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Hacked Emails Reveal Russian Astroturfing Program
gotfork writes "Quoting The Guardian: 'A pro-Kremlin group runs a network of internet trolls, seeks to buy flattering coverage of Vladimir Putin and hatches plans to discredit opposition activists and media, according to private emails allegedly hacked by a group calling itself the Russian arm of Anonymous.' While a similar program has operated in China for a long time, and some commentators have suggested that a similar program exists in Russia, this is the first confirmation."
All those action hero images of Putin weren't real?
My faith in mankind is ruined.
In Soviet Russia internet trolls YOU!
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
... bonchski is astroturfed by YOU!
I am disgusted to discover that a politician would hire people to say nice things about them and bad things about their opponents. This must stop at once.
I read that as "astrosurfing program" and it sounded a lot better than a couple of hired goons shilling for Uncle Vlad. Oh well...
This lie! No such program exist. Subversive Western propaganda! Everyone love dear leader Putin. Da, comrades?
This could never happen in the USA.
I am disgusted to discover that a politician would hire people to say nice things about them and bad things about their opponents. This must stop at once.
Indeed. In fact, I've got a lovely bridge to sell to anyone who thinks that something similar isn't already happening in the US, or really, in just about any Internet-savvy nation.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
I read that as "astrosurfing program" and it sounded a lot better than a couple of hired goons shilling for Uncle Vlad. Oh well...
For make glorious People's Republic of Brah, brah.
"What in the name of Fats Waller is that?"
"A four-foot prune."
This poor news coverage by _SLASHDOT_ is clearly aimed at making the Russian People's leader look bad to this _AMERICAN_ audience. As a Russian _MAN_ aged _32_, I can conclusively state that Mr. Putin has been a blessing to my country. I look forward to his continuing to lead us throught _2012_ and in the future.
Signed,
_MyLongNickName_
See my journal for slashdot ID's by year. Mine created in 2005. http://slashdot.org/journal/289875/slashdot-ids-by-year
Yeah... good thing Slashdot is completey squeaky clean of it :D
Well, worse than Israel, that's for sure. Israel has legitimate security concerns, most of which, by the way, stem from Russian geo-political policies rather than from any of their own doing. It was Russia that goaded Egypt into wars with Israel. It was Russia that built both of Iran's nuclear reactors. It was Russia that supplied Syria with tanks that almost over-ran Israel. I don't recall Israel supplying half of Russia's neighbors with weapons to attack Israel, so I am pretty sure Israel has a higher moral ground in this one.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
PR stunt #37: assume the position opposite of the one you promote and make sure you sound extremely stupid when you defend it.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Umm... cute. I assume you are trying to imply that you forgot to substitute the values of the macros in that post?
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I am a CIA plant. Prove me wrong.
Mark Anthony Collins
Bush did it and like everything else no laws apply to him. ever. Like Nixon said, its not illegal if the president does it.
Only was caught with a half dozen or so; here is the top google result I found in no time: http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/01/26/politics/main669432.shtml
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Every political party in every country with internet in it has paid commenters. I believe most people here have already seen more than enough of them.
A country recently named a 2012 Top Cock-Blocker of Middle Eastern Democracy, is seeking a Public Relations Specialist to communicate to its internal, external, and exiled audiences. The position will be responsible for connecting with our 141,750,000+ domestic "employees", introducing new employees and interns to our country's unique culture, expanding its social networking reach, maintaining the corporate website, event planning, cultivating community relationships, responding to media inquiries, writing and disseminating press releases, coaching our subsidiaries on their individual PR needs, crushing dissent, and mentoring an intern. The ideal candidate is self-directed and self-motivated, resourceful, tactful, and enjoys kicking puppies. You must be a persuasive writer and speaker. Your success will be measured by your creativity and your ability to ruin the lives of dissenters and their extended families with little to no supervision. A college degree plus five years or more experience in a corporate PR or Spanish Inquisitional environment is required. Please submit a brief writing sample with your resume and your soul to PR@Putin.com. Salary commensurate with experience.
