Russia and Georgia clashed on land and at sea Sunday despite a Georgian cease-fire offer and claim of withdrawal from the separatist province of South Ossetia, officials from both countries said.
Georgian officials said Russian planes bombed an area near the Georgian capital’s airport and Russian tanks moved from South Ossetia into Georgian territory, heading toward a strategic city before being turned back.
A Russian general said Georgian forces directed heavy fire at positions around Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia, early Monday, even though Georgia had claimed to be withdrawing from the shattered city and called for a cease-fire.
“Active fighting has been going on in several zones,” the Interfax news agency quoted Maj. Gen. Marat Kulakhmetov as saying. He is commander of the Russian peacekeeping contingent that has been in South Ossetia since 1992.
Russia also claimed to have sunk a Georgian boat that tried to attack Russian vessels in the Black Sea.
Democracy as interpreted by those who have no experience of democracy. It is sad that here we have two professedly “Christian” nations at war with each other and equally lamentable that they are both Orthodox nations. I cannot recall the last time that Orthodox nations went to war with one another? Just at a time when many in the West have been lulled into a false sense of security that things are improving both politically and religiously in the Republics of the former Soviet Union, wham! Inter-nicene struggle and nationalism come to the fore once more.
Some things don’t change. Lord help us to live in these trying times where “..nation shall rise against nation and kingdom against kingdom..” We can have God-given peace in our hearts but apparently not in our world as we know it.
I’m waiting for the throngs of anti-war folks to fill the streets of Paris, San Francisco and London. Should I be holding my breath?
I am appalled by this unnecessary war. Although Georgia certainly has gone out of its way to push Putin’s buttons, there is simply no moral excuse for this kind of response by Russia. Putin is behaving like a common street thug enforcing his claim to turf. This is being compared by a number of analysts to the fall of 1938 when the West was confronted by Hitler’s demands on Czechoslovakia. I fear those comparisons may not be too far off the mark.
On the one hand Hitler got away with Munich. But when he subsequently swallowed the rest of Czechoslovakia in early 1939 it served as a wake up call to the West. Even the most die hard advocates of appeasement and pacifism had a sudden epiphany and realized who and what they were dealing with. I am afraid that we are watching the destruction of a small democratic state. I doubt there will be any kind of decisive response to Russia’s aggression.
But I think this is going to also spell the end of any remaining hopes for a cooperative partnership with Putin’s Russia. The West will now see Russia for the aggressive menace it has once again become. I hope that Georgia’s destruction will not be in vain. The Ukraine should be admitted to NATO without delay.
ICXC NIKA
[url=http://ad-orientem.blogspot.com/]John[/url]
Suggest all read the piece by the Pres. of Ga. on the op-ed page of the WSJ today ( written this week). It kind of puts the whole thing in perspective.