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Russia calls halt to Georgia invasion
Five days of attacks have forced 100,000 to flee armored advance
BY CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA AND MISHA DZHINDZHIKHASHVILI
The Associated Press

    TBILISI, Georgia — Declaring “the aggressor has been punished,” the Kremlin ordered a halt Tuesday to Russia’s devastating assault on Georgia — five days of air and ground attacks that left homes in smoldering ruins and uprooted 100,000 people.
    Georgia said the bombs and shells were still coming hours after the cease-fire was declared, and its President Mikhail Saakashvili said Russia’s aim all along was not to gain control of two disputed provinces but to “destroy” the smaller nation, a former Soviet state and current U.S. ally.
    Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, speaking in Moscow, said Georgia had paid enough for its attack on South Ossetia, a separatist region along the Russian border with close ties to Russia.
    “The aggressor has been punished and suffered very significant losses. Its military has been disorganized,” Medvedev said.
    Still, the president ordered his defense minister at a televised Kremlin meeting: “If there are any emerging hotbeds of resistance or any aggressive actions, you should take steps to destroy them.”
    Hours later, Saakashvili told reporters that he generally accepted the cease-fire plan negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, which calls for both sides to move back to their positions before fighting erupted.
    Saakashvili told reporters that he agreed to the “general principles” of the deal but said he saw no reason to sign it as it was only a “political document.”
    Hundreds, perhaps thousands, were believed to have died since Georgia launched its crackdown on South Ossetia on Thursday, drawing the punishing response from its much larger northern neighbor.
    There was evidence Russian forces were attacking Georgian targets within hours of Medvedev’s televised order, if not after.
    An Associated Press reporter saw 135 Russian military vehicles headed toward the Kodori Gorge in Abkhazia.
    Georgian officials said Russia was attacking their troops in the gorge, but a commander in Abkhazia said only local forces, not Russian ones, were involved in push the Georgians out of the region.
    The commander, Maj. Gen. Anatoly Zaitsev, said the Russian-backed separatist forces in Abkhazia had driven Georgian troops out of the gorge, their last stronghold in the region, after days of air and artillery strikes.
    Hours before Medvedev’s order, Russian jets bombed the crossroads city of Gori, near South Ossetia. The post office and university there were burning, but the city was all but deserted after most remaining residents and Georgian soldiers fled.
    Saakashvili, speaking to thousands at a square in the capital of Tbilisi, red and white Georgian fl ags fluttering in the crowd, said the Russian invasion was not about the two disputed provinces.
    “They just don’t want freedom, and that’s why they want to stamp on Georgia and destroy it,” he declared.
    Russia accused Georgia of killing more than 2,000 people, mostly civilians, in the separatist province of South Ossetia. The claim couldn’t be independently confirmed, but witnesses who fled the area over the weekend said hundreds had died.
    The overall death toll was expected to rise because large areas of Georgia were still too dangerous for journalists to enter and see the true scope of the damage.
    The first relief flight from the U.N. refugee agency arrived in Georgia as the number of people uprooted by the conflict neared 100,000. Thousands streamed into the capital. Those left behind in devastated regions of Georgia cowered in ratinfested cellars or wandered nearly deserted cities.
In Tskhinvali, the South Ossetian provincial capital now under Russian control, the body of a Georgian soldier lay in the street along with debris as separatist fighters launched rockets at a Georgian plane soaring overhead.
    A tour by AP journalists found the heaviest damage around the government center. Near the city center, pieces of tanks lay 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. Several residential areas seemed to have little damage beyond shattered windows.
    A poster hanging nearby showed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the words “Say yes to peace and stability.” Broken glass and other debris littered the ground.
    Besides the dead, tens of thousands of terrified people have fl ed the fighting — South Ossetians north to Russia, and Georgians east toward the capital of Tbilisi and west to the country’s Black Sea coast.
Amid the suggestions the military action was cooling down, the Russia-Georgia dispute reached the international courts, with the Georgian security council saying it had sued for ethnic cleansing.
Earlier the Russians accused the Georgians of genocide.
Russian officers accompanying journalists visiting Tskhinvali argued that the battle damage showed Georgian troops specifically targeted by Georgian troops. But the worst damage was confined to the area around the government center, and several residential areas seemed to have little damage, except for shattered windows, perhaps from bomb concussions.
    The conflict — and its Cold War echoes — continued to play out on the international stage. The leaders of five former Soviet bloc states spoke out against Russian domination at a rally in Tbilisi.
    “Our neighbor thinks it can fi ght us. We are telling it no,” said Polish President Lech Kaczynski, who was joined by the leaders of Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia and Ukraine at the rally. Kaczynski says Russia wanted a return to “old times.”
    The Russian ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin told CNN his country is seeking details on what started the fighting.
    “We do not want to believe that the United States has given a green light to this adventurous act,” he said. “But our American colleagues are telling us that they’re investigating now what may have happened in the channels of communication for Mr. Saakashvili to have behaved in such a reckless manner.”

