In Russia, Nationalist Pride Prevails
Russian soldiers are seen atop a military vehicle outside Gori, Georgia, Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008. Russian troops and paramilitaries rolled into the strategic Georgian city of Gori on Wednesday, apparently smashing an EU-brokered truce designed to end the six-day conflict that has uprooted tens of thousands and scarred the Georgian landscape. (AP Photo/Sergei Grits)
Support for Armed Response Outweighs Skepticism, Concern
By Frederick Kunkle - (WaPo)
MOSCOW — Along Moscow’s famously colorful Arbat Street on Tuesday, there was a striking unanimity of views about Russia’s brief, one-sided war with Georgia. While many people said they regretted the loss of life, the conflict appeared mainly to have stoked nationalist pride and anger that Russia’s show of force over the breakaway region of South Ossetia had been condemned as disproportionate.
Some expressed outrage that the country had been blamed for starting the crisis. Others, echoing Russian officials and analysts, suggested there was little difference between the massive military response to Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili’s shelling of the separatist capital last week and the NATO-led bombing of Serbia or the West’s recognition of Kosovo’s right to independence.
“It is not every day that 1,600 of your fellow compatriots are killed in cold blood,” said Alexander Pikayev, a departmental director at the Institute for World Economy and International Relations, referring to the alleged death toll in South Ossetia after the Georgian assault.
Pikayev said Russian forces needed to go after targets in and around the city of Gori, which is on undisputed Georgian territory, because it was an important staging area for Georgia’s offensive. “I think that it’s too early to make any final judgments, because we are talking about a complicated situation,” he said.
Emotions remained inflamed here Tuesday despite Russian President Dmitry Medvedev’s announcement that the operation in Georgia had been completed and that he had called a halt to Russian combat. Saying that the Russian military had had no choice but to strike back at Georgia after it attacked the rebel enclave, Medvedev added that Russia had carried out its aim to protect its peacekeepers.
“The aggressor has been punished and his military forces routed,” Medvedev said.
Over the weekend, the Levada Center conducted a poll of 2,100 people in Russia and reported that 71 percent of the respondents sided with South Ossetia and sympathized with its separatist goals. Only 2 percent expressed sympathy for Georgia’s stance.
The results were nearly as lopsided on the question of whether South Ossetia should remain part of Georgia, become part of Russia or become independent. Only 4 percent supported the status quo before the fighting, while 46 percent thought Russia should absorb the sparsely populated province and join it to the Russian republic of North Ossetia. Thirty-four percent said South Ossetia should be independent.
In Moscow, the nationalist sentiment was not universal. Some worried that Russia’s armed response would only strengthen the hand of the prime minister and former president, Vladimir Putin, and others in his circle in the Kremlin.
“I think Russia is getting more nationalistic, and I think it’s been strengthened in this reasserting of sovereignty,” said Dmitry Trenin, deputy director of studies at the Carnegie Moscow Center.
Especially in the early hours and days of the conflict, Russian television stations showed Putin directing the military response and visiting with the wounded, and much of the coverage showed only Russian casualties and refugees and quoted only Russian officials. One station used graphics that called Georgia’s actions “genocide.” Commentators said the coverage helped fan the feeling that Georgia was to blame.
Alexander Golts, deputy editor of the Daily Journal, an independent online newspaper, said that even liberals and some critics of the government felt that Saakashvili’s shelling of Tskhinvali, the capital of the breakaway province, had provided the spark for a conflict that had been a long time in the making.
“It’s absolutely clear that Saakashvili was the person who began this war,” Golts said. “I am even one of these liberal commentators, but it’s also clear that when Saakashvili spoke on TV [on Friday], he knew for sure and had ordered the deployment for the attack.”
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You’d think that after being fed a steady diet of BS for 70 years that the Russian people would at least be a little skeptical of anything coming out of the kremlin. I’ve got some news for you, children of the Rodina, national pride is very fragile and won’t last when the counter attack comes. Payback’s a bitch!
August 13th, 2008 at 1:36 pmYou can take the free Russian out of the Soviet …
But you can’t take the Soviet out of the free Russian …
My husband’s Grandfather (from Georgia) told me once:
“The Russian doesn’t feel alive unless he is suffering … Most men make love to their mistress … The Russian makes love to his misery …”
August 13th, 2008 at 1:53 pmRussians are cunts. Nationalist pride over being fought to a standstill by tiny Georgia?
August 13th, 2008 at 1:58 pm“The Russian doesn’t feel alive unless he is suffering … Most men make love to their mistress … The Russian makes love to his misery …”
Drill, your grand-father had the best definition since Dostoievski
August 13th, 2008 at 2:32 pmHe was a reader (husband’s Grandfather BTW), so I am sure he read the man …
Had a houseful of books in Russian, some I still have.
August 13th, 2008 at 2:44 pm“the best definition since Dostoievski”
Yeah? Which “definition”?
August 13th, 2008 at 3:46 pmThe one where he argues against Socialism and the danger of ‘human engineering’? Or the one where he argues FOR the reality of God?
The discipline of Russia’s soldiers are questionable. They seem like a horde of drunken barbarians with good weapons than an organized and disciplined force.
