Totten on Georgia
As usual, Michael Totten is well worth reading. Here’s his take on the Georgian situation.
The New Neo
A blog about political change, among other things
As usual, Michael Totten is well worth reading. Here’s his take on the Georgian situation.
Totten and Yon deserve Pulitzer Prizes. This is the best reporting, so far, on the events leading up to Russia’s invasion.
I blogged, on 8/16, about Russia deploying Western media as a weapon.
good article, except even he is wrong, but only slightly… one of the best main stream covers i have read yet. I will say that my left friends in press already had stories of georgians herding women and children into a church and killing them. thats the story thats sticking since these left press people tend to always side with those they know that talk to them, rathe than any other source.
Virtually everyone is wrong. Georgia didn’t start it on August 7, nor on any other date. The South Ossetian militia started it on August 6 when its fighters fired on Georgian peacekeepers and Georgian villages with weapons banned by the agreement hammered out between the two sides in 1994.
It actually started earlier, if you want to count cyber attacks, and the set up (which i count since such a set up included war games to move material into position without suspicion).
it actually started in july, but no one thought much of it, because we havent learned yet to respond to information/cyber warfare as serious. bomb a factory, they lose millions, its serious. destroy a companies online presence and ability to make sales, and they lose millions, no one has yet made it equivalent. even more so between states and their stooges.
just prior to that though, russia was in the neighboring country having war games, which were about invading small countries.
then on july 15th, russia recalled all their ambassadors to discuss new policy of defnding russian people in foreign countries. i posted a link to the medvedev speech.
[to those that dont know their history, when russia invaded latvia in 39, it said it was called to save. to do this was stalins thing. every country they invaded they claimed they were called in]
then south ossetians evacuated their women and children before the shelling started at 11 pm…
and THEN georgia responded about an hour and a half later.
prior to all this going on, russian tanks and soldiers were already on the move pushing into the country. they had also mobilized their ships before the georgian response had even occured yet.
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the rest of it is quite good. what i hope your readers get out of it is what i have been desperately trying to stress.
the orchestration of mass distractions.
“A key tool that the Soviet Union used to keep its empire together,” Worms said to me, “was pitting ethnic groups against one another.
is it any wonder that the left movement is divisive? feminists (which is gender marxism), black liberation orgs, etc. multiculturalism, etc.
the whole point of the things we are practicing is to keep us fighting with each other so that we are not watching the politicians and cant organize against them, while at the same time destrying the culture that gives the masses coordination, productivity, capability, education, and understanding… (seeking to replace all that with the state as the only source of some replicas)
that he kind of brings up that the reason the latvians went to the gulags, and the estonians, and ukrainians etc, was to embed native russians in the country. and if they lost control, they could activate these groups to create division and problems that would then allow them to paint the opposition thorugh propaganda and then take them back under the same premise that stalin used to take them in the first place.
what i am trying to get clear into peoples minds is that their moral doctrine is total pragmatism. pure pragmatism with no restrictions.
what we forget is that their country had been run by their version of the CIA/NSA/stasi/SS etc..
the original form was kind of like ours, where a party controls the military (gru) and the kgb. they formed a three legged stool in which none of them could take complete power and the state rests on that stool. constantly reforming, constantly reshaping, trying to use darwin to keep progressing. the head of the gru was always a kgb man, but loyal to the gru (knowlegeable of his greatest opposition), and the party supreme soviet which coordinated the state. inner parties, and outer parties, and all manner of stuff that most people think your telling stories if you try to let them know.
when the soviet union fell that left only one leg standing to take control (as if the falling was their idea). that was the kgb, which then also took advantage of the restructuring and have their people in all the key places in the state. including putin a kgb man. medvedev is not, but as we know, he is an extra mouthpiece and a puppet foil.
with the borders down and free movements, they were more able to move around the world and move assets and more efficiently work. before the fall, they had to do everything through their embassy, the few that travelled, and the UN (which was and is their playground).
russia is much wealthier than people realize. they have huge stores of raw materials, and diamond mines. of which they have mined and havent sold much openly for almost a century. they have spent their money on things like controlling interest in publishers, in graft to put their people in key node points. Education, Media, Not for profits, gender and race based orgs, advertising, law, parties, and more.
all their money goes to the big game. it always has.
this is what unlimited warfare is all about.
subversion over incursion since the entities involved are too big to hash it out while fully strong and not weak enough to give up fast.
we are fooled into the proposition that the world has changed, when it cant change. there is no ‘gene’ to prevent our normal behaviors from being what they are, and stopping us from no longer playing such games (except capitalism but thats our nature too).
