“We’re Glad Georgia Has Had to Withdraw Its Forces from Iraq”

http://www.kommersant.com/page.asp?id=1011127
The son of the Libyan leader talks to Kommersant about events in Georgia
Libya supported Russia in the UN Security Council in the conflict with Georgia
Thanks to the assistance of Oleg Mitvol, former deputy director the federal agency Rosprirodnadzor, Kommersant was able to ask the eldest son of Libyan leader Col. Muammar al-Gaddafi Saif-al-Islam Gaddafi, who told Mikhail Zygar why the Arab world is behind Russia.
Why has Libya decided to support Russia in the situation with Libya?

First, Libya has always supported Russia; there are excellent relations between us. We consider Russia a great country. Our prime minister spoke to Vladimir Putin about that during his last visit to Moscow. But that is not the only reason. All Arabs are mad at Georgia because it sent its troops to Iraq and took part in the occupation of that Arab land. Therefore, now people in all the Arab countries are glad that Georgia has had to withdraw its forces from Iraq. We understand that it wouldn’t have happened without Russia. If it weren’t for Russia, Georgian forces would still be in Iraq.

What happened in Georgia is a good signal. It means that America is no longer the only country in the world that can make the rules of the game. Now, not only America, but Russia, is a great power. Now there is balance in the world. Russia is being reborn, and we value that. It is very good for us, for all of the Middle East.

We understand, of course, that Georgia started the war first. The Georgian simply thought that the Americans would stand up for them, come and help them, fight along with them. And that is a signal to all countries that rely on America alone, thinking that closeness to the United States will allow them to do anything they want. It’s not so.

In general, I should say that it’s very silly when the Georgian president complains about the Russian invasion. How can you talk about occupation, when you are occupiers yourself? The Georgians along with the Americans occupy Iraq! And now they are trying to portray themselves as fighters for freedom and democracy.

Is that the position only of the Libyan leadership, or have you discussed it with your partners in other Arab countries?

Well, it is Libya’s opinion, of course. But believe me, all Arabs are glad Georgia has withdrawn its troops from Iraq. We simply decided to come forward first because Libya is a member of the UN Security Council and our voice will have weight.

Does Libya plan to introduce a resolution on Georgia in the Security Council, or just to support Russian initiatives?

We will support a Russian resolution. Our ambassador will be briefed and will consult with the Russian representative in the UN Security Council.

Do you think that joint Russian and Libyan actions in the Security Council will be successful?

We will support Russia in any case. We understand that Georgia was the first aggressor. And Russian peacekeepers were forced to respond. Russia should have the right to defend its citizens.

Libya has exerted a lot of effort recently to restore relations with the U.S. and Europe. Aren’t you risking damaging those relations now with strong statements?

No. Not at all. We have good relations with the West and with Russia. But Libya chose Russia as its strategic partner. Of course, Russia is our strategic partner, and we cannot compare it with any other country for closeness. That’s obvious.

Relations between Russia and Libya became so close after Vladimir Putin’s last visit to Tripoli. All at once, huge contracts were concluded on Russian Railways and Gazprom work in Libya. What was the reason for such closeness?

Not at all. Libya’s affinity for Russia has a long past. Libya has great affinity and respect for the Russian people. That’s the truth. Our cooperation has gone on for 40 years. That is the whole reason, and nothing more.

Libya was a pariah state. Now many are calling for Russia’s isolation. Do you think it is a real threat for Russia?

No, I don’t think so. The whole world needs Russian gas, Russian oil. It is not expedient for Europe to let relations with Russia worsen. And then we, the Libyans, will do everything possible to work in Russia and invest in its economy. Because Russia is a great country.

Is the idea of creating a natural gas OPEC still realistic?

We discussed that idea with Russia and said that we are ready to join that club. But the support of the other gas producing countries is needed still.

In the last few days, the Middle Eastern press has been writing that five American and British aircraft carriers suddenly appeared in the Persian Gulf. Do you think the U.S. can strike at Iran in the present situation?

