Russian dictionary confuses 'Withdrawal' with 'Occupation.'

Associated Press: SACHKHERE, Georgia – Russian forces on Wednesday built a sentry post just 30 miles from the Georgian capital, appearing to dig in to positions deep inside Georgia despite pledges to pull back to areas mandated by a cease-fire signed by both countries. Read the article here.

Vladimir Putin: Crazy Ivan?

Would somebody please explain what Russia's up to?

First they invade a country and effectively annex two of it's provinces, looting, raping and ransacking on the way. And now, despite promises to withdraw their troops from Georgia, they're digging in and helping themselves to whatever the can get their grubby Russian mitts on (in one case, a few American humvees.)

As if this wasn't bad enough, they're even threatening to nuke Poland! The former Soviet republic, now chummy with America and NATO, is installing an anti-missile shield to protect the west from any missiles fired by rogue states (and yes, my Russian comrades - I think that includes you.)

"Poland is exposing itself to a strike — 100 percent," General Anatoly Nogovitsyn , the deputy chief of Kremlin staff, was quoted as saying. "Russia's military doctrine sanctions the use of nuclear weapons against the allies of countries having nuclear weapons if they in some way help them."

Basically translated as: "If you help America (or France, or Britain, or Israel) we have given ourselves the authority to nuke you."

Is it a genuine threat? Or just more duplicitous Russian sabre-rattling?

"The United States has a firm treaty guarantee to defend Poland's territory as if it was the territory of the United States. So it's probably not wise to throw these threats around," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gently warned, admitting: "such comments [from Russia]border on the bizarre, frankly.''

NATO Secretary General Jaap de Hoop dismissed Russia's threats as: ''Pathetic rhetoric. It's unhelpful and it leads nowhere."

It might be unhelpful, but it's pretty frightening. Russia's become (to use a frankly ridiculous American term) 'emboldened' in recent months and I think they're just testing the waters to see how much bullshit they can get away with - rather like a child poking a dog with a stick.

Amusingly, the more outrageous Russia's behaviour becomes, the quieter the pro-Russian bloggers get. Despite utterly fantastical attempts to justify the invasion of Georgia, I think even their ability to suspend disbelief falls flat when faced with the latest Kremlin craziness.

I would not be surprised in the slightest if Comrade Vladimir Putin is swigging some of his country's homemade vodka, the way he's been acting lately.

The Last Word on Georgia...

I don't think there's much point in me writing anything more about the crisis in Georgia. You can read more accurate fact and opinion elsewhere. I'd only originally started blogging about it because I was annoyed at certain bloggers delighting in Russia's rampant aggression.

The fact is, what started off as pro-Russian pandering by a few misguided bloggers has now descended to little more than farce. This morning, scrappy journalist Neil Clarke decided to launch the 'Russophobe of the Week award,' attacking journalists who criticized "Russia's perfectly legitimate and proportionate action to stop ethnic cleansing and genocide in South Ossetia."

Honestly - there's no need for me to try and repudiate that rubbish. It's just so utterly blinkered that anybody with an ounce of journalistic integrity is rolling in the aisles after reading it.

Even Mancunian-in-Mexico The Exile, who has been successfully wading through the facts and fiction of this war (and less successfully, trying to put a pro-Russian spin on it) admitted today that "the war over South Ossetia was an old fashioned land grab."

You can interpret the origins of this crisis any way you want - but you can't deny how it's all ended up. Russia is occupying Georgian territory and clearly has no intention of leaving until their aims are accomplished - specifically the absorption of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Whatever feeble higher moral ground Russia might have had has been abandoned now they've got their eyes on the prize.

"One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity."

Back when James Bond got taken out of retirement in 1996's Goldeneye, he slyly said to his boss, M, that when it came to Russia: 'Governments change. The lies stay the same.'


Yesterday, the Russian government angrily refuted claims that tanks and soldiers were occupying the Georgian city of Gori. This morning, they admitted that the troops were there - and that they were sending even more of them in.

"One can forget about any talk about Georgia's territorial integrity," Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov told the world - Russpeak for 'watch while we annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia like we'd intended to do from the very beginning.'

For years, the Russians have been funnelling funding and weapons to the two disputed provinces to stir up a separatist movement. Russians have handed out Russian passports to 90% of the population, preparing them for the inevitable. South Ossetia and Abkhazia will surrender autonomy for autocracy - and be swallowed up by their neighbour.

