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nick cobb
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 Posted: Mon Aug 18, 2008 5:11 pm Post subject: More Russian Lies! |
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Published on Monday, August 18, 2008 by McClatchy Newspapers
Tour of Tskhinvali Undercuts Russian Claim of Genocide
by Tom Lasseter
TSKHINVALI, Georgia — As Russian troops pounded through Georgia last
week, the Kremlin and its allies repeatedly pointed to one
justification above all others: The Georgian military had destroyed
the city of Tskhinvali.
Russian politicians and their partners in Tskhinvali, the capital of
the breakaway region South Ossetia, said that when Georgian forces
tried to seize control of the city and the surrounding area, the
physical damage was comparable to Stalingrad and the killings similar
to the Holocaust.
But a trip to the city on Sunday, without official escorts, revealed a
very different picture. While it was clear there had been heavy
fighting - missiles knocked holes in walls, and bombs tore away
rooftops - almost all of the buildings seen in an afternoon driving
around Tskhinvali were still standing.
Russian-backed leaders in South Ossetia have said that 2,100 people
died in fighting in Tskhinvali and nearby villages. But a doctor at
the city’s main hospital, the only one open during the battles that
began late on Aug. 7, said the facility recorded just 40 deaths.
The discrepancy between the numbers at Tskhinvali’s main hospital and
the rhetoric of Russian and South Ossetian leaders raises serious
questions about the veracity of the Kremlin’s version of events.
Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and other senior officials in
Moscow have said the Georgians were guilty of “genocide,” prompting
their forces to push Georgia’s military out of South Ossetia - in a
barrage of bombing runs and tanks blasts - and march southeast toward
the Georgian capital, Tbilisi, stopping only 25 miles away.
That explanation, that Russians were saving South Ossetians from total
annihilation, undergirded Moscow’s rationale for the invasion.
Georgia’s leadership maintains the war was launched by the Kremlin
because of longstanding resentment about the former Soviet republic’s
close ties with the West.
Since Russian troops occupied much of Georgia last week, Kremlin
officials have suggested strongly that both South Ossetia and its
fellow rebel region, Abkhazia, should gain independence from Tbilisi.
A senior member of Russia’s parliament, Konstantin Zatulin, was in
Tskhinvali on Sunday. “We need to recognize reality,” he said, meaning
that South Ossetia should secede from Georgia.
Zatulin also said that the Russian government intended to spend some
$100 million on building a “Moscow district” in the city; he did not
explain what that would entail.
Russian troops have kept tight control on access to Tskhinvali, often
bringing reporters in on coordinated trips. A McClatchy journalist was
stopped at a checkpoint on the way out of Tskhinvali and directed back
to a Russian outpost, where officers demanded to know where the
journalist had been and whom he’d interviewed. In addition to Russian
soldiers, South Ossetian militia fighters roamed the streets. One of
them, drunk, walked up and showed off a shiny watch. “I got it from
the body of a Georgian soldier,” he said with a smile.
The difference between Russian officials’ description of Tskhinvali
and the facts on the ground are profound.
Col. Gen Anatoly Nogovitsyn, the deputy head of the Russian military’s
general staff, said last Tuesday that “Tskhinvali doesn’t exist, it’s
like Stalingrad was after the war.”
But in fact, the city still does exist. While there was extensive
damage to some structures, most buildings had front doors on their
hinges and standing walls. For every building charred by explosions -
the Georgians are accused of using multiple rocket launcher systems -
there were others on tree-lined streets that looked untouched.
One government center was hollowed out by blasts, but the one next to
it teemed with workers.
While the city was still teetering from the violence, families sat on
benches in front of their homes and ate fruit. Many talked about the
Georgian incursion on Aug. 7, and the Russian units that then streamed
across Georgia’s border to beat them back.
“There were Georgian tanks on each street,” said Givi Tsekhov, who was
walking in front of his apartment building. “But then the Russians
came.”
Down the road from Tskhinvali, in Georgian areas now occupied by
Russian troops, entire towns were almost completely empty and a few
bodies were splayed on the side of the road, bloated and cooked by the
sun.
Not only was the destruction in Tskhinvali a far cry from Stalingrad
after World War II, it was well short of what happened in the southern
Beirut suburbs during Israel’s war with Hezbollah in the summer of
2006, or the Iraqi city of Fallujah during U.S. fighting against
insurgents in November 2004.
In short, the city was scarred but still standing.
The doctor at the Tskhinvali hospital, Tina Zakharova, said she wanted
to clarify that she wasn’t disagreeing with the South Ossetian
officials’ numbers, adding that many bodies had been buried in gardens
and cemeteries in outlying villages. She could not, however, explain
how more than 2,000 dead - the difference between her hospital’s count
and the Kremlin-backed officials’ tally - were buried in a relatively
small area without any evidence such as stacks of coffins or mass
funerals.
Researchers for Human Rights Watch, an international advocacy group,
had similar findings as McClatchy about casualty numbers in
Tskhinvali. A doctor at the city’s hospital told the group’s
researchers that 44 bodies were brought by and was “adamant” that they
represented the majority of deaths there because the city’s morgue was
not functioning at the time.
