[lbo-talk] Russian Tanks Enter South Ossetia

[Chris Doss]

I'm mainly repeating what I heard from a friend of mine who analyzes this stuff for the Canadian government for a living. Saakashvili's whole presidency has been about how he was going to "reunite" Georgia. The problem here is that Georgia's borders were created on a whim from Stalin and there are many people who have no desire to be part of Georgia, especially given their experience with the ultraethnonationalist government of Gamaskhurdia in the early 1990s (Georgia is a very multiethnic territory). For the past several years, he has been claiming that he will celebrate New Year's in South Ossetia, with no success yet. If you recall, he tried to take the place a few years ago. I would imagine he thought he would take the place with no problem, which doesn't seem to be happening, and that he would get support from the West, which doesn't seem to be happening, and that then he could say that he had solvced Georgia's territorial conflicts, which would in

 principle allow him to join NATO. Yesterday he called for peace and diplomacy, and then he attacks with what appears to be a well-planned operation, which does not look good. I imagine this may be tied to the upcoming US presidential elections, because Saak thinks he has the support of the Bush people, in which he making the typical Georgian error of thinking Western aid extends beyond rhetoric.

Anyway, now that Russian peacekeepers have been killed, Russia will have to respond in force. Unless Georgia backs down quickly, the Abkhaz will probably take some military action in support of the Ossetians. This is the Caucasus, and so North Ossetian, Cossack, and other Caucasian volunteers will move down to the area (they are probably already there). Fortunately for Saakashvili, the ultimate badasses of the Caucasus, the Chechens, have declared they will only go to the region as part of a peacekeeping force, something they have experience with from Lebanon.

--- On Fri, 8/8/08, Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com> wrote:


> From: Wojtek Sokolowski <swsokolowski at yahoo.com>
> Subject: [lbo-talk] Russian Tanks Enter South Ossetia
> To: "lbo-talk" <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org>
> Date: Friday, August 8, 2008, 12:43 PM
> http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7548715.stm
> 
> [WS:] Chris, how does it look like from the Russian side
> (you cannot trust Anglo-Saxon media on this)?
> 
> Wojtek
> 
> 
> 
> 
>       
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