crackerjack
Well-known member
Coup in Georgia?
Contrasting headlines:
Contrasting headlines:
georgia/russia: war?
- Thread starter swears
- Start date
scottdisco
rip this joint please
all over bar the shouting, it seems.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Porbably another one of Russia's stink bombs more than an actual coup then.
swears
preppy-kei
It's hard to tell what's actually going on, as Saakashvili and the Russians both seem to be such consistently outrageous liars.
Seems like there was some upset at the base over pay, and the Georgian leadership has decided to use it as anti-Russian propaganda. But then again, you wouldn't put it past Putin and co to stir things up that way.
Seems like there was some upset at the base over pay, and the Georgian leadership has decided to use it as anti-Russian propaganda. But then again, you wouldn't put it past Putin and co to stir things up that way.
crackerjack
Well-known member
Saakashvili was under a lot of internal pressure again recently, so it wouldn't be surprising if he flagged up a phoney bear scare.
craner
Beast of Burden
Saakashvili - suave, vicious, vain, very intelligent, a networker of genius (he wangled his own state!). He reminds me of Richard Perle a little, but with more ambition and guile. I can't help but like him.
In case you missed this gem in the Weekly Standard, then I urge you to read it. It has some comic value, as well as a certain, um, socio-political piquancy.
In case you missed this gem in the Weekly Standard, then I urge you to read it. It has some comic value, as well as a certain, um, socio-political piquancy.
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subvert47
I don't fight, I run away
this blog is worth reading for views on and from Georgia and stuff:
http://caucasusreports.blogspot.com/
http://caucasusreports.blogspot.com/
urbanite
subnoto
I'd obviuosly be pretty biased on this isssue, but I've found this blog here rather interesting in supporting my own bias I guess:
http://markalmondoxford.blogspot.com/
http://markalmondoxford.blogspot.com/
vimothy
yurp
How so? Seems pretty consistent with what I've heard about the Russian military, special forces and Chechen resistance. The ECHR has documented extensively extra-judicial killings and HR abuses by Russia in Chechnya. Although, obviously it's the word of two avowed killers speaking anonymously...
urbanite
subnoto
well there is also the little nitpicky thing, that seems to be often overlooked by the western media, in saying that it was the buildings that were blown up that were the cause of the second war.
From my understanding it was the Chechens who started the second war by trying to take over Dagestan a neighbouring province.
hmmm... attrocious... but yeah the film of the Russian soldier having his head cutoff while alive with a chainsaw wasn't pretty.
The thing is I don't know anymore which media to trust in this case, because neither side seems to be very objective.
There is also a rather painful underbelly of the issue and that is that before the first and during the so known crazy-90s, the Chechens were the most brutal and fast growing organised crime group in Russia. When the west was making loads of noise about Russian organised crime everyone in Russia was amused since there were no big proper Russian organised groups, most of the really powerful families or what you might call them were and still are mostly comprised of ethnic clans/groups, Georgian, Armenian, Chechens, Dagistani... These groups often managed to get control over large parts of the Economy at the time, so yeah part of the equation is actually economic/ corporate interests... Messy issues...
crackerjack
Well-known member
According to McMafia, the Chechen gangsters effectively franchised their rep - non-Chechens paid for affiliation rights to benefit from their fearsome rep, which they then had to live up to, or else.
Still, that's only tangentially related to the war, right?
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
I am admittedly not totally clear on this but my understanding was that there had been border clashes & raids & so on all thru the ceasfire btwn the 2 wars - the Dagestan affair being admittedly of a more serious nature (tho I dunno if one speak of "the Chechens" there so much as one faction of Chechens) - that the Russian govt had been planning for an invasion of Chechnya even before the Dagestan War kicked off, & that the apartment explosions, if they were done by FSB or whoever, were to shore up public support for another war, not really to manufacture a causus belli as such.
tho as you, who the hell really knows.
well I dunno - just thinking on my feet here - I'm sure the war devastated Chechnya's economy & it certainly gutted any civil authority - seems like perfect conditions for organized crime to flourish - all these heavily armed dudes, no legitimate work, etc. also forcing people to emigrate to find work elsewhere, llicit or otherwise.
urbanite
subnoto
Well it is something that was started happening already before the first war. Clearly I'm not a historian who's spent a lot of time researching this whole thing, but my feeling is that the reputation they amassed was far before the war broke out. This is based mainly on my recollection of living in Russia at the time/watching the news... rumours and general talk at the dinner tables. So please pardon me for a bit of a sream of thought structure.
The Chechens did amass enough clout to basically become a lobbying force in the government to be reckoned with, this wasn't something liked by some other lobbying group (Berezovski comes to mind here). Mind you at the same time there was the whole privatisation process which was still going on, so different groups were scrambling to get a piece of the pie for a dime (often these groups were far from being clean handed). I think the crux of the problem was also the oil pipeline that ran through Chechnya, and so the illfated decision by Yeltsin was taken to start the war under the pressure of lobbyists. So largely it is a case of people suffering because of the higher ups bad decisions. Yeltsin somehow thought that sending an army full of 18 year old unexperienced conscripts who weren't trained for this kind of war into action was a good idea.
