U.S. tells Russia to pull forces out of Georgia

[bronxiteforever]

Source: reuters

By Susan Cornwell and Sue Pleming

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - The United States told Russia on Friday to withdraw its forces from U.S. ally Georgia and stop its air attacks on the tiny Caucasus state following fighting in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

"We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia's territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil," U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.

Rice issued her statement as Georgia, a former Soviet state that now wants to join NATO, said it would declare martial law as it battled to get control of the rebel enclave, which was backed by Russian forces.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/politicsNews/idUSN0850115420080808

[seemslikeadream]

1. Nobody could imagine a country invading another sovereign country

[bronxiteforever]

2. Winner!

[realisticphish]

3. if one side or the other doesn't back down

and NATO gets involved, this will be even scarier than it already is

[nebenaube]

4. It's a...

It's a done deal... Putin has been getting pissed and spouting rhetoric about a small group wanting control of the world for more than a few years now... He's not on board with the new world order. As far as Russia is concerned; The NWO is not going to happen.

[realisticphish]

5. unless they're in charge

that would be just fine with them, I'm sure.

[tama]

9. NATO

drinks and farts Russian oil and nat gas. NATO will not even whine seriously.

Imagine what would happen to Western economies, if Russia shut down the pipes to Europe...

[psychopomp]

25. NATO will not get involved

France and Germany were against the US initiative for expanding NATO to include Georgia and the Ukraine. Furthermore, the issue of just cause in this case is difficult to make for either side.

Committing NATO to a war against Russia would be a disaster.

[cliss]

6. Can Russia tell us to pull our forces

out or Iraq and Afghanistan?

:smoke:

[bahrbearian]

7. And Putin tells chimpy to pull my finger.

[bemildred]

11. Suck on this! nt

[liberal1973]

15. lol..

Yeah he looks like he's hearing wedding bells. Bush has finally found his long lost twin.:crazy:

[pfitz59]

8. As if Connie has a voice on the intl stage!

what a shrill weasely hypocrite!

[daleo]

10. I gather most South Ossetians favor joining Russia

According to referenda held there. There's no easy right and wrong here.

[FreakinDJ]

12. No Country listens to the USA anymore

We have lost ALL credibility thanks to Bush

[Willo]

13. The timing of this bothers me. Coincidence?

Georgia needs to remove troops from Iraq in order to fight Russia. Will that be the excuse Bush tries to use to stay in Iraq and ignore the growing demands to get out? Or will it be all the more reason for U.S troops to leave also?


Sadr to disarm if U.S. withdraws on timetable

A ceasefire imposed by Sadr on his militia a year ago has been a major factor in a drop in violence to four-year lows. Sadr, whose political movement controls 10 percent of seats in parliament, has long demanded U.S. troops leave Iraq.

"We feel there's a serious intention by the American forces for a withdrawal timetable at the very least," Sadr's spokesman Salah al-Ubaidi said before Friday prayers, when the cleric launched a new cultural wing of his movement.

"It should not be considered an end to the Mehdi army, but it's a halfway step to dissolving the Mehdi Army. If the U.S. began to implement a withdrawal timetable we shall complete the path to dissolution," Ubaidi said.

Mehdi Army street commanders in the Sadr City district of Baghdad welcomed the formation of the cultural arm.

"It is a good step to repair our mistakes, especially sectarianism and sectarian killings. We are very sorry about these sectarian killings, because some parties supported this violence for their own advantage," said commander Abu Sadeq.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080808/ts_nm/iraq_dc;_ylt=AiLRWfJqwUSPa0AFQtOxhM6s0NUE

[Wizard777]

14. Sovereignty just isn't what it used to be.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

16. Speaking from our position up here on the moral high ground...

:shrug:

[sourmilk]

17. OMG, I think I just peed myself!

"We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia's territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil,"

--U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice

[raystorm7]

18. The hypocrisy hurts my brain =/, its ok if we do it but no one else can huh? . . . .

Thanks for setting a good example Bush & Co.