August 13th, 2008 at 10:06 pmsully
, that’s Dostoevsky, Dostïevski, Dostoyevsky response
August 14th, 2008 at 3:38 ama wise philosopher said
They have no idea who the enemy is and if they can’t handle a war of words (which is actually FAR tamer than what went on in this country 200+ years ago)
August 14th, 2008 at 4:02 amawww I guess MS&L is also one of your qualification, uh you should request my services too, I became quite good since a few years of the kind of propaganda conter diffusion
August 14th, 2008 at 4:40 amYou’re the one that is ill prepared for a war of words.
August 14th, 2008 at 7:13 amParticularly when you are dropping names like Dostoyevsky, with zero understanding of the his actual ‘philosophy’, just to try and puff up your resume’.
coo-coo daddy
August 14th, 2008 at 7:17 amyeah, daddy knows he is the best, that’s why he lectures everybody on morals
though he doesn’t yet knows that he preaches in the desert, only scorpions and black snakes are his mercenary auditors
August 14th, 2008 at 7:22 amI’ve provided you more than ample opportunities to prove me wrong and you can’t.
August 14th, 2008 at 9:03 amGo read a book and that situation might improve for you.
Daddy, tu me casses les couilles, lâches moi la grappe now
(see ya, I give you the opportunity to learn slang french philosophical expressions
)
tu te répètes, et tu ne m’apprends plus rien
I got more than my part of readings, now Im not a researcher that based his/her life on them, time is shared with many learnings, you had your time, now I understood how you fonction… Im waiting that you astonish me again whenever you might
August 14th, 2008 at 9:42 amGo read a book and that situation might improve for you.
Daddy, tu me casses les couilles, lâches moi la grappe now
)
(see ya, I give you the opportunity to learn slang french philosophical expressions
tu te répètes, et tu ne m’apprends plus rien
I got more than my part of readings, now Im not a researcher that based his/her life on them, time is shared with many learnings, you had your time, now I understood how you fonction… Im waiting that you astonish me again whenever you might
August 14th, 2008 at 9:45 amZZZZZZZZZZZ
Have someone wake me up if you ever discover a clue about WTF you’re talking about because you obviously don’t.
Dostoyevsky
That’s rich… thanks… I’ve been laughing about that for a day now
August 14th, 2008 at 4:48 pmploom ploom tra la la
what about that pic you brought once with an iraki teen ?
yeah, you were clued, I know all about your bluff
August 14th, 2008 at 6:39 pmoh wait… that’s because you don’t either
August 14th, 2008 at 7:48 pmsully
http://i78.photobucket.com/albums/j97/stars5501/mi3-1.jpg
July 26th, 2008 at 8:33 pm
________________________________________
franchie
sully, I have also seen such pics ; one could write the message directly from his/her own computer… Im not saying it’s a fake, though it’s evident that this young Iraki didn’t write this one
________________________________________
July 27th, 2008 at 8:16 am
GRIZZ
The sun comes up and frenchie argues that its just a bright lamp
_________________________________________
OKKIIII, fair enough for a high moral graduate philosopher
so if you have a selective memory or kinda memory holes, I got a very good visual memory ; do you want to recall you something, ask me
papy, I’ll be glad to help you
August 15th, 2008 at 12:28 ammy name is Dostoïevski
so you want to be called Dostoyevsky now?
of course it’s “fake”… that pic is a joke you dumbass…
August 15th, 2008 at 4:31 amBut as the great philosopher Homer Simpson once said… “It’s funny because it’s true.”
I know you french still love Michael Jackson but in this country he’s a pedophile.
of course it’s “fake”… that pic is a joke you dumbass…
yeah seems so in the context, sac-à-merde
https://pat-dollard.com/2008/07/iraqi-kids-mixin-it-up-with-american-troops/
But as the great philosopher Homer Simpson once said… “It’s funny because it’s true.”
what did he said about you ? LMAO !!!!
I know you french still love Michael Jackson but in this country he’s a pedophile.
too bad he is american, and we don’t like him either as you prefer to throw your stars on our camp when they don’t fit anymore your high moral standards, funny can’t see him in our programms anymore
and my name is Voltaire
August 15th, 2008 at 4:56 amit’s “fake”… that pic is a joke you dumbass…
Naturally, seems so in the context, “sac-à-merde”
https://pat-dollard.com/2008/07/iraqi-kids-mixin-it-up-with-american-troops/
as the great philosopher Homer Simpson once said… “It’s funny because it’s true.”
August 15th, 2008 at 5:32 amhe said about you ? LMAO !!!!
“I know you french still love Michael Jackson but in this country he’s a pedophile.”
he is though american, and we don’t like him here either, but you prefer to throw your stars out onto our camp when they don’t fit anymore your high moral standards
my name is Voltaire
“my name is Voltaire”
Not by a long shot.
August 15th, 2008 at 8:03 amNope… your name is dumbass.
le geai paré des plumes de paon
http://www.la-fontaine-ch-thierry.net/geaipaon.htm
my name is Voltaire, le polemiste
your name is infatued idot
August 15th, 2008 at 8:52 am