GeekDad, TED speaker, Wipeout loser, author of Brain Trust
To those who read Russian interwebs since '90 the rise of government astroturfing should have been obvious starting about '00. There was a marked change in tone and verbage of forum comments on different online forums. Such posters are called "brigades" and thought to be FSB operatives.
Israel has legitimate security concerns, most of which, by the way, stem from Russian geo-political policies
No. Israel has self-inflicted security concerns from acting as if they are a cut above the rest of the world's people and treating every non-Israeli with complete and utter disdain and contempt (and many countries collectively as sub-human) while conducting themselves as if they are above the laws to which every other country in the world is subject.
They have only been able to get away with this because they have owned the big dumb heavily-armed bullies (the US) lock, stock and barrel for decades. If you don't belive that, you need to find out who the biggest lobbyist group in the US is. Hint: it's called AIPAC.
I would respond to this rhetorical nonsense, but I suspect that it's just another tool used to deflect attention away from the issue of Russian propaganda.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Are familiar with the old Russian word "sabotage"? I would mention something about Chekhov impersonation here, but you might misunderstand and think that I am talking about one of your great authors.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
....Ohhh, nevermind :)
This is actually non-news. Everyone with long enough experience with web for last four years have seen them at almost any article or resource giving Russia, Soviet Union or Kremlin bad rep. Wikipedia articles about USSR or about Bolshevist crimes - those pages have experienced heavy shelling from these guys. They are obsessed with pointing that you are wrong, not they.
I don't even care about them anymore. I'm just sad that such big country and yet they are living in paranoia, investing almost nothing in infrastructure, but in same time waste their money to play hardliners and allow people to die (yeah, about Syria), and meddling with politics in their neighborhood countries. You can't get your respect in such way.
user@ubuntubox:~$ stfu This server is going down for shutdown NOW!
Russia and China also have super pacs.
Inheritance is the sincerest form of nepotism.
No, he's implying that he input values into blanks on a boilerplate response.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
sry, i forgot the sarcasm tag.
Israel is not the subject of the article. Russia and China are the topic under discussion.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I don't recall Israel supplying half of Russia's neighbors with weapons to attack Israel
Did you mean to write "weapons to attack Russia"?
If so, then you might find it interesting that Israel has supplied Georgian army with UAVs, NVDs, AA systems, and many other things - all the stuff used during the war in South Ossetia, which, may I remind, was started by a Georgian attack on the area of responsibility of Russian UN peacekeeping force, and specifically on said peacekeeping force (10 people KIA from hostile fire - artillery and tanks shelled peacekeepers' barracks).
You forgot to mention that this slanderous publication was funded by the U.S. Department of Defense in order to destabilize progress and development in Russia.
That's -50% from your pay, by the way. Be more attentive next time. ~
Sarcasm? That is so unamerican not even a stinkin' commie would dare to use it!!! For shame. >:[
Gosh, isn't English subtle!
You have managed to correct Mr 655733's interpretation of Mr 822545's comment with a functionally equivalent interpretation.
As for Mr 822545 - he should have done a better job of underlining. He simply should have typed the words and then used backspace on his typewriter and then put in the underscores. Isn't progress great?
Cheers
Jon
... the last 50-60 years of western anti-soviet propaganda, its only fair.
I run: Windows, OS X, Linux, FreeBSD. Just because you have a hammer, doesn't mean everything is a nail.
Umm. You are posting as an AC. I have over 900 posts over more than 10 years on this site. You can't possibly be arguing that I am astroturfing. Well, you can possibly be arguing that. Just not credibly.
Someone compared Israel to Russia's propaganda. I pointed out that comparison was laughable. But let me see. So first you tried a deflection. When that didn't work, you went for the ad hominem. When I reminded you that you were off the topic, you decided to go with projection. Do you have a list that you follow? Or do these float around in your ahead and you reach for whichever one make your more giddy?
