The District (pure brilliance from NewsWeek)

Russia Wants More Security For Georgian Troop Pullout; How Georgia Opened The Door To Nostalgia

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev has signed a French-brokered six point peace agreement to end it's conflict with Georgia over the breakaway region of South Ossetia.

"The president informed participants of the security council meeting that he had just now signed the six-point plan," said the Kremlin's chief spokeswoman, Natalia Timakova.

But Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Russia will pull out troops from the conflict zone in Georgia once additional security arrangements are put in place.

The ceasefire agreement signed by Russia and Georgia states that Moscow's troops will continue to implement additional security measures on a temporary basis pending the arrival of an international peacekeeping mechanism.

"The (Russian) president issued an order to the relevant authorities to start the adoption of extra security measures envisaged in the six-point plan," Mr Lavrov told reporters.

"As these security measures are implemented, the withdrawal of forces sent to carry out this reinforcement operation will be carried out."

Mr Medvedev and Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili have now both signed the French-brokered peace deal, but Mr Lavrov said the document signed by the Georgian leader was missing a key introductory part.

"The document signed by the Georgian president differs from the one which was agreed," he said. "It totally omits the introductory part saying that these principles are supported by Russia and France and calling on all sides to sign them."

He said Russia was discussing the matter with Georgia and that it would be settled through diplomatic channels.

Mr Lavrov said Russia had started consultations at the United Nations on international efforts to end the conflict.

"Additional numbers of monitors should observe the security zone. We will carry

out our obligations under the deal, depending on how other parties carry them out," he said.

Russia received a copy of the ceasefire document signed by Georgia this morning, according to the Interfax news agency.

The Ministry said the document, sent by the United States, was identical to the one signed already in Moscow by leaders of the separatist regions at the heart of the conflict, Interfax reported.

Russia has denied continuing military operations in the country. Georgia's Interior Ministry claimed this morning that Russian troops had blown up a railway bridge about 45 km from the Georgian capital Tbilisi.

Ministry spokesman Shota Utiashvili said troops had destroyed the bridge in the Kaspi region west of Tbilisi, "paralysing the Georgian railway network".

However, Russia's General Staff denied the accusation.

"We are now in peacetime. Why should we be blowing up bridges when our job is to restore ?" Colonel-General Anatoly Nogovitsyn, deputy chief of the General Staff, told a daily official military briefing.

"This therefore can only be yet another completely unverified statement. We are not conducting bombardments. I can say with full responsibility that this cannot be the case."

Meanwhile, United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will privately meet US, Russian and Georgian ambassadors today to discuss the cease-fire accord agreed yesterday.

Mr Ban has been unable to reach President Medvedev after earlier speaking with his Georgian counterpart, according to a report by AFP, citing Farhan Haq, a UN spokesman.

The UN estimates the number of people displaced by the conflict is approaching 115,000, according to a statement on its Web site yesterday.

Two days ago, the UN children's fund, Unicef, put the number of refugees at about 100,000. The latest figures show that 30,000 people uprooted from South Ossetia remain in Russia, while as many as 15,000 fled south into undisputed Georgian territory, the UN said, citing data provided by Russian and Georgian officials.

About 68,000 refugees are displaced in the rest of Georgia, according to the statement. The UN High Commissioner for Refugees Antonio Guterres will visit Georgia and Russia next week to discuss the ongoing operations.

Human Rights Watch said in an Aug. 14 report that both sides made ``indiscriminate attacks'' on civilians.

A doctor at the main hospital in South Ossetia's capital, Tskhinvali, told Human Rights Watch that the clinic handled 44 corpses and 273 wounded between Aug. 6 and Aug. 12, including civilian and military casualties, the New York-based group said.

"Human Rights Watch cannot definitely attribute specific battle damage to a particular belligerent, but witness accounts and the timing of the damage would point to Georgian fire accounting for much of the damage described'' in Tskhinvali, the report said.

Russian and South Ossetian officials earlier said as many as 2,000 civilians died in the fighting. Human Rights Watch reported seeing houses that had "clearly just been torched" in South Ossetia's ethnic Georgian villages.

The group said in a separate report on Aug. 15 that its researchers uncovered evidence Russian aircraft dropped cluster bombs in populated areas of Georgia, killing at least 11 civilians and injuring dozens.

No country has recognised South Ossetia or Abkhazia since they broke away from Georgia in wars after the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union. Russia has had peacekeepers in both regions since then and expelled all Georgian forces from the territories in recent fighting.

"Unfortunately, after what happened, it's unlikely that the Abkhaz and South Ossetians can live in a single state with Georgia," Medvedev said.

"Or some absolutely titanic efforts must be made to resolve this conflict."

