I'm so sick of rewrites and redits from the AmeriKan MSM!
Every fucking day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
"Russia opens new front, drives deeper into Georgia" by Christopher Torchia and David Nowak, Associated Press Writers | August 11, 2008
Who Started It: The western assault expanded the days-old war beyond the central breakaway region of South Ossetia, where a crackdown by Georgia last week drew a military response from Russia.... When Georgia began its offensive to regain control over South Ossetia, the Russian response was swift and overpowering.
How it is Being Reported:
ZUGDIDI, Georgia --Russian tanks roared deep into Georgia on Monday, launching a new western front in the conflict, and Russian planes staged air raids that sent people screaming and fleeing for cover in some towns.
While most Georgian forces were still busy fighting there, Russian troops opened the western attack by invading from a second separatist province, Abkhazia, that occupies Georgia's coastal northwest arm.
Russian forces moved into Senaki, 20 miles inland from the Black Sea, and seized police stations in Zugdidi, just outside the southern fringe of Abkhazia. Abkhazian allies took control of the nearby village of Kurga, according to witnesses and Georgian officials. Russian airborne troops were not meeting any resistance while taking control of Georgia's Senaki army base.
Fighting also raged Monday around Tskhinvali, the capital of the separatist province of South Ossetia. Even as Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge Monday with European mediators, Russia flexed its military muscle and appeared determined to subdue the small U.S. ally, which has been pressing for NATO membership.
"The bombs that are falling on us, they have an inscription on them: This is for NATO. This is for the U.S.," Saakashvili told CNN.
Autographed by little girls from Israel?
Russia's massive and multi-pronged offensive has drawn wide criticism from the West, but Russia has rejected calls for a cease-fire and said it was acted to protect its citizens. Most residents of the separatist regions have Russian passports.
In Zugdidi, an AP reporter saw five or six Russian soldiers posted outside an Interior Ministry building. Several tanks and other armored vehicles were moving through the town but the streets were nearly deserted. Shops, restaurants and banks were shut down.
In the city of Gori, an AP reporter heard artillery fire and Georgian soldiers warned locals to get out because Russian tanks were approaching. Hundreds of terrified residents fled toward Tbilisi, many trying to flag down passing cars.
Both provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia have run their own affairs without international recognition since fighting to split from Georgia in the early 1990, and both have close ties with Moscow. When Georgia began its offensive to regain control over South Ossetia, the Russian response was swift and overpowering -- thousands of troops and tanks poured in.
Georgia had pledged a cease-fire, but it rang hollow Monday. An AP reporter saw a small group of Georgian fighters open fire on a column of Russian and Ossetian military vehicles outside Tskhinvali, triggering a 30-minute battle.
Another AP reporter was in the village of Tkviavi, 7 1/2 miles south of Tskhinvali inside undisputed Georgian territory, when a bomb from a Russian warplane struck a house. The walls of neighboring buildings fell as screaming residents ran for cover. Eighteen people were wounded.
Hundreds of Georgian troops headed north Monday along the road toward Tskhinvali, pocked with tank regiments creeping up the highway into South Ossetia.
So the GEORGIANS have not PULLED OUT, RETEATED or done ANY OTHER SUCH THING!!!
USrael is supplying them with soldiers and weaponry, and the GEORGIAN ASSAULT CONTINUES!!!
Putin criticized the United States for viewing Georgia as the victim instead of the aggressor, and for airlifting Georgian troops back home from Iraq on Sunday.
"Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages," Putin said in Moscow. "And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds -- these leaders must be taken under protection."
The U.S. military was informing Russia about the flights from Iraq to avoid mishaps. A Defense Department spokesman said the U.S. expected to have all Georgian troops out of Iraq by day's end.
Imagine if a US plane transporting US troops goes down, huh?
Did someone just say ISRAELI FALSE-FLAG?!?!
At least 9,000 Russian troops and 350 armored vehicles were in Abkhazia, according to a Russian military commander.
Also read: The Abkhazian Holocaust
Russia's Deputy Foreign Minister Grigory Karasin said more than 2,000 people have been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports. The figures could not be independently confirmed, but refugees who fled Tskhinvali over the weekend said hundreds had been killed.
Many found shelter in the Russian province of North Ossetia.
"The Georgians burned all of our homes," said one elderly woman, as she sat on a bench under a tree with three other white-haired survivors. "The Georgians say it is their land. Where is our land, then?
