Talk:Russo-Georgian War/Archive 26

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Archive 20

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Archive 24

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concerning Der Spiegel

http://runewsweek.ru/globus/28981 (in Russian). Colchicum (talk) 20:50, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

You found a translated, pro-Georgian Newsweek, in Russian. The fact that it's merely translated into Russian, doesn't make it a Russian source, anymore then Russia Today is regarded as an American source. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:45, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Also from that magazine: Банкиры указывают на рост просроченной задолженности - плохих кредитов, или, иначе говоря, токсичных активов. Плохие долги и вызвали кризис в США, который потом перетек в Россию. Теперь плохие долги могут вызвать вторую волну кризиса, и это уже будет чисто российская внутренняя проблема.

Translation: "The Bankers are saying that the growth of toxic assets, which started in the US, can now flow into Russia, where bad depts can conjure up a second wave of crisis, and that will be purely a problem inside Russia". Yup, US toxic assets magically become Russia's economic problem and generate a second wave of crisis. Can someone again explain to me, how this source is in any way, shape, or form pro-Russian? Or even neutral? It's just Newsweek translated into Russian. And it should be treated as such. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:50, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

What are you talking about? Where did I say that it is important whether the source is Russian or not? Russian Newsweek is not "a translated Newsweek", by the way. But I don't care if it is Russian, Indonesian or whatever. It is at least as reliable as Der Spiegel, and it says that Klussman's article is a lie. Colchicum (talk) 11:34, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Dear Colchicum: I quite understand Russian. The author of the article in question tells (quote translated) "Tagliavini did not rebuke any of the quotes [fom the comission report], cited by der Spiegel. But she said neither she, nor any authorised to do so members of the comission communicated with Spiegel." Could you please show me the words from the article in qestion that made you think Russian Newsweek calls Klussman's article [...] a lie?FeelSunny (talk) 17:49, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Looks like you can't. FeelSunny (talk) 08:36, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Strength part in the article

I find it somewhat POVed - not in numbers, but in the way we deal with them - all Ru-SO-A-related numbers are "up-to-very-much" style. What is it - a detergent TV ad? And where are those "up to 120 000 Georgian police servicemen", then? FeelSunny (talk) 19:54, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

One word: Sources. What is in the sources goes in the article, what is not in there does not. --Xeeron (talk) 20:31, 26 June 2009 (UTC)

Isn't "up to" synonymous to "at most"? Offliner (talk) 11:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem is the difference of description patterns: for Georgia there are "unknown number", for SO and A there are "up to very much".FeelSunny (talk) 11:46, 28 June 2009 (UTC)

User:Xeeron, nice to see we both agree the first version wasn't good.FeelSunny (talk) 07:42, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Requested move

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was to try this again. This discussion is mired in uncivil behavior and arguments irrelevant as to what to name the page. I will set up this discussion in a more structured manner so that the issues can be commented upon. —harej (talk) 20:37, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

2008 South Ossetia war → 2008 Russian-Georgian war — Relisting at WP:RM - discussion still ongoing; very controversial topic.--Aervanath (talk) 07:24, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Per an excellent summary of reasons posted by User:The Devil's Advocate on this page: 1. The current title ignores other fronts of the war; 2. Russian-Georgian war is a more descriptive title; 3. It is the most popular name in the international media, e.g., "Russia-Georgia war", "Russian-Georgian war". Kober^Talk 06:29, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Survey

Feel free to state your position on the renaming proposal by beginning a new line in this section with *'''Support''' or *'''Oppose''', then sign your comment with ~~~~. Since polling is not a substitute for discussion, please explain your reasons, taking into account Wikipedia's naming conventions.

Support - Because the present name is totally neglecting the war-decisive Russian attack from the west (Black Sea fleet, landing operations, para troopers etc.). The chronology says that after the attack from the west Georgian government gave up immediately the fight. - Elysander (talk) 13:11, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Oppose - It wasn't a war only between Russia and Georgia. The early fighting in South Ossetia was done by the Ossetian armed forces and Georgian military. Also in the latter stages the contribution of Ossetian militia was important. There is currently no generally accepted name for the war in use. In such cases, we should use the name of the main battleground, which in this case was South Ossetia. 2008 South Ossetia war is also much more NPOV than Russia-Georgia war. Offliner (talk) 13:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment The name does not imply it was only between Russia and Georgia, but even so no name being used by the media or respective government calls it the South Ossetia War or anything which would include the separatist regions. In Georgia it has been consistently called the August War, though beyond Georgia it doesn't seem very established. Countless Russian sources have called it a war between Russia and Georgia in those exact words and certainly plenty of Western sources have said it was between Russia and Georgia. As for not being neutral putting Russia first is irrelevant as countless examples can be given of wars where the aggressor was named second such as the Iran-Iraq War, Franco-Prussian War, or either Sino-Japanese War. There are also plenty of cases where the aggressor is named first. That argument thus holds no bearing on the title's neutrality.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:48, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

In the Franco-Prussian War, France was the agressor. Hence it's named first. The Iran-Iraq War was US Propaganda at its finest, hence that war is misnamed. It's a rare exception, such as the Yom Kippur War and Six Day War, (wars aren't usually named after holidays or the amount of days the were fought; that's days, not years for those shouting "100 years war"). In the Sino-Japanese War, China was the attacker. Way to know your history Devil's Advocate. I'm sure Kober will support it! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 02:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Support - per the arguments presented above. --Kober^Talk 15:26, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Oppose - is there a way to stop these disrupting move requests? As in like, no more move requests, PERIOD.(Igny (talk) 16:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC))

Comment - very well-explained vote. --Kober^Talk 17:21, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Support My reasons are above.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 17:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Support Strong arguments listed above. YeshuaDavid • Talk • 17:32, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Support More accurate and far more widely used in reputable sources [1] then current one [2].--Staberinde (talk) 19:12, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Support per strong arguments above. It's simply the common name for the war. Närking (talk) 19:34, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Support. This is "Russian-Georgian war" according to Russian sources. For example, Yulia Latynina tells this (an approximate translation): "I want to emphasize: this is Russian-Georgian war. The strike [by Russia] was conducted from two fronts: the Abkhazian and the South Ossetian fronts; approximately 25,000 Russian Army serviceman have been involved and several hundred tanks; rocket strikes have been conducted, and Russian strategic aviation completed sorties..." see here. Biophys (talk) 20:50, 7 June 2009 (UTC)
Support most popular name. Ostap 02:13, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Oppose This has already been voted on, the consensus was to keep the name as it is. I already stated my reasoning. LokiiT (talk) 02:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Boycotting the Vote - there was another vote one taken less then a few months ago, and Kober and company lost. There was also over 100 pages of discussion on it. John Kerry didn't ask for a revote when he lost, what makes you so damn special? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 02:49, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Support per Ostap, Elysander, and others. This was an armed conflict between Russia and Georgia, nothing else. To HistoricWarrior007, in democracies no one is elected for life. There is nothing special, that is how democratic consensus works. PetersV TALK 03:28, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment Wikipedia is not a democracy. LokiiT (talk) 03:41, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment Consensus can change. Ostap 04:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment Consensus usually means general agreement, I wouldn't describe narrow victory of one side in a poll as "consensus".--Staberinde (talk) 11:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment That is right, but the controversial moves especially to allegedly POV titles do require a consensus. No consensus to move means no move. So even in this poll, it is not enough to have a majority, it requires an overwhelming majority to demonstrate the consensus to move. And yes, a consensus may change, but only if some of the people who voted against the move changed their mind. Just because they did not vote here yet does not mean that they changed their mind. But a flash mob can indeed make it look like there was a change in the consensus. Just keep proposing the move and eventually it may happen at an opportune moment when the nay-sayers either stop voting or unable to vote for other reasons. (Igny (talk) 18:50, 8 June 2009 (UTC))

Oppose This has already been voted on, the consensus was to keep the name as it is. nejron (talk) 08:40, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Support per arguments above. This should be quite obvious – there were two main parties in this conflict. --Epiq (talk) 14:02, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

comment There were three main parties actually. Almost as many South Ossetian soldiers were killed as Georgian. They sustained far greater losses than Russia. To suggest they weren't a main party when they sustained that many casualties and most of the fighting was on their soil is simply absurd. LokiiT (talk) 20:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose until there is evidence that this is the predominant name of the conflict. I would be more willing to accept Russian-Georgian War; there is no real reason to include the date. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 15:31, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes, I certainly agree because that was the only war between Russia and Georgia (historically, these countries were allies) . Red Army invasion of Georgia is normally described as "Soviet-Georgian" war. However, it would be better to rename it now as suggested by majority and then perhaps discuss again.Biophys (talk) 05:33, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment The Hwanker is back at canvassing :) Colchicum (talk) 16:47, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Comment Why do you keep bringing this word, canvassing, up? I just hope that you do not blame everyone for the sin because you have committed it yourself. Noticed a rush of support votes in the first 20 hours or so? If it is not canvassing per se, it is definitely a premeditated coordinated effort by the people who were beat in the previous poll and just can not let it go. I want to ask the admin who will make the final decision, please, wait for at least a few weeks to let the oppose votes eventually overcome this artificially skewed poll. (Igny (talk) 18:20, 8 June 2009 (UTC))

What sin? What are you talking about? Are you drunk or what? Colchicum (talk) 19:18, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

It's an American and Russian saying. Happens when a certain wikipedia user provokes others via petty insults, you wouldn't happen to know who does that here, would you Colchicum? I mean seriously, do you happen to know a guy who uses kindergarden insults against other wikipedia editor? I wonder who might that be, don't you wonder that Colchicum? Anyways, the saying goes "Let him who is without sin cast the first stone". As for canvassing, Ingy is correct. There has been a coordinated effort of supporters to change the title. Last vote lasted for a month, this vote will also last at least a month, if it's even going to be recognized And the title isn't getting changed. It's strange that in a single day, people who haven't edited this article for a while, simply find it. This all reminds me of a Ukrainian joke: "Yanukovich won the 33rd round, we will have a revote in the 34th round tomorrow". HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh, so I meant it was you, right? Well, then I can tell the world where the canvassing took place: [3]. Isn't it strange that in a single day, people who have never edited this article, simply find it? BTW, the article and the noticeboard are on my watchlist, and in real life Yanukovich lost :) Keep dreaming. Colchicum (talk) 20:44, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Colchicum, asking people if they're drunk, or telling them to "keep dreaming" is entirely unnecessary and counterproductive to solving the issue at hand. Please tone down the incivility. LokiiT (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, what does it take to accuse me of canvassing? Hilarious. I haven't even voted so far, thanks for the reminder, guys. Colchicum (talk) 21:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Let's see. So far three users that have never edited the article prior to this discussion suddenly expressed support. It's a miracle! When I was accused of canvassing I contacted users that actually edited the article. He's not accusing you of canvassing Colchicum, but rather your side. And so far, he's correct. I mean three users stumble upon this article in a day! Amazing! Also, saying "I haven't even voted" and then voting one second later makes you look like, well like a Colchicum. And don't turn this into a blog about Ukraine. My joke wasn't about Ukraine as much as it was about pointing out the silliness of having another vote, coming in here, flaming the editors and hoping they'd respond so you can report them. I'm dissapointed, no new tactics, same old tricks. Anyways, if you want to talk about politics, use my talkpage, I'll be happy to continue there. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:27, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

So you left a loaded message on the Russia wikiproject noticeboard, as if the wikiproject could have edited the article, and now you wonder why three users stumble upon this article in a day. Just amazing. Colchicum (talk) 08:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Just to clarify: I don't know about the other two editors "that have never edited the article before prior to this discussion [who] suddenly expressed support", but I for one did actually "stumble upon this article". Earlier today, I read the announcement that you left on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Russia page telling the members of WikiProject Russia that there was a proposal to move this article again (which, as Colchicum pointed out recently, I must say does have a bit of a canvassing tone). Originally, I had planned to oppose the merger as I previously felt that this article's title was quite descriptive and NPOV as is. However, rather than being a bit rash and immediatly opposing the move, I read the article several times and all of the evidence that each side had brought to the table. And, after doing so, my opinion changed, as I felt that the editors supporting the merger had proven (at least to me) that their point of view on the article's title was more commonly used, more NPOV, more descriptive, and, on the whole, better. Therefore, I decided to vote on the side of the move. I'm just letting you know, HistoricWarrior007, there was no canvassing involved in my vote whatsoever. Laurinavicius (talk) 00:16, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Support. The suggested new name is both more common in the media and more descriptive to outsiders. Just a note on all those claiming there was consensus to keep the name before: You are wrong. There was no consensus to move, but no consensus to keep the old name either. Instead there was a split vote with no side having significantly more support than the other and the final outcome being decided by 1 vote (in favor of the side that used vote canvassing, keep). --Xeeron (talk) 20:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

comment again, wikipedia is not a democracy. We don't decide things by who gets more votes. There needs to be overwhelming and clear consensus in order to make a title change. LokiiT (talk) 21:00, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Very well summarized. So you'll agree that your comment above "This has already been voted on, the consensus was to keep the name as it is. I already stated my reasoning. LokiiT (talk) 02:32, 8 June 2009 (UTC)" is not true, since a one vote difference is no consensus. --Xeeron (talk) 14:53, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

No, that's exactly opposite. There wasn't nearly enough support to justify a name change. The one vote difference is completely irrelevant. LokiiT (talk) 06:54, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

Support per the strong arguments listed above. The "Russian-Georgian war" is, by far, the most common and well-known name. Laurinavicius (talk) 21:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Support per above. Colchicum (talk) 21:29, 8 June 2009 (UTC)
Support google search has changed from the first days of the war. Russian Georgia War is now the commonly accepted internation term. And is used in international media, press, and scholorly articles.XavierGreen (talk) 01:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Support per all support arguments above. It was not only in South Ossetia. Such a move seems reasonable. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:39, 9 June 2009 (UTC)
Boycott We have discussed it recently. It shouldn't be moved to 2008 Russian-Georgian war. We know that Georgian army fled when Russian army entered the Georgian boarders (do not confuse it with South Ossetian boarders). So, if you are insisting on moving it, then the article name should be War in Georgia after the War in South Ossetia.
Support. Our duty to the WP:Dear Reader requires us to make our articles as easy to find as reasonably possible. Among other things, this means we should use the best-known keywords. Everybody knows where Russia is. Georgia (country) is a known country — Kindzmarauli is only one of its famous products — everybody who has sit through a year of high school geography can find it on a map. But Ossetia? It's not a sovereign entity; there's no industry nor natural resources to speak of. It's the name of a small patch of land few people know about, unless they're familiar with the situation already. And face it, the people looking up our article on Wikipedia are not the people who have thorough knowledge of this issue; to the contrary, the people interested in the article are people with rather limited advance knowledge about its subject matter. Informing people with limited knowledge is, after all, the very mission of any encyclopædia. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 12:32, 12 June 2009 (UTC)
Support as per all support arguments listed above. It is more accurate and used all over various sources. Iberieli (talk) 03:52, 15 June 2009 (UTC)
Support Everyone knows what the 2008 Russu-Georgian war was; but I've never heard of it being used under this title, ever, in the media. "South Ossetia War" is a misleading title, and one which few are familiar with. ResMar 21:21, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

