2008 20:19 Comments || Top||

#6  Legolas - correct, but don't underestimate the combined power of surprise and unscrupulousness.

In any event, there doesn't seem to be much depth of defensive room, but I wonder if the Georgians don't have additional acts in store. At this point, I'm reading W's comments as a shot across the bow to Russia that minimal direct aid may be available, but so far we'll throttle Georgia's unleashing asymmetric warfare, which the USSR may be well when dishing out, but is very ill-prepared to receive, particularly any of the profit-making centers.
Posted by: Halliburton - Idiot Suppression Division || 08/11/2008 20:24 Comments || Top||

#7  I doubt there will be any Russian move to accept "relief" or "humanitarian" intervention...

Who says we would ask their permission? Put them in on a US humanitarian mission, maybe with some sort of NATO support for legitimacy.
Posted by: DarthVader || 08/11/2008 20:26 Comments || Top||

#8  They'll deny transit or air rights. If we can do that, the Georgians will be free to commence guerrilla actions, and Soviets like Putin won't allow that.
Posted by: Halliburton - Idiot Suppression Division || 08/11/2008 20:29 Comments || Top||

#9  OTOH - if it would work here, it would be wedge into Darfur and elsewhere. Doubt it will work, since it would require combined spine of US and UN, a rare if not extinct combination.
Posted by: Halliburton - Idiot Suppression Division || 08/11/2008 20:31 Comments || Top||

#10  HISD hope you are right!
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 20:37 Comments || Top||

#11  Russia overtly fears the US-NATO [unified Europe/EU], but covertly fears "living space"- and superpower- ambitious CHINA more - NUKULAR AMBITIOUS RADICAL ISLAM [States + Enclaves + Militants-Terr Gruppen] CAN LIKELY NOW BE ADDED NEXT TO THEIR ABOVESAME COVERT FEAR OF CHINA.

*Eg. the MUSLIM-ISLAMIST WAR IN CHECHNYA has NOT ceased despite well-publicized MSM-Net Nes Reports of Russ achievement and success - IN FACT, LOCAL MILITANTS ARE NOT ONLY REORG + PROCURING NEW, MORE ADVANCED WEAPONS FOR BATTLE AGZ RUSSIA, BUT ARE ALSO GOING
"INTERNATIONAL" AND BRINGING IN LARGE NUMBERS OF NON-LOCAL/RUSS WARFIGHTERS.

* DRUDGE > IRNA - IRAN, UZBEKISTAN SIGN MOU ON STANDARDIZATION.

SCENARIO > Is it possible that, given the historical Russ + Soviet-Commie penchant for dialectic planning, that RUSSIA MAY BE ANTICIPATING LT NATIONAL FAILURE?+ COLLAPSE? AGAINST CHINA ANDOR RADICAL ISLAMISM, AND IS "HEDGING" FOR THE FUTURE DAY WHEN IT MAY NEED TO SEEK FORMAL MILPOL ALLIANCE WID NATO, PERHAPS EVEN TO JOIN/INTEGRATE WID EUROPE PROPER, AS DEFENSE AGZ THE ABOVESAME FEARED STRATEGIC CHIN ANDOR ISLAMIST THREATS???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 20:53 Comments || Top||

#12  Lest we fergit [old] > PRE- AND POST 9-11 > D *** NG IT, WE DEMAND TO BE ATTACKED AND INVADED BY AMERICA = AMERIKA!
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 20:57 Comments || Top||

#13  D *** NG IT, PART II > Democratic-Capitalist, Liberatrian Pluralist Free America = Amerika, the USA = USSA/USR [Oil Storm] = OWG Global SSR, and OUR SACRED NATIONAL COMMUNISM-SOCIALISM MAINSTREAM. from MAIN STREET, ANYTOWN, ANYPLACE/STATE, USA = USSA/USR???

* "BEVERLY HILLS, USSA, 90210".
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 21:04 Comments || Top||

#14  When do we bomb to rubble the Cuban bases that the Soviets plan to use for refueling?
Posted by: hammerhead || 08/11/2008 21:07 Comments || Top||

#15  When do we bomb to rubble the Cuban bases that the Soviets plan to use for refueling?
Posted by: hammerhead || 08/11/2008 21:08 Comments || Top||

#16  I;ve been there - its a simple matter of taking our eye off the ball. There are likely a tonless resources available for the missions and analysis needed to cover Russia's agession, and to engage our current problems in China and the GWOT. The loss of the "spy satellite"last year has undoubtably hurt our intelligence gathering capacity.

But more than anything, what got the "dropped ball" here was that nobody coudl think that the Russians would go so nakedly agressive on such a scale. Its the mindset that got us. The old cold-war hands would have likely picked up on this quickly, but those types arent around, and the few resoureces we ahve in that area are probably spread very thin, focusing on Russian-Iranian ties.

Probably time we spent the money and rebuilt from the dropoff we had in the 90's and the decline in INT capabilites over the past three years due to buying bullets instead of intelligence gear (thanks to too small a defense budget).

Sad for the Georgians they are paying the price for us trying to fight a war without going into an economic war footing.

Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 21:09 Comments || Top||

#17  Congress owns the fact that the Department of Defense didn't have the funds to do what was necessary. House Majority Leader Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Reid were too busy posturing, forcing the DoD to spend their limited funds just to maintain the current war. Hopefully either they or the voters will see the light, now.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 21:35 Comments || Top||

#18  OS, first of all, don't believe we "lost" that sat. Sounds good, though.

This was a Russian op from the start. The Georgians acted when their troops were at their peak. They had no other choice but to be picked to death by bombings and arty. All the Russian troops were in place and prepped. How else could any of the Black Sea fleet moved that rapidly?
Posted by: Chuck Simmins || 08/11/2008 21:38 Comments || Top||

#19  TW, the GOP isnt off the hook for this either - they chose to pork up in 2002 onward until the Dems took things back in 2006. Its the whole DC "earmark/pork" environment that cost us that.

Chuck, you are correct on this being a very good moustrap set up by the Russians. Question is how do we reply in an effective manner?

Next question is how do we reorient the IC to include Russia as a serious threat?
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 22:10 Comments || Top||

#20  I can't argue with that, OldSpook. I'm sure as least part of the intelligence community is reorienting as fast as they can. You can't possibly be the only one to see things, I'm quite certain; you know the caliber of those you supported these last years.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 22:28 Comments || Top||

#21  Русский люди

Быть вежливость!

Мы не здес браги!

I sure hope all that's spelled correctly
Posted by: badanov || 08/11/2008 22:33 Comments || Top||

#22  Here's part of the reason why the Georgians may have been surprised. This alone should have sent alarm bells ringing. Since when do 'peacekeepers' shoot down UAVs?

April Shoot Down of Georgian UAV by Russian MIG

Posted by: DanNY || 08/11/2008 23:20 Comments || Top||

#23  Just saw a state dept type on Fox late news talking about this. He was p-ssed off. They now seem to understand that the russians had planned this for some time. Russian troops were in both provinces under the guise of humanitarian work... fixing a railroad ... so it could be used for troops and ammo etc. Hopefully we will hear more about this.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 23:46 Comments || Top||


Georgian army flees in disarray as Russians advance
GeorgiaÂ’s army was in complete disarray tonight after troops and tanks fled the city of Gori in panic and abandoned it to the Russians without firing a shot.

As Russian armoured columns rolled deep into central and western Georgia, seizing several towns and a military base, President Saakashvili said his country had been cut in half.

For the first time since the crisis erupted last Thursday, Russia admitted that its troops had moved out of Abkhazia, the other breakaway region under MoscowÂ’s protection, and seized the town of Senaki in Georgia proper. Russian officials again insisting that they had no intention of occupying territory beyond South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Georgia said the Russian army was also in charge of the towns of Zugdidi and Kurga in the west and its tanks appeared to moving from the north and the west towards Tbilisi, the capital.

The retreat from Gori, the birthplace of Joseph Stalin, was as humiliating as it was sudden and dramatic. The Times witnessed scores of tanks and armoured personnel carriers, laden with soldiers, speeding through the city away from what Georgian officials claimed was an imminent Russian invasion.

Residents watched in horror as their army abandoned its positions after a day of increasingly aggressive exchanges of fire along the border with South Ossetia, the breakaway region now fully under Russian control.

Jeeps and pick-up trucks filled with Georgian soldiers raced through the streets, their occupants frantically signalling to civilians that they too should flee. The road out of Gori towards Tbilisi was a scene of chaos and fear as cars jockeyed with tanks for a speedy escape.

Soldiers were leaving by any means available — dozens of troops clung to cars on the back of a transporter lorry, while five other soldiers were fleeing on a single quad bike.

A tank had exploded on the mountain road leaving Gori, though it was unclear what had caused the incident. The Times passed an armoured car in flames, soldiers leaping from the roof of the vehicle, which had apparently caught fire while trying to bulldoze the tankÂ’s burning shell out of the way.

Columns of Georgian tanks and heavy weaponry filled the road during the 50-mile journey back to Tbilisi as thousands of soldiers, many looking totally demoralised, headed for the capital. Police sealed off the highway from Tbilisi, turning back the very few cars that ventured towards Gori.

It was unclear tonight where the tanks were heading, but many of the troops regrouped on the outskirts of Tbilisi as if preparing to make a stand to defend the capital. Some artillery pieces had also been sited on the approach road from Gori.

The panic had been triggered at about 5pm, when troops suddenly started pouring out of Gori. Frantic officials from GeorgiaÂ’s Ministry of Interior claimed that up to 7,000 Russian troops with tanks were heading for the city and claimed it was under imminent threat of bombardment.

