Georgia Was Not An Innocent Victim Afterall - Faces War Crimes Allegations

It looks like I was right about the Georgia-Russia War, while John McCain, Joe Biden and Barack Obama got it wrong. I hope this doesn't represent the start of a pattern for Obama/Biden in terms of being on the wrong side of history.

Just as I suspected, reports are now providing confirmation and consensus for the fact that Georgia was the instigator in its war with Russia over the Summer. With the meddling of the U.S. (co-instigator), the Georgians felt emboldened enough to start a war with the Russians. Beyond foolish!

Investigations by the New York Times, Human Rights Watch and others are providing a completely different picture from the one painted by Georgian President Saakashvili, John McCain, and even Barack Obama. McCain and Obama portrayed Russia as the aggressor and vowed to stand by Georgia; even though most reports at the time suggested that Georgia, with the backing of the U.S., instigated the war. This is one of the problems I have with Barack Obama. He is far too quick to jump onto the pro-war bandwagon, in an effort to look like one of the good ole boys. It's no surprise that he is already screwing up as President-elect. I'm already regretting my vote, and it hasn't even been a full week since election day.

It now appears that Georgia lied about the events that led to the war and their eventual defeat.

Listen to a brief story from Public Radio International (PRI).

From The New York Times

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.

See more from the Daily Kos and from the full New York Times article.

Meanwhile, the Georgian public has begun to turn on their President. We can only pray that they decide to remove Saakashvili from office before his government is able to start anymore wars with the Russians. Saakashvili tried his damnedest to deliberately drag the U.S. into a direct shooting war with Russia. He used the U.S. for what he thought would be his own political gain. Even more troubling than that, the Bush administration actually seemed willing to oblige him, up to a point. Unfortunately Obama supports the typical pro-war Republicrat view of this conflict and pretty much signed on to the Bush administrations Georgia policy...vowing to continue it once he takes the oath of office.

Barack Obama should put an end to the efforts to include Georgia in NATO and he should put an end to NATO expansion altogether. I don't expect him to do so because he is nothing but a puppet at the moment, taking direction from Clinton era advisers who were advocates for NATO enlargement. This was also the policy of the Bush administration. Obama has already indicated that he plans to continue most of the Bush administrations foreign policy initiatives, despite running on a platform (a questionable platform) of "change".

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See previous posts on Georgia