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US: Russia must keep its word to leave Georgia
By ANNE GEARAN, AP Diplomatic Writer

The United States challenged Russia to keep its word to end a crushing invasion of U.S.-backed Georgia, siding decisively with the former Soviet republic and rejecting Russian justifications.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, headed for emergency meetings on the crisis in Europe and in the Georgian capital, said Russia's now-weeklong military action in Georgia is a throwback to darker Cold War times.

"The message is that Russia has perhaps not accepted that it is time to move on from the Cold War and it is time to move to a new era in which relations between states are on the basis of equality, and sovereignty and economic integration," Rice said Wednesday.

The Bush administration is reeling from the near collapse of its closest friend among the former Soviet republics, a strategic Black Sea nation that is an emerging pathway for undeveloped energy reserves and that has worn its zeal for America and the West as a badge of honor.

As the United States mustered humanitarian aid for Georgia, President Bush demanded that Russia end all military activity inside its neighbor and withdraw all troops sent in recent days onto Georgian territory.

Bush announced that U.S. military assets and personnel would be deploying into the conflict zone. Though they are only going on a humanitarian mission, he made a point of noting that "we will use U.S. aircraft, as well as naval forces" to distribute supplies. He warned Russia not to impede relief efforts in any way.

All this appeared designed to answer criticism that Bush has not done enough to stand by his 2005 pledge, made from the center of Tbilisi before tens of thousands of citizens, to "stand with" the people of Georgia.

Amid some fear that Russian troops may be setting up for some type of medium-term occupation of parts of Georgia or even have intentions to press on to its capital of Tbilisi, Bush promised Wednesday to "rally the free world in the defense of a free Georgia."

The president sent Rice to France for meetings Thursday with French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who has led the European pressure campaign on Russia. Speaking in grave tones in the Rose Garden, Bush decried Moscow's apparent violation of a cease-fire agreement.

He demanded that Russia "keep its word and act to end this crisis."

"The United States stands with the democratically elected government of Georgia and insists that the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Georgia be respected," he said.

The president postponed Thursday's planned start of a two-week Texas vacation for a couple of days to monitor developments.

A Russian military convoy defied a cease-fire agreement Wednesday and rolled through a strategically important city in Georgia, where officials claimed fresh looting and bombing by the Russians and their allies.

The Kremlin announced Thursday that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev was meeting with the leaders of Georgia's two separatist provinces, South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

"One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity because, I believe, it is impossible to persuade South Ossetia and Abkhazia to agree with the logic that they can be forced back into the Georgian state," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said.

Russia and its small neighbor had agreed Tuesday to a French-brokered cease-fire to end the dispute that began over two pro-Russian breakaway territories. The United States accuses Russia of pressing the war far beyond the initial conflict zone and threatening the democratically elected government in Georgia.

"I have to say that the reports are not encouraging about Russia's respect for this cease-fire," Rice said.

