How many georgian civilian casualties were in the war?

Question

There are about 2000 civilian losses in S.Ossetia, most of them were killed during the night attack on the ossetian's capital of the US supported georgian terroristic army which started with heavy artillery and missle fire, and then heavy armored forces entered the ruins of the town, slaughtering civilians.

Russia, according to its obligations as the peacekeeper, in response started to attack the invaded georgian army and georgian military objects. But of course as it is a war and georgian army turned all civilian objects into some kind of the military bases there will be the human losses.

So, how many georgian civilians died?

Can we compare russian operation to the US military operations, so we can see who cares about civilian losses in conflicts more?

Answer 1

For one, Human Rights Watch called 2000 cited by Russians unfounded. In other words they think it's a lie. According to their data hospitals treated 273 wounded and 44 bodies brought to the hospital, both military and civilian. So far I have yet to see photos of hundreds of dead reported by Russian and Ossetian media.

By the way, how many Ossetians were killed when Russian military started offensive on Tskhinvali to free it form Georgian forces? Obviously all those will be still blamed on Georgians.

Official Georgian losses are 200+ dead. Red cross and others are there to verify.

Refusal of Russia to let western media in conflict zone including Russian army shootings at western journalist does rise legitimate concerns what is Russian army hiding there.

If the Russian claims of death toll and Genocide were true, I suspect Russia would've brought international media long ago to show Georgian atrocities. Which works very well for them in this situation.

If you justify Russian army's bombings of civilian targets in Georgia then that can also be applied to S.O. civilian objects. What is ok for one side should be ok for the other too.

To which US military operation do you wish to compare?

If you want to generalize, then neither US nor any other western country has done what Russia did in Chechnya.

So, to answer yes, we can compare US and Russian military operations and that comparison will never look good for Russia in terms of civilian casualties.

Let's compare Afghanistan too since both were involved.

Russians used "Grad"s and carpet bombings regularly, while every time US bomb hits civilian targets it is investigated and widely discussed/debated. At least US never used Grad type MLRS on civilian population over there.

Currently in Afghanistan, death toll amongst civilian population is 4000+. In 2007 reported civilian casualties in Afghanistan were 300 from NATO forces, 950 killed by Taliban.

Now compare that to over 1mln(reports vary from 1 to 1.5mln) of dead afghans during 9 years of Russian occupation and you'll get the idea. That's over 100,000 killed every year!

US has been in Iraq since 2003. That's 5 years. Civilian casualties during 5 years - 86,609 – 94,490 according to http://www.iraqbodycount.org/. That's including sectarian violence and civil war. Can you do the math? Do you still want to continue comparisons?

Let's look, Russian "peacekeeping" operation in Georgia - in 5 days Russia killed over 100 Georgian civilians, and let's keep in mind Georgian population is 4.5 mln compared to 27.5mln in Iraq, and 31mln in Afghanistan. Russians simply had much less targets to begin with and Russia so far didn't bomb southern Georgia because they're afraid of Turkey as NATO member. So, heroic Russian army killed 100+ civilians in 5 or 6 days in much smaller territory than Afghanistan or Iraq where US is involved.

Doesn't matter how you count, per percentage, per year or per square mile Russia always manages to kill more civilians in any war than US.

Let's add to that widespread looting, civilian killings and rape already reported by western media, which was committed by Russian army, Cossaks, Chechens and Osetins on Georgian territory in last few days and we get the full picture.

I understand you'll say western media is biased, but gimme a break, Russian or Ossetian media will be objective in this case? I really doubt. So, I have to go by western information again.

I don't justify civilian death from either side.

Just the attempt to portray US as someone worse than Russian empire is laughable.

P.S. Wasn't that you in other thread calling to erase Georgia from the face of the earth? And you care about civilian casualties? Why so selective anyway?

Objectively, Georgia as a state has a legitimate army which hardly qualifies as "terrorist organization".

S.O. on the other hand, is not a legitimate country, it's not recognized as a country, not even by Russia, it's closest ally and only sponsor. As far as I know Russia, S.O. will never be independent. Part of Russia yes, independent, that's laughable. Just look at your neighbors for the lessons.

However. they(S.O.) do have armed forces, which is illegal by law pretty much in any country.