Georgia???? Ok then, let's take out Venezuela, now. 57th state, eh?

UPDATE AT BOTTOM

Two can play at geopolitical displacement roulette.

The Pipeline War: Russian bear goes for West's jugular

Georgia has today withdrawn its troops from the capital of South Ossetia, according to reports.

South Ossetia IS Georgia. That would be like us withdrawing troops from Arizona after Mexico invaded to reduce the pressure on the USA.

The ceasefire came just hours after claims emerged Russian jets had bombed a vital pipeline that supplies oil to the West.

After a day of heightening international tensions, Georgian leaders claimed that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, had been attacked. But it is thought the bombs missed their target.

Their claims came after Russian jets struck deep into the territory of its tiny neighbour, killing civilians and 'completely devastating' the strategic Black Sea port of Poti, a staging post for oil and other energy supplies.

Reports last night also said that Russia had bombed the international airport in Tbilisi.

Georgian economic development minister Ekaterina Sharashidzne said: 'This clearly shows that Russia has targeted not just Georgian economic outlets but international economic outlets as well.'

The pipeline is 30 per cent owned by BP and supplies 1 per cent of the world's oil needs, pumping up to a million barrels of crude per day to Turkey.

Russian Ships Steam Toward Georgia as Conflict Grows (Update1)

By Paul Abelsky and Alex Nicholson

Aug. 10 (Bloomberg) -- Russia sent warships from the Black Sea fleet toward Georgia as it stepped up its conflict with the former Soviet republic over the separatist South Ossetia region.

The ships included a vessel based in the naval port of Sevastopol and four others from Novorossiysk, Komsomolskaya Pravda reported, without saying where it got the information. Georgian Economic Development Minister Eka Sharashidze said a ship carrying grain to the Georgian port of Poti was turned away by a Russian warship, suggesting an economic blockade.

``Russia has shown itself capable of crossing every line in this conflict,'' Sharashidze said in a telephone interview late yesterday from Tbilisi, the Georgian capital.

Ukraine threatens to bar Russian warships-Interfax

10 Aug 2008 09:25:09 GMT

Source: Reuters

MOSCOW, Aug 10 (Reuters) - Ukraine said on Sunday it reserved the right to bar Russian warships dispatched to the Georgian coast from returning to their Ukrainian base of Sevastopol, Interfax news agency reported. "Ukraine ... reserves the right to bar warships and vessels which could take part in the action (conflict with Georgia) from returning to Ukrainian territory until the conflict is solved," it said, quoting a Ukrainian Foreign Ministry statement. Russia's Black Sea Fleet is based in the Ukrainian port of Sevastopol. (Writing by Oleg Shchedrov)

30,000 homeless as a chaotic conflict intensifies

Putin condemns 'genocide' as eyewitnesses claim South Ossetia's capital is destroyed. Moscow missiles kill dozens in Georgia's frontline city as peace effort gets under way

By Shaun Walker, Kim Sengupta and Rupert Cornwell in Gori, Tbilisi and Washington
Sunday, 10 August 2008

As many as 2,000 people may have been killed and 30,000 made homeless as the chaotic conflict between Georgian and Russian forces in the pro-Moscow enclave of South Ossetia entered its second bloody day.

Georgia's parliament approved a state of war across the country for the next 15 days, while also calling for a ceasefire. The Russian President, Dmitry Medvedev, said that there would be no talks until Georgian troops left the conflict zone

Of course, the CONFLICT ZONE IS INSIDE GEORGIA'S UNDISPUTED INTERNATIONAL BORDERS.

We have now seen REPEATEDLY, certainly since the radiation poisoning in Britain, who and what Russia is.

THE USSR.

With money.

Let's act like it.

Let's put the heat on somewhere else. Kazakhstan. Tadjikistan. Cuba. Venezuela. Someplace that COUNTS. ANd while we're at it, PUBLICALLY announce plans for expanding the Army, Navy, Air Force, and Marines, INSTEAD OF TRUMPETING things like reducing our 751 air superiority F-15 A-D's to 183 F-22's.

We have a LOT of challenges besides worldwide jihadism.

Russsia, China, Pakistan, Chavez, Castro....the looming energy natural resource 'war' , and our own procrastination and irresponsibility in supplying ourselves with enough energy.


Is BHO up to ALL OF THAT?

Maybe Barry can talk them out of their behavior.

KUMBAYA

UPDATE FROM TELEGRAPH UK:

Georgia: Russia demands to be regarded as number one

Why has Russia reverted to traditional means of controlling its former satellite states? At the heart of Vladimir Putin's aggressive nationalism is his firm belief that the power of the West is on the wane, says James Sherr.

Russia's brutal demonstration of power in South Ossetia, a breakaway region of its southern neighbour Georgia, marks the latest – and most alarming – sign of the Kremlin's determination to reclaim control over former Soviet states.

These former satellites have now been left in no doubt that Russia must be regarded as "glavniy", or number one, if they wish to avoid the fate of Georgia. Central to Vladimir Putin's nationalistic policy is a conviction that the power of the West – seemingly unassailable at the end of the Cold War – is on the wane. The current crisis demonstrates that the Cold War has not been replaced by common values between East and West, but by the revival of hard Realpolitik.The episode is a perfect application of what Russian military scientists call "reflexive control": the defeat of an adversary through his own efforts. It is also an application of Clausewitz's maxim that war is a tool of policy.

The aim of Russia's policy, succinctly expressed in 1992, is to "be leader of stability and security on the entire territory of the former USSR". What has changed in recent years is not the aim – endlessly reiterated in 16 years of presidential declarations, "foreign policy concepts" and military doctrines – but the "correlation of forces". As Yeltsin declared to Russia's intelligence services in 1994, "global ideological confrontation has been replaced by a struggle for spheres of interest in geopolitics". Back then, Russia had little to struggle with. Today, that is no longer the case.

If Western interests are not to be irreparably damaged, we will need to understand that they are being tested on three overlapping levels: local, regional and global. Georgia is not just a square on a chessboard, but a country that is extremely important in its own right.For two reasons, the West cannot be indifferent to what happens there. First, despite the uncultivated instincts of its president, Georgia's political culture is fundamentally democratic, its people (80 per cent of whom support Nato membership) profoundly pro-Western, and its sense of national identity almost indestructible. Georgia can be defeated by Russia, but it can no longer submit to it, and therefore war between Georgia and Russia would be a frightening prospect even if no wider interests existed. Second, the only energy pipeline in the former USSR independent of Russian control passes through Georgia. There will be no meaningful energy security, let alone diversification of energy supplies, if these pipelines become vulnerable to sabotage, like those in Iraq, or to takeover by shadow businesses fronting for Russian interests.