A Second Hand Conjecture

Georgia has stopped a tank battalion mutiny. Naturally the Russians are suspected of being behind it. I’ve been wondering if President Obama will continue support for Georgia, and cause the ire of a belligerent Russia.

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Who jumped first in South Ossetia has become a bit of a information war between Georgia and Russia. Today, the Georgian government went a ways toward resolving it by releasing recordings of intercepted radio traffic preceding the Russian invasion. The tapes seem to demonstrate that elements of the Russian invasion force had entered Georgian territory twenty hours before the Georgian army responded.

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(photo: Rahim Alizadeh)

In Verdi’s opera Nabucco –the namesake of the western gas pipeline to Europe that holds the promise of partial independence from Russian energy reliance– the Jewish patriots take the daughter of the Babylonian king hostage, in order to compel his charity for Jerusalem. Today, after the Georgian invasion, Azerbaijan is a victim of a not dissimilar hostage-taking by example, and it’s just as perilous.

So much a captive to the gambit is Azerbaijan, that it had to be seen embarrassingly consulting with the Russian president, while the American vice president was left to rant to reporters in their captial. Cheney wanted a Nabucco pipeline endorsement from Azerbaijan, although he didn’t get the rejection portrayed in the press, he didn’t get approval either. He got the thing Dick hates most: strategic ambiguity.

Sympathy for the Azeri position here is mandatory. Their heart is with the United States, but their survival instinct forces them to withdraw into balance. An overt endorsement of a pipeline under American pressure would have potentially been against every instinct for a country that has been playing the game of pacifying powerful neighbors for far longer than the Americans have even been aware of the region. Any pipeline threaded through Turkey to Central Europe –which Iran has been refused access to, and is designed specifically in order to bypass Russia– has long promised the Azeris hostility from her two invidious and lethally powerful neighbors. (more…)

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Extremely interesting post from Seth Weinberger on the opportunity for pulling China in the pro-Georgia camp, after the SCO failed to endorse Russian actions in Abkhazia and South Ossetia.

Seth is as mystified as I am that the Russian foreign ministry could possibly have believed it would persuade China to endorse ethnic separatism and provincial secession. If there is such a thing as an enduring Chinese ideology from ancient times, it is the idea of struggle against separatist disorder and provincial independence. A fear that is only amplified to extraordinary degrees by the prospect of other great powers assisting in the dismemberment of traditional territorial unity.

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Saakashvili has finally severed all Georgian diplomatic ties with Russia. A bit overdue, I must say.

Meanwhile, Putin, in his ongoing effort to legitimize the Russian invasion of Georgia, again compared his country’s actions to the NATO intervention against Serbia –which Russia and Putin himself still opposes in principle as illegitimate, but nevermind. Putin argued that NATO intervened because the “White House gave the order and everyone carried it out,” in a rather pathetically ahistorical appeal to transatlantic discord.

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A couple of days into Russian-declared, universally unrecognized independence (excluding Hamas and Belarus), South Ossetian officials have expressed their desire to be annexed by Russia. The brave new defenders of Russian imperialism on the American Left have thus suddenly found their arguments for fake Ossetian self-determination on Georgian soil dealt a sudden blow.

Apologizing for Russian foreign policy ventures is historically always a tricky business. The sensibility of which is perhaps now restricted to the brief thaw of Yeltsin’s dream of a benign commonwealth of trade and friendship. A dream now sustaining an excruciatingly painful death on the world stage.

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Michael Totten is in Georgia interviewing actual Georgian soldiers and finding out what went on behind the scenes of this conflict. Turns out Saakashvili didn’t start it after all.

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Russian Major General Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Borisov, in command of occupied Gori, has finally received orders to do something about the Russian allied irregulars who are rampaging in Georgia committing atrocities:

“Ossetians are killing poor Georgians, this is a problem and we are trying to deal with it”. He said his troops had been ordered to stop the abuse and arrest those responsible. Most of the atrocities occurred in Georgian enclaves in separatist South Ossetia and villages in Georgia proper outside Gori.
(The Independent)

One might hope. The atrocities that are beginning to come to light reportedly include systematic ethnic murder, the rape of children, the incineration of the elderly and other egregious crimes, evocative of the wars for Yugoslavia.

