Yes Gus.

The poor little shrub has finally come-up against someone who who won't be intimidated.

I don’t suppose the Georgian kerfuffle would have anything to do with the world’s self-anointed champion of freedom & democracy & its thus far failed efforts to have Georgia accepted as a member of NATO, nor the fact that 1,000 yankee marines, along with 1,000 Israeli “military advisors”, have recently been very busy training the 25,000 members of its armed forces?

Of course, little George & his neo-con cronies have been busy arming his namesake state for years, in return for their continuing participation in its butchery of Iraq; although their 2,000 strong contingent is currently being rushed home to defend the motherland, courtesy of the US Air Force.

Or might the Russian bear simply be demonstrating to George the silliness of the Pentagon’s proposal to deploy mobile radar stations in Georgia as part of its supposed ‘nuclear shield’?

A Path to Peace in the Caucasus

By Mikhail Gorbachev
Tuesday, August 12, 2008; A13

MOSCOW -- The past week's events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone. Already, thousands of people have died, tens of thousands have been turned into refugees, and towns and villages lie in ruins. Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction. It is a warning to all.

The roots of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia's separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy. This turned out to be a time bomb for Georgia's territorial integrity. Each time successive Georgian leaders tried to impose their will by force -- both in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, where the issues of autonomy are similar -- it only made the situation worse. New wounds aggravated old injuries.

Nevertheless, it was still possible to find a political solution. For some time, relative calm was maintained in South Ossetia. The peacekeeping force composed of Russians, Georgians and Ossetians fulfilled its mission, and ordinary Ossetians and Georgians, who live close to each other, found at least some common ground.

Through all these years, Russia has continued to recognize Georgia's territorial integrity. Clearly, the only way to solve the South Ossetian problem on that basis is through peaceful means. Indeed, in a civilized world, there is no other way.

The Georgian leadership flouted this key principle.

What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against "small, defenseless Georgia" is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.

Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a "blitzkrieg" in South Ossetia.

In other words, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expecting unconditional support from the West, and the West had given him reason to think he would have it. Now that the Georgian military assault has been routed, both the Georgian government and its supporters should rethink their position.
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from the perestroika man himself: Putin did the right thing...

From the Independent

No one in Georgia or a Western capital doubts that Moscow's lightning retaliation when Georgian forces launched their surprise attack on the South Ossetian capital was long planned. Mr Saakashvili ignored Western warnings – including those from the US Secretary of State, Condoleezza Rice, during a visit to Georgia – not to respond to Russian provocation. But in the end he fell into the Russian trap by ordering an ill-planned strike while the eyes of the world were on the Olympic Games in Beijing. He cannot have anticipated the overwhelming response from the nuclear power across the border, involving massive firepower from tanks, warplanes and battle-hardened Russian soldiers.

The Russian fightback was branded disproportionate by US and European leaders who urged a ceasefire, convened the UN Security Council and sent envoys scurrying to the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, and Moscow. The latest leader to sue for peace was the French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, bearing a plan which has yet to be fully endorsed by all sides. Russia now holds the best cards because Mr Putin realised early on – presumably from his conversations with President George Bush in Beijing – that the West has no stomach for a war with Russia to save Georgian democracy.

Georgia, Russia agree on French peace plan

By Matt Brown in Tbilisi & Scott Bevan in Vladikavkaz

Georgia and Russia have agreed to a modified version of a peace plan with Russia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy brokered the deal with some shuttle diplomacy between Moscow and Tbilisi.

He announced the deal at an early-morning news conference with the Georgian leader.

"This agreement has been agreed to by both Presidents Saakashvili and also Medvedev the Russian President," Mr Sarkozy said.

Overnight Russian President Dmitry Medvedev ordered a halt to Russia's military offensive, saying that the aggressor in the conflict had been punished and suffered significant losses.

In Apparent Truce, U.S. Sees Russian Fear of Global Reproof

By Karen DeYoung
Washington Post Staff Writer
Wednesday, August 13, 2008; A10

The Bush administration suggested yesterday that an apparent cease-fire in Georgia came about because Moscow feared it would be banished from Western-dominated international economic and political institutions if it did not stop its "aggression" in the former Soviet republic.

