Interesting article re EU and Russia/Georgia situation

Harchibald said:
As it is 5 years later and with much more US sacrifice than anticipated, Iraq is at last coming good.
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And what about the sacrifice of the tens of thousands of innocent Iraqi people who have been killed since the invasion?

What has GWB achieved that makes you think history will judge his foreign policies to be a big success?
 
GeneralZod said:
Weak European leaders will deny it but the best medium term solution is a modern day Yalta agreement between the P5 + 1 to leave Georgia within the sphere of influence of the Russians.
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Are you serious? This isn't the late 19th century Zod - we don't get to decide to leave other countries within the 'sphere of influence' of another superpower.
 
Sherman said:
Are you serious? This isn't the late 19th century Zod - we don't get to decide to leave other countries within the 'sphere of influence' of another superpower.
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If you mean 'we' as in Ireland, then you are right. If you mean the superpowers don't divide the world up between them, then you have a way to go in understanding how the world works. While Russia has been weak, the US has been on an influence grab around the world. Both of them have lost out to China in Africa.
 
One thing that can be agreed is that the Georgian president made a serious mess of things over there. He has caused a conflict that could have been avoided, and he has shown the world the risk of investing in Georgia.

And we get to play their football team in a neutral venue. Perhaps the FAI are behind all this?
 
Sherman said:
Are you serious? This isn't the late 19th century Zod - we don't get to decide to leave other countries within the 'sphere of influence' of another superpower.
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Yalta was 20th century. In the 19th century we would have just done it without any post colonial angst.

csirl said:
So you dont think that the Georgian people should have any say in their own future? Shows total lack of respect for them and for democracy.
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All the ethnic groups in Georgia should have a say in their future. Look what happened to the Georgian majority when they miscalculated and tried to assert themselves over their break away regions. The realpolitik of this region is that we can't integrate them into the soft and hard empires of the EU and NATO respectively at this stage. The Georgians also need to respect the aspirations of their regions and the regions need to learn to live federally within a Georgia where their rights are guaranteed.

The fight in Afghanistan and regional stability in Pakistan is more important to Western security right now and the Russians could make that a lot more difficult if they chose to.

The Western powers can only use soft power to help sort this one out.
 
Georgia is a small country. You cant go about breaking it up into insignificant portions. You also cannot allow ethnic cleansing to succeed i.e. the ethnic Russians expelling the local people from these regions and flooding them with illegal immigrants from Russia to create an artificial Russian majority.

People in these regions should make the choice of either living in peace with the Georgians as part of the Georgian nation or leave if they do not like it. Nobody forced them to emigrate to Georgia in the first place, so they should take responsibility for their actions.

If we were to take your logic to the nth degree then parts of London, where ethnic Irish are in a majority, could claim that they want to be part of Ireland, not UK.
 
csirl said:
leave if they do not like it.
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Now who's the one that doesn't respect democracy?

The South Ossetians have been there for hundreds of years. They've as much right to decide their future as anyone living there.
 
The South Ossetians have been there for hundreds of years.
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South Ossetia has existed for 100s of years, but the Russians have not been their for that long. It is a similar situation to what existed in the Baltics when they split from USSR and applied to join EU. A lot of Russians had moved into the Baltics from Russia quite recently and comprised of a significant minority in these countries. Georgia is no different - significant proportion of its residents are Russian born - mainly in the regions close to the Russian border e.g. South Ossetia. Russia wont dare invade the Baltics for the very same reasons that they are currently in Georgia due to them being in the EU, but unfortunately for the Georgians, they have not yet joined the EU. If you agree that the Georgians should carve up their country and give a pro-rata portion to the Russias - proportionate to the number of Russian residents, then are you proposing that the Baltics also give a pro-rata proportion of their territory to Russia?

And I'm not sure that the Russians were ever in a majority, even in these provinces. Reports suggest that prior to this conflict starting, the Georgians were in the majority, but got intimidated out by better armed Russias.
 
S.L.F said:
GWB has made more people hate the USA than anybody before him or probably ever again.
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Just because there is an almost universal anti GWB consensus in Ireland should not be extrapolated much beyond that.

Ireland has a long streak of anti-Americanism - I suppose an extension of anglophobia. And GWB is Ireland's worst type of American.

Beyond these shores, France has a similar hang up for the same historic anglophobic reasons and Russia is still smarting at having lost the Cold War.