No matter. My point stands. Russia is using the old Soviet tactics. Blaming Israel is one of many old Soviet tactics (because Israel gets people emotional and unable to evaluate the situation rationally). The main way of staying in power during a crisis of confidence is to manufacture a new crises. Just as blaming the Jews was an old Russian tactic, blaming Israel works beautifully. It's just statistically convenient -- smaller population means pissing off the least people while the crises unfolds.
Oh, and just so we are clear, the difference between astroturf and grass roots is that it's not astroturfing if no one pays you for it. If my own opinion happens to agree with that of what you'd call "Israeli propaganda", it's still not astroturfing. It just means that I buy their story. Ie, it's still grass roots. Whereas, the opinions that Russia bought to have trolled around are astroturf.
I am awaiting with anticipation to see what's on the list after the projection.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
What's fair is fair.
Sort of; technically, I reversed part of his interpretation and clarified nuance in the rest. So, while some of the functions (macro vs. blank) might be equivalent, the interpretation is not. Viz.:
Anyways, if Mr. 822 was filling out the kinds of official documents that seem to appear most commonly in my office, he had to delete those underscores to keep Word from wrapping them and blowing up the table that the sadistic form author used to format the whole damned thing ;-) He probably would be better off printing it out, and then taking it to the typewriter.
Repetition does not transform a lie into the truth. - FDR
Lol. "Sabotage" comes from French, not Russian.
A "sabot" is a shoe (in French), and the association comes from when Dutch workers would place their shows in machinery that was threatening to replace them (eg. these were the French-speaking equivalent of the English Luddites). Hence, "Sabot-age". The Russians have many cool words, but sabotage does not originate with them, Comrade Slashdotter.
+6 Funny
The difference between the US and this is that in Russia this is paid for with enormous amounts of taxpayer money (hired drummers alone at a pro-Puting meeting cost something like $800K), and people are threatened with pink slips at work unless they go to pro-government meetings. When you live hand to mouth and don't have any savings, the prospect of getting fired over some BS meeting is pretty scary. And when the election time rolls around, they stuff the ballot boxes, and then if that proves insufficient, simply rewrite final counts when no one is looking. That country is truly ruled by a bunch of crooks and thieves. Can't wait to see the Russian people to hang them on the "teeth" of the Kremlin wall. They did this a hundred years ago, they can do it again. Russia just can't catch a fucking break.
There's stuff like the Pentagon's military analyst program. See
http://www.sourcewatch.org/index.php?title=Pentagon_military_analyst_program
In fact, media massaging is so pervasive in the political culture that even local pols do it. Check this out:
http://motherjones.com/politics/2012/02/scott-walker-john-doe-investigation-explained
...the war in South Ossetia, which, may I remind, was started by a Georgian attack on the area of responsibility of Russian UN peacekeeping force, and specifically on said peacekeeping force (10 people KIA from hostile fire - artillery and tanks shelled peacekeepers' barracks).
Well......
More: The Five-Day War
I think it would require a fair amount of cheek to imply that Georgia constituted an actual threat to Russia. On the other hand, Russia almost managed to repeat the Soviet "success" of Finland in the war with Georgia.
much of left-wing thought is a kind of playing with fire by people who don't even know that fire is hot - George Orwell
I live in Russia. I think, there's no problem with bloggers and activists receiving money, as long as they report their sources of income to the public. I think that the monetary support of some bloggers by the Nashi group is a response to the American aid programs (National Endowment for Democracy) to all sorts of activists in Russia. Essentially, the problem is not with the money -- the problem is with transparency and accountability. If I read some person's blog, I would like to know if he or she receives American or Russian money. For those Americans who do not understand what's wrong with the activities of the National Endowment for Democracy (and similar structures) in Russia, let me say, that there's nothing similar to the Foreign Agents Registration Act in the Russian legislature. The NED is not accountable to me, a citizen of Russia. So, yes, I view it as a security threat. Implementing the Foreign Agents Registration Act in Russia would take a lot of effort, but I believe it's the only possible way in the end. But as long as we do not have that law, I cannot feel outrageos about the Nashi support of some bloggers.
