Slashdot Mirror
Google News Has Russian Army Invading Savannah, GA
theodp writes "If you checked out Google-wannabe Cuil, you learned that mapping search results to relevant images isn't a trivial task. But even Big Dog Google isn't immune to embarrassing graphics gaffes. Readers of Google News were shown that Russian troops are thrusting into the outskirts of Savannah, Georgia, thanks to the Google Maps graphic accompanying a story about Russian incursions into Georgia — the nation-state in the Caucasus, not the Caucasian-pride-ridden state in the southern US. Yahoo! Answers also had some fun with the GA-Georgia mix-up — 'I live in georegia but i dont see rusia no where not even sound but they says theres tanks should i be worrie' (Google cache) — before a spoilsport deleted the question."
Err... it was actually the Georgians deciding to "reclaim" South Ossetia. The Russians are mounting an counter offensive. But one would never expect USians to ever bother with details like this. They would just mess up their neat White Hat / Black Hat world.
Genocide? You are a fucking idiot. They were in rebellion, and over the past 5 years, there have been 1400 casualties (go look up the facts before you post the propaganda).
This is purely Putin's power politics, aimed at getting posession of the oil pipeline in the BCT pipe that runs in Georgia, as well as bringing to heel a western democracy that they dont want on the border of their gangster state.
Any ethnic stuff there is merely cover for brute force by the Russians.
There's another thing to worry about as well. A major pipeline that delivers over 1% of the world's supply of oil (most of it bound for Western Europe) could be at risk. The pipeline flows from Azerbaijan (A major oil producer and non-OPEC nation), into Georgia and finally to the Black Sea. We need that pipeline to stay intact to keep the amount of oil we get from OPEC to stay at the level it is now. I'm sure Russia wouldnt mind "accidentally" destroying this or other oil related structures in Georgia. In fact they already have come close.
While my initial reaction to that Yahoo! Answers page was 'LOL dumb American', she doesn't specifically say that she's in the US state - isn't everyone who is laughing at her making exactly the same mistake as they are assuming she is making? Not all internet users are American - she might well have asked the question from the country of Georgia, in which case the Yahoo! Answers are pretty damn useless... it would also explain her tenuous grasp of the English language.
You are only partially correct. Georgia did start an offensive in South Ossetia against the independence movement there. However, Russia has most definitely gone beyond any peacekeeping role that it claimed. The Russians have bombed the Georgian town of Gori, which is well outside of the combat zone. If anything, it seems that Russia is using the Georgian attacks on South Ossetia as a pretense to invade the entire country. This has gone well beyond anything the Russians should be doing, regardless of what Georgia did in the first place. It is, as the Georgian president has put it, an act of war. Oh, and if you won't take this American's word for it, try the BBC: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7551595.stm
You also may have missed that it was intended mostly as a play on words.
...the nation-state in the Caucasus, not the Caucasian-pride-ridden state...
Get it? Caucasus, caucasian? Nothing?
and might wake up a few Europeans to the reality that the Russian is still their historic enemy.
Maybe in some parts of Europe but not for most of us. I'm British. France is our historic enemy. We quite like the Russians. If I were French then I guess Britain would be my historic enemy. If I were Dutch then maybe Spain? And so on.
Georgian army shelled a sleeping Tskhinvali, killing more than 1500 people. Without warning.
Let me repeat: Georgia killed more than 1500 civilians by shelling a sleeping city.
That's a war crime.
Then Georgia moved in with tanks and infantry. And _only_ _then_ Russian forces moved in. You just can't blame this conflict on Russia.
Gori was not the target of bombing, a military base and ammo warehouses were targeted. The civilian losses were, probably, a result of a stray bomb or caused by exploding ammo warehouse.
I have friends in Georgia, one of them has been mobilized yesterday. So I watch the situation carefully (I also speak Russian).
Russia _definitely_ overstepped its peacekeeping mandate, sure. But by now nobody cares about it.
That may actually be a more insightful comment than you know. Georgia has been making progress towards NATO membership, and under article 5 of the NATO treaty this attack by Russia would have to be responded by all of NATO.
What 'fog of war'?
It's all clear - Georgia was waging a 'sniper war' since August 1 causing several deaths.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2008_South_Ossetia_War#1_August_.E2.80.93_7_August:_escalation_of_hostilities
That was the beginning. And it's clear who shot first.
Why, from Georgian president of course.
He bragged on Georgian TV that '1500 Ossetian bandits were destroyed'.
Also, that number is fairly reasonable estimate of what you get after shelling a small city.
