U.S. TELLS RUSSIA TO PULL FORCES OUT OF GEORGIA
August 9th, 2008Via: Reuters:
The United States told Russia on Friday to withdraw its forces from U.S. ally Georgia and stop its air attacks on the tiny Caucasus state following fighting in the breakaway region of South Ossetia.
“We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia’s territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil,” U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said in a statement.
Rice issued her statement as Georgia, a former Soviet state that now wants to join NATO, said it would declare martial law and battled to get control of the rebel enclave, which was fortified by Russian forces.
Georgia said Russian fighter jets bombed container tankers and a shipbuilding plant in the port of Poti, prompting Washington’s sharpest rebuke of Russia since the crisis began.
“We deplore the Russian military action in Georgia, which is a violation of Georgian sovereignty and territorial integrity,” U.S. Ambassador Zalmay Khalilzad told reporters at a U.N. Security Council meeting in New York.
The State Department summoned the Charge d’Affaires at Russia’s Embassy in Washington, Aleksander Darchiyev, to see Rice’s deputy John Negroponte, who pressed Moscow to stop its military activities in Georgia.
“The deputy secretary said that we deplore today’s Russian attacks by strategic bombers and missiles, which are threatening civilian lives,” said State Department spokesman Robert Wood of Negroponte’s meeting with the Russian diplomat.
“These attacks mark a dangerous and disproportionate escalation of tension,” he added.
Both Rice and the White House urged an immediate cease-fire in South Ossetia, and U.S. officials said they would send an envoy to the region to help mediate.
As fighting raged in and around the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili said Russia and Georgia were at war.
Rice said the United States was working with its European partners to launch international mediation, and “we urgently seek Russia’s support of these efforts.”
“Former Israeli generals also serve as advisers to the Georgian military.”
It seems Israel has played a major role in arming the Georgians and urging them on in their conflict with Russia.
By now, its becoming pretty obvious that Israel makes foreign policy for the U.S., not just in the Middle East, but elsewhere in the world as well. This is why our foreign policy makes no sense to most Americans. We have no reason to be enemies with Russia 20 years after the end of the Cold War. But Israel hates Russia, because they regard the Russians as a bunch of anti-semites, and they also hold a major stake in the Georgian oil pipeline. So for that reason, we are supposed to hate the Russians too, just as we are to hate the entire Muslim world. I guess if some politician in Paraguay cracked an anti-Isreali joke, we’d be launching air strikes against them.
http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=a31_1218274592&c=1
A poster at rawstory brought this up, and I thought it made sense: if we’re planning on doing something big with Iran, it would be nice if Russia had its hands full at the time.