Heavy fighting in South Ossetia

[RobPA]

[YOUTUBE]UfA5XfxQOPw[/YOUTUBE]

Always good to get both sides of the story remember (something the media is incapable of)

Sorry but personally I wouldent take anything an EX-kgb, surrounded in political scandal, person who stomps over the human rights of his own citizens words as anywhere near fact. Putin is about as corrupt as they come. I am always willing to see both sides of the story and until I see more facts to follow putins words i'll continue to believe that Russia is acting as the aggressor now. He has wanted Georgia for years. Another thing I noticed is that Putin still gets more press then the current Russian President and they also make conflicting statements.

[Fugitive]

BBC NEWS | Europe | Russia 'ends Georgia operation'

[RobPA]

BBC NEWS | Europe | Russia 'ends Georgia operation'

Little off Topic but Amon arath is the shit man! Do you like InFlames? One of my favorite Norse bands. Anyway back on topic, Check out Fox news or CNN, they have live reporters there and bombing is still going on and has been all day. They are also moving more troops into those other 2 provinces. I hope this dosent escalate anymore then it has.

[texas grass]

The BBC is deliberately distorting the News from the Georgia Region

Chimes of Freedom
August 10, 2008

As usual, the BBC is twisting and distorting the news coming out of the Georgia region. We keep being told that around 1500 have been killed in Georgia, the inference being that this has resulted from Russian bombing.

Not so, the casualties are in Ossetia.

While the Ossetians claimed over 1000 dead the BBC neither reported this or any newsreel coming out of Ossetia showing the destruction caused by the Georgian shelling of the breakaway republic.

All we are getting is one-sided reports of the destruction being caused by the Russians.

Unlike News 24 which is its international news carrier, the BBC website does make some mention of Ossetian casualties:

"We left our town because the situation there is worse than anything Iâ??ve seen in 18 years of conflict. Houses are being hit by rockets and heavy artillery, aircraft are bombing the roads."

Since yesterday, Russia Today was reporting the complete destruction of Ossetiaâ??s capital by Georgian shelling. Again, the destruction of the Ossetian capital was never reported by the BBC.

Last Friday, RIA Novosti reported that Ossetia was claiming over 1000 dead:

"Over 1,000 civilians have been killed as the result of an attack by Georgia on the capital of its breakaway republic of South Ossetia, the North Ossetian nationalities minister said Friday.

According to the South Ossetian information and press committee, the number of fatalities is estimated, according to preliminary information, at over 1,000," Teimuraz Kasayev said."

South Ossetia says over 1,000 dead after Georgian attack

Sometime after mid-day today I tried unsuccessfully to access the Russia Today website for further information. Whether this is because of heavy traffic or because the website is being blocked by someone it is difficult to tell. I experienced the very same problem trying to access the RIA Novosti website.

Meanwhile, a BBC News 24 reporter, Lyse Doucet, tried to suggest that Russia had attacked Abkhazia by sending troops into that breakaway republic! That was soon put into doubt by another BBC reporter from Moscow who speculated that the sending of Russian troops into Abkhazia was not an attack but intended to protect its citizens and holiday-makers there.

On Saturday, Chinaâ??s Xinhua news service reported, "Abkhazia launches operation to force Georgian troops out" and "Georgia defeats Abkhaziaâ??s attacks". And previous news from Russia Today had announced Abkhaziaâ??s attack on Georgia. So was the BBCâ??s Doucet confused or deliberately confusing the facts?

What is clear, however, is that the BBC is giving carte blanche to the Georgian point-of-view to be aired on its services while nothing whatsoever is being heard from the Ossetian side. The BBCâ??s repetitive playing of a statement by George Bush, given several days ago, without balancing these against statements from the Russian side indicates where the BBC is coming from.

The contrast between the brazenly pro-US, pro-Georgian views being put out on BBC News 24 and the BBC website is to be noted whilst a more balanced assessment has been published by Richard Seymour of Leninâ??s Tomb. He, like me, believes that the BBC is deliberately confusing the issue. Iâ??m sure weâ??ll get much more of that from the BBC:

"Incidentally, just so that this point isnâ??t lost in the deliberately confusing reportage. Yes, Russian jets are attacking Georgian targets and killing civilians. Yes, the reported civilian casualties "on both sides" is reported to be over 2,000. What is quite often not stated or just gently skated over in the reporting, so laden with images of Georgian dead and wounded, is that the estimate of 2,000 civilian deaths comes from the Russian government and it applies overwhelmingly to the Georgian attacks on South Ossetia on Friday.

