US military trained Georgian commandos

According to The Financial Times, “The US military provided combat training to 80 Georgian special forces commandos only months prior to Georgia’s army assault in South Ossetia in August.

The revelation, based on recruitment documents and interviews with US military trainers obtained by the Financial Times, could add fuel to accusations by Vladimir Putin, Russian prime minister, last month that the US had “orchestrated” the war in the Georgian enclave.”

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Pat Buchanan: “Georgia Started This Fight! And Russia Finished It!”

Watch a blonde radio chick make a fool of herself on The McLaughlan Group:

Russia says EU right to avoid sanctions

By Denis Dyomkin, SOCHI, Russia (Reuters) – Russia on Tuesday praised the European Union’s “responsible” decision to avoid imposing sanctions on Moscow over its conflict with Georgia, but said the bloc had failed to understand why it had intervened.

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Putin says suspects U.S. provoked Georgia crisis

Reuters reports: “Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said on Thursday he suspected someone in the United States provoked the conflict in Georgia in an attempt to help a candidate in the U.S. presidential election.

“It is not just that the American side could not restrain the Georgian leadership from this criminal act. The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army,” Putin said in an interview with CNN, part of which was broadcast on Russian state television.

“Why … seek a difficult compromise solution in the peacekeeping process? It is easier to arm one of the sides and provoke it into killing another side. And the job is done.

“… The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of U.S. president.”

The crisis flared earlier this month when Georgia tried to retake by force its separatist province of South Ossetia and Russia launched an overwhelming counter-attack.

Russian forces swept the Georgian army out of the rebel region and are still occupying some areas of Georgia proper. On Tuesday, Moscow announced it was recognizing South Ossetia and another breakaway region, Abkhazia, as independent states.

The United States and Europe demand Russia respect a French-brokered ceasefire and withdraw all its troops from Georgia, including a disputed buffer zone imposed by Moscow.”

How to Confront Russia

Ed Koch, the former Mayor of New York City: “The renewed hostility between Russia and the U.S. over Georgia has the potential of leading to mutual destruction. This is in no one’s interest. The hostile rhetoric must be ratcheted down immediately, and we need to explore ways to work with the Russians in order to enhance global security, rather than undermine it.”

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If the Price is Right: McCain’s Georgian connection

McCain’s top adviser is multiply connected to Georgia, whose ill-advised assault on Russian positions in South Ossetia fully qualifies it as the first, overtly American-allied “rogue nation.” Most important, Scheunemann’s former lobbying firm, Orion Strategies, received at lest $800,000 from the government of Georgia between 2004 and May 15, 2008, when Scheunemann finally severed his ties — officially, at least — to the firm. Before that, between January 1, 2007, and May 15, 2008, Scheunemann was officially on the payroll as both Georgia’s lobbyist and McCain’s top adviser, during which time Georgia paid Orion and $290,000 and McCain paid him $70,000.

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Samantha Power: A Question of Honor

Time Magazine commentator, Samantha Power: “Russia’s action had as much to do with its wounded pride as with its alleged impaired security.”

Read the full article at Time.com

Fanning Ethnic Flames in Georgia

Local news reports in Tskhinvali contend that Georgian special forces were burning Georgian villages to create the impression that Russian forces were allowing ethnic cleansing. “The Georgians destroyed everything,” said Alan Khosayev, 28, as he watched workers clear a destroyed Georgian tank from an intersection in Tskhinvali. “Now we’ll have to rebuild it. I don’t know where the money will come from to rebuild South Ossetia. Probably from Russia.” Certainly the Russian forces are broadly seen as saviors among the Ossetians: graffiti on the side of one building read, “Thank you Russia!”

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A city in rubble

1,600 civilians died in the fighting in Ossetia. In Tskhinvali, locals claimed bodies had lain in the streets for some time, and many are now buried in temporary graves in back yards. BBC correspondent reports from Ossetia.

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Read the Russian opinions on the conflict .

PATRICK BUCHANAN: US SHOULD SEEK BROADER RELATIONS, NOT CONFRONTATION WITH RUSSIA

The former US presidential hopeful Patrick Buchanan accuses the White House of hypocrisy in clamouring about disproportionate Russian force in the latest Caucasus conflict.

Writing on the HumanEvents.com news site, he recalls how the United States sanctioned the latest Israeli war on Lebanon, the NATO bombing campaign against Federal Yugoslavia and the forceful separation of Kosovo. All these adventures lasted for months and claimed thousands of lives. It’s also noteworthy that the Lebanon war was in response to the capture of just two soldiers, and Kosovo’s ties to Serbia are much closer than those of Abkhazia and South Ossetia to Georgia.

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