A similar panic had ensued on Sunday night as thousands of people poured from the city, in what turned out to be false alarm. The fear this time was more tangible, the sense of threat more real as GoriÂ’s streets emptied rapidly.

Not everyone was prepared to leave, however. One man told The Times: “This is my city, I will never leave it even if the Russians come here and kill me. Why should I go to Tbilisi and wait for them there?”

The Georgian government, which is appealing for international support, claimed later that Russian troops had entered Gori, though there was no independent confirmation of this.

As the noose appeared to tighten around Tbilisi, the State Department evacuated more than 170 US citizens. Poland and several other former Soviet satellites voiced fears that the fighting signalled Russia's willingness to use force to regain its dominance of the region.

Even at the height of chaos, GeorgiaÂ’s legendary hospitality never faltered. A 70-year-old woman named Eteri retreated into her home and appeared moments later to offer apples from her garden to guests.

“I am not afraid,” she said. “We have lived with the Russians for a hundred years so why do we need this war now? I don’t want to be with America, I think we should live peacefully with the Russians.”
Posted by: john frum || 08/11/2008 19:11 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Russian barbarity continues.

When Russian airplanes dropped bombs on Gori, Georgia, Monday morning, 26-year-old Nikri (who was afraid to give his last name) rushed home to check on his family. The carnage that awaited him was almost too much to bear. A woman's severed hand lay by the entrance to his shattered apartment building. Upstairs, he found his wounded wife and one of his daughters alive. But his 2-year-old daughter was dead, the victim of a piece of shrapnel that hit the wall above her bed.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 19:32 Comments || Top||

#2  Russians bombing a medical clinic in Gori:

Lali Nikoshvili, 45, was at work Sunday at a medical clinic in Gori when she heard an unbearably loud boom. As a thick cloud engulfed the room, Nikoshvili, a nurse, felt sharp pains in her breast and face. When the dust settled, she saw that the walls and windows were gone and she felt blood running down her right cheek. Lying on a stretcher at the hospital, Nikoshvili was one of about 200 patients with shrapnel and other wounds.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 19:34 Comments || Top||

#3  US defense officials said they were unable to corroborate the Georgian claims.

"We don't see anything that supports they are in Gori," said a defense official, who spoke on condition of anonymity. "I don't know why the Georgians are saying that."

"That assessment is ongoing," said Bryan Whitman, a Pentagon spokesman.

Posted by: john frum || 08/11/2008 19:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Other than Fox News showing video footage of Russian tanks in Gori I don't see anything that supports that either.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 08/11/2008 20:39 Comments || Top||

#5  Ye Gods, when did the Pentagon hire Baghdad Bob?
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 21:16 Comments || Top||

#6  Русский люди

Быть вежливость!

Мы не здес браги!

I sure hope all that's spelled correctly
Posted by: badanov || 08/11/2008 22:33 Comments || Top||

#7  I've no idea what you wrote, badanov dear, but it looks pungent. Russian is good for that. The little Czech I know probably would be, but being written in the Latin alphabet it doesn't look nearly so impressive; and given that I only know a few nursery rhymes and numbers, would highly amuse those who actually speak the language. :-(
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 22:51 Comments || Top||

#8  The Times reporter did not observe a routed Georgian force. They retreated, true, but did so on their own terms. Wretchard at the Belmont Club figures that the Georgians are ultimately banking on a redoubt strategy in and south of the Lesser Caucasus.
Posted by: Plastic Snoopy || 08/11/2008 23:10 Comments || Top||

#9  VARIOUS NEWS > seems SARKOZY = FRANCE is standing up for Georgia.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 23:14 Comments || Top||

#10  Just saw a state dept type on Fox late news talking about this. He was p-ssed off. They now seem to understand that the russians had planned this for some time. Russian troops were in both provinces under the guise of humanitarian work... fixing a railroad ... so it could be used for troops and ammo etc. Hopefully we will hear more about this.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 23:45 Comments || Top||

#11  badanov, allow me to make some minor corrections.

Русскиe, пожалуйста вежливо!

Мы здес не враги!
Posted by: Spike Uniter || 08/11/2008 23:49 Comments || Top||


Russia preparing to attack Tblisi and conquer all of Georgia
The Russian troops are marching towards Tbilisi. Georgia could fall by tomorrow morning. According to Stratfor,

"Russian forces do not excel at night fighting, so if there is to be another push it will occur at dawn Aug. 12 with air and then armored strikes on Mtskheta. Should that happen there will be literally nothing to stop the Russians from attacking Tbilisi directly".

President Saakashvili said in a televised address that the situation is "extremely grave" and that the Georgian troops are being regrouped around the capital.

"This is occupation attempt, attempt to totally occupy Georgia, attempt to destroy Georgia. RussiaÂ’s goal is to put an end to existence of the Georgian state. We are receiving only moral and humanitarian help from the international community, but we need more than that. We want them to stop these barbaric aggressors."

He also called on the population to gather outside the Parliament at 3pm on August 12 "to show the enemy that we are united and strong."
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 18:37 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  OK you apologists for imperial Russia and Tsar Putin, explain THIS one as "peacekeeping".
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 18:41 Comments || Top||

#2  And now the Russian Gangster-State thugger beings intimidating others...

Russia's ambassador to Latvia Monday warned the Baltic states and Poland that they would pay for their criticism of the Kremlin over the conflict in Georgia, the Baltic news agency BNS reported.

"One must not hurry on such serious issues, as serious mistakes can be made that have to be paid for a long time afterwards," Alexander Veshnyakov was quoted as saying by BNS.

Contacted by AFP, a spokesman for the Russian embassy in Riga confirmed the ambassador's comments but declined to elaborate.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 18:43 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm ready to go to war with Russia over this. The bastards have had it coming for quite some time. We dropped the ball in Hungary and Czechoslovakia. Let's do the right thing this time.
Posted by: Iblis || 08/11/2008 18:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Sorta forces Bush's hand on Iran
Posted by: Nimble Spemble || 08/11/2008 18:49 Comments || Top||

#5  Well, the mask is off. The Russian apologists/supporters here can disseminate all they want, but if Georgia falls and the Russians occupy (as seems the case) they are going to be the ones who will see the long term impact.

In a less than ideal scenario, Georgia may fall, but their falling may serve as a rallying signal to both the former Soviet sattelites and Western Europe that the Cold War is decidedly back on. Maybe it will make them get off their ass and do something about protecting themselves.
Posted by: remoteman || 08/11/2008 18:51 Comments || Top||

#6  If this turns out to be true ... well Gulf War I was about liberating kuwait ... how about helping out this friend
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 18:51 Comments || Top||

#7  Anybody else here see the irony of the "Find Your Russian Beauty" advert being so prominent on the site today (haven't been here for a week or so, so maybe it has been around for a while).
Posted by: remoteman || 08/11/2008 18:52 Comments || Top||

#8  there appear to be conflicting reports on this, on other sites they are said to be pulling back ... I tend to give alot of weight stratfor though
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 19:17 Comments || Top||

#9  Russians still bombing civilians.

Another AP reporter was in the village of Tkviavi, 7 1/2 miles south of Tskhinvali inside undisputed Georgian territory, when a bomb from a Russian warplane struck a house. The walls of neighboring buildings fell as screaming residents ran for cover. Eighteen people were wounded.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 19:21 Comments || Top||

#10  Question: When the USSR split up, didn't Georgia end up in possession of a substantial nuclear stockpile? If so, what happened to it?
Posted by: Scott R || 08/11/2008 19:24 Comments || Top||

#11 
Belarus had 81 single warhead missiles stationed on its territory after the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. They were all transferred to Russia by 1996. Belarus has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Kazakhstan inherited 1,400 nuclear weapons from the Soviet Union, and transferred them all to Russia by 1995. Kazakhstan has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

Ukraine has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. Ukraine inherited about 5,000 nuclear weapons when it became independent from the USSR in 1991, making its nuclear arsenal the third-largest in the world.[57] By 1996, Ukraine had voluntarily disposed of all nuclear weapons within its territory, transferring them to Russia.


Posted by: john frum || 08/11/2008 19:29 Comments || Top||

#12  Thanks John, I would have looked it up, but here at work the Burg is practically the only reliable site that isn't blocked.
Posted by: Scott R || 08/11/2008 19:47 Comments || Top||

#13  IF I didn't miss something, the latest statement from President Bush was just more of the same, alot of words. I am from Texas, voted twice for GW for Governor and twice for president, but I am disappointed at our response to this crisis. I realize it is a complicated situation, I just have a hard time believing there wasn't some response between words and all out war with Russia.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 19:48 Comments || Top||

#14  DRUDGEREPORT > US WARNS RUSSIA TO PULL BACK. Dubya on CNN + FOX called for both sides to fall back to original borderlines on 8/06th/o8 before the start of Russo-Georgian hostilities.

*CNN > INTERVIEW ID GEORGIAN PREZ > Saakashvili claims that, as of this AM, focii of Russ Milops is now as per ABKHAZIA [new front], wid IHO Russ is also prepping to expand its milops to possibly take over the whole of sovereign Georgia. SAAKASHVILI > GEORGIA IS FIGHTING A WAR TO PROTECT ITS DEMOCRACY + WILL NEVER SURRENDER TO RUSSIA???