But these exceptions apart, GWB has been extremely successful in his conduct of foreign relations. The Pole/Czech thing is a real coup. Ukraine/Georgia are desperate to be his friend, and remember these countries are right next door to Iraq - (paddies seem much more exercised by Iraq than its neighbours). Despite the War on (Islamic) Terror, he has maintained excellent relations with Muslim countries (which are not themselves terrorist, like Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan etc.) So far as I am aware China has no big problem with him.

Obama has a real hard act to follow here, IMHO he ain't up to it.
 

I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on Isreal in that case. Or indeed Northern Ireland.
 
I'd be interested in hearing your opinions on Isreal in that case. Or indeed Northern Ireland.
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Not necessarily same situation. In Georgia we are talking about Russian citizens who themselves moved to Georgia, whereas in Northern Ireland we are talking about people who are born and bred in Northern Ireland, but the decendants of people who moved. The Russians in Georgia are no different that e.g. Irish born people in UK, Polish born people in Ireland etc.

My view on Northern Ireland is that I would like to see the whole island united with every citizen living in peace with equal rights.

My view on Israel - Gaza was part of Egypt before Israel invaded it. Now that they have left, the Egyptians should take responsibility for the place rather than abandoning the residents. Israel & Egypt are at peace with one another (I know they havent in the past), I've no doubt Israel would have no problems with Gaza being integrated into Egypt. The people in Gaza should have full Egyptian citizenship. Similarly for the West Bank, Jordan should take responsibility - should be integrated into the modern state of Jordan which is the successor to Transjordan who originally owned the West Bank. Palestine is a geographical name for a region in the same way that e.g. Iberia is the name of a region of Europe. It is not a political name. In modern history, by which I mean the past couple of thousand years, there has never been a country or nation called "Palestine". The people who are referred to in the media as been Palestinian are Jordanian or Egyptian. Unfortunately they are being used as pawns by the Arab states in their disputes with Israel. This whole Palestinian thing is an artificial creation of the pan-Arab movement for purely political gain. Egypt and Jordan need to stop bowing to pan-Arab pressure and acknowledge and take responsibility for their citizens rather than abandoning them in a no-mans land.

Sorry about the rant, but you did ask.
 
csirl said:
South Ossetia has existed for 100s of years, but the Russians have not been their for that long.
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In 1989 before conflict between the South Ossetians and Georgians broke out there were 66% Ossetians and only 2% Russians. The majority of Ossetians have Russian citizenship now but they're still ethnic Ossetians. I think you're being disingenuous describing them as Russians.

As I said above I believe a mutually agreed federal solution is best to minimise ethnic cleansing amongst the patchwork of Ossetian and Georgian towns.
 
I think you're being disingenuous describing them as Russians.
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Modern day Russia is a large country covering many different peoples and ethnic groups. The Ossetians have lived in what is modern day Russian for 100s of years. The fact that they are ethnically different than the slavic Russian people who occupy the principal Russia cities in the west of the country is irrelevant to the Georgian conflict - there are millions of non-slavic "Russians", particularly the west and south of the country. Whether or not Russia's vast array of ethnic groups, including the ethnic "Ossetians" should have or want to have independent countries has nothing to do with Georgia.
 
Harchibald said:
Despite the War on (Islamic) Terror, he has maintained excellent relations with Muslim countries (which are not themselves terrorist, like Egypt, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan etc.)
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Harchibald you really astonish me, I have never heard of a country being called a terrorist before.

I note that you have not included Saudi Arabia in your list could this be because 50% of the people involved in 9/11 were from that country.

Harchibald said:
Obama has a real hard act to follow here, IMHO he ain't up to it.
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Who would want to follow that act?
 
Complete change of subject. Did you see Obamanation has selected an Irish Catholic as his VP. What chance we see both these guys assassinated in the next 4 years?
 
Obama fair chance but fingers crossed he won't be.

Biden not so much. Irish-American Roman Catholics are part of the establishment over there. They've integrated themselves with the "Anglo-Saxons" as their Scots-Irish predecessors did. So any assassination of him will come from the nuttier fringes rather than being a CIA/FBI/Fill-in-the-blank plot.
 
Not sure Zod. One and only RC presi was JFK, we know what happened to him. Then it looked odds on bother Robert would be the next and we know what happened him. In USA Irish RCs are hated almost as much as black muslims by the lunatic KKK fringe. The Democrats are certainly pitching for the minority vote, which they will probably now get about 80% of, hoping for about 30% of the moderate WASP vote, to scrape over the line. In betting terms the race has become very close, with Obamanation just slightly favorite.
 
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