#3
I bet the US Soldiers that found a billion dollars cash at Saddam's palace are kicking themselves just about now.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 18:08 Comments ||
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#4
Why, ed? It is quite likely that the Ruskis that participated will get shot. Not because it is immoral and undisciplined, but because their superiors will think that the loot is rightfully theirs.
As for our soldiers, they are disciplined and righteous. I hope that they took samples of the cache as souvenirs. ;-)
#8
Ironicically, these are probably the "Irregulars" from Ossetia. You know, the one's that are Russian citizens that need protecting.
Excuse me while I do a tiny smile at the bear while he tries to spin this. It will be like the Chinese Gymnastics team, nobody believes the excuse.
Posted by: Charles ||
08/14/2008 19:16 Comments ||
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#9
Almost definitely the Ossetian irregulars.
Notice the white armbands.
Posted by: DanNY ||
08/14/2008 22:30 Comments ||
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#10
Certainly irregulars. Because, honestly, its soooooooo easy to tell the difference between a Russian soldier who changed their uniform and an irregular.
Good to see that the Soviet doctrine of looting towns for supplies and riches is still alive and well.
#11
A lot of propaganda floating around the internet from both sides. I see no indication this was taken in Gori or anywhere near where it is said it was taken.
I didn't know Russians permitted their ranks to wear beards.
I fail to see how it is "good" Russians are looting. If these are Russian soldiers it shows a breakdown in discipline, which bodes ill for the Russian Army.
#12
The words "Russian soldiers" and "discipline" should never be used in the same sentance. At least in a modern context.
After Russia "pulls out" you will see a notable increase of Ossetian fighters.
By the way, where are all those 1,600 Ossetian bodies at? You would think that Russia would have shown them by now. Guess they havent killed enough Georgians to fill a mass grave.
#2
I'm sure watching that cost me a few brain cells. I hope it's intended to be comedy; no one who could say that stuff seriously should be allowed out without a minder.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 8:08 Comments ||
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#4
I like!
Posted by: Abu do you love ||
08/14/2008 10:46 Comments ||
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#5
Pretender. She's not as good.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/14/2008 12:09 Comments ||
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#6
She is just a model for the video game promos, not going to be in the movie. There have been a string of these gals since the game first came out. I used to attend E3 (video/pc game convention) and there was always a line of gaming nerds with chubbies in line to get their picture with that year's Laura.
(Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's inter-party talks on power sharing has been suspended indefinitely after Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the major faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), requested time to consider some of the proposals.
This was announced by South African President Thabo Mbeki at a press conference in Harare, before he left for Angola to brief President Jose Eduardo Dos Santos, chairperson of the Southern African Development Community's Organ on Politics and Security, on the development in the talks, according to a report by New Ziana on Wednesday. Mbeki refused to disclose the proposals that Tsvangirai would like to consider, saying it was against the spirit of the Memorandum of Understanding that the parties signed, which forbade them to discuss the issues in public. "It is about power sharing," he said.
He said the major issues that the three principals -- President Robert Mugabe, leader of the ruling ZANU-PF party, Tsvangirai, and Arthur Mutambara, leader of the MDC's smaller fraction, had been discussing over the past four days were to do with the constitution of a government of national unity such as allocation of cabinet portfolios.
They're arguing over how to split the boodle, assuming there is one still.
He said it was on one such issue that the talks had been bogged down and Tsvangirai had requested time to consider. He said he would discuss with the Angolan president the time frame that Tsvangirai should be given to consider the power sharing proposals, after which he would reconvene the negotiations.
President Mbeki dismissed reports that the talks had collapsed and instead expressed optimism that they would succeed, saying the sticking points would be resolved. He also dismissed reports that President Mugabe and Mutambara had signed a deal, saying he did not witness the signing ceremony.
Which doesn't mean it didn't take place.
Rumors that the talks had collapsed had spread after Tsvangirai left the talks venue early. Tsvangirai, who appeared angry when he left the venue, refused to comment on the outcome of the talks except that President Mbeki would issue a press statement, according to the report.
Mutambara, who left after Tsvangirai, also told journalists to wait for Mbeki. Mugabe, however, chose to be philosophical about the issue and refused to confirm fears that the talks had collapsed. "The talks will never collapse as long as we have tongues (to talk)," he was quoted as saying.
"In fact, I intend for the talks to continue until I'm dead, and possibly for a few years after that."
President Mbeki commended the Zimbabwean leadership for their commitment to the talks, saying they were all eager to conclude the negotiations. On what was at stake for him in the negotiations, Mbeki said his country and Zimbabwe were neighbors that were inseparable as they shared a common history of colonialism. "Personally I have known the Zimbabwean leadership for a long time," he said, noting that Zimbabwe played an important role in the liberation of South Africa.
Mbeki said, as a neighbor, South Africa was aware of the difficulties that the people of Zimbabwe were experiencing and was obliged to assist. "Even if it means spending six months in Zimbabwe then we will do it as long as it will bring an end to the challenges that the country is experiencing," he said.
Mbeki implored outsiders to give Zimbabweans an opportunity to resolve their challenges, saying he was convinced that they could do so if left alone. "Let us give the Zimbabwean leaders breathing space to resolve their differences," he was quoted as saying.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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for now at least. 2nd case in a month or so where this court has intervened in a UK extradition to the US.
An European court has asked Britain to delay sending a computer expert to face trial in the United States until it can review his request to block his extradition.
In that case it's probably time to stop extraditing crims and droogs to Europa.
The European Court of Human Rights said on Wednesday it needed to examine Gary McKinnon's complaint that he could face inhumane prison conditions if convicted in the United States. "The applicant should not be extradited to the United States before midnight on 29 August," so the court can examine his request at its next meeting on August 28, it said in a statement.
McKinnon lost his appeal last month to Britain's highest court to block extradition to face charges over what U.S. prosecutors call "the biggest military hack of all time". He could face up to 70 years in prison if convicted of illegally accessing computers, including the Pentagon, U.S. army, navy and NASA systems, and causing $700,000 worth of damage.
McKinnon told Reuters in 2006 he was just a computer nerd who wanted to find out whether aliens really existed and became obsessed with trawling large military networks for proof. His lawyers have also argued that sending him to the United States would breach his human rights because he could be prosecuted on account of his nationality or political opinions.
FORT DE BREGANCON, France - The United States warned sternly Thursday of a long-term rupture with Russia if Moscow does not quickly abide by its promise to withdraw its fighting forces from Georgia. In contrast to the tough talk, Condoleezza Rice rushed to the former Soviet republic with a new cease-fire plan offering concessions to Moscow.
The new document would allow Russian peacekeepers who were in the disputed South Ossetia region before the fighting broke out a week ago to stay, and they would now be permitted to patrol in a strip up to six miles outside the area, U.S. officials said. But that allowance would be temporary, and details were still to be worked out, the officials said.
Issuing urgent statements in Washington and abroad, President Bush and his foreign policy lieutenants sought to jawbone Russia into compliance while taking a U.S. military response off the table suggesting strict limits to how far he was willing to go in the waning days of a controversial presidency.
Bush repeated his call for the cease-fire to be honored and demanded that Russia respect the "territorial integrity" of Georgia. He spent nearly four hours being briefed at CIA headquarters about the war on terror and the grim situation in Georgia.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates said he saw no need to invoke American military force in the nearly week-old war, despite continued uncertainty about Russia's next move.
"The United States spent 45 years working very hard to avoid a military confrontation with Russia. I see no reason to change that approach today," Gates said at the Pentagon.
Standing alongside, the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. James Cartwright, said it appeared Russia was "generally complying" with the truce. But then Georgian leaders said a convoy of more than 100 Russian tanks and other vehicles had moved from the western city of Zugdidi deeper into their nation before stopping.
Cartwright had said Russian forces appeared to be forming up in Georgia in preparation for withdrawal.
Russian and Georgian forces have been fighting since Georgia sought to regain control of a breakaway province. Fighting spread beyond the small mountainous enclave and has left Georgian cities, a key port and roads badly damaged.
The United Nations estimates 100,000 people have been uprooted by the conflict, while estimates of the dead range from scores to thousands. Gates described a broad humanitarian effort for Georgians displaced or harmed by the fighting. He said there was no need for U.S. fighting forces there, although the relief effort is being run by the American military.
"I think what happens in the days and months to come will determine the future course of U.S.-Russian relations," Gates said. "My personal view is that there need to be some consequences for the actions that Russia has taken against a sovereign state."
Gates told reporters he believes Russia has decided "to punish Georgia for daring to try to integrate with the West," actions that call into question U.S. attempts to forge solid political, economic and military partnerships with Russia.
Rice was in Paris issuing another urgent call on Russia to honor a previously announced cease-fire ahead of her mission to Georgia.
French President Nicholas Sarkozy, who has been leading Western efforts to stop the fighting, said the documents are "intended to consolidate the cease-fire."
Russia and Georgia have agreed to a truce, but Russian tanks and troops remain. Rice was heading to the capital Tbilisi on Friday carrying the document for signature by President Mikhail Saakashvili.
She had no plans to visit Moscow.
Rice has not ruled out a diplomatic mission to Russia sometime soon, but the United States is sensitive to the perception that a visit could suggest that Washington is open to compromise on Georgia's future. She insists the United States will stand by its closest friend among the gradually democratizing former Soviet republics.
The French-brokered cease-fire requires Russia to withdraw all of its combat forces from Georgia but gives Russian peacekeepers the express right to patrol beyond the disputed border region of South Ossetia that lies at the heart of the conflict, U.S. officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because the accord is not yet finalized and there are still U.S. and Georgian concerns about the expanded patrol rights that need to be worked out.
Sarkozy said, "If tomorrow, President Saakashvili signs these documents, then the withdrawal of the Russian troops can start."
The concessions on Russian patrols outside South Ossetia were demanded by Russia, which accuses Georgian forces of attacking the peacekeepers and pro-Russian South Ossetians who live there.
The U.S. officials acknowledged the solution was not perfect but said the primary goal was to get Russian combat forces out of Georgia as quickly as possible. They said the U.S. would accept the expanded patrol mandate only if it was limited, well-defined and temporary.
Russian patrols outside South Ossetia proper would stop once a new international peacekeeping and monitoring force was in place, one official said, adding that the Russians would not be allowed to use the extra six-mile band "to impede legitimate Georgian movement."
The cease-fire would also allow Russian peacekeepers to remain in Abkhazia, another, larger disputed province. Those forces would not be given the expanded patrol rights, officials said.
In return, the agreement calls for Russia to respect Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity, something that Sarkozy and Rice both stressed on Thursday after Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov openly questioned the country's established borders.
Lavrov declared that the world "can forget about" Georgia's territorial integrity, strongly suggesting that Russia could absorb the regions where it has supported separatist movements in a goad to Georgia since the election there of a strongly pro-American president.
"I would consider that to be bluster from the foreign minister of Russia," White House spokeswoman Dana Perino said. "We will ignore it."
Russia's president met in the Kremlin with the leaders of the separatist provinces, another signal that Moscow could absorb the regions.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 19:00 ||
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#1
The new document would allow Russian peacekeepers who were in the disputed South Ossetia region before the fighting broke out a week ago to stay, and they would now be permitted to patrol in a strip up to six miles outside the area, U.S. officials said. But that allowance would be temporary, and details were still to be worked out, the officials said.
Outrage. Once I thought Rice maybe quite good at her job. But this is a sign that she is incompetent. No, utterly incompetent.
What is this 5 mile buffer zone for? Free Ethnic Clensing Recreational Area? Geebus! And the "temporary" thing. Does she not understand what temporary translates to in Russian political lexicon. It means 18 years minimum, open ended (make us!) period. And she claims to be a Russo-expert? Who needs enemy with people like this?
#2
Remember José's Axiom to Murphy's Law: nothing is more permanent than that which is called temporary.
Posted by: Steve White ||
08/14/2008 20:04 Comments ||
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#3
OK this is getting ridiculous ...
it is just as Old Spook has spoken of; before the annexation of Czechoslovakia in the late 30's, even with Sarkozy waving the papers saying I have signatures ..
we need a politician that will speak like this...
"We have before us an ordeal of the most grievous kind. We have before us many, many long months of struggle and of suffering. You ask, what is our policy? I can say: It is to wage war, by sea, land and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us; to wage war against a monstrous tyranny, never surpassed in the dark, lamentable catalogue of human crime. That is our policy. You ask, what is our aim? I can answer in one word: It is victory, victory at all costs, victory in spite of all terror, victory, however long and hard the road may be; for without victory, there is no survival. Let that be realised; no survival for the British Empire, no survival for all that the British Empire has stood for, no survival for the urge and impulse of the ages, that mankind will move forward towards its goal. But I take up my task with buoyancy and hope. I feel sure that our cause will not be suffered to fail among men. At this time I feel entitled to claim the aid of all, and I say, "come then, let us go forward together with our united strength."
