What Is This World Coming To?

Only hours after Russia agreed to a cease-fire brokered by French president Nicolas Sarkozy, Russian forces pushed deep into Georgia, capturing the strategic town of Gori, less than an hour from the Georgian capital at Tblisi.

Thick black plumes of smoke rose from Gori as panicked residents — including the doctors and patients of the local hospital — fled to Tbilisi in packed cars and minivans. Most locals had already abandoned Gori after it was heavily bombarded by Russian forces on Tuesday, just before Presidents Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and Nicholas Sarkozy of France announced a provisional cease-fire.

With Russian tanks securing Gori, Ossetian militias and Russian cossacks began pillaging stores and homes, fleeing residents and Western eyewitnesses said. Some Georgians attempting to escape said they were told by irregulars to abandon their cars and valuables at gunpoint, and forced to walk toward Tbilisi. At least one vehicle of Western journalists was also seized at gunpoint by Russian-allied irregulars.

The EU and US are in discussions over the best way to ‘punish’ Russia for its invasion of Georgia.

For now, the US has decided to ditch an important NATO naval exercise with Russia that was due to begin on Friday. The annual exercise usually includes Britain, France, Russia and the US.

But the odds-on favorite solution being to kick the Russians out of the G-7 plus Russia. (That would make it the G-7 without Russia. That will teach those crazy Ivans!)

The G-7 plus Russia didn’t fit, anyway. The Bible speaks of the existence in the last days of two different governing authorities, which the Prophet Daniel and the Apostle John each represent as a beast with seven heads and ten horns. The seven heads represent economic authority, the ten horns represent political power.

The EU has absorbed as many as 27 nations, but there remain just ten FULL members of the European Union, which is as close to a revived form of the Roman Empire as has existed since the Fall of Rome to the Goths and Vandals in the 5th century.

The G-7 consists of France, Germany, Italy, Japan, United Kingdom, the United States and Canada.

Russia continues its push well beyond the borders of South Ossetia and into Georgia itself. Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin says that all Russia is trying to do is bring its ‘peacekeeping mission to its logical conclusion.” Whether that logical conclusion includes the existence of an independent state called Georgia remains to be seen.

Noted one blogger, Georgia certainly identifies with — and considered itself an ally of — the West. After fighting broke out, Georgian state television even switched from the national news to the anti-Russian, Cold War classic flick “Red Dawn.” So it’s understandable that the people there are begging for Western help — they’re even looking for Israel to pressure Russia. But despite strong words from U.S. bigwigs, it’s become increasingly clear that nobody is coming to Georgia’s aid. “Georgians are wondering, where is NATO? NATO isn’t coming. Deal with it. Saakashvilli staked his presidency on it and failed.”

If Russia goes through with the sale of its most advanced anti-aircraft missile system to Iran, Israel will use an electronic warfare device now under development to neutralize it and as a result present Russia as vulnerable to air infiltrations, a top defense official has told The Jerusalem Post.

The Russian system, called the S-300, is one of the most advanced multi-target anti-aircraft-missile systems in the world today and has a reported ability to track up to 100 targets simultaneously while engaging up to 12 at the same time. It has a range of about 200 kilometers and can hit targets at altitudes of 27,000 meters. Read the rest of this entry »

Russian tanks rolled towards the capital of South Ossetia and fighters bombed Georgian air bases after Georgia launched attacks on rebels in the Georgian province of South Ossetia. Russian forces suffered about a dozen dead and 150 wounded, according to Russian news agencies, but the civilian toll of dead and wounded is currently numbered in the thousands.

South Ossetia is primarily inhabited by ethnic Ossetians whose native language is related to Farsi, or ethnic Persian.

By tradition, the Ossetians have had good relations with Russians and were regarded as loyal citizens, first of the Russian empire and later of the Soviet Union. They sided with the Kremlin when Bolshevik forces occupied Georgia in the early 1920s and, as part of the carve-up which followed, the South Ossetian Autonomous Region was created in Georgia and North Ossetia was formed in Russia. Read the rest of this entry »