The final aspiration of South Ossetia is to be with North Ossetia, which is on the other side of the border, in Russia.
I can take the train and be in North Ossetia in a day. It's not a faraway land to me.
--- On Sat, 8/9/08, Eric <rayrena at realtime.net> wrote:
>
> 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.
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