Churchill
First Speech as Prime Minister
May 13, 1940
to House of Commons
you may ask is this necessary.. is war against Russia worth it ...??? and I ask the same questions..
but if this is what, IMHO it looks like: 'The Great Bear rising up to assert it's might'
then what else are we to do but defend our way of life ... for to be sure if this goes unchecked we may lose it...
...
#5
Russia is your alcoholic uncle who boasts he could drink you under the table. It makes them feel good, but who cares?
Let's break down the current state of affairs: Russia is bullying a country the West won't send troops to defend (already did that, under Putin, it was called Ukraine, and it was with poison). Russia is trying to say its military is back to first rate (its been doing that for over a year now when strategic bombers were flying into Western Airspace...only to be met by F-22s). It's selling high grade military components to countries that are hostile to the US and Israel (that's been going on since um...1945?).
So honestly, what has changed? Just because troops rolled into a country doesn't change anything. Believe me, I am no Russian supporter, but when you actually look long term, Russia's actions don't amount to a hill of beans. If anything, seeing as how Poland just bought off on the missile defense system, it actually hindered them. Bottom line: this was a plea by Putin to shore up his base in country and show he was strong. That's it. Nothing more. Just sad that so many freedom loving Georgians had to die in the process.
Because think about it, if Russia really wanted to assert itself as a world power again, it would "accidentally" attack US ships or airplanes that are delivering humanitarian aid. It won't. Putin achieved his goal.
US President George W. Bush said after a visit to CIA headquarters today that the standoff with Russia over Georgia could stretch "throughout the coming weeks".
"My call, of course, is for the territorial integrity of Georgia to be respected and for the ceasefire agreement to be honoured," he said with CIA Director Michael Hayden and Deputy Director Steve Kappas at his side. "And we will be working this issue throughout the coming weeks. And people out here at the agency have been incredibly helpful," he said in brief remarks at the CIA.
Mr Bush's visit, which ran nearly two hours over schedule, came as US officials tried to work through frequently contradictory and confusing reports from the ground on Russia's military offensive in the former Soviet republic.
"Got a lot of folks, smart folks, analysing the situation on the ground, and, of course, briefing us on different possibilities that could develop in the area and the region," the president said.
Mr Bush said he had sent US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to France for an assessment of a Paris-led ceasefire offer and to Georgia to showcase US support for the pro-Western government of President Mikheil Saakashvili. "She'll be coming back to brief me Saturday (local time). I'm looking forward to hearing firsthand what she has seen, what she has heard," said Mr Bush, who was to hear from the top US diplomat at his Texas ranch.
#1
Anyone who thinks that Russia didnt have this whole thing planned out, months in advance, is an idiot. But there are idiots out there.
It takes aroud 6 weeks for the US to plan and execute the movement of two division in a tactical operation. Granted, some have been less but anyone who has been an operational planner knows that a surge of two divisions does not just happen overnight.
The Russians pulled it off almost automatically once the "justification" was provided. If you have any experiance with Russian military, you know it takes days for them to sober up before they even receive an order.
Fortunately, two divisions were participating in "wargames" in the vacinity when this happend. Fortunate indeed.
The sad thing is that sooner or later Russian troops will withdraw... except for the ones who get extra pay to stay behind and grow out their hair to look like locals and cause trouble. This will last much longer then "weeks".
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice will ask Georgia to sign a cease-fire plan agreed to this week, with the aim of securing full Russian withdrawal from Georgia, President Nicolas Sarkozy of France said after a two-hour meeting with Rice.
In Moscow and Tbilisi on Tuesday and Wednesday, France brokered a tenuous truce to the crisis. Since then, however, Russian troops have continued to move around Georgia, prompting increasingly strong U.S. demands that Moscow halt its military actions and withdraw.
The cease-fire plan, said a statement from Sarkozy's office, "should be signed without delay by the parties in order to consolidate the cessation of hostilities and accelerate the retreat of Russian forces."
President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia shook hands on the deal early Wednesday, but did not sign it. On Thursday, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov of Russia told his French counterpart, Bernard Kouchner, that Georgia must sign, Reuters reported.
"If tomorrow Mr. Saakashvili signs the documents, which we negotiated with Mr. Medvedev, then the withdrawal of Russian forces could begin," Sarkozy said with Rice at his summer residence in southern France.
Rice urged Russia again to withdraw all its forces from Georgia.
"The provisional cease-fire that was agreed to really must go into place," Rice said. "And that means that military activities have to cease."
Since Wednesday morning, when Sarkozy announced that he had persuaded the leaders of Georgia and Russia to agree to a set of principles that would halt the fighting, hopes for a smooth exit from the crisis have receded. Russian tanks have taken up positions around the city of Gori in central Georgia and Georgian officials said Russian soldiers had re-occupied the port of Poti.
Rice said reports suggested that Russia had violated the truce. Sarkozy, who brokered the deal as president of the European Union, struck a more cautious tone. "You don't stop things just like that," he said. "On the ground, it is going better. The situation is progressively improving."
After a meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels on Wednesday, the 27-country bloc backed the French truce plan and agreed in principle to send monitors.
Sarkozy's six-point cease-fire plan does appear to have stopped the worst bloodshed and helped stem the flow of refugees fleeing their homes.
But it has also allowed Russia to claim that as part of so-called additional security measures under the agreement, its troops could occupy Gori and a zone around the city, effectively controlling the main east-west road through Georgia. The move isolates the capital, Tbilisi, from the Black Sea coast and cuts off important supply routes. Sarkozy, said French and Georgian officials close to the negotiations, also failed to get the Russians to agree to any time limit for military action.
Accounts of the negotiations by a French diplomats, who traveled with their leader to Moscow and Tbilisi, and by a senior Georgian official, who sat in on the talks between Sarkozy and Saakashvili, indicate that Russia was negotiating from a position of strength.
Sarkozy took a four-point cease-fire plan to Moscow on Tuesday, after Kouchner had won backing from the Georgians a day earlier. The conditions were: the end of hostilities, the opening of humanitarian corridors and the withdrawal by both sides to pre-war positions. There was also a reference to the territorial integrity of Georgia.
In a heated four-hour meeting with Medvedev and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in Moscow on Tuesday, French officials said, Sarkozy and Kouchner prevailed on one important point: The Russians no longer insisted that Saakashvili step aside as a precondition for any deal.
But the French failed to persuade the Russians to accept Georgia's territorial integrity, settling instead for the terms "independence" and "sovereignty."
The Russians also demanded a provision in the cease-fire plan for their troops to act in what was termed a peacekeeping role, even outside the boundaries of the separatist enclaves where the war began, with an understanding that later an international agreement might obviate this need.
The vague language allows Russian peacekeepers to "implement additional security measures" while awaiting an international monitoring mechanism.
Sarkozy carried the demands to Saakashvili late Tuesday.
The Georgians asked two things: that the final status of the separatist territories of South Ossetia and Abkhazia be set aside and that a timeline be included in the language on additional security measures. Sarkozy called Medvedev, who accepted the first point but rejected the second.
Russian officials were unavailable to comment on how the talks unfolded.
The fifth point in the agreement has become the main justification for Russian troop movements in Georgia.
Sarkozy and Saakashvili announced the agreement around 2 a.m., and Russian tanks and troops moved toward Gori soon afterward. The Russians cited the fifth provision, saying they had identified a threat to the local population that justified their troops assuming a peacekeeping role in the city.
A spokesman for Medvedev said they took up positions around the town to protect locals from South Ossetians bent on revenge against ethnic Georgians for what Russia says was Georgia's wholesale destruction of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, and the resulting civilian casualties. It said it was also there to dispose of weapons left unattended by Georgian troops.
French diplomats said that Russian agreement on the truce plan was essential to maximize the chances of turning it into a legally binding UN resolution, which Moscow could veto. They have assured the Georgians that such a resolution would restore the mention of Georgia's territorial integrity. But it is not clear Moscow will agree.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 16:28 ||
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August 14, 2008: While Georgian ground forces have been pushed around by the recent Russian invasion, Georgian air defenses have been noticeably more effective. The Russians have admitted to losing four aircraft (three Su-25 ground attack bombers and a Tu-22 bomber flying a reconnaissance mission.) Most, or all, appear to have been brought down by the SA-11 BukM1 surface-to-air missile systems (obtained from Ukraine).
The SA-11 is the successor to the SA-6, which did so much damage to the Israeli Air Force during the 1973 war. The SA-11 launchers are self-propelled and carry four 1,500 pound missiles. The missiles have a 30 kilometer range, and can hit aircraft at up to 72,000 feet. The missiles move at about 2,900 kilometers an hour. The battery radar, which is also self-propelled, can detect aircraft at up to 85 kilometers away. The system can be set up and ready to fire in five minutes. The missile has a 150 pound warhead, that is triggered by a radar proximity fuze.
The Georgians also have some Tor-M1 systems, also obtained from Ukraine. Also known to NATO as the SA-15 Gauntlet, it has a maximum range of 12 kilometers. It is only effective up to 6,000 meters altitude. The system was designed as a successor to the SA-N-8 Gecko. Each launcher carries eight missiles, and it is claimed to be capable of engaging two targets simultaneously. The system was designed to be a tactical battlefield air-defense system, designed to take out close-air-support planes like the A-10 or tactical fighter-bombers like the F-4, F-16, and F-18.
Georgia claims to have downed ten Russian aircraft as of August 11th, and the true air losses won't be known until photos appear of all the aircraft wreckage. It is interesting that Russia was unable to come up with effective countermeasures against missile systems they had designed. The Russians knew of Ukrainian arms exports to Georgia, and the presence of the SA-11s and SA-15s. This is another mystery that will only be explained over time.
#1
Georgia claims to have downed ten Russian aircraft as of August 11th, and the true air losses won't be known until photos appear of all the aircraft wreckage.
Is that the real reason that there are russian troops combing the forests? They say it is to scarf up on any abandoned Georgian "military equipment".
#3
There was a report that the recon aircraft which was shot down was flown by a senior instructor pilot.
If they don't have guys good enough to do this, the instructors aren't doing their jobs.
And, this means they're eating their seed corn.
Posted by: Richard Aubrey ||
08/14/2008 23:05 Comments ||
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On Monday, President Mikheil Saakashvili, his army in retreat and his Western allies still surprised by the intensity of the Russian attack, was the very picture of vulnerability, dodging Russian military jets.
By Wednesday he seemed an almost preternaturally reinvigorated man, once again raising the temperature in Georgia's bitter disagreements with Russia, and invoking special ties with American democracy and freedom.
Moments after President Bush appeared at the Rose Garden to say that the Pentagon would begin a humanitarian aid mission to support Georgia, Mr. Saakashvili was on the phone with a Western reporter, talking fast. "This is a turning point," he said. Soon he appeared on national television, his tousled hair combed back flat and wearing a freshly pressed suit, assuring his country that the worst had passed.
No matter that Russian troops were 30 miles away, milling on the road outside the capital, meeting no resistance. Mr. Saakashvili was in cocky form in an interview later in the evening with reporters, expounding on Nazi propaganda, Orwell and the film "Dr. Strangelove."
"Russians should see that this is not a demoralized, you know, nervous panicking capital that is just scared," he said. "Shops are open. There are no lines for gas stations. Prices are not up."
He added, "We will fight to the end, until the last Russian soldier leaves Georgian soil and this country is not going to be brought to the knees anymore. We are not surrendering, no matter what."
Mr. Saakashvili's latest show of bravado came only a day after Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that she and a special State Department envoy had explicitly and repeatedly warned him not to take any military action against Georgian separatists that might provoke Russia, cautioning that the United States was not prepared to back him militarily if he did. He also appeared to exaggerate the Pentagon's planned relief operation, making it seem larger and further developed than it was.
"We already saw U.S. Air Force landing in Georgia despite Russians controlling the airspace," he said, after a C-17 had touched down. "And we will see U.S. military ships entering Georgian ports despite Russians blocking it. That we will see." He added, "These will be serious military ships."
But the American military said that although the Navy had been ordered to assist in the humanitarian mission, it had not yet formed its plans and no ships were en route.
Mr. Saakashvili's confidence, along with his swing of mood and perhaps Georgia's momentary change of fortune, also belied a complicated political situation for him at home. After what American officials had characterized as his profound miscalculation last week in ordering an attack on the separatist enclave of South Ossetia, triggering the largest Russian military activity over its borders since the Soviet war in Afghanistan, his political standing was in question.
A pair of mass rallies on Tuesday made clear that he still had domestic support, bolstered in part by anger at Russia. But there were also signs that as civilian casualties and the number of refugees mounted, many Georgians doubted the wisdom of his policy of so boldly defying, even provoking, the Russian bear.
Iza Metreveli, who sat at her sons wake on Tuesday, raged against her government for starting a war she said never should have been waged. A Russian bomb had killed her son, Mamuka Katsadze, a dock worker at the commercial port of Poti on the Black Sea. Earlier that day, Mr. Katsadze had learned that his wife was pregnant with a baby boy. Nine other workers died.
