US, allies weigh punishment for Russia

US, allies weigh punishment for Russia
By MATTHEW LEE, Associated Press Writer
10 minutes ago


WASHINGTON - Scrambling to find ways to punish Russia for its invasion of pro-Western Georgia, the United States and its allies are considering expelling Moscow from an exclusive club of powerful nations and canceling an upcoming joint NATO-Russia military exercise, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.
But with little leverage in the face of an emboldened Moscow, Washington and its friends have been forced to face the uncomfortable reality that their options are limited to mainly symbolic measures, such as boycotting Russian-hosted meetings and events, that may have little or no long-term impact on Russia's behavior, the officials said.
With the situation on the ground still unclear after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Tuesday ordered a halt to military action in Georgia, U.S. officials were focused primarily on confirming a ceasefire and attending to Georgia's urgent humanitarian needs following five days of fierce fighting, including Russian attacks on civilian targets.
"It is very important now that all parties cease fire," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "The Georgians have agreed to a ceasefire, the Russians need to stop their military operations as they have apparently said that they will, but those military operations really do now need to stop because calm needs to be restored."
At the same time, however, President Bush and his top aides were engaged in frantic consultations with European and other nations over how best to demonstrate their fierce condemnations of the Russian operation that began in Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia, expanded to another disputed area, Abkhazia, and ended up on purely Georgian soil.
"The idea is to show the Russians that it is no longer business as usual," said one senior official familiar with the consultations among world leaders that were going on primarily by phone and in person at NATO headquarters in Brussels where alliance diplomats met together and then with representatives of Georgia.
For now, the Bush administration decided to boycott a third meeting at NATO on Tuesday at which the alliance's governing board, the North Atlantic Council, was preparing for a meeting with a Russian delegation that has been called at Moscow's request, officials said.
On the table for future action is the possible cancellation or U.S. withdrawal from a major NATO naval exercise with Russia that is scheduled to begin Friday, the officials said. Sailors and vessels from Britain, France, Russia, and the U.S. were to take part in the annual Russia-NATO exercise aimed at improving cooperation in maritime security.
The exercise, which is being hosted by Russia this year, began a decade ago and typically involves around 1,000 personnel from the four countries, the officials said.
In the medium term, the United States and its partners in the Group of Seven, or G-7, the club of the world's leading industrialized nations that also includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, are debating whether to effectively disband what is known as the "G-8," which incorporates Russia, by throwing Moscow out, the officials said.
The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have yet been made and consultations with other countries involved are still ongoing.
Bush spoke on Monday and Tuesday with fellow G-7 leaders as well as the heads of democratically elected pro-Western governments in formerly Eastern Bloc nations, some of which are among NATO's newest members and have urged a strong response to Russia's invasion of a like-minded country.
On Monday on his way home from the Olympics in China, Bush talked with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Polish President Lech Kaczynski. He then spoke to Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the White House said. On Tuesday, he spoke with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.
Rice, who returned early to Washington late Monday from vacation to deal with the crisis, held a second round of talks with foreign ministers from the Group of Seven countries in which they were briefed on European Union mediation efforts led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who met Tuesday with Medvedev in Moscow.
"They believe that they have made some progress and we welcome that and we certainly welcome the E.U. mediation," Rice told reporters at the White House.
Despite the flurry of activity, there was still uncertainty about whether Russia had in fact halted its military action in Georgia with reports of continued shelling of civilian and military sites.
The State Department on Tuesday recommended that all U.S. citizens leave Georgia in a new travel warning, saying the security situation remained uncertain. It said it was organizing a third evacuation convoy to take Americans who want to leave by road to neighboring Armenia. More that 170 American citizens have already left Georgia in two earlier convoys.

Just hours after Bush said in a White House address that the invasion had "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world" and demanded an end to what he called Moscow's "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence, Medvedev said he had ordered an end to military action.
But Georgia insisted that Russian forces were still bombing and shelling and White House spokesman Tony Fratto said Tuesday it was too early to comment on Medvedev's move. "We are trying to get an assessment of what a halt means and whether it is taking place, of course," the spokesman added.
Typifying the administration's dilemma, a planned late-morning White House briefing by national security adviser Stephen Hadley was postponed "until further notice" due to ongoing developments in Georgia and in Moscow, where Sarkozy was meeting with Russian officials on behalf of the West. The State Department on Tuesday recommended that all U.S. citizens leave Georgia in a new travel warning, saying the security situation remained uncertain. It said it was organizing a third evacuation convoy to take Americans who want to leave by road to neighboring Armenia. More that 170 American citizens have already left Georgia in two earlier convoys.

US, allies weigh punishment for Russia - Yahoo! News

 

I hate to say it but the US needs Russia right now. We need Russia more involved in the whole Iranian Nuclear thing, and qiute frankly, the US isn't in a position to do anything whether we wanted to or not.

 

thanks for the article JC but I will state my very subjective opinion...........

Blllllllllllllllllttttttttttttttttttt !!!, we won't do squat and nor should we

 

LOL True. But remember that its not just the US that feels this way.

