WW3 - If Georgia (aggressor) were at NATO accordi...

1st video. If Georgia (aggressor) were at NATO will have WW3 - according U.S. Secretary of Defense Robert Gates.. 2nd video. OSCE official Georgians attacked Ossetia with indiscriminating fire - bombing civilian targets. 08-11-15 BBC points out War Crimes during Georgian aggression. 08-11-28 Even after attack on Georgian ambassador he is not afraid to say - Dictator of Georgia should be Tried..MOV - South Ossetia and WWIII August 15, 2008 The United States needs to keep its nose out of the current conflict between Russia and Georgia By: Matt Fay "If there is ever another war in Europe, it will come out of some damned silly thing in the Balkans" Otto von Bismarck And it was some "damned silly thing in the Balkans" - the assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand - that brought about World War I. Now, with conflict finally breaking out between Russia and Georgia, over *Georgia*'s breakaway province of South Ossetia, it will remain to be seen if World War III begins because of some "damned silly thing in Caucuses." I am sure that there are probably a few people scratching their heads right now, wondering "Where is South *Ossetia*?"; "What are the Caucuses?"; and "Isn't Georgia right next to Florida?" So, very quickly: 1). Georgia was a part of the former Soviet Union. It was the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. It is now an independent, and supposedly democratic, nationled by a tough President named Mikhail Saakashvili. President Bush, supported by both presidential candidates, has pushed for *Georgia*'s membership into NATO - meaning that when Georgia goes to war, the United States goes to war. 2). South Ossetia is a province, along with Ahbakzia, that declared its independence from Georgia in the early 1990s. While neither province has been recognized by the international community, both have received support from Russia - including Russian troops as "peacekeepers" in South Ossetia. Saakashvili has vowed to bring the wayward provinces back under Georgian control. 3). The Caucuses are a mountain range in Asia that border the Black Sea and provide a natural barrier between Russia and Georgia. If that isn't enough, I suggest buying an atlas. Russian invasion? The American mainstream media is portraying the current conflict as an act of aggression by Russia. Some have portrayed this, with no supporting evidence, as an attempt by Russia to reestablish the Soviet Empire - CNN's Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer even went so far as to display a map labeled "U.S.S.R." As with most claims made by the media, there is little evidence to back up this assertion. Tensions have been building for years between Russia and Georgia - with the attempts by the U.S. to bring Georgia into NATO only adding fuel to the fire. It is clear now as to who fired the first shot. Saakashvili did admit, in an interview with CNN, that the timing of the conflict did have something to do with the fact that much of the world's attention was diverted by the opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing. " Most decision makers have gone for the holiday," he said "Brilliant moment to attack a small country." America's response The response from the American political establishment was fairly predictable. According to the Associated Press, "Secretary of State Condoleezza Rica called on Russia, Friday, to halt all attacks in South Ossetia, after Georgian troops entered the breakaway province in an attempt to crush separatist forces seeking control." John McCain's campaign released a statement saying "Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory." This is, of course, the same John McCain who has said that he doesn't care if the U.S. violates Iraq's sovereignty up to hundred years. At the same time, Barack Obama's campaign concurred, saying that "*Georgia*'s territorial integrity must respected." The statement from Obama's campaign did not seem hit home, considering that, nearly one year ago, he said that he would be willing to violate Pakistan's territorial integrity if "actionable intelligence" demonstrated an opportunity to strike at Al Qaeda's leadership. None of these statements appears to be the least bit ironic to the political establishment of a nation that has stationed military personnel in over 130 countries, occupies two countries at this very moment - citing said countries "liberation" and "right to self-determination" as justification, and claims the right - articulated in its own National Security Strategy - to invade any country on the planet if it feels that it may someday become a threat to its security. Why should America care? Once anyone, or at least anyone who would actually take the time to figure where the Caucuses are, decided that this is a topic