Dmitri Simes, Russian-born American political analyst and Russia expert
The United States did nothing to defend South Ossetia’s civilian population from Georgia’s aggression, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Wednesday in a comment on US President George Bush’s statement on the situation in Georgia. He lamented the fact that assessments by the man in the White House are based on unverified information. Meanwhile, Dmitri Simes, the President of the Nixon Centre for Peace and Freedom, described the accusations the US Administration has hurled at Russia of a disproportionate response to Georgia’s action as unfounded. Mr Simes appeared on a programme of the non-commercial PBS television network. According to Mr Simes, “The US Administration sent Mr Saakashvili mixed signals which the Georgian President took as US support for him. So, he naturally decided he could launch a minor blitzkrieg against South Ossetia. As a result, in fact, the city of Tskhinvali was devastated, while thousands of civilians and dozens of Russian peacekeepers were either killed or wounded”. “I can hardly conceptualise that the United States would see a similar attack on a US battalion as par for the course and would not take it as a provocation” , Mr Simes said.
14 August 2008
Voice of Russia World Service
http://www.ruvr.ru/main.php?lng=eng&q=31065&cid=193&p=14.08.2008 (in English)
Here in America they (being mainstream media) seem to want to paint this as Russia attacking Georgia (bad vs. good), but after reading a little bit more about the history of the past few years I really don’t see Georgia as a democracy, unless you call fixing elections, inprisoning and torturing your political opponents, and causing civil unrest in areas of the region who want to be reunited back with North Ossetia. That’s not what democracy I was taught from years past. It’s more like a dictatorship. Problem is before people make judgement calls, everyone should read up on the events leading up to each aggression. This is why our media falls short over here. The facts that they leave out are the most important.
I also believe the United States really has no business telling Russia what to do, seeing as US has credibilty issues of their own. The only thing they should be doing is urging a peaceful solution without that cowboy tough talk retoric. AND maybe they coould put a muzzle on Cheney.
Comment by Larry — Thursday, 14 August 2008 @ 08:03