Georgia: (Not Yet) All the Facts
Last week, Russia got a big p.r. boost when Chris Chivers and Ellen Barry wrote a detailed page-one piece in The New York Times backing up its version of how the five-day August war in Georgia began. In a nutshell, the piece concluded that the Georgians started it.
The war was momentous in a number of ways -- it all-but shut off the possibility that Georgia will get into NATO; it put a cloud of doubt over U.S. influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia; it may have accelerated the flight of western capital from Russia; and it turned the heaviest dose of western invective on Russia since the 2006 polonium murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
But now RFE-RL says it's more complicated than that. The Georgians may have fired before Russian troops arrived, according to a report today by Eka Tsamalashvili and Brian Whitmore, but their assault came days after South Ossetians began to shell local Georgian villages. The report says it's based on dozens of eye-witness accounts by RFE-RL reporters.
Both reports are worth reading. Together, they mean that, not surprisingly, there's much in the way of indignant showmanship to the claims by both sides. I haven't seen a definitive report as yet.
The war was momentous in a number of ways -- it all-but shut off the possibility that Georgia will get into NATO; it put a cloud of doubt over U.S. influence in the Caucasus and Central Asia; it may have accelerated the flight of western capital from Russia; and it turned the heaviest dose of western invective on Russia since the 2006 polonium murder of Alexander Litvinenko.
But now RFE-RL says it's more complicated than that. The Georgians may have fired before Russian troops arrived, according to a report today by Eka Tsamalashvili and Brian Whitmore, but their assault came days after South Ossetians began to shell local Georgian villages. The report says it's based on dozens of eye-witness accounts by RFE-RL reporters.
Both reports are worth reading. Together, they mean that, not surprisingly, there's much in the way of indignant showmanship to the claims by both sides. I haven't seen a definitive report as yet.
Labels: georgia, medvedev, nato, Putin, Russia, saakashvili, south ossetia
5 Comments:
Just caught this Tim Whewell report from TOD. I'm unfamiliar with Tim's reporting and I also find it difficult to sort the story out - at least without a timeline graphic.
RBM
Oh Steve, for crying out loud. The facts are clear and have been since Saakashvili recklessly attacked sleeping South Ossetians.
Suck it up and admit that Russia's response was measured and reasonable. The coverage by the Western media was embarrasing to say the least.
You may not like Russia but be man enough to admit when you are wrong. This kind of wishy-washy nonsense is below you.
See this link for a more reasonable take on the Georgian conflict.
http://www.russiaotherpointsofview.com/2008/11/media-blame-gam.html
Greetings Anonymous, and apologies for the delay in posting your comment.
You make two separate observations, one of which I think is well-taken, the other not clearly so.
Much of the media does appear to have misfired in its Georgia coverage. Georgia got entirely off the hook, particularly in the early stories.
However, you assert that Russia's response was measured. One might argue that pushing Georgia out of South Ossetia would have been a measured response (and arguably would not have provoked the international outcry that followed the push into Georgia proper).
But once Russia bombed Poti, dropped bombs around the Baku-Ceyhan pipeline, and captured and held large swaths of territory outside of South Ossetia, the response stopped looking as cool-headed.
The response gravitated from protecting South Ossetians and its own troops to a punitive mission against Saakashvili, and (in the case of the pipeline) a lesson in realpolitik to the West.
Thanks for the comment and best, Steve
Russian journalist Yulia Latynina published a very detailed analysis of the events Aug 5-9.
http://ej.ru/?a=note&id=8599 (in Russian)
There are enough facts that prove her point: Russian offense was planed long in advance and Georgians just tried to stop it.
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