Georgian president should be tried for crimes against humanity.

[changed]

Originally Posted by Fiannan

Russians have to be given credit for standing up for their people.

They are not standing up for "their people". They are supporting separatists in order to break the NATO chain that stretches from Poland to Turkey. South Ossetia is not part of Russia, neither is Abkhazia. Handing out passports and telling people they are now Russian citizens does not make them Russians. It makes them pawns in a political game.

[Fiannan]

Originally Posted by changed

They are not standing up for "their people". They are supporting separatists in order to break the NATO chain that stretches from Poland to Turkey. South Ossetia is not part of Russia, neither is Abkhazia. Handing out passports and telling people they are now Russian citizens does not make them Russians. It makes them pawns in a political game.

Strange you should mention Turkey since it's NATO and in the 1990s they used weapons that were supplied by the USA to kill Kurds and drive hundreds of thousands from their homes. That was kinda illegal under US law to sell such weapons but Clinton circumvented those laws.

Way to go NATO!

And if people not wanting to be controlled by Georgia strive for independence (these people live in disputed territory and are not ethnically Georgian) refuse to capitulate then the president of Georgia has the right to massacre them? Medvedev called him a lunitic and he's right.

[changed]

Yes, I agree, it is strange to see Turkey as a NATO member – that country does have a past, but they are trying to change, as is Georgia.

link
GLENN: You were known for cleaning out government corruption. How did you do it, sir?

PRESIDENT SAAKASHVILI: Well, it's certainly a pleasure for me to be on your program Glenn, sir. We were one of the most corrupt countries but no exception in any way in our part of the world and we needed to we were brought to the government not by special interest but by popular revolution. And we really basically had to deal with, you know, to really radical measures. First of all, the first thing we did a few years ago when I became president, we fired the entire police force of the country and that was one of the most corrupt police forces throughout the European continent. We fired more than 40,000 people. We recruited new people within several months. But here what the result is. You know, the previous police force had only 5% of population's trust and confidence according to the Gallup polls. Now we have more than 70. So police moved from being universally hated to being universally loved by the people and having support of the people. And there are other radical reforms which also applied. Cutting red tape, you know, cutting, downsizing the government functions, giving incentives to be honest as well as watching the people very carefully.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
The disputed regions are regions with high crime rates – people smuggling stuff across the border, etc. etc.. that is what Georgia was fighting against. They are trying to turn their country into a law abiding safe Democratic country. I think we should support them in their efforts.

[Fiannan]

Background:

South Ossetia | The Dominion

[Fiannan]

Seems like he's just another stooge for socialist George Soros.

Before setting out on a visit to the United States last week, Saakashvili announced that he had given an order to fire on all ships – including cruise ships – that violate Georgia's territorial waters. "I say this so that tourists who are now coming to Abkhazia will hear it," he told reporters Aug. 3.
Saakashvili's rhetoric echoes the justifications given by Soviet officials in 1983 after a South Korean airliner was shot down for violating the Soviet Union's "sacred, sovereign airspace," as Marshal Nikolai Ogarkov put it at the time. More than 200 civilians were killed. But Georgia today is run by a team of thirty-something post-Soviets educated in the West. Shouldn't it behave in a very different way?
Sadly, Saakashvili's approach to asserting Georgian sovereignty contains more than echoes of Soviet practice. More recent blood-soaked disasters in his country's history seem to set a precedent. On Aug. 14, 1992, the Georgian government's conflict with Abkhazia escalated from words to armed combat when Tbilisi sent its motley army into the coastal region to assert Georgian sovereignty. The orgy of murder, plunder and rape that followed engendered a bitter Abkhazian backlash. One year later, the Georgian army had fled and a third of a million Georgian-speaking civilians followed the defeated rabble out of Abkhazia.
Despite his bloodthirsty rhetoric directed at Georgia's two breakaway regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, Saakashvili enjoys bipartisan support in Washington. Even at the height of a bitter domestic election campaign, the supporters of both U.S. President George W. Bush and challenger John Kerry have nothing but praise for the Columbia Law School alumnus. George Soros may have pledged millions to oust Bush, but he has boasted that his money helped to install Saakashvili in power last November. The Open Society Institute helped train the protesters who toppled Eduard Shevardnadze to the applause of the Bush White House.

US Blinded by Love for Saakashvili - by Mark Almond

[prisonchaplain]

As I've heard reports over the past few days, it does seem that the Georgian president overstepped his bounds. Further, he probably did receive some discreet encouragement from usa. On the other hand, Russia is engaging in some familiar, Soviet-style tactics, and is taking full advantage of the situation.

I find efforts at portraying Russian and the USA as moral equivalents a bit much, however. Perhaps, I'm biased...but lets not forget that Putin is an ex-KGB chief, and still seems to maintain Soviet-era beliefs about Russia's need for a security buffer.

[Vort]

Smart money always bets that the Russians are blackhats.

[Palerider]

Originally Posted by prisonchaplain

As I've heard reports over the past few days, it does seem that the Georgian president overstepped his bounds. Further, he probably did receive some discreet encouragement from usa. On the other hand, Russia is engaging in some familiar, Soviet-style tactics, and is taking full advantage of the situation.

I find efforts at portraying Russian and the USA as moral equivalents a bit much, however. Perhaps, I'm biased...but lets not forget that Putin is an ex-KGB chief, and still seems to maintain Soviet-era beliefs about Russia's need for a security buffer.

I agree PC.....

[Palerider]

and friendly Russia may not stop there......wonder who there going to take out next.....Bloomberg.com: Worldwide

[YoungMormonRoyalist]

So it's alright for Russia to supress its sepratists (The Chechens, among many others), but it's not alright for Georgia to?

I'm not saying it's right either way, but it's blatant hypocrisy on Russia's part if they support one separatist group, and supress their own.