Thomas de Waal, Caucasus editor for the Institute for War and Peace Reporting tells Tony Halpin that the Russian army’s attitude toward such acts has thusfar been largely acquiescent:

“The Russian Army can’t be bothered to bring the paramilitaries under control. Its attitude is ‘let them have their revenge’”
(The Times)

The long puzzling capacity of the Russian government to excuse and ignore identically inhuman conduct by Slobodan Miloševic’s criminal army, is perhaps no longer so mysterious.

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Robert Amsterdam speaks with Geert Jan Alexander Knoops, an expert on international law governing peacekeeping missions, who concludes the Russian claims of acting as belligerent peacekeepers, have no legal foundation in international law. Amsterdam further observes that by citing the right of self-defense under the UN Charter as justification, Russia seems to be confessing to an assumption that South Ossetia is a part of Russia’s territory already. Which brings us back the oddness of Russia arguing that Georgia had illegally invaded its own territory. Perhaps this only makes sense in the Russian state imagination, because there exists the tacit imputation that this land is theirs, not even by declaration, but by collective assumption.

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(photo: Pavel Trebukov | blog)

From the gang who brought you the “because Georgia has invaded its own country we had to attack” rationale for the South Ossetian War, Poland has now apparently “made itself a target” for Russian nuclear strike, by agreeing to base an entirely defensive missile system which could not possibly repel even a small Russian ballistic missile salvo.

Alas, this preposterous Russian claim like so many others, can find plenty of eager advocates in the West, who believe it is “aggressive” to create a defensive system against an Iranian missile threat, because Russia (!) says her “right” to target a country with ICBMs could be infringed…only to then confess the lie of that, by targeting the country with missiles. It’s an utterly immoral and entirely ludicrous formula on its face; indefensible from every direction.

And such a painfully helpless claim for erasing or even obscuring the fact that it was Russia alone which invaded Georgia, and it is Russia alone which is targeting Poland — and most sadly of all, it is Russia alone which is destroying Yeltsin’s great security achievement of an international framework for peaceful borders between friendly republics. A squandered and priceless inheritance, traded cheaply, in favor of an engineered frontier war for the vanity of militarism.

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89 amateur snapshots from the war in Georgia. Some are rather gruesome, so avoid this link if you’ve a weak stomach. It was good to see some US munitions and equipment in Georgian hands too.

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Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov says “the world can forget about” Georgia’s territorial integrity. Quite a remarkable statement from the former permanent representative to the United Nations. As a statement of purpose or justification in his country’s war, it is of course an explicit violation of Article 2 of the United Nations Charter.

Furthermore, Lavrov’s comments came at a meeting with separatist leaders from South Ossetia and Abkhazia, leading some to believe it’s increasingly likely that Russia will annex these regions. This would make the conflict officially an illegal war for the purpose of territorial conquest.

It would also represent a moment to begin considering a longer term international plan for the United States of disengagement from Russia and/or a more general alignment against her interests. Perhaps Cuba would recognize a falsely claimed Russian right to rule the territory it has conquered, but the world will not. If Russia attempts to do so, the country would have clearly self-identified as a definitional rogue state.

Despite Lavrov’s wishes, the world cannot “forget” Georgia’s territorial integrity and has not. Only Russia has done that, in violation of the mandate it is pledged to defend by membership in the United Nations. Principles it ironically appealed to very vigorously (and still does) in the service of Serbian irridentism.

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Sorry for my absenteeism on this, guys, but I’ve barely had the time to write on Registan.net about the war in Georgia (seriously, go there for some really in-depth discussions about what is going on), and have simply neglected copying posts over here. I’m sorry. Since I don’t have the time to follow the play-by-play very closely thanks to work, and since in my experience that doesn’t indicate much of use anyway, I’ll summarize my writing on the conflict so far.

For starters, this was a surprise to no one. Weeks before Saakashvili struck Tskhinvali, the South Ossetians were simultaneously shelling Georgian positions while using Russian transports to evacuate thousands of women and children for “summer camp” in North Ossetia right when Russia was massing troops across the border. Coupled with the years of Russian provocations in Abkhazia, including downing of Georgian drones by Russian aircraft, and the repeated military strikes by Russian helicopters on Georgian territory, it should surprise no one that Saakashvili finally reacted.