For the mothers of those killed, everything is finished, Ms. Metreveli said through her tears. What do I need a country that kills its citizens for?
Several American officials, and Mr. Saakashvili himself, have said that one of Russias goals in the war was the outright removal of Mr. Saakashvili, in part by creating these kinds of pressures. But thus far, some Georgians said, the perception that he is a Russian target has helped him with the Georgian public, placing national unity over political infighting. Maybe that will happen in a couple weeks, said Gigi Tevzadze, president of Ilia Chavchavadze State University in Tbilisi, speaking about political recriminations. Now, the situation is that the people are strongly supporting the government. The solidarity in Georgian society is quite high.
Such sentiments had been visible on Tuesday, when thousands of Georgians waved flags, sang and shouted themselves hoarse. It was an ecstatic release of energy after the tension of the wars first days. Participants said it was also meant as a sign to the Russians. We Georgians will never fight against each other, said Lado Zabakhidze, 25, a Tbilisi resident out with friends waving red-and-white Georgian flags on the citys main boulevard. We will never be afraid. We will never go down on our knees.
But after the rallies ended, and with Russian forces moving freely on the road between Gori and the capital, there were signs of discontent with Mr. Saakashvili.
Ungala Akhalshenishvili, 23, who works at a cellphone company in Tbilisi, said her opinion of him had fallen over the course of the crisis. The president seemed to be playing the part of a man eager to fight, only to need a rescue from more muscular friends.
He has always tried to put a good face on what has happened, she said. But yesterday when I saw him he looked frightened and he seemed like he was waiting for France to come in and solve his problems.
Mr. Saakashvili has survived plunges in popularity in the past.
Last fall, he deployed riot police with tear gas, rubber bullets and batons against unarmed demonstrators. He also used his police to destroy an opposition television station, which went off the air as masked officers stormed it. His critics say that while he is an unwavering American ally, his record as a democrat was long ago checkered.
For his part, Mr. Saakashvili was characteristically undeterred. He was asked Wednesday night whether if he could turn back the clock to late last week, when he said he received signs of Russian troops moving to the border, he would order an attack again.
Absolutely, he said, and couched the answer in terms of his own political survival. We have an obligation to react to it. Any Georgian government that wouldnt have reacted to it would have fallen instantly.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 11:14 ||
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#1
Was it a profound miscalculation?
Only time will tell. It was very bad for him militarily, but politically it has not had time to digest yet. Having said that, he may very well have screwed the pooch on this one.
#3
Two mistakes were made, one by either side. Russia's was worse and will, in the long run, cost them heavily. Putin cost Russia a lot of goodwill with this invasion, goodwill he might desperately wish he had if he has to deal with Chinese incursions in Siberia.
He should have thought about that 8 million Russians/100 million Chinese population disparity out there before he blithely went about invading places he wasn't happy with.
Russian and Georgian troops came close to a fire-fight today as a tense stand-off developed over the continued occupation of the strategic city of Gori. Russian tanks and troops remained at checkpoints blocking the road into Gori and showed no sign of handing it back to the Georgian authorities despite an earlier pledge to do so. Georgian police had been reported as taking back responsibility for patrolling Gori, but this has proved to be premature.
Alexander Lomaia, secretary of Georgia's National Security Commission, said that the Russian troops were refusing to leave today, despite a previous agreement to do so, and said that they would not withdraw from Gori until at least tomorrow.
"We have to agree on the gradual deployment of troops and police in Gori. But there are mutual suspicions," Mr Lomaia said before entering Gori with a Russian commander to continue negotiations. "They suspect that the forces we are deploying are not police forces. The separatists are trying to intervene and meddle in the situation. It is quite tense and the ceasefire is quite fragile here.
"They promise to leave tomorrow. We have many reasons not to believe them but we try to help them to stick to what they have said."
Fighters from South Ossetia are reportedly reluctant to surrender control of Gori to the Georgians and to retreat behind the border of their breakaway region. Irregulars among the South Ossetians were also continuing to steal cars belonging to Georgians, though one was returned later by a Russian officer.
A Georgian interior ministry spokesman said that Russian forces were "destroying" Gori, about 50 miles north west of Tbilisi. Red-faced with anger, the Russian commander berated the international media at the checkpoint for reporting this claim, saying: "Do you see the city? Is it destroyed? We have not done anything."
Fields were on fire outside villages close to Gori, however, and a plume of black smoke rose from behind a hill after an explosion. Journalists were prevented from entering Gori at the checkpoint and a soldier fired shots in the air to drive them away shortly before a series of explosions was heard.
The ceasefire came within a hair's breadth of being broken when a convoy of 20 pick-up trucks carrying heavily-armed Georgian troops approached the Russian checkpoint, apparently expecting the Russians to be withdrawing. Eyewitnesses said that the two sides drew weapons and confronted each other for several minutes until the Georgians retreated after Russian soldiers called up tank support.
The Times witnessed at least seven Russian tanks and armoured personnel carriers blocking the route into Gori, with soldiers pointing weapons towards Georgian troops about 500 metres away. Thousands of Georgian troops were stationed along the route from Gori to Tbilisi and police had sealed off the road outside the capital to ordinary traffic.
A defence attache from a Western embassy was also on the scene to assess military developments. Asked whether Georgia had given advance warning to his and other governments about the decision to invade South Ossetia, he replied: "I don't think any of us were told because if we had been we would have told them they were on their own."
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 10:14 ||
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A few dozen fighters from the separatist region of Abkhazia crossed a thin slice of land dotted with Georgian villages Wednesday and planted their red, white and green flag in Georgian territory in a brazen challenge to the country's sovereignty.
The land grab came after days of battling between Georgian and Russian troops over another separatist region of Georgia, South Ossetia. The Abkhazian fighters are also backed by Russian military might.
"This is Abkhazian land," one of the fighters proclaimed, planting the flag on the Georgian side of a bridge across the Inguri river. "The border has been along this river for 1,000 years," separatist official Ruslan Kishmaria said at the bridge on the outskirts of Ganmukhuri, a village previously held by Georgia.
The separatists made their move hours after Georgia's president said he accepted a cease-fire plan brokered by France. Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said Tuesday that Russia was halting military action because Georgia had paid enough for its attack last Thursday on the pro-Russian breakaway province of South Ossetia.
Officials in the Georgian town of Zugdidi, near Abkhazia, alleged the separatists' move was a violation of the cease-fire. They said Abkhazian forces crossed the border and occupied villages on the Georgian side.
"They breached the agreement. They occupied territory that belongs to Zugdidi district," said Tengiz Shanava, aide to the district chief. Shanava spoke Wednesday from his office in Zugdidi while briefing three U.N. military officials in blue berets, and showing them locations on a map.
The fighters said they were laying claim to what has historically been Abkhazian territory and that Georgian troops left without challenging them. Kishmaria said Georgia would have to accept the new border and taunted the Georgian forces who had left in recent days, saying they had received "American training in running away."
Several dozen Abkhazian fighters in camouflage stood near their flag, some holding AK-47 assault rifles. One had a dagger sheathed on his hip. Some wore running shoes with a camouflage pattern. Several old, olive-colored jeeps were parked nearby.
"Goodbye America," one said derisively as an American reporter approached.
A dozen Russian military vehicles, including tanks, were in Zugdidi on Wednesday afternoon, and another dozen were heading into the town from the south. Further south, along the road to the port city of Batumi, about 50 vehicles were parked. Later in the day, a Georgian official said the Russians had left Zugdidi.
Near the bridge over the Inguri, a group of Georgian men watched sullenly. One said the Abkhazians had promised to provide food to people in Ganmukhuri, but that they had instead asked local women to prepare food for their forces.
Georgians said most residents of Ganmukhuri had fled, though the Abkhazian fighters told The Associated Press that they had not entered people's homes and that people were free to come and go from Georgian territory.
On Tuesday, Abkhazian forces moved to take control of several villages in the area of the Inguri River dam, and control a bridge leading to the town of Jvari. Four truckloads of security personnel with the Abkhazian police insignia on their uniforms were in the area, and detained three Georgian policemen.
In Ganmukhuri, southwest of Zugdidi and on the Black Sea coast, Abkhazian forces "robbed" a Georgian police post and have occupied the village, Shanava said. "The people of Gamukhuri are in a panic and they are leaving under very heavy psychological pressure from the other side," he said.
Shanava also said "a few very important buildings were occupied by the Russians" in Zugdidi and that they had removed documents and computers. "Our law enforcement bodies are unarmed," he said, noting that Georgian authorities were now poorly equipped to police the area.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 08:34 ||
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#1
Fire a rocket up that guys arse and get on with rebuilding the county.
TBILISI, Georgia It was nearly 2 a.m. on Wednesday when President Nicolas Sarkozy of France announced he had accomplished what seemed virtually impossible: Persuading the leaders of Georgia and Russia to agree to a set of principles that would stop the war.
Handshakes and congratulations were offered all around. But by the time the sun was up, Russian tanks were advancing again, this time taking positions around the strategically important city of Gori, in central Georgia.
It soon became clear that the six-point deal not only failed to slow the Russian advance, but it also allowed Russia to claim that it could push deeper into Georgia as part of so-called additional security measures it was granted in the agreement. Mr. Sarkozy, according to a senior Georgian official who witnessed the negotiations, also failed to persuade the Russians to agree to any time limit on their military action.
By mid-morning, European officials were warning of the risks of appeasing Russian aggression, while Georgian officials lamented the Wests weak leverage.
Im talking about the impotence and inability of both Europe and the United States to be unified and to exert leverage, and to comprehend the level of the threat, said the senior Georgian official, who had sat in on the talks between Mr. Sarkozy and Georgias president, Mikheil Saakashvili.
The senior Georgian official later made a copy of the deal available to The New York Times with what he said were notes marking changes the Georgians had asked for but failed to attain.
Of gripping importance to the Georgian government now, Western diplomats and Georgian officials said, is whether the agreement gave the Russians room to interpret the occupation of Gori and a zone around the city as agreed upon in the cease-fire, thus allowing them to control the main east-west road through the country, isolating the capital, Tbilisi, from the Black Sea coast and cutting off important supply routes.
In response, the United States began sending troops to Georgia to oversee aid to the capital on Wednesday.
France brokered the deal as the country holding the rotating presidency of the European Union. Bernard Kouchner, the foreign minister of France, visited Tbilisi and left with a four-point cease-fire plan.
The conditions were: no use of force; cease hostilities; open humanitarian corridors in the conflict areas; and Georgian and Russian troops withdraw to their pre-war positions.
In meetings in Moscow, the Russians insisted on two additional points, the Georgian official said, and Mr. Sarkozy carried these demands to Georgia, landing shortly after 10 p.m. Tuesday and driving straight to the Parliament building to meet Mr. Saakashvili.
Negotiating from a position of strength, the Russians demanded the fifth point, allowing their troops to act in what was termed a peacekeeping role, even outside the boundaries of the separatist enclaves where the war began, with an understanding that later an international agreement might obviate this need.
The vague language of the fifth point allows Russian peacekeepers to implement additional security measures while awaiting an international monitoring mechanism.
The Georgians asked that a timeline be included in the language for these loosely defined Russian peacekeeping operations, but the Georgian official said Mr. Sarkozys response was that without an agreement, a Russian tank assault on the capital could ensue: He was saying its a difficult situation. He said, Their tanks are 40 kilometers from Tbilisi. This is where we are.
Mr. Sarkozy then tried to call Dmitri A. Medvedev, the Russian president, to amend the point with a timeline. The adviser, who was present, said the Russians did not take the call for two hours. When the French president got through, the proposal was rejected.
In the sixth point, both sides agreed that the status of the contested separatist regions would be pursued the future.
A senior American official familiar with the talks also said that the Russians insisted on the fifth point about the so-called additional security measures. I think it was presented as, You need to sign on to this, the official said of Mr. Sarkozys appeal to the Georgians. My guess is it was presented as, This is the best I can get.
French and Russian officials were unavailable to comment on the Georgian officials account of how the negotiations unfolded.
Mr. Sarkozy and Mr. Saakashvili announced the agreement around 2 a.m., and Russian tanks and troops moved toward Gori soon afterward. The Russians cited the fifth provision, saying they had identified a threat to the local population that justified their troops assuming a peacekeeping role in the city.
A spokesman for President Medvedev said they took up positions around the town to protect locals from South Ossetians bent on revenge against ethnic Georgians for what Russia says was Georgias wholesale destruction of Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, and its inflicting of civilian casualties. It said it was also there to dispose of weapons left unattended by Georgian troops.
And, in an apparent swipe at the retreat of the Georgian army, which received supplies from the United States, the Russian general commanding the town, Vyachislav N. Borisov, noted in particular the risk if looters seized what he said were thousands of abandoned, American-made assault rifles at a military base. General Borisov spoke at an impromptu news conference on a road congested with Russian military trucks and armored vehicles outside Gori on Wednesday evening.
