Russian Jets Pound Targets in Georgia

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...

The violence in the region is escalating...

Russian jets have carried out strikes on military targets in the central Georgian town of Gori, close to the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

Most of the targets seem to have been military bases, but Georgian officials said a number of civilians had been killed in residential buildings.

Russia said it had "liberated" the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali.

Earlier, Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said his country was seeking "to force the Georgian side to peace".

The comments came after Russian commanders announced they were sending more troops into South Ossetia to support peacekeeping operations.

The Russian defence ministry confirmed two of its jets had been shot down over Georgia, although it did not say where.

In a live televised address, Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said he would ask parliament to approve the introduction of martial law.

After days of exchanging heavy fire with the Russian-backed separatists, Georgian forces launched a surprise attack on Thursday night to regain control of the region, which has had de facto independence since a war in 1992.

Georgian troops in the city of Gori (NY Times)

A small contingent of US troops is in Georgia, and since Russian forces are attacking Georgian military installations, it is not known if they are in imminent danger:

About 130 U.S. military and civilian personnel are currently located in Georgia, where they are training Georgian troops for deployment to Iraq as part of the multinational force there. U.S. military officials in Baghdad said they had gotten no official word about statements from Tblisi that half of Georgia's 2,000-troop contingent was being called home.

It isn't something that is front and center in the reporting, since attacks on civilians are the real story here. But when you start to think about why the sides are fighting, it really does come down to energy revenues:

The BBC's Richard Galpin in Gori heard loud explosions and saw large plumes of smoke rising into the sky; soldiers and civilians were seen running through the streets.

One missile hit a military base, from which most of the soldiers appeared to have managed to escape beforehand, he says.

The Georgian military said residential buildings had also been struck, leaving a number of civilians dead. Our correspondent says injured civilians were being pulled from the buildings, which were on fire.

The Georgian foreign ministry said the Black Sea port of Poti, which is the site of a major oil shipment facility, had also been "devastated" by a Russian aerial bombardment.

Georgian troops riding to the front (NY Times)

The US and the United Nations seem ineffectual, unable to get past the Russian veto on the Security Council:

International Red Cross (ICRC) spokeswoman Anna Nelson said the ICRC had received reports that hospitals in the city were "overflowing" with casualties.

The BBC's James Rodgers in Moscow says diplomatic initiatives to end the fighting have so far proved fruitless.

On Friday evening, the UN Security Council failed to agree on the wording of a statement calling for a ceasefire.

Russia holds a permanent place on the Council, and has the power of veto over any official statements that it regards as unfair or inaccurate.

Permanent members Britain, the US and France, are pinpointing what they say is Russia's aggression as the key factor in the slide towards war, while Moscow insists Georgia is to blame.

In other developments:

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice called on Russia to pull its troops out of Georgia and respect its territorial integrity
Georgia's president said his country was withdrawing its contingent of 2,000 troops from Iraq to help deal with the crisis
The European security organisation, the OSCE, warned that the fighting in South Ossetia could escalate into a full-scale war
The US and the EU were reported to be sending a joint delegation to the region to seek a ceasefire and Nato said it was seriously concerned.

She needs to go to Moscow and/or the region immediately. Not some envoy, not some flunky--she's the expert on Russia, and her area of expertise has so far proven to be an area of foreign policy in which she's about as effective as everywhere else she tries her hand--and that's not very damned much.

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Russia "declares war" on Georgia

Crossposted from our new home blog,They gave us a republic...

Russian Jets Attack Georgia. 'They Have Declared War On Us,' Georgian Official Says

WASHINGTON, August 8 -

Russian jets bombed the Vaziani military airbase outside the Georgian capital Tbilisi on Friday, a senior Georgian security official told Reuters. "No one was wounded but some buildings have been destroyed," said Kakha Lamaia. The airbase is some 25 kilometers (15 miles) from Tbilisi. "They have declared war against us," said Lamaia.

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Relocate These Troops to Fort Gordon

Instead of complaining, we offer a solution today. With regards to this issue at Fort Benning, Georgia:

Across the street from their assigned housing, about 200 yards away, are some of the Army infantry's main firing ranges, and day and night, several days each week, barrages from rifles and machine guns echo around Strickland's building. The noise makes the wounded cringe, startle in their formations, and stay awake and on edge, according to several soldiers interviewed at the barracks last month. The gunfire recently sent one soldier to the emergency room with an anxiety attack, they said.