U.S. officials have had difficulty determining exactly what's happening on the ground in Georgia, despite considerable intelligence resources. U.S. spy satellites have been repositioned to refocus on the conflict area.

Rice said Moscow is harming its standing in the world and eligibility for global clubs whose eligibility depends on responsible behavior, but she made no explicit threats about U.S. retaliation.

"This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten its neighbors, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it," Rice said. "Things have changed."

___

Associated Press writers Jennifer Loven, Matthew Lee, Lolita C. Baldor and Pauline Jelinek contributed to this report.

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Georgia president signs cease-fire with Russia

By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press

A reluctant Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili said Friday he signed a cease-fire agreement with Russia and declared in the presence of the chief U.S. diplomat that the West had behaved in ways that invited the invasion.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said she had been assured that Russian President Dmitry Medvedev will sign an identical document. The United States says the pact protects the former Soviet republic's interests despite concessions to Moscow.

"With this signature by Georgia, this must take place and take place now," Rice said. She did not say what, if anything, the United States would do if Russia defies the truce.

Near tears at times, Saakashvili said he will "never, ever surrender" in the showdown with much-larger Russia.

"You are dealing with a people who despise anything human," Saakashvili said of invading Russian forces.

Saakashvili said the West sent a disastrous signal to Russia by denying Georgia a door to NATO membership.

Saakashvili, whose leadership is founded on a close alliance with Washington that has always aggravated Moscow, said that Russia had interpreted NATO's snub of Georgia as capitulation. He spoke hours after President Bush accused Russia of "bullying and intimidation" against Georgia. Bush, delivering a formal statement outside the Oval Office at the White House, said the people there chose freedom and "we will not cast them aside."

Saakashvili did not appear enthusiastic about the cease-fire pact, but Rice defended it as a good way to return all forces to their prewar positions. She said that the signed pact obligates Russia to withdraw forces from Georgia immediately.

"Georgia has been attacked," and the world must help ensure that the country's independence and borders remain intact, she said following nearly five hours of meetings with Saakashvili. Their joint news conference was delayed by more than three hours, a sign that the talks were difficult.

"This is not a done deal," Saakashvili said. "We need to do our utmost to deter such behavior in the future."

At one point, the beleaguered Georgian leader said: "Sorry for these emotions. But I feel emotion."

Rice said the time has come "to begin a discussion of the consequences of what Russia has done. This calls into question what role Russia really plans to play in international politics."

Apparently concerned that Saakashvili's lengthy tirade had set the wrong tone, Rice spoke briefly on her own before leaving Georgia.

"It's obviously a very emotional time here in Georgia," she said after visiting wounded people in a hospital.

"It's clearly a very emotional time but I think that it should still be seen that this was a productive day. I hope now that peace can return to Georgia and Georgians can return to a normal life."

Bush, preparing to travel to his Texas ranch earlier Friday, said that while away from Washington, he'll keep in close touch with Rice and Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.

"Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century," Bush said. He reiterated Gates' assertion of Thursday that Moscow's behavior in Georgia has damaged its relationship with Washington and its Western allies.

Rice had said earlier that the immediate goal was to get Russian combat forces out of Georgia and more difficult questions about the status of the country's separatist regions and Russia's presence there could be addressed later.

Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said Friday that 82 tons of humanitarian supplies have been delivered to Georgia so far in four aircraft flights. He said the U.S. military is planning to do another two flights each day through the weekend.

There are still roughly 100 U.S. military personnel in Georgia — ranging from military trainers to security personnel at the embassy. Some of the trainers are scheduled to leave because they are reservists and their tour is over, Whitman said.

"The United States would never ask Georgia to sign onto something where its interests were not protected," she told reporters aboard her plane as she flew to the Georgian capital from France where she met French President Nicolas Sarkozy who brokered the cease-fire.

The cease-fire require Russia to withdraw its combat forces from Georgia but allows Russian peacekeepers to remain in the breakaway region of South Ossetia and conduct limited patrols outside the region.