worth looking at; they might also ask why they should care. Unfortunately for Americans, they do need to care greatly about what happens in South Ossetia. In truth, though, there is no legitimate American interest in South Ossetia - let alone Georgia (other than the Georgia that borders Alabama, Florida, and South Carolina). As the Soviet Union disintegrated in the early 1990s, President George H.W. Bush made promises that said NATO - an alliance that was formed strictly to protect Western Europe from the possibility of a Soviet invasion - would not be expanded eastward. During the last seventeen years, during the administrations of both Bill Clinton and George W. Bush, NATO has been continuously expanded - moving itself directly against Russia's eastern border. Outside of poking a stick in the "Russian Bear's" eye, there is really little reason for the U.S. to be involved in such a dispute. Of course, this has never stopped the American political establishment from involving itself in issues such as this before. Should the United States, or any other world power, being willing to risk World War III over a dispute between Russia and Georgia over South *Ossetia*? We should all hope not. BRUSSELS, September 25 - Belgium should veto Georgia's bid to join NATO after its attack on breakaway South Ossetia last month, senior Belgian lawmakers said on Thursday. Speaking at a news conference following a fact-finding trip to South Ossetia, Josi Dubie said: "We must by all means prevent Georgia from becoming a NATO member due to its belligerent and aggressive policy. We do not want to be part of that policy." Fellow senator, Christine Defraigne, who also visited the region, said admitting Georgia to the military alliance would be "reckless and insane." At its summit in Bucharest in April, NATO decided to put off the decision on whether to grant membership action plans to Georgia and another ex-Soviet republic, Ukraine, until December. Their bids have received strong U.S. backing, but Germany and France said that opening the path to membership for the two states would unnecessarily antagonize Russia. Any decision to admit new members to the military alliance requires the unanimous approval of all NATO members. Dubie, deputy head of the Senate's commission on foreign affairs and defense, said the recent five-day war between Russian and Georgia was, without question, started by Georgia. "As to who was the aggressor, we can say without hesitation that it was Georgia," Dubie said, adding that "disinformation on the issue is unacceptable." Russia launched a military operation to "force Georgia to peace" after Georgian troops attacked Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, on August 8. The majority of Western states criticized Russia's use of force against Georgia and condemned its subsequent move to recognize South Ossetia and Georgia's other breakaway territory, Abkhazia. Tbilisi has claimed Russia was the first to attack, although it has supplied no proof to back up its claims. A number of Western media outlets also provided what Russian commentators have called "biased" reports of the conflict. Russia Prime Minister Vladimir Putin criticized the U.S. stance on the conflict, saying, "The very scale of this cynicism is astonishing - the attempt to turn white into black, black into white and to adeptly portray victims of aggression as aggressors and place the responsibility for the consequences of the aggression on the victims." The Belgian lawmakers said after visiting Tskhinvali that the death toll of 1,500 residents announced by South Ossetian authorities seemed to be a realistic estimate. "The city resembles Beirut. This is unthinkable!" Defraigne said, adding that Russia's counterattack was understandable. South Ossetia and Abkhazia both broke away from Georgia after the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Both republics fought vicious wars with Tbilisi that eventually ended in the retreat of Georgian troops and the regions gaining de facto independence. Weekend Edition August 16 / 17, 2008 * The Humiliation of Georgia (and Bush) * Revisiting the "Battle of Tskhinvali"By MIKE WHITNEY There are no military installations in the city of Tskhinvali. In fact, there are no military targets at all. It is an industrial center consisting of lumber mills, manufacturing plants and residential areas. It is also the home to 30,000 South Ossetians. When Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili ordered the city to be bombed by warplanes and shelled by heavy artillery last Thursday, he knew that he would be killing hundreds of civilians in their homes and neighborhoods. But he ordered the bombing anyway. There was no "Battle of Tskhinvali"; that's another fiction. A battle implies that there is an opposing force that is resisting or fighting