"You hear a lot of shots, it puts you in a defensive mode," said [Army Sgt. Jonathan]Strickland, who spent a year with an infantry platoon in Baghdad and has since received a diagnosis of [Post Traumatic Stress Disorder] PTSD from the military. He now takes medicine for anxiety and insomnia. "My heart starts racing and I get all excited and irritable," he said, adding that the adrenaline surge "puts me back in that mind frame that I am actually there."

Soldiers interviewed said complaints to medical personnel at Fort Benning's Martin Army Community Hospital and officers in their chain of command have brought no relief, prompting one soldier's father to contact The Washington Post. Fort Benning officials said that they were unaware of specific complaints but that decisions about housing and treatment for soldiers with PTSD depend on the severity of each case. They said day and night training must continue as new soldiers arrive and the Army grows.

The solution? MOVE these troops to Fort Gordon, Georgia. Spend the money to relocate them immediately. Determine, regionally, which posts offer the best environment for treating PTSD troops and put them there. Here's a hint--Fort Riley and Fort Hood probably aren't good candidates for this type of unit, either. They can be moved to facilities at Gordon, receive treatment at Eisenhower Medical Center, and there is virtually no way to "hear" the rifle ranges while on the main post at Fort Gordon--they are located miles away.

The Army is not at fault for this--Fort Benning is the home of Infantry training. This is an unfortunate co-mingling of two things. While Fort Gordon is also a TRADOC post in some respects, it is also home to several other units. As stated, the firing ranges at Gordon are NOT co-located where the troops would be housed and cared for. The Army is only at fault if it does nothing.

Contact the House Armed Services Committee and the Senate Armed Services Committee if you want to advocate on behalf of this issue.

--WS

War Between Georgia and Russia?

[link is now fixed--thanks to jerry]

If we had a functioning State Department, I'm not sure what they could do. Perhaps if we had someone in place who made her reputation as an expert on all things Soviet and/or Russian who could navigate the issues and approach the concerned parties as a real mediator...oh, but what am I saying? There's no way we'd ever find someone qualified, right?

Georgia is "very close" to a war with Russia, a Georgian minister said on Tuesday, citing Moscow's decision to send extra troops to the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia.

"We literally have to avert war," Georgian State Minister for Issues of Reintegration Temur Iakobashvili told a news briefing during a trip to Brussels.

Asked how close to such a war the situation was, he replied: "Very close, because we know Russians very well.

"We know what the signals are when you see propaganda waged against Georgia. We see Russian troops entering our territories on the basis of false information," he said.

Russia has said the troop build-up is needed to counter what it says are Georgian plans for an attack on breakaway Abkhazia and has accused Tbilisi of trying to suck the West into a war -- both of which are allegations that ex-Soviet Georgia rejects.

An extra Russian contingent began arriving in Abkhazia last week. Moscow has not said how many would be added but said the total would remain within the 3,000 limit allowed under a United Nations-brokered ceasefire agreement signed in 1994. Diplomats expect the reinforcement to be of the order of 1,200.

Georgia, a vital energy transit route in the Caucasus, has angered Russia by seeking membership of NATO.

Certain areas of what used to be the Soviet Union were absorbed into that entity to give the Russians breathing space. After invasion after invasion, the Russians decided that these areas on their borders were best held and kept out of the hands of any possible enemy. They're funny about their history--they don't like to see it repeated.

Georgia doesn't need to be in NATO. It should either find a way to accomodate Russia or find a way to be a neutral trader with as many countries as possible. And, unfortunately, "accomodating" the Russians these days doesn't lead to a whole lot of freedom, but we lost an opportunity to bring Russia into the family of nations because we didn't do enough to help them during their economic transformation. Had we spent the money to do so, these regional tensions might be a thing of the past.

Ukraine to Join NATO?

Talk about a bad idea...

Speaking at a news conference Tuesday with Ukraine's president in the country's capital of Kiev, Mr. Bush said he would work as hard as he can to help Ukraine join the NATO alliance, and he declared that Russia will not have a veto over the matter.

Mr. Bush praised democratic and military reforms undertaken to help support Ukraine's bid for NATO membership. He said that the United States "strongly supports" Ukraine's request to get an outline for what it needs to do to join out of this week's NATO summit.

The President spoke after talks with his counterpart, President Viktor Yushchenko. The Ukrainian leader said he is sure his country will "receive a positive signal" during the summit. At the summit, NATO leaders are expected to formally invite Croatia, Albania and perhaps Macedonia to join, expanding the alliance's imprint in the Balkans. Mr. Bush supports that expansion and also wants Ukraine and Georgia to get on track for membership.

