Interesting international comments on the "Russia Situation" in this Reuters blog:

[Ghost Dog]

http://blogs.reuters.com/global/2008/08/25/what-russia-wants-lessons-from-the-19th-century/

Since this material is not copyright I'll post this comment from Sergey as an example here:

- Posted by Sergey, August 26th, 2008 5:26 pm GMT

Dear Sirs,

I’m a Russian Citizen and I have nothing to do with Russian intelligence services. I would like to raise a few questions having read this article and some other articles of the UK and US press.

But before that I would like to say a few words about myself and Russians in general.

I have a strong feeling that European and US people have quite wrong impression about Russians.

We should not forget that Cold War has ended decades ago and generations has been changed. None of common people in Russia likes or wants wars, as I’m sure none of US or European citizens as well. There is no ambition from Russia and from Russians to become a super-power and rule the world. I believe such statements in the press looks quite silly and even funny for intelligent people both in Russia and in US or Europe. Such statements looks like taken from James Bond movies (I like this movie a lot, but I don’t treat it seriously as this is just a movie). People would like to work, cooperate with each other. People likes to travel. Russians like to travel to Europe and US, and there is a lot of foreigners visiting Moscow and other cities in Russia. If you have such friends - ask them, do they still believe that Russians are that evil?

I believe that the issue is with the foreign policy between the governments and certain interests of particular politicians. So let us all be very careful judging the newspapers we read and weight the real facts that can be sorted out from the press. Otherwise we will become a victims of mind manipulation.

Don’t you think that recent articles in US and European press were, say, a bit one sided? So coming back to the questions that I would like to raise… here they are for your consideration.

1. Was it the case that Georgian military troops were the one who attacked Tskhinvali (South Ossetia) on August 7th 2008? (by the way it is even admitted by “The Economist” in a very “anti-Russian” article, but this they couldn’t argue .

2. Is this true that lots of civilians has been murdered on that day? (August 7th)

3. Is this true that Russian peace-keeping troops (who has the authority from UN) has been attacked and murdered as well?

4. Is this true that most of the civilian buildings of the town of Tskhinvali were destroyed even before Russian reinforcement has arrived from Russia?

5. What would you do (were you a military general) if you need to protect your solders and civilian citizens of your country? Don’t you think that Russian swift reinforcement has prevented even more victims? Georgian forces has just stepped back as it was useless to fight. So actually the long running bloody turmoil has been prevented.

6. Why Georgian forces abandoned so much US weapon? Actually why it was there in that much quantities.

7. Do you know if there were any refugees? (I’m sure, I should help you with the answer)

8. Don’t you think that it is quite strange that Mr. Saakashvili has started to make announcements in the US and European press that Russian tanks has attacked Georgia and its CAPITAL even before Russian tanks has entered into South Ossetia.

… and some more general questions.

9. Why USA is so much interested to see Georgia and Ukraine in NATO?

10. Why does USA need to have anti-missile radar in Poland? Do you really believe that this is because they afraid Iran’s nuclear attack or there was some other reason? (by the way, I’m not a specialist in nuclear physics, but I’m wondering what will happen to nearby environment if say Poland will hit Iran’s nuclear rocket right above their head?)

11. Do you think that military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan were properly justified? (I can remind that the reason for the Attack on Iraq was that US intelligence service reported about nuclear weapon in Iraq. Later it was confirmed by UN investigation that Iraq didn’t have nuclear weapon).

12. Do you think that there is a democracy now in Iraq or Afghanistan? Do you think that common people now live better there?

13. Are common US citizens happy with the results of military operations in Iraq or Afghanistan?

14. Don’t you think that it is a good step taking into account presidency race in US. Do you agree with the fact that people in US now become more afraid of Russians? Don’t you think that this is a good opportunity to unite US nation against an “enemy” and as a result get huge support from the people on elections? Who can benefit from that?

15. Please answer honestly. Those people in US who didn’t like recent military policy in Iraq and Afghanistan, who has suffered from mortgage crises – do you give support to your government in the fight against “evil” Russia? I’m afraid that most of US and Europeans might answer “yes” (I hope that I’m wrong in that but I’m afraid I’m not)

16. Do you think it is normal when Iraq reconstruction tender was won by the company owned by one of the Senior Governmental officers in US who initially took the decision to send troops to Iraq?

