To add to the thoughts about the Georgia/Russia thing, here's a video on YouTube where FoxNews interviews South Ossetians who take over the time slot by condemning Georgia and thanking the Russians.
12-year-old girl: "but before I say anything else I just want to say that I was running from Georgian troops bombing our city, not Russian troops. I want to say "thank you" to the Russian troops that were helping us out."
Not saying this thing is simple or one-sided, but there definitely is another side to this.
Sarah, did you get in touch with your Georgian friend?
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habes @ 2008-08-15T16:17:00
Posted: August 15th, 2008, 5:18pm MDT by Josh
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habes @ 2008-08-13T13:02:00
Posted: August 13th, 2008, 2:24pm MDT by Josh
What the heck is going on with our American response to this Russia/Georgia thing? Now maybe I'm just getting bad/biased information from the Wikipedia article on the South Ossetia war, but to me the situation is:
* South Ossetia is a part of Georgia that is ethnically different from the rest of Georgia.
* South Ossetia has been de facto independent from Georgia since the early 90s (though not internationally recognized)
* South Ossetia overwhelmingly favors independence from Georgia, as evidenced by a 2006 referendum in which 99% of registered voters voted for independence with voter turnout at 95.2%.
* after escalating tensions and small-scale fighting, Georgia launches a full-scale attack against the South Ossetia capital in the middle of the night.
* Russia retaliates by pushing back the Georgian invasion and attacking Georgia.
This is a complicated situation, but all we as Americans are offering in our media and from our leadership is a simplistic "evil Russia invades democratic Georgia" story. Our leaders and our presidential candidates give tough talk against Russia, without acknowledging the fact that Russia was retaliating against a Georgian invasion and attack against a city.
At first I thought I was just crazy and missing something major, but apparently apparently I'm not the only one who feels this way.
Geez, the last thing we need is to introduce more tension in our relationship with Russia. How would we react if Cuba or Venezuela invaded the Bahamas? You'd better believe that we'd not only drive them out, we'd launch strikes against military targets in their home countries. And how cynical would we be at that point if Russia spun it as "US aggression"?