Is it the intention of the United States to further provoke Russia into making a move to secure itself? If the natural boundaries that once protected Russia from invasion are removed--and if the great breadbasket that points at the underbelly of Russia becomes a Western NATO power with treaty obligations and economic interests more dependent on the Germans, the Americans and the British and less so on Russia--then, guess what?

Russia is going to act.

I think it's all academic--everyone knows Bush is on his desperate "legacy" tour of the world and no one's betting on neocons to be calling the shots for much longer. But it's an interesting way of looking at desperation. Putting missiles in Poland and enticing Georgia into NATO is like waking up a bear that was already pissed off and awake in the first place. A bear that is sick of being hungry and cold and wants a little fresh meat, perhaps.

On a side note, I think it's ironic that the military has all but purged Russian and Serbo-Croatian linguists from the ranks. The intelligence community has been so Arabic/Persian language focused while trying to expand the number of Chinese and Urdu linguists that it isn't even funny--if anything were to start with Russia or, more likely, with Serbia, we'd be back to square one again in most cases.

Germany says "Halt!"

Germany has a different perspective that the United States,
being as they are in the neighborhood and all.

Next week, when the NATO summit gets underway in Bucharest (good Gawd, I never thought I would ever say that with a straight face) aWol Bush will swagger in and try to bully our allies into admitting former Soviet bloc nations, regardless of how much unnecessary strain that move would put on relations with Russia.

Fortunately, Germany is standing in the way (that's another thing I never thought I would ever say and mean).

From Spiegel Online:

German objections dominate the debate over NATO expansion in the final days leading up the military alliance's summit meeting in the Romanian capital Bucharest. James Goldgeier, a member of the National Security Council in the administration of former US President Bill Clinton, told SPIEGEL ONLINE: "I am amazed at how openly the current differences between Berlin and Washington are being aired. In February it was the German role in Afghanistan. Now it's about the issue of NATO expansion, in which Germany quite openly orchestrated the resistance to Ukraine and Georgia. This is relatively unusual in advance of this sort of summit."

REUTERS

Romania's Ceausescu-era parliament building in Bucharest will host next week's NATO summit.

Goldgeier's words ring especially true when one considers the importance of the issue for the Bush administration. NATO expansion is one of the few strategies it took over almost seamlessly from the Clinton administration. "Bush absolutely wanted to get the acceptance process for Georgia and Ukraine underway in Bucharest," says Goldgeier.

A clear signal that things will not go quite as smoothly as Bush had hoped was the discussion among foreign policy and security experts at the Brussels Forum, sponsored by the German Marshall Fund, less than two weeks ago. Moderator Ronald Asmus, who, as a senior official in the Clinton administration in the 1990s, played a key role in the initial push to expand NATO eastward, opened the meeting by calling EU and NATO expansion an historic success. Asmus went on to rave about how the map of Europe had been redrawn, and praised the joint tour de force by Europeans and Americans.

But moving on from the "glorious past" and returning t0 a shaky present and looking to a less-than-certain future, the "elephant in the room" is the fact that the bloom is of the NATO and EU membership rose.

Next week at the summit, membership invitations will be extended to Macedonia, Croatia and Albania. The question in the balance is, should overtures be made to Georgia and Ukraine, indicating membership invitations will be extended in the near future?

In addressing the conundrum, Asmus' tone quickly turned from jubilant to sober. Would the United States be able to achieve these goals, he asked the group apprehensively? There are already many critics today, he added, critics like the Germans. "An official from the German foreign ministry told me recently that he couldn't think of one member of the foreign affairs committee of the German Bundestag who supports the initiation of NATO membership negotiations with Ukraine and Georgia," Asmus said.

Many Germans were sitting in the audience -- and agreed with Asmus' characterization. Eckart von Klaeden, foreign policy spokesman of the conservative Christian Democratic and Christian Social Union (CDU/CSU) parliamentary group, was only too willing to list Germany's concerns. In Ukraine, he said, large segments of the population oppose the idea of NATO membership. And Georgia, with its internal conflicts? "We don't want another Cyprus in NATO," said von Klaeden, referring to the Mediterranean country's division into Turkish and Greek regions.

Now far be it from me to appease Russia. But far be it from me to borrow trouble, too. And admitting either or both of those nations to NATO has the potential for alliance-threatening turmoil in the future. One Cyprus is enough.