. Is there some reason I should?

I'm left speechless, aghast and dismayed. Didn't you see his title? Oh, I'm sorry, let's drop it. I'm getting all verklempt, anyway. I shouldn't have mentioned it.

Dear Roycommi: go back to the RWNM rathole where you came from! Gorbachev is the reason that we didn't have WWIII back in 1989, not the "great" Ronald Reagan. It was Gorbachev who instituted Parastoika, (the great "thaw") not Reagan. If it wasn't for Gorbachev's Op-Ed, I never would have even learned that the Georgians started this conflict, not Russia. Thanks a lot, MSM!

http://www.boston.com/news/world/europe/articles/2008/08/12/heavy_damage_in_tskhinvali_mostly_at_govt_center/?page=

or click on sig.

From Aug 12:

Quote:

At the regional hospital, doctors said the patients were moved to the basement during Georgia's bombardment of the city, and had to do without light, water or toilets. The dungeon-like rooms still stank of sewage Tuesday, while sheets and bandages were stained with blood.

Dr. Tina Zhakarova, who said the hospital had treated 224 patients during the fighting, called the Georgian assault on the city an act of ethnic cleansing.

Noting the medical facility had been damaged, she held out a handful of shrapnel to reporters. Doctors can protect people from disease, she said. "How can we protect them against this?"

But from the outside, the hospital appeared to have only light damage, either from bullets or shrapnel. Most of the windows were shattered.

Russian army officers said a Georgian missile pierced the hospital's roof and caused damage not visible on the outside. But they refused to show reporters the destruction, saying it was not safe.

---

Aug 17, McClatchy has Dr. Tina Zhakarova:

"The doctor at the Tskhinvali hospital, Tina Zakharova, said she wanted to clarify that she wasn't disagreeing with the South Ossetian officials' numbers, adding that many bodies had been buried in gardens and cemeteries in outlying villages. She could not, however, explain how more than 2,000 dead — the difference between her hospital's count and the Kremlin-backed officials' tally — were buried in a relatively small area without any evidence such as stacks of coffins or mass funerals."

He did say:

Just to head off the comments... when I said that Gorbachev is less trustworthy "because he is, after all, a Russian politician" I meant because in this instance -- a dispute involving Russia -- he's not a disinterested observer. I didn't mean that Russian politicians are inherently less trustworthy. Certainly I'd stack the liars in the US up against the Russian pols anytime.

In fact, that wasn't in fact the poster in question. Ignore my correction and fire away.

http://hrw.org/english/docs/2008/08/13/russia19620_txt.htm

Should be read in full. Since I'm concentrating on the hospital, here is the excerpt:

Quote:

Casualty numbers in Tskhinvali

A doctor at Tskhinvali Regional Hospital who was on duty from the afternoon of August 7 told Human Rights Watch that between August 6 to12 the hospital treated 273 wounded, both military and civilians. She said her hospital was the only clinic treating the wounded in Tskhinvali. The doctor said there were more military personnel than civilians among the wounded and added that all of the wounded were later transferred to the Russian Ministry of Emergencies mobile hospitals in South and North Ossetia. As of August 13, there were no wounded left in the Tskhinvali hospital.

The doctor also said that 44 bodies had been brought to the hospital since the fighting began, of both military and civilians. The figure reflects only those killed in the city of Tskhinvali. But the doctor was adamant that the majority of people killed in the city had been brought to the hospital before being buried, because the city morgue was not functioning due to the lack of electricity in the city.

From August 8 to 11, the doctor said, staff had to move all the patients into the hospital basement because of the constant shelling. The doctor said the hospital was under fire for 18 hours. Human Rights Watch documented the damage caused to the hospital building by a rocket believed to have been fired from a Grad multiple rocket launcher which hit the hospital, severely damaging treatment rooms on the second and third floors.

The doctor told Human Rights Watch that she could not leave the hospital because of the heavy shelling. She also said that two sisters, hospital employees, were killed on August 8 or 9, as they were hiding in the basement of their house.

-----

(My only question would be why would people bring bodies to the hospital if it was being shelled? If one could not leave the hospital because of shelling, presumably one could not come to the hospital, either?)

http://english.aljazeera.net/news/europe/2008/08/200888174530586345.html

Quote:

Earlier on Friday, Eduard Kokoity, the South Ossetian separatist leader, told Russia's Interfax news agency that 1,400 South Ossetians had been killed in the fighting.

One hundred and fifty Russian tanks, armoured personnel carriers and other vehicles entered South Ossetia to back the breakaway region against the Georgian army earlier on Friday.

He said: "About 1,400 died. We will check these figures, but the order of the numbers is around this. We have this on the basis of reports from relatives."

From the same al jazeera link as the previous:

Earlier, the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) said that the main hospital in Tskhinvali had ceased functioning.

Local medical officials told the organisation that the Respublika Hospital closed hours after Georgia launched its military offensive.

Maia Kardova, an ICRC spokeswoman in Tbilisi, the Georgian capital, said the news is "very alarming" because emergency access to South Ossetia has been cut off since fighting began early on Friday.

She said ambulances are unable to reach wounded civilians in the city.

At the headquarters of the ICRC in Geneva, the organisation called for a "humanitarian corridor" to allow the evacuation of those wounded in the fighting.

Georgian villagers near Tskhinvali leave their houses [Reuters]

Anna Nelson, an ICRC spokeswoman, said: "We are calling for the opening of a humanitarian corridor to enable ambulances to evacuate wounded people and to enable civilians to be evacuated out of the conflict zone.