Georgia's President Appeals For Help Against Russia In The Wall Street Journal

Georgia's President Mikheil Saakashvili takes his plea to stop Russia "war on my country" in The Wall Street Journal today. Read an excerpt below and the full piece here. Click here for breaking updates about the conflict.

As I write, Russia is waging war on my country.

On Friday, hundreds of Russian tanks crossed into Georgian territory, and Russian air force jets bombed Georgian airports, bases, ports and public markets. Many are dead, many more wounded. This invasion, which echoes Afghanistan in 1979 and the Prague Spring of 1968, threatens to undermine the stability of the international security system.

Comments

[checkmoot]

Kosovo was part of Serbia for hundreds of years. That did not stop us from bombing and invading Serbia when the Albanians in Kosovo wanted to secede.

[Ohg]

McCain is itching to run his own war - and he is resorting to religious bigotry to promote his own version of Cowboy Diplomacy.­..........­.......
http://thefiresidepost.com/2008/08/12/mccain-drives-religious-wedge-to-promote-war/

[Ides]

The problem is, Russia was fully justified in the action it has taken as a legally recognized peacekeeping force up until this point. Unfortunately, coverage in the US media (particularly CNN) has been either nonexistent or unbalanced and is doing its best to pretend that South Ossetia and Abkhazia only exist as nebulous concepts and not actual victims.

By pushing further into Georgia, Russia is shifting its military policy to a dangerous point -- ours. In fact, this is no different than the bombing of Baghdad in the Gulf War to stop the invasion of Kuwait. But as a pro-peace Liberal with a belief in strong international peacekeeping obligations, I cannot condone Russia making overtures for the capital and I can only think that it conflicts with the direction foreign policy should take.

Inflating and chestbeating at Russia is the most idiotic approach to this situation. Getting Russia to shift operations to an international UN force should be the primary goal.

[Josiwe]

The entire conflict is based on one of the eternal conundrums of political rule. When the a segment of your population becomes separatist, i.e. they wish to decouple themselves and the land they live on from your rulership, what do you do?

If you allow them to leave, not only do you lose the people but more importantly you lose the land and resources. Additionally you appear weak on the international stage.

If you force them to stay, you must offer concessions, incentives, etc. Usually this will only work for a time, and then you will be forced to resort to heavy-handed tactics such as violence and intimidation.

When you are a democracy, this problem comes with an additional twist: the sovereignty of your nation resides in your people, and your government is ostensibly empowered only by the consent of the ruled. Thus, denying the separatists the freedom to leave paints you as a corrupt and possibly cruel hypocrite / tyrant.

How to handle this problem? Easy! Provoke a much larger power to war, then shout from the rooftops how the "evil empire" is invading, flood the net with propaganda about brutally murdered civilians, pretend everything is somebody else's fault and demand that the international community (read: America) fix your problems for you. Of course, this is something of a gamble, and Georgia just called for a hit on a soft 12. Unfortunately for all those dead and soon-to-be-dead civilians, alia jacta est :(

[DelvinMcGee]

Yeah - poor Russia was "provoked" into war. Laughably naive.

[Josiwe]

Do you have any facts, or even arguments, to back up your sneer? Or are you just another tool of the GOP, parroting talking points and refusing to think?

FOR A LONG TIEM THE RUSSSIANS WERE TEH BAD GUYS SO THAT MUST BE TRUE N)OW ALSO FOX NEWS TOLD ME SO SO IT MUST BE TRUE YOU LIBNREAL SOCIALISTS ARE ALL DEFEATOCRATS AND I"M SMARTER AND BETTER THAN YOU CAUSE I LOVE THIS COUNTRY AND YOU DONT USA USA USA USA USA USA USA !!!!1!

Does that about sum up your "position" ?

[mulegino]

Hopefully, very few will be fooled by this WBush wannabe.
American's hearts should go out to the victims on both sides. At the same time, the conflict should give us pause. Most of the world now looks on the U.S., not Russia-as the main threat to world peace and stability. And with good reason. The U.S. has dissipated the good will of most of humanity with its arrogant and reckless warmongering. What had been the "city on a hill" has now become, in the eyes of most members of the community of nations, a glass house. And there are more than enough rocks to go around.
The upcoming elections are critical, and if the American people are ever to demand the restoration of sanity to the nation's foreign policy, as well as competence in governance, they must do it now.

[TheJibreelaMonsters]

That is just flat out wrong

[brutus948]

Bush: "Mikeil is doing a heck of a job"

[TroubleNYC]

Pleaded his case through the WSJ? He's a quick learner...

[Amalek]

Needs to get on the Factor

[Larry of Corrales]

When told that Russia had invaded Georgia, President Bush asked the Defense Department to ready all available armed forces in Georgia's neighboring states of Alabama, Florida, Tennessee, North and South Carolina and he ordered the U.S. Navy to bring in warships on the eastern seaboard. Who says we can't count on Bush to know how to do the right thing in a crisis.