The past five years have seen Georgia striving to join NATO, and making great progress in that regard. Such a move is decidedly pro-Western and anti-Russian.
Now, Russia has been infringing on Georgian territory for several months to gauge public and international opinion, and several hundred Russian tanks with similarly large concentrations of troops and air power have been amassing in the meantime.
There were over 1,000 US troops helping train Georgian forces in a very large-scale exercise. The bulk of those US forces left on August 2nd and 3rd. It is no surprise that Russia waited until this occurred before launching their invasion under the pretense of Georgian genocide. Since I am not an expert on Georgia, all my information comes from what can be found in recent mass media.
Replying to my own post, it is also important to read http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_in_South_Ossetia_(2008) which also tells about the Georgian attack on the capital of South Ossetia. As GP said, we don't have enough facts at this extremely early point to decide.
However, modern military actions of this kind cannot happen overnight. They require extensive operational planning and even more extensive logistical planning. It is possible that Russia was waiting for an escalation or valid pretense to cross the border, engage Georgian armed forces, and occupy Georgian territory.
South Ossetia is not a sovereign nation, de facto or otherwise. It's recognized by no one, not even Russia. It's a province of Georgia with a separatist militia operating. Georgia has every right to put down an internal insurgency, Russia has no right to invade another nation.
This would be like if the United States invaded Russia in 1999 after Putin ordered the army in to put down Maskhadov's separatist forces. Chechnya was de facto sovereign by your standards, having signed a peace treaty with Yeltsin after the first Chechen War.
The Rise and Fall of Online Community
That's the spirit. I think you'd get on well with him if he were still alive.
Never have I seen whites and minorities live more harmoniously that in Georgia (the ghettoization of minorities in northern cities is NOT "harmony").
Wow... Maybe you were in Atlanta or something. I attended high school in the aforementioned Effingham County in the mid-1990s, after moving there from southern California. The racism in that area astounded me. I was shocked and disgusted during my entire time there. There was "harmony" in that black people everywhere exhibited a constant air of fear and overt politeness. There was nearly zero social crossover between populations. The bloody high school even had officially separate Black and White prom queen and king elections, I shit you not. People wrote essays about the "War of Northern Agression" for class projects, etc... The high school mascot was a confederate soldier... My dad found KKK meeting announcements on break-room bulletin boards at his job in Savannah. I am not making any of this up. People joke about it, but it's because of the ring of truth to it. It's seriously messed up, and I doubt it has improved significantly over the last decade.
Well, they aren't lynching people, per se. There are plenty of "black groups" terrorizing hispanic immigrants in the region I live in, though, since they tend to carry cash and don't arm themselves. Most of the murders happen in Atlanta, which is blacks terrorizing blacks.
116 whites were arrested for murder in Georgia 2007. 411 non-whites were.
639 whites were arrested for robbery, 3101 non-whites.
Even if half of those arrests resulted in acquittals the figures would be ridiculous.
http://gbi.georgia.gov/00/channel_modifieddate/0,2096,67862954_88103906,00.html
And for those of you who are about to blame "racist police officers", don't make an ass of yourself.
http://www.fultonsheriff.org/ (that's the county that Atlanta is in)
I don't "hate black people". I'm just sick of watching this, and hearing about non-existent lynchings.
But Georgia was under Russian rule for well over 200 years. Then it was broken off by separatists and declared itself a separate country. It's kind of like separatists come to power in Texas and declare it a separate country - you wouldn't like it. There were people in Ossetia who didn't like it - after all, Georgia has about as much of a right to Ossetia as Russia, so Ossetians FOUGHT for independence from Georgia FOR YEARS, with a lot of lives lost. They even called that particular war a "patriotic" one. They are not Georgians, most of them speak Russian only and are Russian citizens, why the fuck should they just roll over and spread their butt cheeks to Georgians?
The sequence of events was like this: Georgia flattens a sleeping city, killing a bunch of Russian citizens among everybody else. Russia goes to the UN and asks to intervene. The UN gives it a middle finger. Russia says "fuck it, we'll pwn them then" and proceeds with pwning Georgia on its own.
Finally, there's no "invasion" of Georgia going on. There's bombing of the military bases (watch your tax dollars go up in smoke, US citizens!), to be sure, but there are no troops on the ground. If Russia wanted to, Tbilisi would already be in ruins. But it won't happen, because there are a TON of Russians living in Georgia too.
How THE FUCK is this "Russian aggression" I keep reading about in US media?
Lynching went out of practice MANY years ago.
Yeah, keep up with the times already.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"