Russian troops have the right to take any actions necessary to prevent hostilities, said a Kremlin spokesman, Alexei Pavlov, including inside Georgia.
He said the fifth point of the agreement included this right but added that Russia would consider such actions justified without any agreement at all.
One senior American official said the fifth point in the cease-fire agreement could lead to further Russian advances, including feints on Tbilisi, to create panic and undermine support for Mr. Saakashvili. This official said international acceptance of Russians as peacekeepers in Georgia is absurd at this point.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 08:32 ||
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#1
A ceasefire that is actually a surrender.
How... French.
No wonder Sarkozy appeared so evasive on TV during the Kremlin press conference.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 8:57 Comments ||
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#2
sarko cant make diplomacy tougher without leverage.
Gutted and shrapnel-scarred buildings testify to fierce street battles and heavy rocket and bomb attacks in the separatist capital of South Ossetia. But there is little evidence civilians were specifically targeted by Georgian troops, as Russia claims.
During a visit Tuesday arranged by the Russian government, journalists from The Associated Press and other Western media were escorted into the city aboard armored vehicles. Reporters witnessed more than a dozen fires in what appeared to be deserted ethnic Georgian neighborhoods and saw evidence of looting in those areas.
The heaviest damage from the recent fighting appeared to be around Tskhinvali's government center. More than a dozen buildings in the area were little more than scorched shells.
Several residential areas seemed to have little damage, except for shattered windows, perhaps from bomb concussions.
Near the city center, on Moscow Street, pieces of tanks lay in a heap near a bomb crater. The turret of one tank was blown into the front of the printing school across the street. A severed foot lay on the sidewalk nearby.
Salima Grapova, a 41-year-old music teacher pointed to the blast damage at the intersection, which is one of the hardest hit spots. A theater, typesetting school and an apartment house were heavily damaged or destroyed. "Here every rock had blood on it," she said of the fierce fighting. Asked why her neighborhood had suffered, she noted that the train station and other government targets were nearby.
Outside town, dozens of houses burned along the main road. A Russian officer said some of the buildings had been burning for days and others were damaged the previous night during an airstrike by a single Georgian plane.
When an AP photographer rode through the same villages Monday morning, none of the houses was burning. The fires only began Monday night, more than 24 hours after the battle for the city was over. ...
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 08:23 ||
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Republican presidential candidate John McCain says Russia's invasion of Georgia requires a complete reexamination of U.S. relations with the Moscow government.
McCain has told reporters in Michigan that he was pleased the United States canceled a planned joint military operation with Russia. But he added that the U.S. will now need to review the full range of its relations with Russia.
McCain says there should be heightened security arrangements for Ukraine, the Baltic states and Poland. But he rules out military action against Russia or a return to the Cold War.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 08:19 ||
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#1
Russia should be treated like a snake. You respect it, but you don't trust it, and every once in awhile you whack it with a stick to make it get into its hole. I'm sick of Russia. They had every chance to become a first world nation helping us in the War on Terror and they chose to be brigands and thugs and crooks.
#3
The chosen one is saying pretty much the same thing as the white-haired dude, a tad less strongly, but also a tad more articulately, as you would expect.
Theres really not much daylight between the chosen one and the whitehaired dude on this, indeed far less than between their shared position and LOTS of voices on the net both left and right.
#4
Of course there isn't. O has had time to listen to McC and adjust his message appropriately. Hell, there's even been time to cleanse the campaign website of inconvenient earlier statements.
#5
I will agree that the first response by the O camp was somewhat ham-handed, though in fairness its not like the official US response was terribly clear, and FSU republics is like one of McCains main focuses going at least back to 2000. And I dont think the folks who did the first responese were his A team on Russian affairs (that would be this McFaul fellow)
I would also point out that the situation in Georgia has been evolving over the days, and thats impacted the US govt response, as well as Obamas.
#7
He IS a good learner from what Ive read. Maybe not in the Bill Clinton class, but still pretty good.
It mainly depends on who he picks for his for pol team. Mixed bag there. And it matters who goes where. Take Zbigniew Brezinski - if he advises on Israel, very bad. On Iraq, not so great. On Russia, well, not too different from McCain. maybe MORE hawkish (whether thats good or not)
#8
Liberalhawk, wasn't Zbigniew Brezinski in charge of Carter's foreign policy when the Soviets started wars/conquered Afghanistan, Angola, mozambique, Ethiopia (both sides), El Salvador, Nicaragua, and others not to mention the Iran thing.
I'd rather he had nothing to do with politics anymore, thank you very much.
Russia's foreign minister says the question of Georgia's territorial integrity is a dead issue, a sign that Moscow could absorb two separatist regions in the wake of recent fighting.
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made the statement Thursday simultaneously with the announcement that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was meeting in the Kremlin with the separatist regions' leaders. Lavrov tells reporters, "One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity." That's because he believes it's impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia that they can be forced to be a part of Georgia.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 08:17 ||
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#1
Sucks but it's not unreasonable unless there is some serious movement of ethnic Russians out of these regions.
Russian troops have begun handing over control of the area around the town of Gori to Georgian security forces. A Russian general in the area said Moscow's troops would remain nearby for several days to remove weaponry and help restore law and order in Gori. However, a BBC correspondent said a series of explosions was heard coming from hills around the town on Thursday. Georgia attacked the rebel region of South Ossetia from Gori a week ago, prompting Russian retaliation.
In Moscow, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev met the leaders of South Ossetia and Abkhazia - Georgia's other separatist region - and pledged to support any decision the regions made about their borders. "Not only do we support it but we will guarantee them both in the Caucasus and throughout the world," Mr Medvedev said. Meanwhile, the US has reiterated its support for Georgia, sending the first shipments of humanitarian aid into the country. A US envoy to the region said the initial consignment of bedding and other vital supplies was the first of many that would be arriving by sea and air.
Russian troops occupied Gori after pushing Georgian forces out of South Ossetia, leading to a mass retreat from the city by Georgian troops and civilians. Gori has also come under air attack, with reports of Russian planes bombing the town after Moscow declared an end to its military operation on Tuesday. Gori, which lies some 15km (10 miles) from the South Ossetian border and is a key link to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, had been reported calm earlier on Thursday.
The BBC's Gabriel Gatehouse, in the town, said local residents reported feeling safe and secure on Wednesday night, with Russian troops clearly in charge of the town. But the situation appeared to change on Thursday as a series of blasts were heard around Gori. Journalists, including the BBC's correspondent, were forced to leave their positions quickly. Russia's continued deployment of troops in Gori raised concerns that the Kremlin would not make a quick withdrawal from Georgian territory, despite agreeing to a European peace plan.
Moscow insists that the purpose of its continuing presence in Georgia proper is to hand over security to the Georgian police and to remove abandoned weapons and ammunition. The Russian general co-ordinating the return of Georgian police and security forces to Gori urged residents - many of whom left town as the Georgian army retreated on Monday - to return to their homes and re-open their shops, our correspondent adds. Russian troops were allowing armed Georgian police back into the town, and would not leave until order is restored, Gen Vyacheslav Borisov said.
Overnight the US secretary of state urged Moscow to meet its own pledge to pull troops out of Georgia altogether. The Georgian government says that 175 people, mainly civilians, were killed during the conflict with Russia and South Ossetian separatist forces. Russia, which says that 74 of its troops were killed, reports that more than 2,000 people died in South Ossetia, the vast majority civilians allegedly killed in the Georgian attack.
While none of the casualty figures have been verified independently, the UN refugee agency estimates that some 100,000 people have been displaced by the fighting, both from South Ossetia and Georgia proper. Both sides have accused each other of committing atrocities during the conflict, although little conclusive evidence has been found. Condoleezza Rice, the US Secretary of State, said on Wednesday night Russia faced international "isolation" if it refused to respect the truce, brokered by French and current EU President Nicolas Sarkozy.
She spoke hours after Russian tanks were seen moving out of Gori on the main road to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi. Amid widespread concern, the armoured column eventually turned off the main road and troops began work to destroy or disable Georgian army bases. "We expect all Russian forces that entered Georgia in recent days to withdraw from that country," Ms Rice said later in Washington, before leaving on a diplomatic mission to France and Georgia.
There was, she said, a "very strong, growing sense that Russia is not behaving like the kind of international partner that it has said that it wants to be".
And the US special envoy to the region, Matthew Bryza, told the BBC that the outbreak of violence in the Caucasus strengthened Georgia's case to join the Nato alliance.
"Russia, a country with 30 times the population [of Georgia] decided to roll into its much smaller neighbour and tried to roll over it. It failed to roll over Georgia, but it would never have even thought of doing this if Georgia were already a member of Nato," he said.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 07:58 ||
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#1
Or maybe not, WaPo: Two days after signing a French-brokered ceasefire, Russian troops showed no immediate sign of vacating positions around the central Georgian city of Gori, where they arrived in force a day before. Wire services reported from the area that Georgian police had approached the city for what they expected to be the beginning of a handover, but left after what the Associated Press described as a "confrontation" at a Russian checkpoint.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 9:12 Comments ||
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#2
How kind and generous of the Russian troops to help restore the order that the city had felt until they arrived in their cute, little tanks.
Statistic of the country of Ukraine reminds us, they are a population of 47 million. Not a small country, and full of resources, and home to some of Russia's fleet and bases.
Ukraine threatened to blockade the Russian Black Sea Fleet yesterday in an act of solidarity with Georgia that risked escalating the conflict.
After flying to Tbilisi to assure Georgians of his countrys support, President Yushchenko signed an order imposing tough restrictions on the Russian fleet, which is based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol. Mr Yushchenkos decree instructs Russia to give 72 hours notice of any movement of ships, aircraft or personnel in Ukraine. The Ukrainian authorities were given the power to alter those plans. Cap't? What are we doing 72 hours from now? Don't know? Well, you better start doing some plannin'
The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry had already warned Russia that it will bar ships from returning to Sevastopol if they take part in military action against Georgia. Moscow responded furiously, accusing Ukraine of a "serious new antiRussian step".
Like Georgia, Ukraines pro-Western leadership is seeking membership of Nato in December. The democratic Orange Revolution that swept Mr Yushchenko and Yuliya Tymoshenko, the Prime Minister, to power in 2004 has long been loathed by Vladimir Putin, the Russian Prime Minister. Maybe Putin just doesn't like colors. Like the colors of the Orange Revolution, the Rose Revolution and even tho it isn't a color, the Tulip Revolution brings nothing but images of color.
The Ukrainian Security Council issued a statement yesterday declaring that the presence of foreign warships in its waters "poses a potential threat to Ukraine's national security, particularly if parts of Russias Black Sea Fleet are used against third countries". Quoting Michael Ledeen quoting the English essayist Samuel Johnson who once remarked that "the sight of the gallows wonderfully concentrates the mind."
Russia and Ukraine are already at loggerheads over the future of the Crimean base, which Russia must vacate in 2017 under a 20-year lease agreement signed after the collapse of the Soviet Union. Most of Crimea's population consider themselves to be Russians and are strongly pro-Moscow. Tensions have mounted over calls by politicians in Moscow not to surrender control of the territory, regardless of Ukraines wishes. Mr Yushchenko insists that the Black Sea Fleet must leave on time and that there is no prospect of extending the lease.
Ukraine's ambition for Nato membership has raised tensions still further. Russia is opposed to the Western military alliance replacing it in Crimea and Mr Putin has threatened to target nuclear missiles at Ukraine if it joins Nato.
Unlike tiny Georgia, Ukraine is a country of 47 million people and any confrontation with Russia could quickly escalate into a broader European conflict. Vital Russian gas pipelines cross Ukraine to supply the European Union. Wonder if it matters to Ukraine, that Georgia shares a border with Iran?
#3
At some point the folks over there are gonna need to migrate. Russia has a problem with birthrates and could use the ethnic russians sitting isolated in other nations. Those other nations meanwhile would be best off if they could convince the ethnic Russians to go home.
On the face of it the French can count their intervention in the Georgian crisis as a big diplomatic success. As the current holders of the EU presidency, the French were always going to be at the forefront of the EU's efforts to mediate between Russia and Georgia. President Nicolas Sarkozy has shown a flair for the high-profile diplomatic intervention.
His latest success comes on the back of much-heralded diplomatic triumphs - the release of Bulgarian medical staff held in Libya, plus his role in the freeing of the French-Colombian politician Ingrid Betancourt, who was held by Farc rebels for more than six years. Much of the groundwork this time was done by French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner, as well as his Finnish colleague Alexander Stubb, the current president of the OSCE (Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe). They criss-crossed from Tbilisi to Moscow, working out the six conditions that both sides could sign up to in order to end the fighting.
The EU's foreign policy chief Javier Solana and other senior EU figures piled on the diplomatic pressure. Also involved was the Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt, working on behalf of the Council of Europe, the international parliamentary group set up to monitor human rights. But it was left to President Sarkozy to seal the deal with high-profile visits to both capitals.