No, I don’t think that will happen. Because Iran is not Georgia. And prices for oil are very high and the consequences of such an attack would be very serious.

The last question concerns your personal future. There have been rumors recently that you may replace your father soon as leader of Libya. Can you confirm or deny that?

It is true that many are trying to find the answer to that question now, especially in Libya. But you will be the first I answer. I will have to say a lot about it soon, but I have decided to leave politics. Instead, I will devote all my attention to the development of civil society and business in Libya, philanthropy. I decided to take a few steps back.
Interview by Mikhail Zygar

Abkhazia’s Foreign Ministry says its principal condition of beginning talks with Georgia is Tbilisi’s recognition of Abkhazian independence. It also says that recent sessions of the UN Security Council have illustrated the absence of any possible security guarantees from the international community in case of military aggression against it. The Abkhazian Foreign Ministry statement said: “Georgia’s actions, supported by disinformation by leading American and British media, once more confirm that Georgia was, and still is, considering the use of force in resolving the Georgia-Abkhazia conflict.

“Abkhazia considers it essential to keep a substantial contingent of Russian peacekeepers present on its territory, as only Russia can guarantee the preservation of the Abkhazian people and stability in the whole region.

“In particular the UN Security Council and the OSCE have proved helpless and incompetent in urgent conflict prevention.”

Currently, Abkhazia is a de facto independent state not recognised by any country. It proclaimed independence from Tbilisi in the 90s which resulted in a year-long war.

Abkhazia’s officials believe the independence of Kosovo earlier this year have set a precedent, and along with the outcome of the conflict in South Ossetia, it will be enough to provide a basis for a long-awaited resolution of the country’s status. (Link)

Speaking on South Ossetia’s events earlier this week, the Russian prime minister accused the West of double standards.

“They [the U.S.] of course had to hang Saddam Hussein for destroying several Shiite villages,” Vladimir Putin said.

“But the current Georgian rulers, who in one hour simply wiped ten Ossetian villages from the face of the earth, who used tanks to knock down children and the elderly, and who burnt civilians alive – they (Georgian leaders) are players who of course have to be protected.”

Hello,

My wife and I are thinking about going to see Israel this October. Russians do not have to have a visa starting September 30th, 2008 and I being an American citizen do not need a visa either. So we have just about made up our minds to go to Israel.

The reason we want to go is because in reality says that this may be a last chance for awhile to see Israel. With the complications arising from the Iran-USA-Israel triangle, who knows the political issues that come up or even the possible destructive issues. Israel seems to become more unstable everyday.

Israel is the Holy Land for Christians and we would like to see it before something happens to it. So even with the risks getting higher everyday, we say, “Lets Go!”

Air fair runs about $400 dollars per person round trip. (That is not bad.) The hotels are running around $60 dollars a day. There is about 1,000,000 things to see so that will take about two weeks. 🙂

We found a: WARNING: Afghanistan, Algeria, Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Lebanon, Libya, Saudi Arabia, Somalia, Sudan, Syria, and Yemen block passports containing Israeli stamps or visas, as these countries do not recognize Israel. If you intend to visit one of these countries, ask to stamp a blank page, rather than your passport, when entering Israel. We have to think about this warning because I would like to travel to Iran also.

I see that Egypt is located right next to Israel, that would be fun to see the pyramids!

Well, enough on that subject, we will let you know if we are able to go in a few weeks.

Anyone been there and have any suggestions on what to see in Israel?

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

Worst of the war wounded to be treated in Moscow:

An influx of thousands of injured victims of the conflict in South Ossetia have started arriving in Moscow for specialist medical treatment. Hit by Georgian attacks on their homes and hospitals, they were forced to hide in cellars for days.

As their wounds decayed in the August heat, many refugees scrambled through mountains and slept in forests to get to Vladikavkaz.

Those who have received wounds that cannot be treated in South Ossetia’s hospitals, with wounds caused by everything from burns and bullets to mines and grenades, are being flown from Vladikavkaz to specialist hospitals in Moscow.

None of the wounded who have so far arrived in Moscow, a mixture of Ossetians and Russians, were well enough to answer doctors’ basic questions.