* Also from DRUDGE > IRNA - POLAND, LITHUANIA, ESTONIA + UKRAINE CALL FOR UN PEACEKEEPING FORCES TO BE DEPLOYED TO GEORGIA.
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 19:54 Comments || Top||

#15  Photo of US Airforce returning Georgian Troops to Georgia
Posted by: 3dc || 08/11/2008 20:08 Comments || Top||

#16  http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92GC5G80&show_article=1

Bush and Rice say play nice or we won't buy your lollipops
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 20:15 Comments || Top||

#17  OldSpook. It's the peace of the grave.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 08/11/2008 20:17 Comments || Top||

#18  Русский люди

Быть вежливость!

Мы не здес браги!

I sure hope all that's spelled correctly
Posted by: badanov || 08/11/2008 22:34 Comments || Top||

#19  Just saw a state dept type on Fox late news talking about this. He was p-ssed off. They now seem to understand that the russians had planned this for some time. Russian troops were in both provinces under the guise of humanitarian work... fixing a railroad ... so it could be used for troops and ammo etc. Hopefully we will hear more about this.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 23:47 Comments || Top||


Georgia claims Russians have cut country in half
Long but EFL to the most recent events.
GORI, Georgia (AP) - Russian forces seized several towns and a military base deep in western Georgia on Monday, opening a second front in the fighting. Georgia's president said his country had been effectively cut in half with the capture of the main east-west highway near Gori. Fighting also raged Monday around Tskhinvali, the capital of the separatist province of South Ossetia. Russian warplanes launched new air raids across Georgia, with at least one sending screaming civilians running for cover.

The reported capture of the key Georgian city of Gori and the towns of Senaki, Zugdidi and Kurga came despite a top Russian general's claim earlier Monday that Russia had no plans to enter Georgian territory. By taking Gori, which sits on Georgia's only east-west highway, Russia can cut off eastern Georgia from the country's western Black Sea coast.
This map is helpful as you read this story.
"(Russian forces) came to the central route and cut off connections between western and eastern Georgia," Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili told a national security meeting.

The news agency Interfax, however, cited a Russian Defense Ministry official as denying Gori was captured.

Security Council head Alexander Lomaia said Monday it was not immediately clear if Russian forces would advance on Tbilisi, the Georgian capital. At Georgia's request, U.N. Security Council in New York called an emergency session for later Monday—the fifth meeting on the fighting in as many days.

The two-front battlefield was a major escalation in the conflict that blew up late Thursday after a Georgian offensive to regain control of the separatist province of South Ossetia. Even as Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge Monday with EU mediators, Russia flexed its military muscle and appeared determined to subdue the small U.S. ally that has been pressing for NATO membership.
As I noted earlier in a comment, the Russians (I think) are exercising a disproportionate response to the original Georgian act as a way of making sure all the little countries around them get the message: don't tug on Superman's cape. I don't like it, and I don't like the continued Russian operation, but I think that is what is happening.
On Monday afternoon, Russian troops invaded Georgia from the western separatist province of Abkhazia while most Georgian forces were busy with fighting in the central region around South Ossetia.
That's the western edge right by the Black Sea. Looks like a classic pincers move to cut the country in half. That will isolate the bulk of the Georgian military to the eastern half.
Russian armored personnel carriers moved into Senaki, a town 20 miles inland from Georgia's Black Sea port of Poti, Lomaia said. Russian forces also moved into Zugdidi, near Abkhazia, and seized police stations, while their Abkhazian allies took control of the nearby village of Kurga, according to witnesses and Georgian officials.

In Zugdidi, an AP reporter saw five or six Russian soldiers posted outside an Interior Ministry building. Several tanks and other armored vehicles were moving through the town but the streets were nearly deserted, with shops, restaurants and banks all shut down.

In the city of Gori, an AP reporter heard artillery fire and Georgian soldiers warned locals to get out because Russian tanks were approaching. Hundreds of terrified residents fled toward Tbilisi using any means of transport they could find. Many stood along the road trying to flag down passing cars. An APTV film crew saw Georgian tanks and military vehicles speeding along the road from Gori to Tbilisi. Firing began and people ran for cover. A couple of cars could be seen in flames along the side of the road.

Georgia borders the Black Sea between Turkey and Russia and was ruled by Moscow for most of the two centuries preceding the 1991 breakup of the Soviet Union. Both provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990s—and both have close ties with Moscow.

Georgia began an offensive to regain control over South Ossetia late Thursday with heavy shelling and air strikes that ravaged South Ossetia's provincial capital of Tskhinvali. The Russia response was swift and overpowering—thousands of troops that shelled the Georgians until they fled Tskhinvali on Sunday, and four days of bombing raids across Georgia.

Yet Georgia's pledge of a cease-fire rang hollow Monday. An AP reporter saw a small group of Georgian fighters open fire on a column of Russian and Ossetian military vehicles outside Tskhinvali, triggering a 30-minute battle. The Russians later said all the Georgians were killed.

Another AP reporter was in the village of Tkviavi, 7 1/2 miles south of Tskhinvali inside Georgia, when a bomb from a Russian Sukhoi warplane struck a house. The walls of neighboring buildings fell as screaming residents ran for cover. Eighteen people were wounded. Georgian artillery fire was heard coming from fields about 200 yards away from the village, perhaps the bomber's target.

Hundreds of Georgian troops headed north Monday along the road toward Tskhinvali, pocked with tank regiments creeping up the highway into South Ossetia. Hundreds of other soldiers traveled via trucks in the opposite direction, towing light artillery weapons.
Posted by: Steve White || 08/11/2008 15:44 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Bush has called a press conference for 5:15 EST -- to read a statement -- don't know whether than will be questions of not.

He must have stepped off the plane, already knowing exactly what he was doing and would say.
Posted by: Sherry || 08/11/2008 17:01 Comments || Top||

#2  "That's the western edge right by the Black Sea. Looks like a classic pincers move to cut the country in half. That will isolate the bulk of he Georgian military to the eastern half."

now the USSR military says theyve withdrawn from Senaki. Maybe they are aware of the guerilla threat, and so are only going to launch large scale raids? Or maybe theyre lying. Interesting a war in which both sides claim fake retreats intead of fake advances. At least shows SOME consideration to world opinion.
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 17:10 Comments || Top||

#3  Here's an interesting comment from Powerline:

Did you know that Russia forbids the transport of US military hardware across its territory, even by plane? Of course, Iran does too. Look at a map and think of where the large US logistical bases are located (Germany). That leaves only a narrow corridor -- across Georgia and Azerbaijan -- that we can use to supply our troops in Afghanistan.

The Chinese don't allow resupply. The Russians and the Iranians don't. Looks like if we lose Georgia to Imperial Russia, the only route into Afghanistan is via Pakistan.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/11/2008 17:43 Comments || Top||

#4  some ideas form comments at blackfive

I'm with Georgia. This thing will probably be halted in place soon with a cease-fire. Then we need to move.

1. Sign an alliance Georgia - whether the worthless French and Germans like it or not.

2. Move all our bases in Europe to the East - Georgia, Poland and the Baltic states.

3. Get the UN to replace the Russian "peacekeepers" with real ones.

4. Kick the shit out of them in they try it again.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 18:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Just saw a state dept type on Fox late news talking about this. He was p-ssed off. They now seem to understand that the russians had planned this for some time. Russian troops were in both provinces under the guise of humanitarian work... fixing a railroad ... so it could be used for troops and ammo etc. Hopefully we will hear more about this.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 23:46 Comments || Top||


Russian troops invade Georgia and take the city of Gori
Posted by: tipper || 08/11/2008 13:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  this is outrageous, and gives the lie to the claim this was about Ossetia.

It looks like its too late for Georgia, which will soon have a govt installed by Moscow (well depending on how many troops the russians will leave to keep that puppet govt in power)

Time for ukraine to enter NATO.
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 13:13 Comments || Top||

#2  Russia is an expansionist power and always has been. Think of them as you might think of the Roman empire. Their history has always been one of defeating their neighbors and expanding the empire. It is what defines Russia as Russia. To believe otherwise is to be a complete and utter fool.

Electing Putin back years ago was a major step backward for the Russian people. Russia is going to find itself increasingly isolated again.
Posted by: crosspatch || 08/11/2008 13:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Key goegraphic poin in Georgia.

Time to take the fight to Russia. Arm the Chechens, and any other seperatists.

Start bleeding Russia to death.

And get the Ukraine in NATO NOW - same with Byelorus if they ask.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 13:20 Comments || Top||

#4  News agencies reporting russians closing on georgian capitol; georgian forces in retreat and disarray. Ruskies asking to talk to NATO. Wonder if terms of surrender will include installation of puppet govt loyal to Moscow? If this plays out the way it seems to be going, it woiuld seem to be disastrous for US influence in the region.

It has been seen that russia will meet all local challenges with crushing, brutal force and the west will unleash a barrage of useless words.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 13:33 Comments || Top||

#5  Ruskies asking to talk to NATO

What reason do they give for that?
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 13:35 Comments || Top||

#6  I am stunned by the lack of resolve of western europe. It appears that Russia and Iran are now calling the shots. And the world talks and threatens to stop the import of checkers and toilet paper.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 13:36 Comments || Top||

#7  Wonder why we didn't drop some of the 82nd Airborne into Georgia or put some US troops on those planes flying the Georgians back to Georgia. At least a squadron of F-22s and A-10s to clear the skies and neutralize the tanks.
Posted by: RWV || 08/11/2008 13:37 Comments || Top||

#8  in what has the US shown more resolve than western europe? - i mean now, not the NATO application of several months ago.
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 13:39 Comments || Top||

#9  Georgia has a major oil pipeline that Russia wants. Russia knows that oil is power. They can control the flow, they can control the prices. By the way junior senator from Chicago, Obama, any war machine powered by fossil fuels will kick the as of any 25 mpg battery operated piece of plastic.