I've never heard it called the Russu-Georgian War by anyone. It has 0 hits on Google and Google Scholar. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:10, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Oppose The proposed title obscures the importance of South Ossetia's role in the war. Georgia invaded South Ossetia, not Russia afterall. Renaming this article to the proposed title would be like renaming the Kosovo War to the NATO-Yugoslavia War. --Tocino 17:41, 25 June 2009 (UTC)

The problem there bud is that calling it South Ossetia War obscures the importance of Russia's role and ignores Abkhazia entirely. We can not reasonably accommodate all of them in the title but calling this the South Ossetia War does diminish the scope. In the case of the Kosovo War only airstrikes and air combat took place outside of Kosovo which is quite typical in any war aside for the occasional incursion. In this case there was a whole other ground conflict in Georgia outside South Ossetia and not on the periphery either. When naming this article it cannot simply be ignored. The nature and scope of the conflict clearly disqualify the current title. South Ossetia and Abkhazia were merely toadies of Russia and everyone knows that much so there's no need to include them in the title. Unlike some I saw this conflict coming and it was because of Kosovo. The escalation of the situation which inevitably resulted in this war was in response to the recognition of Kosovo's independence by the U.S. and its allies (toadies) and Georgia is the American puppet put in place to box in Russia. The innocent civilians killed during this war were the victims of imperial machinations. Personally, I fail to see why South Ossetia is the key element here.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:47, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Now I get to have fun with the Devil's Advocate's argument. I'm just going to change up some names here, but keep the overall theme intact. So here we go:

The problem there bud is that calling it Vietnam War obscures the importance of America's role and ignores China's entirely. We can not reasonably accommodate all of them in the title but calling this the Vietnam War does diminish the scope. In the case of the Kosovo War only airstrikes and air combat took place outside of Kosovo which is quite typical in any war aside for the occasional incursion. In this case there was a whole other ground conflict in Vietnam outside the USA and not on the periphery either. When naming this article it cannot simply be ignored. The nature and scope of the conflict clearly disqualify the current title. Vietnam and China were merely toadies of USSR and everyone knows that much so there's no need to include them in the title. Unlike some I saw this conflict coming and it was because of Kosovo. The escalation of the situation which inevitably resulted in this war was in response to the recognition of Kosovo's independence by the U.S. and its allies (toadies) and Vietnam is the Soviet puppet put in place to box in other Asian states. The innocent civilians killed during this war were the victims of imperial machinations. Personally, I fail to see why Vietnam is the key element here.

That was fun! Let's do this again!

The problem there bud is that calling it Iraq War obscures the importance of United States' role and ignores United Kingdom entirely. We can not reasonably accommodate all of them in the title but calling this the Iraq War does diminish the scope. In the case of the Kosovo War only airstrikes and air combat took place outside of Kosovo which is quite typical in any war aside for the occasional incursion. In this case there was a whole other ground conflict in Iraq outside Iraqi Kurdistan and not on the periphery either. When naming this article it cannot simply be ignored. The nature and scope of the conflict clearly disqualify the current title. U.K. and Spain were merely toadies of United States and everyone knows that much so there's no need to include them in the title. Unlike some I saw this conflict coming and it was because of Kosovo. The escalation of the situation which inevitably resulted in this war was in response to the recognition of Kosovo's independence by the U.S. and its allies (toadies) and Kurdistani Iraq is the American puppet put in place to box in rest of Iraq. The innocent civilians killed during this war were the victims of imperial machinations. Personally, I fail to see why Iraq is the key element here.

Want me to do another one? Now to respond: the war was over the capital of South Ossetia. The key battle, the winner of which won the war, was the Battle of Tskhinvali. Thus South Ossetia war the key element here. Also, Abkhazia is not a toadie of Russia. First the pro-Russian guy didn't get elected in Abkhazia. Kinda hard to be a puppet and not listen to the master. The only thing that Russia controls in Abkhazia, is the defense of Abkhazia, which makes sense, because prior to WWII, had France been put in charge of the defense of Benelux, or USSR in defense of Czeckoslovakia, Hitler wouldn't have had the running start he did. Thus it makes sense for Russia to be in charge of defense in Abkhazia, but otherwise, the country is independent, and contrary to popular belief, the only coup that the Russian/Red Army ever did, was Beria's, and I don't think anyone misses Beria too much. Also, Abkhazia offered Kosovo recognition, in a move that Russia didn't like.

South Ossetia wants to be with North Ossetia. It was Stalin who partitioned the duo. Ossetians don't view themselves as South or North Ossetians, they view themselves as Ossetians. To slightly alter Obama's quote: "there are no North Ossetians or South Ossetians, there are just Ossetians!" Ossetians want to live with *gasp* Ossetians. How hard is this to comprehend? Also, Ossetians and Russians have lived together in peace for centuries, it makes sense that they ally, but South Ossetia is no more a puppet of Russia, then U.K. of the U.S.

Are you seriously arguing that Georgia can "box-in" Russia? Oh boy. Russia's land area: 17,075,400 km2. Georgia's land area: 69,700 km2. Have fun boxing. Also, you aren't the only one who called this war. I called it too, but for a different reason. I also said that the Russians were going to win this one. But damn, I didn't even realize that the Russians were going to be this good. It's like the days of the Red Army coming back. Anyways, during the First and Second Chechen Wars, Russians have repeatedly accused Georgians of helping out Chechens. For instance in the Pankisi crisis. Putin, Medvedev and United Russia, want a stable Russia, and therefore a stable Caucasian region. Optimist say that Putin loves Russia, hence he wants to stabilize it. Pessimists say that Putin needs more KGB recruits, and a stable Russia will provide more KGB recruits. Either way, Putin wanting a stable Russia is a fact. And by extension - that means a stable Caucasian Region. Saakashvili wants to De-Facto annex South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and thus isn't happy with the status quo. Thus Saakashvili wants to destabilize the region. When you have an army that likes stability and an army that likes instability - they are going to fight each other. Kosovo's recognition enabled Russia and Nicaragua to recognize South Ossetia and Abkhazia, but it didn't cause the war, which would have happened with or without the Kosovo War. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Strong Oppose The vote have occurred more than once already. Skimming over the discussion, I can't help but see, that this new vote bears not a single new pro-argument. Everything mentioned has already been discussed and matched with appropriate counter-argument many times before in absolutely similar and pointless votes. Of course, this vote, just like the previous ones, isn't going to miraculously bring us a consensus, but here's my vote nevertheless. --ETST (talk) 19:18, 28 June 2009 (UTC)
Support, per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:GOOGLE. It is not our job to decide the best or most appropriate name for this war. It is our job to reflect the name most commonly used by reliable sources that refer to this war.

Results 1 - 10 of about 64,200 for "russia-georgia war" -wikipedia.

Results 1 - 10 of about 42,000 for "russian-georgian war" -wikipedia.

Results 1 - 10 of about 19,500 for "South Ossetia war" -wikipedia.

That's pretty decisive. The quibbling should be about "Russia-Georgia war" vs. "Russian-Georgian War". Also, votes/comments above based on "we already voted on this" are not arguments and should not count for much. --Born2cycle (talk) 04:51, 29 June 2009 (UTC)

Russian-Georgian War would be part of Russia-Georgia War. Also, 40,000 pages on Google isn't decisive. It's a joke. When you did your research for "South Ossetia War" you got 19,500. When I did mine, I got http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22South+Ossetia+War%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi= 23,600 hits, or 4,000 more. Also some newspapers called it the S. Ossetian War, so removing South from the name, brings it to 32,100 searches. But the most popular name on Google is "August War" which has 192,000 hits. http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22August+War%22&aq=f&oq=&aqi= According to you, that's pretty decisive and yet, I don't see you arguing for that name. It's also #1 on Google Scholar. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, the we already voted on it arguments do count. For the simple reason that we don't revote for names every two months based on Kober's whims. It was discussed at lenght twice. It was voted on. It was rejected. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:39, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Discussion

Any additional comments:

There has already been a vote on this. The move was rejected by consensus of editors.FeelSunny (talk) 09:42, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

It was not a formal request for move, but just an opinion poll regarding editors' choice of several possible titles. We will see whether "consensus" can be achieved now without widespread canvassing used by certain users to call his compatriots to arms. --Kober^Talk 09:51, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, but this is just wasting everyone's time. We have been through this over and over again. By launching this you are forcing everyone to reiterate their arguments for the umpteenth time. We should be improving the article itself instead. Offliner (talk) 12:40, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Noone is oblidged to spend his/her time on the issue. You can devote your energy to "improving the article" if you think that the renewed discussion wastes your time. Could you, guys, just say "Support" or "Oppose" and provide a brief rationale for your vote instead of trying to obstruct the move request?--Kober^Talk 12:53, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

What is so good about the move request that noone can obstruct it? You say it like obstructing the move is a bad thing. I say, you better stop your disrupting move requests, and stop obstructing other editors to obstruct your disruptions. (Igny (talk) 15:17, 7 June 2009 (UTC))

Choose your words. I'm not disrupting anything, and your word salad is offending. If you don't like the move, vote "Oppose". Period.--Kober^Talk 15:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

Oh yes, you are disrupting. And the word obstructing was your choice. (Igny (talk) 16:25, 7 June 2009 (UTC))

I'm not going to react to your provocative tirades. --Kober^Talk 17:41, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

That "we already voted about it" approach isn't going to cut then current title fails so clearly against proposed title in places like Google Scholar. Not to mention that last time there was pretty solid case of WP:CANVASSING.--Staberinde (talk) 19:33, 7 June 2009 (UTC)

You're oh so "solid" case of canvassing was a newbie mistake that you trumped up for your POV purposes. All I did was notify 5 editors, who have PREVIOUSLY EDITED this article, and my sin of placing the comments on the talkpage of Russia vs. WikiProject:Russia. Also, we've voted on it recently, you don't get to re-vote anytime that it doesn't suit your needs. There has been multiple pages of discussion on it, over 100 pages, and the Devil's Advocate's arguments, were soundly defeated. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

So why did you rush to announce it at wikiproject:Russia but didn't mention it at wikiproject:Georgia? You do realize that neutrally notifying people requires giving same notification for both sides? Not to mention that you did exactly the same during Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Discrimination of ethnic minorities in Estonia.--Staberinde (talk) 11:25, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

No one is stopping you from notifying WikiProject:Georgia. You're more than welcome to do so. As for the other WikiProject mention, that was concerning whether or not the article should be a part of WikiProject Russia or not. It had nothing to do with renaming. Yup, you're playing hang the witches again. This isn't Salem, it is not 1692. Wiki Users can no longer treat fellow editors as witches. Things have changed! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Note: the last (we've already had several) naming discussion ended on 7 April. The results can be seen here: [4]. Obviously, the initiators of this new "vote" are refusing to comply with the result they didn't like. Offliner (talk) 02:38, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Note to note: There was not a request for move in April. It was just an opinion poll regarding multipe titles. --Kober^Talk 04:34, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Same exact thing. You sir are gaming the system. In April there was a request to change the title. All your request for moving does, Kober, is changing the title. Instead of saying "have an apple" you are saying "grab an apple". Also, the multiple titles argument is just plain silly, because everyone could vote for every title, so in a run-off election, the votes would be exactly the same. Quite frankly I'm not sure what you're doing here is even allowed under Wikipedia rules. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

This was already voted on, multiple times. It had over 100 pages of discussion. You aren't going to get your way by spamming this page with your POV request Kober. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 02:43, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Kober undoubtedly did this because of my recent comments on the title and I have no interest in pushing a POV. There is nothing biased about this name neither the order of the names, countless examples of the aggressor being second in the name instead of first, nor the fact it calls it a war between Russia and Georgia since even Medvedev said it was. There is also no need to mention South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Italy fought in the Austro-Prussian War after all.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 03:54, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

You didn't even know that France was the agressor in the Franco-Prussian War! When Kosovo and Serbia fought, the title is Kosovo War. Thus by asking us to change this title, you - the Devil's Advocate - are following Bush's argument that Kosovo is a unique case. Otherwise, if Kosovo's not a unique case, why should the titles be any different? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:35, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Fine instead of the Franco-Prussian War how about the Iran-Iraq War, the Russo-Japanese War, and how about the 2008 Djiboutian–Eritrean border conflict? In all of those the aggressor is second, not first. Your comment about Kosovo is nonsense since there was a South Ossetia War and Abkhazia War in the early 1990's. There was also the Nagorno-Karabakh War.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:08, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I do not believe there is any such rule of putting the aggressor first; but the Russians began the Russo-Japanese War. They were unwise to do so; but that's a different question. (The order is for euphony; hence the Spanish-American War and the modern usage of Philippine-American War; there is no real question that McKinley began both of those.) Septentrionalis PMAnderson 16:30, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually it's a tradition. Thank you again for correcting The Devil's Advocate's lack of historical knowledge in regards to the Russo-Japanese War. Traditionally, and in over 90% of the wars named in such manner, the attacker goes first. The fact that the attacker goes first is ingrained into our minds. Think of the popular game Axis & Allies. It's not called Allies & Axis now, is it? Or about how the Plaintiff in Court goes before the Defendant. The Iran-Iraq War is the oddball, because the Corporate Media tried to demonize Iran. I mean those Iranians, they couped the government that the US brought in via a coup! Damn them! So Iranians were demonized as the bad guys, and thus placed first as the attackers. It happens extremely rarely. It is military incorrect and I'm not going to let that happen here. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

No, it isn't. Axis and Allies and Franco-Prussian War are both scansion. Septentrionalis PMAnderson 00:01, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Remember this is an encyclopedia and not your personal political blog. Närking (talk) 20:51, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

I was merely pointing out why Iran-Iraq War is a problem to use here in the shortest way possible. Considering that changing the title is the topic of the day, in more ways then one, I think showing past precedent of how wars were named, and exposing bad case precedent that's been used less then 10 percent of the time, and even then incorrectly, is hardly "blogging". Besides, I'm never this nice when I actually blog about warfare, it's mean, kids die, no point in being nice about it in a blog. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:17, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Nonsense, Russia didn't start the war. They may have been carrying out an expansionist policy in Manchuria, but that was not part of Japan or a Japanese territory. Nothing they did was military aggression against Japan. The Japanese were the ones who engaged in military aggression first. Even so this is missing the point, I can point out countless examples contradicting this absurd notion of aggressors being placed first in the order. The first two Indo-Pakistani Wars were both started by Pakistan. The two Sino-Japanese Wars were also started by the Japanese. The order has nothing to do with who started the war.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:52, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Kober, would you please explain why do we need a new "poll", "naming campain", "names consideration" or anything? Do you beleive that anything important, both in arguments, and opinions, was missed in the previous discussions?FeelSunny (talk) 15:07, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Could you, FeelSunny and Co, leave Kober alone and stop this hysteria? Everyone has the right to propose the move. Several users find the current title inadequate and I decided to initiate a formal procedure for renaming. It is not against Wikipedia's policy. If you object to it, vote "Oppose". I don't know how else to explain you anything.--Kober^Talk 15:12, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Actually it's called gaming the system. The only thing your "move" does is rename the article. People who are voting deserve to know when the system is being gamed. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:37, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

