BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile

Subject: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: beardedbruce
Date: 07 Aug 07 - 08:43 AM

Reason Russia does not want anti-missile system in Eastern Europe??

"Georgia accuses Russia of firing missile at village By Margarita Antidze
2 hours, 8 minutes ago

TSITELUBANI, Georgia (Reuters) - Georgia accused Russia on Tuesday of firing a guided missile into its territory near a village about 65 km (40 miles) west of its capital, but Moscow denied any involvement.

Georgia's interior minister said the missile was launched by jets that crossed the border from Russia in an "act of aggression." In Tbilisi, Russia's ambassador was summoned to the foreign ministry where he was handed a note of protest.

The missile did not explode, instead burrowing into a field of corn and potatoes near the village of Tsitelubani, a Reuters reporter at the scene said. An interior ministry official said it would have caused a "disaster" if it had detonated.

The incident reignited tensions between Tbilisi and Moscow that have lurched from one crisis to another since Georgia elected pro-Western President Mikhail Saakashvili in 2004.

He has assertively pulled his small ex-Soviet country out of Russia's orbit.

Russia's air force said it had made no sorties over the area and said Tbilisi had produced no proof of its involvement.

Georgian Interior Minister Vano Merabishvili said radar had picked up two Su-34 jets flying from Russia on Monday evening. He said one had fired an air-to-surface missile.

"I assess this fact as an act of aggression carried out by planes flown from the territory of another state," he told Reuters.

In Tsitelubani, a Reuters correspondent saw a missile embedded in a crater around 5 meters (16 ft) deep. Fragments of missile fins and other debris, some with Cyrillic writing on them, had been gathered into piles near the crater.

Some analysts speculate that a row with Georgia could play into the hands of cliques inside the Kremlin jostling for position ahead of the 2008 presidential election, when President Vladimir Putin is to step down.

But Russian officials have said in the past that Georgia itself stages "provocations" to stir up conflict with Moscow and distract attention from its government's failings.

RUSSIAN DENIAL

Russia's air force said none of its aircraft had been in the area. "Such accusations need proof from the side making them and there has so far not been any. We do not do things like this and we do not plan to," deputy air force commander Anatoly Nogovitsyn said on Russian television.

Eduard Kokoity, leader of Georgia's breakaway South Ossetia -- a Moscow-backed region which is a few kilometers (miles) from Tsitelubani -- said Georgia fired the missile itself to discredit Russia.

"This is a well-planned provocation," Kokoity's press service quoted him as saying.

At the scene, bomb disposal experts worked using a remote-controlled vehicle and an excavator. A few dozen local residents watched from behind a police cordon.

"I was sitting in my garden resting a bandaged leg when I saw a plane in the sky," Ilia Psuturi said. "I then saw smoke rising from the ground up to the sky and only then did I hear the explosion. The plane then turned around."

Georgia has accused Russia of launching air attacks before. In 2002, it said Russian jets had bombed another region of Georgia, the remote Pankisi gorge.

Relations between Russia and Georgia deteriorated sharply again last year when Tbilisi deported four Russian army officers, accusing them of spying.

Moscow responded by recalling its ambassador and cutting air, sea and postal links with Georgia. Russia also deported several thousand Georgians, saying they were illegal immigrants.

Russia has also banned imports of Georgian wine, fruit and mineral water, which are big revenue earners for Georgia. Though tension was high there had been tentative signs this year that the crisis was easing. "

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: beardedbruce
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 06:54 AM

Georgia: 'Proof' of missile attack

Story Highlights
Georgia said it has evidence that Russia released a missile in their country

Foreign Ministry says radar records show Russian Su-24 jet flew into Georgia

Russia denies claim. Relations between countries strained since early 2004

Russian commander suggested the warplane came from Georgia

   
TBILISI, Georgia (AP) -- Georgia said Wednesday it has proof that Russian jets violated its airspace and released a missile that landed near a house. Russia has denied the claim.

Georgia's Foreign Ministry issued a formal protest, calling the intrusion and firing of the missile "undisguised aggression and a gross violation of sovereignty of the country."

The Georgian Foreign Ministry said Wednesday that radar records compatible with NATO standards showed that a Russian Su-24 jet had flown from Russia into Georgia and launched a missile, which did not explode.

Investigators identified the weapon as the Russian-made Raduga Kh-58 missile designed to hit radars, the ministry said. The missile, code-named by NATO as AS-11, carried a warhead of over 300 pounds of TNT, it said. Russia's air force has flatly denied that its planes had crossed into Georgia's airspace.

Georgia has long accused Russia of trying to destabilize the country and of backing separatists in its breakaway regions of Abkhazia and South Ossetia, which Saakashvili has pledged to bring back under central government control.

The Gori region, where the missile was dropped, is next to South Ossetia. Gen. Marat Kulakhmetov, commander of Russian peacekeepers patrolling South Ossetia, said an unidentified aircraft dropped the missile after flying over South Ossetia and coming under fire from the ground.

Kulakhmetov suggested the plane came from Georgia. Boris Chochiyev, a deputy prime minister in South Ossetia's separatist government, accused Georgia of dropping the missile.

