Putin Accuses Georgia Of Atrocities

By Cernig

Strong words from the de facto Russian leader, via Reuters:

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin, who has taken a leading role in the crisis, attacked the United States for helping Georgia fly home troops from Iraq and said the West was mistaking the aggressors for victims in the conflict -- a reference to strong Western support for Georgia.

Putin mocked the support given by the West to Saakashvili, comparing him to former Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, who was hanged in 2006 for executing Shiites.

"They (the Americans) of course had to hang Saddam Hussein for destroying several Shiite villages," Putin said.

"But the current Georgian rulers who in one hour simply wiped 10 Ossetian villages from the face of the earth, the Georgian rulers which used tanks to run over children and the elderly, which threw civilians into cellars and burnt them -- they (Georgian leaders) are players that have to be protected."

Allegations of Georgian ethnic cleansing in South Ossetia had been extant even before the current hostilities broke out when the Georgian president, Mikheil Saakashvili ordered his army to move into the disputed area in force, breaking a ceasefire days after it had been agreed. However, for the Russians to so visibly accuse Georgia of plain crimes against humanity may well be a response to US hawkish rhetoric claiming Putin is the new Hitler or Stalin.

I've no idea as yet whether these claims are true or not, but Saakashvili's record on oppression is little better than Putin's. Last year, the Georgian leader declared a state of emergency which was followed by widespread policy brutality against demonstrators after he was accused of corruption by opposition leaders he claimed were pawns of Russian intelligence. (Saakashvili claims everything bad that happens in Georgia is a plot by the Russians, maybe it is or maybe he's paranoid - or just playing the West's hawks like a fiddle.) In the election that followed, he got the 51% of the vote needed to avoid a run-off, down from his 97% vote at the previous election, amid accusations that he had unfairly used state resources and media control to beat his rivals.

Today, Georgia is calling for Western intervention to "prevent the fall of Georgia" and accusing Russia of having seized the crucial town of Gori, the link between East and West Georgia. However, there are good reasons to believe that the Georgians are being more than a bit untruthful. For instance, on Georgian claims to have halted attacks on South Ossetia. Back to Reuters:

Moscow snubbed a plea from the Group of Seven (G7) industrial powers for a ceasefire. It said Georgia had not kept a promise to halt fighting and was shelling the Russian-held region of South Ossetia where the conflict began last Thursday.

A Reuters witness saw Georgian helicopter gunships bombing targets near the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali, sending dark smoke billowing into the air. A second reporter heard heavy artillery bombardments on the road north of the wrecked town.

And on those claims of a Russian attack on Gori:

A senior Georgian official later claimed that Russian troops had seized the Georgian town of Gori, some 40 km (25 miles) from South Ossetia. Moscow denied that report and a Reuters correspondent said no troops were visible in Gori's streets.

The correspondent said a column of Georgian military trucks was visible on the highway moving out of Gori eastwards towards the capital Tbilisi.

The hawks of the West may be enamoured of their narrative, in which Saakashvili is a paragon of freedom-loving virtue and if Russia can take Georgia then its tanks could appear outside any European capital next. But that narrative has more to do with their own hawkish agenda than reality. Meanwhile they are, willingly or not, apparently complicit in selling the Western populace on yet another questionable ally against the "axis of evil" de jour, akin to previous such allies such as President Musharraf of Pakistan, Maliki, the Saudis and, yes, even Saddam in his time.

Comments

[Jimbo]

It has been pointed out in some blogs and comments, that rather than invest Tskhinvali and cutting the Roki Tunnel,

which is the logical strategy if you want to reclaim South Osettia and re-incorporate it and it,s people into Georgia,

the Georgians went for maximum South Ossettian casualties and conducted ethnic cleansing.

I would suggest that the Russians would not make specific claims of genocide, that they cannot substantiate. Generic claims are propaganda, but claiming that a specific church, in a specific town, where women and children were taking shelter, had it's door barred, set on fire, and Georgian Forces shot civillians trying to escape from the church, is not propaganda. It may be exaggerated, but significant elements of the event had to have happened.

The Times On Line has an Reporter's account of the Georgians abandoning Gori to nothing more than rumours of a Russian advance.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4509692.ece

A Pentagon spokesman noted today that the Georgan Command and Control networks have been destroyed and that the Georgian Military and political leadership probably is blind to the current situation.

Wiki has current upsdates of the situation, better than CNN, better than any of the Western Press, and much less rabidly anti-Russian.

Exiled on Line has some rather interesting posts on the political situation, the propaganda war, and the military realities.

http://exiledonline.com/

The post on the Georgian propaganda offensive is rather interesting.

[Liz S.]

How do we stop the Right from ramping up the rhetoric on this? It's obviously to McCain's advantage if they can instigate some fear and furor here.....blithefully disregarding the history of Bush/McCain dabbling.