Georgia picks a fight it is unlikely to win

In its campaign to assert control over the breakaway region of South Ossetia, Georgia appears to have been counting on western support but Russia has not been hesitant to use its military strength. A Pakistani doctor's appearance in a New York court prompts doubts about the credibility of the charges against her as a suspected al Qa'eda operative and raises questions about the length of her detention. President Musharraf faces the threat of impeachment.

"The conflict between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia moved toward all-out war on Saturday as Russia prepared to land ground troops on Georgia's coast and broadened its bombing campaign both within Georgia and in the disputed territory of Abkhazia," The New York Times reported. "The fighting that began when Georgian forces tried to retake the capital of the South Ossetia, a pro-Russian region that won de facto autonomy from Georgia in the early 1990s, appeared to be developing into the worst clashes between Russia and a foreign military since the 1980s war in Afghanistan." The Times said: "After days of heavy skirmishing between Georgian troops and Russian-backed separatist militias in the breakaway republic of South Ossetia, Mikhail Saakashvili, the Georgian president, went on television on Thursday evening to announce that he had ordered an immediate unilateral ceasefire. "Just hours later his troops began an all-out offensive with tanks and rockets to 'restore constitutional order' to a region that won de facto independence in a vicious civil war that subsided in 1992. "From that moment events began to spiral out of control. As the 70,000 citizens of a self-styled republic of 2,500 square kilometres huddled in their basements, Georgian troops seized a dozen villages and bombarded the capital, Tskhinvali, with air strikes, missiles and tank movements that left much of it destroyed." In The Guardian, Mark Almond noted that: "today in breakaway states such as South Ossetia or Abkhazia, Russian troops are popular. Vladimir Putin's picture is more widely displayed than that of the South Ossetian president, the former Soviet wrestling champion Eduard Kokoity. The Russians are seen as protectors against a repeat of ethnic cleansing by Georgians. "In 1992, the West backed Eduard Shevardnadze's attempts to reassert Georgia's control over these regions. The then Georgian president's war was a disaster for his nation. It left 300,000 or more refugees 'cleansed' by the rebel regions, but for Ossetians and Abkhazians the brutal plundering of the Georgian troops is the most indelible memory. "Georgians have nursed their humiliation ever since. Although Mikheil Saakashvili has done little for the refugees since he came to power early in 2004 - apart from move them out of their hostels in central Tbilisi to make way for property development - he has spent 70 per cent of the Georgian budget on his military. At the start of the week he decided to flex his muscles. "Devoted to achieving Nato entry for Georgia, Saakashvili has sent troops to Iraq and Afghanistan - and so clearly felt he had American backing. The streets of the Georgian capital are plastered with posters of George W Bush alongside his Georgian protege. George W Bush avenue leads to Tbilisi airport. But he has ignored Kissinger's dictum: 'Great powers don't commit suicide for their allies.' Perhaps his neoconservative allies in Washington have forgotten it, too. Let's hope not." In Time magazine, Tony Karon said: "Whether or not the effect was intended, Moscow now appears to be using Saakashvili's strategic overreach to teach a brutal lesson not only to the Georgians, but also to other neighbours seeking to align themselves with the West against Russia. Saakashvili is appealing for Western support, based on international recognition of South Ossetia as sovereign Georgian territory. 'A full-scale aggression has been launched against Georgia,' he said, calling for Western intervention. But given Nato's previous warnings, its commitments elsewhere and the reluctance of many of its member states to antagonise Russia, it remains unlikely that Georgia will get more than verbal support from its desired Western protectors. Saakashvili appears to have both underestimated the scale of the Russian backlash, and overestimated the extent of support he could count on from the US and its allies. The Georgian leader may have expected Washington to step up to his defence, particularly given his country's centrality to the geopolitics of energy - Georgia is the only alternative to Russia as the route for a pipeline carrying oil westward from Azerbaijan. But Russia is not threatening to overrun Georgia. Moscow claims to be simply using its military to restore the secessionist boundary, which in the process would deal Saakashvili a humiliating defeat. "Although its outcome is yet to be decided, there's no win-win outcome to the offensive launched by Georgia with the goal of recovering South Ossetia. Either Saakashvili wins, or Moscow does. Unless the US and its allies demonstrate an unlikely appetite for confrontation with an angry and resurgent Russia in its own backyard, the smart money would be on Moscow." Returning to a theme from the US Democratic primaries - the test that every American president can face in addressing an unforeseen crisis - Ben Smith wrote in Politico: "When the North Caucasus slid into war Thursday night, it presented Senators John McCain and Barack Obama with a true '3am moment,' and their responses to the crisis suggested dramatic differences in how each candidate, as president, would lead America in moments of international crisis. "While Obama offered a response largely in line with statements issued by democratically elected world leaders, including President Bush, first calling on both sides to negotiate, John McCain took a remarkably - and uniquely - more aggressive stance, siding clearly with Georgia's pro-Western leaders and placing the blame for the conflict entirely on Russia."