But this will fit right in with Obama's desire to see higher oil prices in America. The global super power then shifts, to the New Soviet Empire.
Posted by: Neville Shaviling6626 || 08/11/2008 13:40 Comments || Top||

#10  In response to comment #8, if your remarks were directed at me, I have been more than critical of the US in comments on this subject over the past few days. Feel free to check back on other related posts and see for yourself. See also comment #4 today.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 13:42 Comments || Top||

#11  I dont understand #6 though. It implies theres some distinction between the response of western eur and the US, and I dont see that. Unless you mean you would have expected WE to react MORE strongly than the US, since theyre closer.
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 13:45 Comments || Top||

#12  #9 - no one says the MILITARY shouldnt run on oil. In fact the military uses a small percentage of US oil consumptiopn, and alt fuels would release oil for mil consumption.

Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 13:47 Comments || Top||

#13  What, exactly, should the US do to respond to this Russian agression? Do we want to get into an open shooting conflict with the Russians? Is that going to help things? I sure don't see how.

Georgia seems to have overplayed their hand, poking a stick at the bear. The bear doesn't like that...at all. I feel for them, but again, what to do.

Russia is going to act as they always have. The oil pipeline issue is critical here for them to retain power over the "Stans" and Belarus as well as to keep heavy influence over Europe. They regard this as "their" territory. They won't let anyone else, especially the US, into that realm without a fight.
Posted by: remoteman || 08/11/2008 13:48 Comments || Top||

#14  remote = why the constant strawman being repeated ad nauseum, that its either a shooting war or do nothing? We can attempt to isolate them diplomatically and economically, take Ukraine into NATO, supply weapons to the Georgians, etc, etc

as for letting them dominate Europe, we struggled for 40 years to stop that from happening, and wed damned well better stop that from happening now.
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 13:51 Comments || Top||

#15  Mebbe Turkey would let us slip the Georgians some surplus diesel-electric subs. Sure would be a surprise for the Black Sea Fleet.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 08/11/2008 13:55 Comments || Top||

#16  They would probably arm the Iranians with SSNs as retaliation.
Posted by: john frum || 08/11/2008 14:00 Comments || Top||

#17  Superstitious...not a strawman, just responding to the begging cries that we do something right now!!! All I'm saying is that there is not a lot that we can do RIGHT NOW. Sure, we can ship arms to the Georgians. We can supply them with Sat info on Russian troop movements. We can help them bleed the Russians as much as possible...but in the meantime the Russians are going to devastate Georgia. You live in a dreamworld if you think we can isolate Russia diplomatically. Of course our relations with them should go quite cold, but don't forget that without Russia, Europe will literally go quite cold this winter. Our options are limited and the Russians know it.
Posted by: remoteman || 08/11/2008 14:04 Comments || Top||

#18  The DOD and Pentagon have very smart people who get paid alot of money to come up with creative ways to deal with these type of situations. Georgia put its ass on the line, and supplied troops for Kosovo, Afghanistan and Iraq; troops that actually seem to do things. They deserve better from everybody than this.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 14:05 Comments || Top||

#19  There are always options other than shooting wars.

The next time moscow bitches about the way the Israelis respond to attacks on their sovereign territory by palis /hezbos etc, they should tell russia (and btw the US state dept) ... "screw you!"
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 14:10 Comments || Top||

#20  remoteman

You think Russia can afford to shut off Nat Gas to europe? Not only would they lose the money, theyd also lose their rep as a supplier. Im not sure thats a credible threat.
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 14:15 Comments || Top||

#21  But SG - haven't the Russians already shut off "Nat Gas to europe"? Or does Ukraine not count as part of Europe?
Posted by: Whomong Trotsky9555 || 08/11/2008 14:18 Comments || Top||

#22  http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives2/2008/08/021219.php

interesting map from stratfor of battle space, and interesting commentary on what's happening
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 14:20 Comments || Top||

#23  You have forgot about Kosovo? Who have bobed Belgrad? Children and women?
What have American people have done in Irak? They killed thousands of people. Peace people.
And now the georcian has killed 12 russian people (peacemakers)what should we do?
Rusiia dont want war. We need 20 years of peace to became strong and economically independent.
Posted by: Alex from Russia || 08/11/2008 14:26 Comments || Top||

#24  What have American people have done in Irak? They killed thousands of people.

And saved tens of thousands more. Oh, and removed a dictator. And helped the Iraqis stand up and defend themselves.

Funny, innit, how eager the Russians are to justify the invasion of Georgia on the basis of South Ossetia, when the latest moves make it clear they're really out for the whole thing.
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 08/11/2008 14:30 Comments || Top||

#25  this isnt kosovo, where there was an ethnic cleansing and we spent weeks trying to negotiate with the Serbs, who rejected neutral peacekeepers.

In SOuth ossetia, its Russia that rejected neutral peacekeepers. We also never sent our troops into belgrade, yet Russia has sent troops into Senaki and Gori.

And its not Iraq, a country run by one of the most brutal dictators on earth. Its a democracy being overthrown, apparetnly in part BECAUSE its a democracy.

Is there any website on earth where these memes arent being flooded?

At what point does the repition of these memes over different names constitute flooding?
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 14:32 Comments || Top||

#26  weak alex weak!
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 14:33 Comments || Top||

#27  ukraine isnt nearly as important a market, and it had its own complex issues on pricing and payment.
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 14:33 Comments || Top||

#28  Let me fix this for you...

RussiaNazi Germany is going to act as they always have. The oil pipeline industrial issue is critical here for them to retain power over the "Stans" and Belarus Sudeten and Ruhr as well as to keep heavy influence over Europe. They regard this as "their" territory. They won't let anyone else, especially the US, into that realm without a fight.


See where you are?

Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 14:34 Comments || Top||

#29  At what point does the repition of these memes over different names constitute flooding?

Gotta wonder why Russia is sending so many of its disinformation operatives here.

Or are the supposedly educated people of Russia this screwed up?
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 08/11/2008 14:35 Comments || Top||

#30  I think it may be university students. Do they have summer break there?
Posted by: superstitiousGalitizianer || 08/11/2008 14:35 Comments || Top||

#31  They are here at the behest of Putin's Hitler Youth Nashi.

They are well indoctrinated ultra-nationalists, who have had the "Russian Empire" nationalist propaganda poured into them and have apparently never opened their eyes once to where they were being led.

I hope you Nashi members enjoy dying to IEDs and EFP in the gurilla war you will be enmeshed in. Youreally ought to read up on your parents experience in Afghanistan. And consider how easy it is for us to stir up a "mini Afghanistan" in nearly every one of your border provinces, and how vulnerable your pipeliens are in the interior of the country.

Think of the body bags coming back for years, your firends dead or missing limbs. All for the glory of conquest by Tsar Putin. Are you ready for that?



Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 14:41 Comments || Top||

#32  OS, get your point on the "Nashi" parallels. Yes, we need to make it clear to Putin that he must get out and get out now or else suffer a very long and draining revolution (as only one of the consequences). Russia's recent track record, particularly with Iran, demonstrates that they are an enemy of the US/the west.

I hereby toss my previous posts of "what can we do" and acknowledge that there is much we can do and should do immediately. I'd like to believe that all of Europe would back us on this since it is in their direct interest to see Russia play by "normal" rules.
Posted by: remoteman || 08/11/2008 14:49 Comments || Top||

#33  Actually - I will laugh on the day China takes Siberia from Russia....
Posted by: 3dc || 08/11/2008 14:49 Comments || Top||

#34  "You fell victim to one of the classic blunders. The most famous is 'Never get involved in a land war in Asia,' but only slightly less well known is this: 'Never go in against a Sicilian when death is on the line.'"
Posted by: Anon4021 || 08/11/2008 14:55 Comments || Top||

#35  This SHOULD be an eye-opening wake-up call for Europe, from Estonia to Albania, from Poland to the Pyrennes. The only way to keep from falling victim to Russia's greed for power and territory is to have a military strong enough to stop them, and to hurt them so much they won't be able to fight any more. The biggest problem with invading Russia is the terribly long, terribly vulnerable logistics lines that would exist. Turning their cities and towns into rubble piles, destroying their infrastructure, and pounding their military to pieces doesn't take anywhere near that long a supply line. The key, however, is being able to stop their military. If Europe doesn't IMMEDIATELY begin rebuilding their armed forces to at LEAST "Cold-War" levels, and icreasing them, they're doomed to the same fate as Geoargia.
Posted by: Old Patriot || 08/11/2008 15:10 Comments || Top||

#36  from fox news

Meanwhile, the State Department says it has evacuated more than 170 U.S. citizens from Georgia as the conflict over separatist areas there intensifies between Georgia and Russia.

A spokesman said Monday that two convoys carrying about 170 private U.S. citizens along with an undetermined number of family members of American diplomats based in Georgia have left Tbilisi on their way by road to neighboring Armenia. The spokesman says more convoys are being prepared in case other Americans choose to leave Georgia.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 15:18 Comments || Top||

#37  Consider Putin's passport logic:


Chinese diaspora

One starts with the fact that there are only around 40 million Russians scattered across the vast expanse of the Far East and Siberia, with only 7 million in the Far East itself.

