Well, mostly, they are deep in something else at Blog-City, but Tabacco and I seem to be the only people on the frigging 'tubes that seems to suss that Russia provoked the conflict with Georgia, though not in the way that the wingnuts would tell it...and would you believe, the liberals are even more far off course than the wingydings this time.

Right Wing: Russia attacked Georgia! That dirty motherfucker Putin!

Left Wing: Georgia attacked South Ossetia! That dirty motherfucker Bush!

Truth: South Ossetia attacked Georgia! Those dirty motherfuckers Bush and Putin!

Here's the skinny. South Ossetia is similar to Gaza-a territory largely ungovernable and  in a perpetual state of conflict. A starry-eyed libertarian Russian journalist provides some details:

Whenever someone starts telling us about shelling in Tskhinvali, it is important to keep in mind exactly what Tskhinvali is. It is not a city somewhere in the middle of a republic that is being fired upon by saboteurs. On three sides, Tskhinvali is surrounded by Georgian villages. The edge of Tskhinvali is a military outpost. South Ossetian forces fire from there into the Georgian villages, and the Georgians respond with fire of their own. To help keep Georgian fire from hitting civilians in the city, all the South Ossetians would have to do is move their military base forward a couple hundred meters.

But, of course, it is a fundamental principle of terrorists the world over -- set up firing points in civilian areas and then when your enemy fires on you, you gleefully parade the bodies of your own children in front of the television cameras. Kokoity's terrorists are following this same principle. If South Ossetia can in any way be considered a state, it must be considered a terrorist state.

When we are told about "peaceful civilians" in South Ossetia, we must keep in mind that the situation there is similar to that in Palestinian refugee camps. South Ossetia, like the Palestinian Liberation Organization before it, is not a state or an ethos or a territory. It is a peculiar form of mutated government in which residents have been turned into militarized refugees. It is a quasi-armed force that is not allowed by the authorities to occupy itself with anything other than war -- a situation that gives the authorities absolute power and absolute control over the money at its disposal. It is a place where the hysteria of this disfigured population is the primary means of filling the authorities' personal coffers.

So: What we seem to have here is a provocative breakaway state. Not so fast:

As it turns out, the attack was a total military disgrace for the breakaway republic. South Ossetian leader Eduard Kokoity and his regime exist on Russia's payroll to maintain a permanent state of conflict with Georgia, but it is clear now that they never bothered to prepare the country for war.

And the money we're talking about here is not pocket change either. South Ossetia spent $570 million to build a gas pipeline that bypasses Georgia to supply an area that has only 7,000 people. According to some accounts, the unrecognized republic has a budget of $800 million to battle Georgian fighters. Add to this the fact that Moscow says it subsidizes the pensions and salaries of 80,000 "Russian citizens" who live in South Ossetia, although the real number of people holding Russian passports is no more than 30,000.

Well la-di frickin-da. Everyone knows that a) Russia is flush with oil cash and b) Vladimir Putin is not a nice fellow no matter what our dipshit toy-soldier-in-chief says and c) they want some of their real estate back. Less covered is NATO's attempt to surround the big bear with several client states...to what end? We say "terrorism". I say the FUCKING COLD WAR IS WARMING UP AND NEVER ENDED.

And we are getting rather brash about it; consider the treaty signed for missile defense in Poland. Kinda makes Putin's Georgia gambit look like a humanitarian mission. Let's face it: the US is the principal provocateur in just about every region in the world...it stands to reason some countries aren't going to take it lying down. But, Russia doesn't just want to kick back, I don't think-they're expanding their influence. Russia isn't just defending itself. It's aggrandizing itself. Their record is, um, not so good on live and let live. And, as always, we can thank George Bush for raising the stakes. Mark my words, Russia isn't going to be the only one who is defending and expanding at the same time as long as we continue our policy of meddling. Dickless armchair general conservatives want a confrontation. Smart people would rather the United States dial down its brinksmanship tactics.

tags: russia  south  ossetia  kgb  georgia  nato  

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