OK, that was way too long to read the whole thing, but I did a quick read and I agree in part with what you have to say. The situation is very difficult. South Ossetia and Abkhazia want to be part of Russia, and if their people vote for it, they should be allowed to re-join Russia and split from Georgia.
Georgia, it seems, is hell bent on keeping "its" territory, regardless of what the people in those regions want. That's not right. The U.S. definitely pushed to bring Georgia under the umbrella of Europe and NATO, no question there. it's an ugly situation, as have been so many regional situations in the post-Cold War era. Now let's consider the Georgian perspective. The Soviets subjugated everyone under communism for close to 70 years. They punished attempted independence movements of the sort you are talking about in South Ossetia with brutal military force, political assassinations, massive forced relocations of populations- basically the entire bag of tricks that autocrats use to subjugate free people. So when the Putin-led (ex-KGB) Russian government says it is merely defending the interests of the poor South Ossetians, but then they bomb the capital of Georgia and cut the country in half with a massive ground assault, everyone should be highly skeptical of Russian motives, however worthwhile their stated goals. What do the Russians want? Control of the oil and gas pipelines to the sea. How far are they willing to go to get it? We'll see. On Mon, Aug 11, 2008 at 1:30 PM, Vivec wrote: > Well, as seems to be usual now on the list, I have a slightly different > perspective. > > Georgia was granted autonomy from Russia after the breakup of the Soviet > Union. > They applied for sovereign status and was recognised by the US, the UN and > the EU. > > South Ossetia was also a former part of the Soviet Union. It's people were > ethnically distinct from the rest of Georgia. > They have their own culture, and their own identity. They have also sought > autonomy and sovereignty. However, they have been denied by the Western > countries, and the UN. > ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| Adobe® ColdFusion® 8 software 8 is the most important and dramatic release to date Get the Free Trial http://ad.doubleclick.net/clk;203748912;27390454;j Archive: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/message.cfm/messageid:265703 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=11502.10531.5
