A deal with.... un-funny people.

[agamemnus]

So. On another thread, someone mentioned the Russia-Georgia war a few years ago. I never did get a clear picture of it so I decided to read the (Wikipedia) article. This bolded part here is what I didn't know, and I'm sure 99.999% of Americans don't know either. Basically, state-sanctioned (by Russia) robbery in the 21st century.

According to Human Rights Watch, during the August war, South Ossetian militias burned and looted most ethnic Georgian villages in South Ossetia, effectively preventing 20,000 residents displaced by the conflict from returning.[253] Furthermore, the civilians willing to live in South Ossetia are obliged to accept a Russian passport in order to be authorised to.[254][255] According to Memorial the villages of Kekhvi, Kurta, Achabeti, Tamarasheni, Eredvi, Vanati and Avnevi have been "virtually fully burnt down".[256] The South Ossetian president Eduard Kokoity stated in an interview that Georgian villages were successfully demolished and none of the Georgian refugees will be allowed to return back.[257]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_So...o_the_conflict

So. So. So. Russia backs this "president". There is no justification for it; none whatsoever. Yet, Putin claims Russia stepped (attacked Georgian troops) in to protect (evacuated South Ossetian) civilians. Yeah, "its" civilians, not Georgian civilians.

I would NOT expect Americans to know about this statement by that "president", but I would expect Russians to know it if they had any sort of free press. I seriously doubt very many do: first, because of the general Russian public's mild hatred of Georgians, and second, the lack of a real press in Russia. But, they should, and it should trouble them:

This sort of unlawful land taking and village burning happened quite often in Russian's history.. both from its modern history (state sanctioned redistribution, even from non-oligarchs but regular people) and from its medieval history. (pogroms, the killing of Jews and destruction of their villages)



So.

How much longer will freely elected democratic countries (like Obama's USA) accept "small" injustices in order to reach a greater goal? (ie: sanctions on North Korea) I thought Obama was all about justice, equality, and making sure the US never harms a dandelion every again? But yet, Russia and the puppet-state thugs it sponsors are allowed to do this? And remember, all this shit happened during George Bush's 2nd term, when he actually had (possibly mulled) the option to bomb the main access point to South Ossetia and potentially kill Russian soldiers.

And now Obama? Yeah.

[Hazir]

Oh God, haven't people like you learned anything from the Carter Presidency?

[agamemnus]

?

[Hazir]

?

A 'nice' foreign policy doesn't work. Interacting in the international arena means getting your hands dirty.

[Loki]

You're not seriously suggesting it would have been a good idea to risk a nuclear war over Georgia, are you?

[agamemnus]

A 'nice' foreign policy doesn't work. Interacting in the international arena means getting your hands dirty.

The US needs to address the issue of Russia supporting an unlawful regime that makes unlawful land grabs instead of focusing on lawful Israeli settlements..

You're not seriously suggesting it would have been a good idea to risk a nuclear war over Georgia, are you?

No, but their stance is to hide in the basement and plug their ears.

[Loki]

And the odds of us being able to get Russia to stop supporting the Ossetians and Abkhazians are?

[agamemnus]

..better if it is publicized. If the US even makes one briefing about this injustice, it's better than the complete silence currently heard.

Would be nice for the US government to foster some more independent news reporting in Russia, too. Give public funds for CNN/Fox/MSNBC to translate their news to Russian. They don't have propaganda news there anymore in Russia-- just no news at all. Unless you count "amazing super strong 11 year olds than can lift cars" news, that is...

[Loki]

By better, do you mean 0%?

There's Radio Free Europe.

[agamemnus]

0%? No, it'd be more...

Radio Free Europe or w/e? Nah, that's stupid. Just translate some of our news (non-gov't commercial... as I said, fox/cnn/msnbc) into Russian.. subsidize it...

[littlelolligagged]

0
Radio Free Europe or w/e? Nah, that's stupid.

Yep. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Just because.

[Loki]

0%? No, it'd be more...

Radio Free Europe or w/e? Nah, that's stupid. Just translate some of our news (non-gov't commercial... as I said, fox/cnn/msnbc) into Russian.. subsidize it...

Can please provide a mechanism through which American publicizing of what's happening in Ossetia will lead to a reversal in Russian policy?

[agamemnus]

Publicizing --- ??? --- most people actually have empathy for innocent people --- ??? -- reversal?

Yep. It's absolutely ridiculous.