The goal of a naming discussion is to see whether there is consensus for the move. But why was this new discussion launched so soon after the last one? All those people who voted the last time - have they changed their minds? Unless they have, their opinions are all still valid. Offliner (talk) 23:22, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

If their arguments were in conflict with rules, as all objecting to the proposed title were, they weren't valid then.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 23:55, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

Consensus can change, and Wikipedia's all about consensus. In this case, it looks like it has changed. --Patar knight - ^chat/_{contributions} 02:37, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

There is no indication that consensus has changed on this issue. Compare the above "votes" with the opinions of the previous discussion below. You will see that most of those who opposed the move have not yet voted in the new discussion, where as many of the supporters have. However, everyone's opinion is still valid. Offliner (talk) 02:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

From what I see, Offliner, Patar knight is correct: the consensus appears to have changed. If you compare the above votes to the votes from the previous survey, you'll see that 15 editors currently support the move, as compared to 23 during the previous survey, and that only 5 editors currently oppose the move, as compared to 24 during the previous survey [note that Igny voted for both sides with the same edit]. So, in the past two months, since the closing of the last survey and the opening of this one, the consensus appears to have dramatically changed. However, this current poll has been open only for a day-and-a-half, so it assuredly needs much more time, seeing as the previous survey lasted for exactly a month. But at the current moment, it appears, most assuredly, that the consensus has swung enormously, from barely favoring the opposers of the move, to favoring the supporters of the move by a 3:1 ratio. My regards to all, Laurinavicius (talk) 03:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

You are forgetting that 10 of those who voted "support" above also voted the same way the last time. We only have about 4 new supporters (I think), and 1 new opponent. So the count is 27 - 25 for "support." Hardly a consensus in any way. Offliner (talk) 07:10, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Hmmm...maybe we are counting differently, but I count only 7 editors who voted "Support" above who also did so below. I also counted 15 total users voting "Support" above. So, fifteen minus seven equals eight. Eight plus twenty-three equals thirty-one. Therefore, from the way I've counted, the count is 31 - 25 for "Support". But you're right, that is definitely not a consensus any way you look at it. My regards to all, Laurinavicius (talk) 07:48, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Y'know, this constant and repetitive badgering back and forth isn't getting us anywhere and we're no sooner reaching a consensus than ever before. Maybe a new title that compromises the two titles that are currently being discussed should be suggested. Any thoughts on this? Laurinavicius (talk) 07:58, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Consensus cannot change overnight. The last vote took a month per Xeeron's request. No one objected to that request. This vote isn't going to take any time less time than a month. I've seen what's been done here. It's been a blitz-vote by the people who have generally made anti-Russian edits, and now they want to lock it down before the rest of the Wiki Community had the right to respond. Wikipedia is not a vehicle to fit your POV needs. This isn't Fox News. You won't get a result before the month is up. You will be laughed at for saying that concensus has changed, within a week. Most of the voters who voted in the previous discussion haven't even been informed of this vote, and yet YeshuaDavid, one of the people that hasn't edited this article at all, suddenly votes. I'm assuming he keeps on his watch, like Colchicum. And Lauri - did you count the 27 people who voted against it last time. I think those 27 people should be informed about this vote. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:44, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

To respond to that directly (I nearly missed this), you don't have to be involved in a page's history to be involvedcin a move request. Concensus does change, and I think this dicussion has attracted a wider range of editors than previously. The move is strong for all the reasons listed above, and the proposed name appears to be more common. YeshuaDavid • Talk • 19:46, 20 June 2009 (UTC)

I think those 27 people should be informed about this vote.

If you start informing people you need to inform everyone who participated in last title discussion. Both all those who supported/opposed "Russian-Georgian war" and "South Ossetia war", and also all those who didnt vote for or against any of those two options, but backed or opposed some other titles that were on table ("August war", "Georgian war" etc.).--Staberinde (talk) 08:48, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

First of all, I realize that consensus cannot possibly change overnight, or even in a short period of time such as a week. It takes a lengthy period of time for a consensus to change, weeks or even months. However, I have never stated anything that could be construed as this. What I believe that you are referring to was a comparison I made between the results of the previous poll and the votes so far of this survey. A brief summary of what I said is that the votes as of a day-and-a-half into this poll were suggestive that a consensus would be reached after its completion. However, after thinking about it for a while after making that edit, I realized that the results of this current poll would probably end up similarly to the previous poll: with no consensus being made. So, in my edit at 07:58 on 9 June 2009, I simply stated that this "constant and repetitive badgering" has been going on since early March (which is far too long, in my opinion) and that a consensus is still just about as far from being reached as it was three months ago. Therefore, I just pointed out that after three months of fervent debate, maybe a compromising title should be proposed, one that includes the main points that both parties want in the article's title, and I asked for some feedback on that idea.

Secondly, I completely agree with Staberinde: if people are going to be informed about this current polling, then everyone who voted in the previous title discussion and have worked on the article should be informed about it in a NPOV manner that encourages the editor to read and comprehend all of the evidence that both sides bring to the table. Either everyone or no one should be informed about this article. My regards to all, Laurinavicius (talk) 00:59, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I have never stopped anyone from informing anyone else. I don't make petty canvassing accusations unlike some of the other editors here. Kober accused me of canvassing when I informed a person who as editing this article a whole month before the vote. And Colchicum seems to be accusing me of it right now. If a person edited this article, it's ok to inform them. Also I agree with Lauri's suggestion, that if this discussion is deemed legal, it should run for at least two months. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:50, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Thank you for agreeing with me on this. I also agree with you on the fact that "[i]f a person edited this article, it's ok to inform them". However, accusations of canvassing do not come about just from whom you inform about a discussion, but how you inform them, if it's from a POV that insinuates of even outright states that you want them to support a particular side.

Also, seeing as there have been accusations of canvassing just flying everywhere, I would like to let everyone know that I have left messages on all of the talk pages of the WikiProjects that this article is a member of that have not already been notified about this survey (Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Georgia (country), Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Abkhazia, Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Ossetia, and Wikipedia talk:WikiProject International relations). This message lets all of the members of the aforementioned WikiProjects know about the renaming proposal in a manner that I view as NPOV, although if you do not feel that it is NPOV, please do not hesitate to let me know and I will change it upon reading the message. My regards to all, Laurinavicius (talk) 02:17, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I had a look at Google Scholar search results, and I got the impression that actually, "August war" is used most. "August war" Georgia gives 99 hits, "August 2008 war" Georgia 33, "Russian-Georgian war" 44, "Russo-Georgian war" 33 and "Georgian-Russian war" 19. Comments? If these results stand, and if they match with wat other reliable sources say, I will support a move only to "August war". If more disambiguation is needed it would have to be "August 2008 war". sephia karta | di mi 08:31, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I forgot to look at "Russia-Georgia war" (33 results) and "Georgia-Russia war" (11), that doesn't change my point though.sephia karta | di mi 08:35, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

I'm just pointing this out to you, sephia karta, but although "August War" is used the most overall on Google Scholar, "Russian-Georgian War" is the most used title for this year. If you would look at the dates at which these works were published, between 85 and 90 of the articles using the term "August War" were from the latter part of 2008. Meanwhile, of the 51 results that use "Russian-Georgian War" (there is a discrepancy between our figures for some reason), only 8 were from 2008, while the remainder were from 2009. Therefore, "Russian-Georgian War" is, by far, the most common and well-known title at the present moment, as the 42 scholarly works from 2009 that use it greatly dwarf any other title possibility from the current year. "Russian-Georgian War" is the most well-known and common term for the war used today, which is a key reason why it should be used as the title of this article. Laurinavicius (talk) 19:41, 11 June 2009 (UTC)

Sounds to me like you're just shopping for criteria now. Most of the scholarly works on the war haven't even come out yet. 42 "scholarly" works don't give a war its title. And we don't rename wars based on the title that most popular in any given year. This isn't a popularity contest. It is most definately not an annual popularity contest. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:41, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

With the current title in place this article distorts the historical fact and sways the discussion towards a certain conclusion. This title makes the war chiefly about South Ossetia and this is reflected in the background here as well as the background article. However, the background to this conflict is less about South Ossetia and more about Russia-Georgia relations. It was the lifting of CIS sanctions in response to the recognition of Kosovo's independence which sparked the series of escalations which ultimately manifested in a full-scale war. These escalations chiefly centered in Abkhazia. There were rising hostilities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Anyone who was watching this story, like myself, could see it was only a matter of which region sparked the inevitable war between Russia and Georgia. It could have just as easily been Abkhazia which sparked the war. By keeping this title we are denying that reality and sanctioning the dissemination of information which misleads the reader. The uninformed reader who looks at this article alone will likely not see it in the broader geopolitical perspective. If this article included background from the article 2008 Georgia-Russia Crisis it would be hard for any to argue against the proposed change because it would be clear that South Ossetia is not the main focus of the war.

One additional example of how this title distorts the historical fact is that in the conflict box on conflicts in the former Soviet Union this particular conflict is called the 2nd South Ossetia War, which is not even remotely appropriate as the event in Abkhazia would essentially be the Third Abkhazia War. However listing them separately would ignore the common thread tying them together, that of Russia assisting in each war and launching invasion into undisputed Georgian territory from both regions. As such Abkhazia and South Ossetia would constitute different fronts in a broader war which can not be assigned to either in any manner.

I can only see one plausible alternative to a rename of this article and that would be creating two additional articles one for the conflict in Abkhazia and another for the conflict in South Ossetia which would both be included as part of the broader Russian-Georgian War.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 20:19, 27 June 2009 (UTC)

Opinions from the previous discussion

I've restored the opinions made during the previous discussion which was conducted just a short while ago. These opinions are all still relevant in determining consensus, unless the editors have changed their minds. Of course, everyone's opinion should be counted only once. Offliner (talk) 01:56, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section.

2008 South Ossetia war

Support

Extremely strong support HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:43, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Support for now (Igny (talk) 16:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC))
Support -- Offliner (talk) 18:19, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong Support --Life is like a box of chocolates (talk) 23:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Support - the war was centred around South Ossetia although Abkhazia was also important. I think it is precise enough Alex Bakharev (talk) 00:41, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Support – unambiguous, concrete, precise. --Zlerman (talk) 01:23, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Support, this title is accurate and does not paint aggressors. --Tavrian 02:58, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Support, neutral title easy to understand. --ellol (talk) 05:38, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Support: defines the place unambiguously. NVO (talk) 11:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong support -- unambigous. Supported by medias. The place denotates the conflict perfectly. There are no argues about order of naming the conflict sides. Another advantage is this is a perfectly neutral option. FeelSunny (talk) 12:41, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
The only option offered that is not misleading, biased, or a neologism. –Black Falcon ^(Talk) 20:18, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Support as per Zlerman and FeelSunny --Russavia ^Dialogue 04:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong support per FeelSunny and Black Falcon. --ETST (talk) 14:41, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong support This is not the appropriate name as more parties and territories were involved however it is the best way for the reader to find the article --XChile (talk) 17:14, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Support The best of the options in my opinion. Not perfect, but at least it acknowledges that this was a war about South Ossetia and it doesn't push a POV about who the aggressor was. LokiiT (talk) 01:40, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Support: there was no official declaration of war, so I would rather call it 2008 South Ossetia conflict, but this gives a better context than the alternatives. -- Wesha (talk) 05:09, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Weak support Taamu (talk) 13:04, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Support as the best of the options listed here. It would be preferable if Abkhazia was mentioned in the title as well, though. Robofish (talk) 23:56, 14 March 2009 (UTC)
Support Per Robofish. יחסיות האמת (talk) 09:10, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
'Support. The best option out of suggested — vvv (talk) 19:54, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
–Juliancolton | ^Talk 14:06, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
'Support. KNewman (talk) 15:32, 5 April 2009 (UTC)
Support- Denotes the place, avoids "taking sides", is clear, concise, and- importantly- understandable to the average reader. Commander Zulu (talk) 10:52, 7 April 2009 (UTC)
Patton^t/c 14:32, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

2008 Russia–Georgia war

Support

Weak support (Igny (talk) 16:57, 7 March 2009 (UTC))
Support --Xeeron (talk) 17:37, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Support --Kober^Talk 18:29, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Support --Staberinde (talk) 21:25, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Support – Närking (talk) 21:49, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Support - Colchicum (talk) 22:16, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
Support Ostap 04:02, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
SupportBiophys (talk) 04:11, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Support.Geagea (talk) 09:44, 8 March 2009 (UTC)
Support good name for the article, readers should be able to find the article with this title. Ijanderson (talk) 02:23, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong Support The most used name internationally and for people who are not experts on the Russian/Gerogian affairs. Usually in such cases of naming belligerents in the title, people name the stronger country first. --Darwish (talk) 02:58, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Support --Eurocopter (talk) 19:24, 9 March 2009 (UTC)
Support, per Ijanderson and Darwish. Why hide the fact the the major belligerents were Russia and Georgia? Martintg (talk) 06:42, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong Support This names when and who, per Darwish07 and others. The title should reflect something that is logical for the average reader. Also, one does not have to "formally" declare war to have war or to be able to describe a military conflict as "war." PetersV TALK 19:44, 10 March 2009 (UTC)
Support. dima (talk) 06:50, 11 March 2009 (UTC)
Support Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 00:47, 15 March 2009 (UTC)
Support --Yakudza (talk) 15:01, 17 March 2009 (UTC)
Support - Biruitorul ^Talk 15:32, 23 March 2009 (UTC)
Support - Kouber (talk) 10:12, 25 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong Support This is the most appropriate title for the article. The opposition to it mentions irrelevant matters like South Ossetia not being included in the title. Many article titles include none of the parties involved. The primary focus of the conflict was Russia against Georgia. It was the intervention of Russia that kept this war going and what made this conflict so notable. Ultimately Russia's actions extended well beyond South Ossetia and in fact the current title does not reflect how broad this conflict was, which is a key criteria for naming articles. There was a whole other front that is basically ignored by the current title. This title is the only alternative which seems to be getting considerable support and I would say it's completely neutral. It mentions the two primary belligerents in the conflict without showing any preferences towards either perspective.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:53, 29 March 2009 (UTC)
Strong support JEdgarFreeman (talk) 13:40, 2 April 2009 (UTC)
Support - per The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs). —Ed 17 ^{(Talk / Contribs)} 13:42, 8 April 2009 (UTC)
Support - per The Devil's Advocate (talk · contribs) - Elysander (talk) 20:31, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

items list

The items list should wether be corrected or deleted. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 92.196.61.223 (talk) 12:15, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

What do you mean? What is wrong with the table? It is well-sourced info. Why did you remove it? Can someone please revert this removal? Offliner (talk) 12:20, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Why could't you revert it yourself? I thought the restriction explicitly excluded reverting vandalism. (Igny (talk) 21:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC))

The question is, is it vandalism? (If it's a borderline case, it's always good to err on the side of caution). —harej (talk) (cool!) 05:21, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Could someone revert the removal again? Maybe we should also protect the page... Offliner (talk) 16:23, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