Yet now, for example, Russia’s main Pacific port and naval base of Vladivostok, once closed to foreigners, is bristling with Chinese markets, restaurants and trade houses.[2] The expanding Chinese presence in the area has led to yellow peril-style fears of Chinese irredentism.[3] Russian newspapers publish fantastic estimates of between two and five million Chinese migrants in the Russian Far East, and predict that half of the population of Russia would be Chinese by 2050.[4][5] Russians perceive hostile intent in the Chinese practice of using different names for local cities, such as Hǎishēnwǎi for Vladivostok, and a widespread folk belief states that the Chinese migrants remember the exact locations of their ancestors' ginseng patches, and seek to reclaim them.[6] The xenophobia against Chinese and exaggerated concerns over the Chinese influx are described as being less prevalent in the Russian Far East, where most of the Chinese shuttle trade is actually occurring, than in European Russia.[7]

The southern part of the Russian Far East, south of the Stanovoy Mountains, was ceded by China to Russia in the 19th century in the Treaty of Aigun and Treaty of Peking. Chinese historians present the treaties as being Unequal Treaties imposed on China by Russia by force, a presentation that also figures strongly in Chinese schools. [8][9]


So by Putin's logic - China would have a right to invade and capture Siberia.


Posted by: 3dc || 08/11/2008 15:29 Comments || Top||

#38  Hungary, 1956.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 15:32 Comments || Top||

#39  putin and logic ... hmmmmm do they go together ; )
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 15:32 Comments || Top||

#40  Several geopolitical consequences of Russian hamfistedness/overreach in Georgia:

1. NATO will be revitalized as it dawns on Western Europe that the Russian bear is no longer hibernating.

2. Iran's hand as a regional power is strengthened - a Russia-Iran axis has been forming on the basis on military hardware purchases and petro-supply. Iran is one of Russia's diplomatic levers against further NATO advancement into the "old Soviet sphere".

3. This will place a floor under crude prices (see BTC pipeline), providing sustenance for leaderships in Iran and Venezuela which continue to face economic problems and rising dissent.
Posted by: Grumenk Philalzabod0723 || 08/11/2008 15:50 Comments || Top||


#42  Alex: You have forgot about Kosovo? Who have bobed Belgrad? Children and women?

The Serbs massacred 200,000 Bosnian civilians. We had every reason they were going to do the same in Kosovo. We bombed strategic installations in Belgrade. If we had wanted to kill large numbers of people, we could have done what we did over Tokyo - kill 100,000 people in a single bombing raid.

Alex: What have American people have done in Irak? They killed thousands of people. Peace people.

We removed a dictator who killed hundreds of thousands of his own people by gassing and bombing them, in addition to invading two countries to steal their oil.

Alex: And now the georcian has killed 12 russian people (peacemakers)what should we do?

The Russians in South Ossetia aren't peacekeepers - they're occupation troops on the way to Russia's annexation of the territory. To my knowledge, peacekeepers don't annex territory.

Alex: Rusiia dont want war. We need 20 years of peace to became strong and economically independent.

I'm getting the impression that being strong means resuming the expansion of Russian empire that began centuries ago, and was uninterrupted neither by revolution in 1917 nor counter-revolution in 1989. It figures. As Richard Pipes pointed out, the problem with Russia wasn't ever that it was Communist - it was because it was Russian. Today's Russians are the equivalent of the Germans in the inter-war period - they feel aggrieved and will expand until they meet serious resistance.
Posted by: Zhang Fei || 08/11/2008 16:00 Comments || Top||

#43  Rantburg is infested with liberals. Go Vlad!
Posted by: Beldar Elmoger1345 || 08/11/2008 17:13 Comments || Top||

#44  Well I for one am happy we have one of the foremost experts on the Russians in charge of our state department so that we aren't caught flatfooted.

/snark
Posted by: rjschwarz || 08/11/2008 18:07 Comments || Top||

#45  And I especially love the milquetoast reply Bush gave (backed by Condi and State) in his speech this afternoon.

It reeked of Carter and Chamberlain, not Truman and Churchill.

I guess allthe arguing is for naught - Bush has looked into Putins soul and decided to let him have Georgia. Royally screwing an ally in the GWOT, and allowing for the destabilization of nearly every former Soviet vassal state by threat and intimidation from Russian

Way to go Dubya.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 19:07 Comments || Top||

#46  Bush's reply
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D92GC5G80&show_article=1
Posted by: linker || 08/11/2008 19:22 Comments || Top||

#47  More Russian barbarity:

When Russian airplanes dropped bombs on Gori, Georgia, Monday morning, 26-year-old Nikri (who was afraid to give his last name) rushed home to check on his family. The carnage that awaited him was almost too much to bear. A woman's severed hand lay by the entrance to his shattered apartment building. Upstairs, he found his wounded wife and one of his daughters alive. But his 2-year-old daughter was dead, the victim of a piece of shrapnel that hit the wall above her bed.
Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 19:27 Comments || Top||

#48  Sure would be a pity if the tunnel linking Russia to South Ossetia was destroyed...
Posted by: Rob Crawford || 08/11/2008 19:39 Comments || Top||

#49  IF I didn't miss something, the latest statement from President Bush was just more of the same, alot of words. I am from Texas, voted twice for GW for Governor and twice for president, but I am disappointed at our response to this crisis. I realize it is a complicated situation, I just have a hard time believing there wasn't some response between words and all out war with Russia.
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 19:56 Comments || Top||

#50  To be honest I'm not sure why that tunnel wasn't taken out by Georgia as the first step in securing their borders (or while being transited by Russian tank columns). That tunnel must be really important for commerce or something.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 08/11/2008 20:15 Comments || Top||

#51  Hate to say it, but the ones calling for anything more than pretty much what we are doing now are acting like they've played Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon one too many times.

Are the Russians overreacting? Oh, hell yeah. But what else can we realistically do without pouring gas on the fire? (Think I'm kidding? Just had a "debate" with the Tsar regarding the Georgian troops going home from Iraq. He said that IHHO that we had better not give them a ride to Tbilisi on an American-flagged plane.....or else that would be seen as taking sides.)
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields || 08/11/2008 21:21 Comments || Top||

#52  But we want to take sides, Swamp Blondie. The Russians are trying to destabilize their little part of the world.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 21:41 Comments || Top||

#53  Finally found an interesting post over at The Belmont Club on possible upcoming Georgian action, particularly in light of Pres. Saak's address tonight - apparently the Georgian's do have a defense in depth plan, and seem to be moving to it - 1st a stand in natural defenses before Tblisi, and a further retreat behind another mtn. range toward the Turk/Armenian borders. In keeping with this is no note of any surrenders of Georgian forces - plenty of reporting on panic and retreat, but if the Russian's had an encirclement or mass capture, we'd certainly her about it. Also interesting that our airlift of return troops seems complete, and I wonder what else was aboard the transports (AA assets, UAVs, TOWs, let's hope all of the above)

All very fascinating, and most importantly, possible, with both Turkey and Armenia having national interests in line with Georgia.

If Russia really screws up, they could end up leading Turkey, Armenia and the Uzbeks to resolve their differences. Quite a lot of wishful thinking there, and seemingly impossible coordination, a common threat may work wonders.

Finally, still no public note of asymmetric warfare, which I have to believe Georgia is holding in reserve.

I think the Russians are nearing their stop line, or they wouldn't have let our airlift in, and they'd be moving airborne troops to encircling positions.
Posted by: Halliburton - Asymmetrical Reply Division || 08/11/2008 22:00 Comments || Top||

#54  Ooooh, hopeful and useful information, instead of doom and disaster! Thank you, Halliburton, et al.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 22:11 Comments || Top||

#55  We either stand on principle and acknowledge that the Georgians are our allies or we do not. I thought they were. If they are then W should tell Putin that the Russians need to cease all combat ops and fall back to Ossetia w/in 24 hrs in order to let us bring in human-aid. If after 24 hrs the Ruskies have not, then methinx it would be time to send some stealths over and handle some business on their front line track assets and troops.

Either way, China is laughing.
Posted by: Hupusong Hatfield aka Broadhead6 || 08/11/2008 22:25 Comments || Top||

#56  HHAB - I suspect W did just that in his statement this pm. As for Chinese humor, I wonder whether it's more aimed at Russia than us - they must keep staring at Siberia and wondering . . .
Posted by: Halliburton - Asymmetrical Reply Division || 08/11/2008 22:30 Comments || Top||

#57  Blonide, an airlift of hukmanitarian aid is in order, because the Russians swear they ahve not decalred war on Georgia, therefor the airspace aobve Tblisi is NOT under embargo. Same goes for forcing the Naval blockade by escorting a freighter full of wheat into a Goergian port.

The russians cannot, under international law, block such things, without a declaration of war.

Puttin ghtose actions in place forces the gangsters in Moscow to deal wiht the reality of shooting at US forces, or else coming clean and declaring an unprovoked war against a soveriegn nation (and payign the price either way).

Whats "The Tsar" think of the thuggery on display by Russian military in thier decimation and indiscriminate targeting of civilians in bombing and artillery fire?

My russian ex-pat friends are aghast that Putin would order the invasion to go this far, and allow the military to do things that may be classified as "war crimes".

I agree - Russia has become a thug nation, run by gangsters. Note they are already trheateneing Poland, Latvia, Ukraine, etc with "you will pay for your criticism" type talk .

If Russia wants to let its ultranationailist run away with the nation, they are setting themselves ona course for a war with the US and the west, as surely as the ultranationalist Germans caused Nazi Germany to ignite WW2.