And the last comment in term of democracy. Everybody claims that Mr. Saakashvili is a democratic elected president of Georgia. Do you know the fact that Russian TV channels are cut off from broadcasting in Georgia? Do you know that TV channels supporting opposition has been cut off as well?

And as regards Mr. Putin and Mr. Medvedev. I can assure you being a Russian citizen that the majority of the people did supported Putin during his elections and presidency and majority people do support Mr. Medvedev as newly elected president. I haven’t voted for Mr. Putin myself during the elections (I was voting for Mr. Yavlinskiy) but that doesn’t mean that most of the Russian population do not support either Mr. Putin when he was a president or Mr. Medvedev now. So don’t you think that at least it is not polite from the US and European press to claim that there is a democracy in Georgia and tyranny in Russia. We are about 140 M people in Russia and if most of the population do support their president – isn’t it a democracy? Why it is worse than in Georgia?

And all that recent attempts to compare Putin with Stalin or Hitler - this is just ridiculous! I’m sure that all intelligent and educated people in US and Europe should well understand that. Stalin and Hitler were bustards and evil people who has murdered millions of people who has tortured and spoiled lives of millions of millions of people. As a Russian citizen having been in Europe many times, working in international company, communicating with Americans and Europeans on a daily basis I can assure you that life in Russia is far from that you are reading in most of the articles today. By the way, if to read carefully one can notice that not absolutely all US and European press hates Russia that much.

I can easily admit and fully realize that there a lot of issues in Russia, such as corruption, huge bureaucracy end many other… Actually the same as in other countries for higher or lower extent. But this doesn’t mean that Russians are evil and this doesn’t mean that Russian president was not elected democratically.

So what I’m trying to say is let’s not be one-sided, let’s rely on facts but not rumors and speculations (though it is not that easy).

No normal human would like to live in war or cold war or whatever you call it. Do you think that 140 million Russians are that crazy so they want to fight with all the world, to rule the world?! Come on…

Thank you and sorry for quite a long story

... And, as a good example of the kind of comment you're likely to hear from people all over Europe, on all sides of the political spectra, who have been paying attention, the first comment at the link is a finely representative rant:

- Posted by Bob Bennett, August 26th, 2008 2:08 am GMT

The United States supported and in many cases engendered every right wing military dictatorship in the world after the end of the Second World War. I refer to Indonesia, Greece, Uruguay, Brazil, Paraguay, Haiti, Turkey, the Philippines, Guatemala, El Salvador, and, of course, Chile. The horror the United States inflicted upon Chile in 1973 can never be purged and can never be forgiven.

Hundreds of thousands of deaths took place throughout these countries. Did they take place? And are they in all cases attributable to US foreign policy? The answer is yes they did take place and they are attributable to American foreign policy. But you wouldn’t know it. It never happened. Nothing ever happened. Even while it was happening it wasn’t happening. It didn’t matter. It was of no interest. The crimes of the United States have been systematic, constant, vicious, remorseless, but very few people have actually talked about them. You have to hand it to America. It has exercised a quite clinical manipulation of power worldwide while masquerading as a force for universal good. It’s a brilliant, even witty, highly successful act of hypnosis. I put to you that the United States is without doubt the greatest show on the road. Brutal, indifferent, scornful and ruthless it may be but it is also very clever. As a salesman it is out on its own and its most saleable commodity is self love. It’s a winner. Listen to all American presidents on television say the words, ‘the American people’, as in the sentence, ‘I say to the American people it is time to pray and to defend the rights of the American people and I ask the American people to trust their president in the action he is about to take on behalf of the American people. It’s a scintillating stratagem. Language is actually employed to keep thought at bay. The words ‘the American people’ provide a truly voluptuous cushion of reassurance. You don’t need to think. Just lie back on the cushion. The cushion may be suffocating your intelligence and your critical faculties but it’s very comfortable. This does not apply of course to the 40 million people living below the poverty line and the 2 million men and women imprisoned in the vast gulag of prisons, which extends across the US.