there is nothing different in me that was not in my grandfathers grandfather. so there is no such thing as the world learning not to get into altercations like WWII, because we dont understand that there are those that want this to be a zero sum game where one side takes all.
as long as they exist, its a zero sum game where one side takes it all, and divies up the proceeds as perks and leaves the prols with nothing.
even now we are vehemently angry at anything tha tmight lead us back to our own minds and not the ideals inserted into the stream by people loyal to the motherland. alinsky, goldstein, kinsey, dewey, meade, duranty, and a list so long from the past to today that it would literally be a book.
its all in the open, its just not shared and there is so much other stuff to keep us busy. we are literally allowing ourselves to be destracted till we no longer understand what is important or whats going on.
we have been told the exit is the entrance to hell, and that the exit is the gateway to utopia. so we run away from that which would save us, and run faster into the arms of our own end.
we now are working towards our own doom and have been doing so for a long time through all these movements.
heck, we dont even read what the people we follow actually write most of the time… if we did, we wouldnt follow them. if we could see the same thing regardless of different names (absolutism) we couldnt be sold misery as a goodness.
good article.
Rollback Russian Expansionism
By J.R. Dunn
http://www.americanthinker.com/2008/08/how_to_rollback_russia.html
The only thing novel about the humiliation of Georgia is that the entity that carried it out is called “Russia” instead of the “Soviet Union”.
George Kennan’s famous “long telegram”, an accurate appraisal of the Soviet Union’s plans and behavior (later published as an article in Foreign Affairs) sounded the original warning as early as February 1946.
Long Telegram
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/coldwar/documents/episode-1/kennan.htm
And a quote from 1972 to really make you think about where things are going to go.
http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/bakunin/works/1872/karl-marx.htm
But in the People’s State of Marx there will be, we are told, no privileged class at all. All will be equal, not only from the juridical and political point of view but also from the economic point of view. At least this is what is promised, though I very much doubt whether that promise could ever be kept. There will therefore no longer be any privileged class, but there will be a government and, note this well, an extremely complex government. This government will not content itself with administering and governing the masses politically, as all governments do today. It will also administer the masses economically, concentrating in the hands of the State the production and division of wealth, the cultivation of land, the establishment and development of factories, the organization and direction of commerce, and finally the application of capital to production by the only banker — the State. All that will demand an immense knowledge and many heads “overflowing with brains” in this government. It will be the reign of scientific intelligence, the most aristocratic, despotic, arrogant, and elitist of all regimes. There will be a new class, a new hierarchy of real and counterfeit scientists and scholars, and the world will be divided into a minority ruling in the name of knowledge, and an immense ignorant majority. And then, woe unto the mass of ignorant ones!
I used to believe that Totten had more brains. I was wrong. Citing urban legends (this is not reporting, but retelling rumors and hearsay) of the most weird and unbelivable sort makes him belong in the same category as 9/11 Truthers. And everybody with elementary knowlege of military tactic immediately sees absurdity of the main claims of his story. If the goal of Georgian attack were not Tskhinval, but some advancing Russian tank columns, why enter the town? Urban landscape is the most dandgerous for tanks, they enter cities only to target cities themselves, but not to marsh through them to some another destination. The same for the Russian tanks. If their goal was occupation of Georgia proper, they should not enter Tskhinval captured by enemy, but get around it. No military strategist ever would plan to confront enemy by tanks in the city, he would choose another battleground.
Obviously, Totten understands military tactic as deep, as Keith Olberman metallurgy. But this is not the main reason to be duped. The default supposition of all western reporters is that people tell truth, if there are no obvious reasons to believe the opposite. It is wrong, especially out of context of Anglo-Saxon protestant culture. This is certainly wrong for Meditteranean cultures – Georgians, Arabs, Italians, Spain, etc. Beside this, all defeated and humilated nations, whose “honor” is deeply wounded, always invent the most weird stories to explain and rationalise away their defeat.
“No military strategist ever would plan to confront enemy by tanks in the city, he would choose another battleground.”
If you thought an open field battle would be disastrous, you might consider trying to beat them to the urban center, where, if you’re already set-up, you’d have an advantage in an area where you’ve already established tankers would rather not be.
There aren’t a lot of major roads in that area that could support armor. Looking at the satellite images, It seems going ‘through’ at least part of the town would be necessary.
So it’s at least plausible.
Now citing 2000 massacred in Tskhanvili by Georgians when no real evidence has surfaced- thats “Citing urban legends (this is not reporting, but retelling rumors and hearsay) of the most weird and unbelivable sort”, or it’s falling for the well oiled Russian dizinformatzya.
To get this evidence you need to exhumate hundreds of temorary graves in backyards, since 133 reported cases are only the ones forensically documented. This is the top of the iceberg, and real body count will be available only two or three monthes later. I can expect it to be 10 times higher than now documented cases.