In fact, this is the basis for Vladimir Putinâ??s claims of a "genocide" against South Osettians by the Georgians (is he deliberately referencing the ICTY judgment about Srebrenica here?). The Georgian side, by contrast, claims 129 deaths of both soldiers and civilians. So, if Russian figures are good enough to reference, why is the source of the figures and their context obscured? Why is being made to look as if Russian forces are behind most of those alleged deaths? Doesnâ??t this just amount to a whitewash of the actions of the Georgian army in South Ossetia? And why not mention 30,000 refugees too?"














Russian Cameraman: CNN Aired Misleading Footage


Tuesday, August 12, 2008

CNN is airing misleading footage of the war between Georgia and Russia, skewing public opinion in favor of the Georgians, according to a Russia Today cameraman interviewed this morning.

The Russia Today satellite TV company aired the interview on its English language news channel but the story is yet to appear on the Internet or in any other news outlet.



UPDATE: Russia Today has now posted the following on their website and uploaded a video.


The Russian cameraman charged that CNN had used his footage of Georgian forces attacking Russian civilians in Tskhinvali, the provincial capital of South Ossetia, but then claimed it showed Russians attacking Georgians in the Georgian town of Gori.

The Georgian assault on Tskhinvali, described as an act of genocide and a war crime by Russian officials and other eyewitnesses, led to the slaughter of at least 2,000 civilians. The fact that Georgia, backed by the U.S. and Israel, were responsible for the provocation that led to the Russian response, has been buried by the majority of western corporate media.

Western media bias to skew popular opinion in favor of the U.S. and NATO client state Georgia was evident from the very start of the conflict.





As we reported yesterday, a prime example of media bias in shielding Georgia from responsibility for the carnage is the fact that news outlets like the BBC continue to report that thousands of civilians were killed in Georgia, with the obvious inference being that these are victims of the Russian onslaught. But these victims were not killed in Georgia, they were killed in Ossetia - by Georgian forces.

As the Chimes of Freedom Blog elaborates, â??While the Ossetians claimed over 1000 dead the BBC neither reported this or any newsreel coming out of Ossetia showing the destruction caused by the Georgian shelling of the breakaway republic. All we are getting is one-sided reports of the destruction being caused by the Russians.â?�

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev this morning ordered an immediate halt to Russiaâ??s military operations against Georgia.

â??The purpose of the operation has been achievedâ?¦. The security of our peacekeeping forces and the civilian population has been restored,â?� Interfax quoted him as saying.

CNN accused of using misleading war footage

American broadcaster CNN has been accused of using misleading footage in their coverage of the conflict in South Ossetia. A Russian cameraman says footage of wrecked tanks and ruined buildings, which was purported to be the town of Gori, was in fact the South Ossetian capital Tskhinvali.

Gori was said to be about to fall under the control of the Russian army but the cameraman says the video was actually shot in Tskhinvali, which had been flattened by Georgian shelling.

Aleksandr Zhukov, from the Russiya Al-Yaum channel, said: â??When we arrived and news came that Gori was being shelled, I saw my footage. I said: thatâ??s not Gori! Thatâ??s Tskhinvali. Having crawled through the length and breadth of Tskhinvali, I donâ??t need much to tell from which point this or that footage was recorded. I can swear in front of any tribunal. I can point at this location on the map of the town, because I and the cameraman of the Rossiya channel videotaped that.â?�

[daihashi]

The BBC is deliberately distorting the News from the Georgia Region

I'm not sure how credible your sources are. One article came from inforwars, a website that hosts what appears to be a radio talk show host and documentary film maker who seems to be as liberal as Michael Moore. After reviewing his website some, a number of his fans/followers, as well as a number of articles written really border on conspiracy theory.

The second article you posted I found globalresearch.ca, a website that really seems to be strongly anti Bush, there's an entire section for impeaching Bush. Wow..