“Obviously there’s a discrepancy there, a big discrepancy,” Rachel
Denber, deputy director for Europe and Central Asia at Human Rights
Watch, said about the apparently inflated casualty figures. “It’s not
clear to us at all where those numbers are coming from.” |
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athair ambrois
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 1:32 am Post subject: Re: More Russian Lies! Just like the Americans! |
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Oh my gosh! Are they lying about the number of casualties as the
Americans did before bombing Serbia for 3 months and before invading
Kosovo? |
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athair ambrois
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 3:38 am Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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"Ossetian refugees, who had fled the violence and the bombings in the
area, progressively are making their way back to the capital,
Tskhinvali.
"The city, however, is not the same. Georgian bombings and street
combat have left their mark on the capital. Houses have disappeared,
and certain neighbourhoods have been completely wiped ou"
From France 24
http://www.france24.com/en/20080818-georgia-south-ossetia-russia-refugees-tskhinvali&navi=EUROPE
Also has a small video clip... The reporter says: "Bombs and urban
warfare have left much of it in ruins." |
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AGGreen
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 7:37 am Post subject: Re: More Russian Lies! Just like the Americans! |
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***Are you a spy for Dictator Putin...the commisar of New Russia the
Aggressor?
"athair ambrois" <emrys@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:f72066b3-200c-4401-a49b-1c115d75e59e@v39g2000pro.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | Oh my gosh! Are they lying about the number of casualties as the
Americans did before bombing Serbia for 3 months and before invading
Kosovo? |
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athair ambrois
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 2:05 pm Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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On Aug 20, 12:41 am, "AGGreen" <AGGreen@not_the_imposter.edu> wrote:
| Quote: | ***This DOES NOT excuse Soviet-style aggtression by the Putinistas!
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You are standing in the world's largest glasshouse and have the nerve
to throw stones at another nation?!
This is the first Russian incursion into another country since the
downfall of Communism, and it has been very brief and also something
of a necessity. By contrast the US hardly lets a year go by without
interfering in other nations! |
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AGGreen
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 5:41 pm Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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***This DOES NOT excuse Soviet-style aggtression by the Putinistas!
"athair ambrois" <emrys@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:bbcb1c3a-b1ba-4005-b82f-21fc89f52704@s1g2000pra.googlegroups.com...
| Quote: | "Ossetian refugees, who had fled the violence and the bombings in the
area, progressively are making their way back to the capital,
Tskhinvali.
"The city, however, is not the same. Georgian bombings and street
combat have left their mark on the capital. Houses have disappeared,
and certain neighbourhoods have been completely wiped ou"
From France 24
http://www.france24.com/en/20080818-georgia-south-ossetia-russia-refugees-tskhinvali&navi=EUROPE
Also has a small video clip... The reporter says: "Bombs and urban
warfare have left much of it in ruins." |
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John Galt
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:32 pm Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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"athair ambrois" <emrys@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:7529a86b-e844-464d-89de-b664c51a4301@r15g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 20, 12:41 am, "AGGreen" <AGGreen@not_the_imposter.edu> wrote:
| Quote: | ***This DOES NOT excuse Soviet-style aggtression by the Putinistas!
|
You are standing in the world's largest glasshouse and have the nerve
to throw stones at another nation?!
[JG] I'm sorry, but this is logically fallacious argumentation.
There is such a thing as "right" and "wrong". "Right" and "wrong" have
nothing to do with comparisons between two goverments; nor do I, as a
citizen of the US who opposes our own invasive/pragmatic foreign policy
decisions, have to "shut up" because of actions of my government which are
incorrect.
Let's get back to basics, here. IN YOUR BELIEF, is a country justified in
invading another country that poses no threat to it?
It's a simple question. Yes or no? Let's get everyone on record here. My
position is NO, and that doesn't change depending on who is doing the
invading, or who is being invaded.
****
This is the first Russian incursion into another country since the
downfall of Communism, and it has been very brief and also something
of a necessity.
[JG] And according to the Russians themselves, it's not going to be the
last.
By contrast the US hardly lets a year go by without
interfering in other nations!
[JG] Yes. BOTH are wrong.
JG |
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athair ambrois
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 9:55 pm Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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On Aug 20, 4:32 am, "John Galt" <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
Let's get back to basics, here. IN YOUR BELIEF, is a country justified in
invading another country that poses no threat to it?
|
No.
Let's look at the question in reverse? Is Greece justified in
invading Kosovo which threatens it by its claims of a "Greater
Albania" which includes northern Greece?
Is the UK justified in invading Ireland which very definitely poses a
threat to it? |
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AGGreen
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:01 pm Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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"athair ambrois" <emrys@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:7529a86b-e844-464d-89de-b664c51a4301@r15g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 20, 12:41 am, "AGGreen" <AGGreen@not_the_imposter.edu> wrote:
| Quote: | ***This DOES NOT excuse Soviet-style aggtression by the Putinistas!
|
You are standing in the world's largest glasshouse and have the nerve
to throw stones at another nation?!