As far as I can see the only problem with the table is that it lacks some numbers, for example, while it lists the types of Russian aircraft involved, it doesn't mention the quantity of each type or even the total, with is rather useless in my view. --Martintg (talk) 00:26, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

But if you just consider the numbers which the table does not lack, is their presentation good or bad, or indeed useless as you say? Basically you say this table is useless because it is half empty. I say it is useful because it is half full. Once the other information becomes publicly available it has its place in this article precisely in this table. (Igny (talk) 00:44, 7 July 2009 (UTC))

I'm not saying the table is useless, I'm say that it needs to be improved, perhaps place "Unknown number of" in place of the missing numbers so people are alerted to the fact that the numbers are missing. --Martintg (talk) 01:00, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

You are welcome to add the missing info yourself if you can find sources. Offliner (talk) 09:32, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Google hits yet again

Am I the only one who is getting these weird numbers of the Google search results?

search high / low / scholar

war in south ossetia 11.9 million /36500 / 50
russia georgia war 4.2 million / 47500 / 35
south ossetia war 1.7 million / 16200 / 12
russian georgian war 1.4 million /70000 / 45

Depending on time I get the results in tens of thousands of hits, sometimes in millions. I know that there is a difference between estimated and actual number of hits on google, but this much of the difference is ridiculous. What numbers are you getting? (Igny (talk) 04:52, 8 July 2009 (UTC))

But that is nothing, Russia Georgia war on Bing gets 152 million hits. (Igny (talk) 05:25, 8 July 2009 (UTC))

I have no idea what is going on with your Google numbers, I get the usual results in the 10.000s and 100.000s, depending on the title. I do get the same number as you do for Bing though (but I have no idea about the way hit counts are done at Bing and Google, e.g. how subpages are counted, that could make a huge difference). --Xeeron (talk) 09:32, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

The numbers I get from Google are:

war in south ossetia 35 500
russia georgia war 163 000
south ossetia war 16 600
russian georgian war 21 800 Kouber (talk) 09:36, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

That is the problem with Google hits. People cite them around here to claim one title is more popular than the other. But as you can see the numbers vary greatly depending on the location and time of the search. (Igny (talk) 15:12, 8 July 2009 (UTC))

Hmmm, by just clicking on Koubers links, I got 33.800/161.000/16.500/21.800. When I did the same with your links before my earlier replay, the numbers were very similar. While they are not exactly those he got, they are definitely in the same ballpark. It is the very weird numbers in the millions that you got that astonish me. --Xeeron (talk) 17:53, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

I am getting similar to your numbers when I use www.google.com.au, or .fr or .uk or .jp. But when I use google.com here in USA, sometimes (not always, about 50/50 chance) I get millions of the hits. I wonder if it is just me or there is anyone else gets similarly blown up results. (Igny (talk) 18:23, 8 July 2009 (UTC))

I just checked your scholar numbers and I get 84/38/14/51. --Xeeron (talk) 20:18, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Per Kober's links:

Результаты 1 - 10 из примерно 37 500 для "war in south ossetia" -wiki 2008. (0,10 секунд)
Результаты 1 - 10 из примерно 45 100 для "russia georgia war" -wiki 2008. (0,11 секунд)
Результаты 1 - 10 из примерно 16 600 для "south ossetia war" -wiki 2008. (0,32 секунд)
Результаты 1 - 10 из примерно 22 100 для "russian georgian war" -wiki 2008. (0,29 секунд)

Very weird. russia georgia war 163 000 is not 45 100 для russia georgia war. That's Google.ru, of course. FeelSunny (talk) 22:08, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

Since the default Google news search only looks at news stories of just the past month, it is a good indicator of which name is becoming dominant over the other:

"South Ossetia war" 2 hits
"Russia Georgia war" 127 hits

--Martintg (talk) 23:49, 8 July 2009 (UTC)

"georgia war" 240 hits (Igny (talk) 00:23, 9 July 2009 (UTC))

Actually 2008 Georgia War would also comply with Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(events), since it states that event names should be constructed from when, where and what. It happened in 2008, on the territory of Georgia (Russia hadn't recognised Ossetia or Abkhazia at that point) and it was war. I would support changing the name to 2008 Georgia War. --Martintg (talk) 01:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Considering this variant does not imply Russia was an attacker, it may describe the battleground a bit better (more general), I would not mind either. The only objection might be that Georgia war is not as popular on Google as the others. (Igny (talk) 01:50, 9 July 2009 (UTC))

2008 Georgia War would be acceptable to me. There are a lot of other names I'd be willing to support as well as a compromise solution, including Five-Day War, War in Caucasus, etc. But I'm not sure if it's possible to agree on any of those, since the supporters of the 2 big names probably would not accept anything else than their favourite. Maybe we could try organizing a vote between all names other than 2008 South Ossetia war or 2008 Russia-Georgia war? Offliner (talk) 02:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Potential idea

I just thought of something. Do you think it would be possible to split up this article into different articles that focus on different aspects of the war, where the naming would be less ambiguous? —harej (talk) (cool!) 00:26, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

There already are a lot of split off articles. The main article should provide a good summary of everything, so I don't think further splitting would help on the naming issue. Offliner (talk) 00:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I like the idea, but we were unable to come up with a less ambigous and unbiased name. August War was suggested, but shot down as too undescriptive of the war. I want to see what names you can come up with that are ambiguous. I like what you are trying to do here though, so thank you for trying. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 10:24, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Requested move, part 2

The following discussion is an archived discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

The result of the move request was no consensus. This is obviously one of those issues where we need to wait a significant length of time until it becomes clear what the preferred English name for this topic is. Until then, it is best that the article stay where it is. Aervanath (talk) 07:25, 12 July 2009 (UTC)

2008 South Ossetia war → 2008 Russian-Georgian war — The earliest of the discussions barely qualifies as a discussion, and the one that was held after that was far too unfocused in getting down exactly why something should be the page title. I want to give all viewpoints equal opportunities to express their arguments, and I feel this is best done in a coordinated environment where the individual arguments are clearly delineated. It works like this: a subsection notes the proposal, and subsections underneath that for the reasons. After a period of time, a neutral party will close the discussion. I have decided that this person will not be me. Please, limit the discussion to be relevant to the name of the page, and not because of procedures. —harej (talk) 20:47, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there will be consensus here no matter how much it's discussed and debated. The users who are fluent in Russian Culture, and/or have a B.A. or above in military history, will see this the proposed title as biased and will not support it. Although there's no accepted name for the war yet, no credible organization calls it the Russia-Georgia War. Every organization that has suggested that name, thought that Russia was the attacker, and seeks to portray Russians as bad guy in their articles, or have quoted anti-Russian sources. Russia didn't attack Georgia. Russia counter attacked Georgia, and that is not the same thing. A counter attack is a response to an attack. It is similar to self-defense. Nearly all sources that have called this war the Russia-Georgia War, stated that Russia was the agressor. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:35, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm also weary of a neutral party making this decision and let me explain why: what is POV to one side, is not POV to another. For instance in 1830's in the Southern United States, using the word "Negro" was not viewed as biased by the majority. However it was viewed as biased by the minority African-American population. In Nazi Germany the word Yid was not considered biased. Yet it clearly is. I am giving the most obscene examples of bias, but my point is that which is offensive to a small group of people, may not be viewed as biased by a larger group of people. The extreme majority of people who are fluent in Russian culture, find the proposed change is severely biased. Russia generally does extremely well in wars of self-defense, and so-so in wars of agression. By making Russia look like the attacker in the title, when in fact Russia was the defender, you are willfully and knowingly inserting utter bullshit into the article via the title change. "August War" is the most popular name for the war, and yet that's not what Kober and company proposed to change the title to. There were over 150 pages of discussion on it. There was a vote on it. And finally, when asked whether they find the title "Russia-Georgia War" biased to describe this page, most Russian users will say "YES!" I don't see a point in discussing this further. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:35, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

The move is biased, it constitutes a propaganda piece aimed to change the perception of the war in favor of the incumbent Georgian president and his Respublican party supporters within the US. It respresents Russia as the attacker, and this is an intended provision the false data in the Wikipedia article. FeelSunny (talk) 09:17, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

The idea behind a "neutral party" is that they do not have any thoughts of their own in the matter: they read the commentary that takes place and act based upon it. I am assuming that many of the commentators have an interest and some background in the topic. The neutral party, not being interested in a specific name (as I said, it did not really matter to me what it was called), will be a fair judge of what the most widely supported argument is. —harej (talk) 18:14, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Could you please explain: the most widely supported comes first before NPOV?FeelSunny (talk) 21:52, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

The thing is that a neutral party might not understand the inherent anti-Russian bias of titling this article the Russia-Georgia War. Furthermore, there has been no concensus on this issue by editors who have poured their heart and soul into the article, like Offliner, FeelSunny and Ingy. It wouldn't be fair. In addition, the media that was watched by the majority about this war, shows bias, as per http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:WikiProject_Countering_systemic_bias. This is the bias that Wikipedia is trying to remove. I can't speak for Wikipedia as a whole, but judging by this article alone, I have seen bias and attacks against Russian editors. Those with a degree in military history will make the attackers look like a joke. Those who are new to free speech, and indeed free speech hasn't exactly been Russia's priority, (and those who criticized Gorbachev's actions in Afghanistan or Yeltsin's corrupt political campaigning where he wins with a one percent approval rating) will know what I mean. Pocopocopocopoco is being constantly under attack by Kober, and as a result has quit editing this article. Another Wikipedia user from Russia only used his IP for fear of getting banned when editing this article.

None of this can be understood by a neutral party. I know the limits of free speech on wikipedia, what I can or cannot do, and as some editors are learning, I'm not afraid of threats. But I grew up, for the most part, in California and I have been in numerous military debates, so for me this is "Operation Cakewalk". That is not the case for most editors here. They are afraid of being banned, afraid of being misunderstood, afraid of messing up the Wiki:code and this fear is being taken advantage of by vultures. There is very little Russian perspective here. Certainly FeelSunny, Ingy and Offliner try, but three people, all of whom are much more liberal then most Russians, cannot bring in the Russian perspective. I started editing this article because I wanted to help out, to see where it was going, to show corporate media doesn't rule the World.

And part of it is sad to watch. It's sad that Russians have no news networks they can trust, as this war has clearly shown. And part of it is good. It's interesting, (with certain exceptions) to see the plethora of sources brought into the article, from all sides. But overall, judging by this article alone, I just don't feel that there's enough Russian representation here.

Anyways, the current name has no bias. It not called the "War of South Ossetian Independence". The "First Chechen War" and "Second Chechen War" certainly didn't recognize Chechnya as independent. And the "Dagestan War" certainly didn't reflect Dagestan's independence movement. This title isn't biased at all. And it's recognizable. So is "August War". But none of these titles are biased, so there's no push for them. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:53, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

While I believe a neutral party should be able to get an understanding of the issue by reading the debate, I agree that such a party would be prone to misunderstanding. Who, then, do you think would be most suitable for being the judge? An involved party would be biased to choose the name he or she has been advocating, no? —harej (talk) 06:36, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

The longer a war lasts, the more polarized the sides are going to get. At this point, I don't think the sides can agree on a neutral committee. However I think that Ames, Chief News Correspondent for The Nation on this war qualifies as an unbiased source. He has been kicked from Russia for his vulgarity towards a certain organization, the same one that McCain sees in people's eyes as he wakes up. Ames then associated himself with the Independent Journalist Georgianne Nienaber, who made sure to get both sides of the story, except Africa was her expertise, and Ames' was Russia. I'd hardly call The Nation a pro-Russian magazine. Unlike CNN/Fox News/Sky News - The Nation had no stake in this war. Ames is known as a vulgar yet honest journalist, and you don't send those types of journalists if you're going to B/S, you send someone like Svante Cornell. Personally, I don't mind Ames' vulgarity, but other people might, so I had mention it. In this article http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081103/ames Ames calls this war "the South Ossetia war". All the wikipedia editors did, was added the year, 2008. Other unbiased magazines follow this trend. On the other hand, most of the magazines and "news" sources who blamed Russia for starting the war, are now eerily silent. They're also the ones who suggested the name "Russia-Georgia War". The war is no longer even mentioned on Fox "News" or CNN. I see nothing wrong with keeping Ames' title. Furthermore, if anyone thinks that Ames likes Putin, they're welcome to read: http://exile.ru/articles/detail.php?ARTICLE_ID=19015&IBLOCK_ID=35. In essense Ames skillfully calls Putin a mafioso. While I disagree with Ames' assessment, I think that article clearly proves that Ames doesn't have a pro-Russian bias. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:39, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

2008 South Ossetia war

No generally accepted name

There is no generally accepted name for the war yet. For example, professor Charles King (one of the most renowned experts in this area) uses the name "Five-Day war"[5] (this name is also constantly used by the news agency RIA Novosti, for example). If we take a look at the Google hits of different names, no name gets the majority. Therefore, we should use the name of the main battleground (South Ossetia), as per WP:MILHIST guideline:

If there is no common name, the name should be a descriptive geographic term such as "battle of X" or "siege of Y", where X and Y are the locations of the operations[6]. Offliner (talk) 00:10, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

There is a 2:1 ratio of google hits for "Russia Georgia War" compared with "South Ossetia War", and many of the hits for "South Ossetia War" are about the earlier conflict in 1990. The battle ground also included air and ground operations in Georgia, including Abkhazia, by Russian forces, as well as Russian naval forces in the Black sea. --Martintg (talk) 23:24, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

"war in south ossetia" -wiki 2008 beats everything with nearly 12 million hits. (Igny (talk) 06:00, 6 July 2009 (UTC))

Strange, I only get 36,600 hits when I click your link. --Martintg (talk) 07:01, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Does not imply aggressor / Neutrality

2008 South Ossetia war also has the advantage of being POV-neutral. For example, Russia-Georgia war would imply that Russia was the aggressor (which was not the case[7]). In war names, the attacker usually comes first: see this comment by the Wikiproject Military History leader:[8] or the comments by HistoricWarrior007, who is a military historian. Russia-Georgia war would also ignore the crucial role of South Ossetia, both in the underlying long-term conflict (the Georgian-Ossetian conflict, and in the military action during the war. Resistance from the South Ossetian militia was one of the main reasons why Georgians lost the war: What thwarted the Georgian operation in the end was not the Russian Air Force, but the resistance offered by peacekeepers and lightly armed, poorly organized South Ossetian units that stayed behind to defend the capital.[9]. Russia-Georgia war would have a Western-geopolitical POV. From all possibilities, the current name has the fewest problems. Therefore, I suggest we keep it for now, until an universally accepted name appears in the history books. Offliner (talk) 00:10, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

Consider other examples

I am re-posting this statement from HistoricWarrior007:

"Anyways, the current name has no bias. It not called the "War of South Ossetian Independence". The "First Chechen War" and "Second Chechen War" certainly didn't recognize Chechnya as independent. And the "Dagestan War" certainly didn't reflect Dagestan's independence movement. This title isn't biased at all. And it's recognizable. So is "August War". But none of these titles are biased, so there's no push for them. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:53, 5 July 2009 (UTC)"

—harej (talk) 06:23, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Georgia's internal affair

