South Osetia under attack

[Maniac]

1. Georgia started the fight by attacking the city.
2. Russia defended the citizens that are mostly russians that wants to be free from Georgia.
3. Georgia claims that the russians were only waiting for an excuse. That may be the case, but Georgia gambled and obviously counted on "the west" to step up and help them. By doing so georgia showed its true face and so have the russians. All these other imputs that this is about energy supply and whatnot may or may not be the case. Point is still that Georgia gambled and started an attack that has flattened a city.

Lets hope it ends soon.

The End.

I pretty much had the same oppinion as you in the beggining of the conflict. But not now. Its pretty clear that Russia aint doing this to save the poor Osetians. Theres alternative motives in this one.

[Dnil]

if reports are true, 4 georgian cities with the russians in them and now the port city of poti has reports of russians at the gate.  Again if true, this isnt protecting south ossettia, this is a smack down of georgia.

[killjoy1]

My heart goes out to all these peoples caught in the struggle.  We can argue who did what to whom, but they will suffer no matter who did it.

I hope it doesn't turn into the Spanish civil war before WW2 where nations tested new weapons at the expense of civilians.  There are a lot of new weapons systems out their and this is the perfect battle ground for them.

Paraphrasing Mark Twain.  "To a man with a hammer in his hand, every problem looks like a nail."

I wonder if the US will establish a no-fly zone over Georgia.  It would take some time but a couple of F22's and a spare AWAK could do it.  Remember also that Russia has to find fuel for all those tanks and support vehicles.  Tanks are nice, but they are a very big target.  There are lots of new ways to take them out.  

[Gh0stFT]

(Image removed from quote.)

I couldn't have said it better,
the EU warned Georgia allready in the past not to attack/use firepower against south ossettia...

[killjoy1]

Now this is interesting.

Russia started the Cyber-War before invading.



Several Georgian state computer servers have been under external control since shortly before Russia's armed intervention into the state commenced on Friday, leaving its online presence in dissaray.

While the official website of Mikheil Saakashvili, the Georgian President, has become available again, the central government site, as well as the homepages for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Ministry of Defence , remain down. Some commercial websites have also been hijacked.

The Georgian Government said that the disruption was caused by attacks carried out by Russia as part of the ongoing conflict between the two states over the Georgian province of South Ossetia.

In a statement released via a replacement website built on Google's blog-hosting service, the Georgian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said: "A cyber warfare campaign by Russia is seriously disrupting many Georgian websites, including that of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs."

Barack Obama, the Democratic US Presidential candidate, has demanded Moscow halt the internet attacks as well as observing a ceasefire on the ground.

Last April the computer systems of the Estonian Government came under attack in a co-ordinated three-week assault widely credited to state-sponsored Russian hackers. The wave of attacks came after a row erupted over the removal of the Bronze Soldier Soviet war memorial in Tallinn, the Estonian capital. The websites of government departments, political parties, banks and newspapers were all targeted.

Analysts have immediately accused the Russian Business Network (RBN), a network of criminal hackers with close links to the Russian mafia and government, of the Georgian attacks.

Jart Armin, a researcher who runs a website tracking the activity of the RBN, has released data claiming to show that visits to Georgian sites had been re-routed through servers in Russia and Turkey, where the traffic was blocked. Armin said the servers "are well known to be under the control of RBN and influenced by the Russian Government."

Mr Armin said that administrators in Germany had intervened at the weekend, temporarily making the Georgian sites available by re-routing their traffic through German servers run by Deutsche Telekom. Within hours, however, control over the traffic had been wrested back, this time to servers based in Moscow.

As in the barrage against Estonian websites last year, the Georgian sites are being bombarded by a distributed denial-of-service (DDoS) attack, in which hackers direct their computers to simultaneously flood a site with thousands of visits in order to overload it and bring it offline.

The Shadowserver Foundation, which tracks serious hacking, confirmed: "We are now seeing new attacks against .ge sites - www.parliament.ge and president.gov.ge are currently being hit with http floods."

Mr Armin warned that official Georgian sites that did appear online may have been hijacked and be displaying bogus content. He said in a post on his site: "Use caution with any web sites that appear of a Georgia official source but are without any recent news ... as these may be fraudulent."

The Baltic Business News website reported that Estonia has offered to send a specialist online security team to Georgia.

However a spokesman from Estonia's Development Centre of State Information Systems said Georgia had not made a formal request. "This will be decided by the government," he said.

[bsdaddict]

this isn't surprising...

West worried about Georgia oil pipeline

"While Georgia does not produce oil itself, US and European energy firms have counted on the pro-Western country - sandwiched between Russia and Iran further south - to host a conduit for oil and gas exports from Azerbaijan."

[Rich46yo]

I said the russians may bomb norway if we bomb moscow. Just like i said in my previous post. I have never claimed that Georgia has bombed Moscow.

