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Actually, Russia had the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Apart from that, you've got a pretty good point.

GawainBS wrote:Actually, Russia had the biggest stockpile of nuclear weapons.

Apart from that, you've got a pretty good point.

Didn't a large chunk of the Soviets nuclear arsenal wind up in what are now independent states? How long they'll remain independent is now in doubt of course, it looks to me like Putin's aim is regain as much of the old SU that he can!

Let's hope they didn't wind up in the independent nations.

galraen wrote:Didn't a large chunk of the Soviets nuclear arsenal wind up in what are now independent states?

That's true, but those are still under ownership or Russian.
Also, didn't USA also have part of it's own nuclear arsenal divided in other countries?

Kipi wrote: Also, didn't USA also have part of it's own nuclear arsenal divided in other countries?

True, but since the war in Iraq there has been alot of protest against these locations and many countries want them out. I also believe the nuclear missles of the russians are disabled, while the american are not.

No, both countries' warheads are active. In the light of the SALT treaties, however, they've agreed to disable a percentage of their warheads. (Which, in absolute numbers, affected more Russian weapons. I also seem to remember that not so long ago, the US withdrew from these treaties. I might be wrong.)
Oh, and there has always been protest against American warheads on foreign soil. Even here in Belgium, and we're pretty placid.

@Galraen

I must confess to finding Lady Dragonfly's 'Russia's always right everyone else is wrong' attitude rather puzzling.

Huh? I don't believe I've ever implied anything of that sort. They are all corrupt.
Here is the situation as I see it:

In a sandbox, a mean 10 yrs old kid punches a mean 4 yrs old kid. The kid starts crying and his Mean Daddy comes and beats the crap out of the 10 yrs old kid. The mean 10 yrs old kid calls his Mean Uncle and demands that he would come over and screw Mean Daddy and his mean 4 yrs old kid. Because that was his original plan - to drag Mean Uncle into the sandbox. But Mean Uncle is not keen on screwing Mean Daddy because he knows that Mean Daddy would not appreciate being screwed and would most probably retaliate. Big time. Even Not Very Bright Uncle realizes that. He mumbles a few lame anathemas and keeps playing golf.

The mean 10 yrs old kid's provocation has failed and Mean Uncle has not come. Yet. Fortunately for the rest of us. But Mean Daddy is still in the sandbox and he is not a happy camper. He recalls that the sandbox used to be a part of his own backyard, and quite recently. Now the whole neighborhood tries to subdue Mean Daddy.

Whatever my own attitude towards Mean Daddy might be, the mean 10 yrs old deserves to get his ass kicked because the little bastard plays a dangerous game.

Reports are that Russian forces have occupied Gori, which is in Georgian territory and bombing another Georgian city outside Tblisi.

Finally, some journalists woke up:

The Bush administration's assurances of solidarity with a young democracy also may have given Georgia's silver-tongued, U.S.-educated leader a little too much swagger as he picked a playground fight he never could win on his own.

Colonel-General Nogovitsyn repeated an earlier charge that Georgian troops were engaged in genocide against civilians in South Ossetia, which he said he could "prove to the media."

"During their mop-up operations in South Ossetia, Georgian commandos have thrown hand grenades into the basements where civilians were hiding," he said. "That's what we call genocide."

This is my favorite:

Putin criticized the United States for viewing Georgia as the victim instead of the aggressor, and for airlifting Georgian troops back home from Iraq on Sunday.

"Of course, Saddam Hussein ought to have been hanged for destroying several Shiite villages," Putin said in Moscow. "And the incumbent Georgian leaders who razed ten Ossetian villages at once, who ran elderly people and children with tanks, who burned civilian alive in their sheds — these leaders must be taken under protection."

Of course, Puttin is a grand position to claim such things.

Ofcourse, targeting civilians can never be excused. The sad thing, however, is that these never seem to have been done by the victor, only by the losing side... (My point: Both sides do that in a war, but the victor gets to excuse himself from any guilt. Plenty of examples.)

Also, because of the noble Russian intentions, they're now bombing Georgian towns far from S-Ossetia and are advancing well beyond the borders?

The Russian president Medvedev has ordered a stop to the warfare as of 11 o'clock Norwegian time today, after talks with OSSE.

Whilst Georgia's leader may well deserve to hang (he is a politician after all) Putin will be well ahead of him in the queue for the scaffold! When Putin starts talking about war crimes and crimes against humanity in general, the words 'Pot', 'Kettle' and 'Black' come readily to mind!