A draft of the document did not commit Russia to respecting Georgia's "territorial integrity," but rather refers to Georgian "independence" and "sovereignty." That means Moscow does not necessarily accept that Georgia governs South Ossetia and a larger separatist territory, Abkhazia.

Officials say the eventual status of the two areas will be worked out under existing U.N. Security Council resolutions which recognize Georgia's international borders. Those borders now include the two provinces where many Russian citizens and loyalists live.

The U.S. and its allies had been pushing for Russia to agree to restore the situation to the status quo before Georgian troops moved into South Ossetia last week, prompting Russia's severe response and seven days of bloodshed.

Now they have been forced to back down on the key issues of the mandate of Russian peacekeepers in South Ossetia, which did not previously include outside patrols, and the territorial integrity question, which Russia ostensibly accepted before but no longer does.

U.S. officials concede the agreement is not perfect but maintain it will get Russian combat troops out of Georgia, ideally within days.

In addition to the cease-fire document, Rice carried with her a letter signed by Sarkozy that clarifies the special security measures that Russian peacekeepers will be allowed to take on Georgian soil, officials said.

The cease-fire would allow Russian peacekeepers who were in South Ossetia before the fighting broke out to stay and to patrol temporarily in a strip of up to 6.2 miles, or 10 kilometers, outside, officials said.

Officials say the expanded mandate would end as soon as a team of international monitors could be sent to observe, something they believe can be done in weeks.

___

AP Diplomatic Correspondent Anne Gearan contributed to this story from Washington.

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Russia digs in despite truce Cease-fire looks weak in Georgia
BY CHRISTOPHER TORCHIA The Associated Press