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WASHINGTON --President Bush on Monday warned of a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence by Russia in the former Soviet republic of Georgia. He pressed Moscow to accept an immediate cease-fire and to pull back its troops.
Bush put the crisis at the top of his agenda as he returned from the Olympic Games in Beijing, and in a Rose Garden statement he said there appeared to be an attempt by Russia to unseat Georgia's pro-Western president, Mikhail Saakashvili.
He demanded an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of Russian troops from the conflict zone and a return to the status quo as of Aug. 6. Russia has ignored calls for a truce and has responded with overwhelming military force.
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatened a government elected by its people," Bush said. "Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."
The height of hypocrisy and gall!
He said the Georgian government already had accepted outlines of a peace agreement that the Russian government previously suggested it would accept.
Its terms include "an immediate cease-fire, the withdrawal of forces from the zone of conflict, a return to the military status quo as of Aug. 6 and a commitment to refrain from the use of force," Bush said. "Russia's actions this week have raised serious questions about its intentions in Georgia and the region."
--more--"
Seriously, the reporting is so bad it is really troublesome.
The amount of space and print leads to the obvious conclusion:
The AmeriKan MSM is once again engaged in a massive war promotion!!!!
The conflict in Georgia is Russia's largest military engagement outside its borders since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991. Here are some of the key issues in the current crisis.
Q: Who is fighting whom?
A: On one side is Russian air, naval, and ground power. On the other is the military of Georgia, a small, separate country south of Russia on the eastern shore of the Black Sea. It was part of the Soviet Union but has a history of troubled relations with Moscow.
Sort of like Israel, huh, Zio-press?
Q: Where are they fighting?
A:The bulk of the fighting revolves around two pro-Russian enclaves, South Ossetia and Abkhazia. The fighting appears to be expanding toward other parts of Georgia. Russia captured a military base in western Georgia yesterday, and there were conflicting reports whether a main road had been cut near the city of Gori.
Q: What is the background to the fighting?
A: Moscow has long viewed itself as the protector of the two enclaves, which have been under pressure from the central government in Georgia. In 1990 Georgia voted to abolish the autonomy of South Ossetia, and by 1991 the ethnic antagonists were fighting with each other. In 1992, Georgia and Russia signed a peace treaty and Russian troops began patrolling the South Ossetia border. That same year, Abkhazia declared its independence from Georgia and another war was fought, which ended in 1994 with a treaty between Russia and Georgia. Russian troops then began patrolling that enclave as well.
Q: What touched off the latest fighting?
A: Georgia launched a surprise operation last week to seize control of South Ossetia. An enraged Russia sent its military into the breakaway republics and bombed Georgia proper.
Q: Was this confrontation expected?
A: Yes and no. Many Western specialists had predicted that Russia would stage some sort of military action after Mikhail Saakashvili was elected president of Georgia in 2004. As part of his platform, he said he wanted to reincorporate the enclaves into Georgia. Most specialists agreed that Russia would respond with force if that happened.
Q: Does the United States have any special interests in the area?
A: Saakashvili is an ally of the United States and sent troops to fight in Iraq and Afghanistan. The United States has strongly backed Georgia's effort to join NATO. Russia fears that its former Soviet partners and satellites will look to Europe and form a pro-Western ring, curbing Moscow's arena of diplomatic action. The second concern is energy. Georgia is a major conduit for oil flowing from Russia and Central Asia to the West.
A Russian fear born out by the facts; however, notice how ISRAEL'S ROLE NEVER RECEIVES MENTION?
Q: What is the US diplomatic position?
A: President Bush said yesterday that the United States wants Russia to end its offensive and return to the situation that existed before the fighting began. In a tough statement from the White House after he returned from the Olympics, Bush said: "Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century."
That's the second time I've seen that hypocritical quote; btw, Russia ain't going back to status quo you stoo-pid fools!
Q: How is Russia likely to respond?
A: No one knows how far Russia is planning to go, although its attack on Georgian cities elsewhere suggests that its goal goes beyond just protecting the enclaves. At the very least, Russia seems to want to punish Saakashvili and use him to send a message to its former allies and the West and that Moscow is again a major player."
And friends help friends, right?
PARIS - This weekend, as war rippled through parts of Georgia, the German foreign minister, Frank-Walter Steinmeier, was urging his Russian and Georgian counterparts simply to speak on the phone. In the end, he succeeded only by threatening both with a public statement that they were not prepared even to do that.
