Poland and Georgia are BFF's, the U.S. is trying to get Georgia to join NATO...

do you think this could be a little skirmish...or could this turn into a huge problem?

Quote, originally posted by Ash J. Williams »

i can't figure out whether you are a complete moron, or extremely cynical when i read your posts.

WTB: Clean/complete 99-00 EM1 front seats w/rails and brackets

they are teetering from what I understand.

all they need is some dumb ass young soldier to say the wrong thing and there will be blood.

apparently one of the Georgian Seperatists higher ups has said they have weapons buried everywhere and that the civilians have 2-3 guns a piece.

It's more complex than that though. Abkhazia being one reason. The sovereignty dispute has not yet been resolved and the region remains divided between the two rival authorities, with over 83 percent of its territory governed by the Russian-backed Sukhumi-based separatist government and about 17 percent governed by the Government of the Autonomous Republic of Abkhazia, recognized by Georgia as the legal authority of Abkhazia, located in the Kodori Valley, part of Georgian-controlled Upper Abkhazia. This is generally viewed by Georgians as meddling in the internal affairs of Russia.

South Ossetia is basically the same issue. Russian supporting the speratist movement and all.

I just don't think Russia would get involved. For one the U.S. supports Georgia. Secondly the U.N. supports Georgia. I just don't forsee Russia risking everything to land grab.

If you're talking strictly land...you're right, and I understand the disputed regions and those politics but...

Running through Abkhazia is one of the largest oil reserves in that region that DOESN'T run through Russia.

I'm not one of those people who think all these problems are oil-based...but they might be related.

The U.S. has sent troops in the middle of the forces to perform exercises...

http://news.google.com/news?cl...+News

That's not really a new development. There's this huge push by Russia to secure a wealth of oil/gas reserves.

But Georgia pre-dates Russia and will probably be around long after Russia has collapsed. Georgia is playing this the right way. Using the media to its advantage and trying to stick to the facts as they see them. Russia's blustering is actually kind of comical to me.

You probably would have had more luck with this in the Politics section.

I've read a lot about this but I'm hardly and expert or completely informed.

nor I, i've been reading about this a lot and it really interests me. anything outside of the god damn middle east interests me.

this will be moved to politics regardless.

It just seems like there has been saber-rattling on both sides and now they're just closer than ever.

Honestly if the Russian MiG bombing didn't light the fire, nothing will. Short of a full scale invasion of course. IMHO.

or that could have been a catalyst for the even-further escalated nerves...as in Georgia will NOT let that happen again..

Quote, originally posted by Mark sans »

LOL. Yes -- of course Russian intervention into the sovereign affairs of a foreign state is the result of "US meddling."

I have to agree...It seems like Russian history is slowly repeating itself as it struggles to land-grab.

The US likes to ignore the sovereignty of other nations when it is trying to spread the influence of US. More influence=more power. On the flipside, it pisses a lot of people off as well. Hence why terrorists are so adamant about destroying everything the U.S. stands for.

Quote, originally posted by Mark sans »

LOL. Yes -- of course Russian intervention into the sovereign affairs of a foreign state is the result of "US meddling."

Um, yeah, that's pretty much how it is. Russia doesn't like US troops in Georgia so close to Russian soil. Same story with the BS missile defense the US is trying to build around Russia.

Russia doesn't forget losing over 20 million people in WWII that quickly, that is why it is weary of a foreign nation trying to meddle in the affairs of an already troublesome neighbor (Georgia). Ever wonder WHY the Soviet Union set up puppet governments in Eastern Europe? it was to create a buffer from another attack on its soil, presumably from the US. This aloofness persists to this day, although to a lesser extent.

Quote, originally posted by Moemers »

I have to agree...It seems like Russian history is slowly repeating itself as it struggles to land-grab.

Russia is not land grabbing anything, it's protecting its interests by supporting the anti-US faction of the Georgian government, just like it has in the Ukraine and elsewhere.

And I love the story that Russia was forced to establish puppet regimes and suppress the will of the citizens of numerous countries for its own safety. And you wonder why Eastern Europe is so quick to embrace the West! I'm also a huge fan of revisionist history without examination of WHY Soviet death tolls were so much higher than those of any other state.

The relationship between the states of the Caucasus and the Russian Empire has always been difficult, and to be honest it has never fully submitted to rule from Petersburg even during the reigns of the most powerful Russian governments of Catherine II or Stalin.

Christianity in Georgia is older than it is in Russia. The Georgian Orthodox Church was established in Roman days and it is autocephalous, maintaining its own apostolic foundation and a status that puts it on an equal footing with Moscow. Georgia will not even submit to Constantinople.