That being said, Saakashvili obviously miscalculated the extent to which he was being baited by Russia, and his normal brinksmanship sort of telegraphed that he would take decisive action at some point.

At the same time, the ultimate result of this fight will not be the annexation of Georgia by Russia, nor will it be an immediately dramatic reordering of the energy policies of the region. Russia will not touch the BTC pipeline, nor will it occupy Tblisi. They just want Saakashvili gone—the equivalent is how we used to view Fidel Castro… and if the opportunity presented itself we would have tried (and did several times) to kick him out of office without formally occupying the territory.

It is also important to note that Russia’s financial markets are not doing well right now. They have been steadily sinking since outright hostilities broke out, and they can be expected to sink further the longer conflict continues. So don’t expect anything long term from the Russian military—war is not as profitable for them as it is for us. If they do drag this war out much longer, they lose big time—financially, militarily, and internationally. Which they might do, because one should never underestimate Russian hubris.

Believe it or not, Russia actually is responsive to global opinion. Just not in the way we like to think. A key part of Russia’s geopolitical strategy is to breed European dependence on Russia energy, a goal they have largely achieved. At the same time, that isn’t permanent, and if Russia pushes too far Europe could panic, actually bother to come up with a unified energy policy, and diversify its supplies. Russia does not want that. But they do want to dictate terms along their southern flank.

Russia also has a compelling interest in preventing Georgian ascension into NATO. It has been interesting to see how much diplomatic activity has been in Brussels, rather than Tblisi, Tskhinvali, or Moscow. They are keenly aware of their audience here, and given the fact that they’ve made their point—NATO’s stipulation that Georgia solve its “frozen conflicts” is clearly still valid—they have little reason to occupy the capital and provoke a global response.

Questions remain. Did NATO’s stipulation, along with years of American support, funding, and supply, create the conditions for this war? Right now, it looks like it did (so what culpability does the West have?). Does this war conclusively prove that Russia is politically rotten, and that Medvedev is worse than a paper tiger since it’s all been about Putin? Quite possibly. Does this mean that Caspian energy will no longer flow according to Western interests? Almost definitely. Can this mean, since Russia stands a serious chance of overstepping its bounds and provoking a counter-movement from the international community, that the U.S. might in all of this emerge the actual winner? A remote possibility.

More ominously, what happens to Georgia? Saakashvili is finished, but there is no one to replace him. As the electoral crisis last year demonstrated, even when he voluntarily resigns and holds fair and open elections, he remains the only real leader the Georgians have. Alas, he is finished now. What, or more importantly who, comes next? It will almost certainly be one of the many opposition leaders, all of whom share varying degrees of warmth toward Russia. The winner of that political fight—which will be metaphorically if not physically bloody—will determine the ultimate result of this war. So in that sense, Russia is taking just as big a gamble here as Saakashvili did.

But basically, it is all very fluid, and there are too many variables to conclusively discuss what the war will really mean. Which is a cop-out in a way, but it is all one should feel comfortable saying.

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Russia has invaded Western Georgia (proper) and captured Senaki, far from Abkhazia. It’s being billed by a Russian official as a preventive move against Georgian troop concentration. This being yet another new rationale invented on the fly to justify further incursion and murder. Remember when this was about South Ossetia peacekeeping?

For trivia, the military base at Senaki was where the 1998 mutiny against Eduard Shevardnadze was organized. Yesterday Wu Wei was amusingly speculating that he’d be dusted off by the Kremlin as Georgia’s eventual pro-Moscow puppet.

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Russia wants Saakashvili gone and then categorically rejects the French ceasefire agreement Saakashvili signed. Even while the increasingly uncomfortable Medvedev says they’re all but finished with military operations. The humiliating exposure of Medvedev’s “presidency” is one of the more comical aspects of this episode.

Putin, the master of I’m-not-you-are school of geopolitical disputation, accuses the US of a “Cold War mentality.” I would agree, of course it does tend to happen when you start acting like the Soviet Union.