The Georgian Foreign Ministry emphasized Wednesday that the nation doesn't have Su-24 jets or missiles of that type.

Relations between Russia and Georgia have been strained ever since Saakashvili was elected president in early 2004 and made clear his intentions to move the former Soviet republic closer to the West and join NATO.

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: bobad
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 10:12 AM

Another example of subtle Russian "diplomacy".

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 04:34 PM

But I can't see what this has got to do with the anti-missile business. This is just another reminder that the absurd "cold war" had very little to do with political ideology - and a lot to do with old fashioned power politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: Little Hawk
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 04:35 PM

It's always power politics.

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: Greg B
Date: 08 Aug 07 - 08:03 PM

We'll try to remain serene and strong, when ALABAMA gets the bomb---

Oh. Sorry. Wrong Georgia.

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 06:43 AM

"But I can't see what this has got to do with the anti-missile business"

I'll guess the radar that the Russians objected to ( a part of the anti-missile system) would have been independent evidence, one way or the other. If the plane is seen to take off from a Russian base, and the missile is seen to be launched, it becomes a little harder to deny it.

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: beardedbruce
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 09:49 AM

Washington Post:


Russian Aggression?
Another missile attack in the Republic of Georgia
Thursday, August 9, 2007; Page A16


LATE MONDAY night, a missile crashed into the ground near the village of Tsitelubani in Georgia. The weapon failed to detonate, but the event has nevertheless sparked new tensions between the small, democratic country and Russia, its former overlord to the north.

Details are still emerging, but the Georgian government says that radar records prove that a Russian Su-24 jet entered Georgian airspace from the northeast, dropped the missile and then returned to Russia. Georgian officials also claim that the recovered weapon was a Russian anti-radar missile designed for use with the Su-24, an aircraft not in Georgia's arsenal. There is speculation that the target was a nearby Georgian radar installation. The Russians, for their part, have insisted that the Georgians attacked themselves, a Kremlin defense that has become unsettlingly familiar and no more convincing. A U.S. official familiar with the case says that the Georgians' evidence is credible and that there is no evidence to support the Russians' story.

The missile incident disturbingly resembles a March incident in which a missile was fired at a government building in Abkhazia, a Georgian territory that is home to pro-Russian rebels. Then, too, the evidence pointed to Russian aggression, but a United Nations report stopped short of blaming Russia -- probably because the Russians had to sign off on the document.

By violating Georgian sovereignty, Moscow may hope to bait Georgia into responding with force of its own near an already tense border. Added conflict in the region could make Western governments nervous about Georgia's suitability to join NATO, membership being a key goal of pro-Western President Mikheil Saakashvili. So far, however, the Georgians have wisely limited themselves to releasing information and lodging diplomatic protests.

The United States and Europe should help Georgia bring the issue before the U.N. Security Council. And if, after a full vetting of the facts, it remains clear that the Russians are at fault, Georgia's aspirations for NATO membership should not be hampered. Indeed, stemming this sort of aggression is what NATO was set up to do.

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: kendall
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 12:30 PM

We can't believe our own government, so why should we believe them?

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: Bobert
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 05:14 PM

So, ahhhhhh, I purdy danged glad that the US doesn't have missile in the Crez Republic 'er the US might tonight bein the middle of a nuclear war with Russia...

One more reason why it ain't too smart to put a bunch of nukes on Russsia's doorstep...

(But, Bobert... It wouldn't be there because of Russia but Iran... I heard they got some aluminum tubes...)

Yeah, but do they have any uranium cakes??? If so, how much... I can think of some knotheads who could use a slice or two...

B~

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 09 Aug 07 - 07:42 PM

"I'll guess the radar that the Russians objected to ( a part of the anti-missile system) would have been independent evidence, one way or the other."

You have noticed that while the Russians objected to that stuff being set up in Poland, they offered to cooperate in setting it up over in Azerbaijan, just next door to Georgia so to speak?

Russia's quite capable of trying to push its little neighbours around, which isn't exactly unusual among great powers, as I rather assume Americans are well aware. And as with Cuba and the USA, the effect of this kind of stupidity in regard to Georgia will probably be totally counterproductive. But that's a different issue from the anti-missile controversy.

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Aug 07 - 09:05 AM

"One more reason why it ain't too smart to put a bunch of nukes on Russsia's doorstep..."

Too bad for Bobert that the anti-missile system that was proposed DID NOT INCLUDE ANY NUKES!

They were to KNOCK DOWN any missiles, nuke or otherwise, that were launched from the region near Iran...


Of course, the reality of the facts has nothing to do with his arguements...

Subject: RE: BS: Reason Russia does not want anti-missile
From: beardedbruce
Date: 10 Aug 07 - 09:36 AM

"You have noticed that while the Russians objected to that stuff being set up in Poland, they offered to cooperate in setting it up over in Azerbaijan, just next door to Georgia so to speak? "

Yes, I did- AFTER I had commented that that was what we should offer. ( before they commented.)

YOU have noticed that they want to be able to CONTROL what information the radar verifies...


Yes, it DOES have to do with the anti-missile system.