"Russia has one foot into the international community . . . and one foot that is not," a senior administration official said. Membership in institutions such as the World Trade Organization and the Group of Eight major industrialized nations "is what is at stake when Russia engages in behavior that looks like it came from another time."

Officials indicated that an upcoming meeting between Russia and the North Atlantic Alliance, NATO's governing board, had been canceled and that a NATO-Russia naval exercise, aimed at improving maritime security cooperation, would not take place as planned on Friday. "This is not a propitious time," a second senior official said. The officials appeared jointly at a briefing for reporters held on the condition that their names not be used.

Russia rejected the idea that it had agreed to the cease-fire out of fear of international ostracism. The United States "is as much interested in the relations with Russia as Russia is in the relations with the United States," said Vitali Churkin, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations.

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Gus: anonymous US administration "officials" stirring the pot...

August 13, 2008
After Mixed U.S. Messages, a War Erupted in Georgia
By HELENE COOPER and THOM SHANKER

WASHINGTON — One month ago, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice arrived in Tbilisi, Georgia, for a high-profile visit that was planned to accomplish two very different goals.

During a private dinner on July 9, Ms. Rice’s aides say, she warned President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia not to get into a military conflict with Russia that Georgia could not win. “She told him, in no uncertain terms, that he had to put a non-use of force pledge on the table,” according to a senior administration official who accompanied Ms. Rice to the Georgian capital.

But publicly, Ms. Rice struck a different tone, one of defiant support for Georgia in the face of Russian pressure. “I’m going to visit a friend and I don’t expect much comment about the United States going to visit a friend,” she told reporters just before arriving in Tbilisi, even as Russian jets were conducting intimidating maneuvers over South Ossetia.

In the five days since the simmering conflict between Russia and Georgia erupted into war, Bush administration officials have been adamant in asserting that they warned the government in Tbilisi not to let Moscow provoke it into a fight — and that they were surprised when their advice went unheeded. Right up until the hours before Georgia launched its attack late last week in South Ossetia, Washington’s top envoy for the region, Assistant Secretary of State Daniel Fried, and other administration officials were warning the Georgians not to allow the conflict to escalate.

US forces to deliver Georgia aid

Mr Bush says the US stands by Georgia's 'democratically elected government'

President George W Bush has said the US will use military aircraft and naval forces to deliver aid to Georgia following its conflict with Russia.

Speaking in Washington, he expressed concern about reports of continuing Russian action in Georgia, and urged Russia to respect a ceasefire accord.

Mr Bush hinted that Russia could be jeopardising its international ties.

The Kremlin said the US must choose between partnership with Moscow, or with the Georgian leadership.

"At some time it will be necessary to choose between supporting this virtual project and [a] real partnership on questions which actually require collective action," said Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov.

This is a tale of US expansion not Russian aggression
War in the Caucasus is as much the product of an American imperial drive as local conflicts. It's likely to be a taste of things to come

The outcome of six grim days of bloodshed in the Caucasus has triggered an outpouring of the most nauseating hypocrisy from western politicians and their captive media. As talking heads thundered against Russian imperialism and brutal disproportionality, US vice-president Dick Cheney, faithfully echoed by Gordon Brown and David Miliband, declared that "Russian aggression must not go unanswered". George Bush denounced Russia for having "invaded a sovereign neighbouring state" and threatening "a democratic government". Such an action, he insisted, "is unacceptable in the 21st century".

Could these by any chance be the leaders of the same governments that in 2003 invaded and occupied - along with Georgia, as luck would have it - the sovereign state of Iraq on a false pretext at the cost of hundreds of thousands of lives? Or even the two governments that blocked a ceasefire in the summer of 2006 as Israel pulverised Lebanon's infrastructure and killed more than a thousand civilians in retaliation for the capture or killing of five soldiers?