As far as every house having two or three rifles each...I believe it.

Trying to conquer the mountains of Georgia would be all too similar to a recent Russian experience in the mountains of Afghanistan.

In that we'll arm the Georgians, Train them...and have them fight us later?

lol, I get what you're saying.

Didn't know about the religion parts...very interesting.

As an American, I wouldn't expect you to understand. The Soviet Union took the brunt of Nazi Germany's military forces, much more so than any other nation. One out of every 22 citizens of Russia died over the course of the war. In some regions such as Belorussia, it was as high as one out of every four people! If preventing another massacre of the civilian population at the hands of a foreign aggressor means installing a government that is favorable to you, so be it. I agree, in the beginning of the war, the troops were very incompetently led in large part due to Stalin's purges in 1937-1938.

Care to tell me why exactly Soviet death tolls were so high? Let me guess, you watch the history channel and Enemy at the Gates, you know everything.

Let me tell you something: in the winter of 1944, at the Battle of the Bulge, the American forces were very close to being wiped off the map. The Germans did this with a fraction of the forces they had on the Eastern front! I think the Bulge was one of the only encounters where the US troops got a taste of what the Eastern Front was like. Guess what stopped this onslaught? A Russian offensive that required the Nazis to pull their forces out of the Ardennes and reinforce the Eastern front.

I cannot stand American ignorance and arrogance about WWII. You didn't win the war by yourselves, Russia spilled blood for you. Show so goddamn respect for the people who made it possible for you to have your precious democracy right now.

It's sometimes amusing to watch the face of a Russian when it's explained that the much glorified defeat of Rommel in North Africa was just one British Army fighting one German Army.

The Russians had to think in terms of a dozen armies with millions of people, while the British were talking about three or four armies with a number of soldiers whose names were all known.

The number of tanks involved in the Battle of Kursk completely dwarfs the number of tanks involved in Alamein and other much glorified British battles.

Thank you George, I can see that you are well read in things concerning WWII. I never quite understood my school's history books that tossed around the battles of El Alamein, Stalingrad, and Midway as equals in terms of being turning points in WWII as a whole. Stalingrad was the biggest single military battle in the history of mankind. Total casualties exceeded 1 million people.

But, back on the point, you raised the figure of casualties and, while I agree they were high, I asked you critically why they were so high. Certainly because a large part of the war was fought there -- I assumed that was a given. But why were Russia's military casualties double that of Germany's? You apparently see little blame in Stalin or the Soviet regime for what happened and instead blame it exclusively on how hard it was. To me, that's a cop out.

Creating foreign policy that oppresses non-Russians and their sovereign government as a response to a war is bad. But omitting the Soviet role in the extent of casualties in reaching that flawed logic is worse. If you want to use those casualty figures, you have to own them. You have to include those that resulted from forced displacements, poor planning and Stalin's ego-driven purge five years prior. You don't get to blame everyone else for the losses and then think it is acceptable to hold half a continent hostage based on that delusion.

After 1942, tactics changed, and General Zhukov and General Koniev proved to be brilliant tacticians. Casualties in Stalingrad were nearly even, and from then on stayed even or even higher for the Nazis. Berlin was a bloodbath for the Russians too: Stalin set a date for when it was to be captured, end of story. Caution was thrown into the wind and after a massive artillery barrage, men and tanks were sent in. Nazi resistance was fanatical.

I have read numerous accounts of German troops being delighted at being transferred to the Western Front, considering it a vacation from Russia. Fighting was fierce, and the Russians were defending their own land, and were all too ready to die for it. Russian fighter pilots rammed bombers from the sky once they ran out of ammunition, and soldiers blocked machine gun emplacements with their bodies. Yes, there were instances of commissars and the NKVD using intimidation to get conscripts to fight, but nothing like in the movies. Most of the time, it was the men who willingly did this. Perhaps if the Nazis were on US soil, burning villages, killing children and raping women, US troops would behave similarly.

Most soldiers didn't give a damn about the Communists. They cared about their family and their 'Rodina,' the motherland. They were all too willing to give their lives to defend these two things.

Like I said, if the US had foreign invaders on its land, and had lost over 11 million CIVILIANS, perhaps you would understand.

But in any event, my larger point is that I think what is happening now is unwarranted by that history. At the end of the day, the US and its Western allies are not going to launch the next land war in Asia any time soon. Albeit mostly shot, Russia still has enough of a missle arsenal to overcome any "shield" that has been proposed and to retaliate to a massive degree if pre-emptively attacked. Fommenting revolt and re-annexing former satellites will not change the US and Russia's respective positions.