There was an element of risk involved. If the talks had failed to end the fighting, or one side had ignored its obligations, the French president could have looked foolish. As it is, Mr Sarkozy is now being praised for his diplomatic skills.
Now though the task is to turn a delicate ceasefire into a secure and lasting peace. As Bernard Kouchner told reporters after an emergency meeting of EU foreign ministers in Brussels, that will take a lot of hard political and diplomatic work. The meeting was the first chance for Mr Kouchner to present the agreement to his EU colleagues. And while it was short on specific plans for EU involvement, Mr Kouchner said it was vital that Europe - as a key architect of the ceasefire - was involved on the ground.
But even as EU ministers agreed to look at the issue of sending peace monitors - pending the legal cover of a UN Security Council resolution - some doubted whether the Russians would actually let anyone in. Carl Bildt for one has his doubts. "There are no signs of the Russians letting in anyone else. I don't really see it happening. At the moment the Russians are firmly in control," he said. Nor did this meeting really get into the thorny issue of future relations with Russia - but differences of opinion between member states were obvious.
The Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia - along with Poland, are strong backers of Georgia's drive to join the European family. They want Russia to face the consequences of its actions in Georgia, pushing for a freeze in relations. They had backing from the UK Foreign Secretary David Miliband, who argued the EU must stand by its newer members - and send Russia a message. "The international community will want to ensure that the message goes out that force is not the right way to take forward these difficult issues," he said.
But others like Germany and Italy are more cautious - saying communication channels with Russia must remain open, particularly important given Europe's dependence on Russian oil and gas.
Where does this leave Georgian aspirations to join Nato and the EU? On Tuesday Nato's Secretary General, Jaap de Hoop Scheffer, said the offer of membership - it's not yet specified when - still stood. But in the EU many countries are already wary of further Nato expansion. A country that has just walked into a short war with Russia will find itself slipping even further down the list of potential candidates
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
The war didn't stop because of Sarkozy's diplomacy. The war stopped becuase the Russians achieved their war aims.
#2
Maybe. It is clear the Russians want Saakashvili out. And it is clear the Russians are ready to roll on Tbilisi. The EU grovelling at the feet of Medvedyev, all of Sarkozy's "politeness", was the first step. Russia's snuffing of the cease fire is a stab in their eye. It is a victory in that the EU will install peacekeers and the conflict zones will not remain forzen. It only remains to dislodge the bear. Remember "new Europe" is made up of EU members under former Soviet rule, and they don't like this. The wheels are in motion. When the money starts to dry up, Putin's wealthy supporters will start to cry. Greenbacks talk and we make the greenbacks.
#4
There was an element of risk involved. If the talks had failed to end the fighting, or one side had ignored its obligations, the French president could have looked foolish.
Gasp and Swoon, not that!!! Anything but that!!!
Dead bodies lying all over Georgian cities, a whole country in disarray, the last thing they need is a foolish looking frenchman wandering the bombed out ruins of the parliament building.
#5
The risk of being a legacy medium is falling significantly behind by the time the consumer is presented with one's report on events. As in this case, where Russia followed President Sarkozy's triumph by investing towns and villages within Georgia proper, and parking tanks on the main road to the national capitol. Oh, and continuing to blockade Georgia's ports against civilian supply deliveries.
The Russian soldiers were unusually jovial, waving their hands and pumping their fists at western reporters as their military convoy roared along the highway towards the Georgian capital city of Tbilisi. This may have been the deepest Russian military incursion into foreign territory since the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, and yet these soldiers acted as though they were going for a Sunday afternoon jaunt.
In a way, they were.
The moment a 70-strong convoy of infantry fighting vehicles, field guns, military transport trucks and armoured personnel carriers turned out of the strategic town of Gori and onto the main road to Tbilisi, Georgia and many western observers erupted in panic.
No one knew what the Russians were doing or where they were going. Wearing broad smiles and winking conspiratorially, the Russian troops denied they knew their destination until the convoy suddenly rumbled off the highway and down a track towards the village of Orsojani, about 40 miles north of Tbilisi.
Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, knew exactly what he was doing. This little incursion was clearly designed to taunt the Georgian president Mikheil Saakasvili, whose air force has been largely destroyed after a humiliating defeat after just five days of war, and mock the West.
Just the night before, Moscow agreed to a ceasefire brokered by Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, who confidently predicted that Russia had "no intention" of remaining in Georgia. Yet, taking advantage of the first day of peace, Russian troops penetrated deeper into north-eastern Georgia than at any time during the conflict.
Mr Putin was essentially telling the West that he could do whatever he wanted, whenever he wanted. There was also serious intent. By briefly threatening Tbilisi, Mr Putin may have been hoping to distract Western attention from serious Russian breaches of the ceasefire agreement. Russia had already occupied Gori and severed the country's main trade route to the Black Sea. South Ossetian irregulars also took advantage of the chaos to commit civilian killings in Georgian villages, eye witnesses said.
On a day of surreal irony, Mr Putin must also have taken satisfaction from the fact that Chechen troops from the Russian army's 42nd division led the push to Orsojani. Many of these men had fought against Mr Putin when he launched the Second Chechen War in 1999. The Chechens may have been battle hardened, but they were hardly organised. There was an air of chaos in this advance, just as there had been with the Georgian army's headlong retreat two days earlier.
Many of the soldiers in the advance seemed more interested in the western photographers hanging out of windows from cars that careered back and forth along the long, slow line the convoy took.
"Where are you going," the reporters shouted. "To see Saakasvili," one Chechen shouted.
Adding to the chaos, civilian cars and even a horse and cart belonging to fleeing residents of nearby villages tore through the dirt, wending their way manically through the column. Others stood in disbelief and fear, watching the Russian flags fluttering above military trucks pulling anti-aircraft guns and artillery.
At one point, the Russians nearly did make an unintentional advance on Tbilisi with a group of five military trucks missing the turn off to the village of Orsojani. An accident that could have provoked the resumption of war was averted, however, as the Russian soldiers realized they had gone wrong and asked journalists if they had a map.
Further towards the Ossetian frontier, two Russian armoured personnel carriers guarded a checkpoint manned by Chechen soldiers tasked with stopping traffic passing from Georgia's Black Sea ports to Tbilisi.
The Chechens, who were behind trees above the roads, lolled in the shade smoking cigarettes.
"You got any American cigarettes," one asked. "Russian ones are dreadful." From beyond them, smoke rose into the air from burning villages and bursts of automatic gunfire could be heard further down the road.
An old woman stumbled down the road, running painfully in the direction of Tbilisi, blood oozing from her eye. "Chechens and South Ossetians are killing people in the villages," she shouted as she slowly hobbled into the distance.
Russian soldiers claimed that their intervention was motivated by a desire to provide humanitarian assistance. There was little sign of that as Russian tanks destroyed a deserted military base in Gori, again in contravention of the terms of the ceasefire, and turned a blind eye as South Ossetian irregulars looted the town. According to eye-witnesses, there were sprees on villages between Gori and the border.
South Ossetian fighters, their faces covered in balaclavas, also robbed at least three western news teams of their cars at gunpoint.
The official fighting might be over, but the plight of both Georgian and Ossetian civilians could become far more desperate. With some Georgian civilians picking up arms and heading to the front line, the buffer zone protecting South Ossetia that Russia is establishing risks become a scene of Balkan style atrocities.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
South Ossetian fighters, their faces covered in balaclavas, also robbed at least three western news teams of their cars at gunpoint.
#2
It is clear that Russians are digging in like a tick. The Kodori element is on the run in Svaneti, dodging pursuing Russians and trying to survive as they have no way out. Cossack and Ossetian irregulars are burning villages and killing or detaining civilians in and around Ossetia shipping them to camps set up in Tskhinvali for God knows what. The Russian positions will be slow to retreat, if any is ordered, and they will cover their tracks.
Posted by: john frum ||
08/14/2008 8:25 Comments ||
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#5
If the Russians invaded to protect the ethnic Russians in South Ossetians what is this nonsense about South Ossetian fighters. Why not say ethnic Russians brigands. If they have left South Ossetian, and they are not part of the Red Army, they are brigands.
And what are Chechnyans doing there? The Russian army has a responsibility for them. Either they are directly part of the army or they are surviving within the Armies protection. Either way the Russian army is responsible so an article branding them as Chechnyans is irresponsible and overtly pro-Russian.
Separatist fighters and Russian troops looted and set homes ablaze in Georgia on Wednesday amid mutual recriminations over breaches of a truce that ended five days of bitter conflict.
At least they didn't put panties on anybody's head. That would have been intolerable.
A day after the truce was brokered by France, Russia faced mounting criticism in the West for its military offensive and US President George W. Bush demanded that Russian troops withdraw from Georgia. Russian armoured vehicles patrolled Gori, the flashpoint Georgian town between the capital and South Ossetia, the breakaway Georgian region at the centre of the conflict. Hundreds of South Ossetian rebels with some Russian army personnel went house-to-house in villages near Gori. They torched houses and looted buildings, witnesses said.
The body of a man, his mouth caked with blood, lay in a street in the village of Dzardzanis and nearby the body of a bearded man could be seen crushed under an overturned minivan, an AFP journalist reported. Human Rights Watch said its researchers in South Ossetia had "witnessed terrifying scenes of destruction in four villages that used to be populated exclusively by ethnic Georgians."
Russian tanks have blocked the main highway connecting the rebel region of South Ossetia with the rest of Georgia, the Georgian Foreign Ministry said.
About 100 Georgian special forces, recently returned from Iraq, set up a road block with rocket launchers and other weapons on the main highway from Gori to Tbilisi, about 45 kilometers (30 miles) away. Russia denied its forces were headed for Tbilisi although Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili told CNN television he believed Russia wanted to surround the capital.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Hey, don't worry.
The French are TALKING to the ruskies even as we speak.
U.S. President George W. Bush on Wednesday expressed concern over Russia's continued military action in Georgian territory, and said his administration would send humanitarian assistance to the embattled region. Israel has also sent a shipment of humanitarian aid, in the first step of what it termed a broader aid effort. The aid, sent late Tuesday on a Georgian airline, consists of two respirators and seven EKG monitors.
In an official statement on Wednesday, Bush said that Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit Tbilisi in a show of support for the Georgian government. He also announced that a massive U.S. humanitarian effort was already in progress and would involve U.S. aircraft as well as naval forces. A U.S. C-17 military cargo plane, loaded with supplies, already is on the way, and Bush said that Russia must ensure that all lines ofcommunication and transport, including seaports, roads and airports, remain open to let deliveries and civilians through.
U.S. Defense Department spokesman Bryan Whitman said later that a second supply-laden C-17 was planned Thursday, and an assessment team was to arrive soon in Georgia to determine other needs. The Pentagon also is preparing to send the hospital ship, the USNS Comfort, if needed, although it would take weeks to get to the region.
The administration also will review what military help is needed for Georgia's now-shattered armed forces, Whitman said. Speaking to reporters at the White House on Wednesday, Bush said: "Russia must keep its word and act to end this crisis."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Israel sends an awful lot of humanitarian aid to the outside world.
(Xinhua) -- U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice warned Russia on Wednesday that it is moving into international isolation if it does not respect a cease-fire with Georgia. "If indeed Russia is violating a cease-fire, and I have to say the reports are not encouraging about Russia's respect for the cease-fire -- for the pledge that it undertook," Rice said at a briefing before she heads to France and Georgia on the crisis. "That will only serve to deepen the isolation into which Russia is moving," Rice said.
Earlier Wednesday, U.S. President George W. Bush announced that he is sending Rice to France to assist the diplomatic efforts on the Georgia crisis, and then to Georgia to "demonstrate our solidarity with the Georgian people."
Russia declared a halt to its military offensive in Georgia on Tuesday after days of conflicts with Georgia in its breakaway South Ossetia area. The United States has welcomed the Russian move and urged Russia to end the crisis and respect Georgia's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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(Xinhua) -- Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Wednesday slammed the statement made by U.S. President George W. Bush on the conflict between Russia and Georgia, saying facts mentioned in the speech are untrue, Russian news agencies reported. "I listened to George Bush's statement -- and was surprised -- the facts he cited are untrue," Lavrov was quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency as saying. He flatly denied the claims of the U.S. president that Russian troops had blocked Georgia's Black Seaport of Poti.
The Russian top diplomat said Bush did not mention the arming of Georgia in recent years, including by the United States, which also trained Georgian troops. "No mention was made about what happened on Aug. 8, when Western leaders fell silent while Tskhinvali was shelled and bombed," Lavrov said, adding that there was also no mention of Russia's efforts to broker a ceasefire deal between Tskhinvali and Tbilisi.
Washington will have to choose between cooperation with Russia and a "virtual project" described Georgian leadership, Lavrov said. "We understand that the United States is concerned about the fate of this project, but the United States will have to choose between defending its prestige over a virtual project or real partnership which requires joint action," he said.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Russia's deputy prime minister says his country's actions in Georgia were comparable to the US reaction to the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001.
