Georgia seeking US monitors on conflict lines

Georgia seeking US monitors on conflict lines

www.google.com

TBILISI, Georgia — Georgia urged the United States on Tuesday to help monitor the boundaries with its two Russian-supported breakaway regions.

National Security Council Secretary Eka Tkeshelashvili said before a visit by U.S. Vice President Joe Biden that Georgia wants U.S. monitors to bolster the work of 246 European Union monitors and support Georgia's economic development by increasing a sense of security for investors

(visit the link for the full news article)

I'm sorry but enough already.

Here we go again. This is exactly the kind of thing that we get slammed for in world opinion as trying to be the worlds Police. I say it's a EU problem let them deal with that mess.

It isn't like we are not already busy with our intervention into the rest of Central Asia.

Not up on the situation check the links in my signature.
PEACE
Slay



www.google.com
(visit the link for the full news article)

Agreed. Countries and masses complain about how we play the big-boy on an international scale, well here's why. We have Honduras and Georgia both begging us to step in on conflicts that have very little to do with us.

I think the US should really step out of issues like this. Why should the states step in front of Russia for the sake of Georgia?

reply to post by Kevin_X2


Interesting.

I thought this would have gotten more responses than that.
Well a small bump then off into the Abyss

the french are allready `holding the line` - and the reports back are not all `rosy` for georgia

so why do they want US troops there as well?

At this point Saakashvili is very desperate for US attention of any kind, seeing as how he has massive problems at home with opposition demanding him to step down. He would sell his sole if he could, to have Americans observers, or better yet military personel stationed in Georgia.

You see, Saakashvilli vested all of his political career behind his relations with the US. A simple pat on the back from Americans would mean very much for him PR wise right now. His polical career (what little future it has) depends on whether he can convince the US to continue to cooperate with his moronic regime.

This is what also makes Biden's upcoming visit to Georgia dangerous. Georgia could very well stage an attack on its own territory to make it look like Russians or South Ossetians, and blame it on them - in order to convince the US of the need for observers or vigilance against Russia. And what's worse, is that Saakashvilli's regime is well known for staging attacks like this when some important political events/meetings take place.

Lets hope Obama and Biden are smarter than that, knowing where America's true priorities lay.

how to win friends and influence people:

www.gruzianews.ru...

According to RIA Novosti, Saakashvili told that the detainee was led by the NATO Office of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Georgia. However, he did not name his name

sorry but who is this guy trying to make friends with?

Originally posted by Harlequin
sorry but who is this guy trying to make friends with?

Saakashvili will soon be trying to make friends in the psych ward. He'll wow them with stories about how he ran away from Russian bombers, how he heroically led Georgians in a glorious battle against evil invading Russians, and even about his struggle with trying to chew and digest his tie.

[edit on 21-7-2009 by maloy]

RE: maloy

Lets hope Obama and Biden are smarter than that, knowing where America's true priorities lay.

Unfortunately, America's oil companies have the Caspian Oil Basin as their number one priority. Here is a link to the Inrernational Energy Agency where they have this very interesting report called Perspectives on Caspian Oil and Gas Development. I would not be suprised if Georgia were rushed into NATO membership in the very near future. And rest assured, that will piss off Medvedev, real bad like...

Originally posted by Rotwang
Unfortunately, America's oil companies have the Caspian Oil Basin as their number one priority. Here is a link to the Inrernational Energy Agency where they have this very interesting report called

Yeah I know all about the new Great Game in the Caucasus and Central Asia revolving around oil and gas. This is what started the whole mess and brought America into the picture in the region to begin with - under the Bush administration. However I believe with the economy and concerns about Iran and the War in Afghanistan, US has counterweight priorities to shift some focus away from the energy resources of Central Asia. How much of a counterweight those issues are, and how Obama's administration will treat them, remains to be seen. Although his main foreign policy objective now seems to be - try to please as many people as possible, even if all it is is talk and no real action.

Regarding Georgia though - it is not really a source of energy resources that the US and Europe are after. It is merely a transport point - with the oil and gas in question coming from Azerbaijan, Turkmenistan, Caspian Sea, and Kazakhstan. Currently the US is having some problems getting those exporters to go along with its pipeline proposals on America's terms - and untill they are on board Georgia is pretty irrelevent. Plus why do you think that if Saakashvili's regime was removed and opposition was installed, that they wouldn't continue cooperating with the US on energy transport through Georgia? Saakashvili is an idiot pure and simple, and Russia's main problem is about that. Russia wouldn't have a major problem if US relations with Georgia were purely economic rather than military.