    IGOETI, Georgia — Russian forces built ramparts around tanks and posted sentries on a hill in central Georgia on Saturday, digging in despite Western pressure for Moscow to withdraw its forces under a cease-fire deal signed by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev.
    The United States and France said it appeared that Russia was defying the truce already. Russian troops still controlled two Georgian cities and the key east-west highway between them Saturday, cities well outside the breakaway provinces where earlier fighting was focused.
    “From my point of view — and I am in contact with the French — the Russians are perhaps already not honoring their
word,” U.S. Secretary of
State Condoleezza Rice
said.
    Russia’s foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov, said Medvedev had signed the cease-fire deal and ordered its implementation but would not withdraw troops until Moscow is satisfied that security measures allowed under the agreement are effective. He said Russia would strengthen its peacekeeping contingent in South Ossetia, the separatist Georgian region at the center of more than a week of warfare that sharply soured relations between Moscow and the West.
    Asked how much time it would take, he responded: “As much as is needed.”
    President Bush warned Russia Saturday that it cannot lay claim to the two separatist regions in U.S.-backed Georgia even though their sympathies lie with Moscow. “There is no room for debate on this matter,” the president, with Rice, told reporters at his Texas ranch.
    Later Saturday, Georgia’s Foreign Ministry accused Russian army units and separatist fighters in one of the regions, Abkhazia, of taking over 13 villages and the Inguri hydropower plant, shifting the border of the Black Sea province toward the Inguri River.
    Abkhaz officials could not immediately be reached for comment on the late-night claim, and there was no information on whether the seizure involved violence.
    The villages and plant are in a U.N.-established buffer zone on Abkhazia’s edge, and it appeared that the separatists were bolstering their control over the zone after Russian-backed fighters forced Georgians out of their last stronghold in Abkhazia earlier this week.
    The tense peace pact in Georgia, a U.S. ally that has emerged as a proxy for conflict between an emboldened Russia and the West, calls for both Russian and Georgian forces to pull back to positions they held before fighting erupted Aug. 7 in the other breakaway province, South Ossetia in central Georgia.
    But freshly dug positions of Russian armor in the town of Igoeti, about 30 miles west of the capital, Tbilisi, showed that Russia was observing the truce at the pace and scope of its choosing.
    Rice noted that the text of the cease-fire agreement, negotiated by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, the current leader of the European Union, outlined a very limited mandate only for Russian peacekeepers who were in Georgia at the time hostilities escalated. She said the agreement specifies that these initial peacekeepers can have limited patrols in a prescribed area within the conflict zone and would not be allowed to go into Georgian urban areas or tie up a cross-country highway.
    According to Rice, Medvedev told Sarkozy that the minute the Georgian president signed the cease-fire agreement, Russian forces would begin to withdraw.
    Sarkozy said Saturday that the truce explicitly bars Russian troops from Gori or “any major urban area” of Georgia.
    Earlier Saturday, Russian forces dug shallow foxholes in the middle of Igoeti and parked tanks, one fl ying a Russian flag, along the road. In the afternoon, they withdrew from those positions to the town’s western outskirts. There, they set up defensive positions with tank cannons pointed back toward Georgian-held territory, where police and soldiers milled about, awaiting Russia’s next move.
    West of Igoeti, Russian troops were deployed in large numbers in and around the strategic city of Gori, which endured an intense Russian bombardment during the fighting that began when Georgia attacked its breakaway region of South Ossetia. Military vehicles on the side of the road were camouflaged with branches; a couple of soldiers slept on stretchers in the shade of the hulking machines.
    Russian troops effectively control the main artery running through the western half of Georgia because they surround the strategic central city of Gori and the city and air base of Senaki in the west. Both cities sit on the main east-west highway that slices through two Georgian mountain ranges.
    Controlling Senaki, which sits on a key intersection, also means the Russians control access to the Black Sea port city of Poti and the road north to Abkhazia. AP reporters have seen Russian troops there for days but noted a growing contingent Saturday and artillery guns and tanks pointed out from the city, which they appear to be using as a base for their sorties elsewhere in western Georgia.
    An Associated Press Television News team saw Russian soldiers pulling out of the Black Sea port of Poti Saturday after sinking Georgian naval vessels and ransacking the port. A picture of Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili in the looted office of the Navy and Coast Guard had been vandalized, with the face scratched out.
    “They have robbed the military base and taken almost everything, and they have burned or sunk the stuff they could not carry,” port worker Zurab Simonia said.
    Lavrov was not specific about the security measures planned but suggested they would be limited mostly to South Ossetia, not Georgia proper. He accused Georgia of undermining security, citing the Russian military’s claim that it had averted an attack on a highway tunnel by stopping a car laden with grenade launchers and ammunition.
    “We are constantly encountering problems from the Georgian side, and everything will depend on how effectively and quickly these problems are resolved,” he said.
    Georgia, meanwhile, claimed that Russian forces blew up a railroad bridge Saturday. Russia denied it.
    The rival claims underscored the fragility of the cease-fire. Lavrov said the deal Saakashvili signed Friday differed from the one with Medvedev’s signature, with Saakashvili’s version lacking an introductory preamble. While that difference may appear to be a technicality, it could be one either side could cite if it wants to abandon the deal.
    The conflict erupted after Georgia launched a massive barrage to try to take control of South Ossetia. The Russian army quickly overwhelmed its neighbor’s forces and drove deep into Georgia, raising fears that it was planning on a long-term occupation.
    Even if Russian forces do withdraw from the rest of Georgia, Moscow appears likely to maintain strong control over South Ossetia. Lavrov said Thursday that Georgia can “forget about” South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which broke from Georgian government control in early 1990s wars, and their future status is shaping up as a potentially explosive source of tension.
    In Texas, Bush said, “A major issue is Russia’s contention that the regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia may not be a part of Georgia’s future. These regions are a part of Georgia, and the international community has repeatedly made clear that they will remain so.”
    Russia views the growing relationship between the U.S. and Georgia as an encroachment on its traditional sphere of influence and a threat to its clout. The fighting came amid U.S. efforts to close a deal on a missile shield based in former Soviet satellites in Europe, an issue already damaging ties with its former Cold War foe.