Sergei Ivanov told the British Broadcasting Corp. that his country had no choice but to attack Georgia after it tried to retake control of its breakaway region of South Ossetia.
He says in an interview with BBC World News conducted Wednesday that the US reaction to Sept. 11 was similar and noted that "any civilized country would act the same way."
He also says the suggestion that the Kremlin was acting as if the Soviet Union had never disintegrated was "total rubbish."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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The military action of Russia has prevented Georgia from invading Abkhazia, General Staff Deputy Chief Anatoly Nogovitsyn announced, specifying that a brigade and a half of Georgian military operated in Gali direction. According to Nogovitsyn, the correct forecast and resolve of Russia's military wrecked the Georgian plans, enabled to disarm Georgian units and cool hotheads amid Georgian authorities.
The Russians were ready to reinforce a group of forces in Kodori Gorge that is adjacent to Abkhazia. The paratroopers were intensifying efforts but their participation wasn't needed, the general pointed out.
Nogovitsyn showed a map captured by Russian paratroopers in an abandoned Georgian military vehicle in Abkhazia. The map depicts Georgian plans to invade the province.
Abkhazia announced August 12 the successful end of the operation for forcing out Georgian units from eastern Kodori.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
See REDDIT > MORE SOUTH OSSETIAS LOOM ON EUROPE'S BORDERS.
#2
How does a country invade itself? Abkhazia is within the boundaries of Georgia dictated by the Soviet Union. Yes, yes, I realize Abkhazia has been trying to separate, with Russian connivance, arms, and officers, but this little bit of Russian propaganda is laughable.
Flanked by his top diplomatic aide, but also accompanied by his secretary of defense, President Bush sent a clear message to Russia, asserting America's support for a tentative agreement to end the war in Georgia, but saying he would "insist" that the country remain undivided.
In a brief but stern address at the White House, Mr. Bush, who was accompanied by Secretary of State Rice and Defense Secretary Gates, said he was "concerned" by reports that despite the agreement reached by President Sarkozy of France late yesterday, Russian troops have taken position in the Georgian port town of Poti and the central city of Gori, which sits on the country's major artery and could cut it in half.
"Russia has stated that changing the government of Georgia is not its goal. The United States and the world expect Russia to honor that commitment," Mr. Bush said. He said Ms. Rice would go to France, where she would bolster the mediation mission conducted by Mr. Sarkozy, who serves as the European Union's rotating president. Mr. Bush pointedly said he had spoken with Mr. Sarkozy and with President Saakashvili of Georgia, but he did not say anything about contacts with President Medvedev or Prime Minister Putin of Russia.
Continued on Page 49
BEIJING - Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week.
In its report Nov. 3, Xinhua identified He as one of "10 big new stars" who made a splash at China's Cities Games. It gave her age as 13 and reported that she beat Yang Yilin on the uneven bars at those games. In the final, "this little girl" pulled off a difficult release move on the bars known as the Li Na, named for another Chinese gymnast, Xinhua said in the report, which appeared on one of its Web sites, http://www.hb.xinhuanet.com
The Associated Press found the Xinhua report on the site Thursday morning and saved a copy of the page. Later that afternoon, the Web site was still working but the page was no longer accessible. Sports editors at the state-run news agency would not comment for publication.
If the age reported by Xinhua was correct, that would have meant He was too young to be on the Chinese team that beat the United States on Wednesday and clinched China's first women's team Olympic gold in gymnastics. He is also a favorite for gold in Monday's uneven bars final.
Yang was also on Wednesday's winning team. Questions have also been raised about her age and that of a third team member, Jiang Yuyuan.
Gymnasts have to be 16 during the Olympic year to be eligible for the games. He's birthday is listed as Jan. 1, 1992.
Chinese authorities insist that all three are old enough to compete. He herself told reporters after Wednesday's final that "my real age is 16. I don't pay any attention to what everyone says."
Zhang Hongliang, an official with China's gymnastics delegation at the games, said Thursday the differing ages which have appeared in Chinese media reports had not been checked in advance with the gymnastics federation.
"It's definitely a mistake," Zhang said of the Xinhua report, speaking in a telephone interview. "Never has any media outlet called me to check the athletes' ages."
Asked whether the federation had changed their ages to make them eligible, Zhang said: "We are a sports department. How would we have the ability to do that?"
"We already explained this very clearly. There's no need to discuss this thing again."
The International Gymnastics Federation (FIG) has said repeatedly that a passport is the "accepted proof of a gymnast's eligibility," and that He and China's other gymnasts have presented ones that show they are age eligible. The IOC also checked the girls' passports and deemed them valid.
A May 23 story in the China Daily newspaper, the official English-language paper of the Chinese government, said He was 14. The story was later corrected to list her as 16.
"This is not a USAG issue," said Steve Penny, president of USA Gymnastics. "The FIG and the IOC are the proper bodies to handle this."
#2
Of course, since the Chinese government wants her to be sixteen, and the government controls the birth certificates. producing a birth certificate "proving" that she is 16 should be no problem.
Posted by: Rambler in California ||
08/14/2008 14:40 Comments ||
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#3
Her passport says she is 16.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
08/14/2008 14:41 Comments ||
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#9
If the evidence of her being under age are based on a news report, well let me be the first to say the journalist profession has been spotty and lazy lately so that's just not enough.
To be honest I'd rather she keep the gold and China have her reputation somewhat stained.
#10
If the evidence of her being under age are based on a news report, well let me be the first to say the journalist profession has been spotty and lazy lately so that's just not enough.
You have to remember that this is China, where there is no right to privacy, and journalists are agents of the state, i.e. they can get access to personal records.
President Viktor Yuschenko has cancelled the agreement of cooperation in the use of missile warning systems. Ukrainian News learned this from presidential decree No.704/2008 of August 13. The agreement was signed in Moscow on July 6, 1992 by Ukraine, Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.
...
The agreement has no more effect on this signatory one year after the depository received the notice. As Ukrainian News earlier reported, Ukraine is considering modernization and further use of anti-missile radar systems. On January 25, the Russian State Duma denounced agreement with Ukraine on anti-missile radar systems. Ukraine has two radar missile attack warning systems in Mukacheve and Sevastopol. Range of the radars is 1,900 kilometers.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 16:44 ||
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On January 25, the Russian State Duma denounced agreement with Ukraine on anti-missile radar systems.
I believe the author meant the Russians have renounced the agreement on Jan 25.
Another Ukrainian source, Unian:
The denunciation of the missile warning agreement with Russia will allow Ukraine finding new partners in this sphere in future.
According to an UNIAN correspondent, deputy Ukrainian Presidents Chief of Staff Andriy Honhcaruk claimed this to a press conference today. He recalled that it namely Russia was the first who made decision to terminate this agreement.
A.Honcharuk also stressed that Russia was the main contributor of the agreement, thus, Ukraine made decision about inexpediency of its further membership. After canceling this agreement, Ukraines opportunities of giving its services to other countries, other groupings, have broadened, A.Honcharuk said, adding that this is the plan of future. Would you be interested in a missile defense project - ed
As UNIAN reported earlier, on Wednesday Ukraine`s President Viktor Yushchenko terminated the agreement on missile warning and space monitoring systems with Russia. The treaty dated back to July 6, 1992. The termination came at Russia`s request, as the country is building radar stations on its own territory, which would replace missile warning systems in the CIS. Ukraine`s National Space Agency believes the systems in Sevastopol and Mukachevo could remain in place until 2020, and is now drafting an outline for their future development. Specifically, Sevastopol`s missile warning system could be used in the space program, and it will be upgraded to this end. Meanwhile, a number of experts say Russia may fail to complete its radar stations in 2009, and after Ukraine stops providing information, Russia could end up with a gap in its missile defense system.
Oops.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 17:51 Comments ||
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#3
The bombing begins in 1 year and 5 minutes.
/Ronnie's ghost
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 17:52 Comments ||
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Barack Obama is not a left candidate. This fact has seemingly surprised a number of progressive people who are bemoaning Obamaâs âshift to the center.â (Right-wingers are happy to join them, suggesting Obama is a âflip-flopper.â) Itâs sad that some who seek progressive change are missing the forest for the trees. But they will not dampen the wide and deep enthusiasm for blocking a third Bush term represented by John McCain, or for bringing Obama by a landslide into the White House with a large Democratic congressional majority.
A broad multiclass, multiracial movement is converging around Obamaâs âHope, change and unityâ campaign because they see in it the thrilling opportunity to end 30 years of ultra-right rule and move our nation forward with a broadly progressive agenda.
This diverse movement combines a variety of political currents and aims in a working coalition that is crucial to social progress at this point. At the core are Americaâs working families, of all hues and ethnicities, whose determination to move forward does not depend on, and will not be diverted by, the daily twists and turns of this watershed presidential campaign. They are taking the long view.
Notably, the labor movement has stepped up its independent mobilization for this election. It is leading an unprecedented campaign to educate and unify its ranks to elect the nationâs first African American president. Last week, AFL-CIO Secretary-Treasurer Richard Trumka told the Steelworkers convention that there is âno evil thatâs inflicted more pain and more suffering than racism â and itâs something we in the labor movement have a special responsibility to challenge.â
If Obamaâs candidacy represented nothing more than the spark for this profound initiative to unite the working class and defeat the pernicious influence of racism, it would be a transformative candidacy that would advance progressive politics for the long term.
The struggle to defeat the ultra-right and turn our country on a positive path will not end with Obamaâs election. But that step will shift the ground for successful struggles going forward.
One thing is clear. None of the peopleâs struggles â from peace to universal health care to an economy that puts Main Street before Wall Street â will advance if McCain wins in November.
#1
translation "were tiny and obscure and even the friggin Trotskyites out number us, but one of the few places we have a tiny bit of hope for recruitment is among African americans, and if we are against the Chosen one, we are dead to them, so wed better come up with spin about why were for him"
US troops, stationed both abroad and in the US, have donated more money to Democrat Barack Obama than to decorated war hero Republican John McCain, a study published today showed.
The study by the Centre for Responsive Politics, a non-partisan research group, showed that by the end of June, Senator Obama had received six times more from soldiers stationed abroad than Vietnam war veteran Senator McCain, who comes from a prestigious military family.
Even Senator McCain's former rival for the Republican nomination, Ron Paul, who opposed the Iraq war, had managed to garner more funds.
Senator Obama had received some $US60,642 ($69,408) in donations from soldiers stationed abroad, while Senator McCain had just $US10,665 ($12,207), the study said.
Mr Paul, who failed early in the Republican primaries to attract as much support as Senator McCain, was given some $US45,512 ($52,091) for his campaign.
Across all troops, Senator Obama's campaign also attracted more funding than his rivals, bringing in some $US335,000 ($383,430) compared to $US280,000 ($320,480) for Senator McCain. Only in the Marine Corps is Senator McCain leading Senator Obama, by some $US4000 ($4580).
"That's shocking," Aaron Belkin, a professor of political science at the University of California who studies the military, told the centre.
"The academic debate is between some who say that junior enlisted ranks lean slightly Republican and some who say it's about equal, but no one would point to six-to-one" in the Democrat's favour.
"That represents a tremendous shift from 2000, when the military vote almost certainly was decisive in Florida and elsewhere, and leaned heavily towards the Republicans."
But Jason Dempsey, a former professor at the West Point military academy, said that the number of individual donations, just 323, was too small to draw any conclusions.
"If, on a bad day, a guy gets that letter that says (his tour has been extended) from 12 to 15 months, that could spur a quick donation and expression of anger," he said.
"Donating helps members of the military express their political views privately."
Senator Obama has said that if elected to the White House he would withdraw most troops from Iraq within 16 months. Senator McCain, who supports the war, says the US needs to remain on the ground until their work is done and has resisted setting any timetable for a pullout.
The centre also stressed that it had only totalled up donations of $US200 ($229) or more, which meant the study was probably more reflective of thinking among ranking officers.
Suuurprise, suurprise, surprise. They'll be a pricetag to witness the American version of "Triumph of the Will"...
Some of those hoping to wrangle a seat for Barack Obama's speech were told this week they have to put in six hours of volunteer work for his campaign by Friday to have a shot at a ticket. Put your backs into it, folks. It's for the children...
And that ruffled at least a few feathers."My whole reason why I'm so mad about it is because Democrats need to act like Democrats," said Heather Kreider, a working mother from Centennial. Ummmmmm...they aren't?
"Democrats work for a living, and they have to work and take care of their families. And they say these are open to those in the community, so they shouldn't ask people to drop everything in their lives for this," Kreider said Tuesday. "It's not fair. It's elitist. And they need to practice what they're preaching," she added. Oh, Heather. You sound so...shocked! I would have used the word, 'clueless' ...
Doing the volunteer work only makes someone eligible for a ticket and doesn't guarantee one, according to the phone message from the campaign. So...good luck.
