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Russia Going For The West's Jugular

Mike

Well-known member
The war in Georgia escalated dangerously last night after Russian jets reportedly bombed a vital pipeline that supplies oil to the West.

After a day of heightening international tensions, Georgian leaders claimed that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan pipeline, which transports oil from the Caspian Sea to Turkey, had been attacked. But it is thought the bombs missed their target.

Their claims came after Russian jets struck deep into the territory of its tiny neighbour, killing civilians and ‘completely devastating’ the strategic Black Sea port of Poti, a staging post for oil and other energy supplies.


Georgian economic development minister Ekaterina Sharashidzne said: ‘This clearly shows that Russia has targeted not just Georgian economic outlets but international economic outlets as well.’

The pipeline is 30 per cent owned by BP and supplies 1 per cent of the world’s oil needs, pumping up to a million barrels of crude per day to Turkey.

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Obviously Pelosi and Putin believe the exact same thing:
The "West" needs less oil!! :roll:
 
A

Anonymous

Guest
Whats that crazy old white haired dude singing now "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Russia :???: Absolutely has no foreign policy except 100 years of War and Bomb everything that moves... :( :(

Yep a cantakerous old white haired wrinkly cancer prone dude with one foot in the grave- and one on a banana peel- just itching to get his finger on the nuke button....Just what this country needs :roll: :wink: :( :(

This further exemplifies the reason we need to speed up our use of alternative energy sources and ability to get away from the dependence on oil....

‘Invasion of Georgia’ a ‘3 a.m. moment’
By BEN SMITH | 8/9/08 7:52 AM EST Text Size:

When the North Caucasus slid into war Thursday night, it presented John McCain and Barack Obama with a true “3 a.m. moment,” and their responses to the crisis suggested dramatic differences in how each candidate, as president, would lead America in moments of international crisis.

While Obama offered a response largely in line with statements issued by democratically elected world leaders, including President Bush, first calling on both sides to negotiate, John McCain took a remarkably — and uniquely — more aggressive stance, siding clearly with Georgia’s pro-Western leaders and placing the blame for the conflict entirely on Russia.

The abrupt crisis in an obscure hotspot had the features of the real foreign policy situations presidents face — not the clean hypotheticals of candidates’ white papers and debating points.

Russia has long attempted to reclaim now-sovereign parts of the former Soviet Union, stoking conflicts in the enclaves of South Ossetia and Abkhazia, which are universally recognized to be Georgian soil. Russia has also used the ensuing military tensions to set back Georgia’s bid to enter NATO.

But Georgia appears to have sparked the conflict by marching on the South Ossetian capital as Russia’s powerful Prime Minister Vladimir Putin headed to Beijing for the Olympic Games. Russia, in turn, welcomed the conflict, launching a large-scale attack on its smaller neighbor and sending tanks across its border.

Both American candidates back Georgia’s sovereignty and its turn toward the West. But their first statements on the crisis revealed differences of substance and style.

Obama’s statement put him in line with the White House, the European Union, NATO and a series of European powers, while McCain’s initial statement — which he delivered in Iowa and ran on a blog on his Web site under the title “McCain Statement on Russian Invasion of Georgia” — put him more closely in line with the moral clarity and American exceptionalism projected by President Bush’s first term.

A McCain adviser suggested that Obama’s statement constituted appeasement, while Obama’s camp suggested that McCain was being needlessly belligerent and dangerously quick to judge a complicated situation.

“I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict,” Obama said in a written statement. “Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint and to avoid an escalation to full-scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected.”

Obama added briefly that the international community should get involved. More than an hour later, as more details of Russia’s incursion into Georgia emerged, he cited Russia more directly: “What is clear is that Russia has invaded Georgia’s sovereign — has encroached on Georgia’s sovereignty,” he told reporters in Sacramento.

McCain’s statement was longer, more detailed and more confrontational.

"[T]he news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory.
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John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, defended McCain’s direct criticism of Russia in the early hours of the crisis.

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The conflict in Georgia also brought attention to another complicating feature of McCain’s campaign: His ties to Republican operatives with extensive lobbying practices. Scheunemann was, until earlier this year, registered to lobby for the government of Georgia.

A public relations firm working for the Russian Federation pointed out Scheunemann’s lobbying past to reporters — a sign that McCain’s stance is not, for better or worse, being welcomed in Moscow — as did Obama’s campaign.

John McCain’s top foreign policy adviser lobbied for, and has a vested interest in, the Republic of Georgia and McCain has mirrored the position advocated by the government,” said Obama spokesman Hari Sevugan, noting that the “appearance of a conflict of interest” was a consequence of McCain’s too-close ties to lobbyists.



Full Story:
http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0808/12409.html


Pipeline politics: Oil behind plan for U.S. troops in Georgia

by Peter Dale Scott
-Guest Columnist-


(The proposed deployment of 200 Special Operations forces to the former Soviet Republic of Georgia is about more than pursuing al-Qaeda terrorists around the globe—it’s also, writes Pacific News Service contributor Peter Dale Scott, about oil.)


Deployment of U.S. Special Operations forces to the Caucasus state of Georgia would help enforce a Washington pipeline policy aimed at neutralizing Russian influence in oil-rich Central Asia.


This is the unreported side of the U.S. proposal, which is also about pursuing al-Qaeda fighters around the globe. Al-Qaeda veterans have reportedly linked up with Chechen rebels on the Georgia-Chechen border.


Though Georgia and Chechnya themselves contain limited oil and gas reserves, their territory is essential to both existing and proposed pipelines to carry oil and gas out of the Caspian basin west to Turkey and Europe.


The existing Russian pipeline, from Baku to Novorossiysk on the Black Sea, passes through Chechnya. U.S. oil companies, which have had difficulty dealing with the Russians, have proposed two alternative pipeline routes that pass through Georgia and Armenia. These pipelines would allow U.S. companies, and not Russian ones, to control oil and pipeline prices.

http://www.finalcall.com/perspectives/pipeline03-19-2002.htm
 
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