Accusations of war crimes and an angry refusal to speak with Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili were the first steps of Russia's second objective - to topple the democratically elected and pro-western government of Georgia and replace it with one more sympathetic to their former Soviet masters.

Fortunately, America has stepped up to the plate. By sending humanitarian supplies into the Georgian capital of Tbilisi - soon to be joined by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice - they've given Russia a very clear message that the government's staying exactly as the voters wanted it.

Condoleezza declared: "This is not 1968 and the invasion of Czechoslovakia where Russia can threaten a neighbor, occupy a capital, overthrow a government and get away with it. Things have changed."

But have they really changed that much?

With up to 100,000 Georgians ethnically cleansed from the disputed provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, there's little to stop the Russians redrawing the map and enveloping the two regions into their own country. America and the United Nations certainly aren't in much of a position to stop them.

Nobody's quite sure how this will all end - but one thing is certain. The bleating of the pro-Russian apologists is getting increasingly less convincing as this diplomatic crisis continues.

Kremlin: "It depends on how you define 'invasion'..."

Mancunian-in-Mexico The Exile is continuing his coverage of the conflict in Georgia with stiff denials that the Russians are up to anything. The 50 tanks reported rolling into Gori this morning were, according to him, just a military resupply column that 'got lost.'

In 1939 a German military resupply column 'got lost' all the way to Krakow.

In all honesty, I don't think Russia's trying to take over Georgia any more. They might not even head towards the capital, Tbilisi. All they're doing is making the Georgians, Americans and Europeans very clear who is in charge down there.

The Russians are swarming all over Georgian territory. That much is a fact. All these photos were taken today, in Georgian territory, by Reuters and Associated Press reporters.

Is it an invasion? Possibly not. What it is is a buttload of Russian soldiers, tanks and trucks slap-bang in the middle of Georgia - where the Russians cynically claim they're not.

I think the political term for this is 'inplausible deniability.'

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These guys are seperatist militia from South Ossetia - driving Russian military vehicles past convoys of Georgian refugees.

To the untrained eye, these pictures might seem to show a convoy of Russian tanks rolling through Georgian territory. Rest assured, both the Russians and The Exile know better. They're just a figment of your imagination.

Here are pictures of the poor, lost 'resupply convoy' that the big, nasty Associated Press misrepresented as a heavily armed military convoy rolling through Gori this morning.

Although one of the Russians in this convoy yelled to a reporter: "We're going to Tbilisi!" they apparently started heading off in a completely different direction - lending weight to The Exile's theory that they plugged the wrong address into their Tom Tom GPS.

Ceasefire (the Russian version.)

Russian tanks photographed in Gori this morning. But not 'invading' apparently.

One of the prices of war is an awfully large amount of bullshit.

Yesterday, Russia and Georgia reached a tentative ceasefire in their conflict over the breakaway province of South Ossetia. The pro-Russian bloggers (like charmingly misguided journalist Neil Clarke) celebrated:

"This is a crushing defeat not only for Georgia... ...but for the entire Russophobic movement. The British scribblers who wrote of Russia's invasion of Georgia... ...have got an incredible amount of egg on their face.There was no 'Russian invasion of Georgia'"

Mancunian-in-Mexico The Exile even demanded tribute for his 'accurate' assessment of the conflict:

"On Monday most of the world's media were reporting that Russian troops were flooding out of South Ossetia and into Georgia proper. They claimed that the cities of Gori and Senaki were occupied and went on to make the risible claim that the whole of Georgia had been cut in two... ...There was only one slight problem with that thesis: it was pure bollocks, as readers of this blog knew at the time. Put bluntly, your friendly Exile got the story right, and most of the media just got it wrong. Is my work worth a donation? ...is a fiver too much to ask?"

The only problem - this morning, the Russian's give both our erstwhile bloggers the middle finger, doing exactly what Neil and The Exile promised they wouldn't. The Russians continued their advance into Georgian territory. About 50 Russian tanks rolled through the city of Gori today - one Russian soldier proudly boasting to an Associated Press reporter: "Come with us! We're going to Tbilisi!" [That's the Georgian capital - Editorial Bear]

So, Exile - I'm afraid you'll have to wait a while on that five quid from me. Your 'right' version of the story appears to be getting more and more 'wrong' by the minute.

Kosovo is finally free...

The expected arrived today. A decision by breakaway Serbian province Kosovo to finally declare it's independence.

While hardly surprising, the news is still good. For the last century, Serbia's hawk-like eye has been on this former province of the Ottoman empire and the Serbs have used every tactic in the playbook - from alliances with 'the great powers' to invasion and ethnic cleansing - to get their mitts on what murky Serbian folklore has always touted as 'the heart of Serbia.'