He’s also rather upset that the United States flew the Georgian contingent home from Iraq. Quite literally, the absolute least we could do. One gets the feeling that an IBM sales office in Tbilisi would constitute unwarranted American influence in Georgia for Putin.

And…Estonia “the other plucky”, speaks:

‘Russia’s military strikes in Georgia toll a knell for many of Europe’s hopes, such as the possibility of sharing common fundamental values with Russia,’ Toomas Sildam said Ilves told the European Union’s foreign policy chief Javier Solana on Sunday.
(Forbes)

Enough to turn you green.

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Evidently immune to the historical irony, Israel halted arms shipments to Georgia months ago due to fears of a Russian attack. As an IDF veteran interprets that:

“When we found ourselves in a similar situation, we expected the world to act differently.”
(Haaretz)

And the world did act differently, or at least the United States…and at far greater political risk and economic consequence than Israel would sustain now.

Armaments are a problem for Georgia. She must have a method in ample supply to neutralize Russian armor.

(more…)

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How much of the Georgia/South Ossetia/Russian conflict can be laid at the hands of a corrupt cabal of former soviet ministers bent on lining their own pockets? Perhaps a great deal.

Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili has handed his Russian counterpart, Dmitry Medvedev, a victory over the “siloviki” in Russia. And if Medvedev is able to take advantage of the fruits of this victory, the consequences will be significant not so much for Tbilisi as for Moscow.

So, why is this a victory over the siloviki — those in the Russian ruling elite with close ties to the state security organs? Because there is no way the regime in South Ossetia can be in any sense called “separatist.” Who there is a separatist? The head of the local KGB, Anatoly Baranov, used to head the Federal Security Service (FSB) in the Russian Republic of Mordovia. The head of the South Ossetian Interior Ministry, Mikhail Mindzayev, served in the Interior Ministry of Russia’s North Ossetia. The South Ossetian “defense minister,” Vasily Lunev, used to be military commissar in Perm Oblast, and the secretary of South Ossetia’s Security Council, Anatoly Barankevich, is a former deputy military commissar of Stavropol Krai. So who exactly is a separatist in this government? South Ossetian “prime minister” Yury Morozov?

However, alas, I also cannot say this regime is “pro-Russian.” On the contrary, all the recent actions of Eduard Kokoity, the leader of the breakaway South Ossetian government, have run counter to the interests of Russia in the Caucasus — beginning with his embarrassing Russia in the eyes of the international community and ending with his ratcheting up the tensions in the very region where Russia might begin to come undone. South Ossetia is not a territory, not a country, not a regime. It is a joint venture of siloviki generals and Ossetian bandits for making money in a conflict with Georgia. For me, the most surprising thing in this entire story is the complete lack of any strategic goals on the part of the South Ossetians.

[...]

Again — nothing that is going on in South Ossetia makes any sense from the point of view of strategy. It only makes sense as a means of making money. And we aren’t talking about small sums. Running a gas pipeline through the mountains from Russia — a precaution in case Georgia decides to cut off the 70,000 residents — cost $570 million. And then there is the secret budget Russia has allotted for the struggle — estimated at somewhere around $800 million. And don’t forget the pensions and wages for state-sector workers, who officially number some 80,000 but whose actual numbers are not more than 30,000.

Yulia Latynina lays out a convincing case that this war is not about ethnic tensions, nor about Russian power plays, but instead about the soliviki creating the tensions necessary to loosen the Kremlin’s purse strings. Towards that end, Kokoity is using the PLO playbook:

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.

Without endorsing Ms. Latynina’s views, I have to admit that they are quite compelling, and that a lot of it makes logical sense.

[HT: Joshua Foust]

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Joshua hasn’t disappeared, he just isn’t gracing us with his opinions on the conflict in the Caucasus, but you can find them at Registan.net, here and here.

Heh, Insty links to him, but describes it as peevish (Josh? Peevish? Also, by linking to him kind of undercuts Josh’s complaint.) Great surprise, but Joshua makes a few good points about Russia having pushed the action using mischief in Ossetia to set off Georgia.