The United States no longer bothers about low intensity conflict. It no longer sees any point in being reticent or even devious. It puts its cards on the table without fear or favour. It quite simply doesn’t give a damn about the United Nations, international law or critical dissent, which it regards as impotent and irrelevant. It also has its own bleating little lamb tagging behind it on a lead, the pathetic and supine Great Britain. The invasion of Iraq was a bandit act, an act of blatant state terrorism, demonstrating absolute contempt for the concept of international law. The invasion was an arbitrary military action inspired by a series of lies upon lies and gross manipulation of the media and therefore of the public; an act intended to consolidate American military and economic control of the Middle East masquerading - as a last resort - all other justifications having failed to justify themselves - as liberation. A formidable assertion of military force responsible for the death and mutilation of thousands and thousands of innocent people. The US have brought torture, cluster bombs, depleted uranium, innumerable acts of random murder, misery, degradation and death to the Iraqi people and call it ‘bringing freedom and democracy to the Middle East’ How many people do you have to kill before you qualify to be described as a mass murderer and a war criminal? One hundred thousand? More than enough, I would have thought.

Therefore it is just that Bush and Blair be arraigned before the International Criminal Court of Justice. Death in this context is irrelevant. Both Bush and Blair place death well away on the back burner. At least 100,000 Iraqis were killed by American bombs and missiles before the Iraq insurgency began. These people are of no moment. Their deaths don’t exist. They are blank. They are not even recorded as being dead. ‘We don’t do body counts,’ said the American general Tommy Franks. I have said earlier that the United States is now totally frank about putting its cards on the table. That is the case. Its official declared policy is now defined as ‘full spectrum dominance’. That is not my term, it is theirs. ‘Full spectrum dominance’ means control of land, sea, air and space and all attendant resources. The United States now occupies almost 750 military installations throughout the world in 140 countries, with the honourable exception of Sweden. We don’t quite know how they got there but they are there all right. Poland is now just another US pawn. US defense contractors are set to make many billions of dollars from the US Poland missile defense deal.

[Peace Patriot]

1. Thank you so much, Ghost Dog! It is reallly interesting to get the other side

from what Rotters and the Associated Pukes, and their masters, the Bush junta, promulgate. And you gotta laugh at our supreme gangsters lecturing Russia--horrifying as their actions in Iraq, Afghanistan, South America, New Orleans and other places have been. It's still funny to see them do this, acting all huffy and righteous.

Did you see this astonishing, threatening letter that a Bush State Dept. lawyer sent to England's Foreign Office, very nearly threatening more bus bombs if an English court hearing a Gitmo case reveals details of U.S./Bush torture? It is mind-blowing. We might as well have Al Capone running our government. (He'd do a better job of it, too.)

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x3872859

Here's what he said: "In an email to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, which was sent on to the court, Stephen Mathias, a legal adviser to the US state department, said that the disclosure of information would cause 'serious and lasting damage to the US-UK intelligence-sharing relationship and thus the national security of the UK, and the aggressive and unprecedented intervention in the apparently functioning adjudicatory processes of a longtime ally of the UK, in contravention of well-established principles of international comity.'”
http://www.crooksandliars.com/2008/08/28/us-threatens-uk-on-gitmo-case

"...serious and lasting damage to...the national security of the UK" (!)

The "apparently functioning adjudicatory processes of a longtime ally" appears to mean the Gitmo kangaroo courts. The snotty English apparently don't like this horror show. Mathias' gobble-de-gook about our "apparently functioning adjucatory processes" sounds like a defensive reply to criticism. The Gitmo torture victim (who's still in Gitmo, with his lawyer pleading for him in the English court) says he was tortured (slicing of his penis by Moroccans while in U.S. custody, among other things) and flown around the world to different prisons, finally ending up in Gitmo. He says that his "confession" was forced by torture.

The Bushites sound...well, out of their minds--threatening the guys who stood by them in their massacre in Iraq! The British! Our "allies"! They ain't gonna get no more tips from the Bushites! No, no! Just you wait, the 'tersts' are gonna git you!

This adds a certain weight to the criticisms of the Bush junta voiced by these two bloggers, the Russian and the other guy (American?). The Russian sounds just a touch too pro-Putin (though he says he didn't vote for him). Just a touch. I began to be a little wary, half way down. And he doesn't mention Chechnya. Still, I found his remarks well worth reading. And the other guy's rant is stunning. He's got chapter and verse. "Wake up, America!"--as Dennis Kucinich rang out the other night at the Democratic Convention.

