Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question

[seemslikeadream]

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html?_r=1&hp&oref=slogin

TBILISI, Georgia — Newly available accounts by independent military observers of the beginning of the war between Georgia and Russia this summer call into question the longstanding Georgian assertion that it was acting defensively against separatist and Russian aggression.

Georgia moved forces toward the border of the breakaway region of South Ossetia on Aug. 7, at the start of what it called a defensive war with separatists there and with Russian forces.
Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgia’s inexperienced military attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.

The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations between the Kremlin and the West. But they raise questions about the accuracy and honesty of Georgia’s insistence that its shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway region of South Ossetia, was a precise operation. Georgia has variously defended the shelling as necessary to stop heavy Ossetian shelling of Georgian villages, bring order to the region or counter a Russian invasion.

President Mikheil Saakashvili of Georgia has characterized the attack as a precise and defensive act. But according to observations of the monitors, documented Aug. 7 and Aug. 8, Georgian artillery rounds and rockets were falling throughout the city at intervals of 15 to 20 seconds between explosions, and within the first hour of the bombardment at least 48 rounds landed in a civilian area. The monitors have also said they were unable to verify that ethnic Georgian villages were under heavy bombardment that evening, calling to question one of Mr. Saakashvili’s main justifications for the attack.

[OmmmSweetOmmm]

1. No shit Sherlock. They're now reporting this? I guess it's because McShame lost

the truth will be coming out.

Georgia attacked So. Ossetia (after their troops trained with ours) and Russia was defending them.

Plain and simple.

[ContinentalOp]

2. Ugh, FFS. I had to stop even thinking about this issue because it was making me crazy...

to hear so many people with the wrong version of events. I think this is the one thing about Obama that pissed me off more than anything. During one of the debates he repeated the same bullshit idea that Russia was the unprovoked aggressor.

[Norrin Radd]

3. Yep. Some of us were saying this from the beginning.