Obama's decision to move the last night of the Democratic National Convention to Invesco Field at Mile High, where he will speak to a crowd of more than 75,000, sparked a frenzy for tickets. Oooh. A "frenzy"!
Campaign organizers pledged that more than half those in the stadium would be Coloradans, but they have been vague about how they would decide who got tickets. Maybe they'll walk out into the parking lot and throw them in the air?
Kreider was among more than 80,000 people who applied for tickets to Obama's Aug. 28 speech accepting his party's presidential nomination. As part of the application process, people were asked to check a box if they were willing to volunteer for the Obama campaign. Matt Chandler, a spokesman for the Obama campaign, said the only people who were asked to volunteer were those who said on their applications that they were willing to do the work. Those who don't volunteer will still have a chance at the tickets, Chandler said. Just like Publisher's Clearinghouse...
"The vast majority of people who get credentials won't have to volunteer," he said. "The folks who might have accidentally hit the 'volunteer' tab, they don't have to worry. They're in the same place in line." ...and we all know where that is. Except Heather maybe.
People asked to volunteer are those in line for "all star" tickets that will put them closer to the stage and are being contacted first, said Stephanie Mueller, campaign spokeswoman. Applicants who didn't offer to volunteer will be contacted later this week, she said. We'll...call you. Soon.
But Kreider said she is certain she didn't hit the "volunteer" box on the online application. Certain! Certain, I tells ya!
Still, Kreider got a message telling her that she had to do six hours of volunteer work by Friday if she wanted a chance at a ticket. Kreider said she will not do the work. Like any good Democratic supporter wouldn't...
"Absolutely not," she said. "Now it's pure principal. I was a Hillary Clinton supporter, and this is literally my first touch with the Obama campaign. And it's just disappointing." Johnson, the salts! Quickly!
A man, who spoke to the Rocky on the condition that he not be named, said he got a message saying he had to do 12 hours of phone work or canvassing to have a chance at the two tickets he wants. Asked if he planned to do the work, he said "hell no" and called the campaign's conditions "blackmail." They'd prefer you call it "mail of color"...
#6
Two outcomes for the Stadium speech. One, it's a PR disaster when people see it and start thinking of Nazism and Communism in like venues. People won't be able to help BUT think that. Or two, it gets rained out and The One gets called on poor judgement of monumental proportions.
Either way the fallout should be entertaining.
Posted by: Charles ||
08/14/2008 19:13 Comments ||
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#7
If this Bama blowhard gets elected, the morning after is going to be one sorry day for all the losers...and the vast majority of the winners. Problem is, it's going to be a sorry day four years long.
If you want to get filthy rich, and I mean Gates-style big bucks, here's a good suggestion. Find some way to make $.10 off each use of the phrase "the failed Obama Presidency." After the first six months you'll be flat rolling in the stuff.
Heh heh heh....and so it begins...
WASHINGTON - Hillary Rodham Clinton's name will be placed in nomination along with nominee-in-waiting Barack Obama at the Democratic convention in Denver, an emblematic move intended to unite the party after a divisive primary fight. Democrats will officially nominate Obama at the convention but the state delegations will do a traditional roll call for his vanquished opponent as well. Don't make a move until you get the secret signal. You'll blow The Plan...
The arrangement -- which the rivals-turned-allies agreed to after weeks of negotiations -- is intended to help the Democratic Party heal after a bruising primary while mollifying still-disgruntled Clinton backers and acknowledging the former first lady's groundbreaking presidential run. Yeah. I'll bet that's what Vince Foster thought too when she said she'd meet him at the park...and come alone.
"I am convinced that honoring Senator Clinton's historic campaign in this way will help us celebrate this defining moment in our history and bring the party together in a strong united fashion," Obama, an Illinois senator, said in a joint statement. Suuuure, Barry. She told you that, right?
Added Clinton, a New York senator: "With every voice heard and the party strongly united, we will elect Senator Obama president of the United States and put our nation on the path to peace and prosperity once again." Yeaaaaah...Peace and Prosperity! That's the ticket!
Some 35 million people participated in the Democratic primary, and Obama and Clinton said they wanted to "honor and celebrate these voices and votes." I can see it now on nomination night..."Damn! What's that crazy white bitch doin!"
#3
Thats prudent, in case something happens to him where he can't run. Like a pipe across the knees. I'd watch my ass if I were him, she's going to make it a bloodsport.
#4
There's a lot of urban legend, mythology that Barak was not born in the US of A.
Me thinks Hillary (and Billy) have found some really neat documents to bring the loch ness monster that is Barak's birth certificate to light.
She wouldn't be doing this unless they have a trump card and she thinks she can win. Because we all know how vindictive the dems are. If this gets nasty and she looses, there is going to be a full purge of the democratic ranks of Clintonistas.
Something is afoot and it smells of a really nasty floor fight and some really neat theater at the convention.
Funny, I thought all of the entertaining stuff was going to happen in the parking lot with the demonstrators.
Who's got the popcorn bowl?
This is going to be FUN.
Posted by: James Carville ||
08/14/2008 15:29 Comments ||
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#5
shes doing this cause she wants to fire up her supporters - whom she still wants around cause A. She might run in 2012 B. She wants while being a Senator to be a player, and keeping loyalists around helps. Thats what the clintons DO. no conspiracy theories needed.
#8
During the entire 1964 filming of the classic movie Zulu, depicting the Battle of Rorke's Drift, a reinforced mechanized company of South African Defense Force (SADF) was encamped a few hundred kilometers from the location of the filming. I hope security measures are in place in Denver.
Celebrity news programs are still closely following the story of former Sen. John Edwards's affair with campaign videographer Rielle Hunter, talking with friends and family members in an effort to poke holes in the one-time presidential candidate's statements.
In its latest issue, People reports that "behind the public show of strength, the Edwards' household has been a scene of turmoil and tension" since John Edwards announced last Friday he had had an extramarital affair with Hunter in 2006.
"There was anguish - excruciating anguish - for her in dealing with this," Elizabeth Edwards's best friend, Hargrave McElroy, told the magazine. McElroy, Elizabeth's personal assistant and a schoolteacher from Raleigh, N.C., said Elizabeth Edwards was ultimately faced with the question: "Do I kick him out, or do we have a 30-year marriage that can be rebuilt?" he said.
One unnamed source also told the magazine that John Edwards told his wife about the affair "slowly."
Hunter's sister, Roxanne Druck Marshall, told the celebrity news program "Entertainment Tonight" that she apologizes to Elizabeth Edwards for her sister's behavior and admits that she feels "ashamed." Marshall also told the TV show that Edwards lied about how long the affair lasted and that her sister was still in love with the former senator.
And The National Enquirer, the tabloid magazine that broke the Edwards story, claims political operatives are paying Hunter and that "she was whisked away on a private jet two days before he confessed their extramarital affair on national TV!" The magazine does not cite any sources in its report.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Do I kick him out, or do we have a 30-year marriage that can be rebuilt?"
it would be funny... if she wasn't dying of cancer.
#2
Yeah, that's the one aspect of this that takes all the fun out of watching him squirm. If I were him, I'd lock the gun cabinet before I got drunk and went to bed.
#6
i would like to know how you tell your spousal unit about an affair 'slowly.' its not like a series of bounced checks that the NSF notices come in over time.
Maybe he just talked slowly.
but it is most definitly not funny to watch his wife have to deal with this shit too.
maybe he needs a gun, one bullet, a bottle of whiskey and a locked room.
#7
I am liking the details about how this woman was a complete new-age flake and a pathetic middle-age groupie. It sounds like she spouts stuff about life-energy and horoscope every time she opens her mouth. How could Silky stand to listen to that crap? He would've had to pay lip service (ahem) to it too. I'm glad we never got a Vice President who is capable of talking seriously about "auras" and "past lives."
She told the Newsweek guy that she considered Edwards a "project". And she was going to use her new-age knowledge to unlock his potential and help him become a transformational leader like MLK or Gandhi (or something along those lines). I suspect she actually believed it too.
Well, she managed to torpedo whatever potential remained for his public career (not that Silky doesn't share the blame for his own downfall). The irony is so thick and juicy.
But she did get a baby out of it and a (likely) sweet palimony deal - provided Edwards doesn't lose all his dough when if it comes out that he committed fraud in the course of the attempted cover up. So it wasn't a complete loss for her and she can rationalize her kooky beliefs, if she can ignore her conscience about stealing the husband and publicly humiliating a cancer victim.
Meanwhile, he's still lying about the timing of the affair - when she was hired, about the paternity and about the role of his staffers, and the timing of Elizabeth's cancer.
No one believes him now and a few of those allegations will be verifiable so he's essentially burying himself deeper.
Some have speculated that he could recover from this eventually, a few years down the road, and still play some limited public role. I don't think so. The aspects of Elizabeth's cancer and the continued lying to the media and the possible involvement of campaign funds, and the late withdrawal (Hillary must be furious!) will not be so easily brushed aside.
I pray for Elizabeth's recovery but it sounds like her prognosis is not good. I know I shouldn't go there but, what happens when....
The Democratic Party is planning a convention designed to soften the edges on the party's support for abortion rights, with a revamped platform and a speaking lineup that reinforces efforts to broaden Democrats' appeal on the hot-button issue.
In a statement fraught with symbolism for those on both sides of the abortion debate, Sen. Bob Casey Jr., D-Pa., an abortion-rights opponent, will be given a prime speaking slot at the Democratic National Convention in Denver later this month.
Casey's father, the late Pennsylvania Gov. Robert Casey, a Democrat who also held strong anti-abortion views, was denied a speaking role at the party's 1992 convention -- a perceived snub that has long been a flashpoint in the party's wrangling over how to handle the abortion-rights debate on the national stage.
In addition, Democrats have adopted a platform that builds on the party's traditional language about preserving Roe v. Wade with pledges to support women who decide against having abortions.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#7
Translation:
The One may need some assistance on this one. Maybe we can get the gullible fundies (since they're all to stupid to know they need us to run their pathetic little lives) to buy in on this and swing a few votes to get The One in office!
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 11:42 Comments ||
Top||
#9
Wait a second. You'd think this was an election year*. Oh, wait, never mind....
*when the Donk acknowledge the concept of 'consent of the governed' vice the concept of 'consent of the special interest donors'. The Trunks felt that hard last time around.
#10
Bah. They continue to cast pro-lifers as anti-abortionists. The semantics are necessary to avoid the realization that human beings are getting killed in the name of a "right" constructed by a liberal Supreme Court whose record on other constructed "rights" is acknowledged as a bad one.
#11
They can say whatever they want. Just keep in mind that the Chosen One voted against offering babies who survived a late-term abortion attempt any medical treatment (or even comforting them as they finally died). That means more than any words on paper.
Posted by: Swamp Blondie in the Cornfields ||
08/14/2008 17:32 Comments ||
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#12
Obama was one of Illinois's foremost abortion enthusiasts while in the Senate. I don't expect much to have changed.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
08/14/2008 18:11 Comments ||
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#1
Powell, former CSoA, going to endorse the equivalent of a 2nd Luie to have sole custody of the keys to the nuclear arsenal without adult supervision? Think again on this speculation.
#4
Let him. After seeing the job he did as Secretary of State, I don't think his endorsement would have nearly as much effect as it would've about fifteen years ago.
#6
He says (or the media says) "he's not going to attend the Democratic convention in Denver." Maybe what he's REALLY saying is he'll speak at the convention via VTC. Time will tell.
The Sindh Assembly became the third Pakistani provincial assembly on Wednesday to pass a resolution to push President Pervez Musharraf to quit. The opposition and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) boycotted the vote, letting the resolution pass with the support of 93 lawmakers. No one voted against the resolution.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Last ditch efforts behind the scenes to secure an acceptable guarantee of "safe passage" and indemnity for President Pervez Musharraf's are continuing and may delay the announcement of his resignation speech originally planned for August 14 (today), informed sources have told Daily Times.
It is learnt that there is an understanding between the coalition partners and President Musharraf that he will resign before impeachment proceedings can begin in earnest against him.
But President Musharraf is refusing to take "safe passage" to mean an immediate exile out of the country following his resignation. He is insisting on two conditions: first, that he will be entitled to stay in his house in Chak Shahzad on the outskirts of Islamabad and be provided full security and privileges as allowed under law to all presidents; second, that cast-iron guarantees of indemnity from any action against him following his resignation will be provided, preferably through an act of parliament.
It is also learnt that the army high command is standing by President Musharraf in these two demands. The last thing the army wants is to see either the impeachment of a former army chief or action against him by the civilians on any count. It may be noted that the current high commanders of the army were his partners in government when he was ruling the roost and took policy initiatives that later rebounded on his government and which could form the basis of any charge sheet against him.
US, UK, Saudis: Sources told Daily Times that the coalition partners were divided on the issue of what sort of indemnity and safe passage to provide him, with Mr Nawaz Sharif taking a harder line than Asif Zardari. President Musharraf's international friends, the Saudis, Americans and British, are also running around to help both sides devise an acceptable formula for his "safe passage".
