The Washington Post has interestingly published an interesting comment by Dmitri Trenin who attended Bilderberg this year.
Trenin lays out the bare facts, as he sees them.
1. Georgia laid a trap for Russia (therefore the aggressor is Georgia).
2. Russia fell into the trap by sending in troops and tanks and bombing Georgia.
3. Georgia now wants to widen the conflict by calling upon the USA, NATO etc, comparing the conflict to Russia invading Afghanistan etc.
But Trenin then warns the USA, NATO etc of the Guns of August.
What Trenin fails to address is whether Georgia would have set this trap with or without the consent of the USA, NATO, etc. I seriously doubt Saakashvili would have laid such a trap without the consent of Cheney etc, for if the plan failed, as it has, Saakashvili will need all his guile to not swing from the nearest lamppost.
NB in the following comment Trenin states
"This spectacular Act I of the unfolding drama received only muted reaction in the international media."
When you read the papers today, and from yesterday for that matter, note how the massive death toll is reported. Only a handful of media report who actually killed how many. For example, you will read in many papers that 2000 have died in fighting between Georgia and Russia. Your mind will automatically aportion blame 50/50, so that by reporting the death toll this way Russia is equally to blame.
But look at the facts.
It was Georgia who bombed and invaded South Ossetia killing nearly two thousand.
Russia has responded by bombing Georgian military sites, which unfortunately were close to civilian residential areas and accidentally hit. The way the media has generally (a) remained silent on what actually happened on Friday and who killed nearly two thousand civilians, and (b) focusing on Russian aggression (comparable to the bias we see in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict) indicates to me that this was a carefully planned operation from within a rogue USA/NATO circle that controls the media.
I get the feeling that Trenin does not realise who he consorting with at Bilderberg, and is concerned that those he knows through Bilderberg may fall into a WW1-type situation provoked by a madman in Georgia. What Trenin fails to even contemplate is that those who run Bilderberg may well have set the trap themselves.
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From http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/postglobal/needtoknow/2008/08/georgias_risky_move.html
Georgia's Risky Move
By Dmitri Trenin
For months, Russia's tactic was to prove to the west that Georgia was too irresponsible to be considered for admission to NATO. Georgia, for its part, sought to impress on the western publics and governments that Russia, in both Abkhazia and South Ossetia, was an aggressor and occupier. All parties to the conflicts in the two breakaway regions tried to provoke the other side into "showing its true colors".
Acting under time pressure, Georgia has dramatically upped the ante by mounting a large-scale military operation to recover the separatist enclave in South Ossetia. As expected, its now well-trained and well-equipped forces overran the Ossetian formations and took over their capital town, causing a massive loss of life. This spectacular Act I of the unfolding drama received only muted reaction in the international media.
Not so the following Act. President Saakashvili has succeeded in causing Russia to move in with heavy forces. Immediately, the nature of the conflict has been transformed. It is no longer about an obscure ethnic group tucked in somewhere in the Caucasus mountains. The image reverberating around the world is that of Russia's recidivist invasion against one of its tiny neighbors. Moscow stepped right into the trap Tbilisi had laid for it.
Almost inevitably, Act II leads to Act III, for which Saakashvili is already calling. The conflict is no longer about Russia and Georgia, he says, it is about American/Western values. Georgia is a frontline state in the emerging new confrontation: a democratic David fighting the Russian Goliath. This is serious. Much has been prophesized recently about the advent of a new Cold War, and the recent developments in the Caucasus, at least in their superficial and very partial interpretation, seem to corroborate the story.
Yet, the United States and Europe need to pause and think. Standing up for Georgia is one thing, but following Saakashvili's script is another. So far, each step in the Caucasus drama has put the conflict on a yet higher plane. The next step will no longer be just about the Caucasus, or even Europe. Remember the Guns of August.
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