"Tskhinvali's Jewish quarter, already blasted in previous conflicts, is pulverised. Locals say a squall of Grad missiles levelled their homes. In many cases, only the front walls have been left standing. Minibuses and cars have been punctured with shrapnel-like Swiss cheese.

This can't possibly be true. After all, didn't the Israelis supply and help to train the Georgian Army?

All this discussion on Russia/Georgia seems to underline the points GG was making--in the "olden" days maybe we would have had a better shot at some accurate, first hand reporting on the situation--not being very knowledgeable about it, I have been trying to figure out whether the Georgians actually started things--a piece that is really missing from most US accounts--and to roycommi, if you think Bernard Henri-Levy is some kind of journalist or even a reliable observer, think again--he is a big "Israel can do no wrong" camp member. It seems that Israel is playing into this whole event somehow--sorry for my ignorance, but when everything journalistic has become part of a noise machine, it's hard to make heads or tails.

For anyone looking for a very interesting take on the US MSM, rent Barbara Trent's documentary The Panama Deception on the invasion of Panama--you can't get a clearer picture of how the corporate US media informs or fails to inform--what's particularly creepy is watching all the Bush II evildoers circa 1991--Rumsfeld, Cheney, Powell--these guys have been at their dirty deeds for a long long time.

I'm wondering if you ever thought of being part of a think tank or even a university center (I think NYU has a communications/media center) that could put your work out more forcefully. Even good books are published so far after the fact that they lose a lot of their steam. But we need a major effort to deconstruct the MSM, show the effects of their biased reporting and hold journalists accountable--take away this cloak of being in some kind of private club and not being called on anything. Don't know how this would play out exactly...just thinking out loud. --Mikeyfil

I'm in total agreement, and believe our efforts need to concentrate more energy on outing and discrediting these cretin enablers. I will continue to harp on this, because Americans will never wake up and find a way to take their gov't back until they see that they are being fed nothing but bullshit that is designed to keep them fighting over distractions while their country is slowly ripped out from under their feet.

http://www.sundayherald.co.uk/news/heraldnews/display.var.2427207.0.0.php

"Tskhinvali's Jewish quarter, already blasted in previous conflicts, is pulverised. Locals say a squall of Grad missiles levelled their homes. In many cases, only the front walls have been left standing. Minibuses and cars have been punctured with shrapnel-like Swiss cheese."

and

"Tskhinvali's hospital did not escape the fighting either. Bullet holes cover its white facade, while staff said a Grad missile had come in through the roof. Its basement, where many patients cowered and doctors tried to operate during the fighting, has yet to be cleared up. Dozens of old-fashioned iron beds are crowded into a darkened network of damp rooms; the air is thick with the smell of human waste and the ground is littered with bloodied bandages. "How can you fire a Grad missile at a hospital?," said Dr Tina Zakharova. Holding three pieces of shrapnel which she said had been extracted from the wounded, she said Georgia had a strange way of trying to win over people's hearts and minds. "This," she said, "is the kind of humanitarian aid Georgia sends us.""

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.

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."

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.

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(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?)