[balantz]

19. WWIII? n/t

[fedsron2us]

20. Is hypocrisy an event in this years Olympics

If so there is going to be a lot of competition for that gold medal.

[Endangered Specie]

21. I wonder how many Freepers will think they are talking about the STATE

(Georgia)

[Mudoria]

31. Probably about the same ratio

as DU'ers who thought the same.

[whistle]

22. Bush and Condi take the high moral ground, DOW Jones index jumps on the news

...11,734.32 +302.89 / +2.65% Aug 8 4:04pm ET † and the U.S. military industrial neocon complex sees trillions in war profits in their visions. What total hypocrisy

[woundedkarma]

23. Most of you are in the dark as I was until just a few minutes ago

I read an ap article about the current fighting in Georgia. There's a big oil pipeline pumping 1 percent of the daily oil in the *world* and it seems the U.S. owns it.

Looking at the article supposedly kurdish seperatists hit the pipeline in the last week...

I wonder if those seperatists which I would bet were planted by Russia were traced to South Ossetia, which would be the reasoning for Georgia to attack Ossetia.

However, this is the stupidest thing Georgia could do. Do they really have people that dumb in their government?

Why dumb? You're a small country with powerful sorta-kinda allies. You attack a small worthless piece of land which Russia, a giant, claims as it's territory? Of course Russia is going to jump in and respond. Anyone who is a politician or leader of an army etc should have seen that coming or else they should immediately resign.

Now, Georgia is under attack and since we have big oil moving through Georgia, we're going to have to respond. What I really want to know is who in Georgia made the decision to attack and on what grounds did they base that decision because that could very well be the decision that brings on WWIII.

Russia hitting Georgia, USA rushes to defend Georgia and everything goes kaboom!

It might be the conspiracy theorist in me... but I think Russia is behind it. What they hope to gain though... I don't know.

It will probably end with a splutter and be forgotten in a week or two, however I think that with some really bad screwups (george bush to the rescue) it could be a really bad thing.

[AlphaCentauri]

24. Welcome to world of monochromacy

hard to distinguish who is provoking the conflict and who is invading nations for oil

[Hannah Bell]

26. I'm interested in knowing what Georgia's military looks like;

& if it's not much of a match for Russia's, why would they undertake an aggressive action unless they had some kind of covert backing from another major power?

"The immediate focus of the fighting is the attempt by Georgia to militarily seize control of the enclave of South Ossetia, which has existed as a de facto independent entity for the past 16 years, and Russia’s armed intervention to counter this assault."

It seems odd to me, & too close to Iran.

Bush needs to go.

[New Dawn]

27. Saakashvili is a dictator who was installed in power via a 2003 coup

It was deceptively referred to as the "Rose Revolution" in the West. Saakashvili is no different than any of the "banana republic" right-wing dictators that Washington used to install in power in Latin America.

[Odin2005]

34. Where did you get that BS from? Pravda?

:eyes:

Sure, there have been some political issues in Georgia, but calling Saakashvili a dictator sounds like something right out of Russian propaganda.

[Hannah Bell]

36. i was thinking they were one of the color revoltions. reading up

on the us/georgia relationship, i think there's backstory here.

georgia invading russian territory looks suicidal otherwise.

[Angleae]

28. Russia vs Georgia strengths

Population
Georgia: 4.6 million
Russia: 140 million
Army
Georgia: 18,000
Russia: 400,000
Tanks
Georgia: 128
Russia: 23,000
Fighter jets
Georgia: 9
Russia: 1,736

Just a bit of a mismatch here.

[Hannah Bell]

35. thanks, that's helpful.

[Posteritatis]

40. I somehow doubt Russia's committing their entire army, though

Remember they were defeated in the first round in Chechnya. Numbers alone don't tell anything close to the whole story in situations like these. This could end tomorrow or it could drag on for weeks.