The German officials, who described the delicate episode on the condition of anonymity, said two phone conversations resulted Sunday afternoon, each about 10 minutes long. They illustrated how hard it was going to be for diplomacy to calm a Russian-Georgian conflict that has flared with unexpected ferocity.
Despite calls from some US officials - notably Vice President Dick Cheney - to get tough with Russia, European leaders and diplomats, attached and accustomed to the exercise of soft power, are trying for a cease-fire.
President Nicolas Sarkozy of France, which currently presides over the European Union, is to meet President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia in Moscow as early as today. Chancellor Angela Merkel of Germany will follow suit later this week in long-scheduled meetings with Medvedev and, more important, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, in the Black Sea resort of Sochi.
Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner of France announced yesterday from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, that President Mikhail Saakashvili had signed up to a European plan demanding a cease-fire, a withdrawal of troops to positions they held Aug. 6 and respect for Georgian territorial integrity. Kouchner was headed to Moscow to try to get the Russians on board, although by last evening there was little indication of success.
Sergei Ivanov, deputy prime minister of Russia and a close ally of Putin, said yesterday that Russia was "quite happy with the French mediation."
But, in an interview with CNN, he insisted that Georgia and the regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which seek independence, must act first. "We need an agreement between the Georgian leaders - we don't trust them anymore - and the two breakaway republics that military force will never be used again," Ivanov said. "Before that, it is impossible to discuss anything else."
Georgia failed that one, didn't they (see red above).
Tough talk aside, diplomacy will proceed: The Georgian foreign minister was expected in Brussels, the EU capital, today for talks with NATO officials. Steinmeier's team was working hard, and the 27 EU foreign ministers were to hear a report tomorrow from Kouchner.
Jens Plotner, a spokesman for Steinmeier, said that Europe sought "to maintain a stance which gives us Europeans the capacity to be an honest broker between the two sides."
Europeans, who share a continent with Russia and depend on Moscow for a quarter of their natural gas needs, believe they are better placed to mediate the conflict than a US administration nearing the end of its mandate that has backed Georgia both as an exemplary democracy and as an aspiring member of NATO.
Georgian officials have urged Western countries to put pressure on Russia by speeding that accession to NATO - something France and Germany blocked at a NATO summit meeting this spring - and questioning the 2014 Olympic Games in Sochi. Those Games are a personal project for Putin, who favors Sochi as a summer and winter retreat, and skis in nearby mountains, close to the border with disputed Abkhazia.--more--"
Still no mention of ISRAEL'S ROLE in all this by the Zionist-controlled, agenda-pushing, AmeriKan MSM!!!!
Just proves you can NO LONGER BELIEVE THEM about ANYTHING!!!!!
"US seems unable to stop Russia" by Anne Gearan, Associated Press | August 12, 2008
WASHINGTON - The Russian Bear is back, and the United States does not seem to be able to do much about it.
Sigh. You just really get sick of the Zionist shit shovel, readers.
The United States saw trouble coming between Russia and Georgia, a former Soviet republic turned nemesis, but didn't have enough leverage, focus, or resolve to intervene.
Good Lord!! LIES posing as "news analysis."
Even Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, a specialist on the old Soviet Union, may have misjudged the combustible combination of Russian grievance and ambition.
Why not? She has done it with everything else!!!!
The Bush administration's assurances of solidarity with a young democracy also may have given Georgia's silver-tongued, US-educated leader a little too much swagger as he picked a playground fight he never could win on his own.
Using a sledgehammer to swat a fly, Russian tanks and bombers widened their assault yesterday on Georgia, the closest friend the United States has among the slowly democratizing former Soviet republics.
So what has the U.S. done in Iraq and Afghanistan, AP whore?
Used a nuke bomb for a flea?
Once war began, the United States looked hesitant and ineffective, answering tank columns with jawboning by President Bush on the sidelines of the Olympic Games in Beijing and Rice on the phone from a resort vacation.
Unbelievable, the cover-story promotion being done here!
And how about COMING OFF VACATION, you stinking elite shit bag?
First Katrina, and now this!!!!!
Yesterday, four days into fighting that has killed hundreds, Bush was back in Washington, and demanded that Russia end a "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence in Georgia, agree to an immediate cease-fire, and accept international mediation to end the crisis in Georgia.
