War in Georgia

[faceless]

Has anybody seen or got a good explanation of what is going on there?

[luke]

lenins tomb had a good article the other day, theres plenty of articles being posted on medialens about it - next time i see a good one i'll post it up

[faceless]

cool - everywhere I've looked so far hasn't really said anything in detail.

[cobweb]

I don't know about a good explaination of what's going on but this takes the biscuit for most right-wing, neo-con, head up own arse award take on the war.

http://www.stoptheaclu.com/archives/2008/08/12/georgiarussian-war-blame-obama/

Apparently it's all the fault of the guy who isn't even president in another country...hhhmmm! Who'da thunk it?

[faceless]

yes, blame obama - that makes sense as he's clearly a terrorist/devil/black man! haha

[faceless]

This is interesting. I've still not read any info about the conflict that explains it, so I'm guessing that what happened was that Russia moved people into the area while it was part of the USSR and now thinks that because these people have been living there for a while that the land is Russian, and now they are attempting to rid the area of any Georgians who are still there? If I'm right then fuck that.

[luke]

the above article doesn't really fit in at all with what i've been reading on the subject - i'm most confused now

[faceless]

there's a lot of confusion about this situation... But someone somewhere is definitely being a cunt, that much I know is true!

[luke]

[cobweb]

I've heard various reason for this now from Russia flexing it's muscles and trying to take back some land (unlikely given that Georgia is a relatively small country - Kazakhstan would be a better country to grab land from) to the one I favour.

That being Oil.....one of the major pipelines (the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan) in the area runs through Georgia supplying Turkey and then onwards to Europe and the US. It would also mean the Russia and the US ain't that different after all and both like to start wars for the control of energy supplies.

[luke]

we need to remember that it was georgia who started this attack on south ossetia that led to russia's retaliation in order to protect civilians in south ossetia. it seems the mainstream narrative is one of russia flexing its muscles, as you say, but that was only in retaliation to the attack by georgia.

the estimates of 2000 dead apply to those mainly killed in south ossetia, the georgian government are claiming only 129 of that 2000 are their soldiers and civilians - another fact obscured by the mainstream

[Ash]

[luke]

faceless, have you still got your video camera? you should do a spoof of newsnight

[faceless]

haha, that's not a bad idea - in fact I was planning on something like it but the software for the graphics/titles etc that I got only works on 32bit XP.

[major.tom]

The first I saw of this story, Russia was bombing Tiblisi. But the facts and timeline are not easy to come by in the mainstream news. Is Ossetia part of Georgia? Was the Georgian gov't putting down a separatist revolt? Or was Russia actually in the right in defending a region being violently repressed? Based on their performance in Chechnya, I'm disinclined to give them the benefit of the doubt.