Outside of being unfairly peevish about people searching for information, and providing some links of use (as has Lee) I would caution Josh on this:

the plain old wrong (Russia wants to annex Georgia)

Maybe not, but I am not so sure given the behavior of Russia since Josh wrote his last post on this.

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McQ, Dale and I discuss the Russian campaign against Georgia over South Ossetia.

Generally I feel that our support should belong to Georgia. However, Georgia has severely miscalculated in this matter, and frankly our options are limited. At best, we get a negotiated settlement with Russia that retains Georgian sovereignty with the loss of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The US and NATO allowed to save face with some show of protecting Georgian airspace after the fact, with Russia suffering a black eye in international opinion. Maybe.

I am not sure I agree with Lee that we may get Nato peacekeepers in South Ossetia and this turns out negatively in the short term for Russia, but we can hope.

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When it seemed like escalation was the modal reality, outcomes looked bleak for Georgia. Dynamics change. Thus Georgia’s ceasefire in South Ossetia cannot be a bad thing under the circumstances. By putting up an initial fight, they drew the attention of the world and now in can come the international community, which is as firmly opposed to Russia’s behavior on an issue since the Afghanistan invasion in 1979.

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The point has been made more than once that the Russian incursion into South Ossetia is ideologically motivated as a retaliatory gesture for Kosovo independence. Wu Wei makes a fine point about why this is not plausible if so:

The Kosovo Albanians had had 10 years of oppression by Slobodan Milosovic in Yugoslavia before it broke up, and there had been wars provoked by him in Croatia and Bosnia, with charges of genocide generally accepted now. So people knew exactly what he was planning when he started driving Albanians out of Kosovo. And there were something like 2 million Albanians driven out of Kosovo across the border into Albania and Macedonia. Without the bombing he would not have stopped.

Bigger is not better, and war is never right. But Saakashvili, with all his faults is not Milosovic.
(Wu Wei)

True in the immediate, but there’s an underlying historical dissonance to the Russian claim as well. Kosovo is after all, the Serbian ethnic homeland. The churches of the old Serbian kings are still the dominant architectural element of the ancient towns in that country and Serbia has hereditary claims to these southern lands which predate written records. The loss of them is just as ancient a grievance, given that their uprising against the Ottomans in 1690s is what sent them north.

The key difference here is that any South Ossetian claim to Russian identification is as young as 1801 at the earliest. As for the ethnically Russian emigrees, that mostly goes back to the 20th century. These are not comparable claims for Russian territorial identity upon the land.

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Always demanding when they need you, useless and even obstructionist when you actually need them. Our friend Geoff Morrell can serve as something of a personification of that characteristic in fact:

Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell said the Georgians had requested U.S. help in moving their troops. But he said the Pentagon was looking for a way to assist without appearing to support Georgian military operations against the Russians.
(Los Angeles Times)

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Australian Prime Minister Kevin Rudd witnessed a heated discussion between Bush and Putin over Georgia.

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One can always count on the New York Times for publishing pernicious editorial advice on foreign policy.

To duty, Helene Cooper is eager for the US to seize the opportunity of the South Ossetia invasion to…throw Georgia under the bus and forge a closer relationship with Russia. Clearly makes sense under the circumstances right? Why wouldn’t we want to ally with an increasingly nondemocratic state that is now engaged in aggressive territorial expansion through the military conquest of her neighbors.

But if that sounds too crazy for you (that is, if you’re human), she offers an alternative policy from George Friedman, chief executive of Stratfor. He advises that the United States should just “shut up” and ignore the invasion of a close ally.

With such advice careers are made, and we can only wonder why.

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So who is in control of Tskhinvali right now? Russia says Russia, Georgia says Georgia, and the separatists? Take your pick:

Eduard Kokoity, self-styled president of the separatist region, said a “second attempt” by Georgian forces to retake the town had been beaten back.

But, as he spoke, Boris Chochiyev, deputy head of the South Ossetian government, told reporters that Tskhinvali was now in the hands of Georgian forces. “The city has been lost. We have been betrayed”
(Reuters)

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Slowly the gears turn, but Washington and Tbilisi’s positions inch further into concord by the minute. The infamous “unnamed senior US official,” behind all important news events of the last century has spoken:

A senior U.S. official says Russia has attacked areas of the former Soviet state that are far away from the separatist province of South Ossetia where the fighting has centered. The Bush administration also says the Russian military is striking civilian areas.