"Russia has invaded a sovereign neighboring state and threatens a democratic government elected by its people. Such an action is unacceptable in the 21st century," Bush said.
Now that is the third time I've seen that quote!!!!
Despite the tough talk, the president's comments were not backed up by any specific threat of consequences Russia might face if it ignores the warning.
Russia has blithely ignored US and European protests that Moscow sees as hypocritical and that it knows will only go so far. Despite wide condemnation of Russian action as illegitimate, no one was talking about sending forces to help Georgia.
"When one country conquers another that is typically regarded as pretty serious, and the inability to do anything about it is something the United States is not accustomed to," said Stephen Sestanovich, a specialist on Russia and Eurasia at the Council on Foreign Relations.
Unless WE ARE the one CONQUERING THEM, right, CFR flunky!!!!??
Bush has put Moscow on notice that US relations with Russia would suffer if the conflict continued, but Russian leaders know that Washington needs their cooperation on a host of world problems. They know, too, that the American public has no stomach for war in an obscure corner of the globe and that Bush will be out of a job in five months. The two presidential candidates, Republican John McCain and Democrat Barack Obama, have spoken to the crisis, trying to show resolve against Russian adventurism.
Damn right! We are SICK of his WARS based on ZIONIST LIES!!!!!!!!!!!!
Russian forces seized several towns and a military base deep in western Georgia yesterday, opening a second front in the fighting. President Mikhail Saakashvili of Georgia said his country had been effectively cut in half.
Saakashvili signed a cease-fire pledge yesterday, and at Georgia's request, the UN Security Council in New York called an emergency session - the fifth meeting on the fighting in as many days.
Yup, push the crapola about Georgia ceasing fire, and never mind that it was the RUSSIANS who first called on the UNSC; the Georgians are only calling for UN action now because they are getting their asses kicked!!!!!!!!
In talking points on the conflict obtained by the Associated Press, the Bush administration claims it had no specific advance warning that Georgia would try to retake control of a breakaway border region largely loyal to Russia.
What BULLSHIT!! Absolute BULLSHIT!!!
Like they would do this on their own!!!!
Sounds like USrael is cutting him loose!!
Typical of the "bail out when the going gets tough" assholes!!!!
That does not mean diplomats, intelligence analysts, and others weren't worried about worsening Russian relations with Georgia over the past two years and in particular about the shoving match over ethnic conflicts left over from the Cold War.
Rice went to the Georgian capital of Tbilisi to try to calm things down in July, but infuriated Russia with a public endorsement of Georgia's "territorial integrity." Saakashvili used the visit to display his close relationship with Washington, the organizing principle for an imperfectly democratic government that has collected millions of dollars in US aid.
Translation: Rice gave him the green light when she went to coordinate activities.
US officials say they gave Saakashvili a strong warning not to put a match to the ethnic tinderboxes in South Ossetia and Abkhazia, even as Rice and others took Georgia's side in public. Bush backed the Georgian claim when he visited Tbilisi in 2005.
So the US' public position was a LIE?
EVERYTHING that comes out of this government is a GOD-DAMN LIE, isn't it?
"The path of freedom you have chosen is not easy, but you will not travel it alone," Bush said then.
Saakashvili didn't need US permission to send his forces into South Ossetia last week, and he has not suggested he thought US or NATO warplanes would back him up. Neither Saakashvili nor his US supporters predicted that Russia would take the conflict this far, threatening full occupation of Georgia and the potential toppling of Saakashvili's government.--more--"
Ummm, DUH!!!!!
And as if the news pages were not bad enough, let's do an editorial:
RUSSIA'S ATTACKS on Georgian troops, territory, and infrastructure over the weekend were brutal and unjustified. For the sake of all the people in that region of the Caucasus, and to avoid a calamitous new rift between Russia and the West, there must be an immediate cease-fire and negotiations to resolve the disputes that caused the current war. Chief among these are tangled old quarrels over the status of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, breakaway regions of Georgia that have received Russian protection.
I'm tired of the Zionist-controlled AmeriKan MSM 's disingenuousness!
But it is not enough to condemn Russia's bombing and shelling of Georgia. This was an avoidable war, one that many parties had a hand in touching off.
Let's see if the BG ed staff mentions ISRAEL'S ROLE.