The war was not about Russia-Georgia relations any more than about Russia-USA relations. This war was caused by Georgia's internal problem (separatism movement), it started as Georgia's internal affair (an operation to bring "constitutional order" to the separatist territory), and it even remains Georgia's internal affair now (officially Russia was never at the state of war with Georgia, but Georgia considers its territories occupied by Russia). The fact that Georgia mishandled its problem and caused Russian intervention and an overal international crisis did not change much. The Russian intervention was just precisely that, an intervention rather than an invasion. An intervention to bring Georgia to peace as Russia officially declared. As soon as Russia reached its goals (forced Georgia to sign the truce) by breaking Georgia's military, Russia stopped the intervention. Russia did not invade Tbilisi, did not capture Saakashvili, just merely stopped Georgia's military operation against South Ossetia. If not for this intervention, we would probably be writing articles on 2008 Georgia's civil war, or even 2008 South Ossetia genocide now. Finally, the war was not even officially declared by either Russia nor Georgia. (Igny (talk) 21:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC))

2008 Russian-Georgian war

Other name gives undue weight

South Ossetia war gives an undue weight to the widely unrecognized republic of South Ossetia, which adds insult to the injury of the Georgian defeat. For the sake of the young democracy in Caucasus it is desirable to forget that this shameful episode of attacking its own people as well as international peacekeepers ever happened. Unfortunately, it is not possible so the next best thing is to blame Russia for the aggression and shift the focus from the humility of an unsuccessful attempt to reclaim the territory by force to playing a victim of the imperial chauvinistic actions of the bigger neighbor. For this purpose Russia-Georgia war would fit perfectly. (Igny (talk) 02:08, 4 July 2009 (UTC))

In other words, we would play propaganda - a "communication aimed at influencing the attitude of a community toward some cause". FeelSunny (talk) 08:39, 4 July 2009 (UTC)

This title is also the second most popular on Google, second to "August War". And second place is first loser. Oh wait, that's not a very good argument. Whoopsie. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I have decided to participate in this debate, since I stated above that I am not going to be closing this one. I feel that "South Ossetia" does not necessarily imply a republic, a country, or an independence cause, but a region, a place in general. Just putting it out there. —harej (talk) 06:31, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Agree that this article should be renamed to Russia-Georgia War, as the current name is misleading, i.e. geographically the war involved Abkhazia and the Black Sea, militarily it involved primarily the forces of Russia and Georgia.

The following searches reveal

Russia Georgia war

Google web 1,880,000 hits
Google news 55,800 hits
Google scholar 38 hits

South Ossetia War

Google web 1,270,000 hits
Google news 17,700 hits
Google scholar 14 hits

Also many of the hits for "South Ossetia War" refer to the earlier conflict in 1990s. --Martintg (talk) 22:55, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

"South ossetia war" -wiki 2008 gets 1.7 million results. Why do you not see the problem with the Google hit count?

"Russian georgian war" -wiki 2008 gets 1.4 million hits. (Igny (talk) 05:37, 6 July 2009 (UTC))

"war in south ossetia" 2008 in Google scholar gets 50 hits. (Igny (talk) 06:02, 6 July 2009 (UTC))

I don't know how you got these numbers. I get:

"Russia georgia war" -wiki 2008 164,000 hits
"South ossetia war" -wiki 2008 15,700 hits

--Martintg (talk) 06:56, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Am I the only one who is getting 46500 hits for "Russia Georgia war" and 1.7 mil for "south ossetia war"? My guess is the Google hits depend on which server is used (i.e. your location), and possibly depends on the way how the search results are cashed. (Igny (talk) 19:24, 6 July 2009 (UTC))

This might explain. (Igny (talk) 19:31, 6 July 2009 (UTC))

Ingy, you're not the only one. It also depends on time of day, diggs, and much much more. Basically you can taylor Google Hits to your needs. Also, Marintg - you might want to try "August War". August War, 2008 - gets 141 million results.

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=august+war+2008&aq=f&oq=&aqi= HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:44, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

But if you put August War into quotes in the google search window, you only get 57,400 hits --Martintg (talk) 00:21, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

133 000 для "August War" - Google.ru FeelSunny (talk) 10:44, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm getting Igny's number for the "Russia Georgia War", which is till less then 57,400. Either way, doing Google hits doesn't make a name acceptable, because some sources, such as CNN, that should count a single source but have multiple "SPAM Sites" to make it look more convincing. For instance try "Russia Georgia War" -CNN 2008 vs. "August War" -CNN 2008, and see what you get:

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22Russia+Georgia+War%22+-CNN+2008&aq=f&oq=&aqi= > Results 1 - 10 of about 42,700 for "Russia Georgia War" -CNN 2008. (0.37 seconds)

http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=%22August+War%22+-cnn+2008&aq=f&oq=&aqi= > Results 1 - 10 of about 57,000 for "August War" -CNN 2008. (0.34 seconds)

So in essence, you are letting CNN, who pitifully and incorrectly portrayed Russia as the attacker, name the war. "This is not 1898. This is not 1980. A single news network can no longer name wars the way that would work best with propaganda and get away with it. Times have changed." HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Not withstanding CNN's conspiracy to pervert the truth (which I am sure Russian news outlets have never ever done), who were the main combatants in the conflict? Russia and Georgia. Who signed the peace plan that ended the fighting? Russia and Georgia. Why are you so reluctant to call a spade a spade? --Martintg (talk) 03:06, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

Before this war CNN had a lot more credibility then Russia's news networks. CNN had a global name. It wasn't a conspiracy, CNN perverted the truth, and Russian media's poor coverage doesn't exuse CNN's poor coverage. You don't grade the media on a curve. As for who signed the peace plan, that was Russia and the European Union. So why not call it the "Russia-European Union War"? I think they're called Sarkozy's Six Points, and last time I checked, Sarkozy was president of France and European Union at the time. Also, Ossetia has suffered 181 casualties. They fought too. So spare me the "Ossetia and Abkhazia didn't really fight" argument. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 10:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

You need more than a simple Google search. Using quotations limits the results considerably. Also important is the quality and diversity of results. Russia Georgia War yields article from the West, China, India, and Russia. They are also all referring to this war. South Ossetia War gets numerous references to the previous conflict and also have far fewer high-quality sources. In particular many are very soon after the war which is of some great significance. News results are incredibly significant as they only include news articles from the past two months. You can count the results for South Ossetia War on one hand.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:27, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

So can you please link the high quality sources for the Russia-Georgia War? Let's see what you call high quality and how fast I'll be able to refute it. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 10:18, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

War was about relations between Russia and Georgia

It seems to me the previous discussion said more than enough about why this is the better option but I think I should just reiterate my previous elaboration:

With the current title in place this article distorts the historical fact and sways the discussion towards a certain conclusion. This title makes the war chiefly about South Ossetia and this is reflected in the background here as well as the background article. However, the background to this conflict is less about South Ossetia and more about Russia-Georgia relations. It was the lifting of CIS sanctions in response to the recognition of Kosovo's independence which sparked the series of escalations which ultimately manifested in a full-scale war. These escalations chiefly centered in Abkhazia. There were rising hostilities in Abkhazia and South Ossetia. Anyone who was watching this story, like myself, could see it was only a matter of which region sparked the inevitable war between Russia and Georgia. It could have just as easily been Abkhazia which sparked the war. By keeping this title we are denying that reality and sanctioning the dissemination of information which misleads the reader. The uninformed reader who looks at this article alone will likely not see it in the broader geopolitical perspective. If this article included background from the article 2008 Georgia-Russia Crisis it would be hard for any to argue against the proposed change because it would be clear that South Ossetia is not the main focus of the war.

One additional example of how this title distorts the historical fact is that in the conflict box on conflicts in the former Soviet Union this particular conflict is called the 2nd South Ossetia War, which is not even remotely appropriate as the event in Abkhazia would essentially be the Third Abkhazia War. However listing them separately would ignore the common thread tying them together, that of Russia assisting in each war and launching invasion into undisputed Georgian territory from both regions. As such Abkhazia and South Ossetia would constitute different fronts in a broader war which can not be assigned to either in any manner.

The key here is that it doesn't matter where most of the conflict was fought, it wasn't about that area but Russia and Georgia. By calling it the South Ossetia War we are focusing attention away from this basic reality of the conflict.--The Devil's Advocate (talk)17:25, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

I'm not sure if you fact check, but this war WAS chiefly about South Ossetia. Over 70% of the fighting occurred in South Ossetia. The most important objective, Tskhinvali, was in South Ossetia. In fact Tskhinvali is the capital and largest city of South Ossetia. The war began with Georgian attack on South Ossetia. It's irrelevant where this war could have been. We don't do "what if" history. Furthermore, if the reader wants an in depth perspective, the reader can read the entire article. Or we can work on the background. You're not seriously arguing that the reader can get an in depth perspective from the title, are you? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

And this war wasn't about Russia and Georgia. If it was, the Russians would have captured Tbilisi. They could have taken Tbilisi with ease, and everyone knew that. This is a war about the Caucasian Region, about Stability vs. Chaos. But it doesn't mean that we're calling this war, the Stability-Chaos War. It matters a great deal where most of the conflict was fought. For instance, during the Vietnam War, Combodia was involved. China fought in the Korean War. And Israel most definitely fought in the 2006 Lebanon War. So for the war title, it matters a great deal where the war was fought. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:19, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

It's perfectly relevant that this war could have started in Abkhazia just as easily because it goes to my point that this war was not about South Ossetia but relations between Russia and Georgia. Russia choosing not to seize the capital doesn't refute that argument. They didn't need to help Abkhazia retake the Kodori Gorge or invade the Georgian coastal areas to push Georgia out of South Ossetia. At that point Georgian forces were fleeing if Russia sneezed at them. It was about castrating Georgia and securing both separatist regions for Russian forces meaning it was much about Abkhazia as it was about South Ossetia. You can't compare that to any of the wars you named here. Though I will say quite a few sources call the Vietnam War the Second Indochina War the former just happens to be more well-established.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

One thing I still can not understand about this argument: why not Georgia-Russia relations? Georgia comes first in the alphabet, right? It's like 2008-2009 Georgia–Russia crisis, right? Then why do all those people insist on "Russia-Georgia war" name? FeelSunny (talk) 20:22, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Probably because more people refer to it with Russia first than Georgia first, but I have not checked. —harej (talk) (cool!) 05:12, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

Most people refer to it as the "August war", I thought? Overall, it's quite interesting to look at how those sources (like the Washington Post, that called it "Russia-Georgia" [10]) start to call it "Georgia-Russia war" after some time: [11]. FeelSunny (talk) 12:26, 6 July 2009 (UTC)

There is no practical difference between Russia-Georgia War and Georgia-Russia War. In similar titles the two countries are interchanged frequently in a variety of sources with no clear bias towards one or the other. I happen to be the one who started that article Georgia-Russia crisis and I used that title from the start. If you'll look I had no problem describing it as Russo-Georgia crisis in my edit summary. I imagine for most people, including historians, the nation which comes first is insignificant. The fact is wars like the Indo-Pakistani Wars or Iran-Iraq War are not named such for any particular reason. Despite claiming there is a significance Historic has yet to come up any evidence suggesting this is something to which historians pay particular attention. I don't care what order the countries are put in, as long as a comparable title is chosen since this form of title best complies with Wikipedia naming conventions.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 05:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

If for most historians the nation that attacks first is insignificant, why does attacker go first over nine out of ten times. Please explain that to me. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 10:10, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

So if there's no practical difference for you, The Devil's Advocate, why don't we call it the Georgia-Russia war, if there's a practical difference for me and HistoricWarrior007?FeelSunny (talk) 10:16, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

If you're asking whether we should call it Georgia-Russia War the answer is no, because that arrangement is used far less. If it was used more frequently then I would have no problem, but it isn't.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Well, in the past you distorted the historical record and claimed Japan didn't start the Russo-Japanese War and Sino-Japanese War, even though only someone who doesn't know the history would make such a claim. Still, if you want to know why the attacker often goes first it's because of who the attacker is, not whether they were the attacker. India didn't attack first in the Indo-Pakistani War, but the British did attack first in the Anglo-Afghan War. Who is the bigger or more significant country in those wars? The Djiboutian-Eritrean war, as most sources call it, last year was started by Eritrea, but Djibouti is far more significant a country. Austria was much larger than Prussia and its allies, even though Prussia and Italy started the war. Another common element in those wars is a convenient shortening of the country's name. Indo is short for Indian, Anglo for English, Austro for Austrian, and Russo in the case of Russian wars. Regardless of who attacked first those shortened terms are almost always used and the nation thus comes first.--The Devil's Advocate (talk) 16:45, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

Once again, for every example you give, I can give nine more, so the odds are clearly against you. Also, are you saying that India, U.K., Austria and Russia has special war naming rules, that apply to them? Can you back it up with anything? I haven't heard of such discrimination, at least not against the U.K. And we name wars using common sense and military applications, not discriminatory naming rules thought up by a Wiki editor. I have yet to see U.K. be discriminated against in war naming. I also love how you cite examples of the biggest countries going first, and then cite the Djibuotian-Eritrean War. Here's a hint: Djibouti is smaller than Eritrea. And here's hint #2: it's called the Djiboutian-Eritrean Border Conflict, or Djiboutian-Eretrian Border war. It's named after the border! And shortening the name has nothing to do with it. Stop it with your ridiculous arguments already. Georgia isn't Serbia, Russia isn't NATO, and this war is completely different from the Kosovo War, no matter how much you want it not to be. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 23:30, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

The above discussion is preserved as an archive of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on this talk page. No further edits should be made to this section.

Moscow Defense Brief on Russian air losses

This says the actual number of Russian aircraft losses was 6, but in the article we have 7. Obviously, one those we have listed is too much, but which one? If someone has an extra $200, please check (the full article is subscription only). Offliner (talk) 20:05, 9 July 2009 (UTC)

There is probably a lot more interesting info about the military action in that article as well. Offliner (talk) 21:12, 10 July 2009 (UTC)

Svante Cornell - a reliable source?

Svante Cornell is credited here as a reliable source. I disagree, due in a large part to Mr. Cornell's rabidly anti-Russian bias. In every conflict that Russia participated in, Mr. Cornell was quick to take the opposite side. When an expert is giving a testimony in a court room, this exchange is allowed:

defense council: "How many times have you given testimony?" expert: "Over 400." defense council: "And have you ever testified against the insurance company?" expert: "No."

Why is such an exchange allowed in courts, but no on wikipedia? We can't we call Svante Cornell what he is - a pro-oil company hack. From the Nation http://www.thenation.com/doc/20081103/ames:

As the South Ossetia war raged in early- and mid-August, the Times published an editorial labeling Georgia's invasion as "Russia's War of Ambition"; it also published a series of hysterical op-eds, including William Kristol's comparing Russia to Nazi Germany (Hitler's charred skull must be spinning in its museum case from being turned into the cheapest cliché in the hack's analogy box), and another from Svante E. Cornell of the Central Asia-Caucasus Institute at Johns Hopkins--the same corruption-plagued institute that ABC News discovered was taking money from Kazakhstan's tyrant for issuing positive reports about that authoritarian oil-rich country.