"As US authorities took a purported al Qa'eda operative to court on attempted murder and assault charges Tuesday in New York, her family, the Afghan police and the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan cast doubts on the accuracy of the American story," McClatchy Newspapers reported. "On Monday, the Department of Justice announced that Aafia Siddiqui, a Pakistani woman who was educated in the United States, had been taken into custody in mid-July in Afghanistan. "She was arraigned in court in New York on Tuesday, and her case has inflamed anti-American sentiment in Pakistan and triggered street protests against Siddiqui's detention." The Pakistan Tribune said: "The family of Dr Aafia Siddiqui, a MIT-educated neurosurgeon who had gone missing with her three children in 2003 from Karachi, expressed shock on Tuesday after it emerged that she had been extradited to the United States on charges of shooting at US soldiers while in detention in Afghanistan. "Addressing a news conference at the press club here [in Karachi], her younger sister Dr Fauzia Siddiqui angrily insisted that Aafia was innocent and accused US forces of secretly holding her for the last five years." The Los Angeles Times said: "Human rights activists were divided over whether the Siddiqui case would ratchet up pressure on the five-month-old Pakistani government to account for the whereabouts of hundreds of people who have been reported missing by their families. Many presumed detainees are believed to be languishing incommunicado, denied access to counsel but not charged with any crime. " 'One hopes that this case is going to bring more attention to the issue of the 'disappeared,'' said Ali Dayan Hasan, Pakistan researcher for Human Rights Watch. His organisation and other rights groups had raised suspicion that Siddiqui was secretly held at some point by US or Pakistani authorities, or both. "The Pakistani government has never acknowledged detaining Siddiqui and made no statement Tuesday about her arrest. However, its diplomats in the United States have sought consular access to her while she remains in US custody, Pakistani officials said." CNN said Elizabeth Fink, one of the attorneys for Dr Siddiqui, believes her client has been in custody since 2003 - but she did not know which government was responsible. "Elaine Whitfield Sharp, a Massachusetts attorney also representing Siddiqui, told CNN the allegations against her client are 'implausible' and that the charges 'don't pass the sniff test'." Reporting for BBC News, Syed Shoaib Hasan asked why Ms Siddiqui would have been arrested and kept in secret confinement for so long? "The answer may lie in her relationship with the family of alleged 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheikh Mohammed. Aafia Siddiqui is said to have married Ali Abd'al Aziz Ali, one of his nephews following her divorce. Although her family denies this, the BBC has been able to confirm it from security sources and Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's family. "It is an open secret in Karachi, that any member of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed's family deemed to be 'a one per cent threat to US security' is in American custody. That may be the only 'crime' that Aafia Siddiqui has committed."

"President Pervez Musharraf will stage a spirited defence against impeachment charges that the governing coalition is pursuing against him, and has no intention of resigning under pressure, his key allies said on Friday," The New York Times reported. "Mr Musharraf, who has been president for nearly nine years, faces the first impeachment proceedings in Pakistani history, after the leaders of the two major political parties in the coalition announced on Thursday that they would seek to remove him. "The grounds for impeachment included mismanagement of the economy, along with Mr Musharraf's imposition in November of emergency rule and the firing of nearly 60 judges, the party leaders said." The Washington Post said: "The measure first requires a majority vote of Parliament before charges against Musharraf can be considered, which many here believe will happen. Less certain is whether the coalition can muster the two-thirds majority, or a total of 295 votes, needed in the National Assembly and Senate to unseat Musharraf. "The parties opposed to Musharraf have a total of 274 members in the National Assembly and the Senate. With about 27 independent Parliament members and the possibility of defections from Musharraf's Pakistan Muslim League-Q faction, the vote is expected to be close. " The Daily Telegraph noted that: "The twin arbiters of power in Pakistan, the army chief of staff, Gen Ashfaq Kiyani, and America, which has provided $12 billion in military aid to the country in the last six years, have publicly declared themselves to be neutral on Pakistan's domestic politics. "However a senior official from the ruling government coalition partner, the Pakistan's People's Party (PPP) said that the army has 'whispered in Musharraf's ear that it is time to leave'. "'Over the next few days they will make it clear to him [Musharraf] that a protracted battle [against impeachment] is not in Pakistan's interests,' he added."