 

well yes I understand but what is everyone going to do...........as always, "say guys when can we sit at the bargaining table" ..........AGAIN.

crap we all need to drink more Wine !

 

Well IMO the UN is as useless as teats on a boar LOL.

 

UN, who want them involved ? one of the most worthless organizations to stand place on this earth the last 20 years

 

Quite probably only polishing the US political shield here. After a while nobody remembers this and everybody´s just happy the fighting ended.

Interesting that the president of France flew to Georgia to give his backing. And other top politicians going there,too?

 

Like I said its more then just the US that is concerned.

 

Germany and Italy don't agree. Georgia started this but the entire western media has managed to manipulate our less than intelligent percentage of the population. I know this doesn't sound nice but its the truth.

 

I heard the Russian Ambassador speak as well (on CSPAN), He gave a good argument, which was hard to disagree with.
When told/asked to move back to "old" lines, and revert to "small" peacekeeping force he replied, " We did that already, and they were over run and swept away."
Perhaps Georgia believes themselves "protected" so they act like a "nasty" little kid on the playground .... with a "Big" brother(s) watching ?
Welcome to reality, where crummy behavior gets the same.

 

Since when was a big power nation interested in the needs of some 70,000 people ( South Ossetia)???

If there was no oil pipes there would be no big nation interest there....as usual!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7556215.stm

 

They were there, and they were being pushed out the door & ignored. Oil is/will be a "touchy" subject (until it's gone), and will bring out (somewhat) lame excuses from everyone.
Push = Shove ?

 

How about giving independence both to Ossetia and Abkhazia? All military forces stop fighting and give independece to these people. We´ll see what happens.

 

Interesting...

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Ethnically, the Ossetians are of Iranian stock and speak their own language, which is closely related to Pashto, and more distantly to Farsi. They claim to be the descendents of the ancient Alanian and Scythian tribes and therefore to have been inhabiting the South Caucasus for thousands of years. The Georgians, on the other hand, are a Caucasian people and speak a language belonging to the Caucasian family. The Georgians also claim to have ancient roots in the South Caucasus, while at the same time arguing that the Ossetians only migrated to the Caucasus between the 17th and 19th centuries. Along religious lines, both are predominately Orthodox Christian, with a Sunni Islam minority among the Ossetians. Therefore, the conflict between the two peoples is not based on religion, but rather on ethnicity, and territory.

Georgia and South Ossetia

 

Really the only way. (Independence)
But then, because of where they are, we'll get...
Two more Nations in the UN (scandals & treaties)
More Sheiks, Sultans, Emirs with limousines, harems, scads of disposable income (from temporary/phony friends) to support radical ideas/terrorism, and many offering support/defense (in the long run, for their own agenda) and not less, but more "hardware" in the area.

Glad not to be a Diplomat ! Arrrrg ! the pressure (who needs it?)

 

Russia would probably agree to this.
Its quite amazing the way it been portrayed in the Western media that it was the Russians who initiated this conflict.

The fact it was the Georgian military attack on South Ossetia which set off this conflict seems to have been largely overlooked.

 

Well, Kosovo did not receive the "good news"...so I doubt it in the Caucasus region. I´m not worried if they prove me wrong.

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Time to change policy?

Moscow News - News - Russia Warns Kosovo Over Independence

Russian Ambassador Vitaly Chur*kin said that the future of Kosovo is a Security Council issue - not an EU issue - and said council members should prepare a roadmap that would "create dynamics that in our view would lead to a negotiated outcome."

He made clear that Russia, which has veto power in the Security Council, would block any attempt by an independent Kosovo to become a member of the United Nations.

 

Interesting article by Yulia Latynina

South Ossetia Crisis Could Be Russia's Chance To Defeat Siloviki - CAUCAZ.COM

Yulia Leonidovna Latynina is a Russian journalist, writer and radio host. She works at the radio station Echo of Moscow. She also writes for Novaya Gazeta and The Moscow Times.

Yulia Latynina - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

So let me get this straight. USSR goes to hell. Georgia, a country that hasn't really existed for a very long time except for a brief time after the October Revolution, declares independence. A portion of Georgia with its own ethnic identity declares its own independence from Georgia. A civil war happens and a weird quid pro quo of who belongs to whom goes on.

Before this, small units (squad and platoon level) plink at each other. After a while, the bigger Democratic "good guys" of Georgia (as they are US Allies, they have to be "good guys" by definition) proceed to bomb and arty the heck out of whole South Ossetia. They then invade, try to do a Thunder Run. And get their asses kicked in by the Russians. Seems the Georgian military leaders didn't watch Episode 1 of Star Wars. "There is always a bigger fish" or something liked that.

After that Russia gets in. Georgian Military cries foul that Russia is now actually bombing Georgian territory and not keeping the fighting in South Ossetia. Even though South Ossetia was considered part of Georgia but not quite. I guess there are two definitions of Georgia even in Georgia.

So now the Georgians have taken the tiger by the tail, are realising that it 'may have been' the wrong move and painting the Russains as the aggressors even though Georgians brought out the big guns in the first place.