Cornell 's piece argued that Russia attacked Georgia not in response to Georgia's invasion of the breakaway South Ossetian province but rather because Russia was just plain evil--and, in the style of evil villains everywhere, Russia had no motive other than to show "the consequences post-Soviet countries will suffer for standing up to Moscow, conducting democratic reforms and seeking military and economic ties with the West."

According to Mr. Cornell's logic, Russia should have invaded Ukraine a long time ago. Not happening. The so called "Central Asia Caucasus Institute" has been caught red handed by ABC news for placing a positive spin http://abcnews.go.com/Blotter/story?id=5908348 on the government of Kazakhstan, for - you guessed it, oil revenue! What's even more interesting is that the trans-oil pipeline in Georgia, gets its oil from - wait for it - Kazakhstan!

So here you have a rabidly anti Russian hack with a PhD, writing an article that affects his employers' pockets, on the issue affecting said employers' pockets, and we're treating him as a scholar, because no other guys with PhDs. would counter him, the reason being is that most real historians would puke after reading the first paragraph.

"They talk about Kazakhstan's "new middle class" and the "success" of this oil-rich central Asian nation. But the three reports, issued this year by an institute at Johns Hopkins University, don't mention one key fact: who underwrote the cost. The answer? The government of Kazakhstan."

Here's a qoute from Cornell's op-ed, called "Russia blames the victim"

The victim? But our Wikipedia article lists Georgia as the agressor. Shall Svante or shall the public with truth and honesty prevail?

"America must hit where it hurts: Russia’s international prestige, an obsession of Mr. Putin’s. To begin with, we must do everything possible to see Russia’s membership in the Group of 8 industrialized nations be suspended (something the Republican presidential hopeful John McCain called for even before this crisis)."

The American public trusted Mr. Cornell and Senator McCain so much, that they overwhelmingly voted against them. And Russia has been kicked out of the G8, and the G7 was about to collapse, so it became the G20, with the inclusion of Russia.

"Once the fighting is over, America must step up its campaign for NATO membership for Georgia and Ukraine. Should European countries reject the idea, America could designate them “major non-NATO allies,” along the lines of Israel and Pakistan. This would involve more American military trainers in Georgia, intelligence-sharing, joint exercises and other steps, if not a full pledge by Washington to defend the country in case of attack."

Yeah, screw cooperation with Europe, Mr. Cornell is a Unilateralist, I mean that worked so well for Bush in Iraq. Oh wait, no it didn't, it turned out to be America's biggest crisis, and today is still America's second biggest crisis. It's also called Bush's biggest blunder.

"Finally, in a measure of fitting symbolism, America must note that Russia started this war on the opening day of the Olympics, while it plans to hold its own Winter Olympics only a dozen miles from the victim of its aggression. America should seriously consider announcing a boycott of the 2014 Sochi Olympics. We owe our Georgian allies nothing less."

Mr. Cornell, you are not an American. You have no right to use the symbolic "we". Why don't you call for your country to boycott the Olympics? Why must America take the brunt for your grugde against Russia? So let me get this straight: the US should be against treating the Olympics for political and military purposes, by, according to Svante's own advice, using the Olympics for political purposes! The definition of hypocricy never fit so well, as it does to Mr. Svante E. Cornell.

Also, the reason that Georgia attacked South Ossetia on the 7th of August, is in hopes of making China angry at Russia, should Russia respond on the 8th. Too bad Saakashvili didn't realize the blatantly obvious fact of Russia informing China, (and pretty much the rest of the World thought a press release) about Georgia's provocation. Or did you guys really think that Bush and Putin sitting together, Bush getting the aisle seat, was accidental in China's pre-planned Olympic Opening Ceremony? Russia didn't violate anything, it counter-attacked Georgian agression, and any country in Russia's place would do the exact same thing.

So why are we still treating Svante E. Cornell as a scholarly source? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:51, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

He is cited 9 times in the article. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 22:53, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Are you putting some concrete part of his statements into question or you want to blame him only because he's not supporting the Russian aggression? Especially the theory of "Russia willing to show an example of the consequences post-Soviet countries would suffer" is shared by many other analysts. Me personally, I also think that this was indeed one of the Russian goals in this war.

I don't know why Bush was sitting in an aisle seat. Instead I know that Nikolay Pankov (The Russian Deputy Minister of Defense), together with the commander of the 58th army and other Russian commanders met with Kokoity in Tskhinvali on the 3d of August. On the 7th of August Kokoity himself went to Java to meet with some very important Russian official - presumably much more important than the persons he met 4 days ago. The entire Petersburg military region commander staff was near the Kodori gorge in Abkhazia already on the 7th of August. At the same time, in the beginning of August their Georgian counterparts were on a holiday abroad - David Kezerashvili (Minister of Defense), Gela Bejuashvili (Intelligence Director), David Bakradze (Chairman of the Parliament), and even Saakashvili. Misha for example returned in Georgia on the 6th of August.

So, you can believe in fairy-tales or in whatever you want, including in "Russia not violating anything", but I can tell you that if every country was (re)acting and doing the exact same thing as Russia did, which you describe as normal, there would be no independent countries at all - only the right of the stronger would apply, as it is in the jungle. Kouber (talk) 20:33, 29 May 2009 (UTC)

You want a concrete part of Mr. Cornell's statement questioned? Sure I can do that. Mr. Cornell claimed that x amount of Russian soldiers were in South Ossetia. How did he know? The Russians used smoke grenades, and the battle was overall very confusing, so the US satellites could not have picked that number up. Were the Georgian soldiers counting how many Russian soldiers were shooting at them Kouber? While under fire? Mr. Cornell's paper doesn't contain any sources explaining that. Some statements, like the ones from his Op-Ed quoted above are outlandish. He's trying to provoke another Cold War between US and Russia for his own personal and financial gain.

While you rail against Pankov, Mr. Kouber, it's interesting how you conveniently forget that Russia warned Georgia not to invade South Ossetia. "We're setting a trap here, so we're going to warn you that it's a trap." Is that your logic Kouber? On August 6th Russia warned Georgia. August 7th, Mr. Kouber, comes AFTER August 6th. There is nothing wrong with military figures visiting and advising. The US advisory staff was in Georgia long before this war began. Are you going to say that the US violated international law Mr. Kouber? Also, what international law did Russia violate? Not was accused of, but actually violated? Georgia's shelling of Tskhinvali was a blatant violation of International Law. Now what law did Russia violate? The cluster bomb use against the military isn't against international law. HRW doesn't like the use of cluster bombs, but it has yet to be proven that Russia used cluster bombs against civilians, especially considering how close Russian and Georgian cluster bombs look. It's also interesting to note that Russia cleaned up the cluster bombs. "We're going to hope that civilians blow up on cluster bombs, by removing the cluster bombs!" The logic is dumbfounding to say the least.

Russia is willing to show consequence to post-Soviet countries. But war has never been, nor will ever be one of these consequences. There's a fine line between refusing to trade with a country, and invading a country. Mr. Cornell's paper fails to make that distinction, meaning that Mr. Cornell is either extremely moronic or extremely biased.

Here is the introduction: "In August 2008, Russia launched an invasion of Georgia that sent shock waves reverberating-first across the post Soviet space, but then also into the rest of Europe and the World, as the magnitude of the invasion and its implications became clear". So poetic. Can I try? "Svante Cornell's level of self-granted Homerian Poetic License, reach gargantuan levels of bullshit, hoping to culminate in a miserably senseless war, which will fill his pockets with the gold of Midus!" Hey look, I can do it too! First off the post-Soviet space wasn't in shock. Only the Baltic States and Ukraine issued strong anti-Russian statements, and considering Ukraine's arms sales to Georgia and the Baltic States' general feelings towards Russia, I wasn't surprised. Azerbaijan's statement was more of a veiled warning to Nagorno-Karabakh, then a reflection of the war. The rest of Europe and the World? Well last time I checked Cuba and Nicaragua are part of the World. Does Mr. Cornell speak for them too? If so, I think his translator is having a few problems. Nor was Europe in shock, as was noted by Italy's statement. The EU futhermore apologized to Russia for their actions during and immediately after the war. Today the Russo-EU relations are at an all time high.

Mr. Cornell tries writing as if he's speaking on behalf of others. I was in the US at the time the war was taking place, and here it was treated rather jocularly. There was media hype, but most Americans didn't give a shit. Nor did most Americans think that the US and Georgia are allied. Yet Svante Cornell makes that statement, where he pretends to be speaking as an American, asking Americans to help "our" ally Georgia. When did US and Georgia sign an alliance? I think I missed that treaty. I have nothing against US and Georgia forming an alliance; what I am against is Mr. Cornell's rampant bullshitting and pulling "facts" out of his ass by creating alliances that, quite frankly, don't exist. This isn't a scholarly source. This is a bullshitter displaying the opinions of Saakashvili, that soon won't even be the opinion of the Georgian government. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 01:42, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The things cited from Cornell's paper in the article aren't those you mentioned. There's nothing concerning the soldiers on the battle field, for example. Moreover most of the facts cited from his work are already confirmed by many other sources, so I don't see how the overall picture would change if we discredit one of the sources.

Your coarse irony isn't worth much. The world was really shocked by what happened. At the time of the war I was in Nantes (France) - the people there were also worried. The mayor of the city had a speech (which I captured with my camcorder) expressing his sympathy for the Georgian people at that difficult moment, etc.

According to your logic, if a killer warns his victim that he will shoot him if he doesn't follow his orders, that is a legal excuse for his actions? Or probably you forgot that South Ossetia is part of Georgia? So, Russia had the right to maintain order by force in Chechnya (by killing hundreds of thousands and destroying everything), but no other country had the right to fight separatists on its own territory? It sounds a bit imperialistic, isn't it...

Also, it is true that US have given military advises but they haven't occupied Georgia afterwards, and haven't done it only days and hours before a war took place. On the contrary, Russia was expected to act as a peacekeeper, not as a side in that conflict. Your claim that the Georgian shelling of Tskhinvali is a violation of international law is possibly true, but so is the Russian bombardment of it, and Russian preparations for that war for several months (extensively). The world is not black and white. Yet there's no international investigation held there (thanks to Russian occupiers), and it's already a bit late for it. So any chance of revealing the truth of who did what in Tskhinvali is lost. I'm reminding you that firing from civilian buildings makes them perfectly legitimate military target, and there were many similar cases reported in that war.

But let us forget South Ossetia for a while, at least Russians had some excuse for their actions there. Let's see what happened in Abkhazia? To what exactly were Russians reacting? I'm still not getting it. How does the Russian occupation of Abkhazia fit into the "protect innocent civilian population from evil Misha" slogan? Kouber (talk) 13:46, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

Mr. Kouber, nothing from Mr. Cornell's paper concerning the soldiers on the battlefield? Really? May I direct you to page 18 (out of 45) in the article that's quoted 9 times. "6,000 new Russian troops arrive through the Roki Tunnel into South Ossetia." How again is that "nothing concerning the soldiers on the battle field"? So giving the exact number, (without divulging any sources as to how he got that number) on the battlefield is not concerning the soldiers on the battlefield? And I'm the biased one?

Nor can Mr. Cornell's sources be discredited, because anything controvercial doesn't have an actual source. The sources are cited as "sources in Moscow" or "sources familiar with the story". A drunk can be a "source in Moscow" and a newspaper reader in Djibouti can be a "source familiar with the story". I cannot discredit Mr. Cornell's sources, because when Mr. Cornell cites anything controvercial, he fails miserable to give a clear source.

I was in California when the war began. Not much sympathy, or anyone really caring. Yeah the officials were giving speeches, but that's what officials do. Remember the Avian Fly Panic?

The 2nd Chechen War began after Chechnya invaded Russia's Dagestan. BTW I believe the Russians had no right to fight the First Chechen War, but the 2nd was a response to blatant Chechen Agression in Dagestan.

Preparations for war is no more a war crime then internal troops movenments. Preparations for war are not, and have never been a war crime Mr. Kouber.

Also, Russians bombarded Tskhinvali only after Saakashvili turned it into a war zone. Nor did they bombard the city, but rather the ouskirts. The bombardment was further used to evacuate civilians, and was therefore not a war crime. Nor is it true that there was no international investigation held there. Independent journalists were allowed to operate in Tskhinvali. And in South Ossetia. A journalist's job is to investigate. How is journalists operation in a city not an investigation?

Mr. Kouber is exactly the reason that Mr. Cornell should be removed from the article. It's nothing but blatant, anti-Russian bias, going as far as calling Russia a war criminal for performing internal troops movements. Other readers, such as Mr. Kouber, are mislead by Mr. Svante E. Cornell. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:27, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

If you two want to have a chat about the evilness of Russia, Svante Cornell or the world in general, why not take it to some forum, chat or email? Wikipedia is not a soapbox. --Xeeron (talk) 22:17, 30 May 2009 (UTC)

The evilness of Russia isn't related, and I don't know why Mr. Kouber is bringing this up. Svante Cornell is being quoted here as a realible source and questioning his realibility is directly related to the article and therefore not soapboxing. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:27, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, regarding the matter at hand, you surely remember that you tried before and failed to have him removed. I am rather talking about your smear campaign against him ("Mr. Cornell is either extremely moronic or extremely biased", "Mr. Cornell's rampant bullshitting and pulling "facts" out of his ass") that is you should better place elsewhere, since it may fall foul of wiki rules here. --Xeeron (talk) 18:10, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Good job on finding those Xeeron. However none of them have the fact that Svante Cornell's employer has a direct interest in the pipeline that runs through Georgia. I don't mind quoting Mr. Cornell, I do mind quoting him as an unbiased source. Let's recap here; A: All of Svante Cornell's article are anti-Russian. B: Svante Cornell's employer has been caught red handed by ABC helping out a Kazakhstani oil company. C: Said oil company is now vulnerable to Russia as a direct result of the war. A proved to be not enough in removing Mr. Cornell, but B and C weren't mentioned. Also, I would like to see Mr. Cornell cite a source for a controvercial fact. Here's how Mr. Cornell cites his source, I'm not slandering him - I'm quoting his source citation: page 14 - "according to multiple and consistent Georgian sources" (well beggars are multiple and consistent, Svante's really vague), page 14 - "according to Georgian authorities" (again what authorities, Georgia has more then one), page 15 - "Russia gradually increases its troops in South Ossetia outnumbering the 9,000 Georgian troops by nearly two to one" (how does Mr. Cornell even get that number, where did it come from, no primary sources even remotely corroborate it, were the Georgians counting the Russians as the Russians were shooting at them?!), page 18 "after continuous attacks on civilian homes by Russian troops" (what?! Other sources please. Oh wait, that's a flat out lie!), page - 25 "Russian response lacked any proportion" (Is Mr. Cornell calling Russia's response disproportionate? If so Mr. Cornell is once again lying, because under the International Rules for disproportionality you must not inflict more civilian then military casualties, and Russia didn't do that.) The whole report is an anti-Russian, corporate funded smear.