back. That's not the case here. The Georgian army entered the city unopposed; after all, how can unarmed civilians stop armed units. Most of the townspeople had already fled across the border into Russia or hid in their basements while the tanks and armored vehicles rumbled bye firing at anything that moved. What took place in South Ossetia on August 7, was not an invasion or a siege; it was a massacre. The people had no way to defend themselves against a fully-equiped modern army. It was a war crime. In less than 24 hours, the Russian army was deployed to the war zone where it chased the Georgian army away without a fight. Michael Binyon put it this way in the London Guardian: "The attack was short, sharp and deadly---enough to send the Georgians fleeing in humiliating panic." Indeed, the Georgians left in such haste that many of their weapons were left behind. It was a complete rout; another black-eye for the US and Israeli advisers who trained the clatter of thugs they call the Georgian army. Soon vendors on the streets of Tskhinvali will be hawking weapons that were left behind with a mocking sign: "Georgia Army M-16; Never used, dropped once." By the time the army was driven out, the downtown area was in engulfed in flames and the bodies of those who had been killed by sniper-fire were strewn along the streets and sidewalks. Many of people who stayed behind were simply too old or infirm to leave. Instead, they huddled in their basements waiting for the shelling to stop. It was a bloodbath. The city's only hospital was deliberately targeted and destroyed; another war crime. By day's end, hundreds were killed in an operation that was clearly engineered with the assistance of the Bush White House. Bush regards Saakashvilli as his main client in the region; they are friends. He is America's cat's paw in the Caucasus. Saakashvilli's assignment is to try to get Putin to overreact militarily and demonstrate to European allies that Russia still poses a threat to their national security. Fortunately, many Europeans see through the ruse and know that the trouble originates in Washington. For the most part, Americans are still in the dark about what really happened last weekend. There's a great video circulating on the Internet by a Russian citizen that has been living in USA for the last 10 years. He sums up the role of the US media with great precision. He says, "The western media--especially CNN--is feeding you complete horseshit. Russia did not invade Georgia first." The youtube can be seen here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0c26Q-qxDEA The coverage of the western media has been abysmal. Nearly every article and TV news segment begins with accusations of Russian aggression concealing the fact that the Georgian Army bombarded and invaded the capital of South Ossetia one full day before the first Russian even tank crossed the border. By the time the Russians arrived, the city was already in a shambles and thousands were dead. These facts are not in dispute by those who followed the developments as they took place. Now the media are revising the facts to manage public perceptions, just as they did with the fictional WMD in Iraq. Many people think that the press learned its lesson after they were exposed for using bogus information in the lead up to the war in Iraq. But that is not true. The corporate media--especially FOX News, CNN and PBS (the smug, liberal-sounding channel)---continue to operate like the propaganda arm of the Pentagon. Its disgraceful. In a 2006 referendum, 99% of South Ossetians said they supported independence from Georgia. The voter turnout was 95% and the balloting was monitored by 34 international observers from the west. No one has challenged the results. The province has been under the protection of Russian and Georgian peacekeepers since 1992 and has been a de facto independent state ever since. If Putin applied the same standard as Bush did in Kosovo, he would unilaterally declare South Ossetia independent from Georgia and then thumb his nose at the UN. (Sauce for the goose, is sauce for the gander) But Putin and newly-elected Russian President Dmitry Medvedev have taken a conciliatory attitude towards the international community and tried to resolve the issue through diplomatic channels. Still, Russia's operation in South Ossetia has ignited a firestorm in the US political establishment and Democrats and Republicans alike are demanding that Russia be "taught a lesson". Condoleeza Rice flew to Tbilisi on Friday and ordered Russian combat troops to withdraw from Georgia immediately. Saakashvili topped off Rice's comments by saying that the Russian troops were "cold-blooded killers" and "barbarians". So much for reconciliation. Saakashvili's hyperbolic rhetoric was followed by a surprise announcement from Poland that they had