Posted by: OldSpook || 08/11/2008 22:30 Comments || Top||

#58  Haliburton, prolly funny on many levels to them -Russian going east and stretched Americans having to play cop again.

Actually, W needs to tell the Ruskies they need to fall back to Russia proper - and take any disenfranchised Russian citizens back to the Motherland w/them...then let Intl' peacekeepers in w/in a week. If not, then stealths need to roll under cover of darkness and make ruskie tank assets disappear. We also need to donate about a thousand javelins to the Georgians - see how the ivans like that thing. Thank them for the kornets they were given the ba'athists in '03.
Posted by: Hupusong Hatfield aka Broadhead6 || 08/11/2008 22:37 Comments || Top||

#59  http://pajamasmedia.com/richardfernandez/2008/08/11/voluntary-amputation/#more-126

link to full belmont article
Posted by: Legolas || 08/11/2008 22:50 Comments || Top||


Home Front: WoT
Pak diplomats meet al-Qaida suspect under US detention
(PTI) Pakistani diplomats met a possible "fixer" for al-Qaida, being held without bail here on charges of attempting to kill FBI agents in Afghanistan, after US authorities agreed to their request for consular access.

Pakistans acting consul general Saqib Rauf and Counsellor at the embassy in Washington Faqir Asif Hussain met Aafia Siddiqui, a neuroscientist, along with her attorney Gideon Oliver at the Brooklyn Detention Centre yesterday and assured her of all possible assistance, The Associated Press of Pakistan reported.

According to a US criminal complaint, Siddiqui (36) was carrying documents containing recipes for explosives and chemical weapons and describing "various landmarks in the United States, including New York City".

A team of FBI agents and US military officers prepared to question her after she was detained in July but she allegedly snatched a soldier's rifle and pointed it at an Army captain. She fired two shots but missed because an interpreter pushed the weapon aside, authorities allege.

She was wounded when a soldier fired at her in response and was given medical aid and later flown to New York to be formally charged in a federal court.

Siddiqui reiterated yesterday that she is innocent of the charges made against her by the US authorities, expressing a hope that she will be acquitted following her trial.

"I am confident if there is any justice I will be acquitted," she said. She requested for a copy of the Quran, the Muslim holy book and 'halal' (religiously appropriate) food, media reports said.

US authorities say Siddiqui received a biology degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and wrote a doctoral thesis on neurological sciences at Brandeis University, outside Boston.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda

#1  US authorities say Siddiqui received a biology degree from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and wrote a doctoral thesis on neurological sciences at Brandeis University, outside Boston.

If they release him, I understand there is now an open research position available at Ft. Detrick.
Posted by: Jack is Back! || 08/11/2008 4:06 Comments || Top||


India-Pakistan
Curfew in Srinagar; Hurriyat leader dies in police firing
SRINAGAR: Hurriyat Conference leader Sheikh Abdul Aziz was on Monday killed in police firing in Baramulla district, as a result of which curfew was clamped in the region.

Earlier in the day, two persons were killed and 150 others injured in police firing and clashes between security forces and protesters who tried to march towards Pakistan-occupied Kashmir to end the "economic blockade" of the Valley in the wake of Amarnath land stir.

Police fired in the air on Monday to thwart a bid by fruit growers to march towards Muzaffarabad. Police deflated tyres of 200 trucks carrying fruits in Sopore town and used tear gas shells to disperse the agitating fruit growers trying to take out a cavalcade march towards the PoK capital, official sources said. As the fruit growers refused to give in, police and paramilitary forces fired in the air to bring the situation under control, they said. More than 100 fruit growers were detained.

Curfew was imposed along a 40-km stretch on Srinagar- Muzaffarabad road from Sheeri to Uri in Baramulla district to prevent thousands of marchers from defying restrictions and crossing the Line of Control, official sources said.

While a youth, Tahir Ahmad Lone was killed in police firing in Sangrama in Baramulla, one Ishfaq Ahmad died when police opened fire in Qamarwari in Srinagar city, they said.

Police also opened fire in Kakpura in Pulwama district and in Shirmal in Shopian but no one was killed. More than 150 people have been injured in the firing and clashes across the Valley, they said.

The protesters turned violent after police firing in Sangrama and set afire two police vehicles, reports reaching here said. Protests were also held in Kulgam, Handwara and Uri towns. Kashmir Fruit Growers Association, Kashmir Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Traders Federation, both factions of Hurriyat Conference and the PDP had given a call for 'Muzaffarabad chalo' to neutralise the economic blockade of the Valley "enforced" by the agitators in Jammu region.

Top separatist leaders like Syed Ali Shah Geelani, Mirwaiz Umer Farooq and PDP leaders Abdul Aziz Zargar, Dilawar Mir and Nizamuddin Bhat were placed under house arrest last night to ensure that the proposed march does not materialise, the sources said. Separatist leaders Zaffar Akbar Bhat, Mushtaqul Islam and Shakeel Ahmad Bakshi were picked up by the police from different places in the Valley, they said.

Police and CRPF personnel were deployed in large numbers all along the roads leading towards Baramulla and Uri townships.
Posted by: john frum || 08/11/2008 10:14 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Prisoner dead in Quetta police station blasts
At least one prisoner was killed, three policemen injured and several vehicles damaged when the Crime Branch Police Station building in the cantonment area caught fire, following a number of explosions in the early hours of Sunday. The blasts completely destroyed the station and the official record. Dozens of cars, motorcycles and bicycles were also damaged. There were conflicting reports about the cause of the blasts; with independent sources claiming Baloch militants had used rockets to blow up the building and officials requesting anonymity saying a shortcircuit had caused a blast.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Taliban 'besiege' Khar
The security forces targeted the suspected hideouts of Taliban militants in Loyi Sum area on Sunday. The security forces had vacated the area of Loyi Sum on Saturday. Meanwhile, the Taliban militants have surrounded Khar town.

The civilian population is migrating from Khar, headquarters of Bajaur Agency, to other safer places fearing more clashes between the security forces and the militants. The forces targeted the suspected hideouts of the militants with artillery and gunship helicopters in Khar, Loyi Sum, Tankkhata, Banda, Charmang, Rahgan, Haji Lawang and Mullah Keley to stop the militants from making further advancement to other areas while the local tribesmen confirmed that a number of militants had reached Khar and established checkposts all over the area.

There are also reports suggesting that both the security forces and Taliban militants are engaged in consolidating their positions for another and probably 'decisive round' of fighting. "The security forces vacated Loyi Sum in accordance to war strategies", remarked an Frontier Constabulary official on Sunday while confirming the retreat, which Taliban militants interpreted as their 'victory'. Moreover, Taliban militants have also claimed to have caught and killed at least five soldiers and five others were made hostage when they refused to surrender. However, independent sources and officials didn't confirm militants claims.

Meanwhile, fearing more clashes and increasing uncertainty, thousands of people are migrating from the area for security to other adjacent place like Dir, Malakand and Mohmand Agencies. Because of the precarious situation, almost all bazaars and markets remained closed and there was an acute shortage of edible items and of other commodities of daily use all over Bajaur Agency. No transport facility was available, as all roads remained closed.

Monitoring Desk adds: More than 100 militants and nine soldiers have been killed in four days of heavy fighting in Bajaur Agency, officials said. However, Taliban militants have claimed that they have surrounded Khar town, reports BBC. Taliban said that only seven of their men died. Neither claim has been independently verified. The forces moved to Khar, the main town in the Bajaur tribal agency, to where the Taliban are reported to have followed them. The militants have now surrounded the town, according to a government official in Khar, who spoke to the BBC on condition of anonymity.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Taliban take control of Khar suburbs
At least seven people were killed and more than 20 injured in fighting between the militants and security forces in Bajaur Agency on Sunday, as Taliban occupied a 15-kilometre stretch of land from agency headquarters Khar to the Jaar area.

Fighter aircraft and helicopter gunships pounded militant hideouts in the agency after paramilitary troops withdrew from the Taliban stronghold of Loyesam following three days of fierce clashes.

Two helicopters and two fighter jets targeted Taliban hideouts in Loyesam, Bando, Rashakai, Tang, Jaar, Haji Lawang, Yousafabad and Charmang areas until 4pm on Sunday.

About 40 houses were destroyed during the bombing. Taliban fighters attacked the bombers with anti-aircraft guns in the Carela and Tang Khata areas.

Hundreds of armed Taliban militants meanwhile dug trenches in Loyesam along an eight-kilometre stretch of the strategic road leading to Peshawar. Taliban also took control of temporary checkposts in Yousafabad, Haji Lawang, and Jaar abandoned by the security forces. They also blew up an abandoned checkpost in Jarmola Kilay. Witnesses said Taliban dug trenches just a furlong away from the Bajaur Scouts headquarters in Khar and occupied a bridge in Jaar.

Witnesses said most of the agency is now under Taliban control.

Local sources said 90,000 local residents had emigrated from the area, mostly to the neighbouring Dir district. NGOs have set up camps in the Munda area, between the Dir and Bajaur.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP

#1  Can the Talibunnies use this position to threaten our logistics into Afghanistan?
Posted by: treo || 08/11/2008 10:20 Comments || Top||

#2  Let's hope so - it would clarify targeting.
Posted by: Flavimble Borgia4990 || 08/11/2008 10:38 Comments || Top||

#3  I see that Khar is about 30 km NNE of Peshawar but where is Jaar?

I see Khar is about 20 km North of Hwy 5, The direct road from Peshawar to Rawalpindi.
Posted by: 3dc || 08/11/2008 16:40 Comments || Top||

#4  Radical islam isn't wasting time, aren't they, wid the US-Allies + UNO attention now being diverted to the RUSSO-GEORGIAN CONFLICT.