A clinic in north-west Moscow has received the first of its war patients. Its senior doctor, Aleksey Kuzmichev, says the nature of Georgia’s bombing campaign guaranteed multiple civilian casualties, as many are wounded by mines and artillery shelling.

“As soon as the war started we reduced our number of regular patients in preparation for the wounded. We knew there would be vast numbers of victims,” he said.

The injured are also being checked by psychologists. Doctors say the cases of mental trauma suffered by Ossetian victims are some of the worst they have seen.

——————————————————————————–

How many of these people will die from injuries received in the war zone?

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

Russia, and especially Putin, have learned quite a bit this past decade and a half in regards to the new rules of geopolitics. Every action taken by the Russians that was criticized by the Americans and the western press was quickly defused with the Russians throwing back into their faces everything that the Americans/Brits have done since the end of the Cold War?

Invasion? Sorry, humanitarian intervention.

Destruction? No, we’re countering ethnic cleansing and genocide conducted by the Georgians.

Regime change? Well, if Hussein had to go, so must Saakashvili.

The USA had to be taken down a notch and that’s exactly what’s happened. But rather than learning a lesson about hypocrisy, the Americans are even more intent on engaging in American exceptionalism, as Cheney, McCain, Rice, and Bush indicate with their poor arguments.

Putin plays chess while Dubya plays checkers.

Hello,

Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili declared Georgia’s victory over Russia during a mass rally in Tbilisi yesterday. This was just hours after he panicked the city and lied about Russians invading Tbilisi and Gori! With a mass evacuation happening because of his foolery!

But in Georgia, people’s moods improved as they learned that Russia’s troops were not close to Tbilisi, moreover, they even hadn’t entered Gori.

This information was reported by Georgia’s all military bodies on Monday night, which caused quite a panic in the capital: people hurried to leave the city, and you could see long queues in the shops – everyone wanted to buy bread and other foodstuffs. Later it was found out that the mess was a result of the Georgian military men’s mistake: they took a column of their own trucks, tanks and armored troop-carriers, which were evacuated from Gori, for Russian machines. (Link)

You see the fact is: You have been told that Russia destroyed Gori with tanks and ground forces. You have been told and shown pictures of South Ossetia’s destruction played off as pictures of Gori destruction. By the way Gori is the spot that Georgia launched the Grad Missiles from, that struck the Ossetians while they where sleeping. That is why Russia did air raids on the area around Gori because it was a Military stronghold of Georgia.

I want you to see a video of the Great Saakashvili in one of his finest roles as an actor playing a President….

“Saakashvili heard the noise of Russian airplane and trying to escape under bodies of bodyguards. When the noise is gone, bodyguards tells journalists to stop shooting and go away. Saakashvili is very scared, he is running away for his life.)

What more can be said….

Kyle & Svet

comments always welcome.

Hello,

If you would like to see the results of the Georgian War on the Capital of South Ossetia follow this link…..

http://en.rian.ru/photolents/20080812/115971545.html

The tall buildings you see are called Flats. Flats are where people live. In this part of the world a Flat houses the whole family from Grandma to Great Grand kids. They all live under the same roof.

So if you bomb a flat you are killing the whole family. The small hole on the outside of the building is like a bullet hole on a human. Tiny entrance but what a mess inside!

Sad!

Kyle & Svet

South Ossetia: This wicked, dirty, bitter war…
http://en.rian.ru/analysis/20080813/115999488.html

13/08/2008

TSKHINVAL, SOUTH OSSETIA (Alan Tsorion for RIA Novosti). – It is evening of August 7. The South Ossetian capital is quiet. After so much shelling and endless gunfire it feels like the silence can be smelled and breathed.

A deep breath fills the lungs, and straightens your insides crumpled in the fist of war like the cellophane wrapper from a cigarette pack. I breathe in the calm. The silence is only broken by mice stirring somewhere between the ceiling and the garret. It is hard to believe that anyone can go about one’s daily chores at such a time.

