U.S., Allies Weigh Punishment for Russia

[rebgirl420]

U.S., Allies Weigh Punishment for Russia

WASHINGTON â?? Scrambling to find ways to punish Russia for its invasion of pro-Western Georgia, the United States and its allies are considering expelling Moscow from an exclusive club of wealthy nations and canceling an upcoming joint NATO-Russia military exercise, Bush administration officials said Tuesday.

But with scant leverage in the face of an emboldened Moscow, Washington and its friends have been forced to face the uncomfortable reality that their options are limited to mainly symbolic measures, such as boycotting Russian-hosted meetings and events, that may have little or no long-term impact on Russia's behavior, the officials said

With the situation on the ground still unclear after Russian President Dmitri Medvedev on Tuesday ordered a halt to military action in Georgia, U.S. officials were focused primarily on confirming a cease-fire and attending to Georgia's urgent humanitarian needs following five days of fierce fighting, including Russian attacks on civilian targets.

"It is very important now that all parties cease fire," Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said. "The Georgians have agreed to a cease-fire, the Russians need to stop their military operations as they have apparently said that they will, but those military operations really do now need to stop because calm needs to be restored."

At the same time, however, President Bush and his top aides were engaged in frantic consultations with European and other nations over how best to demonstrate their fierce condemnations of the Russian operation that began in Georgia's separatist region of South Ossetia, expanded to another disputed area, Abkhazia, and ended up on purely Georgian soil.

"The idea is to show the Russians that it is no longer business as usual," said one senior official familiar with the consultations among world leaders that were going on primarily by phone and in person at NATO headquarters in Brussels, where alliance diplomats met together and then with representatives of Georgia.

A senior U.S. official, speaking on condition of anonymity to describe confidential conversations among the leaders of other nations, said European and other leaders have been blunt with Russia that it must withdraw its forces. Russian leaders have said they do not plan a long-term occupation, the official said. The official was not specific about whether Russia has offered a timeline for withdrawal.

"People are saying, 'You know you cannot stay,"' the official said. "We have been hearing from Russia, 'We don't want to stay."'

For now, the Bush administration decided to boycott a third meeting at NATO on Tuesday at which the alliance's governing board, the North Atlantic Council, was preparing for a meeting with a Russian delegation that has been called at Moscow's request, officials said.

On the table for future action is the possible cancellation or U.S. withdrawal from a major NATO naval exercise with Russia that is scheduled to begin Friday, the officials said. Sailors and vessels from Britain, France, Russia, and the U.S. were to take part in the annual Russia-NATO exercise aimed at improving cooperation in maritime security.

The exercise, which is being hosted by Russia this year, began a decade ago and typically involves around 1,000 personnel from the four countries, the officials said.

In the medium term, the United States and its partners in the Group of Seven, or G-7, the club of the world's leading industrialized nations that also includes Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy and Japan, are debating whether to effectively disband what is known as the G-8, which incorporates Russia, by throwing Moscow out, the officials said.

Discussions are also taking place on whether to revoke or review the May 2007 invitation to Russia to join the 30-member, Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, which consists primarily of established European democracies, the officials said.

The officials spoke on condition of anonymity because no decisions have yet been made and consultations with other countries involved are still under way.

Bush spoke on Monday and Tuesday with fellow G-7 leaders as well as the heads of democratically elected pro-Western governments in formerly Eastern bloc nations, some of which are among NATO's newest members and have urged a strong response to Russia's invasion of a like-minded country.

On Monday on his way home from the Olympics in China, Bush talked with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, Lithuanian President Valdas Adamkus and Polish President Lech Kaczynski. He then called Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili, the White House said. On Tuesday, he spoke with Italian Premier Silvio Berlusconi and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

Rice, who returned early to Washington late Monday from vacation to deal with the crisis, held a second round of talks with foreign ministers from the Group of Seven countries in which they were briefed on European Union mediation efforts led by French President Nicolas Sarkozy, who met Tuesday with Medvedev in Moscow.

"They believe that they have made some progress and we welcome that and we certainly welcome the E.U. mediation," Rice told reporters at the White House.

Later, Saakashvili told reporters that he accepted the cease-fire plan negotiated by Sarkozy.

Despite the flurry of activity, there was still uncertainty about whether Russia had in fact halted its military action in Georgia, with reports of continued shelling of civilian and military sites.

The State Department on Tuesday recommended that all U.S. citizens leave Georgia in a new travel warning, saying the security situation remained uncertain. It said it was organizing a third evacuation convoy to take Americans who want to leave by road to neighboring Armenia. More that 170 American citizens have already left Georgia in two earlier convoys.

Just hours after Bush said in a White House address that the invasion had "substantially damaged Russia's standing in the world" and demanded an end to what he called Moscow's "dramatic and brutal escalation" of violence, Medvedev said he had ordered an end to military action.

FOXNews.com - U.S., Allies Weigh Punishment for Russia - International News | News of the World | Middle East News | Europe News

Finally! The U.N. is kinda manning up.