Pragmatically, RUSS-ONLY VIEWPOINT/SCOPE > ON ONE GEOGRAPHIC HORN, IT HAS THE ISLAMIST "SURGES" IN THE CASPIAN-BLACK SEA REGION = FORMER SSRS; + LOOMING ISLAMIST PROTO-SURGES AGZ RUSS URALS/CAUCASUSIA, CHINA + NORTH ASIA [read - Russ Far East-Siberia, exclusive of Chin interests]. Taken collectively, RadicaL Islam includ IRAN, PAKIIS, etc is carving out a NUCLEARIZING BLOC AGZ THE FORMER SOVIET COLD WAR SPHERE OF INFLUENCE + NOW AGZ CHINA.

* "CHESS/GAMEBOARD" OF RUSS-SPECIFIC GEOPOLITICS + RUSS MILPOL DIALECTICISM > RUSS ONLY VIEWPOINT/SCOPE again > Russ " sees" already Nuclear UNIFIED EUROPE = NATO, + potens CHINESE designs as per CENTRAL-EASTERN RUSSIA e.g. YAKUTIA-SIBERIA, + now proto-Nuclear RADICAL ISLAM = ASIAN ISLAMISM, + any NUCLEAR-AMBITIONS REGIONAL INDEPENDENTS.. IMO, Russia's Viewpoint > it may be thinking it must take Milactions now just to ensure its LT survival becuz, in reality, IT DOUBTS ITS OWN ABILITY TO MODERNIZE IN TIME TO DEFEND AND PREVAIL AGZ THE ABOVE PERCEIVED NUCLEAR THREATS.

THE BORSCH OF THE MATTER > IS RUSS "HEDGING", i.e. RELUCTANTLY BUT COVERTLY INDIC IT MAY NEED EUROPE'S MIL PROTECTION IN THE FUTURE, PERHAPS EVEN TO JOIN EUROPE IN CASE OF NATIONAL COLLAPSE AGZ THE ABOVE THREATS??? IS RUSSIA BEING OVERTLY MIL AGGRESSIVE AS DENIABLE COVER FOR ANTICIPATED FUTURE NATIONAL FAILURE???
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 20:25 Comments || Top||


10 more dead in Kurram Agency
Fighting between the Toori and Bangash tribes in Kurram Agency continued for the fifth consecutive day late on Saturday night, bringing the death toll to 26 in clashes that began on Wednesday. Fighting on Saturday in Binyamin area of lower Kurram killed 10 people and injured dozens. According to reports, both sides used heavy weapons and fired at each other from their bunkers. The fighting continued on Sunday. About 26 people from both sides have been killed and 51 injured in clashes so far. Reports said the political administration had been trying to broker a ceasefire between the two tribes but the efforts had not yielded results so far.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Taliban blow up 3 bridges in Swat
Militants blew up three bridges in the Sech Ban, Nazarabad and Khwazakhela Bandai areas of Swat on Sunday. Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said they were targeting official buildings and schools in retaliation for the destruction of Taliban houses by security forces. Meanwhile, a man and his daughter were injured in an attack on militant positions by army gunship helicopters in Kabal tehsil. Sources said security forces had also targeted Taliban positions in Matta and Kabal tehsils.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Cop killed in Hangu
A police constable was killed when unidentified people ambushed a police vehicle in the Pagdar area of Hangu district on Sunday. The constable, Ihsan Ali, was driving the vehicle when it came under fire. In Upper Aurakzai Agency, the Taliban released a man, Din Muhammad, they had kidnapped from Hangu two months ago.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Militant commander, 2 farmers killed in IHK gunbattle
Indian troops shot dead a wanted Kashmiri rebel commander during a forest gunbattle that also left two Muslim farmers dead, police said on Sunday. The fighting took place overnight near Tangmarg, about 40 kilometres west of Srinagar, a police statement said. The area is at the foot of a mountain chain that marks the Line of Control, the heavily militarised de facto border that divides the Indian and Pakistani parts of the disputed Kashmir region.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Govt of Pakistan


Taliban threat: Police vacate posts, take positions in markets, shops
Police and Frontier Constabulary (FC) personnel on Sunday vacated four posts and a police station near Darra AdamKhel and took positions atop markets and shops to avoid attacks from militants.

The police posts at Spina Thana, Arbab Tapoo, Sra Khwra and Zangali and the Matani Police Station have been vacated and the security personnel have taken positions on roofs of markets and shops to the dismay of business community in the area.

Complaining about the presence of the security personnel in populated areas, retailers around Zangali Police Post near Dara Admakhel said they [security forces] were using the people as human shields against militant attacks.
"Instead of providing us protection, the police and FC personnel are putting our lives in danger by their presence here."
"Instead of providing us protection, the police and FC personnel are putting our lives in danger by their presence here," a retailer Zar Khan told Daily Times.

Almost all the residents and shopkeepers in the area believed that the security forces had knowingly established bunkers in the populated areas to avoid militant attacks.

Iftikhar, another shop owner recalled that his shop was gutted in a shootout between militants and security forces in the area some time back. "I was not compensated for my losses," he complained. He added that the security forces' presence in the market area was affecting business, as people preferred to go to Peshawar city instead. The shop owners asked the NWFP government to order the security forces to vacate the market.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: TTP


Iraq
Khanaqin car bomb leaves 22 casualties
(VOI) -- Nearly 22 persons were killed or wounded in a suicide car bomb attack that ripped through downtown al-Khanaqin district, a Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK) official said on Sunday. "Today, a suicide bomber blew up a car bomb near al-Asayesh police department in downtown al-Khanaqin district, killing two civilians and injuring 22 others," Hassan Jihad Ameen told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI). VOI has made every effort to contact security sources, but to no avail. Eyewitnesses from the district, which is affiliated with Diala province, told VOI that a car bomb explosion near a downtown preparatory school killed and wounded a number of civilians.

Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency

#1  Interesting how as al Qaida gets more marginalized, the names of the places where they commit their atrocities become ever more obscure.

Posted by: crosspatch || 08/11/2008 1:48 Comments || Top||


Police force nab 4 al-Qaeda fighters in Diyala
(VOI) - A police force captured four al-Qaeda network operatives during a raid operation conducted in Diala, a security source said. "A police forces captured four al-Qaeda network fighters during a raid operation conducted in Buhriz district, 5 km south of Baaquba," a Diala police source, who requested anonymity, told Aswat al-Iraq - Voices of Iraq - (VOI). The source did not elaborate further details about the arrest operation.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq


Booby-trapped chicken coop seized in Diyala
(VOI) -- Iraqi security forces seized on Sunday a booby-trapped chicken coop containing a factory for home-made improvised explosive devices, toxic materials and highly explosive substances during a search raid in the area of al-Mulla Abboud, Diala province, according to a statement by the Iraqi Defense Ministry.

"A force from the Operation Bashaer al-Kheir (Promise of Good) command seized five IEDs, 100 containers of toxic materials, 45 liters of highly explosive substances, a number of bags containing urea and a factory for making IEDs," read the statement received by Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq -- (VOI).
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Iraqi Insurgency

#1  The endless inventiveness of the Islamic mind.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 08/11/2008 9:30 Comments || Top||

#2  Why does 'Boobs' and 'Chicken' in the same sentence remind me of Pam Andersan, Canada, KFC and PETA all at the same time??????
Posted by: USN, Ret. || 08/11/2008 17:01 Comments || Top||


4 gunmen captured in Kirkuk
(VOI) -- The Kirkuk districts' police force on Sunday captured four gunmen belonging to the so-called Islamic State of Iraq group in a security operation southwest of the city, the force chief said. "Policemen launched a wide-scale search raid in the district of al-Huweija, (70 km) southwest of Kirkuk, and the nearby al-Abbassi district, which resulted in arresting four gunmen of the State," Brig. Sarhad Qader told Aswat al-Iraq -- Voices of Iraq -- (VOI).

The Islamic State of Iraq, announced in October 2006, is composed of seven organizations, most prominent of which is al-Qaeda in Bilad al-Rafidain (al-Qaeda in Iraq). The group, active in central and western Iraq provinces, is led by a man of the name Abu Omar al-Boghdadi.

Meanwhile, Qader said security forces in Kirkuk on Sunday seized an arms cache containing 155 mortar shells in the outskirts of Huweija. "The bomb squad experts detonated the shells without incident," Qader said, not giving more details.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State of Iraq


Security forces detain 10 wanted individuals, seize weapons in Diyala
(VOI) - Security forces on Sunday arrested ten wanted individuals and defused ten roadside bombs in raid operation conducted in Diala, a military spokesman said.

"Security forces captured ten individuals in a wanted list and defused ten roadside bombs in districts of al-Muqdadiya and Buhriz in a large-scale security operation conducted in Diala,"Brig. Gen Mohamed al-Askari, media advisor for the Defense Ministry, told Aswat al-Iraq-Voices of Iraq(VOI). He added "forces seized a weapons stockpile in a riad-and-search operation".
This article starring:
Brig. Gen Mohamed al-Askari
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda in Iraq


Southeast Asia
Thai terrorists torch school, wound soldier in separate attacks
A primary school was torched and a member of a military patrol unit was wounded in separate attacks in Narathiwat yesterday.