approved Bush's plans for deploying the Missile Defense Shield in Eastern Europe. The system is supposed to defend Europe from the possibility of attacks from so-called "rogue states" like Iran, but the Kremlin knows that it is intended to neutralize their nuclear arsenal. The new "shield" will be integrated into the larger US nuclear weapons system placing the world's most lethal weapons just a few hundred miles from Russia's capital. It is a clear threat to Russia's national security and no different than nuclear weapons in Cuba. President Medvedev made this statement after hearing of Poland's decision: "This decision clearly demonstrates everything we have said recently. The deployment of new anti-missile forces in Europe is aimed at the Russian Federation." It was President Ronald Reagan, the darling of the neoconservatives, who decided to remove short-range nuclear weapons from the European theater. Now, ironically, it is his ideological heir, George W. Bush, who is on track to restart the Cold War by putting a high-tech nuclear system on Russia's perimeter. The younger Bush has already broken his father's commitment to Mikail Gorbachev to never expand NATO beyond Germany. Presently, Bush is pushing to gain NATO membership for two former-Soviet states; Ukraine and Georgia. I* f they are approved, then any future dispute with Russia will pit the United States and Europe against Moscow. *It's no wonder Putin is trying to derail the process. The Bush administration has been planning for a confrontation with Russia for more than a year. In fact, Raw Story reported on operations that were conducted by the military on July 14, 2008 which were probably a dress rehearsal for the current conflict. According to Raw Story: "US troops on Monday (July 14) began military exercises near the Russian border in ex-Soviet Ukraine and were poised to launch them in Georgia, amid tense relations between Moscow and Washington. A ceremony inaugurating the Sea Breeze-2008 NATO exercise was held off Ukraine's Black Sea coast against anti-NATO protests and a hostile reaction from officials in Russia. Sea Breeze-2008...includes forces from Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belgium, Britain, Canada, Denmark, France, Georgia, Germany, Greece, Latvia, Macedonia and Turkey...'The US-Georgia joint exercises will be held at the Vaziani military base' less than 100 kilometers (60 miles) from the Russian border with a total of 1,650 servicemen taking part." So, it appears the Bush administration, working in conjunction with the Pentagon, did have contingency plans for dealing with a flare-up with Georgia. The real question is whether or not they planned to initiate those hostilities to advance their own regional agenda? No one knows for sure. Now that Georgia's American-trained army has been humiliated in front of the world, Bush is trying desperately to save face by demanding that Russia allow the US Air force to deliver "humanitarian aid" via C-17 military aircraft. Did US officials know about Georgia's plans to attack its breakaway region? The issue deserves a special hearing in the US Congress, according to American political commentator Pat Buchanan. August 15, 2008 Blowback from Bear Baiting By Patrick Buchanan Mikheil Saakashvili's decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia's invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser's decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships. Nasser's blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili's blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili's army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours. Russia took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin. Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America's lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli. American charges of Russian aggression ring hollow. Georgia started this fight -- Russia finished it. People who start wars don't get to decide how and when they end. Russia's response was "disproportionate" wailed Bush. Maybe. But did we not authorize Israel to bomb Lebanon for 35 days in response to a border skirmish where several Israel soldiers were killed and two captured? Was that not many times more "disproportionate"? Russia has invaded a sovereign country, railed Bush. But did not the United States bomb Serbia for 78 days and invade to force it to surrender a province, Kosovo, to which Serbia had a far greater historic claim than Georgia had to Abkhazia or South Ossetia, both of which prefer Moscow to Tbilisi? Is not Western hypocrisy astonishing? When the Soviet Union broke into 15 nations, we celebrated. When Slovenia, Croatia, Macedonia, Bosnia, Montenegro and Kosovo broke from Serbia, we rejoiced. Why, then, the indignation when two provinces, whose peoples are ethnically