Well what is the end game here? Put your Putin hat on before you start cheering for Russia.

Russian leaders have either had Empire or dreamed of Empire. Think that has changed?

OK, they already have west Europe by the short hairs with energy. By getting control of the Caspian pipeline they will get the really short hairs, And, much of the hairs of the entire free west. Most of all when you figure they are arming Iran to the teeth.

So now they have another trading card to go along with all their others. America is stuck in the middle of a terror war. We need their assistance with that, with Iran, with North Korea. Europe needs their energy. The old game of divide and conquer, most of all with NATO already divided.
 
So they step on Georgia and force a Soviet puppet in. Next is the Ukraine, Azerbaijan,Kyrgyzstan;Uzbekistan,Turkmenistan, Latvia.....the sky is the limit.

Clever boy. He wants the old Soviet Empire only without the bills. Either way its hard to understand why a Norwegian would be cheering for the Russians.

[Elfie]

Ill make my final statement and reason for beeing on the side of the russians in the initial stages of this conflict and then ill let the thread live on without me. Life it too short to get dragged into another argument that may live as long as the Irak argument. Not gonna waste whats left of the summer

1. Georgia started the fight by attacking the city.
2. Russia defended the citizens that are mostly russians that wants to be free from Georgia.
3. Georgia claims that the russians were only waiting for an excuse. That may be the case, but Georgia gambled and obviously counted on "the west" to step up and help them. By doing so georgia showed its true face and so have the russians. All these other imputs that this is about energy supply and whatnot may or may not be the case. Point is still that Georgia gambled and started an attack that has flattened a city.

Lets hope it ends soon.

The End.

Wow.....

Even though there are conflicting reports on who started it, you are sticking with the Russian propaganda machine. As stated before, the Russian citizens in South Ossetia are Ossets, not Russians. Just the fact that Russia did issue the passports and is now apparently trying to control all of Georgia shows that there is more than just a slight chance of instigation on the part of Russia. Looks like it was all planned out to me.

[FrodeMk3]

My heart goes out to all these peoples caught in the struggle.  We can argue who did what to whom, but they will suffer no matter who did it.

I hope it doesn't turn into the Spanish civil war before WW2 where nations tested new weapons at the expense of civilians.  There are a lot of new weapons systems out their and this is the perfect battle ground for them.

Paraphrasing Mark Twain.  "To a man with a hammer in his hand, every problem looks like a nail."

I wonder if the US will establish a no-fly zone over Georgia.  It would take some time but a couple of F22's and a spare AWAK could do it.  Remember also that Russia has to find fuel for all those tanks and support vehicles.  Tanks are nice, but they are a very big target.  There are lots of new ways to take them out.  

...Except that this isn't really in any way like the Spanish civil war. It's closet WWII equivalent would be the Invasion of Poland in '39.

This is a conventional invasion of Georgia, by Russia. There are no proxy forces' being used by them. And if they are already in Gori, then there won't be much time-Hangtime said two weeks, but I'm starting to think a week, maybe, Unless another player actually puts' forces at Georgia's disposal. We would actually need to be flying air-supremacy and AA-suppression missions' now, if we're to keep this thing from getting much more outta hand.



Do you see Gori? It's right on top of one of the pipelines. Reports' are the Russians' are already there, and pushing south. If they've already gotten that much territory, I don't see where the Georgians' have much longer at all.

[FrodeMk3]

Wow.....

Even though there are conflicting reports on who started it, you are sticking with the Russian propaganda machine. As stated before, the Russian citizens in South Ossetia are Ossets, not Russians. Just the fact that Russia did issue the passports and is now apparently trying to control all of Georgia shows that there is more than just a slight chance of instigation on the part of Russia. Looks like it was all planned out to me.

I'd say that the pre-positioned Russian Motor-rifle divisions' give that away, along with the almost immediate employment into action.

[Elfie]

I'd say that the pre-positioned Russian Motor-rifle divisions' give that away, along with the almost immediate employment into action.

(Image removed from quote.)

That too.

[Maniac]

Never tought i would say it but... Good speach Bush. Short but to the point.

[majic]

Question:

Say either the U.S. or NATO or some other European force wants to intervene.  How?

And what is Turkey's stance on this?

Also, how are the Georgians claiming this started.  (I've yet to see a reliable source say why Georgia went into SO in the first place.)



This whole thing is a bit scary, the Russians "response" has been way too effective (and overwhelming) to be a hastily prepared reaction to Georgia and S. Ossetia's flare up.

[Elfie]

Also, how are the Georgians claiming this started.

Georgians are claiming South Ossetia started shooting first. Of course, South Ossetia claims Georgia started shooting first.

I put up a pair of links on the first page of this thread.

[Dnil]

one step could be for Georgia to request a UN sanctioned no-fly zone over its own territory.  Im sure the UN would come up with some excuse not to do it but its one option.