A fire broke out at Ban Tanyong school in Bacho district at about 1.30pm. The blaze destroyed two wooden buildings. Assistant school director Atta Dolor, 51, said he was leading afternoon prayers when the fire started in a storage room. Two buildings near the storage room were gutted by the blaze. Police said they were treating it as an act of arson. According to police inquiries, at least two or three people entered the school compound, broke into the storage room and poured petrol on teaching tools before setting them on fire.

Also in Bacho district, Sgt Cha-on Bangpu, 35, the driver of a patrol vehicle, was shot and injured when his unit was ambushed at about 2pm. The ambush was followed by a brief exchange of gunfire before the attackers retreated into a coconut plantation. A suspect seen near the area was detained for questioning.

Seven teenagers were yesterday detained on suspicion of involvement in last week's series of bomb blasts in Songkhla in which four people were injured. Police yesterday raided a rented house in tambon Khuanlang in Songkhla's Hat Yai district following a tip-off that the teenagers, from the deep South with possible links to the bomb attacks in Songkhla on Aug 2, were staying there.

The teenagers, including one girl, were questioned by police. Items which could be used for staging unrest such as camouflage uniforms and batteries were also seized in the house. The teenagers denied any involvement in the bombings. They said they went to study in Songkhla and some worked as rubber tappers and security guards.

Security agencies are on alert for possible violent attacks during the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, starting in early September. An official attached to the Internal Security Operations Command's (Isoc) Region 4 branch said more violent attacks were predicted during the fasting period as insurgents wanted to show their work to attract financial support from donors in Thailand and overseas.
Posted by: ryuge || 08/11/2008 05:39 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


130,000 flee Philippines fighting
FIGHTING between rebel Muslims and troops in the southern Philippines has forced about 130,000 people to flee their homes, the Government says. The National Disaster Co-ordinating Council (NDCC) said 129,819 people had been displaced from 42 villages in North Cotabato province since the fighting began last week.

The refugees are being housed in 43 government evacuation centres in the province in the southern island of Mindanao, said Glenn Raboza, an NDCC executive officer.

The flare-up of violence follows a decision last week by the Supreme Court to suspend plans for an extended Muslim homeland in the southern Philippines. The decision saw a number of Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) rebels take control of mainly Christian villages and towns in North Cotabato province, a poor farming region in Mindanao.

While some rebels moved out after being told to do so by MILF leadership, others defied the order and began setting up defensive positions.
Posted by: tipper || 08/11/2008 01:35 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Good reference article from wikipedia.

Seems the Muslims are outnumbered in the province 4:1. So in typical fashion they are trying to terrorize their way to the top. It was a prosperous and fast growing province until the MILF showed up.

Posted by: Frozen Al || 08/11/2008 11:19 Comments || Top||


Philippine cemetery blast injures 5 kids
(Xinhua) -- A grenade exploded Sunday morning in a cemetery of a central Philippine city, injuring five children who were playing on the ground, local news network ABS-CBN News reported Sunday. An eight year-old girl lost her hand in the grenade explosion in Sagay City, Negros Occidental province, the report said. Four of their playmates were also hurt due to the grenade blast.

The victims were reportedly toying the grenade when it accidentally exploded. Investigators are still probing how the children were able to get hold of the grenade, the report said.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:


Syria-Lebanon-Iran
Electricity Blackouts in Iran Increasing
For average Iranians, recent electricity cuts are a reminder of the severe energy shortages they endured for almost a decade after the 1979 Islamic revolution...

In the 1980s
[during the Iraq-Iran war],
power cuts were accepted as part of daily life, but now Iranians question how record oil revenues, which amounted to $54bn for the first half of this year, can have such little impact on their living standards...

The government
[which owns and operates all electrical plants]
blames drought as the main reason for the power shortages, but experts reject this claim and argue that 90 per cent of about 38,000MW of electricity
[some of these plants operate only sporadically because of lack of parts, execution of managers by mullahs, etc.]
is generated in thermal power plants, not hydro-electric ones.
Posted by: mhw || 08/11/2008 09:27 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  In the 1950s and 1960s, about half of US electricity production was used to enrich uranium. It is that energy consumptive.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 08/11/2008 10:15 Comments || Top||

#2  It's hard to believe that countries can develop nuclear weapons when their people still wipe their asses with their hands.
Posted by: bigjim-ky || 08/11/2008 10:43 Comments || Top||

#3  Drought can cause low water levels in rivers that are used for power plant condenser cooling, thus requiring capacity reduction. But it's more likely a case of mismanagement. Any country that rich in natural gas should never lack electricity.
Posted by: Darrell || 08/11/2008 10:50 Comments || Top||

#4  If Allan wanted them to have electricity, wouldn't it just kinda sorta happen?
Posted by: SteveS || 08/11/2008 11:02 Comments || Top||

#5  It is sorta happening.
Posted by: .5MT || 08/11/2008 12:16 Comments || Top||

#6  "about half of US electricity production was used to enrich uranium."

If we built some fast neutron reactors (as India is doing) we wouldn't need to enrich uranium AND we could recycle spent fuel rods.
Posted by: crosspatch || 08/11/2008 13:06 Comments || Top||

#7  Moose: Do you have a reference for that statement? I find it unbelievable.
Posted by: KBK || 08/11/2008 20:42 Comments || Top||

#8  And I'm pretty sure modern methods are much more efficient.
Posted by: James || 08/11/2008 21:50 Comments || Top||


Terror Networks
Qaeda deputy Zawahiri releases video in English
Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command to Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden, has released his first English-language video call for jihad in Pakistan, the US-based IntelCenter said Sunday.

The message was aired on Pakistan's ARY television network, IntelCenter said in a statement, adding that it marked "the first official message ever ... in which he speaks English."

Zawahiri "calls for the people to support jihad in Pakistan and lists a litany of grievances against the Pakistani government and US involvement there," said IntelCenter, which monitors extremist websites and communications.

In particular, Zawahiri accuses Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf of corruption, arguing that he is only working to support US and Western interests and that he has committed crimes against Muslims all over the world.

Zawahiri also describes Abdul Qadeer Khan -- the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb under house arrest for transferring nuclear secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea -- as a "scapegoat to appease the Americans."

"Let there be no doubt in your minds that the dominant political forces at work in Pakistan today are competing to appease and please the modern day Crusaders in the White House, and are working to destabilize this nuclear capable nation under the aegis of America," Zawahiri was quoted as saying by IntelCenter.

The Al-Qaeda chief "also relates his own personal experiences having lived in Pakistan in an apparent attempt to build a stronger connection with the Pakistani people."

The Egyptian-born Zawahiri says he picked English because he "wants to speaks directly to the Pakistani people and chose English because he cannot speak Urdu."

Zawahiri was briefly rumored to have died in a July 28 missile strike in Pakistan, but US intelligence and Pakistan's Taliban movement subsequently denied the reports.

Al-Qaeda in a statement posted on an Islamist website acknowledged that the strike did kill an Al-Qaeda weapons expert, Midhat Mursi al-Sayid Umar, also known as Abu al-Khabab al-Masri.
Posted by: Fred || 08/11/2008 00:00 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under: al-Qaeda

#1  ION COUNTERRORISM BLOG > CHINA FINDS AL-QAEDA IN ITS BACKYARD + A CHINA THREAT FROM PAKISTAN?
Posted by: JosephMendiola || 08/11/2008 1:08 Comments || Top||

#2  aegis? nuclear capable? appease and please? The man has an awfully fancy vocabulary. Such a man should be ashamed to be unable to learn the language of his long-term hosts, a language even Pakistani babies learn with ease.
Posted by: trailing wife || 08/11/2008 10:14 Comments || Top||

#3  I'm looking forward to seeing the Paris Hilton commentary on Dr.Zawahiri's video
Posted by: mhw || 08/11/2008 10:16 Comments || Top||

#4  Video simulcast with text captioning for the hearing impaired. Grunting, growling, and whining translation available for the Taliban.
Posted by: Anonymoose || 08/11/2008 10:18 Comments || Top||

#5  Poor old Perv. He can't seem to please anybody these days.
Posted by: treo || 08/11/2008 10:30 Comments || Top||

#6  Dang!!!

I was hoping we had whacked this little pain in the butt.

Oh well....The Z-Man seems to have more lives than Felix the Cat.
Posted by: James Carville || 08/11/2008 11:01 Comments || Top||



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A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.

Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.

Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has dominated Mexico for six years.
Click here for more information

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In no particular order...
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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2008-08-11
  Taliban take control of Khar suburbs as Zardari, Nawaz, Fazl jockey for presidency
Sun 2008-08-10
  Iraq car bomb kills 21
Sat 2008-08-09
  US tourist dies in Beijing attack
Fri 2008-08-08
  Russia invades Georgia
Thu 2008-08-07
  Paleo hard boy Jihad Jaraa survives ''assassination attempt'' in Ireland
Wed 2008-08-06
  Bin Laden's Driver Guilty
Tue 2008-08-05
  Philippine Supremes halt MILF autonomy deal
Mon 2008-08-04
  16 officers killed,16 wounded in an attack in Xinjiang
Sun 2008-08-03
  ''Assad's right hand man'' assassinated in Syria
Sat 2008-08-02
  Taliban deny al-Qaida No. 2 hit by missile
Fri 2008-08-01
  189 arrested, curfew lifted in Diyala
Thu 2008-07-31
  Qaeda big turban in Afghanistan killed in US airstrike
Wed 2008-07-30
  Gilani in Washington; Paks raid Haqqani's empty madrassa in N Wazoo
Tue 2008-07-29
  Military offensive under way in Diyala
Mon 2008-07-28
  Mudhat Mursi: Dead Again?

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