[coldcanuckinwhite]

I watched Mr. Saakashvili in an interview yesterday on CNN talking with his friend Wolf Blitzer. I thought it rather odd that Mr. Saakashvili seemed to be smirking the whole time. I certainly would feel to be more in a pickle if I were in his shoes. Just thought this was rather strange behaviour. Anyone see it and feel the same?

[Deparis]

Do you mean the interview in which he was bosting how Georgian's forces downed 10 Russian's jets? Only the simple-minded and mis-informed will fall for this dangerous man's war of communication. He is as dangerous for world peace as he says Russia is. I feel very sorry for the innocent victims caught in the middle on both sides.

[JoeBlough]

"Only the simple-minded and mis-informed " - are you taking about the candidates here?

[UnknownSoldier]

Why aren't the other caucaus countries coming to help. Where is Chechenya, if there was more of an international coalition it would be easier to step in, but somehow I think the region is looking at Georgia and saying it made a mistake and now it is going to pay for it.

The mistake was listening to Neo-Cons

[DelvinMcGee]

Huh? Your post is nonsensical, considering the Chechnya is a muslim territory inside of Russia, and not a "Caucaus country". Further, the muslim chechnyans have no interest in helping the christian nation of Georgia.

[Middleclassvotingbloc]

Georgia played their cards and lost----one would have to wonder if McCain's staff member who is a lobbyist for Geogia had something to do with influencing Geogia to make this move now--McCain feels that world conflicts helps his poll numbers. One would have to except the fact that Georgia has admited to starting the conflict by attacking South Osettia first no matter how the media tries to frame it.

[RTIII]

South Osettia is A PART OF GEORGIA. It was a somewhat "lawless" region, and they intended to put a stop to that...
.

[who38]

Not according to South Osettia.

[Liberoservative]

Wrong... So Ossetia has had an independent govt for years with the presence of Russian peacekeeping troops.... North Ossetia is part of Russia and So Ossetia has voted to secede from Georgia many times.

[devildog21]

Wouldn't want to ruin a great trip to the Olympics for something as trivial as a war in Russia. The bungler in chief is having too much fun cheering the athletes.

Truth is, there isn't a damn thing we can do. Any military action will invite full scale war, to include, at least, tactical nukes. Our military is completely unable to mount any kind of sustained response, because the neocon jackasses have broken the military.

My suggestion; send Blackwater over. They're probably as well equipped as the Georgian's anyway.

Semper fi

[JoeBlough]

Can't send Blackwater until you send Halliburton. They have to build the necessary infrastructure and get the lines of profit flowing.

[ibsteve2u]

In the Wall Street Journal? Not that is funny!

There is a very good - I would say extremely good - possibility that future history books will read something like:

"American policies of arms buildups in the 1980s under the leadership of President Reagan drew the former Soviet Union into a foolish game of one-upmanship that the USSR did not have the resources or industrial base to finance.

Curiously and contradictorily, America then dismantled their industrial base under the umbrella of "free trade" and altered the tax laws that had financed America's international success.

Those policy changes, coupled with on-going American policies of encouraging energy dependence, subsequently gave Russia the financial wherewithall to rebuild their empire and eventually dominate Europe, initially under President George W. Bush and then under later Presidents who were left to contain the damage.

And so President Reagan's international success became a temporary interlude in geopolitical reality, eventually relegated to a footnote in history."

And Murdoch's WSJ-owning descendents will have to read that, and remember how Grandpa Rupert and "fair and balanced" Fox assisted by promulgating whatever biased opinion enabled the most profit taking...no matter how harmful it was to America.

[Erdgeist]

Let's keep in mind that Georgia attacked South Ossetia whose citizens side with Russia, not Georgia. The MSM has to a certain extent falsely reported the news. The credulity on the part of the average American who automatically takes sides against Russia is the same variety of credulity that sided with Bush's allegation that Iraq had weapons of mass destruction. When all the dust settles don't be surprised to learn U.S. special forces and Blackwater were in the salient against South Ossetia. In any case, let's be very cautious about this and more importantly, let's be skeptical of the reportage of the MSM.

[sueno]

Why are we not helping ?
What are we doing to help stop people from dying ?
Where's president "mr. sh*t-kicker"?
Busy making a back room deal with Putin ?

[max08]

You need to get your facts straight. And it's a 10-1 bet that Randy Scheunemann ghost-wrote today's WSJ Op-ed.
"GEORGIA GETS ITS WAR ON…MCCAIN GETS HIS BRAIN PLAQUE…"
http://exiledonline.com/georgia-gets-its-war-onmccain-gets-his-brain-plaque/#more-269

[eddiemoney13]

Ask Georgia why they blew out 10 Russian fighters out of the sky. We have ours all over the world and God forbid someone shoots them down. Georgia's government made an enormous mistake and no one is going to get between these two now.