This headline probably would have resulted in 24/7 media coverage, complete with the talking heads screaming for blood. Unfortunately for John McCain and the repuglicans, the dead people are Russians, not Georgians. Most people in America won't even know about this incident, thanks to our media.
Car bomb kills 9 Russians in South Ossetian capital
By Ellen Barry
Published: October 3, 2008
MOSCOW: A car bomb in the capital of South Ossetia on Friday killed nine Russian peacekeepers and wounded three others, raising tensions in the separatist enclave days before a scheduled pullback of Russian troops from Georgian territory.
President Eduard Kokoity of South Ossetia said he had "no doubt" that Georgian special forces [my bold] were behind the explosion in the capital, Tskhinvali. The acts, he said, "undermine international efforts to stabilize the situation and torpedo the Medvedev-Sarkozy plan."
The blast came six days before a deadline for Russia to pull back from the so-called buffer zone outside South Ossetia, yielding a large swath of land back to Georgian control. European Union monitors began patrolling the buffer zone Wednesday, in accordance with a cease-fire agreement brokered by President Nicolas Sarkozy of France and agreed to by Russia. President Dmitri Medvedev of Russia agreed to adhere to the timetable for withdrawal.
"The last terrorist act in South Ossetia proves that Georgia has not abandoned the policy of state terrorism," Kokoity told the Russian news agency Interfax.
Shota Utiashvili, head of the analysis department for the Georgian Interior Ministry, said his country was not involved."It's completely unclear how it could have been done by the Georgians, as Kokoity has said," Utiashvili said. "There is no way we can know where this car came from and why it was taken to a Russian military base."
Utiashvili said the explosion was part of a Russian strategy to delay the planned withdrawal.
"They have tried to create tensions several times by killing Georgian policemen, and we didn't respond to any of the actions," he said. "They just did it themselves."
Zalina Tskhovrebova, editor of South Ossetia, the largest newspaper in Tskhinvali, said the blast was so powerful that it had broken windows and knocked pictures off the wall of her office, which is about 110 meters, or 350 feet, from the site. It also frayed nerves in a city still rebuilding from fighting involving Russian, Ossetian and Georgian forces in August.
Since then, aid has poured into the city from Russia, with teams of workers swarming around school buildings and trucks distributing fresh bread and Russian newspapers.
"My windows had just been replaced," Tskhovrebova said. "People were beginning to be happy."
A low-level war had been simmering between Ossetian and Georgian forces for years, but it flared into open warfare late on Aug. 7, when Tbilisi ordered an attack on the separatist capital. Russia sent troops over the border in response, driving deep into Georgia proper. Russia has recognized South Ossetia and Abkhazia as sovereign nations and promised to protect their borders.
Earlier Friday, an explosive device went off near a car belonging to Anatoli Margiyev, head of South Ossetia's Leningorsk district administration, as he was en route to Tskhinvali, Interfax reported. The car was set on fire, but Margiyev jumped clear.
The explosion occurred in an ethnic Georgian area, and a South Ossetian government spokesman said it had been an attempt on Margiyev's life. Since he took the position as chief of the district administration, he has been threatened repeatedly and asked to step down, Interfax reported.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2008/10/03/europe/ossetia.php
October 4, 2008
Terrorists Kill 9 Peacekeepers
August 20, 2008
The Russians Ain't Going
Below is a headline I have been taught to expect since I became conscience and verbal:
Russia seizes US vehicles
Russian soldiers toda
y held blindfolded Georgian servicemen at gunpoint and commandeered US Humvees in a dramatic sequence of events in Poti, a key Black Sea port.
White House spokesman Gordon Johndroe stated that if Russia has seized any US military equipment in Georgia, it must return it immediately.
In Poti, on the Black Sea, Russian forces blocked access to the naval and commercial ports this morning and towed the missile boat Dioskuria, one of the navy's most sophisticated vessels, out of sight of observers. A loud explosion was heard minutes later.
Several hours later, an Associated Press photographer saw Russian trucks and armored personnel carriers leaving the port with about 20 blindfolded and handcuffed men riding on them. Port spokesman Eduard Mashevoriani said the men were Georgian soldiers.
