And The Backlash
An outraged Georgian president furiously condemns Moscow's flagrant dismissal of the ceasefire agreement it had obligingly signed at the behest of Vladimir Putin's great good friend, Nikolas Sarkozy. President Sarkozy is no doubt more than a little put out himself at this betrayal of his good intentions by his formerly good friend, Prime Minister Putin and his presidential minion, Dmitri Medvedev.Russia, it should be noted, yet again, is on a mission of peace, a humanitarian mission to ensure the safeguarding of (Russian-style) democracy in the region and the security of its citizens. Surprise for Georgia, assuming that South Ossetians were Georgian citizens, but then there's always a pepper-sprinkling of Russians anywhere and everywhere, in greater or lesser numbers in all of the former U.S.S.R's satellites.
Russian troops are good-naturedly sitting back, observing the very busy activities of those needy dependent-populations whose interests they have been tasked with protecting. As South Ossentian militias embark upon a mission of their own; to wreak vengeance on Georgian civilians in various towns and villages not all that far from the main road leading to Tbilisi.
"All the young men have been killed. the Ossentians are shooting them", shouted a distraught man escaping on the back of a truck piled with desperately frightened people escaping the area. This is a mischievous rumour, of course, there always exists people of ill intent whose purpose it is to blacken the name of Russia and her emissaries of peace.
And who, after all, would believe a representative of the United States, envoy Matthew Bryza who claims having received "credible reports of villages being burned, shootings and killings." Preposterous and nasty in the extreme, to claim that the still-advancing Russian military have had any part in prosecuting this kind of bloody misery.
As for Human Rights Watch claiming that they can confidently state that looting and pillaging in Georgian villages is ongoing, we can dismiss that out of hand. Their researchers claiming that they have "witnessed terrifying scenes of destruction in four villages that used to be populated exclusively by ethnic Georgians" is a verifiable exercise in malicious slander.
Still, amazingly, there are many who believe that this is happening, are disgusted and furious and who, placing their own countries in danger by siding with and supporting Georgia are speaking out. "Russia's aggression against sovereign neighbouring country Georgia shows to the whole world that the peaceful period after the end of the Cold War has ended" claimed Estonian Prime Minister Andrus Ansip.
As he stood on a shared podium with the leaders of Poland, Ukraine, Lithuania and Latvia, at a televised rally in Tbilisi. Moreover, Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko, in solidarity with Georgia, is raising restrictions on the movement of the Russian fleet, based in the Ukraine's Sevastopol. Bravery, courage, mutiny. In unity there is strength.
But can they match the resolve, the strength of numbers and armaments, the economic might and the resurgent imperial designs of their one-time benevolent/malevolent dictator? Will a newly confident and belligerently determined Russia be the means of their involuntary in-gathering?
Labels: Political Realities, Troublespots, World Crises
posted by Pieface @ Thursday, August 14, 2008
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