The rodents up there are busily moving things, rolling from place to place as if they know that several hours ago the Georgian president promised not to shell the Ossetian capital any more. If there is to be no shelling you can go back to your daily chores.

However, the rodents and I have only five more minutes to attend to our household chores. At 10.05 p.m. the “mice” play comes to an end: Mikheil Saakashvili breaks his word. Rockets and shells rain on the city, shaking the walls and windows. It is as if every blast chips away parts of the sky and hurls them against the window. Along with several other people we rush to the basement of the house in Stalin Street (now probably destroyed) in the center of Tskhinval.

We are dressed in what the raid caught us in – slippers, bathrobes and shorts… Many had already gone to bed when the Georgian shells started raining on the city, and all the agreements and promises flew away with the chunks of house foundations and twisted metal that used to be cars.

“Ma tars, ma tars…” (Ossetian: “Don’t be afraid”), a mother calms her son Batradz. The boy, aged about 8, has buried has head in his mother’s lap and, jolting with every explosion, asks her: “Mum, why are they shooting, don’t they know that the Olympics start tomorrow? Why doesn’t anyone tell them that there should be no fighting during the Olympics?”

At around 11 p.m. the lights go out in the basement where we are hiding, like in the whole of Tskhinval. Your senses become sharper when it is pitch-dark. Like a blind man you distinguish the slightest shades of sounds, which immediately translate themselves into pictures before your mind’s eye.

Up on the surface, the black night sky is illuminated by the white flare of exploding shells, momentarily making it look like a huge photograph negative. Splinters whiz by like bumblebees flying close to the ground. Bullets emit a strange whistle as if somebody has shaped his lips to whistle but instead just breathes air in. The gun of an armoured vehicle goes “ta-ta-ta… ta-ta-ta”.

“Iratta razma!” (“Come on”), a focused, almost businesslike voice comes from the street. Quick steps of six pairs of military boots on broken glass and splinters of brick and plaster.

“Ma tars, Batradz. Ma tars,” the mother’s words are drowned out by the deafening echo of a shell which blasts a neighbouring block of flats to smithereens. It is as if somebody banged a heavy door close to your ear. Pieces of concrete fall from the basement ceiling…

But even the howitzers in nearby Ergneti and Nikozi do not sound as terrifying as the salvos of the Georgian Grad (Hail) artillery rockets fired from much further away, in Gori. As the rockets zero in on the target they emit a sound like a flame on gigantic arrows with burning tips. The Grads are fired at random so that the clouds of “arrows” fall on the roofs of Tskhinval’s peaceful houses.

As the shelling goes on, people get ready to spend the night in the basement.

…The morning of August 8, 5 a.m. The bombardment of the city from Georgian positions is in its seventh hour. My cell phone shows that the battery is about to die, leaving me with no communications. I ring the editorial office in Moscow to say that communications are about to be cut because I have nowhere to recharge my cell phone.

The battery in my phone is dead by 9 a.m. It is already light in Tskhinval. Remembering the great rule that “in war he who runs survives,” I leave the basement to move to another place. I run along hugging a wall, my head drawn into my shoulders. Bullets and fragments hit the road raising little fountains of dust. In the city Georgian commandos and Ossetian fighters are exchanging fire. I hear the Ossetian OMON fighters shouting: “Come on, quick! A ‘box’ [armoured vehicle – A.Ts.] is stuck on Hetagurova Street.”

Insensible to fatigue, I’m running very fast and turn the corner. “Bang!” – I fall on my stomach after being hit in my ears and eyes. Clouds of dust rise over the ground, approaching my feet. They are caused by a grenade that exploded five meters away. I get up and run, spitting out dust. Moving in my direction on the other side of the street are four Ossetian fighters. One of them reloads his automatic rifle as he runs. The oldest looks no more than 23. A few more steps and I dive into the entrance of a five-storey block of flats.

I see silhouettes of men in the doorway. Women and children are taking shelter in the basement beneath the staircase. I hear muted weeping from below. “How long will the bombing last? Let us raise our hands and surrender before they have killed us all. It looks like Russia has forgotten us,” a tired woman’s voice is heard from the basement. Surrounded by old people, women and children you cannot help feeling guilty. A young man’s place now is in the war, defending his people; he has no place among the elderly and the children.