My waking up point--from believing that I was well informed and a good leftist--came a couple of years ago when I found out about Reagan's complicity in the slaughter of TWO HUNDRED THOUSAND Mayan villagers in Guatemala in the 1980s. I mean, I knew about a lot of things, even that there had been trouble in Guatemala, but truly I did not know the horrifying magnitude of that extermination--supported and funded by the Reagan regime.

Anyway, we all have our breaking points, when something our government does is just too mindbogglingly awful. It's not just the Bushites and their slaughter in Iraq. It was the Reaganites and their slaughter in Guatemala. And LBJ and the Democrats, followed by Nixon and the Republicans, killing TWO MILLION people in Southeast Asia before it was over, and more than 55,000 U.S. soldiers. For what? For what?!

For fucking war profiteers. The same people who armed Georgia and prompted them to invade Russian territory. I believe Putin on that. It was the Bushites doing, once again using a proxy client state (as they did with Israel/Lebanon, as they did earlier this year with the U.S./Colombian bombing/raid into Ecuador.) And I disagree with the second blogger on Bushite naked aggression vs. sneakiness. They've done both. And they're not so confident that we won't revolt, given the lengths they go to to propagandize us and steal our elections. They were naked in Iraq, but they have been chastised and curtailed since, particularly regarding Iran. I suspect that Georgia was partly revenge against Russia for some kind of pact it has had with China and possibly India (and others), to prevent a U.S. attack on Iran. Our economic meltdown could be related. That would get the Bushites' goat--besides their bloodlust, greed and pipeline maps.

[Ghost Dog]

2. Yes, the UK's role in all this has been quite sickening,

and will undoubtedly have economic and political consequences. Many Brits are dumbed-down TV addicts of low educational achievement who are being encouraged to favor militarism and a dangerous breed of "English nationalism" in a "total surveillance society" these days, I am sorry to say.

I'm glad to see that you have been emphasising the need to control the MSM "Ministry of Propaganda" machine recently, Peace Patriot. I believe this is key, and fear Mr. Obama cannot win in the face of its lies, selective coverage and distortions.

On the so-called West's relations with Russia and elsewhere, I find the steady, measured tone coming out of the current Shanghai Cooperation Organisation meeting encouragingly sensible:

DUSHANBE, Aug. 28 (Xinhua) -- Leaders attending the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO) summit in the Tajik capital issued a joint declaration Thursday on security, energy and several other issues.

The declaration was signed by Chinese President Hu Jintao, his Russian counterpart Dmitry Medvedev, Kazakh President Nursultan Nazarbayev, Kyrgyz President Kurmanbek Bakiyev, Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon and his Uzbek counterpart Islam Karimov.

ON USE OF FORCE

The leaders agreed that any attempt to solve problems by merely resorting to force could not work and would only hinder a comprehensive settlement of local conflicts, the declaration said.

A comprehensive solution to existing problems can be found only by taking into account the interests of all parties involved and including them all in the negotiation process rather than isolating any of them, said the declaration.

Any attempt to strengthen a country's own security at the expense of that of others is detrimental to maintaining global security and stability, it said.

On the issue of South Ossetia, the SCO members expressed their deep concerns over the tension triggered by the South Ossetia conflict, and called on relevant parties to solve existing problems peacefully through dialogue, strive for reconciliation and push for negotiations.

/... http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-08/28/content_9731360.htm

Nb. "Bob Bennett", from further comments in the linked Reuters blog thread, appears to be Australian. Further down he wrote this:

Here’s a little speech I prepared for GW Bush:

‘God is good. God is great. God is good. My God is good. Bin Laden’s God is bad. His is a bad God. Saddam’s God was bad, except he didn’t have one. He was a barbarian. We are not barbarians. We don’t chop people’s heads off. We believe in freedom. So does God. I am not a barbarian. I am the democratically elected leader of a freedom-loving democracy. We are a compassionate society. We give compassionate electrocution and compassionate lethal injection. We are a great nation. I am not a dictator. He is. I am not a barbarian. He is. And he is. They all are. I possess moral authority. You see this fist? This is my moral authority. And don’t you forget it.’