However, "their options are limited to mainly symbolic measures" is not a good enough answer if you ask me. That's barely a slap on the wrist!

rebgirl420 Reviewed by rebgirl420 on 08-13-2008. U.S., Allies Weigh Punishment for Russia U.S., Allies Weigh Punishment for Russia WASHINGTON â?? Scrambling to find ways to punish Russia for its invasion of pro-Western Georgia, the United States and its allies are considering expelling Moscow from an exclusive club of wealthy nations and canceling an upcoming joint NATO-Russia military exercise, Bush administration officials said Tuesday. But with scant leverage in the face of an emboldened Moscow, Washington and its friends have been forced to face the uncomfortable reality Rating: 5

[birdgirl73]

There's little else anyone can do other than symbolic gestures, however, as the U.S. is all too well aware. We can condemn their actions and urge other allies to do the same, but Russia is a military and economic force to be reckoned with, a super power. A country we couldn't begin to go to war with and don't have the available resources to fight even if we wanted to. Everyone recognizes this fact, which is why we and other nations are pretty much limited to hand-slapping and little else. We can threaten not to hold international meetings there. We can threaten to throw them out of the G8 and go back to being G7. Mr. Putin and his administration don't really care what anyone does. It's a bad situation to be in. Although our current political administration is basically in lame duck mode, I am glad we have Dr. Rice at the Department of State. She is an expert on the workings in that part of the world.

[rebgirl420]

I realize we can't go above and beyond but at least throw in some tough sanctions for goodness sake. Condemming them is a useless tactic because as you mention they really don't give a damn.

I am for making them G7 though. And your correct, Sec. Rice is a great politician. I like her because she has a libertarian view when it comes to social issues. Even though she is in Bush's cabinet her views differ from his in a lot of cases. I always believed that she would make a great VP for McCain.

I would even vote for her as President actually. I don't have an issue with women in power, I am all for it, but I just couldn't stand Hillary.

[birdgirl73]

Tough economic sanctions are hard because Russia is an economic powerhouse on its own and can cause us and the rest of the world some retaliatory economic pain in return if we try to do that. It'd be different if they were a smaller, weaker country that was more heavily influenced by strong-arm tactics, but they're not. Russia has lots of industry and manufacturing and, for instance, can manufacture and export steel at cheaper prices than we do, which makes this a tricky situation. We've already run into trouble with the World Trade Organization trying to impose tariffs on them for steel exports a few years back.

We're in a bad spot, too, because our own economy can't take any further strains at the moment and what we do internationally affects us at home since we're a globally interdependent economy.

Condi Rice is far too smart to want to be a politician or run for office. I admire her for that. I also admire her for the fact that she's a wickedly proficient piano player and can speak Russian, Spanish, French and German in addition to English. I hope she'll return to teaching. She could have lots of far-reaching influence by helping teach future diplomats and probably be much happier doing so.

There's good stuff to be read on the topic of Russia and Georgia at this site and the links it provides.
Moscow sends troops into Georgia; Europe and America wrestle with the ramifications. - By Ben Whitford - Slate Magazine

[texas grass]

what about punishment for georgia
georgia uses american and israeli military equipment(planes and tanks) and bombs the capital of south ossetia and kills from 1000-1500 civillians that are defenseless and they kill afew and injure afew russian un mandated peacekeepers.
russia rushes in and defends south ossetia(which hold russian citizenship and un mandated peacekeepers) and bombs afew military and other instillations in georgia proper. they kill about 130 mainly military and some civillians.

[eg420ne]

Right....Russia invades to stop Georgia from murdering its citizens..wheres the neo-cons and the repubes with them talking points about preventive strikes, ohh wait! it only works on certain people in certain parts of the world. Iraq Iraq

[eg420ne]

Tough economic sanctions are hard because Russia is an economic powerhouse on its own and can cause us and the rest of the world some retaliatory economic pain in return if we try to do that. It'd be different if they were a smaller, weaker country that was more heavily influenced by strong-arm tactics, but they're not. Russia has lots of industry and manufacturing and, for instance, can manufacture and export steel at cheaper prices than we do, which makes this a tricky situation. We've already run into trouble with the World Trade Organization trying to impose tariffs on them for steel exports a few years back.

We're in a bad spot, too, because our own economy can't take any further strains at the moment and what we do internationally affects us at home since we're a globally interdependent economy.

Condi Rice is far too smart to want to be a politician or run for office. I admire her for that. I also admire her for the fact that she's a wickedly proficient piano player and can speak Russian, Spanish, French and German in addition to English. I hope she'll return to teaching. She could have lots of far-reaching influence by helping teach future diplomats and probably be much happier doing so.

There's good stuff to be read on the topic of Russia and Georgia at this site and the links it provides.
Moscow sends troops into Georgia; Europe and America wrestle with the ramifications. - By Ben Whitford - Slate Magazine

Condi Rice is a terrible politician---------------
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." condi rice
Or this one "Usama determine to strike" which was thrown under the bus by this condi...................

[McDanger]

This was all caused by the west, not just US. When Billy blow job went to Bosnia and then all the rest of the west recognized them as an independent country apart from Serbia the seeds were sown for this. And Russia even predicted it when everybody OK'd the state of Bosnia. Just wait, the Ukraine is probably next. BTW, when are we finally going to get out of Bosnia, Christmas 1995 was a long time ago Billy.

[killerweed420]

Will there never be any peace on this planet? Sometimes it would be nice to just go back to political asassignations like we use to. Except for the idiots we elect in office would probably kill the wrong ones.

[rebgirl420]

There will never be peace. Some asshole will always fuck it up for everyone. I suppose the only thing to really do is just be a good person individually instead on hoping for governments and others to make peace for us.