Not to mention that Mr. Cornell's article contradicts itself so many times, (a point I have also not brought up before) for instance on page 12 of the report, Mr. Cornell assures us, without citing any sources, that "Russian Armed forces complete the "Kazkaz-2008" military exercise. However, rather then returning to their bases, the troops remain in their positions by the Georgian border". That was on August 2nd. Then a few pages later, on page 14, on August 7th, Mr. Cornell assures us that "the Georgian authorities recieve foreign intelligence reports about movement of Russian troops towards the Roki Tunnel". That's odd, because the Russian troops ended up in Russia, without going back to Russia according to Mr. Cornell. Can someone please explain to me how that's possible? I too want to end up at work without driving to work. Mr. Cornell also talks about cyber attacks on Georgia, but fails to mention those done by Georgia. Isn't that hypocritical? Also, according to Mr. Cornell a railway built by the ebil Russia serves no other purpose then to transport troops, (page 23).

Xeeron, your and Kouber's good-wiki user, bad-wiki user routine, and your implicit threats aren't going to work on me. If you can, please explain why Mr. Cornell should be kept as a valid source. Otherwise, focus on attacking the posts, (my arguments) rather then the user, (me). It will be greatly appreciated, thank you in advance! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:44, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

I tend to agree with HistoricWarrior. This guy has an obvious conflict of interest, and it's painfully obvious if you read his articles. There are more than enough unbiased, credible sources to use for this article. The only thing that Cornell can contribute is a skewed point of view. LokiiT (talk) 20:37, 2 June 2009 (UTC)

"That's odd, because the Russian troops ended up in Russia, without going back to Russia according to Mr. Cornell." What is odd is not Svante Cornell, but your assertion that Russian troops would need to somehow get back to Russia after a military excercise held in Russia. Guess what, they simply got to Russia by staying where they were. Indeed no moving needed. Next time you are at work try it: You can get to work without driving to work if you already are at work! --Xeeron (talk) 20:48, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

So Mr. Cornell is ridiculing the Russian troops for conducting military exercises in Russia? Is that what you are saying Xeeron? Cause then he really has to be deleted from this article. That, and his contention that the only purpose Russians build railroads is to transport troops. Funny thing, most troops in this war didn't even arrive by rail. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:05, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

Where is he "ridiculing the Russian troops for conducting military exercises in Russia"? Unless you give me his sentences, that is nothing but slander by you, because I did certainly not say that. Same for your "most troops in this war didn't even arrive by rail" assertion. Did you stand next to the railroad in Abkhazia and count? --Xeeron (talk) 21:13, 3 June 2009 (UTC)

On page 12 - he states: "Russian armed forces complete the "Kavkaz-2008" military exercise. However, rather then returning to their bases, the troops remain in their positions by the Georgian border." I understand if English is not your native tongue, but that sentence clear shows ridicule of Russian troops for internal troops movements within Russia. It's extremely clear cut. As for most troops not arriving by rail, why don't you actually read the article Xeeron, check on some of the sources within this article and come to your own conclusion. Most of Russian troops in South Ossetia came through the Roki Tunnel, which doesn't even have a railroad. Here's an image - let me know if you can find the rail tracks: http://blog.foreignpolicy.com/files/images/080819_roki.jpg. As soon as you can find railroad, let me know. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 21:43, 4 June 2009 (UTC)

You see any ridicule in that sentence? Accusation, maybe, but ridicule? lol

Regarding the reading skills, I return the compliment: The railway tracks are in Abkhazia, just as I talked about the railroad in Abkhazia, while the Roki tunnel is in South Ossetia, so obviously, the Russian troops in SO were not the ones using the railway, but the ones in Abkhazia. It is indeed extremely clear cut: You have no idea what you are talking about. Next time, spend a bit more on reading the comment you reply to and a little less comming up with "funny" replies. --Xeeron (talk) 21:54, 6 June 2009 (UTC)

(Re-Indent) Once again, railroad aside, there is clear evidence that Mr. Cornell's company was clearly harmed by this war. That Mr. Cornell has an anti-Russian bias. That the article is poorly cited. That Mr. Cornell lied about Russians comitting war crimes in the 2008 South Ossetian War.

Well we won't agree on ridicule, but even we agree that there's accusation. So Mr. Cornell is accusing Russian Troops of conducting military exercises on Russian soil. Where exactly are Russian troops supposed to train? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:59, 8 June 2009 (UTC)

He points out that if you plan a war with Georgia, it makes sense to train right next to the Georgian border. --Xeeron (talk) 14:41, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

And yet he "forgets" to point out that no Russian forces crossed the border between Russia and Georgia Proper. Interesting how Mr. Cornell generally "forgets" all the counter arguments favoring Russia. And I've yet to hear from you on Mr. Cornell's comment on page 18, bottom paragraph: "After continuos attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops". The problem with writing a one sided paper is that eventually you lie and get caught. There have been no credible sources that point out that Russian troops continuosly attacked civilian homes. That is a blatant lie on the part of Mr. Cornell. For some reason HRW never reported Russian troops attacking civilian homes directly. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 03:22, 10 June 2009 (UTC)

The complete sentence is: "After continuous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops and South Ossetian militia , a large number of civilians escapes the city of Gori and surrounding villages." These attacks were reported by numerous observers, as well as by the ad-hoc delegation of the European Parliament:

I'm not entirely sure you know what the word "and" means. For example if I say "I have cookies and ice cream" that means that I can be quoted as saying "I have cookies" and I can also be quoted as saying "I have ice cream". Likewise, when Mr. Cornell says "After continuous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops and South Ossetian militia" I can, using the basic English grammar rules, split that into two sentences. "After continuous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops" would be one of them. It's called basic English grammar. I heard somewhere you had to know that to edit Wikipedia. Also, you say "numerous observers" and you don't say who they are. Like you, Mr. Cornell also says "Russian military expert" without mentioning the name. Also, you article states that "uniformed soldiers" were pillaging, not Russian Troops. Reading comprehension is totally awesome and highly recommended. It does say that Russian troops are blowing up railway bridges, yeah - and? Blowing up empty railway bridges is not the same as burning civilian homes. You cannot assume that "uniformed soldiers" are "Russian troops". If that report wanted to charge Russian troops with "pillaging the village" then the report wwould have simply stated "Russian troops are blowing up rail bridges in Kaspi and pillaging the village" - but it doesn't say that. Instead it puts in "uniformed soldiers". We also know that looters, hooligans and other criminals dressed up as "uniformed soldiers" and looted. You article merely states that Russian soldiers, blew up a bridge that no one was on. That is not a war crime. You've also skillfully shown that you don't know what the word "and" means. Thus the above point that I made has not been refuted in any way, shape or form. In short, Mr. Cornell has lied, and you are supporting his lie to go on Wikipedia. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I know perfectly well what "and" stands for, thank you. The reasons I'm insising on citing the entire sentence are two. The first is that you're trying to blame Svante Cornell for anti-Russian position based on half of the sentence, you're trying to describe Cornell as somebody who's writing only anti-Russian things biasedly by putting lies, hence you want his removal from WP. However, the complete sentence reveals that he's not trying to blame (only) Russia, but instead to represent what have really happened. The sentence is nor anti, neither pro-Russian. There were really many damaged houses in Gori by Russian air strikes, many houses were demolished by Ossetian gangs, and many refugees fleed afterwards [12], [13]. It is not a lie, it is the truth. You need to be very naive to believe that Russian army didn't damage even a single Georgian house during this war. Is that your point HistoricWarrior007?

You don't get it, do you? When someone uses the word "and" in a sentence - that means that the sentence can be split into two parts. The whole purposes of the word "and" is to join the parts together. This is basic grammar! And Mr. Cornell's anti-Russian bias is so clearly evident, that it's a moot point to even argue it. Mr. Cornell implies that Russia is evil so damn much in his articles, that only an anti-Russian person would think that Mr. Cornell isn't biased towards Russia. Lying about Russians committing war crimes, when they haven't, isn't anti-Russian? What is it? Mr. Cornell states, and I qoute again "After continuous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops" - that is a war crime accusation. That sentence, or part of the sentence, states that Russians have comitted war crimes. There were no war crimes comitted by Russian Troops that were proven. Hence, Mr. Svante Cornell has lied. Therefore, Mr. Svante Cornell is a liar. Mr. Svanta Cornell isn't saying that the Russian Army didn't damage a single Georgian home. That's your very own spin Mr. Kouber. If Mr. Cornell has stated that, it wouldn't be a problem. But please, Mr. Kouber, do me a favor: don't try to spin it towards your POV, when the facts contradict your argument. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

The facts are that Russians damaged civilian homes, and I gave you sources confirming it. Now, you can believe it or not, but you definetely should not call Mr. Cornell a liar, when he's simply synthesizing what dozens of sources say. Even HRW confirms that both sides have most likely committed war crimes, but no - you insist that the Russian army is innocent. Sorry, but WP isn't the place for such naivity. Repeating hundreds of times "liar" and "anti-Russian bias" won't change the situation, and honestly I'm already sick of such kind of poor efforts to discredit somebody. Kouber (talk) 10:29, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Wow, now you are just changing Mr. Svante Cornell's wording, Mr. Kouber. Once again, here it is: "After continuous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops". Not "likely attacks". Mr. Svante Cornell doesn't say "likely attacks". Mr. Svante Cornell says "continous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops". There has been NO proof. The proof you offered is houses damaged, possibly, or "likely" by Russian Air Force, not troops. Does Mr. Svante Cornell say the word "likely" in that sentence? Anywhere? Then why are you putting it in? Stop arguing against facts Kouber. If Mr. Svante Cornell makes a claim, and it is a lie, then he is in fact a liar. I don't see why this is so hard to follow? "Continuous attacks" do NOT equate to "likely attacks" - just like the word "and" binds two sentences. I have never seen anyone argue against facts, that are in black and white, but then again, there's a first for everything. Also, I didn't say that Mr. Svante Cornell is a liar 200 times. And are you seriously arguing that Mr. Svante Cornell doesn't have an anti-Russian bias? Seriously? Of course you are, earlier you argued that the word "and" isn't a connector. Why am I not surprised? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 06:33, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

I have never argued that the word "and" isn't a connector! Please stop blaming me for things I've never written! My point was that "I have cookies and ice cream" is not the same as "The Georgian has been beaten by the Russian and the Ossetian" - the latter is a crime, and the first (normally) isn't, hence in the latter case the word "and" besides a simple connector expresses also shared responsibility, which is important when you are trying to blame Cornell for anti-Russian bias only. If you want to accuse Cornell for being biased based on that sentence, then you must mention also anti-Ossetian bias, mustn't you? It is the same as trying to blame somebody for being a cocaine addict, based on a sentence like "John has cocaine, heroine and LSD in his bag.". Why is it so complex to understand it HistoricWarrior007?

You have argued that the word "and" isn't a connector. You earlier stated the equivalent of someone saying "I have cookies and ice cream" would be quoted as out of context if I said "I have ice cream". By making that argument you have proven yourself to be an ignoramus of the English language. Also someone who has cocaine in his bag isn't necessarily an addict, he could be a dealer, be providing transportation or something else. If you say "John is addicted to cocaine, heroine and LSD" then John is indeed a cocaine addict. Really, really not complicated. First grade stuff. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Also, I am not pretending that Mr. Cornell isn't biased at all - everybody is biased to some extent, even the most reliable sources are. The fact that somebody is biased doesn't mean that he is not reliable and vice versa.

So are you arguing then that Mr. Svante Cornell is only a little bit biased? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Now, your point that the Russian Air Force and the Russian troops are two different things just made me laugh. Do you really don't know what the word troops mean? Well, I expected more from a person giving free lessons on English grammar to wikipedians.

Indeed, Air force and troops are different. Air forces is in the air, troops are on the ground. Perhaps you can find evidence of Russian troops using Jetpacks. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, thank you for making it clear once again that you don't know what is the meaning of troops. Now I just found that you also don't know how to use a dictionary. Let me help you. In its plural form troops is a synonym of: armed forces and soldiers. The armed forces are the combined military, naval, and air forces of a nation — called also armed services. Would you now continue arguing that troops and air force are two different things, or you will just call the English dictionaries liars too? Kouber (talk) 10:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Umm, do you know what a synonym is? For instance, according to thesaurus.com hot and burning are synonyms. However, when a person says that "I'm hot" - they don't necessarily mean that they're on fire. Yes, I will continue to maintain that troops are not the same as air force. And Wikipedia agrees: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Air_force - nowhere in that article is the word troops mentioned. However, the words "armed forces" are mentioned. Are you seriously trying to argue that troops = air force? Or are you just being comical? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 09:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

You are misusing the dictionary. The words "hot" and "burning" are synonyms only when used as adjectives, "burn" however has different meaning when used as verb. Not to mention how many meanings and interpretations could something like "I'm hot" have. Synonyms are different words with identical or very similar meanings, so choosing one synonym over another doesn't change the general sense of a sentence. So, using "quickly" instead of "rapidly", or "troops" instead of "armed forces" isn't altering the overall meaning of a sentence and you should definitely not call Svante Cornell a "liar" based on his wording choice! Troops is not the same as air forces, but can refer to them, as well as to ground forces or navy - it is a collective noun, hence by Russian troops I can have in mind either Russian Air Forces or Russian Ground Forces (or both), it doesn't necessarily mean Russian Ground Forces only, as you are interpreting it.

Oh boy. Hot and burning can be used as verbs, both used as verbs. Burning is a degree, or part of hot. Same as icy is part of cold. Ground Forces and Air Forces are both part of armed forces, but they aren't the same! Men and Women are both humans, but they're not the same. So I stand by my argument that GROUND troops aren't AIR force. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 09:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Moreover the Russian Ground Forces have also attacked civilian homes:

"Russian tanks fired on villagers' homes... tanks methodically moved through the streets, firing on numerous houses in a row... Three tanks would stand one after another, point their barrels in different directions and start shooting at houses... They would shoot at houses … and then would move on down the street, doing the same..." Kouber (talk) 16:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Reading for adjectives is awesome: "One witness described an incident in which tanks methodically moved through the streets, firing on numerous houses in a row, suggesting that the fire was not directed at specific military targets and that such attacks were indiscriminate." Are you aware of the difference between suggesting and stating? Or are they synonyms too? Also "Villagers from Tamarasheni (in South Ossetia) described how Russian tanks fired on villagers' homes. Witnesses told Human Rights Watch that there were no Georgian military personnel in their houses at the time that the tank fire took place." However there's a footnote that said:

"If there were such forces present, their presence would render civilian objects such as houses legitimate military targets. But even in such circumstances, the presence of any Georgian military would not relieve Russia of its obligation under international humanitarian law to take all feasible precautions to minimize the harm to civilians, and to verify that the particular objects were legitimate military targets. This principle of customary international law is codified in Protocol I of the Geneva Conventions, art. 57 (2). Russia also had an obligation to do everything feasible to assess whether the expected incidental loss of civilian life or damage to civilian property of an attack would be excessive with respect to the direct and concrete military advantaged to be gained."