There is main road around Tskhival along which tanks and armour columns do marshed (see Wiki, Battle of Tskhinvali). It was unsafe, being shelled by Georgian artillery, but still much more safe than ramming throuh the city with handreds Ossetians with RPG, who did burned at least 10 Georgian tanks hours before Russian army entered the city. For Georgians it was completely safe, running through Georgian-held areas. It also telling that no Georgian official supported this fairy tale, knowing that it is not defencible.
Neo, great that you have Michael’s post here.
I far sooner believe it than Sergey here.
The fact that the USSR commies, er, Russian ex-KGB led folk do NOT allow free movement of newsfolk, is a huge strike against their believability.
Calling accurate reporting of first hand accounts ‘urban legend’ strikes me as wilful dis-belief. Basing this dis-belief on a presumed strategic superiority over the best anti-invasion tactics for Georgians to use, which Sergey conveniently fails to provide, exhibits dis-respectful arrogance.
Sergey may be correct that Totten is wrong, and the Russians were innocent of anything until after Georgia started its movement, but he offers little reason to believe him more than Totten. And his insults to the best blogger I know of reflect poorly on his own judgment, more than as criticism of Totten.
(Tho Michael’s comments are a bit poorer without you, Neo — it’s great you have a great blog for yourself, too.)
If the goal of Georgian attack were not Tskhinval, but some advancing Russian tank columns, why enter the town?
becauise the tunnel (Rockskiy) is the only way to get to the area from russia directly. without that everythign has to be airlifted over the mountains.
you fight where the enemy takes his troops, not where you wish they show up. tactically its smarter to meet them in the tunnel, which is a bottle neck, than wait for them to come out, spread out, and fight.
you then go on claiming bad tactics, and then show how they work in favor..
the town has soldiers making it difficult to enter.
russia is entering the town, to make it difficult for the georgians to fight.
if their goal was georgia proper, they have to have a “beachhead”, and they chose to use the town for cover to create that beach head knowing that georgia will not level the place to get at them.
you see… its not totten tactics that are bad, its yours.
if the situation isnt how you imagine you would do it, then they must be wrong.
however moving columns of tanks into the open right away before they mass up, and organize, leaves them open to attack by mortars and rockets.
the town is cover… its an asset that georgia wants and so will not destroy, and so prevents the easy destruction of every tank wholesale..
it forces georgia to meet them through the town, which slows georgia down, and as you say, makes it easier for the smaller false peace keepers to hold the lines while russia masses on this side of the tunnel.
No military strategist ever would plan to confront enemy by tanks in the city, he would choose another battleground.
they didnt plan to confront them in the city, but planned on using the city for cover till enough tanks came out of the tunnel that they could move to engage outside the city. they banked on georgia not being willing to destroy south ossetia to cork the bottle.
you talk as if there are actual rules to this game. there arent. the rules are whatever works, and the one with the poor knowlege of tatics and strategy will make your assertion.
why? because thats the conventional thought, and so its the weak spot someone like you wouldnt prepare for.
if you were the leaders, they would get to move everything into your country, before they got to move to meet you on the battle field.
once they were amasses they had too much material and people for the georgians to do anything about it with their crack troops in iraq.
The default supposition of all western reporters is that people tell truth, if there are no obvious reasons to believe the opposite.
a lot of the confirming information came from russia herself…
it was russia that reported the dead and admitted they were off by a bit… only 133 killed because they previously evactuated.
YOU also assume that all this information comes only from newspeople, and is not fed by people who know more with an interest to get the truth out to oppose russias lies. (or didnt you remember they recalled their people to inform them of the new game? that wasnt very hidden. neither was cyberattacking before the incident, evacutaions, and other things.)
by the way.. seismic stations can pinpoing where the first shells were landing… duh…
To get this evidence you need to exhumate hundreds of temorary graves in backyards, since 133 reported cases are only the ones forensically documented. This is the top of the iceberg, and real body count will be available only two or three monthes later. I can expect it to be 10 times higher than now documented cases.
nope… the georgians didnt beat the peacekeepers… they never got to enter and control south ossetia… they never were in there to be able to bury the bodies… and the russians would have loved to show such as that.
i guess you forget russian hsitory, like katyn massacre, where russia decided to fake the kind of thing your talking about.