He met Aug. 14 in Moscow with South Ossetian President Eduard Kokoity and Sergei Bagapsh, the leader of Abkhazia, and told them that Russia would support the regions' decisions about their future status.

From Irish Times by Bloomberg, Reuters

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But what has been the aim of Russia's involvement in Georgia? I am not sure it is just about Russia exerting 'power' in the region. In a sense it is but not purely for the sake of exerting that power. President Bush says the "territorial integrity of Georgia must be respected". Many might correctly say it is now a bit too late for that, after the carve-up of the former Yugoslavia by the Americans, ably assisted by elements within the EU. Kosovo, of course, being the latest in Western-backed declarations of independence.

It is Mr Bush, his predecessor and their disciples in Europe who have let the separatist genie out of the bottle. And once genies get out, they rarely, if ever, go back. Surely, the Russians have the right to protect the South Ossetians and assist them in their quest for self-determination. Of course, am I not being devilishly naive to suspect that situations mirror one another in terms of democratic self-determination. When it suits us, you say. How are the Spaniards doing in recognising Kosovo (difficult one that for them)?

The players in this game are all too similar. South Ossetia as Kosovo, it's separatist fighters as a KLA, Georgia as Serbia, and an energetic Russia acting as NATO. Of course, the similarities might not be perfect but the parallels to be drawn are striking.

President Bush stated that 'bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century. Only Russia can decide whether it will now put itself back on the path of responsible nations, or continue to pursue a policy that promises only confrontation and isolation'. In the same speech he explains how 'Georgia has sent troops to Afghanistan and Iraq to help others achieve the liberty that they struggled so hard to attain'. If you are somewhat confused you should be. Democratic nations are free to do what they want because they are democratically elected and thus serve in the interests of the majority of their population. But the will of the nation being attacked is ignored, provided that they are not a democracy, which means they have no right to be heard. Puzzled? I certainly am. Rhetoric and propaganda are starting to take root in a serious way and I'm feeling a little nostalgic for the Cold War. Times were simpler then and we always had an enemy to blame (or at least knew who the enemy was). The post-Cold War era has been far too confusing for my liking and often actions of supposed allies seemed questionable given the changed security paradigms. Global Jihad was hot for a while providing us with some common enemy but its form was far too intangible to grasp (not to mention being notoriously difficult to target with our own WMDs). With the slow emergence of China as a great power and the thunderous reawakening of Russia I can look forward to a time in which things once more become black and white.

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For Edwards, An 'F' In Crisis Management

From Campaigns and Elections by Shane D'Aprile and Doug Daniels

Now that former North Carolina senator and two-time presidential hopeful John Edwards has admitted to an extramarital affair with a former campaign staffer in an exclusive interview with ABC's Nightline, one prominent political strategist, who specializes in crisis management, says Edwards handled the allegations in just about the worst way possible.

"The good news for the Democrats is that [Edwards] isn't the nominee right now," says Hank Sheinkopf, a Democratic strategist who has done crisis management for numerous politicians including former New Jersey Gov. James McGreevey, who admitted to a gay extramarital affair in 2004.

"He really handled this badly," Sheinkopf says of Edwards. "Truth is always the refuge of politicians who want to survive, and he didn't tell the truth."

According to ABC News, in an interview that will air tonight, John Edwards told correspondent Bob Woodruff that he did have an affair with 44-year-old Rielle Hunter, but denied that he is the father of her child. The admission of the affair comes despite repeated denials over the past year, and throughout the course of his presidential campaign.

Last October, the National Enquirer ran a story that Hunter, responsible for producing some of Edwards' presidential campaign spots, had given birth to his child, forcing Edwards to publicly deny any romantic involvement at the time.

According to Edwards, his wife was made aware of the relationship back in 2006, and rumors began swirling within the blogosphere. But the mainstream media, reluctant to put much stock on the Enquirer's unnamed sources, largely avoided reporting the story at all.

The admission from Edwards may very well end the former senator's political career and likely nixes any speaking invitation at the Democratic National Convention in Denver at the end of this month.

Edwards, the 2004 Democratic vice presidential nominee, was rumored as a potential number two for Sen. Barack Obama, but that was probably a long-shot to begin with.

As for what advice Sheinkopf would have given Edwards after the initial report from the National Inquirer some months back: "First I would have found out the truth. Then I would have told him to go public with the truth," says Sheinkopf. "In politics these days, if you lie, you're a dead man."

