>The Georgians didn't attack the Russians, they attacked INTERNAL insurgents.
Why "insurgents", why not "freedom fighters"? Georgian army started assault with destroying barracks of Russian peacekeepers using tanks, killing at least 12 soldiers and wounding at least 30. This happened 1 hour after Pres. Saakashvili announced on TV that a peace agreement with Ossetians was reached, and 30 minutes after the commander of peacekeeping force confirmed that on Russian TV, and said that 1-week long sporadic shooting around Tzkhinvali, finally, stopped. Four hours later, when Ossetian capital was already under artillery and "Grad" fire, Georgian special forces started to burn Ossetian villages, and Western countries blocked UN resolution, which (maybe) could stop the assault, Russian troops started the movement into S Ossetia. There is only one road there - 4 km long tunnel - between North and South Ossetia, so it took more than 8 hours for the Russians to engage. When they approached, the city already did not exist. I do not want to argue about whether there was enough legal ground for Russians to intervene or not (according to what US and Israel do - looks like enough), but from humanitarian point of view, it was the right move, because, clearly, this lunatic Saakashvili would kill all 70K people in South Ossetia. He already said once that Georgia needs its land back; it does not need Ossetians back. [Some info] Mixed Georgian-Russian peacekeeping force was deployed according to the UN resolution in 1994(?): about 1000 troops from each side armed only with light weapons. They did not participate in any fighting and served rather as observers than a real military or police force. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~| 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:265843 Subscription: http://www.houseoffusion.com/groups/CF-Community/subscribe.cfm Unsubscribe: http://www.houseoffusion.com/cf_lists/unsubscribe.cfm?user=89.70.5
