Originally Posted by Max2147

You're right, it's not up to Russia whether Georgia should be in NATO. There are plenty of other reasons for NATO to reject Georgia.

NATO requires that every country in the alliance have internationally recognized stable borders. Georgia doesn't have that.

Remember, there's no legitimate reason for South Ossetia and Abkhazia to be in Georgia. They were only put there because Stalin added them to Georgia in the early days of the Soviet Union. It's worth noting that Stalin, like several of his top henchmen including Beria, was Georgian. Such wonderful people come out of that country....

I'm not pretending that Russia is some angelic good guy here. They're not. But Russia being a bad guy doesn't make Georgia a good guy. When it comes to things like democracy and human rights, Georgia is worse than Russia. Putin, for all his faults, is legitimately popular in Russia. They don't rig the votes because they don't have to.

I'm no fan of political harassment and intimidation, but at least Putin's people have a sense of humor about it: