[Skybird]

ST,

There were at least two long threads about Georgia back in last august and september, and I said everything I have to say on it back then, and then several times. The way you paint the story is very one-sided, and it was painted like that in August as well before the whole isue back then became very personal, too. We meanwhile learned that the story has quite some more faces and complexity than you maybe are aware of. Georgia in no way is the poor innocent victim here. And regarding the outbreak of the war, it clearly is the agressor. but the history of provoking the Russians leads even long before that - as does the history of Georgias brutal and often lethal supression of the ethnic majorities in Ossetia and Abhazia.

However, I refer to those pages-long threads and what I said back then, and I refer to that link to a very long essay with a very interesting political and military analysis that I posted back then. It all can be find via the search-button, I assume.

If it is of any satisfaction for you, both provinces are pains in the Russian's lower bottom, they have been anything but stable administrative constructions before, and since last summer have turned into extreme corrupt parasites with organised criminal clans in command and a lot of corruption sucking Russian blood (=money). The Russians, though sticking with the policy of accepting their independance and accepting protective guarantees for them, will not have much joy with them - not now and not in the future.