UN peace keeping force wasn't keeping the peace. Georgia had the right to escalate by using overwhelming force against those who were attacking its population. The fact that Russians didn't get out of the way and decided to occupy Georgia was a Russian-made decision and it was outside of the UN mandate. To sum up, Georgia did not attack Russia. Georgian troops never on Russian territory. They never crossed the border with Russia. All the violence, provocation and escalation came from the Russian direction. Israel supplied Georgia while Georgia was the 3rd largest ally of the US in Iraq. In other words, Israel was supplying America's Iraq-war allies for the purposes of operations in Iraq. None of this comes even close to supplying Syria with thousands of Russian tanks which attempted to cross the border between Syria and Israel. Georgians never attempted to cross the Russian border. Everything Georgia did legally amounted to a defensive action (even if they did escalate it was in self-defense).
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Oh, not only did Russia invade Georgia under a thinly veiled pretense in that operation, but legally speaking Russia committed acts of war against the US. They destroyed a US-built oil pipeline, going through Georgia to Turkey, which was not supplying Georgia itself (so it wasn't a military target). The fact that the pipeline was supplying Turkey meant that destroying it was a direct attack on NATO. I am not sure why this was not mentioned in the news quite as much.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Did you mean to write "weapons to attack Russia"?
Yes, I did mean that. Unfortunately, I only noticed my mistake after submitting.
As for the rest of your comment, I explained why that not only was the aggressor Russia, but also that Israel was not supplying Georgia for the purposes of that war (it was supplying Georgia's operations as US ally in Iraq BEFORE the war with Russia). The explanation is here: http://slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=2663515&cid=38994835 (or you could just scroll below).
To call the Russian occupation force a "UN keeping force" is a height of cynicism, by the way. Russia manufactured the strife between Georgians and the other Georgians. Then it manufactured the legend that Ossetians had a historical strife against Georgia. And all of it was done, again, to satisfy Russia's geo-political ambitions. It was simply keeping in-hand the ethnic group which lived on both sides of the tunnel. Russia clearly wanted to control the tunnel as a way to control access to the Georgian region post-USSR break up (because without it Russia would have no land access to the Black Sea). The ratio of Russian soldiers to native Ossetians is approximately 1 to 5. That's not a peace-keeping force. That's a military invasion force using ossetians as a token excuse for its occupation.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Chekhov, a Russian character on a US-made science fiction TV show "Star Trek", was prone to mis-attribute all of Earths' accomplishments to Russia. This was the joke to which my comment alluded. And not getting this very popular Star Trek reference is just the kind of shibboleth that would betray a foreign-hired troll.
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
there is the so called main streme News knot.
To call the Russian occupation force a "UN keeping force" is a height of cynicism, by the way. Russia manufactured the strife between Georgians and the other Georgians. Then it manufactured the legend that Ossetians had a historical strife against Georgia. And all of it was done, again, to satisfy Russia's geo-political ambitions.
So you're basically repeating Georgian propaganda word for word. Have you actually ever talked to any Ossetian to see if they consider themselves "Georgians", or to hear what they can say about "manufactured strife"? Do you even realize that those guys even speak a completely different, non-mutually-intelligible language?
I wonder what your take on Kosovo is...
because without it Russia would have no land access to the Black Sea
I would advise doing some minimal research before posting obviously stupid things. If you just look at the map, Russia already has a Black Sea coastline of it's own, on the territory that no-one disputes (ever heard of Sochi?). In fact, it's actually longer than that of Georgia. It has some large port cities, too.
The ratio of Russian soldiers to native Ossetians is approximately 1 to 5.