Two websites that show very strong bias really leaves much to be desired when trying to argue in the favor of Ossetia. Honestly I have mixed feelings on this situation myself. Georgia should have just stayed within their own borders but i can understand wanting to reunite your country (as we did in the United states). Therefore it's difficult for me to decide one way or another but i do know one thing.. these articles claim that people are reporting in favor of the United States when I see no such thing. As a matter of fact we are not truely even involved in this. We have our hands full with other matters. Even when we're not really involved people look to point the finger at us.

and FYI, the 1500 death toll number came from the Russian Foreign Ministry. Does anyone honestly think that Russia wouldn't skew the numbers in their favor in order to try to gain sympathy?

The only thing I can definitely agree too is that the Media is being overly sympathetic to Georgia. But when a super power attacks a lowly country like Georgia instead of settling this Diplomatically like everyone wants the US to do.. it's going to catch a lot of momentum as everyone gasps at what seems to be the bully picking on a little kid.

This battle/invasion/war is purely politically motivated and the reporting is definitely full of Bias (on both sides). It's unfortunate that this is one of the first articles posted about the media that I felt would be good to bring to light but the credibility of both articles was shot down the tubes for me once I saw their sources and their own biases within the articles.

[apocolips31]

Texas grass I don't know what that article is talking about if you read the BBC links I have provided you will see they actually say most of the civilian casualties were from Georgia launching a surprise attack. So that article is pretty much shit....

[Fugitive]

Little off Topic but Amon arath is the shit man! Do you like InFlames? One of my favorite Norse bands. Anyway back on topic, Check out Fox news or CNN, they have live reporters there and bombing is still going on and has been all day. They are also moving more troops into those other 2 provinces. I hope this dosent escalate anymore then it has.

Yeah, I like both bands :thumbsup: good to see people here like it.

This video is quite extraordinary don't think it worked according to plan for fox news..
[YOUTUBE]H8XI2Chc6uQ[/YOUTUBE]

Here are some pictures from the war - Warning there are some very graphic images so do not watch it stoned as it's a buzzkill, also not for the faint of heart btw.

Ã?ëüìÃ*Ã*Ã*õ «Ã?ñêóññòâî âîéÃ*û» :: Ã�ðîñìîòð òåìû - Ã?îéÃ*Ã* â Ã?æÃ*îé Ã?ñåòèè: 89 ôîòîãðÃ*ôèé Ã?ðêÃ*äèÿ Ã�Ã*á÷åÃ*êî

[RobPA]

Wow... Now Russia is threatening Poland with military action because of the Missle deal (which had a clause in the contract that stated if they were attacked militarily the US would send military aid and that we will also be putting in a permanent airbase in poland). Really hope this situation dosent escalate more and the peace deal stands. Russia is starting to act like the sleeping Giant that it used to be and this seems to be stirring up a lot of Nationalism within the country.

[texas grass]

Wow... Now Russia is threatening Poland with military action because of the Missle deal (which had a clause in the contract that stated if they were attacked militarily the US would send military aid and that we will also be putting in a permanent airbase in poland). Really hope this situation dosent escalate more and the peace deal stands. Russia is starting to act like the sleeping Giant that it used to be and this seems to be stirring up a lot of Nationalism within the country.

i guess if us is allowed to have missles near russia then russia should be allowed to station missles in cuba and south america. what was the whole cuban missle crisis about. russian equipment on our borders and they took it away. now we do it to them.

if the missles are installed in eu it will be against the national security of russia and give them legal reason to attack(since were not legally allowed to have missles stationed within 3500 miles of their border). but if they do get installed we will have russian nuke bombers on our borders through cuba. which is already in place, and most likely in venesuala.



if we are so scared of getting nuked by 1 missle on the other side of the world i guess the trillions of dollars and over 50 yrs of defense systems put up all over the world. were a waste of money to american taxpayers. because your system doesnt work

[apocolips31]

Yea..... Setting up nuclear missiles in Cuba is way different then just setting up 10 interceptor rockets, that is used for defense. 10 rockets wouldn't even put a dent in what Russia could throw at someone. Why are they so concerned about it? Do they plan to attack Poland or something? It would be different if we were setting up an offensive weapon but, something just to protect that whole region including Russia from an attack from anybody. It shouldn't be wrong to build defenses.