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Who Started Cold War II


by Patrick J. Buchanan (more by this author)
Posted 08/19/2008 ET


The American people should be eternally grateful to Old Europe for having spiked the Bush-McCain plan to bring Georgia into NATO.

Had Georgia been in NATO when Mikheil Saakashvili invaded South Ossetia, we would be eyeball to eyeball with Russia, facing war in the Caucasus, where Moscow's superiority is as great as U.S. superiority in the Caribbean during the Cuban missile crisis.

If the Russia-Georgia war proves nothing else, it is the insanity of giving erratic hotheads in volatile nations the power to drag the United States into war.

From Harry Truman to Ronald Reagan, as Defense Secretary Robert Gates said, U.S. presidents have sought to avoid shooting wars with Russia, even when the Bear was at its most beastly.

Truman refused to use force to break Stalin's Berlin blockade. Ike refused to intervene when the Butcher of Budapest drowned the Hungarian Revolution in blood. LBJ sat impotent as Leonid Brezhnev's tanks crushed the Prague Spring. Jimmy Carter's response to Brezhnev's invasion of Afghanistan was to boycott the Moscow Olympics. When Brezhnev ordered his Warsaw satraps to crush Solidarity and shot down a South Korean airliner killing scores of U.S. citizens, including a congressman, Reagan did -- nothing.

These presidents were not cowards. They simply would not go to war when no vital U.S. interest was at risk to justify a war. Yet, had George W. Bush prevailed and were Georgia in NATO, U.S. Marines could be fighting Russian troops over whose flag should fly over a province of 70,000 South Ossetians who prefer Russians to Georgians.

The arrogant folly of the architects of U.S. post-Cold War policy is today on display. By bringing three ex-Soviet republics into NATO, we have moved the U.S. red line for war from the Elbe almost to within artillery range of the old Leningrad.

Should America admit Ukraine into NATO, Yalta, vacation resort of the czars, will be a NATO port and Sevastopol, traditional home of the Russian Black Sea Fleet, will become a naval base for the U.S. Sixth Fleet. This is altogether a bridge too far.

And can we not understand how a Russian patriot like Vladimir Putin would be incensed by this U.S. encirclement after Russia shed its empire and sought our friendship? How would Andy Jackson have reacted to such crowding by the British Empire?

As of 1991, the oil of Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan belonged to Moscow. Can we not understand why Putin would smolder as avaricious Yankees built pipelines to siphon the oil and gas of the Caspian Basin through breakaway Georgia to the West?
For a dozen years, Putin & Co. watched as U.S. agents helped to dump over regimes in Ukraine and Georgia that were friendly to Moscow.

If Cold War II is coming, who started it, if not us?
The swift and decisive action of Putin's army in running the Georgian forces out of South Ossetia in 24 hours after Saakashvili began his barrage and invasion suggests Putin knew exactly what Saakashvili was up to and dropped the hammer on him.

What did we know? Did we know Georgia was about to walk into Putin's trap? Did we not see the Russians lying in wait north of the border? Did we give Saakashvili a green light?

Joe Biden ought to be conducting public hearings on who caused this U.S. humiliation.

The war in Georgia has exposed the dangerous overextension of U.S. power. There is no way America can fight a war with Russia in the Caucasus with our army tied down in Afghanistan and Iraq. Nor should we. Hence, it is demented to be offering, as John McCain and Barack Obama are, NATO membership to Tbilisi.

The United States must decide whether it wants a partner in a flawed Russia or a second Cold War. For if we want another Cold War, we are, by cutting Russia out of the oil of the Caspian and pushing NATO into her face, going about it exactly the right way.
Vladimir Putin is no Stalin. He is a nationalist determined, as ruler of a proud and powerful country, to assert his nation's primacy in its own sphere, just as U.S. presidents from James Monroe to Bush have done on our side of the Atlantic.

A resurgent Russia is no threat to any vital interests of the United States. It is a threat to an American Empire that presumes some God-given right to plant U.S. military power in the backyard or on the front porch of Mother Russia.