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Sen Tom Harkin, Democrat from Iowa, has said it is time for President Pervez Musharraf to step down, for violence, bloodshed and fear to cease and the confidence of the Pakistani people to be restored.
In a statement, Harkin said, "In order to re-establish the rule of law, return the High Court judges to their official posts and get back to solving the day-to-day challenges of the Pakistani people, Musharraf should strongly take into consideration the will of the Pakistani people and step-down. There are significant challenges that the leaders of Pakistan must confront in order to ensure the most basic needs for the people of Pakistan, and Musharraf no longer seems to enjoy the confidence of the Pakistani people."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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Impeachment of Pervez Musharraf was Pakistan's internal matter and the United States was intervening in Pakistan's sovereignty, NDTV repported Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif as saying on Wednesday.
Nawaz denied that he was a presidential candidate, saying the decision on the next president would be taken in consultation with Pakistan People's Party Co-chairman Asif Zardari.
According to the channel, Nawaz said the coalition government would remain intact and he would continue to support the PPP-led government for the sake of future of democracy in Pakistan. He reiterated that the judges' reinstatement was his party's foremost priority and the PML-N members joined the federal cabinet after being assured that the sacked judges would be reinstated. The channel quoted him as saying that other PML-N members would join the federal cabinet after reinstatement of the sacked judges.
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
US interfering in Pakistan affairs
flush your own friggin toilet or you will get a whole lot more Hellfire enemas.
Where do ya put stories about Greenland?
The anti-Islamic organisation SIAD will demonstrate in Århus' Gellerup Park against Muslims' treatment of Greenlanders.
Anti-Islamic organisation Stop Islamisation of Denmark (SIAD) will hold a demonstration 23 August in protest of the harassment Greenlanders in Århus' Gellerup Park council estate have received from young Muslims there.
'We won't stand for Greenlanders are being forced out of Gellerup Park,' wrote SIAD's Michael Mikkelsen. 'I'm an ethnic Dane who grew up in a Greenlandic neighbourhood in Aalborg and know many Greenlanders.' SIAD has called on other anti-racist groups to join in the demonstration against what they call 'ethnic cleansing' of the council estate.
Greenlanders living at Gellerup Park have been both verbally and physically assaulted by some young Muslim residents of the complex. Århus city council has offered to move the Greenlanders, an offer some have taken. Well. Guess we better cave into them then.
The demonstration will take place at noon at Århus city hall square. What the hell are they doing in Greenland?
Århus' mayor said there are no longer problems between young Muslims and Greenlanders living at Gellerup Park.
MP Lars-Emil Johansen visited the Gellerup Park council estate in Århus on Tuesday amidst continuing reports of harassment against the estate's Greenlandic residents by young Muslims.
But Nikolai Wammen, the city's mayor, assured Johansen that the incidents are in the past. He added, however, that the city still plans to improve the social conditions for its Greenlandic residents. Recommendations will be made following a study of 150 Greenlandic residents conducted by the municipality.
Both Wammen and Johansen agreed that there should be more focus on the city's successful Greenlanders. Johansen also suggested the city should organise special Greenlandic celebrations and festivals.
#6
I believe supergalitz is right. A little more background...
A number of Greenlanders are moving out of an Århus council estate after verbal and physical threats by teenagers
Greenlanders in the Gellerup housing estate in Århus have had to move out of their homes due to attacks from residents of Arabic and Somali background primarily teenagers. Greenlanders at the estate have had rocks thrown and fireworks shot at them and been subject to verbal abuse.
I couldnt take being a target any more, said Johanne Christiansen, one of the Greenlanders who has moved out. It was psychological pressure. But Im angry that it is we who have to move and not them. Theyre the ones who attacked us.
Århus city council is now inthe process of finding a new place for the Greenlanders to live.
The Greenlanders have typically heard shouts such as F--k off home to Greenland this is our Gellerup from their assailants.
While the public housing authority has condemned the attacks, it stated it could not do anything to stop them.
Our weapons are useless against them!
We cant accept this kind of thing, but theres nothing we can do, said Torben Overgaard, head of the authority. In order to enforce the housing regulations we have to have evidence and the names of the assailants, and we dont in these cases.
So...I guess you're gonna "accept this kind of thing"?
Overgaard said the problems root is obvious. When Greenlanders who drink a lot live somewhere where the residents are primarily Muslims who dont drink alcohol then conflicts arise.
Ah. Buncha drunks. Like them Irish. Who can blame them Muzzies...
#7
With global warming, the Greenlanders will be able to migrate back home and farm the newly exposed land. Yep, growing tomatoes for the Moslem women and cukes for the guys. Big market.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/14/2008 10:36 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Jets and sharks, is what it is. Turf battle among competing immigrants (except the greenlanders technically aint immigrants, like Puerto Ricans)
#9
tu 3031...if the Irish were there, drunk or sober they probably have kicked some a$$. We do like our drink,and we never (well rarely never) walk away from a good fight. :)
Århus' mayor said there are no longer problems between young Muslims and Greenlanders living at Gellerup Park.
He continued, "Because the Greenlanders have either moved away or simply been killed. It's quite amazing, really -- a solution to ethnic tension that apparently is quite popular in Muslim nations. Much like shariah, we suspect it will catch on in Europe."
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
08/14/2008 12:37 Comments ||
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Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad launched a fresh verbal attack on Israel on Wednesday on the eve of a visit to Turkey, saying Western countries should quit their support of Israel.
The comments highlight the difficult path which Turkey, a member of NATO and a close ally of Israel, must follow during the two-day visit which reflects its desire to remain on good terms with its neighbor and secure future energy needs.
"Western countries should not support them [Israel] so much. The life of this regime has come to an end," Ahmadinejad said in comments translated into Turkish in a live interview broadcast by Turkey's NTV and CNN Turk channels. "Our position is clear on this issue. A referendum should take place in Palestine. If they withdraw from invaded lands it would be a good step," he said.
Turkish President Abdullah Gul and Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan have come under criticism at home and abroad for inviting Ahmadinejad.
Ankara has said his visit was necessary given a standoff between Iran and the West over Tehran's disputed nuclear enrichment program, but analysts said the visit was more about ensuring centuries-old ties during a period of global tensions.
Ahmadinejad said the talks on Iran's nuclear program were on a "good path."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Ahmadinejad said the talks on Iran's nuclear program were on a "good path."
#3
I'd be curious to hear what his crazy, tortured mind has come up with as far as incentives to bring about this great re-alignment.
I bet they're good'uns.
U.S. driving slid for the eighth straight month in June, making the decline more pronounced that the drop that occurred during the 1970s oil shock.
The U.S. Department of Transportation said Americans drove 12.2 billion miles less in June than a year earlier. With that, the decline since November is now 53.2 billion miles, topping the 49.3 billion decline three decades ago. Rural travel has fallen 4% since late last year, while urban driving is off just 1.2%. (See the Federal highway Administration data.)
Transportation Secretary Mary Peters used the latest data to again call for a rethinking of how the nation's transportation network is funded. Federal gas taxes have declined as Americans curb their driving habit amid record gas prices.
Oil prices have slid over the past month, and gasoline prices are off their peak, but Ms. Peters sees trouble ahead in long-term transportation trends.
"We can't afford to continue pinning our transportation network's future to the gas tax," Ms. Peters said Wednesday. "Advances in higher fuel-efficiency vehicles and alternative fuels are making the gas tax an even less sustainable support for funding roads, bridges and transit systems."
Posted by: Fred ||
08/14/2008 00:00 ||
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#1
Seems to me that the drop in miles driven would lead to a drop in the need to repair roads & bridges.
#3
Sorry folks but roads are designed to carry trucks, not cars. The more trucks the more robust the roadway design. And the geometrics are predicated on the traffic count. The more vehicles the more lanes required.
If you don't want food, jobs, to visit the in-laws or live in the burbs 30 miles from work then let the transportation systems go to pot. Some of us are old enough to remember the road systems pre-interstate. It will be a shock to the young folks.
If more folks would be more obliging and die or leave the fewer and less intrusive the roads would have to be. (sarc off?). Otherwise; shut up or pay up. NOTE: Not all transportation departments are run like Chicago or DC.
#4
Question: How long has it been since the federal gas tax been increased to account for inflation, let alone the increase in the miles traveled per gallon? I can't remember the last time.
The public must pay for the services it uses. Or stop bitchin' when a bridge or roadway fails.
#5
Tipover,
You're absolutely right - sadly though most folks don't look at it that way, and mow might really be a bad time to talk about raising gas taxes, no matter how logical it may be.
And just wait a couple years when people about break their arms patting themselves on the back after buying a Prius or the upcoming Chevy Volt, and they're handed a tax bill - payable immediately - for their share of the gas tax that they thought they weren't paying any more. It's coming.
Mike
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
08/14/2008 6:29 Comments ||
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#6
There's a way around the gas tax: make every road a toll road.
Posted by: Grenter, Protector of the Geats ||
08/14/2008 8:38 Comments ||
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#7
I grew up in New York State. I hate toll roads. Toll collectors have to be paid, after all, not to mention employee overhead, administrative costs, managers wanting promotion, union organizers, training collectors to recognize and stop criminals passing through (they're there anyway, they might as well do something useful), gun licenses so that the collectors can do so... It could be that I don't really understand the intricacies of paying for road maintenance, but it always seemed to me that toll roads are a straightforward employment scheme.
If trucks are the issue, either add a transportation tax for all items shipped by truck, or levy a road maintenance tax on all residents of the state. No, I don't like paying taxes, but ease of transport greases the wheels of commerce.
/yes, I enjoyed writing that last sentence entirely too much.
After all, either way the tax is likely to be much less than the cost of the gasoline that wasn't purchased for the miles not driven, plus the wear and tear on the vehicle not incurred.
#9
Get the road building budget out of the hands of the politicians who award contracts based on political influence and developers who will contribute to their campaigns. Let the engineers who actually analyze traffic patterns and design the road networks specify a list of projects for funding.
Privatize road maintenance. We've all seen the road crew with one man working and the rest standing around.
As for toll roads, what I have seen in my neck of the woods is that friends of the Governor get the concessions (w/ eminent domain enforced by law enforcement) to build and operate toll roads.
Posted by: ed ||
08/14/2008 9:22 Comments ||
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#10
Let's see if I have this right. People are driving less because gas costs more. Government tax revenues are down because people are driving less. In order to increase gas tax revenues we have to increase gas taxes. Increasing gas taxes will increase gas costs. Increasing gas costs will cause drivers to drive less and use less gas. I get it! S**t-for-brains logic. Makes sense now.
Posted by: Richard of Oregon ||
08/14/2008 10:29 Comments ||
Top||
#11
Don't get lost in the details. The answer is ALWAYS the same.
1. something has happened.
2. politicians want to raise taxes.
#13
We could put about 1/10th of the extremely top heavy management of our respective Dept.s of Trans in the shitcan. That would save a boatload of money.
#14
Oregon is testing an alternative tax; rather than a gas tax it is a use tax. your car's odometer is checked periodically and then you get a bill. to minimize cheats they are using some sort of a GPS that records your car's movements. At the last report i read, about 200 folks had signed up to test it out.
#17
re#15: agree lopt. but were you aware that new cars have a black box that records operational parameters and in at least one court case that data was used against the car's (former) owner to show he was speeding? the former owner was suing GM for a faulty car as the cause of the crash. the insurance company totaled the car ( a Corvette), and then had GM download the information. the court case centered on who owned the data and since Joe Speeder sold the car, he didn't. And lost. so the morale of the story is that before you let the Good Hands people take your ride, go to the wrecking yard and get another OBD II box. or burn the other one up.
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.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
(Xinhua) -- Zimbabwe's inter-party talks on power sharing has been suspended indefinitely after Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the major faction of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), requested time to consider some of the proposals. 
The military action of Russia has prevented Georgia from invading Abkhazia, General Staff Deputy Chief Anatoly Nogovitsyn announced, specifying that a brigade and a half of Georgian military operated in Gali direction. According to Nogovitsyn, the correct forecast and resolve of Russia's military wrecked the Georgian plans, enabled to disarm Georgian units and cool hotheads amid Georgian authorities. 
BEIJING - Just nine months before the Beijing Olympics, the Chinese government's news agency, Xinhua, reported that gymnast He Kexin was 13, which would have made her ineligible to be on the team that won a gold medal this week. 
The Democratic Party is planning a convention designed to soften the edges on the party's support for abortion rights, with a revamped platform and a speaking lineup that reinforces efforts to broaden Democrats' appeal on the hot-button issue. 
Impeachment of Pervez Musharraf was Pakistan's internal matter and the United States was intervening in Pakistan's sovereignty, NDTV repported Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif as saying on Wednesday.
U.S. driving slid for the eighth straight month in June, making the decline more pronounced that the drop that occurred during the 1970s oil shock.