Originally posted by Rotwang
I would not be suprised if Georgia were rushed into NATO membership in the very near future. And rest assured, that will piss off Medvedev, real bad like...

US does not have the power to rush Georgia into becoming a NATO member. The process is rather drawn out and requires agreement of other members. At this point European NATO members are highly suspicious of Georgia, suspecting that it was responsible for starting the August War. There is no way France, Germany, or Italy would approve of Georgia's membership right now. And everyone realizes that serious political instability present in a member state like Georgia, could have a major negative impact on the alliance.

And yes, Russia would be pissed off if Georgia were to enter NATO. But I simply do no see anyway that this would happen.

Oh and here is a relevant article on the issue:

Saakashvili: hopes of Georgia joining NATO "almost dead"

online.wsj.com...

[edit on 21-7-2009 by maloy]

Isn't this the way we started our presence in Viet Nam? Or we we just advisors there?

Thanks for the thread, Slayer.

RE: maloy

I've got a response comming, gotta finish dinner first.

RE: maloy

Well, do you remember the pretext for the NATO war on the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia in March of 1999? Racek! In January of 1999 the Serbs received intelligence, I believe from Russia, that a ship ported in Albania was offloading a large quantity of anti-tank missiles and that they were moving towards the Kosovo/Albanian border. At this time, from what I remember, the US was operating at least one Special Forces base just a few clicks away from the Kosovar border inside Albania. UCK forces were training there and were supposed to infiltrate the border with these anti-tank missiles. Well, it seems that they ran into a Serb column advancing to the border when the fire fight broke out in Racek. The US was already operating US Special Forces with the UCK inside of Kosovo at this time. The incident, as you may well know, was staged as was the media propoganda by the US, UN and NATO. Clinton and Albright repeatedly used this incident as evidence of the "genocide" occuring inside Kosovo, then ultimately as a pretext for a NATO led Air Campaign and later an IFOR occupation.

Now, my question to you is, given the grotesque distortions of the Russian Reaction to the invasion of South Ossetia in the Western Media, could we not possibly see the chance of an incident similar to Racek, staged by the US and Georgia in order to draw in the NATO alliance?

Anyone remember the deal so that US planes can fly over Russian airspace?

www.nytimes.com...

www.abovetopsecret.com...

There were a lot of people on the thread about it speculating about, including some discussion as to the possibility of Georgia being denied NATO membership. I'd hazard to guess that we'll see exactly what our end of the deal was pretty soon.

[edit on 2009/7/21 by cyberdude78]

reply to post by Rotwang


I understand the point you are trying to make and I feel the same way about US' tricks during the Kosovo war, but Serbia of 90's can't really compare to Russia today. It is one thing for US and Kosovo Albanians to provoke Serbia into war with the aim of splitting the country. Serbia wasn't really a match to the US, especially considering NATO's all out air campaign. But poking Russia with a stick is whole other matter, especially knowing that Putin and Medvedev are not afraid of taking action when necessary.

Saakashvili took a huge gamble when he started the August War. Russia's response was more or less limited to kicking the Georgians out of South Ossetia - but Russia very well had the capability to overrun all of Georgia if it so wished. US got quite a scare out of that war, and if anything I think it discouraged them from their "poke Russia with a stick and see what happens" game (if only for a short time). It is a good bet that Saakashvili and his American advisors underestimated the expected Russian response in August. It would be very foolish to make the same mistake again, and I think the risk factor prevails over the possible benefits they can gain from such adventures.



NATO members know all of this very well. They know they are not toying with small country like Serbia here. There is a high probability that any similar tactics to those in Kosovo will catastrophically backfire. What if Georgia and US undertook an operation like that and failed? What if European NATO members don't buy it from the start? Saakashvili is guaranteed to be done for - he will be ousted by his own countrymen, and all of America's plans for Georgia will go down the drain.

No, I think America's strategy is keep things quiet in Georgia. An idiot like Saakashvili might crave an idea like the one you are presenting, but US will keep him on a tight leash. In fact Georgia's best hopes for getting into NATO, is putting the whole conflict as far behind them as possible and just letting South Ossetia and Abhazia go. And even if Georgia somehow became part of NATO, that is no guarantee that Russia would not intervene in a conflict with them. Russia could very well bet that NATO will hesitate to step in, in fear of an all out war with Russia.

reply to post by cyberdude78


If you are thinking that US agreed to keep Georgia out of NATO in return for Russia opening up supply routes to Afghanistan - I don't believe there is a relation between the two.

