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Russia's Endless War Against Georgia
This is something we all should probably read to be more informed world citizens? It is on the state of Russia's operations against Georgia since 2004. It's remarkable how far everyone in power is willing to go to claim that oh gosh no, Russia has never had anything but super-warm feelings and a total lack of pipeline bombings towards its Georgian friends. Ta da! Wikileaks! Definitely good for something! (Also here is a primer on where and what Abkhazia is, for those of us who can never tell Khujand from Bishkek.)
By the same token, Georgia still hasn't made up for Joltin' Joe Stalin.
It's funny, though, one of the other WikiLeaks revelations was that (although as this link points out there is context) Georgia actually more or less initiated the 2008 war (shelling South Ossetia's capital despite a cease fire) and that the US embassy staff in Georgia was really uncritical of the Georgian government in ways that the US embassy staff is not supposed to be!
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/12/02/world/europe/02wikileaks-georgia.html
Not to say that the Russian government are GOOD PEOPLE or anything (they aren't!), and of course one's underdog-rooting feelings come out in a conflict as lopsided as this, but the Georgian gov't has its own degrees of sketchiness and self-delusion as well! After all, Georgia-as-an-independent-country has *never* actually controlled Abkhazia or South Ossetia, and there's very little indication that the people who live in those countries have any particular desire to be part of Georgia. (Stalin actually divided Ossetia in half, giving the north to Russia and the south to Georgia, specifically to complicate matters if Georgia ever tried to secede.)
Good points all. Basically we have reached the point, as a society and planet, where it is impossible to pretend that there is an innocent party in any war.
It was (almost) ever thus (World War II [mostly] excepted)! I remember being sort of simultaneously heartbroken and angered when I read about some '60s peace & love musician (Joni Mitchell, maybe?) going to visit Hanoi during the Vietnam War and coming away profoundly disillusioned when she discovered that N. Vietnam was in fact a dictatorship — heartbroken at the blow to her idealism, angered that anyone could have been so naive. People can't help themselves and need to find a good guy in every fight, and once they determine that one side is bad (US in SE Asia, Russia in 2008, Nazi Germany) the assumption is that the other is noble and good (N. Vietnam, Georgia in 2008, Stalinist USSR).
@jfruh – your second comment reminds me of when I found out that Mother Teresa was far from perfect …. still, when you're picking sides, the "I'm with whoever's against the Russian government" is a really good rule of thumb, I find. (Nazis excluded, obvi, but remember they were allies before they were enemies!)
@jfruh I'll sometimes read about artists from the middle of the century defending the USSR under Stalin and then I have to go weep for a while.
I look forward to a furthering conflict between cattle thieves and computer hackers.
#keep it on the download
One more reason to be thankful that McCain lost in 2008 is that we'd all know a LOT more about Abkhazia after he deployed troops to defend Georgia.
Just like we all know a lot more about Afghanistan!
I am disappointed in the alt text. Would "GEORGIA IS DELICIOUS" have killed ya?
"Bishkek" is such a beautiful word.
Even better: before the fall of the USSR, it was called "Frunze".