Original Post 8/26/2008, bumped to 3/29/2009

Regarding the nation of Georgia and lack of withdrawl of Russian troops; it is easy to say that Russia has just been lying about their intentions.

But, it doesn't really make sense for Russia to stay in Georgia any more than it made sense for the USA to stay in Iraq once the primary mission was accomplished. It made no sense for us to destroy Iraq's Baath Party and set on a path of helping a bunch of crazy, uneducated radicals to burn a crap load of our money in the name of nation building.

It doesn't make sense for Russia to want to destroy the Georgian government. It might make sense to punish, to bend, to coerce, but not to destroy or put the radicals there in a position to burn a shit load of Russian Rubles.

Russian leadership has signed agreements that I would guess largely satisfy what they had hoped to accomplish. But still Russian troops sit in Georgia. So the question that the West has got to start asking itself is who is running Russia.

Is it President Dmitry Medvedev?

Is it Prime Minister Vladimir Putin?

Is it Gen. Vladimir Boldyrev? (Land commander)

Is it Gen. Anatoly Nogovitsyn (General and Deputy Chief of Foreigh Forces.)

History:

On December 11, 1990, the Chairman of the KGB, Vladimir Kryuchkov, made a "call for order" over Central television in Moscow [1]. That day, he asked two KGB officers [2] to prepare a plan of measures that could be taken in case a state of emergency was declared in the USSR. Later, Kryuchkov involved the USSR Defense Minister, Dmitriy Yazov, the USSR Internal Affairs Minister, Boris Pugo, the USSR Prime Minister, Valentin Pavlov, the USSR Vice President, Gennady Yanayev, the deputy Chief of the USSR Defence Council Oleg Baklanov, the head of Gorbachev's secretariat, Valeriy Boldin, and a CPSU Central Committee Secretary Oleg Shenin in the conspiracy.

On August 18, 1991, a coup against Gorbachev was launched by the government members opposed to perestroika headed by Vladimir Kryuchkov.

The people behind the coup included the following members:

Gennady Yanayev
Valentin Pavlov
Vladimir Kryuchkov
Dmitriy Yazov
Boris Pugo
Oleg Baklanov
Vasily Starodubtsev, chairman of the USSR Peasant Union
Alexander Tizyakov, president of the Association of the State Enterprises and Conglomerates of Industry, Transport, and Communications[12][9]

Gennady Yanayev signed the decree naming himself as acting USSR president on the pretext of Gorbachev's inability to perform presidential duties due to “illness.”[12]

These eight collectively became known as the "Gang of Eight".

Gorbachev was held in Crimea while Yeltsin raced to the White House of Russia (residence of the Supreme Soviet of the RSFSR) in Moscow to defy the coup. The White House was surrounded by the military but the troops defected in the face of mass popular demonstrations. Yeltsin responded to the coup by making a memorable speech from the turret of a tank. By August 21 most of the coup leaders had fled Moscow and Gorbachev was "rescued" from Crimea and then returned to Moscow. Yeltsin was subsequently hailed by his supporters around the world for rallying mass opposition to the coup.

Although restored to his position, Gorbachev's powers were now fatally compromised. Neither union nor Russian power structures heeded his commands as support had swung over to Yeltsin. Through the fall of 1991, the Russian government took over the union government, ministry by ministry.

On November 6, 1991, Yeltsin issued a decree banning the Communist Party throughout the RSFSR.

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But the question is, what is happening in Russia now. Is the military moving toward a different kind of coup against President Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Putin; ot is Putin and Medvedev at growing odds with one another.

Or is Russia speaking with different voices simply because it is a more open Government where politicians don't get arrested or shot for minor or even major insubordination.