The main bargaining chip of the US in relations with Russia, is not Georgia but the ABM shield system in Eastern Europe. That is exactly what the US used in making recent agreements with Russia, including the agreement to lower tactical nuke count on both sides.

As for Georgia's and Ukraine's NATO petition - that is still up in the air, and likely will remain so for sometime into the future. Georgia wasn't flat out denied membership but placed on hold indefinitely - but there are many other reasons to keep it out of NATO than some supply deal with Russia. Even ignoring Russia, European NATO members still have serious reservations about Georgia's membership and even the legitimacy of its goverment and "democracy". Besides the US, what benefits do the Europeans get from this deal? And what risks must they undertake in return?

RE: maloy

Sure hope you're right on this one. You make some very sound arguments for the isolation of Georgia from the European alliance, however I feel compelled to point out that the US has been involved, covertly, in destabalizing the Caucasus since the early 1990's. The US training of the Chechen Mujahadin in Pakistan, US operated Special Forces training bases in Georgia during the Shevardnadze regime and many other covert-black ops waged asymmetrically vis-a-vis the Chechen Mujahadin such as the Budyonnovsk hospital hostage crisis during the first Chechen War. From my perspective, the US has waging a Proxy war against Russia for the last 19 years and I do believe that the Caspian Oil is at the heart of this conflict.

I don't honestly believe that Obama nor the NATO alliance has the power to interfere with the US military's plans for maintaining the destablization of the Caucasus.

Originally posted by Rotwang
I feel compelled to point out that the US has been involved, covertly, in destabalizing the Caucasus since the early 1990's.

I think the objectives there were to weaken Russian as much as possible (kick it while its down), and possibly to probe its military tactics. However I agree that a long term goal of destabilizing the region would play nicely into the hand of the US (which it did), so it might have very well been a part of it. I am beginning to wonder if US had something to do with the coup that brough Shevarnadze into power - although I never really saw him as anyone's pawn. He did normalize relations with Russia for a while after all.

Originally posted by Rotwang
The US training of the Chechen Mujahadin in Pakistan, US operated Special Forces training bases in Georgia during the Shevardnadze regime and many other covert-black ops

If this is true then Russia had to know about it. And if so, why didn't Russia disclose the information publically when it would have made an impact on PR? Surely Putin's administration could have stood to gain in implicating the US. US (as well as UK) definitely played a role in the Caucasus in the 90's, but the extent of this is still not clear. But if you are right, and this is all part of a larger and long-term US strategy, then of course there is reason to believe that it will continue now.

Originally posted by Rotwang
I do believe that the Caspian Oil is at the heart of this conflict.

Very possible. I was referring the Caspian basin as the next "Middle East", to be complete with radicalism and proxy conflicts, for the last 5 years.

But back to Georgia - as I said before it seems to play a less important role as far as oil goes. Why have we seen so much US involvement in Georgia, yet almost none in Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan (the actual sources of oil)? One would think the US would be all over Azerbaijan's internal politics now, but it is not evident.

Originally posted by Rotwang
I don't honestly believe that Obama nor the NATO alliance has the power to interfere with the US military's plans for maintaining the destablization of the Caucasus.

If that is what is happening, then Obama has the power to stop it. The question is would he act on it? The US foreign policy for last decades has been rather similar and unchanging, with little alteration in regard to whether Democrats or Republicans are in power. This is why Russia and Russians treated Obama becoming president with skepticism. While he certainly paints himself out to have better intentions than Bush, is anything in US foreign policy really going to change?

I guess we will tell by how events unfold in Georgia in the coming months and years. If the US steps up its support for Saakashvili and digs in, then clearly Obama isn't bringing any of the change he preaches.

Georgia's Saakashvili Seeking U.S. Weapons to Deter Russia

TBILISI, Georgia, July 21 -- Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili urged the United States on Tuesday to supply his country with advanced defensive weapons, warning on the eve of a visit by Vice President Biden that a decision not to provide such arms would encourage a Russian invasion.

In a wide-ranging interview, Saakashvili said that discussions about a weapons deal remained at "very early stages" but that he planned to press Biden to speed up delivery of antiaircraft and antitank systems, saying such weaponry was "purely defensive" and "would make any hotheads think twice about further military adventures."

Originally posted by SLAYER69

"would make any hotheads think twice about further military adventures."

I just love that quote by Saakashvili - seeing as how weapons provided by America is what encouraged him to start his military adventure in August. With every speech he makes, he makes an even bigger joke of himself.