The American Spectator : The Spectacle Blog : Russia v. Georgia

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Reading the coverage of the Russia-Georgia conflict, it's pretty clear that few actually understand the history of this conflict -- to some extent, myself included. James Poulos informs us in a thoughtful piece in the Guardian:

National Review's Jonah Goldberg cries that "this is what happens" when the west takes its eye off the Russians to enjoy the Olympics. ... "This", of course, is the brutalisation of a hapless, innocent, fledgling democracy, a role played to the hilt by Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, who has spared no absurdity in his increasingly haggard efforts to trigger a western bailout of his hasty and ill-advised weekend invasion of long-autonomous South Ossetia.

Read his piece to understand why it is we shouldn't cry for Saakahsvili, but rather his people who've had to put up with his strange penchant for bad strategy.

Fresh in my email inbox, however, is a press release from Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, condemning (and dismissing) Russia as harkening back to its ol' Sovietsky days:

Clearly, this invasion of Georgia is no isolate crisis; it is a dangerous component of Russia's revanchist attempt to economically and militarily compel her former prisoners into a newly minted submission.

That's too bad. While Georgia is no Belarus, it's certainly no Czechoslovakia either.

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Russia