***As much nerve as you have in supporting Soviet-style aggression.
This is the first Russian incursion into another country since the
downfall of Communism, and it has been very brief and also something
of a necessity. By contrast the US hardly lets a year go by without
interfering in other nations!
***It's Catch 22. If we do nothing with regard to the world, we get bitched
about. If we do something somewhe34re in the world we get bitched about. If
it were not for the U.S., a Jap flag would be flying atop Mt. Cook! |
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athair ambrois
Guest
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| Posted: Tue Aug 19, 2008 10:45 pm Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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On Aug 20, 4:32 am, "John Galt" <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
You are standing in the world's largest glasshouse and have the nerve
to throw stones at another nation?!
[JG] I'm sorry, but this is logically fallacious argumentation.
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Speak to the Lord who wrote on sand and used it to shame and disperse
the men who wanted to condemn the woman taken in adultery.  |
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John Galt
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 12:04 am Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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"athair ambrois" <emrys@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:031d3f4e-6f08-4c4a-bcb4-e0acc389daba@w24g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 20, 4:32 am, "John Galt" <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
Let's get back to basics, here. IN YOUR BELIEF, is a country justified in
invading another country that poses no threat to it?
|
No.
[JG] That's at odds with your position vis a vis Georgia.
Let's look at the question in reverse? Is Greece justified in
invading Kosovo which threatens it by its claims of a "Greater
Albania" which includes northern Greece?
[JG] Depends on multiple factors. What would "Northern Greece" vote to do in
a referendum? If the answer is "stay with Greece" and Kosovo starts making
destablizing mischeif in the region, most definitely. If the answer is "join
Kosovo", I'd vote no.
Is the UK justified in invading Ireland which very definitely poses a
threat to it?
[JG] That one has its roots in antiquity, back when invasion for land was
considered a participation sport. It's hard to untangle the matter using
today's standards of behavior.
JG |
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athair ambrois
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 1:16 am Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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On Aug 20, 12:42 pm, "John Galt" <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | "athair ambrois" <em...@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:23cc47ef-b349-4b87-93bc-689683b3f9f3@w24g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 20, 4:32 am, "John Galt" <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
You are standing in the world's largest glasshouse and have the nerve
to throw stones at another nation?!
[JG] I'm sorry, but this is logically fallacious argumentation.
Speak to the Lord who wrote on sand and used it to shame and disperse
the men who wanted to condemn the woman taken in adultery. :-)
[JG] You're having a little trouble, I see, understanding the fact that the
LORD was speaking directly to the people who were about to do the
condemning. Neither I nor Al are the ones who ordered attacks on anyone, and
it remains logically fallacious to claim that we have no right to speak out
about what we consider right or wrong simply because of our mailing address.
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Who said you had no right to speak out? Not me. |
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John Galt
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 5:42 am Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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"athair ambrois" <emrys@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:23cc47ef-b349-4b87-93bc-689683b3f9f3@w24g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 20, 4:32 am, "John Galt" <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: |
You are standing in the world's largest glasshouse and have the nerve
to throw stones at another nation?!
[JG] I'm sorry, but this is logically fallacious argumentation.
|
Speak to the Lord who wrote on sand and used it to shame and disperse
the men who wanted to condemn the woman taken in adultery. :-)
[JG] You're having a little trouble, I see, understanding the fact that the
LORD was speaking directly to the people who were about to do the
condemning. Neither I nor Al are the ones who ordered attacks on anyone, and
it remains logically fallacious to claim that we have no right to speak out
about what we consider right or wrong simply because of our mailing address.
JG |
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John Galt
Guest
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| Posted: Wed Aug 20, 2008 6:51 am Post subject: Re: More Lies! |
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"athair ambrois" <emrys@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:99edabea-bfb7-4e9c-9d1a-c5800ca83971@r15g2000prh.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 20, 12:42 pm, "John Galt" <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
| Quote: | "athair ambrois" <em...@globe.net.nz> wrote in message
news:23cc47ef-b349-4b87-93bc-689683b3f9f3@w24g2000prd.googlegroups.com...
On Aug 20, 4:32 am, "John Galt" <kady...@gmail.com> wrote:
You are standing in the world's largest glasshouse and have the nerve
to throw stones at another nation?!
[JG] I'm sorry, but this is logically fallacious argumentation.
Speak to the Lord who wrote on sand and used it to shame and disperse
the men who wanted to condemn the woman taken in adultery. :-)
[JG] You're having a little trouble, I see, understanding the fact that
the
LORD was speaking directly to the people who were about to do the
condemning. Neither I nor Al are the ones who ordered attacks on anyone,
and
it remains logically fallacious to claim that we have no right to speak
out
about what we consider right or wrong simply because of our mailing
address.
|
Who said you had no right to speak out? Not me.
[JG] Instead of responding directly, you tried to claim we had no moral
authority by pointing out some actions of the US Govt.
Same thing.
JG |
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