separate from Georgians and who fought for their independence, should succeed in breaking away? Are secessions and the dissolution of nations laudable only when they advance the agenda of the neocons, many of who viscerally detest Russia? When Moscow pulled the Red Army out of Europe, closed its bases in Cuba, dissolved the evil empire, let the Soviet Union break up into 15 states, and sought friendship and alliance with the United States, what did we do? American carpetbaggers colluded with Muscovite Scalawags to loot the Russian nation. Breaking a pledge to Mikhail Gorbachev, we moved our military alliance into Eastern Europe, then onto Russia's doorstep. Six Warsaw Pact nations and three former republics of the Soviet Union are now NATO members. Bush, Cheney and McCain have pushed to bring Ukraine and Georgia into NATO. This would require the United States to go to war with Russia over Stalin's birthplace and who has sovereignty over the Crimean Peninsula and Sebastopol, traditional home of Russia's Black Sea fleet. When did these become U.S. vital interests, justifying war with Russia? The United States unilaterally abrogated the Anti-Ballistic Missile treaty because our technology was superior, then planned to site anti-missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic to defend against Iranian missiles, though Iran has no ICBMs and no atomic bombs. A Russian counter-offer to have us together put an anti-missile system in Azerbaijan was rejected out of hand. We built a Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline from Azerbaijan through Georgia to Turkey to cut Russia out. Then we helped dump over regimes friendly to Moscow with democratic "revolutions" in Ukraine and Georgia, and tried to repeat it in Belarus. Americans have many fine qualities. A capacity to see ourselves as others see us is not high among them. Imagine a world that never knew Ronald Reagan, where Europe had opted out of the Cold War after Moscow installed those SS-20 missiles east of the Elbe. And Europe had abandoned NATO, told us to go home and become subservient to Moscow. How would we have reacted if Moscow had brought Western Europe into the Warsaw Pact, established bases in Mexico and Panama, put missile defense radars and rockets in Cuba, and joined with China to build pipelines to transfer Mexican and Venezuelan oil to Pacific ports for shipment to Asia? And cut us out? If there were Russian and Chinese advisers training Latin American armies, the way we are in the former Soviet republics, how would we react? Would we look with bemusement on such Russian behavior? For a decade, some of us have warned about the folly of getting into Russia's space and getting into Russia's face. The chickens of democratic imperialism have now come home to roost -- in Tbilisi. History of the conflict In 1774 Ossetia became a part of the Russian Empire. At that time, it hadn't been divided into South and North Ossetia yet. In 1801 Georgia also joined the Russian Empire. After the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1917, Georgia became independent from Russia. As a result of the Ossetian nation's genocide (in which, according to different estimates, between 10 and 20 thousand people perished) Georgia annexed the South Ossetian territory. North Ossetia remained part of Russia. From that moment, the Ossetian nation started its fight for independence. In 1990 the Council of the People's Deputies of the South Ossetian Autonomous Region proclaimed the South Ossetian Soviet Democratic Republic. The Declaration of the National Sovereignty was adopted. That is how a new spiral of the Georgian-Ossetian conflict began. Between 1990 and 1992, thousands of peaceful Ossetians were killed. Refugees started fleeing to Russia. In 1992, 98% of South Ossetia's population voted for independence of their republic and for reuniting with Russia. After that, Georgian artillery and combat vehicles shelled the city of Tskhinval. The armed action ceased when the Dagomys Agreements were signed between Russia and Georgia. The Agreements implied a ceasefire and the formation of a Joined Control Commission for settling the conflict. The Commission included both Georgian and South Ossetian parties and Russia. On July 14, 1992 three battalions (Russian, Georgian and South Ossetian) of the peacekeeping forces entered the conflict zone. In 2002, the South Ossetian Parliament adopted a resolution requesting the Russian authorities to include South Ossetia as part of Russia. On August 8, 2008 President Saakashvili's regime started shelling the sleeping town of Tskhinval with weapons of mass destruction. On the night of August 8, Russian troops entered South Ossetia. On August 10, they pushed the Georgian aggressors back to the town of Gori. As a result of this war, 66 Russian peacekeepers and more than 