> <http://www.nytimes.com/2008/11/07/world/europe/07georgia.html?ref=todays
> paper>
> November 7, 2008
> Georgia Claims on Russia War Called Into Question
> By C. J. CHIVERS and ELLEN BARRY
>
> Instead, the accounts suggest that Georgias inexperienced military
> attacked the isolated separatist capital of Tskhinvali on Aug. 7 with
> indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian
> peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm.
[Cackle]. Gotta love the Times. Note that subtle qualifying adjective, "inexperienced" - cleverly wishing away the fact that Georgia's army had been trained by NATO military experts and equipped with nearly $1 billion of hardware.
> The accounts are neither fully conclusive nor broad enough to settle the
> many lingering disputes over blame in a war that hardened relations
> between the Kremlin and the West.
There have been hundreds of personal accounts, live videotape footage, phone calls, and tons of civilians interviewed. We even have the cellphone videos of Georgian troops firing machine guns into Ossetian apartment blocks. But collecting those stories would require the exercise of, you know, journalism.
-- DRR