An eye for an eye, GawainBS. Maybe next time the Georgian scumbag will think twice before ordering genocide.
I don't believe Russia was targeting civilians though, unlike Georgia.
Collateral damage is an ugly side effect of any war. Bombing of Berlin and other German cities caused massive civilian casualties.
Btw, I suspect this war is not over yet.

galraen wrote:Whilst Georgia's leader may well deserve to hang (he is a politician after all) Putin will be well ahead of him in the queue for the scaffold!

All politicians should hang, that goes without saying.

My point was, that since Russian is winning, it gets to called "collateral damage", where as the Georgians commited genocide.
The WWII bombings you mentioned, those weren't collateral damage, but deliberate attacks on civilians to cause as much damage as possible. Same for the attack on Tokyo. There are worse examples.

Lady Dragonfly wrote:An eye for an eye, GawainBS. Maybe next time the Georgian scumbag will think twice before ordering genocide.
I don't believe Russia was targeting civilians though, unlike Georgia.
<snip>

Considering Russia's track record in recent time, I think it would be pretty safe to say that they do.
Russia is not shy of having its soldiers of targeting civilians (Chechnya is a recent example) and them bombing/attacking amongst other things Gori and Tblisi shows willingness to accept "collateral" damage by far.
Putin is a 2 bit dictator wannabe. It is extremely visible given recent history.

I think it would be very naive to think that Russian troops aren't/weren't targeting the remanding minorities in what is now Russian territories.

GawainBS wrote:My point was, that since Russian is winning, it gets to called "collateral damage", where as the Georgians commited genocide.

Like in all wars. Stalin, maybe an even bigger murderer than Hitler, still is seen as one of the good guys in WO 2.

GawainBS wrote:The WWII bombings you mentioned, those weren't collateral damage, but deliberate attacks on civilians to cause as much damage as possible. Same for the attack on Tokyo. There are worse examples.

I never got why the army attacked civilians when in almost all great bombings of WO 2 there was knowledge that there were almost only civilians. Attacking of civilians is maybe a way of invoking fear in the enemy forces... Don't know.

Too be honest, I don't think Putin has that much power anymore. The new russian president is trying to repair the russian connection with other countries, althought I have to admit this is a strange way.

Civilians always die in war and most of the time it's because they are in the wrong place at the wrong time. I really don't think that any of the 2 forces will go and kill civilians on sight, because both of the countries have a lot to lose in a political way.

Medvedev is Puttin's pawn. There was no other "nice" way for Putting to stay president, so he became prime minister and his president is in fact, ceremonial.

@Xandax

I think it would be very naive to think that Russian troops aren't/weren't targeting the remanding minorities in what is now Russian territories.

Even so. Does it excuse poor little darling Saakashvili? Of course, he is "our staunch ally" who sent 2000 military contingent into Iraq despite the fact his own country's economy was (and is) in shambles. Of course, we need to support and protect our best friend (aka puppet) who was sending in more and more troops (to suck up to Bush, no doubt) while the other countries were pulling their troops out (which was the right thing to do, imho).

You guys keep on dismissing the obvious - this ambitious guy started the whole affair and apparently committed genocide hoping to force America into the conflict. Right, all we need is to fund another war. As if millions of taxpayers' dollars already pumped into this "democratic" regime are not enough.

He is a drama queen as well - all those staged "cover him up!" in front of the amused reporters (when nothing was going on, really) and "sorry guys but I have to go my bomb shelter, talk to you later", or "The bombs that are falling on us, they have an inscription on them: This is for NATO. This is for the U.S." stink of melodramatic cheese.

Just go ahead and tell me: do you approve of his actions?

CNN: U.S. officials also told CNN it was considering flying aid from bases in Germany to Georgia. There was also consideration being given to sending U.S. Navy ships into the Black Sea to conduct humanitarian relief missions.

Yeah, sure. Relief missions.

I don't think anybody is defending Saakashvili, but rather pointing out that Russia isn't the noble Deux Ex Machina that comes to the rescue of the poor oppressed Ossetians. Do you really think they would have been so loud if they didn't have assurance that Russia would intervene?
This kind of conflict is exactly the pretext that Russia wants to try to annex some of its "lost" territory again. Sure, Saakashvili has fired the first shot, but wars aren't started with one shot. (Not even by a single battle.)

GawainBS wrote:I don't think anybody is defending Saakashvili, but rather pointing out that Russia isn't the noble Deux Ex Machina that comes to the rescue of the poor oppressed Ossetians.

No one is claiming that either; you're building a straw-man.

LadyDragonfly]I don't believe Russia was targeting civilians though wrote: Can you substantiate this? Unless I've missed something, Georgian officials were the first ones to scream genocide, followed by Russian officials. Are there any independent sources verifying the intentional targeting of civilians on either side?