1.600 South Ossetian residents with Russian passports and citizenship were killed. On August 26, 2008 the Russian Federation recognized the independence of South Ossetia. War 08.08.08. The Art of Betrayalâ is one of the first documentary Internet-films. This is the most outspoken film about the war, that started on the day of opening of the Olympic Games in Beijing, the film about the war, in which tens of Russian peacemaker perished as well as hundreds of peaceful Ossetians; it is the film about the war that turned out to be the doping drug for the rating of the republican candidate to the post of the President of the USA John McCain. The editorial staff of Russia.ru kept an eye on the progress of this war from the very beginning of Georgian invasion in Tskhinval. The camera crew of the TV-channel came into the destroyed republic on the 12th of August for the first time. This trip resulted in more than 100 footages about the destroyed capital of the South Ossetia, about the burnt villages, dead civilians, about the families left without their houses, about the people, whose relatives are missing. Russia.ru created a large base of experts, commentators and witnesses of the war crimes of the Georgian army. Finally it was decided to carry out a complete investigation of the events in the Caucasus, and the camera crew of Russia.ru headed by the writer Kirill Benediktov went the the South Ossetia again. The stories, that were told to the journalists by the witnesses of these events and by prosecutor's office of the Republic, clearly showed that the film about genocide of the Ossetians just can not have any other name but The Art of Betrayalâ The attack upon Tskhinval was preceded by a range of treacheries. OSCE and other international observers have just ignored the claim of the Ossetian part about the fact that the Georgian army is preparing the base area for the bombardment of Tskhinval and has already taken a strategically important high ground and for several weeks has been building entrenchments, blindages and fire trenches there. Exactly from these entrenchments fire was delivered to the sleeping city by the Georgian peacemakers wearing the uniform of NATO although they were the people whose duty was to keep peace within this region, but not to bring deaths. The traitors, the fifth column, turned out to be in the South Ossetia as well. And the most straightforward treachery was the speech of Mihail Saakashvili, who 4 hours before the attack upon Tskhinval calmed down the Ossetian people, persuading them that he doesnt want to set the war off. The film War 08.08.08. The Art of Betrayal is made up of 40 hours of the video-footage, brought from the South Ossetia by the camera crew, found on the YouTube Web site and other video- portals, sent by the Internet users, or taken from the video recordings of the cell-phones of the dead Georgian soldiers. For the first time in the history the war has been recorded by the video-cameras of the cell-phones. These recording give the audience the chance to see the attack upon the South Ossetia in the way, the aggressors (who were destroying the houses of the Ossetian people with the cries of joy) saw it. The uniqueness of these recordings is obvious: the journalists just are not able to film the very thick of the war, the faces of the murderers at the moment when the crime is being committed, the most straightforward and scary video of genocide. All this was recorded by the Georgian military men themselves. The mission of this film was to show the truth about this war to the huge amount of viewers, to the millions of people in the whole world. It is the film about those people, who set off this massacre, about the fact who backs Mihail Saakashvili, and who received political dividends from the genocide of the Ossetian people and from the western informational chasing aimed at Russia. In the nearest future the film will be translated into English, Chinese, Spanish, German and other languages and will be available for all the users of the World Wide Web. If someone of our audience wishes to take part in the distribution of this film, if you have the chance to help us, you can put the hyperlink to the film War 08.08.08 in your blog or on your Internet-page. It is so, because today any people, who are not indifferent to the tragedy of the South Ossetia, can become the participants of unmasking the lies of a range of Western mass media and of politicians, with whose connivance and assistance Georgia was able to attack the sleeping Tskhinval to frighten the whole world by the made up Russian threat It is so, because the war in the South Ossetia is not to vanish in history, is not to be forgotten and is not to become one the latest historical myths. It is so, because all the world has to know what happened on the 8th of August, 2008.