Putin blames US for Georgia role

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Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has accused the US of provoking the conflict in Georgia, possibly for domestic election purposes.

Mr Putin told CNN US citizens were "in the area" during the conflict over South Ossetia and were "taking direct orders from their leaders".

He said his defence officials had told him the provocation was to benefit one of the US presidential candidates.

The White House dismissed the allegations as "not rational".

Georgia tried to retake the Russian-backed separatist region of South Ossetia this month by force after a series of clashes.

Russian forces subsequently launched a counter-attack and the conflict ended with the ejection of Georgian troops from both South Ossetia and another rebel region, Abkhazia, and an EU-brokered ceasefire.

Diplomatic wrangling

Mr Putin said in the interview: "The fact is that US citizens were indeed in the area in conflict during the hostilities.

"It should be admitted that they would do so only following direct orders from their leaders."

Mr Putin added: "The American side in effect armed and trained the Georgian army.

"Why... seek a difficult compromise solution in the peacekeeping process? It is easier to arm one of the sides and provoke it into killing another side. And the job is done.

"The suspicion arises that someone in the United States especially created this conflict with the aim of making the situation more tense and creating a competitive advantage for one of the candidates fighting for the post of US president."

White House spokeswoman Dana Perino rejected the allegation.

"To suggest that the United States orchestrated this on behalf of a political candidate - it sounds not rational," she said.

"Those claims first and foremost are patently false, but it also sounds like his defence officials who said they believed this to be true are giving him really bad advice."

Diplomatic wrangling over Russia's actions in Georgia continued on Thursday with the Georgian parliament urging its government to cut diplomatic ties with Moscow.

Earlier, French Foreign Minister Bernard Kouchner suggested some EU countries were considering sanctions against Russia.

Mr Kouchner insisted France had made no proposals for sanctions itself but, as current president of the EU, would aim to get consensus among all 27 countries of the bloc if sanctions were envisaged.

France has called an emergency EU summit on Monday to reassess relations with Russia.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov described talk of sanctions as the working of "a sick imagination".

Such talk was an emotional response that demonstrated Western confusion over the situation, he said.

The US has said it is now considering scrapping a US-Russia civilian nuclear co-operation pact in response to the conflict.

"I don't think there's anything to announce yet, but I know that that is under discussion," Ms Perino said.

The White House has also announced that up to $5.75m (£3.1m) will be freed to help Georgia meet "unexpected and urgent refugee and migration needs".

Rocket test

Earlier on Thursday Russia failed to get strong backing from its Asian allies over the Georgia conflict.

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO), comprising Russia, China and Central Asian nations, met in Dushanbe, Tajikistan, and spoke of its deep concern.

The group did not follow Russia in recognising the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev insisted he had the backing of the nations over Moscow's actions.

Amid the rising tension, Russia announced on Thursday it had successfully tested its long-range Topol ballistic missile from a launch site in Kamchatka in the far east of the country.

Russia says the rocket is capable of penetrating the proposed US missile defence.


http://news.bbc.co.uk./2/hi/europe/7586605.stm


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i find it interesting to make such an accusation and i certainly did notice some anti-obama rhetoric when georgia flared up.

Regardless of what size the Georgian army became or how well trained or high tech it became, any possibility of them really being able to take on Russia and be a military threat? The country is about the size or Massachusetts. Sounds like Putin is just taking a page from any other dictator's playbook who has Imperial ambitions - make up reasons as needed. Not to mention there's been a lot in the air about natural gas pipelines to Iran, Georgia possibly joining NATO, seems like the attack happened quickly after the later was taken off the table for the time being.

Good point though, I'd imagine we'll probably be hearing Reid, Biden, Kucinich, or someone like that wielding the claim in a speech that this whole war was invented by neo-cons to sway an election (once they put two and two together); which is exactly why Putin would say a thing like that, guys like him and a lot of others are great at messing with people's heads and generally sowing mischief to their own ends with ambiguous claims and half truths.

It's pretty obvious that the US has been, unsuccessfully, trying to train and arm Georgia in an attempt to "encircle" Russia with hostile nations friendly to the US.

Elections should be held to determine what the majority in Abkhazia and Ossetia wish.

Saakashvili responded very hastily to provocation by separatists in the region and gave Russia the pretext for an invasion. Indeed, they could hardly have let the Georgian continue to shell civilians, many of whom seem to be Russian.

Both sides and the US are to blame for this situation. The US should have kept Saakashvili under control and they failed to do this.

Unfortunately, it looks like Georgia will find it impossible to enter NATO and this whole incident appears to be escalating into a dispute that reminds one of the various diplomatic stand-offs of the cold war.

Oh, we should just nuke the Russians before they stir up even more trouble. OR better yet, send in a crack team of Spec Ops soldiers to assassinate Putin and quit his anti-American bitching.

it's interesting you'd go that way. after how much i've read about our history with foreign matters and how we deal with things like this...it really doesn't surprise me that it could have been the US starting it. i doubt it's for such petty political reasons but i could see it for a grander political scheme: the war on terror is failing to keep people scared....so let's bring back the reds! reruns of our greatest enemy!


trade is the true way to fix problems. monetary inter-dependence.

I call arms race

If we could really manipulate another nations so well as to literally create such a reality by our own actions - our powers are truly godlike (a little more than I think people are really capable of). If your saying we just triggered a response from a regime that already wanted it, that I don't think either of us have enough detail to dispute. They have been remilitarizing for a while and they had (supposedly) been brokering some pretty big deals for putting a pipeline through Iran to the middle east, if that were true I would think that this is a large part of why - Georgia was becoming pro American, your right, and without control of that region Russia is locked out of a convenient transport in that regard (ie. if Russia did really start showing some poor colors and Georgia said 'no' while firmly planted as a respected member of NATO, it would be much harder to deal with). McCain been among the first to argue that Russia would, do to its tendencies, try to reassimilate its satellite states and that preventative measures - such as getting them into NATO - had to be done as soon as possible to have their sovereignty written in much clearer ink.




We'll have to see. So far it seems like both Russia and China are proving that capitalism on its own doesn't bring about good values in the leadership of the respective governments and particularly with China nor does it directly mean a lot in the way of human rights. Could do something in the long term, we'll have to wait and see, but in the meantime we're best to play it safe and keep our economy and military in top shape rather than find out otherwise the hard way.

Yes, because Russians let them apply for citizenships. Other than that, they're hardly Russian. I find it hypocritical what the Russians are doing. Let us see if they are ready to vote for recognizing Dagestani, Chechen, Ingushetian, et al. independence.


All this talk about war makes me hyper.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vh31TS0XKf8[/youtube]

"Do you want might to prevail? To kick aside the weak and frail?"

I still prefer Boyd Rice's crappy original video for that song. The Mister Neofolk remix is pretty nice though.

Post them. I youtubed and all I got was that, live videos, and one set to cartoons. I'm not really big on his music but it kind of fits the mood of this topic.

The Disney cartoon one is the original video.

Ok....ill edit it ito my previous post...im still a bit lost. but then again...i shouldnt be. hitler duck is always good.