That may be the current ratio, after the war (the figure still strikes me as BS, as that would require a deployment of 360k troops - the entire standing Russian ground forces! - in the region; but I didn't bother to check). Anyway, given that Georgia still hasn't given up its ambitions to re-annex Ossetia, by force if needed, I dare say that it's a reasonable precaution. Fool me twice and all that.
However, before Georgian army went gung-ho there, there were 250 peacekeepers stationed on Ossetian territory. There used to be more, but in 2007 Georgia raised a fuss about this thing, so most of them were withdrawn. Now we know why they asked.
South Ossetian separatists, supported by Moscow, escalated their machine gun and mortar fire attacks against neighboring Georgian villages
This is basically saying "things are as they always were". Both sides have been making covert sniper and mortar shots at each other across the ceasefire line pretty much since the Ossetian independence war was over in 1992. "Escalation" just means that they start firing more - usually it goes tit for tat, with someone escalating based on some perceived grievance, the other side responding in kind, etc until they run out of what they've got and calm down for a while - this has also been going on for a long time. It's also something very hard for peacekeepers to deal with, especially when local governments on both sides of the border tacitly support their paramilitaries in their actions.
This past Thursday and Friday, Georgia attacked the separatist capital Tskhinvali with artillery to suppress fire. Tskhinvali suffered severe damage
What this kinda misses is that there were Russian peacekeepers (under UN mandate) stationed in Tskhinvali, and Georgian army has directly assaulted its headquarters when they attacked the city, killing 15 people.
Now let me ask you - suppose Serbia decides to retake Kosovo tomorrow, invades it with ground forces, and pummels some American KFOR base there, killing a dozen peacemakers. What will US do? Drive the attacking force out of the region, and stop at that?
On the other hand, Russia almost managed to repeat the Soviet "success" of Finland in the war with Georgia.
Not sure what you mean to imply here. Georgian army was in full retreat for the second half of the war, and they were basically preparing for a last stand at Tbilisi, the country's capital. Russian troops were quite happy to keep on rolling there, as well - in fact, there was one ironic moment in the war when a Chechen batallion has almost started assault on Tbilisi because they didn't get the orders to hold back in time.
So you're basically repeating Georgian propaganda word for word.
Calling facts "propaganda" does not make them any less facts. I have no idea what Geogia's position is. But these ARE the facts.
Have you actually ever talked to any Ossetian to see if they consider themselves "Georgians"
I have seen interviews with them conducted before 2000. And the passions were nowhere near as flamed as they are now. It took years of Russia flaming those passions in order for them to burn into people's memory as a legend.
Do you even realize that those guys even speak a completely different, non-mutually-intelligible language?
Do you understand that there is 70000 ossetians living in Georgia? That's not an ethnic group. That's a condominium. There is over 2000 languages in India. Many of them are spoken by a small isolated group living in a very small region. Does that mean that they are not Indians? What's worse is that Georgians and Ossetians have no beef. They don't compete for any territory (because Ossetians are isolated). The only point of disagreement was that Ossetians wanted independence. Somehow that also meant that they wanted Russian citizenship. Well, that's not an ethnic dispute. That's a separatist territorial dispute. And yes, I have seen interviews with people essentially saying that Russia was handing out passports to Ossetians after the break up of Soviet Union in order to increase Ossetian's affinity for Russia.
That may be the current ratio, after the war (the figure still strikes me as BS, as that would require a deployment of 360k troops
No, there is only 70,000 Ossetians living in Georgia. How convenient it is that you added the population of ossetians in Russia to that of Georgia to make them sound larger in number. I wonder if that was a mistake or a deliberate slight of hand. Actually, no, I do not wonder.
Georgia still hasn't given up its ambitions to re-annex Ossetia
Georgia doesn't have to re-annex Ossetia. It is legally Georgian. Every international body recognizes it as such.
I dare say that it's a reasonable precaution.
To what? Georgia handling its affairs? Should UN station peace keeping force in Grozniy in order to protect the local population from Russia attempting to re-annex that region? This is legally equivalent.
