video Georgian War 08.08.08 part 1 of 6 -video 08-11-15 BBC points out War Crimes during Georgian aggression NATO drills may spark another Georgian aggresssion.16 April, 2009Russia calls on NATO to cancel or at least postpone its scheduled military exercises in Georgia.Russias Envoy to NATO Dmitry Rogozin told Itar-Tass news agency that the exercise will be provocative.By going ahead with the war games, NATO appears to be offering support to Mikhail Saakashvili, Dmitry Rogozin says.Any attempt to cheer up the Saakashvili regime looks monstrous in regards to the victims sacrificed at the altar of his Napoleonic ambition, Rogozin was quoted as saying by the RIA Novosti news agency NATOs Support of Georgian Dictator is The Support of Ossetian GenocideIts a good thing the nation of Georgia was not a member of NATO during Georgian WAR in August 2008.  Bush’s military  might be end up at nuclear war with Russia using  Article 5 of North Atlantic Treaty . President Bush has been vigorously pushing  membership of Georgia for years. NATO  still favor membership despite the events of August 2008, which demonstrate the danger of having the anti-Soviet military alliance incorporate former Soviet republics and satellites even though the Soviet Union ceased to exist in 1991.But lessons aren’t always learned. While Russian troops were still fighting Georgian aggresson against civilians in South Ossetia, the British foreign secretary was saying that the south Caucasus nation had been given a «route map to membership» into the treaty organization. «In practical terms, NΑΤΟ is offering close cooperation with the Georgian government and the Georgian military. It means building up proper interoperability with NΑΤΟ, proper joint training. It also means ensuring the structures of cooperation ... are properly geared towards eventual membership. So this is a route map to membership», David Miliband told the Guardian.This should make every American nervous, not to mention every European. Does the United States want to risk a war with Russia over who governs the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia? Is the U.S. policy of humiliating Russia and depriving it of its historic sphere of influence really worth the bloodshed and destruction of the whole world that could result?That first question helps put the matter into perspective. The immediate reason for the brief war between Russia and Georgia was the Georgian autocratic ruler latest attempt to reassert brutal control over South Ossetia on the Russian border. South Ossetia, like the other breakaway region, Abkhazia, has wanted to be free of Georgian rule for long time. The ethnic Ossetians are sympathetic to Russia and have Russian passports.There has been bad blood between the Georgians and the Ossetians. South Ossetia was an autonomous district within part of the Soviet Union, but when the collapse came, Georgia was determined to retake control. The Washington Post’s Michael Dobbs wrote in August: «It soon became clear to me that the Ossetians viewed Georgians as aggressive bullies bent on taking away their independence. I was there in March 1991, shortly after the city was occupied by Georgian militia units loyal to Zviad Gamsakhurdia, the first nationalistic leader of new Georgia . One of Gamsakhurdia’s first acts as Georgian president was to cancel the political autonomy that was granted the republic’s 120,000-strong Ossetian minority by USSR.... I discovered that the town [Tskhinval, the capital of South Ossetia] had been ransacked by Gamsakhurdia’s militia. The Georgians had trashed the Ossetian national theater, decapitated the statue of an Ossetian poet and pulled down monuments to Ossetians who had fought with Soviet troops in World War II.»In early August 2008, after some discussions about autonomy, the Georgia government launched a military assault on separatist activity in Tskhinvali. Georgia’s attack was reported to be brutal. With Russian peacekeepers on the scene, the government, now run by Russian President Medvedev, responded. Bush’s response to the crisisThe Bush administration ruled out a U.S. military response, but sent American troops to deliver so called “humanitarian aid”. «These regions are a part of Georgia», Bush said of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, «and the international community has repeatedly made clear that they will remain so. There’s no room for debate on this matter».Who is this «international community» and why should it have any say, much less the last word — «There’s no room for debate on this matter» — on who governs the Ossetians and Abkhazians?At the Veterans of Foreign Wars convention, Bush elaborated: «The United States of America will continue to support Georgia’s democracy. Our military will continue to provide needed humanitarian aid to the Georgian people. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are part of Georgia. And the United States will work with our allies to ensure Georgia’s independence and territorial integrity.»The contradiction is plain. Why Georgian democracy, independence, and territorial integrity, but not South Ossetian and Abkhazian democracy, independence, and territorial integrity? Majorities in both areas have voted for independence. Unfortunately, the «international community» refuses to recognize those referenda.When it comes to separatist movements, the American government have no principles whatever. When ethnic Albanians in Kosovo sought to break from Yugoslavia, the United States backed the separatists and unleashed its bombers. The Bush administration recently recognized Kosovo’s independence in defiance of Russia’s opposition. Yet when the Ossetians and Abkhazians want to be free of Georgia, the big-power role are reversed. If you hold your breath waiting for a sign of integrity from Bush’s government, you will turn blue.NATO’s role in the crisisTo fully understand the recent conflict, a fuller context must be kept in mind. Since the implosion of the Soviet Union, the NATO has followed policies that could have no other effect than to humiliate Russia. These policies include extension of NATO membership to former Warsaw Pact nations in Eastern Europe and the Balkan states. It includes placing anti-missile batteries in Poland. It includes a military buildup in Georgia, with money, arms, and advisors. It includes cultivation of friendship with authoritarian regimes in the former Soviet republics in central Asia. And, very important, it includes moving Caspian Sea oil westward through Azerbaijan and Georgia, bypassing Russia, which once controlled those resources.All this has sent Russia a threatening signal of encirclement and marginalization, but it does not plan to take NATO’s sand-kicking with equanimity.NATO is playing a dangerous game. Its ham-handed attempt to manipulate Russia’s environs in its own interest has gotten the same reception that a similar Russian effort in the Western Hemisphere would have gotten from the U.S. government.When will American presidents learn that George Washington was right? «The great rule of conduct for us, in regard to foreign nations, is in extending our commercial relations to have with them as little political connection as possible....Europe has a set of primary interests which to us have none, or a very remote relation. Hence she must be engaged in frequent controversies, the causes of which are essentially foreign to our concerns. Hence, therefore, it must be unwise in us to implicate ourselves, by artificial ties, in the ordinary vicissitudes of her politics, or the ordinary combinations and collisions of her friendships or enmities.» Add «Asia» to that second sentence, and Washington’s advice is brought up to date.