In truth, Kosovo hasn't truly been a part of the Serbian nation since the Battle of Kosovo, way back in the fourteenth century. After five hundred years of Ottoman rule (which saw the demographic of the region change from Slavic to Albanian) the Serbs have spent a century trying to reclaim their 'lost' province - but their claim simply doesn't hold water.

Quite rightly, the UN and the European Union seem ready to support Kosovo's well deserved liberation from Serbian imperialism.

But while celebration is the order of the day in Kosovo, dark clouds are gathering on the horizon. Firstly, Serbia has shown a worrying enthusiasm for solving diplomatic problems with violent and bloodthirsty military action. Secondly, the great Russian bear is peering at the Serbia/Kosovo conundrum with a growing sense of unease. As more regions of the former Soviet bloc gear up for independence, the liberation of Kosovo would give them increased legitimacy.

At best, the liberation of Kosovo will drive a thick wedge between the West and the former Soviet Union. But at worst? Serbia could gain enough support from Russia to launch it's own military 'reclamation' and bring war right back to the heart of Europe.

British Betrayal

"Let's not overlook a practical military issue here: Who will ever work for the British army in a war zone if they know that later they will be tossed aside like a spent cartridge?" Adam LeBor, The Times 9th August 2007.

Do you remember Goldeneye? It was the 1995 Bond movie, in which Pierce Brosnan tackled international terrorism in the first of the 'post Cold War' Bond films.

Thrilling stuff - and interesting too.

The bad guy in that movie, Alec Trevelyan, was revealed to be a Lienz Cossack. His plot was intended to wreck vengeance against the British for their betrayal of his people back in 1945.

Lienz Cossacks

Not familiar with that particular bit of history? I'm not surprised. It's hardly Britain's finest hour and so it doesn't make it into the history books that often.

The Lienz Cossacks were 'white Russians' who'd fought bitterly against communism and the rise of the Soviet Union following the Russian Revolution. During the Second World War, when Germany invaded the Soviet Union, the Lienz Cossacks sided with the Nazis in order to try the topple the communist regime and bring 'freedom' to their country.

Which didn't happen.

First off, the Russians defeated Germany and communism reigned in Russia for another half a century. Secondly, the Lienz Cossacks made no friends by siding with the brutal Nazi regime and committed countless atrocities during the battles on the Eastern Front.

So when the war ended, things got messy.

The Lienz Cossacks who'd fought with the Germans were rounded up by the British. It was up to the United Kingdom to decide what to do with them.

The Cossacks hoped that Britain would protect them. Even though they'd fought on the side of the Germans during WWII, the Cossacks were not Nazis themselves - merely enemies of communism who figured that 'the enemy of my enemy is my friend.'

Britain and America were staunchly anti-communist and the Lienz Cossacks hoped that they'd be considered allies in any upcoming conflict against communism (what would later be called 'the Cold War.')

But it was not to be.

Because of the brutality of the Cossack soldiers, who had murdered and raped their way along with the SS and the German army, the British wanted nothing to do with them and 'repatriated' these 'Russians' to the Soviet Union, where they 'belonged.'

Trains and trucks were pulled up and Cossack soldiers were forced into them. As were their wives, families and children - many of whom were not even Russian, having been born in the years after the Lienz Cossacks had left Russia.

The Cossacks didn't go willingly. British troops had to beat them into submission with billy clubs and rifle-butts. Eventually, almost 35,000 Cossacks were transported to their 'mother country' where the Soviets 'welcomed' them.

The vast majority of them were sent immediately to labor camps in Siberia, which were little better than the death camps the Nazis had built. Almost all of the Lienz Cossacks 'repatriated' back to Russia died in brutal suffering.

The 'lucky' ones didn't even make it that far. Because many of the Cossacks weren't born in Russia (their parents had left following the Russian Revolution) they were unable to be tried for treason as Soviet Citizens. Therefore the Red Army saved themselves the hassle of a military trial and executed them on the spot, with a bullet through the brains.

In the end, the British decision not to protect the Lienz Cossacks led to the deaths of over 30,000 men, women and children. Their blood is directly on British hands.

Although, as Valentin Dmitrovitch Zukovsky said in Goldeneye: "A brutal people. They got what they deserved."

The History Lesson

The reason I'm dredging all this up is because Britain and America are facing a similar problem at the moment. Hundreds of Iraqis who work for the British and American forces in Iraq - as drivers, translators and the like - are requesting asylum in the West to protect them from the bloody retribution they'll face from Iraqi insurgents.

