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.
topics:
Russia