Who rules Abkhazia and South Ossetia is none of our business. And after this madcap adventure of Saakashvili, why not let the people of these provinces decide their own future in plebiscites conducted by the United Nations or the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe?

As for Saakashvili, he's probably toast in Tbilisi after this stunt. Let the neocons find him an endowed chair at the American Enterprise Institute.

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The media got it wrong: Russia did not invade Georgia, it’s the other way around
BY EDWIN D. REILLY JR. For the Sunday Gazette

    Being on vacation, I had told my editor that I wouldn’t have a new piece for this Sunday, but something happened that changed my mind. Whether home or away, libraries are my favorite haunt, so, while waiting for a table at the nearby Captain’s Table, Jean and I sat on a bench in front of the Chatham library on Cape Cod.
    Sitting near us a woman on another bench and a young man on the library steps were each typing furiously on their laptops. Could they be within range of Wi-Fi, I wondered? So I asked the young man if he was picking up a signal from the (closed!) library. “Why, yes,” he said, “this is the best time to do so, given that there is no one inside with whom I have to share bandwidth and thus reduce response time.”
    I became conscience-stricken by such rampant assiduousness, and since our rented cottage was a hot spot, I went back to my own laptop after dinner, determined to tell you how the mainstream press has, by and large, gotten the Russian battle with South Ossetia all wrong.
    The impression that most Associated Press stories conveyed, and some even in The New York Times, has been that Russia invaded part of Georgia. But it is closer to the truth that the opposite is true. This finally sank into my cranium when I read a column in, of all places, the Cape Cod Times of Aug. 18, the day of this epiphany. The author, Gwynne Dyer, an international columnist from London, wrote: “Russia didn’t threaten Georgia; it responded to a surprise attack on South Ossetia, a territory where there were Russian [and Georgian] peacekeeping troops by international agreement. It has not occupied Georgia’s capital, nor has it overthrown the government (though the Georgians may do that themselves when they realize what a fool [their President, Mikhail] Saakashvili has been).”
    Yes, the Russians overreacted, drove deep into Georgian territory well beyond South Ossetia, killed many people, and have started to withdraw back into South Ossetia. But that’s as far as they will go. Fully 70 percent of the greatly depleted population of that “province,” or whatever it is, hold Russian citi- zenship and very much want to become, like North Ossetia (to its north, obviously) one of the units of the Russian Federation.
    Now, with our forces so bogged down in Iraq and Afghanistan, there is nothing that the United States can do about this. It is certainly not going to start a third world war, hot or cold, over it. President Bush may or may not realize this, but surely both presidential candidates do. But they have no recourse except to posture, saying of the Russians, in effect, “There they go again.”
    Sen. Obama suggests that the matter be referred to the U.N. Security Council, forgetting (?) that in that venue, Russia has veto power. Even worse, Sen. McCain, whose documented forgetfulness is that Afghanistan lies between Iraq and Pakistan and hence the latter two have no common border, blusters like the Great Oz behind a curtain. And the voters are sure to look behind it.
    As of 20 years ago, South Ossetia had 65,000 native Ossetians, 29,000 people who considered themselves Georgians, and practically no “Russians.” By now, many of each have fled the area, and most of those left consider themselves Russian. Despite this fact, and despite the fact that his army has been obliterated, President Mikhail Saakashvili has vowed that “Georgia will never give up a square kilometer of its territory.” Essentially, it already has.
GEOGRAPHIC LOCALE
    But before we venture further, just what and where is this foreign Georgia and the rebellious South Ossetia contained therein? Wikipedia to the rescue.
    The country of Georgia lies to the south of the Russian Federation (Russia), from which it is separated by a natural boundary formed by the Caucasus mountain range. It is a transcontinental country, partially in Eastern Europe and partially in Southwest Asia. It is bordered to the east by Azerbaijan, to the west by the Black Sea, to the south by Armenia, and to the southwest by Turkey. Georgia’s area, about 27,000 square miles, lies between that of our states of South Carolina and West Virginia, both breakaway federal entities of our own, the latter because it took the Union side in our Civil War. Georgia’s population of 4.6 million is comparable to that of our Alabama and is about half of our own Georgia.
    After the Russian Revolution of 1917, Georgia had a brief period of independence as a Democratic Republic from 1918 until the Red Army’s invasion of 1921. Georgia became part of the USSR in 1922 and did not regain its independence until 1991, when the Soviet Union dissolved. Georgia is currently a representative democracy and is a member of the United Nations, the Council of Europe, and the World Trade Organization. To the consternation of Russia, the country seeks to join NATO and, in the longer term, admission to the European Union.
    The map of the country of Georgia looks much like a crocodile, but its tail to the northwest and its right hind leg are, respectively, the self-proclaimed independent republics of Abkhazia and Adjara, but no other country other than Georgia — certainly not Russia, which has designs on the former — has recognized them. Historically, there have been dust-ups over the status of both, but they were nothing compared to the currently raging battle over the status of South Ossetia.
    South Ossetia is a region in the extreme north of Georgia, just over the border from the Russian federal republic (oblast) of North Ossetia. It declared itself to be the independent “Republic of South Ossetia” early in the 1990s. The capital of South Ossetia is Tskhinvali, even though South Ossetia lies within the Georgian region called Shida Kartli, whose capital is Gori.
NOT RECOGNIZED
    The claimed independence has not been diplomatically recognized by any member of the United Nations, which continues to regard South Ossetia as part of Georgia. Until the armed conflict of this month, Georgia had retained control over parts of the region’s eastern and southern districts where it created, in April 2007, the Provisional Administrative Entity of South Ossetia.
    Barack Obama has promised me (and at least a million others) that he will send us e-mail (or one of those hated text messages) that tell us of his vice presidential choice. You may know who that is by the time you read this. For his sake, I hope it is Sen. Joe Biden, the only politician left in Washington who makes sense when he speaks of foreign affairs. As to domestic affairs, we’ve had our fill of those.