[Angleae]

44. Unless this turns into guerilla warfare, it won't last long.

The georgian military is a conventional military, not a guerilla force. The most telling discrepancy is in air power. Georgia doesn't have many fighter planes and what info I could discover might not have any true fighter planes, all I could find was that they had some SU-25 attack planes and a possible maybe of having 1 or 2 Mig-25 interceptors. Without airpower they are helpless against the russians.

[Dead_Parrot]

29. A gamble gone wrong, I think

I rather suspect Saakashvili & Iakobashvili thought that Russia wouldn't react militarily: And, if they did, it would be too late - the only good route from N. Ossetia to S. Ossetia runs through the Roki tunnel, and if Georgia seized that it would be difficult for Russia to put forces into S. Ossetia no matter what numerical advantage they have (Georgia's and Russia's military are probably about equal in terms of training and equipment, but with a 10:1 size difference in Russia's favour): I think timing the initial assault while Putin was in Beijing was a key part of it.

Either way, it would just turn into a shouting match at the UN, with Russia on one side and the US and Georgia on the other: The sort of think that boils away until everyone else forgets about it .

Unfortunately, the Russians did react, and before Georgian forces could secure Roki: It's probably a safe bet the Russians have had troops and plans sitting around for years waiting for this to happen.

[frankieT]

32. Exactly ! it's a gamble gone wrong

When you look at the timeline of the events, it's quite obvious that Georgia conducted a surprise attack on South Ossetia. It was a heavy operation in order to secure their military control and called very soon for unilateral cease fire to trap Russia in a situation of "fait accompli". But Russia reacted and heavily, they can't afford to lose face in their sphere of influence to a neocon political adventurer like Saakashvili. He seems to be quite of unstable emotional and gambling nature.

[tama]

30. In other news

Condi says that US cannot tell Israel not to attack Iran, because Israel is a sovereign country. (As US could not tell Saakashvili not to attack SO because Georgia is a sovereign country?)

I have to admire the logical consistency of Rice, the kremnologist who thus makes it known that he does not consider Russia a sovereign country... or "equally sovereign" to Israel and Georgia.

[timtom]

33. The chutzpah is unbelievable!

I've never heard of anything like this outside of movies or sitcoms...

<edited to correctly spell "chutzpah" -- a typo, I'm sure.>

[SOS]

37. The Russians couldn't care less about Condi.

In February 2003, Putin said that using force against Iraq was unjustified.
The US ignored him.
It is now Condi's turn to be ignored.

[daleo]

38. There was much speculation about a big war before the U.S. election

We assumed it would be Iran though. People thought that might even be a pretext to cancel the 2008 election.

One has to wonder how much U.S. go-ahead the Georgian president got before initiating this action. Could the neo-cons be setting up an Asian war, to ensure that they don't lose power?

[bemildred]

39. "One has to wonder how much U.S. go-ahead the Georgian president got before initiating this action."

That is the question. My first feeling is: not much, but thinking back to the Second Lebanon War, I'm not so sure. However, it's clear the Russians were ready; and I don't see that the Mighty Wurlitzer had it's marching orders when this started, so maybe not. But then I remember the Second Lebanon War, and I'm not so sure. That's the trouble with having arrogant, ignorant ideologues runnings things, you can't just rely on reason and logic and knowledge to figure them out.

[daleo]

41. I agree with your remarks

As you say, the media doesn't seem to have its marching orders, so maybe this came as a surprise to the Bushites. But it is hard to believe that the Georgian leader would be stupid enough to start a war with Russia if he didn't think the neo-cons had his back.

[bemildred]

42. I've read people who think he is a fit companion for Bush, so maybe he is.

And I don't see how else to read it, he's a lightweight. And yet Russia seems to have been waiting for him, like they knew he was a lightweight and they just had to wait. It's their backyard, they hold all the really good cards. I'm not sure he gives a shit about Georgia anyway, he's basically a Western stooge, and yet it's clear the various ethnic parties in the area are deeply emotionally involved, and he has sincere backers.

[Name removed]

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