The Russians also took with them four Humvees [my bold] that were at the port awaiting shipment back to the United States after taking part in earlier US-Georgian military exercises.
The deputy head of Russia's general staff, Col.-Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn, said in Moscow that Russian forces plan to remain in Poti until a local administration is formed, [my bold + Baghdad on the Black Sea?] but did not give further details. He also justified previous seizures of Georgian soldiers as necessary to crack down on soldiers who were "out of any kind of control ... acting without command."
A small column of Russian tanks and armored vehicles left Gori on Tuesday, and a Russian officer said they were heading back to South Ossetia and then Russia. It was the first sign of a Russian pullback of troops from Georgia.
The column, which also apparently included a mobile rocket-launcher, passed the village of Ruisi, outside Gori on the road to South Ossetia on Tuesday afternoon.
Col. Igor Konoshenkov, a Russian military officer, told The Associated Press at the scene the unit was headed for South Ossetia and, ultimately, back to Russia. He gave no timetable for when the unit would reach Russia.
Konoshenkov said it was part of the Russian pullback mandated by a cease-fire that requires both sides to return to positions held before fighting broke out Aug. 7 in South Ossetia, a separatist Georgian province with close ties to Russia.
Elsewhere, Russia they exchanged POWs with Georgia and pulled back some troops from the strategic city of Gori.
It was a day of deeply mixed messages that left the small, war-battered country full of anxiety about whether Russia was aiming for a long-term military presence in Georgia or whether it was just trying to inflict maximum damage before adhering to a EU-brokered cease-fire and troop pullout.
No Comfort in the Black Sea
George W. Bush is gonna leave one awful mess for the next Prez.
Posted on Tuesday, August 19, 2008
Pentagon, White House at odds over aid to Georgia
By Nancy A. Youssef | McClatchy Newspapers
WASHINGTON — The Bush White House and the Pentagon are at odds over whether to station a Navy ship in the Black Sea to demonstrate U.S. support for the embattled Georgian military and government, two defense officials told McClatchy Tuesday.
The White House thinks that deploying a vessel such as the hospital ship USNS Comfort would showcase the Bush administration's support for Georgia and signal U.S. concern that Russia has sparked a humanitarian crisis in Georgia.
The Pentagon officials, who both spoke only on the condition of anonymity because they weren't authorized to discuss internal policy deliberations, said the move is unnecessary. Last week, the U.S. military sent a 12-member assessment team to determine how much humanitarian aid Georgians need.
Air Force and Navy aircraft are sending supplies daily and military officials don't think Georgia requires much additional assistance.
The Comfort, which is based in Baltimore, could be ready to leave as early as Friday but would take five weeks to arrive, and the two military officials said they believe that air support is sufficient.
"That is all they need right now," one senior defense official said.
Moreover, to send the Comfort, a destroyer or any other major naval vessel, the Bush administration would need to obtain permission from Turkey under the Montreux Convention, an international treaty that regulates naval passage in the Black Sea. [my bold] So far, Turkey, which controls the Bosporus and the Dardanelles that link the Mediterranean and the Black Seas, has refused, the Pentagon officials told McClatchy.
The White House is frustrated, the officials said, but the Pentagon is unperturbed.
Last week, McClatchy reported that President Bush publicly declared that U.S. "naval forces" would assist Georgia before his administration had consulted Turkey or the Pentagon has planned a naval operation.
Throughout the Georgia conflict, Pentagon officials have resisted using U.S. weapons, troops or ships to send political messages to Russia. The Marine Corps would like to withdraw 17 Marines who were in Georgia to train Georgian troops for duty in Iraq, but the White House has insisted that the trainers remain in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, to head off any chance that the administration would be seen to be abandoning an ally.
Earlier this year, Turkey, a member of the NATO alliance, approved a U.S. military plan to send the destroyer USS McFaul and the USS Dallas, a submarine, to the Black Sea for a training exercise. The military is stocking those ships with humanitarian aid in case defense officials decide to proceed with the training exercise, naval officials said. For now, however, the two ships remain docked in Greece.