However, before Georgian army went gung-ho there, there were 250 peacekeepers stationed on Ossetian territory.
Once again, they didn't go "gung-ho". The peace keepers weren't able to keep the peace. There was machine gun fire coming out of Ossetia and hitting targets in the rest of Georgia. Every nation would respond with overwhelming force to that. Georgia did the only responsible thing possible. If the peace keepers can't pacify the population they are protecting, it is the peace keepers responsibility to evacuate when the counter-attack begins.
But that's moot. If Russia didn't provoke the whole situation in order to keep access to the Black Sea, Georgia would continue to develop its modernized democracy. And they were doing a better job of it than Russia itself was. You know people accuse Arabs of being overly hostile, but Russia is worse. There isn't a despotic regime they don't like. And don't take my word for it. Listen to the voices of its own comedians -- RUSSIAN comedians. This is what they mock Russia for when they want to make a joke.
There used to be more, but in 2007 Georgia raised a fuss about this thing, so most of them were withdrawn.
So you got so convoluted in your own lies that you contradicted your own claims in the same post? 250 peace keepers and most of them were withdrawn? And then Georgia attacked the peacekeepers? The ones who left? Or are you gonna tell me that 20 of them stayed and that when Georg
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
I have seen interviews with them conducted before 2000.
Conducted by whom? Georgian government TV channel?
And the passions were nowhere near as flamed as they are now.
Did you miss that whole bit where Ossetia fought a war of independence from Georgian in 1991-92, after the then-president Gamsakhurdia proclaimed "Georgia for Georgians"? Did you miss the part where it won said war, and remained de facto independent since then, with no intention to ever rejoin Georgia?
Are you seriously saying that without "inflammation", Ossetians would just let Georgian army walk into Tskhinvali and annex the territory?
Do you understand that there is 70000 ossetians living in Georgia? That's not an ethnic group. That's a condominium. There is over 2000 languages in India. Many of them are spoken by a small isolated group living in a very small region. Does that mean that they are not Indians?
You're comparing apples and oranges. India is a multiethnic, multicultural federation, by design. Georgia is a monoethnic nation-state, also by design - it has a very strong identity that, among other things, is centered around language.
The only point of disagreement was that Ossetians wanted independence. Somehow that also meant that they wanted Russian citizenship. Well, that's not an ethnic dispute. That's a separatist territorial dispute. And yes, I have seen interviews with people essentially saying that Russia was handing out passports to Ossetians after the break up of Soviet Union in order to increase Ossetian's affinity for Russia.
Ossetians wanted Russian citizenship so that Russia would have more reasons to protect their independence, which is precisely what happened.
And yes, passports are given out. In a similar vein, e.g. Estonia hands out its passports to Russian citizens living in western Pskov oblast, in territories that were at some point a part of Estonia. Is that a problem?
No, there is only 70,000 Ossetians living in Georgia. How convenient it is that you added the population of ossetians in Russia to that of Georgia to make them sound larger in number.
I misread your comment - I thought it was 5 Russian soldiers for every Ossetian one, and hence took that 70k figure (actually it's 72k), and multiplied by 5. My apologies - if the real figure is ~15k, that sounds both realistic, and reasonable in the light of present tension.
Georgia doesn't have to re-annex Ossetia. It is legally Georgian. Every international body recognizes it as such.
"Legality" is a funny concept when it comes to international affairs. Every international body recognizes Taiwan as a province of PRC - does this mean that you'll be perfectly content if PRC shells Taipei tomorrow, and then rolls tanks through its streets?
Also, if you love international bodies so much, how about the fact that the presence Russian peacekeepers in Ossetia was affirmed as legal by UN and OSCE? You can't refer to UN when it comes to county recognition, and then ignore it on other issues. Either it's trustworthy to decide such things, or it's not.