That wonderful word, "if". In other words, HRW admits that the four women who gave the interview, didn't know. How could four women, all civilians, assess whether military snipers were in the area? Even HRW admits they couldn't. Also, the HRW stated that Russia should have assessed the capabilities. However that is not a blame for Russia's guilt. Your out-of-context qoute clearly makes Russia look like the bad guy. The link gives a more balanced perspective, but I see you have taken up the "qouting like a Svante Cornell" approach. Also looking at titles, this one said "tank attacks on civilian homes" not "continuos tank attacks on civilian homes". In addition, the interviews suggest that the tanks fired and moved on, thus the attacks weren't continuos. And HRW doesn't mind using titles with adjectives, for instance see this: "2.2 Indiscriminate Shelling of Tskhinvali and Outlying Villages". They used indiscriminate there, but didn't use continuos here. That means either HRW is somehow pro-Russian, or someone named Kouber is quoting out of context to defend Svante Cornell and make Russia look bad. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 09:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Are you blind, or you are just too lazy to watch the movies, see the photos and read the articles I gave you? Or you will now accuse BBC and The Daily Telegraph for also being biased?

"For two days, Georgia has been convulsed by a Russian air and ground assault... Russian bombs had struck a residential area... at least two (bombs) fell in a compound of long, low-slung apartment blocks, five of which were quickly reduced to blackened shells. A third hit a small secondary school, which crumbled to the ground in a pile of rubble and twisted girders."

Bombs - i.e. Russians troops don't shoot bombs. Bombs fall from the air. Troops are on the ground. Gravity is a wonderful concept. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Assault isn't troops. The troops carry out the assault, but during the assault the buildings could have been destroyed by airstrikes or artillery fire. There is no proof that it was Russian troops. Yes they were destroyed during a Russian assault, but that's not what Mr. Svante Cornell says. Stop changing the wording. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

So, your point now is that the buildings were destroyed during a Russian assault, but not by the Russians? Is it some kind of a joke I don't understand? Kouber (talk) 08:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

I said not by Russian Troops. Not all Russians are Russian Troops. Once again, Mr. Svante Cornell lies about Russian Troops. Your sources state that the Russian bombs have destroyed the building. Russian troops that are on the ground, cannot use bombs that are in the air. They don't have jetpacks, and I don't recall Russian troops flinging bombs from catapults. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

See above for the meaning of troops, or ask for assistance, in case you can't manage to understand the dictionary. Kouber (talk) 10:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Umm, sorry, but the meaning of troops hasn't changed. I've yet to see a single paper talking about Russian troops using bombs as weapons. Maybe you could provide a link? Assist me please. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 09:37, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Well, you have to look for English courses in your area then. Especially when you're experiencing difficulties using dictionaries. Kouber (talk) 16:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

Yes I am. I think GROUND forces and AIR forces are two different things. I also think that ground isn't the same as air. Silly me. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 09:24, 1 July 2009 (UTC)

Do you see somewhere the word "likely"?! I used that word to describe the report of HRW concerning possible commitment of war crimes, not to reveal the certain fact that Russians did damage civilian homes: "Forces on both sides in the conflict between Georgia and Russia appear to have killed and injured civilians through indiscriminate attacks, respectively, on the towns of Gori and Tskhinvali". Would you now accuse HRW for being a liar HistoricWarrior007?

It says "forces". The Russo-Ossetian side contained more then just Russian troops. Forces isn't the same as Russian troops. No I am not calling the HRW a liar. Good try Kouber. By the way - it lists the conflict between Georgia and Russia, signifying that Georgia was the attacker. Just a sidenote. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

Indeed, Svante Cornell too isn't talking only about Russian troops, but about Russian troops and South Ossetian militia. See? Kouber (talk) 08:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

Way to qoute out of context. He's talking about Russian troops and South Ossetian militia, BOTH, continuously attacking civilian homes. However "forces" refers to either Russian troops or South Ossetian militia, i.e. ONE of them. BOTH do not equate to ONE. If David says that Andy and Billy beat up Cain, then one would need proof that Andy beat up Cain and Billy beat up Cain. In other words, BOTH Andy and Billy must be found guilty. If there's no proof that Andy beat up Cain, then David has lied, and is therefore a liar. If David says that Andy or Billy beat up Cain, then either Andy had to beat up Cain, or Billy had to beat up Cain. In short, it has to be ONE of them. To use the HRW in our example, all you know is that Cain has been beaten up. You don't know who beat up Cain. It could have been Andy, Billy, or someone else. Therefore in the first statement, David is lying. Applying this logic to our case, Svante Cornell has lied and is therefore a liar. And Kouber needs to understand the difference between the word "and" vs. the word "or". HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

Svante Cornell isn't talking about war crimes, only about damage of civilian homes, but HRW on the contrary is mentioning war crimes. So according to your logic, the one that must be called a liar is the Human Rights Watch, isn't it?! Kouber (talk) 10:54, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

"After continuous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops" - sounds like a war crime to me. Sounds like a war crime. You are arguing against facts. That means there had to be "continuous attacks" against "civilian homes" by "Russian Troops". That hasn't been proven. Therefore Mr. Svante Cornell is lying about it, by stating that what has proven, hasn't been proven. Once again, this isn't complicated stuff. It's not just damage of civilian homes. It's "continuous attacks" against "civilian homes". If I hit your house with my car I have damaged it. If I continuously ram your house with my truck, I have not only damaged it, but continuously attacked it. Stop trying to tone down Mr. Svante Cornell's lies. Learn the difference between these two words: "and", "or". Stop arguing against black and white facts. Once again here is the line: "After continuous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops". It was never proven. Mr. Svante Cornell stated it like a fact. Therefore he has lied. Therefore Mr. Svante Cornell is a liar. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:24, 19 June 2009 (UTC)

No, he isn't. It may sound to you like a war crime, but it is not what Cornell wrote. We will not remove that source from WP based on the interpretations of HistoricWarrior007 and based on the way something sounds to him. There wasn't one attack, there were several attacks, hence the word continuous. And the homes were civilian. What exact part of Cornell's statement are you putting into question? Kouber (talk) 08:51, 22 June 2009 (UTC)

How is he not? I quoted his exact damn language. You don't know if the Russian Troops have attacked, or if it was someone else. There has been no proof of Russian Troops countinuously attacking civilian homes. For troops to continuously attack civilian homes is a war crime. Russian Troops have committed no war crime. Thus when Svante Cornell accused Russian troops of comitting war crimes, via the transitive property of the above qouted sentence, Svante Cornell has lied. This is a fact, not my interpretation. If I see a blue car, and I say "hey - that car is blue" and you say "hey that's your interpretation" - the car's still blue! HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 07:41, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

I gave you a proof three times already. And, by the way, Cornell's "damn" language is much better than yours. Kouber (talk) 10:32, 23 June 2009 (UTC)

"But this was the first time that Russian bombs had struck a residential area." - what part of Russian troops cannot launch bombs, do you not understand Kouber? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 09:19, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

See above. Kouber (talk) 16:42, 24 June 2009 (UTC)

The second reason is that as you know when there's a murder, for example, it is not only the murderer that personally pulled the trigger who's guilty - there could be also some people which helped him in committing the crime. So, if the Russian tied the Georgian to the tree and then the Ossetian came and beated the helpless Georgian whose responsibility is that? Is it only the Ossetian who's guilty? Which of the sentences would be correct to describe the situation then: "The Georgian has been beaten by the Russian and the Ossetian" or "The Georgian has been beaten by the Russian"? So, even if there wasn't Georgian houses damaged by Russians (which isn't the situation, as shown above), the sentence of Cornell wouldn't be a lie, unless being cut in the middle, which indeed you did.

Umm, ok, Kouber thank you for pointing out you have no clue what the word "and" means. Please consult a grammar dictionary. Also, stop coming up with these non-existant hypotheticals. Saying "The Georgian has been beaten by the Russian and the Ossetian" means that the Russian beat the Georgian. But in your own hypothetical the Russian didn't beat the Georgian. Please, study basic grammar before continuing to edit. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

Svante Cornell, as most of us, has its own opinion and he has the right to express it. So, if he is not supporting the Russian invasion, occupation and cutting of parts of Georgia, what's wrong with it? I pesonally also don't support all these things, as well as many people worldwide (not to say the vast majority). Kouber (talk) 13:20, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

And he has a right to express his opinion. However when he lies in a scholarly publication, he shouldn't be cited in an encyclopedia. You can have your own opinion. Clowns have their own opinions. My problem isn't with Mr. Svante Cornell having freedom to opine, or freedom of speech; my problem is with a liar, in this case Mr. Svante Cornell, being cited in the article. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

"Russian troops are blowing up the railway bridges in Kaspi, uniformed soldiers are pillaging the village, and the troops are moving on towards Tbilisi on both sides of the river, burning and looting the peaceful Georgian territory. This has to be stopped immediately. I call on the international community to intervene with the Russian President by all means, most urgently!"

See above HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Similar cases describing the situation in Gori and other villages around it are also described further in the document above. After all, these thousands of refugees were fleeing their homes with a reason, they were fleeing from something (and somebody), weren't they?

Bombs are a very valid reason to flee. Israeli settlers fled from Hamas bombs in the recent Israel-Hamas war. I'd flee from bombs if I was a civvie. Let's see - the villagers see a war, they see bombs falling on military infrastructure, they flee. No mention of Russians is necessary. Serbs also fled from US bombs. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

By the way, there's a new book by Svante Cornell which was just published these days: [14].Kouber (talk) 15:35, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

I'll get to it when I feel like reading Russia-bashing fiction. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

(od) Cornell and Starr are both reputable sources/scholars. As to HistoricWarrior007's diatribe at top, please do better than quoting Mark Ames. Someone just has to look at Russia ever so slightly askance and Ames becomes a rabid attack dog--the very definition of a non-objective source. PetersV TALK 16:08, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

Since when did outspoken equate to biased? Ames attacks whoever he believes is in the wrong, be it Putin or Obama. That's precisely why he's objective, he doesn't let ideology or loyalties get in the way of reporting what he believes to be true, albeit in the most blunt manner possible. LokiiT (talk) 19:06, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

The Starr you speak of is not Kenneth Starr, but rather S. Frederick Starr who is a professor at Johns Hopkins University, the same one that took bribes from an oil company that runs one of its pipelines through Georgia, and Mr. S. Frederick Starr is proudly a professor at Paul H. Nitze School. His expertise, like Mr. Cornell's, is in oil politics. So one the one hand we have bribe-ridden institution dealing in oil politics, that are loved by the incredible scholar that is PetersV. On the other hand we have The Nation, a magazine not tied to oil politics, entrusting Mark Ames, who has been rather unbiased on Russia many, many times in the past and has been kicked out of Russia. I'm going to go with The Nation on this one. Mr. Cornell and company will be bashing Russia even more in the future, as Russian and Kazakstan get close and the company funding Mr. Cornell loses it's oil monopoly in Kazakstan. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 20:21, 15 June 2009 (UTC)

It's interesting to compare Cornell's "analysis" with the finding of the EU investigation commission.

Cornell: According to multiple and consistent Georgian sources (including witnesses to the discussions), at approximately 11 PM Georgian Presiden Mikheil Saakashvili receives information that a convoy of over 100 Russian military vehicles is passing through the Roki tunnel.

Note the wording; he clearly tries to point out that personally he thinks the sources are correct and reliable.

EU investigation commission: The experts found no evidence to support claims by the Georgian president, which he also mentioned in an interview with SPIEGEL, that a Russian column of 150 tanks had advanced into South Ossetia on the evening of Aug. 7. According to the commission's findings, the Russian army didn't enter South Ossetia until August 8.

Well done, Mr. Cornell. Offliner (talk) 08:12, 16 June 2009 (UTC)

The commission report is not published yet. Moreover, according to this, the head of the commission, Heidi Tagliavini, calles the Spiegel article you are quoting "largely speculative" and "fictitious". Well done Der Spiegel? (PaC (talk) 23:24, 16 June 2009 (UTC))

Not entirely sure what you're saying, are you saying that "largely speculative" is the same as lying? What you don't seem to get is that Mr. Cornell has been caught lying, red-handed. Der Spiegel has been called "inconclusive". There's a massive difference between the two, and I'm saddened that your bias blinds you from seeing it. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 04:07, 18 June 2009 (UTC)

(Re-indent) @HistoricWarrior007: I have never claimed that ground and air forces are the same thing, neither that men and women are. Please don't accuse me for things I've never written. Let's use your example. Men and women are both humans, you say. I agree with you. So, if I say: "Humans attacked monkeys" it doesn't reveal their gender. It could mean either "Men attacked monkeys", or "Women attacked monkeys", or "Men and women attacked monkeys", etc. Hence, if in reality only the men attacked the monkeys and I say "Humans attacked monkeys", I am not a liar, because indeed men are humans. The same applies to "air forces" and "armed forces" (AKA "troops"). The air forces are just a type of armed forces.

Also, as I already stated, according to HRW Russian tanks have attacked civilian homes as well. Your "if" point is irrelevant. Svante Cornell isn't claiming that there were or there weren't Georgian forces present in those homes, i.e. whether those targets were legitimate or not.

Are we finally finished with this issue, or you will continue to call Svante Cornell a liar because of his sentence: "After continuous attacks against civilian homes by Russian troops and South Ossetian militia..."? Kouber (talk) 12:59, 3 July 2009 (UTC)

Once again Kouber, Air Forces are not the same as Ground Troops. Air Forces have never been called Ground Troops. Show me a single source that directly says that Air Forces are Ground Troops. In addition, HRW does not show continuos attacks. In the report, the woman speaks of only a single whole blasted in her house. I have yet to see a single modern tank that misses a house at point blank range. Thus continuos attacks should have produced more then one hole.

Also, Air Forces are a part of Armed Forces. Ground Troops are a part of Ground Forces. I have Googled the images for American Ground forces, and here's what I got: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=%22American%20Ground%20Forces%22&um=1&ie=UTF-8&sa=N&tab=wi - images of American Ground Troops and artillery. While both Ground Forces and Air Forces are part of Armed Forces, that does not mean that Air Forces are the same as Ground Forces.

Xeeron, are you seriously arguing that by "Russian troops" Svante Cornell aslo meant "Russian Air Force"? Here are some images for Russian Troops, let me know if you see any MiGs on the first page. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:20, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

Also, Svante Cornell works for an oil company, and is known for his subjective history. So yes, if Svante Cornell has lied, I will call him a liar. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 00:21, 5 July 2009 (UTC)

So I guess I can finally remove Svante Cornell? Right? Any of the factual stuff that he is cited for, have other, more credible sources. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 03:22, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

No, you can't! I proved multiple times that Cornell's sentence is true, but you still refuse to understand that both Air and Ground forces are troops, just like men and women are humans. I can't help you with that, and I'm already tired of your offensive attitude and lack of respect. Kouber (talk) 10:05, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

Is there someone who is neutral here and has a tiny bit of knowledge in military history to inform Kouber that Air Forces aren't troops, and have never been referred to as troops. Or perhaps Kouber can show me where air forces are referred to as troops, I've yet to see it. HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 18:37, 17 July 2009 (UTC)

On a related note, yes both men and women are humans, but that doesn't mean that men are women. But according to the logic of Kouber, since men and human are synonyms and since woman and human are synonyms, then man and woman are synonyms. English doesn't work that way Kouber. Show me exactly where it says that both, Air Forces and Troops are synonyms. Where does it say that? HistoricWarrior007 (talk) 18:40, 17 July 2009 (UTC)