Russia invades Georgia

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I very much doubt Russia executes. They are a member of the Council of Europe which, like the EU, has the non-existance of capital punishment as a membership criterium. These things are controlled by the Council now and then, so if Russia would execute they must be doing miracle work in hiding it. To keep their membership in the Council of Europe, which they need economically, they cannot apply capital punishment. So basically, Russia abolished the death penalty in practise. They are not going to want to lose their membership of the Council purely to execute people, they are very likely sticking to their moratorium or close to legal abolition.

Belarus is the only European country still executing, and thus the only European country that is not welcome in the EU and Council of Europe as they fail to meet an important membership criterium. Apart from Belarus, all European countries abolished either by law or in practise. Thank god for that...

The existance of the death penalty alone is reason enough for me to prefer Russian rule over American rule, but then there is more human rights violations in the US as well. Also, as a leftist I have no negative feelings about a socialist system (note again: I said socialist, not communist)

Russia doesn't have a socialist system. It's a plutocracy/cronyocracy.

I know, but most people (at least in the places I lived) still have negative feelings towards Russia because of its past. They don't realise or wish to ignore the fact that Russia has changed and leaning more and more towards Europe. By that I am not saying they do nothing wrong, but in general I am proponent of embracing Russia as a full EU member. I have no specific non-trust in them, and the remaining problems would be tackled even better when Europe has better means to keep an eye on what happens in Moscow.

so answer this:


chechnya?

You'd have wanted to be liberated by these guys?

http://www.cdi.org/russia/johnson/6043-11.cfm

http://www.christusrex.org/www1/icons/r ... ities.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_war_crimes

You really must by ignorant of what the Russians did in every country they occupied, peruse the links above for a taste of what "liberation" at the hands of the Russians would have been like.

It would have brought a socialist political system to Europe yes, which I however do not necessarily object to given my own leftist believes. I am not denying the crimes by the regimes in the USSR but that is something seperate from the socialist ideology in itself.

And I am well aware there is a lot of things going wrong in Russia, however the US is not exactly the country that should be pointing the finger. The pot and the kettle... In the end I would say Guantanamo and capital punishment are a lot worse than the issues Russia is facing (but this is a personal opinion and without wanting to minimalise or ignore the issues in Russia)

USSR?? some of the worst humanitarian condidtions in chechnya was under putin!! !


again: the supreme court recently had a ruling on guantanamo bay so that is being taken care of and russia kills people too. they killed a reporter just a couple years ago who reported for the chechens and showed the russian human rights violations.

I am not judging Chechenya for the simple reason that I am not well enough informed on the issue. I did read up on it, but before taking a position in such complex matters I prefer to be better informed.
And again, I never denied Russian human rights violations?

All I am saying, the US is violating human rights itself frequently so they should be the last to blame others. The pot and the kettle, as I said... Guantanamo is an excellent example, and I am very sceptic anything is going to change. The very existance of this situation for several years is in fact bad enough that the international community should have taken action long ago. The continuous using of capital punishment is another issue that I feel very strongly about, Russia may have a corrupt regime but a government openly admitting it kills its citizens is even worse than what happens underground in Russia...

You seem to think I ignore Russian issues, this is not the case. I do say IMO the US have a worse human rights record, and IMO an embargo or any sort of sanctions against the States should have been enforced long ago. The world should stand up and react rather than thinking the US is untouchable.

Again, nothing against the citizens, nothing against the country, I only talk about the political entity USA and not about the people living in it. IMO the US is a country of political hypocricy and serious human rights violations (and yes, my native Belgium is a mess as well politically, I am very well aware of that... although a mess in a different way, still a mess)

And if you think I stand alone with this opinion... No. Maybe I express it a bit stronger or more explicit than most Europeans, but many Europeans do have a negative image of the US when it comes to politics. The days when Europeans saw America as a promised are long over, and many EU citizens see the US no longer as an ally but as a negative force in global politics.

Violating human rights is subjective. I would accuse any government which has socialistic tendencies of violating human rights. Yay!

Obviously subjective. But this is a discussion forum, we all out opinions in the end rather than absolute undebatable facts.

I also don't feel like being labeled as the big anti-American ; in the end this is a political topic and my negative opinions expressed are purely political rather than judging a country or its culture. But then I do have the impression the same happens with Russia, with many people mainly judging its political problems while giving an impression of having issues with the entire nation.

Russia sees itself as a superpower that can balance power between the US and the rest of the world. Russia wants control of the Caucasus because that gives Russia a foothold in the middle east. This invasion is not surprising at all and I do not believe that the US will be stopping it. We can not piss off the Russians because we want access to the oil and gas and we want Russia to behave so that Europe will be prosperous.

If the Russians think that they can occupy/take this region than they are delusional. The terrain in this country seems like an excellent natural barrier, if the Americans have a tough time occupying Iraq than imagine having to occupy Georgia.

From the prospective of the Ossetian though, this might be exactly what they are looking for. They want to be united with Northern Ossetia which shares the same ethnic group. The majority of Ossetians have Russian citizenship, the Russians have a point in defending their own citizens

Does anybody know why Russia would want to pull this off during the Olympics?

Probably has something to do with all the world leaders being at the games and thus not in their offices. It does seem rather suspiciously timed, perhaps they think they can accomplish their military objectives before the rest of the world gets it's collective ass in gear. That way they can negotiate from a position of strength, since all the heavy lifting would have been done in the initial onslaught. That would be my gameplan in their position, that Putin is a sly one...

media attention and resources focussed elsewhere = good timing?

There's a very American bias (understandably) to this whole discussion. The Russian actions were a response to an offensive by Georgia against separatists in the region, so perhaps we should be asking why Georgia chose to carry that out on that particular date, especially considering the number of civilian casualties it purportedly incurred.