And Britain's giving them the same answer as they gave the Lienz Cossacks.

'Nyet.'

The difference is, of course, that the asylum-seeking Iraqis begging for protection aren't brutal Cossacks. They're average men and women, trying to make a living for themselves. And the reason they're facing a death sentence from brutal Iraqi terrorists is because they deigned to work for the British.

We Brits placed a death sentence on them and now we're turning our backs.

The true horror of this is pretty hard to stomach. Take Mayada Salihi, for instance. She was a red-headed, divorced mother of two who had grown up in Baghdad and taught herself English by listening to American music growing up.

When the American and British soldiers arrived, she took work translating for the foreign servicemen, helping to communicate between the 'invading' forces and the people of Baghdad. All part of winning the 'hearts and minds' of the Iraqi people.

Doing so earned her a death sentence. In May of 2006, a terrorist cell called Ansar Al Sunna kidnapped Mayada off the streets of Baghdad and drove her to a remote location. There, she was brutally beaten, raped and horribly tortured with an electric power drill (the calling card of Ansar Al Sunna.) Eventually, many hours later, the insurgents 'put her out of her misery' by drilling directly into her skull.

Her broken body was dumped on the streets of Baghdad - a 'warning' to any who dared work with the American or British troops.

Is that the fate faced by hundreds of 'collaborating' Iraqis forces?

Betrayal

Although peace seems to be coming to Iraq (deaths of both servicemen and civilians are at some of their lowest levels at the moment) the 'war' is not won and terrorists and insurgents are still a constant danger.

Once the British and American soldiers leave, those Iraqis who assisted the soldiers and diplomats face the same fate as Mayada Salihi. Death, if they're lucky. Torture if they're not.

Unless Britain offers them asylum or protection of some description, many of them - if not the majority - will die. It's as simple as that.

And it's funny (although not 'ha ha' funny) that so many people are ranting about these asylum seekers - talking about all sorts of issues except the single most important one. The decision to let them live or die.

The Issue

Scrubby journalist Neil Clark, for example, wrote a heated piece in which he declared: "let's do all we can to keep self-centred mercenaries who betrayed their fellow countrymen and women for financial gain out of Britain."

The Exile is deliciously blunt: "Keep the buggers out!"

It's funny how two bloggers who bleat about liberalism and the evils of capitalism turn out to be so quick to condemn hundreds of people to death!

Comparison

If we'd been blogging sixty years ago, I'm sure Neil and The Exile would have been very vocal about rejecting the Lienz Cossack's pleas for protection, too. After all, the Cossacks were a brutal people, who murdered and raped alongside our country's most hated enemy.

But the Iraqis requesting asylum in Great Britain are not Lienz Cossacks.

They are not soldiers or revolutionaries. They are drivers and translators. Folks who want to provide for their families. They're people who put themselves at risk to work for the British forces in Iraq because we asked them to.

Just look at Mayada Salihi. Not a brutal criminal or a bloodthirsty Cossack. She was just a divorced mother of two. I can't imagine any of the rest of the asylum seekers are any different.

And that's really the issue, isn't it? While Neil Clark calls the Iraqis who assist British troops 'quislings' and compares them to collaborators from World War II, he's really just trying to justify why he doesn't want a bunch of brown skinned people getting asylum in England.

The Exile is much more honest about things. He demands to know why hundreds of Iraqis are going to get first dibs on council houses and benefits when there's a long line of working class British people who've been waiting ages for them.

But in their anger over keeping the Iraqis out of Britain they ignore the truth - that turning them away is akin to a death sentence. Level that charge and both The Exile and Neil Clark leap behind the flimsy defence of 'I didn't support this war!" and "Their blood's not on my hands!"

But it is. Because whether you consider the Iraqi asylum seekers regular folk trying to make the best of their lives in war torn Baghdad - or back-stabbing quislings collaborating with an invading army - the end result is the same. If you campaign to keep them out of Britain, many of them may die.

I'm not arguing with their right to protest the asylum. I'm just wishing they'd avoid the hypocrisy and bite the bullet. You want them kept out of Britain? Fine. But they'll die - and you'll have tortured and killed them as sure as an insurgent with a power drill.

You are complicit in the betrayal.

If you can live with that - just like the British officers who who had to live with their decision to turn over the Lienz Cossacks to the Soviets - then more power to you. But I think you're a pair of heartless bastards.