You'd be hard put to recall after all the fury over Russian aggression that it was actually Georgia that began the war last Thursday with an all-out attack on South Ossetia to "restore constitutional order" - in other words, rule over an area it has never controlled since the collapse of the Soviet Union. Nor, amid the outrage at Russian bombardments, have there been much more than the briefest references to the atrocities committed by Georgian forces against citizens it claims as its own in South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali. Several hundred civilians were killed there by Georgian troops last week, along with Russian soldiers operating under a 1990s peace agreement: "I saw a Georgian soldier throw a grenade into a basement full of women and children," one Tskhinvali resident, Saramat Tskhovredov, told reporters on Tuesday.

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Gus: "Hypocrisy is a garment of disguise that hides the deceit of one spruiking from the mount of morality..." proverb from Maxiplushitia.

Russia's War Is The West's Challenge

By Mikheil Saakashvili [President of Georgia]

Thursday, August 14, 2008; A17

TBILISI, Georgia -- Russia's invasion of Georgia strikes at the heart of Western values and our 21st-century system of security. If the international community allows Russia to crush our democratic, independent state, it will be giving carte blanche to authoritarian governments everywhere. Russia intends to destroy not just a country but an idea.

For too long, we all underestimated the ruthlessness of the regime in Moscow. Yesterday brought further evidence of its duplicity: Within 24 hours of Russia agreeing to a cease-fire, its forces were rampaging through Gori; blocking the port of Poti; sinking Georgian vessels; and -- worst of all -- brutally purging Georgian villages in South Ossetia, raping women and executing men.

The Russian leadership cannot be trusted -- and this hard reality should guide the West's response. Only Western peacekeepers can end the war.

Russia also seeks to destroy our economy and is bombing factories, ports and other vital sites. Accordingly, we need to establish a modern version of the Berlin Airlift; the United Nations, the United States, Canada and others are moving in this direction, for which we are deeply grateful.

As we consider what to do next, understanding Russia's goals is critical. Moscow aims to satisfy its imperialist ambitions; to erase one of the few democratic, law-governed states in its vicinity; and, above all, to demolish the post-Cold War system of international relations in Europe. Russia is showing that it can do as it pleases.

The historical parallels are stark: Russia's war on Georgia echoes events in Finland in 1939, Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968. Perhaps this is why so many Eastern European countries, which suffered under Soviet occupation, have voiced their support for us.

Russia's authoritarian leaders see us as a threat because Georgia is a free country whose people have elected to integrate into the Euro-Atlantic community. This offends Russia's rulers. They do not want their nation or even its borders contaminated by democratic ideas.

Since our democratic government came to power after the 2003 Rose Revolution, Russia has used economic embargoes and closed borders to isolate us and has illegally deported thousands of Georgians in Russia. It has tried to destabilize us politically with the help of criminal oligarchs. It has tried to freeze us into submission by blowing up vital gas pipelines in midwinter.

When all that failed to shake the Georgian people's resolve, Russia invaded.

Last week, Russia, using its separatist proxies, attacked several peaceful, Georgian-controlled villages in South Ossetia, killing innocent civilians and damaging infrastructure.

On Aug. 6, just hours after a senior Georgian official traveled to South Ossetia to attempt negotiations, a massive assault was launched on Georgian settlements. Even as we came under attack, I declared a unilateral cease-fire in hopes of avoiding escalation and announced our willingness to talk to the separatists in any format.

But the separatists and their Russian masters were deaf to our calls for peace. Our government then learned that columns of Russian tanks and troops had crossed Georgia's sovereign borders. The thousands of troops, tanks and artillery amassed on our border are evidence of how long Russia had been planning this aggression.

read more at The Washington Post 

Bush Said to Give Orders Allowing Raids in Pakistan

By ERIC SCHMITT and MARK MAZZETTI
Published: September 10, 2008

WASHINGTON — President Bush secretly approved orders in July that for the first time allow American Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults inside Pakistan without the prior approval of the Pakistani government, according to senior American officials.

The classified orders signal a watershed for the Bush administration after nearly seven years of trying to work with Pakistan to combat the Taliban and Al Qaeda, and after months of high-level stalemate about how to challenge the militants’ increasingly secure base in Pakistan’s tribal areas.

American officials say that they will notify Pakistan when they conduct limited ground attacks like the Special Operations raid last Wednesday in a Pakistani village near the Afghanistan border, but that they will not ask for its permission.