It is a war that can have a destabilizing effect not only in the region, but also on energy supplies for Europe, and on international efforts to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin told refugees from South Ossetia that Georgia had forfeited any right to rule that region after Georgian forces attacked the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, last week. In other words, the Kremlin was demanding independence for South Ossetia — something most of the population there would welcome — or virtual annexation by Russia.
O.K. then, GIVE IT TO THEM!!!
What is GOOD for KOSOVO is GOOD for South Ossetia, no?
Putin is making the most of an opportunity that has been presented to him.
Sort of like George W. Bush and 9/11, huh?
He has long resented Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili's anti-Russian, pro-Western stance. He has warned against Saakashvili's ambition of gaining rapid entry into NATO for Georgia, an ambition that President Bush and Vice President Cheney have encouraged but that France and Germany deflected this spring.
It is Saakashvili — a free-market democrat, but also a hothead — who provided the opportunity Putin seized this weekend. Georgia's initial offensive last week in South Ossetia, causing nearly half the population to flee north into Russian territory, was bound to provoke a sharp response from the Kremlin.
And yet look at the way the NG news section and the AmeriKan MSM are reporting it, readers. What a bunch of fucking liars!!!!
Saakashvili either misread signals from the Bush administration — which is in no position to come to Georgia's aid militarily — or he acted on his own, hoping that once the Russians intervened, Bush and Cheney would be obliged to back up their rhetoric with military action.
Yeah, right.
The Bush administration did its part to prepare the ground for this summer's war in the Caucasus when it recognized the independence of Kosovo earlier this year without United Nations authorization, and against Moscow's wishes. The Kremlin warned at the time that Bush had established a principle in Kosovo that Russia might want to apply to South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Now Russia has, and Bush has left the United States little basis to protest."
Then SHADDUP, will ya?
Nothing about Israel's role in there, is there?
Let's try an OP then, huh?
Timothy Snyder is professor of east European history at Yale University. His most recent book is "The Red Prince: The Secret Lives of a Habsburg Archduke."
MUCH MORE than in Iraq, world democracy is at stake in Georgia. Russia has preserved the form of democratic elections, within which cliques of secret policemen and economic oligarchs run the country. All the democratic revolutions in Europe in the last 20 years, beginning with the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989, are presented as "operations" of Western states.
The "rose revolution" in Georgia in 2003 and the "Orange Revolution" in Ukraine in 2004-2005 are seen not as changes of regime but as losses to Russian power. Georgia has been an irritant to Russia because, along with Ukraine, it seems to demonstrate that democracy and a Western orientation are possible in post-Soviet states in far Eastern Europe. The nightmare scenario is a "colored revolution" in Russia itself.
I am really, really, really sick of the agenda-shoveling shit turned out day after fucking day by this God-damn AmeriKan War Press!
The Russian model of development and Russian interests in Georgia hinge upon control of raw materials, especially natural gas and oil. Wealth from gas and oil is controlled by a relatively small group of Russians.
And HOW is that DIFFERENT from AMERIKA?
Foreign investors in Russia's commodities are pushed aside. Moscow routinely uses its gas reserves to intimidate Ukraine, an importer of gas. Russia characterizes its military operations in its Chechen region as a war on terrorism, though the issue is control of existing and future pipelines. Much the same holds for the new intervention in Georgia.
Good thing the U.S. is never interested in invading people over their resources, 'eh, world?
See the type of myopic bullshit we have to deal with here in the Zionist States of AmeriKa?!
Georgia's location in the Caucasus, on the Black Sea, makes it crucial to the supply of energy to the West. A new pipeline runs close to South Ossetia, the region of Georgia that Russia now seeks to occupy and control. Russian planes have already bombed parts of Georgia close to the pipeline; according to Georgia officials and British press reports, they have targeted the pipeline itself.
Good thing the U.S. doesn't want to control energy pipelines!!!
Russia's energy oligarchy has already reshaped the world system.
As have the ZIONIST CONTROLLERS whose HANDS REMAIN HIDDEN!!!!
Russian elites believe that great powers that control resources run the world.
So why does this author imply that is not the case? Pfffffftttt!
To a surprising extent, Russia has made the world match its image of it, undermining international cooperation. It has used its energy resources to turn one European country against another. Russian elites tend to dismiss American advocacy of democracy as hypocritical, and the European Union as a passing fancy. The Kremlin treats human rights with consistent cynicism. The intervention in Georgia is justified as a response to supposed Georgian "ethnic cleansing." If Russia's invasion succeeds, the next step will be to declare that Russia has to occupy part of Georgia in order to protect the native population. Then a creeping annexation will likely follow.
