>Actually, the population of South Ossetia voted overwhelmingly to
>join Russia a couple of years ago.
Yes, this is true. But at this point, shouldn't we view this strictly as a strategic siding to rid themselves of Georgia's ugliness? I don't see any reason to view joining Russia as the final aspiration of South Ossetia.
>It's very simple. You live in a border region. On one side is a
>small, poor country with a highly nationalist government (of a
>different nation from you). Plus, 15 years ago you fought a really
>nasty civil war with them, AND they just shelled your capital city,
>killing 1400 people (if the S. Ossetian government can be believed).
>That is 5% of your entire population. On the other side is a big,
>powerful country where people earn 4 times as much money. Which way
>do you go? This is a no-brainer.
It's not very simple at all. Joining Russia might seem logical, but when is politics ever logical? Rarely, fortunately. Why do you want to reduce political desire to logic?
My point here is that there is a tendency -- one that was most obviously seen in the Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 -- for western leftists to pick representatives for people in distant lands. It's one thing to note that Hezbollah was supported by many Lebanese for repelling Israel or that the Ossetians' voted to join Russia as an alternative to Georgia, but it's something else to draw the conclusion from these facts that Hezbollah embodies the Lebanese people's political will or that Ossetians are insisting on becoing Russian. After 9/11, 90 percent of Americans "supported" Bush, but western leftists would never assume that this meant that he represented Americans' political will. Why assume it for people in smaller, less significant countries?
Carrol:
>I often enjoy and/or learn from Eric's posts, but tis is banally
>contemptible.
Yes, I'll admit I was being uncharitable and deliberatley provocative. And that's not nice.
On the other hand, isn't the ground being prepared here:
"This doesn't mean that Russia aren't behaving aggressively themselves - they have been bolstering their power in South Ossetia for years, supporting the secessionists and so on - it just means that Georgia is the client of a bigger power than South Ossetia." <http://leninology.blogspot.com/2008/08/new-cold-war-escalates.html>
And in the Trots' Schmittian political universe, the "client of a bigger power" is always the enemy and its opponent the friend.