Quoted Text

Barack Obama has promised me (and at least a million others) that he will send us e-mail (or one of those hated text messages) that tell us of his vice presidential choice. You may know who that is by the time you read this. For his sake, I hope it is Sen. Joe Biden, the only politician left in Washington who makes sense when he speaks of foreign affairs. As to domestic affairs, we’ve had our fill of those.

Quoted Text

Russian invasion recalls Hitler and Czechs

    In 1938, the Sudetenland was a part of Czechoslovakia, with a large population of ethnic Germans. The Nazis, together with their Sudeten German allies, charged that these Germans were being “oppressed” by the Czech government and demanded incorporation of the region into Nazi Germany. Using that as an excuse, the Sudetenland was occupied by Hitler between Oct. 1 and Oct. 10, 1938.
    Fast-forward to August 2008: The provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia were a part of Georgia with a large population of people holding Russian passports. The Russian government’s de facto dicta-thug, Vladimir Putin, demands independence for these regions in order to escape Georgian “oppression.” Using that as the excuse to do so, South Ossetia and Abkhazia were occupied by Russia.
    The reality of the situation is that Georgia, a good friend of the West and especially the United States, was about to be offered membership in NATO and Russia did not want this to happen. Also, a major oil pipeline carrying Caspian region natural gas passes through Georgia, and Russia wants to control it.
    The United Nations is incapable of dealing with the situation and stands on the sidelines wringing its hands while portions of a member nation are gobbled up by another member nation. Western Europe is also unwilling to deal with the situation because they are 99 percent dependent on Russian oil and natural gas supplies for their very existence. In 1938 this type of aggression touched off World War II, and perhaps 40 million people died before we had peace in our time. Are we seeing the beginning of World War III, or perhaps Cold War II? I guarantee we will not have “peace in our time.”
    Finally, a reminder: “Those who forget the lessons of history are condemned to repeat them.” — George Santayana
    VICTOR FRAENCKEL
    Schenectady