The official said Saturday that Moscow’s military response is disproportionate to the threat and Russia has stymied attempts at mediation aimed at arranging a cease-fire.
(AP)

That’s the embryo of a case that will go to Europe. Russia is in imminent danger of overreaching as badly as Georgia did.

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Alexander Stubb, chairman of the OSCE, states the obvious but necessary: Russia having become a combatant, can no longer serve in a peacekeeping role in South Ossetia. Which of course eliminates their rationale for intervention.

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Wu Wei believes Russia is now targeting the Nabucco gas pipeline in Georgia…while the Russian NATO envoy argues that strategic objectives are restricted to a South Ossetia protection and warns NATO to stay out. And now Iran gets into the ceasefire call game.

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Daniel Nexon gets an email from an anonymous Russia hand speculating on the grim possible outcomes for Georgia:

This is not going to end well for Georgia. Russia has expanded its targets beyond the vicinity of South Ossetia, hitting not only military but also economic and communications targets throughout Georgia. It is unlikely, though, that Russia intends to set up a puppet government as they did in Chechnya–the local population is far too hostile, and I doubt that they have any reliable local elites that they can turn to. More likely, we will see a clear demand for independence for both Abkhazia and South Ossetia (though I suspect that shortly after obtaining independence, S. Ossetia would petition to rejoin the motherland, which Russia would, of course, graciously grant.

Rough agreement from me. Although I don’t know if we could consider the population of Chechnya friendly to Russian ownership, nor after extended warfare consider the Russophile local elites mostly living.

And suppose for a moment that Georgia doesn’t stop fighting? Russia’s supply lines –excuse me, supply line– to South Ossetia is precarious to put it mildly. Saakashvili wants a ceasefire, but Russia always has a problem with pressing advantages.

With winter ahead, a fighting defense will necessitate expansion of the geographic corridor of occupation. And in pushing back Georgian attacks, it’s very easy to escalate into conquering the entire country (even without the possible coastal attack). If the Russians do that, they certainly aren’t going to leave a hostile government in power (which is the only kind that could get elected at this point). The “puppet state” scenario seems very much in the cards as things stand (if this plays out militarily).

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In an unnerving development, the New York Times is reporting that Russia may be preparing for an amphibious assault on Georgia’s Black Sea coastline.

Alexander Lomaya, Secretary of Georgia’s National Security Council:

“Russia has clearly decided to redraw the borders of the Eastern Europe map of the post-cold war situation,” Mr. Lomaya said. “If the world is not able to stop Russia here, then Russian tanks and Russian paratroopers can appear in every European capital.”
(New York Times)

Exaggeration in stress, but it’s not untrue that this is the decisive moment where it is decided whether Russia will be restrained from her “sphere of influence” reclamation project.

Act, Washington. Act.

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At least 160,000 deaths in the suppression of Chechen independence by Russia. Just a reminder for when someone tries to set Russia up as the great defender of South Ossetia’s right of national self-determination. There’s a diplomatic argument for that, but it isn’t one that can be made by Russia and especially not by a Russian imperial invasion force.

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After an ambiguous initial reaction, the State Department appears to have realized that despite whatever Russia contends, it is physically impossible for Georgia to invade its own country:

“We call on Russia to cease attacks on Georgia by aircraft and missiles, respect Georgia’s territorial integrity, and withdraw its ground combat forces from Georgian soil,” she said.
(AFP)

But whose side are we really on?

“We have been appreciative of the American efforts to pacify the hawks in Tbilisi,” [Russian foreign minister, Sergey Lavrov] said. “Apparently these efforts have not succeeded. Quite a number of officials in Washington were really shocked when all this happened.”
(IHT)

Perhaps someone should remind the Bush administration of the moral dimension of Georgia’s best troops being in Iraq, assisting her ally the United States without complaint. One would think that should count for something when Georgia could use some assistance herself.

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(image: Marcelus G. Zalotti)

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