Tuesday, August 26, 2008

Michael Totten says the Russians started it

Michael Totten is a free lance journalist who has spent much time in Iraq, out in the field with the troops. His dispatches on the Internet were/are the best reporting to come out of Iraq. He takes good photographs too. Any how Michael is in Tbilisi the other day getting a briefing from an American doing media relations work for the Georgian government. Sitting in on the meeting is Tom Goltz, old Caucausian hand, author of "Georgian Diary" and "Azerbaijan Diary", fluent in Russian, Georgian and various other dialects. Both men, Totten and Goltz, are highly creditable, experienced men of good judgment, and they are on the scene, not commenting from a cozy TV studio in New York.
They say the Ossetian "militia" , untrained and closer to bandits than a military, started the war by attacking and shelling existing Georgian positions. When the Georgians moved up re enforcements, the Russians called it an attack and rolled in the tanks.
There is a lot of different stories about who started it flying around. I'll believe Totten and Goltz 'cause I have read their stuff in the past and found it good, neither of them is a taker of sides, and they are present on the scene.

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