I'm really sick of the bullshit, readers.
And this is what FILLS the BG today!!
PFFFFFFFFTTTTTTTT!!!!!!
How should the United States respond to the new Russia? This is no longer the Soviet Union, to be contained globally; and it is not yet a democratic Russia that can join the West. But if neither containment nor integration is possible, the United States can at least avoid some obvious mistakes. It should avoid personal posturing: President Bush's friendly visits with Vladimir Putin achieved nothing. It should also avoid needless provocations, such as missile-defense systems in Poland and the Czech Republic. That angers the Kremlin without improving anyone's security. The enlargement of the NATO military alliance to Ukraine and to Georgia should, however, be considered, if a majority of the populations of these countries express such a wish. Russia's resort to force suggests that the enlargement of NATO may be necessary to secure the region over the next decade.
And CUI BONO, 'eh?
Over the long run, the best course for America is to set a good example.
TOO LATE!!!!
Half-heartedness about democratic elections has cost the country dearly in the eyes of the Russian population. Russians remember that the United States ignored exit polls in 2000 in Florida, but relied upon them in 2004 to support a repeated round of presidential elections in Ukraine.
Yeah, it is O.K. for U.S. elections to be STOLEN!!!!
Really, I AM TIRED of AmeriKan ARROGANCE and EXCEPTIONALISM!!
Fuck these elite assholes!!!! Time to EAT the fucking RICH!!!!!!!!!!
The United States should also reconsider whether territorial separation is always the best way to protect human rights. Russia's position on Georgia is a conscious mockery of the West's support for Kosovo's independence. It should drop the rhetoric of the "war on terror." Terrorism cannot be defeated by warfare, and this policy has given cover to Russian repression. Most important, it must seek energy independence. The US power position will improve, and the domination of Russian society by an oligarchy will become impossible."
Well, there is one thing I agree with (especially since the "terror" is GOVERNMENT DIRECTED and CONTROLLED).
And who cares about the Russian oligarchy; we got our own here in AmeriKa, Sig Heil!
TBILISI, Georgia --Russia ordered a halt to military action in Georgia on Tuesday, after five days of air and land attacks sent Georgia's army into headlong retreat and left towns and military bases destroyed. More than 2,000 people were reported killed.
Georgian officials insisted that Russia has continued the bombings despite the pledge, but Russia denied that. Hours before the Russian announcement, Russian forces bombed the crossroads city of Gori and launched an offensive in the part of separatist Abkhazia still under Georgian control, sending in 135 military vehicles -- including tanks -- and tightening the assault on the beleaguered nation.
Gori was all but deserted late Monday -- most remaining residents and Georgian soldiers fled ahead of a feared Russian onslaught.
In Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's provincial capital, the body of a Georgian soldier lay in the street along with debris and shattered glass. A poster hanging nearby showed Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and the slogan "Say yes to peace and stability" as South Ossetian separatist fighters launched rockets at a Georgian plane soaring overhead.
The death toll was expected to rise, for large areas of Georgia were too dangerous for journalists to enter. Tens of thousands of terrified residents have fled the fighting -- South Ossetians north to Russia, and Georgians west toward the capital of Tbilisi and the country's Black Sea coast.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said on national television that Georgia had been punished enough for its attack on South Ossetia. Georgia launched an offensive late Thursday to regain control over the separatist Georgian province, which has close ties to Russia.
The situation in Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, remained tense Tuesday as sporadic fighting and artillery duels continued, but the city was in the control of Russian army and South Ossetian forces. In the villages once populated by ethnic Georgians on the outskirts of Tskhinvali, South Ossetian fighters reportedly set fire to Georgian houses, and carried out searches in the villages.
Russian deputy chief of General Staff Anatoly Nogovitsyn dismissed Georgian reports that Russian warplanes Tuesday again bombed a pipeline carrying crude to the West. He said Russian planes never targeted the pipeline and accused Georgia of spreading false reports in order to rally anti-Russian sentiments in the West. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said more than 2,000 people have been killed in South Ossetia since Friday, most of them Ossetians with Russian passports.
I wouldn't be a bit surprised!!!
The British oil company
So up goes the price of oil, right?
--more--"