To what? Georgia handling its affairs? Should UN station peace keeping force in Grozniy in order to protect the local population from Russia attempting to re-annex that region? This is legally equivalent.
That's actually a very good idea, regarding Chechnya. My own personal opinion on that is that Russia should just leave that province for good - the locals obviously don't want it, and it's a huge money and resource drain, not to mention terrorism implications.
Once again, they didn't go "gung-ho". The peace keepers weren't able to keep the peace. There was machine gun fire coming out of Ossetia and hitting targets in the rest of Georgia. Every nation would respond with overwhelming force to that. Georgia did t
I have seen interviews with them conducted before 2000.
Conducted by whom? Georgian government TV channel?
US-based Russian-speaking journalists.
Estonia hands out its passports to Russian citizens living in western Pskov oblast, in territories that were at some point a part of Estonia. Is that a problem?
Not in itself. You want to argue each event in isolation and hope that it will make the entire picture stink less. It won't. The fact that Estonia gives out passports (if it's true) to those who can trace their heritage to relatives living in Estonia a few generations ago is Estonian business. Poland does the same thing, from what I know and so does Ireland. It's just that when Ireland guarantees Irish citizenship to anyone who can prove that they are "Irish", they are not doing it in order to make a claim on parts of Long Island. Whereas Russia started giving those passports to Georgian citizens, who were not even Russian and then used their citizenship to make a territorial claim on Georgia.
Cry me a river. If you build your property on the territory of a country which initiates a war, and it gets ruined in a counterattack, you have only yourself to blame. Especially when your foreign policy and military aid was what made that country think it could actually pull such a thing off.
First of all, it wasn't a counter attack. Russia was the aggressor. And second of all, trust me. I wasn't crying. If anything I was decrying the Bush's level of engagement in Iraq. Since it made us unable to assist even our own allies. I am not complaining about Russia attacking US and Turkey -- I expect it from Russia. Certainly what Russia did to Georgia was far worse than what it did to Turkey. I am complaining about the ineptness of the US administration in its inability to put a proper check on the Russian aggression against US and its allies.
Must have been because they were hoping to walk their army into Moscow.
Strawman much?
No, that was sarcasm. I was mocking your suggestion that Georgia attacked Russia.
US was in no position to assist, because it only took the whole world - including, at last, the US as well - a couple of days to realize who started the conflict.
Oh? And not because Russia moved thousands of tanks within 48 hours into Georgia through the tunnel which started the whole thing? Not because we couldn't spare troops to simply block the roads used by those tanks? Just as US would not fire on Russia, I expect that Russians would not have dared to fire on Americans.
Yes, they did hit precisely the peace keeping force.
The fact that they eventually targeted does not prove that they initially targeted it. I am sure if they took fire from that base, they would target it at some point during the operation. Even if the base itself was directly targeted, it wouldn't prove that it was the initial target. You'd have to prove that it was the very first target which they hit before you can make the claim that Georgia started the aggression. No one has shown anything even remotely close to that. In the absence of exact evidence, only the most logical explanation of the existing evidence must be assumed to be the best explanation. And the most logical explanation was that Russia saw this as their last chance to cut the pipeline which was allowing the oil to flow from Azerbaijan to Turkey without going through Russia first.
However, even within the USSR there were constant tensions regarding e.g. administrative and school language
In every Republic of the USSR the "native" languages were the languages which were namesakes of the republics. In Georgia that would have to be Georgian. Since the native languages were considered quaint, many smaller regions simply wanted t
Any guest worker system is indistinguishable from indentured servitude.
Lol. If by "foreign" you mean "not from the US" then you have found me out. I is guilty. I forget that many from the US think that the Intertubes are purely a US phenomenon. And anyway, the joke would have been better if it had been made in the original Klingon (just like Shakespeare).
Oh, and for us darn foreigners, if we are not thinking about it too hard then the unqualified "Chekhov" means this dude - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anton_Chekhov - not the fictional Pavel Chekhov (although we know and like the Star Trek character).