The poor man without Bush's help now cleared his mind and admitted his actions: http://www.russiatoday.com/news/news/33939
First, I am not sure why you two think I care about this. Second, just because I made a post questioning Nate's interpretation of an article, does not mean that I am somehow taking a position on this. I simply don't know what happened. I read like the rest of you. The previous article I challened was because Nate said that Georgia admitted something that the country not only did not admit, but took the opposite view of what Nate claimed. I pointed it out, not because I care about Georgia/Russia conflict but because I hate purposeful spin. As for this thread. RussiaToday? I am not too familiar with that source, but I don't imagine they are unbiased on this issue. Here is what I keep reading - Georgia has consistently said that they were responding to Russian moves. Obviously, I don't know what happened, but I do know when people spin an article to say things it does not. Like you did the other day Nate. I don't have a dog in this fight. I don't really care which side acted first or for what reason. It does not really matter to me. What does bother me is when people spin and lie to back up their preconceived positions. NFS will post anything so long as it advances his Russian ass kissing agenda. ""We acknowledge and confirm ... that the Georgian government took the decision to undertake a military operation in order to offer resistance to a widescale Russian intervention, a widescale assault on a peaceful population," Saakashvili said. Defense Minister David Kezerashvili told the commission on Thursday that Georgia attacked the rebel capital Tskhinvali on Aug 7-8 because Russian forces were pouring across the border and it was a matter of time before they began attacking Georgian-populated villages." source But the upshot appears to be that Georgia, in response to Russian moves or not, attacked it own territory. Russia then went off on Georgia in a totally disproportionate way - as though it was Russia that was attacked not part of Georgian territory. Feel free to ping me when you want my opinion on some other posts of yours. ""We took this decision, it was a difficult decision that any responsible government would have taken to ensure the security of its citizens," he said. ... Saakashvili said the decision was taken after nearby Georgian villages came under "heavy bombardment" from South Ossetia and from the vicinity of Russian peacekeeping positions in the region. He said "hundreds of (Russian) tanks and heavy vehicles" were on the border with Georgia and there was clear evidence that they had already started moving into the country on the August night that Tbilisi launched the attack. "Under these conditions, if you ask me whether Georgia had to undertake military actions against these firing positions, the answer is yes," Saakashvili said. source
browntw, the issue is that before that president of Georgia was saying that Russia attacked Georgia and planning to capture Tbilisi(the capital of Georgia). The quotes you posted dont have any sense, since South Ossetia was already a pro-russian territory since 1991, and in no way Russia needed to obtain it. But again, thats not the main problem here, the main problem is that a president LIES and is changing his words on the actions that killed hundreds of ppl. browntw, what "citizens" is he talking about? A few dozens in them georgian villages on the border of South Ossetia & Georgia? Or a 70,000 town Tskhinvali that was demolished with georgian artillery/tanks/planes? Since you say that Souht Ossetia is a Georgian territory, then he protected his "citizens" by bombing them and 30K + run away to border with Russia, very good, makes sense, doesnt it?