The Soviet Union continued to deny the massacres until 1990, when it finally acknowledged the massacre by the NKVD, as well as the subsequent cover-up [they conveniently deny it meets certain standards so they dont have to prosecute the criminals for genocide of 22,000 people, or the rehabilition]
there is a lot more history (confirmed by russia itself, and by her archives), as to russia doing this than not.
your problem sergey is that your people are much better than your leaders. you backing a losing horse by telling us to trust the KGB…
let me know… do YOU trust the kgb with your life, and your families life, and such?
so if they find bodies… its more likely the irregulars who have been captured on cameras doing the things that they do.
this is why these sattelites are scared… because they know that people like you sergey will make the excuses you believe th other side is making, and totally ignroe the evidecne presented by the side your defending, as to their complicity in the kinds of acts that your claiming the others do (of which you cant find much evidence in the world of other sides than the pragmatics doing this)
your tip of the iceberg comment is an assumption which most of the time, russian citizens and followers are wrong… as the leadership does not care what you think, or anythig else other than results. so through history you can show many times where people who supported the assumption ended up with their tail between their legs later on once more information from their own side is released.
There is main road around Tskhival along which tanks and armour columns do marshed
yes there is a road… but the shortest distance is between two points is a line… and going through an unfreindly town, is still going through an unfreindly town..
you keep forgetting that south ossetia is what they are fighting over, and so NEITHER SIDE wants to level it…
so BOTH SIDES were attempting to use the ways your talking about as cover. russians couldnt bomb georgian tanks unless they attack the people they are using to take property (As stalin did), and alienate them. and georgians cant afford to bomb the russian tanks and tunnel, so are forced to meet them.
taking that wide open road would open the georgians to air attacks. russia doesnt have smart weapons, so the towns are cover for both sides.
if this was wwii style war, then the town would just be a location, but its not, its a prize…and so they are using the prize to defend themselves till they clash.
the tactic is the only one… your not understanding that the georgians dont have 6000 battle tanks like russia does… so she cant afford to lose some in the open easily.. while russia can afford to throw away 100 of them, like the allies did with the shermans against the tigers…
For Georgians it was completely safe, running through Georgian-held areas.
and air cant bomb them… right… sure… completely safe… just sit and wait… how did they shoot down some bombers? oh yeah… they were in the air space doing things..
which means that they were NOT SAFE.
The air was controlled by Georgian planes till 9 Aug, Russian armour entered the city without air cover. And the city was indeed destroyed, mostly during first hours of Georgian attack, so use it as “cover” was absolutely impossible. The whole plan of Georgia was based on assumption that Russia would not fight; otherwise, this was pure suicide. Foiling this attack prevented another Georgian plans, much more ambitious: seizing of Abkhasia. In Georgian command car captured near Kodori gorge the maps were found clearly showing that elite forces, up to 9000 troops, were going to attack Abkhasia from 3 directions, including landing operation near Sukhum, another column along sea shore, and the third through Kodori gorge. This was foiled by arriving of Russian airmobile division to Abkhasia several days before the war. Russians military expected attack on Abkhasia first and were unprepared to Georgian surprize attack on Tskhinval, otherwise they would be in the city two hours after first “Grad” salvo; it took almost whole day to organize counter-attack, while Ossetins were fighting without Russian help; Cossacks and other irregulars were almost useless against Georgian tanks.
Sergey, you know that there is no loyal opposition in Russia.
You know it because you don’t even see it here in America, but what you do see is people aping loyal opposition and valuing it, if only for the cover it provides the Leftist bureaucrats in the US.
The whole plan of Georgia was based on assumption that Russia would not fight
They wouldn’t have sacrificed paratroopers and attempted to destroy the Roki tunnel, if that was their assumption. Your assumption is wrong and Georgia’s assumption was right. Unless they stopped Russia at the Roki tunnel or some other bottleneck, Georgia and the capital would fall.
They only slowed the Russian advance, they did not stop it, but even that little time bought was enough to save the capital, if not Georgia.
In Georgian command car captured near Kodori gorge the maps were found clearly showing that elite forces, up to 9000 troops, were going to attack Abkhasia from 3 directions, including landing operation near Sukhum, another column along sea shore, and the third through Kodori gorge.
This sounds like media reports about how Rumsfield and Bush had plans to attack Iraq before 9/11.
Let me tell you what matters. What matters is who attacks who and who has the military logistics to conduct and maintain such attacks. And guess who that was. It wasn’t Georgia, but Russia.
I can not see how slowing Russian advance could help save Tbilisi. Since 12 Avg. Georgian army does not exist. It was routed and fled, throwing away their weapons. If Kremlin wanted to enter Tbilisi and change the Georgian government, it could do this at every minite since, even now. Obviously, Russia has no such plans, and it only waits when Georgians themselves do the job. Recent recognition of Ossetia and Abkhasia independence is aimed to this goal and sending to west a clear message: you can do nothing, so shut up and accept peace on Russian terms.
hechizos especiales (www.hechizosespeciales.com)