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Video of Child Soldier at Guantanamo Bay Released

A video of 16-year old Omar Khadr being interrogated at Guantanamo Bay has been released today. Khadr, who is a Canadian citizen, was 15 at the time of his capture in Afghanistan. He is accused of throwing a grenade that killed a US soldier during a firefight in Afghanisatn in 2002. The video showed Khadr being interviewed by Canadian Secret Intelligence Services officials in the presence of a CIA officer during 2003. It demonstrates the effects of prolonged interrogation and detention on the Guantanamo prisoner and raises many ethical and legal questions concerning his detention.

Having been captured at the age of 15, Khadr is a child soldier and should, legally, have been dealt with according to the UN Optional Protocol to the Convention on the Rights of the Child, which both the United States and Canada are signatories. Under the convention, governments and rebel groups are prohibited from deploying children under the age of 18 in any form of armed conflict.

According to the Coalition to Stop the Use of Child Soldiers: ‘Child soldiers, even those who have committed human right abuses, should be treated first and foremost as victims of adult crimes – that is the prosecution should be prioritised of those who unlawfully recruited and used them’. They should be rehabilitated and reintegrated into society and should not be dealt with by prolonged detention, questionable treatement and possible torture. This should not preclude the possibility of prosecution, which might deny justice to the victim. However, any criminal justice process involving a former child soldier must adhere to international standards on juvenile justice. If we look at the International Criminal Court in the Hague we see that some of those accused of the worst atrocities receive due course before the law and are afforded their basic human rights. It will take courage by states to stand up to their responsibilities under the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child but this is necessary to ensure that children are not denied the rights they are entitled to.

The US detention facility at Guantanamo Bay has been criticised for breaking Internatioanal Law and the Geneva Conventions and has been subject to repeated calls for its closure. The reputation of the United States has suffered in recent years with scandals surrounding accusations of torture, the exercise of rendition flights and revelations of prisoner abuse at the Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq compounding the perception that the US is consistently mistreating prisoners in the conduct of the ‘War on Terror’.

Khadr is one of two Guantanamo detainees captured as juveniles and faces life in prison if convicted by the Guantanamo prison’s war crimes court.

Human Rights Watch state that children are direct participants in war in approximately 17 countries worldwide.

Isolating Iran Creates Stronger Asian Cooperation

Iran and Israel have spent the last number of weeks conducting provocative military exercises in a bid to demonstrate the respective strength of their armed forces. The intention may be deterrence but the further escalation of threats can only lead to negative consequences.

Israel confirmed that it conducted a major aerial military exercise over the eastern Mediterranean Sea during early June. The message was clear: Israel has the capacity to attack any Iranian nuclear programme and is willing to do so. The posturing over recent weeks by both states reached new heights on Wednesday with Iran test-firing its latest missile, the Shahab 3, which has the capability of reaching Israel, eastern Turkey and Pakistan. The next generation of their Shahab missile programme will seek to produce missiles capable of reaching Europe.

The Iranian test led to criticisms from the United States, who signed a missile-defence treaty with the Czech Republic on Wednesday, which in turn led to strong criticism from Russia who view the move as hostile. The Czech Republic will host the radar system for the proposed project. Condoleezza Rica stated that "this missile defence agreement is significant as a building block not just for the security of the United States and the Czech Republic, but also for the security of Nato and the security of the international community as a whole….Ballistic missile proliferation is not an imaginary threat."

With neigbours on both sides (Afghanistan and Iraq) being invaded by the United States, it is no wonder that Iran is feeling somewhat ill at ease. They could be next on the list but are perhaps relieved that the US Presidential system allows for only two terms. We wait to see whether John McCain will provide the third. Iran continues to maintain that the aim of its nuclear programme is purely non-military, though the scepticism that this claim has generated throughout the world has led to the imposition of sanctions on Iran. A nuclear weapon would provide Iran with a greater deterrent against potential attacks but the worry in Israel that such a weapon would be used may very well lead to pre-emptory attacks, and a precedent for this has been set.

Perhaps most worrying for the US should be the fact that their increasing isolation of Iran has resulted in the development of a stronger relationship between the Chinese and Iranian governments. In a visit to Iran during April by China’s Assistant Foreign Minister Zhai Jun, Iranian Foreign Minister Mottaki suggested the possibility of creating an Asian Union that would act as a counter balance to US and European power on the international stage. China has sought to increase trade relations with Iran and, as Western states increasingly isolate Iran, China’s influence in the region has increased. The rapidly expanding Chinese economy requires the energy sources that a nation like Iran can provide. With the growing interdependence between China and Iran, the American policy of isolating Iran may prove another failed policy. With diplomacy and modest reconciliation with North Korea, the ‘Axis of Evil’ club is now down to just one member. It may be time to re-engage with Iran in a bid to relax tensions in the region and prevent any possible move by Iran to disrupt oil shipping through a blockade of the Strait of Hormuz. Expect the posturing by all sides to continue.

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