There are about twenty people in the basement and hardly anyone dares to go up. Only an old man, Inal, a former peacekeeper who saw action in 1992, calmly strolls the street opposite the entrance while the shelling is still on. “F— the war, exercise is the main thing,” the veteran mumbles as two Ossetian policemen carry a fighter with arm and leg wounds towards the entrance.

…The wounded man has glazed eyes over which his long lashes flutter like the wings of a butterfly. He is dazed by pain. His fatigues are pierced in two places, and red arterial blood is streaming down his left hip. The fighter is carried into the entrance. A stocky policeman slings the rifle from his shoulder with a practiced movement and unwinds a bandage wound around the stock to twist a touniquet. Someone has brought ammonium chloride.

“Shai ho, kuyzh kuylyhai na maly” (“OK, a dog doesn’t die from lameness”), the policeman tells the fighter, who clenches his teeth in pain. That is the Ossetian equivalent of the Russian proverb “it will heal by the time you have your wedding.” The stocky South Ossetian policeman rubs the wounded man’s chest and face after dipping his huge work-beaten hands into a bucket of cold water. “OK, we have to go,” the policeman says grabbing the wounded man under his armpit.

“Where are you from?” the old man Inal asks me. “I am a journalist from Moscow,” I reply. “Let’s go and have a bite,” the former peacekeeper says in a voice hoarse from smoking. “War or no war, you have to eat.”

“The Russians will come today, they’ll help us,” says Inal setting fire to a piece of dry spirit which he puts on a gas stove: “I wish they would strike Gori and Tbilisi – I want nothing more.”

“Georgian tanks are already in town, it’ll be hard without the Russians,” the former peacekeeper says, sipping the freshly made coffee.

The best I can do is to keep silent. However, our silence is broken by two Georgian SU-25 planes. One of them opens fire on the house where we are – just for kicks. Inal and I hasten to the basement.

Once again damp darkness. There is a small hole where the pipes run through the wall. It faces south to where the Georgian commandos are advancing. Putting your head in the hole is dangerous: bullets come through the hole and hit the concrete basement ceiling with a hollow sound.

I catch myself thinking that my whole short life, the efforts of my grandparents who brought me up, my universities and the clever books I have read – all this was but preparation for this moment when shells explode over your head, you instinctively draw your head into your shoulders and sweat streaks down your spine. It looks as if death is nearby and it smells of dampness and the dryness of your lips. Now when the planes make another dive to fire on you, and you know that they will fire on you as the roar of the engines approaches, you feel that it may be your last day. This is not fear, but rather grief over what you might have said and done.

Suddenly the planes stop bombing and fly south towards Georgia. What’s happening? Within seconds a deafening chorus of a thousand voices shouting “Hurray!” comes from the street. A crowd is welcoming a column of Russian armored vehicles that have entered Tskhinval. “A-a-a! You have come, boys,” Inal shouts. “Now we will show them!”

I run into the street, the roar of Russian armour is heard nearby. The Russian soldiers are driving the Georgian troops out of Tskhinval. A man, his eyes bulging with horror, runs up to me. “Help me. What shall I do? I am Georgian, I worked here in Tskhinval. I am a worker, where shall I go?” he shouts in broken Russian. “Run,” I tell him, and again wonder at the wickedness of war in which innocent civilians are the first to suffer.

The clock shows 3 p.m.

At 7 p.m., when the shooting and shell blasts subside and the bursts of machinegun fire are petering out, I leave Tskhinval, engulfed in flames and sorrow. The Russian troops have driven the Georgians out of the city, but this is not yet the end of the war. There are still civilians in the city. Tskhinval is still in the grip of the dirty hands of war. A war unleashed without warning under the cover of night. A war whose victims were and will always be civilians. A war that seizes your soul and rubs it between its bloody palms like the cellophane wrapper of a cigarette pack.

Why Russia’s response to Georgia was right: posted in the Financial Times.