Now after the dismal failure after the first war and having alienated much of the civilian population Russia pulled out and gave what was de facto independence to the republic. For a while it seemed like they had what they fought for so things should settle. The only problem is that it created a vacuum which was quickly filled in with the terrorist and mercenaries from other countries including some recruited in Britain of all places! Meanwhile there was money being sent to Chechnya to rebuild it, plus it had the pipeline, but it seems like all got diverted into preparing to attack... There was an ongoing stream of announcements of continuing the Jihad against Russia and the whole idea that they wanted to include the neighbouring provinces into the Great Chechnya, although it seemed like everyone was just ready to let it go and get on with their lives.
For what seemed like a year or two there was a succession of ugly events and terrorist attacks which ended in the crossing over into Dagestan and the beginning of the second war. Which seemed to be a whole lot better conducted and only by professional army, no conscripts unvoluntarily sent there. If what is written in the article is true, then well that's appalling.
I don't know, I think I'm being too emotional to really do a cold assessment of the situation and it is hard to untangle the whole media barrage. I do get irked by the constant onslaught of the media war going on though. Partly it is national pride or whatever that gets hurt although I'm hardly a patriot or a nationalist. But when in the European press the facts are often laid out in some strange way, that Russia is still some sort of an evil empire run by a lunatic. It largely gets on my nerves. It even desensitizes me and leads to believe that everything being said and written is some next propaganda.
Is there foolproof evidence that Putin ordered the murder of Anna Politkovskaya? Is there solid proof that he ordered the murder of Litvinenko? He has overstayed his welcome a bit in my opinion, but he did come in a crucial time for Russia, and I don't think the collective psyche or mentality is yet ready for a truly democratic state (I don't know that many true democracies either). I do enjoy the results of his time in power though, I feel perfectly safe walking the streets of Moscow (probably even safer than in London), where else could I call a car off the street and get back home for some 8 pounds from any point of town without even being scared. Many of the governmental administrative institutions and businesses started functioning normally and so on, the chaos of the 90s seems to be gone and on the whole the country is in a better shape than it was 10 years ago.
There are downsides, such as the media being biased. But then before the TV channels and the newspapers largely were outlets for some oligarch with his obscure objectives, paid journos writing articles on order, now it is mostly the government. Same difference to be honest. The thing is I don't see the western media being particularly objective either.
Time to end this pointless diatribe, just had to put this out there somewhere I guess.
scottdisco
rip this joint please
extensive abuses by Russia.
what Vimothy said yesterday morning.
end of.
(not to imply i am not interested in any of the other important issues recently raised on thread in good faith.)
the Litvinenko hit was ordered in the Kremlin which is of course not the same as saying it is necessarily anything to do with Putin. (i have that on extremely good authority, btw.)
what Vimothy said yesterday morning.
end of.
(not to imply i am not interested in any of the other important issues recently raised on thread in good faith.)
the Litvinenko hit was ordered in the Kremlin which is of course not the same as saying it is necessarily anything to do with Putin. (i have that on extremely good authority, btw.)
padraig (u.s.)
a monkey that will go ape
@urbanite
sure, there's a lot of biased media - much moreso in the U.S. than Western Europe I think (also in Eastern Europe but anti-Russian feelings there are obv understandable). there's also an enormous difference btwn a largely free press - which can be manipulated but not silenced - and one effectively muzzled under threat of death.
the point isn't whether Putin personally ordered this or that killing (tho "lack of foolproof evidence" doesn't equate to innocence), it's that his Russia - well his & that of the siloviki - is an exceedingly dangerous place for journalists & opponents of the regime.
re: Chechyna - no offense but I think you're willfully deluding yourself if you think the Russians haven't done an enormous amount of grisly, terrible stuff. the Chechens have done their share as well, of course. this:
I find quite hard to believe - there were foreign fighters, certainly, but blaming it all on foreigners & calling everything "terrorism" not only devalues the term but also sidesteps the fact that the Chechens had many legitimate grievances of their own before any foreigners showed up. it sounds like propaganda, in other words.
sure, there's a lot of biased media - much moreso in the U.S. than Western Europe I think (also in Eastern Europe but anti-Russian feelings there are obv understandable). there's also an enormous difference btwn a largely free press - which can be manipulated but not silenced - and one effectively muzzled under threat of death.
the point isn't whether Putin personally ordered this or that killing (tho "lack of foolproof evidence" doesn't equate to innocence), it's that his Russia - well his & that of the siloviki - is an exceedingly dangerous place for journalists & opponents of the regime.
re: Chechyna - no offense but I think you're willfully deluding yourself if you think the Russians haven't done an enormous amount of grisly, terrible stuff. the Chechens have done their share as well, of course. this:
I find quite hard to believe - there were foreign fighters, certainly, but blaming it all on foreigners & calling everything "terrorism" not only devalues the term but also sidesteps the fact that the Chechens had many legitimate grievances of their own before any foreigners showed up. it sounds like propaganda, in other words.