Just because.

Judging by the fact that no Russian living in Moscow who I know has ever even thought of reading it, I would say no one reads it or even knows about it. It's not about "dissidents", like the possibly somewhat ridiculous stances that Kasparov (a "dissident") takes... it's about popularity.

[Loki]

Publicizing --- ??? --- most people actually have empathy for innocent people --- ??? -- reversal?

Most people where? In the US? Ok, so you publicize this, and some of the handful of people who give a damn about foreign policy will tell their Congressmen that Russia is wrong to do this. How does this lead to a change in Russian behavior?

[agamemnus]

Most people where? In the US? Ok, so you publicize this, and some of the handful of people who give a damn about foreign policy will tell their Congressmen that Russia is wrong to do this. How does this lead to a change in Russian behavior?

I didn't say it would, I said there's a chance. Keeping quiet on this is morally wrong, when it is so easy just to remind Putin in the next Obama-Putin conversation that "hey, you're supporting some idiot who has illegally taken away the land of 20,000 people.. tell me why you think that's OK?".

[Lewkowski]

You're not seriously suggesting it would have been a good idea to risk a nuclear war over Georgia, are you?

Sure. If you mean by "risk" less then .001% chance. No one is going to start a nuke fight. However if the United States managed to push and achieve getting Georgia added as a member of NATO then its a done deal. Russia doesn't have the balls to do to a NATO state what they did to Georgia.

[Loki]

I didn't say it would, I said there's a chance. Keeping quiet on this is morally wrong, when it is so easy just to remind Putin in the next Obama-Putin conversation that "hey, you're supporting some idiot who has illegally taken away the land of 20,000 people.. tell me why you think that's OK?".

You've yet to show how this chance would materialize.

Sure. If you mean by "risk" less then .001% chance. No one is going to start a nuke fight. However if the United States managed to push and achieve getting Georgia added as a member of NATO then its a done deal. Russia doesn't have the balls to do to a NATO state what they did to Georgia.

He said we should have bombed Russian troops. I think the risk of war would have been higher than .001% in those circumstances.

[agamemnus]

You've yet to show how this chance would materialize.

Because you can't sweep under the rug when a world leader is telling you of clear human rights abuses (illegal land takings) and pretend you didn't hear it unless you are a psychopath!

He said we should have bombed Russian troops. I think the risk of war would have been higher than .001% in those circumstances.

I didn't say that!

[Lewkowski]

You know conventional wars can happen....

Countries have gone to war against nuclear countries and not hat nuclear attacks take place. (See Iraq/Afghanistan, the United States could have nuked em but we did not).

Russian leaders aren't suicidal, again no one is going to push the red button to blow up mankind.

[agamemnus]

You know conventional wars can happen....

Countries have gone to war against nuclear countries and not hat nuclear attacks take place. (See Iraq/Afghanistan, the United States could have nuked em but we did not).

Russian leaders aren't suicidal, again no one is going to push the red button to blow up mankind.

It's not even a question of what happened in the war. That was done, finished. Russia even suffered twice as much financial damage as Georgia in terms of war costs. It's more a question of what happened after, especially with regards to the "ethnic" Georgians living in South Ossetia.

[Loki]

Because you can't sweep under the rug when a world leader is telling you of clear human rights abuses (illegal land takings) and pretend you didn't hear it unless you are a psychopath!

Are you serious?

[agamemnus]

.... yes. I wouldn't be too surprised if Putin doesn't know about the full details of what's going on there himself.

[CitizenCain]

(state sanctioned redistribution, even from non-oligarchs but regular people)

Yeah, America's really gone down hill lately, hasn't it?

Pro tip: you can't play the "wealth redistribution is bad" card when you live in a socialist nation. God bless America, where the average tax rate s only ~40%, and you'll get thrown in jail if you don't buy products from the president's lobbyists.

And FWIW, "South Ossetia" is little more than a thinly veiled puppet state under the control of the Russian military anyway - so there's really no such thing as a South Ossetian "civilian," in the strictest sense. They all got displaced by the Russian military and ex-military elements when the rest of the world wasn't paying attention.

[Loki]

.... yes. I wouldn't be too surprised if Putin doesn't know about the full details of what's going on there himself.

I can assure you that he does, as does any Russian mildly interested in foreign events.

[agamemnus]

I can assure you that he does, as does any Russian mildly interested in foreign events.

Then that's bad. Can't really trust someone like that...