Finally

     Eli at Lefti alerts me to this article from the NY Times, which finally addresses the Georgian aggression in South Ossetia by our dear ally, Saakashvili. Obama, McCain, and the entire U.S. press corps ate up Saakashitti's repeated claims that big bear Russia was bearing down on poor, defenseless, Georgia. I blogged a ton about it at the time.  My conclusion seems a bit optimistic.

2008 South Ossetian War Over. Who Won?

The biggest victor, naturally, was myself.  I really learned a ton about propaganda, catapulting it, and how whole countries of people can come to hate each other enough to want to kill each other. I watched the television news from both Russia and America and only very rarely did their respective realities overlap.  As a side note, I learned how problematic engaging in war can be unless you have your own, slick, media operation.  Certainly no one wants thousands of people to die so they can learn about war, but if I am quite lucky, I learned enough about war to prevent this many people dying in the future.

As for the combatants, Russia can claim a marginal victory.  First, her people love her more.  Polls show only a tiny fraction of Russians disapproved of Russians moving into South Ossetia.  Their mission was portrayed as a humanitarian one to fight off US-backed Georgian aggression.  I doubt many people in Russia think America wasn't being aggressive in Iraq, so, America's standing in Russia has declined, again.

Georgia gained nothing, lost a foothold in Abkhazia, and lost the right to have further peacekeepers in South Ossetia (pretty much guaranteed).  Saakashvili's plan, instead of gaining S. Ossetia for Georgia, seems to have lost it to her forever.

Because the interests of two veto-powers were involved, the UN Security Council was never going to be that useful.  Still, I'm proud of Panama.

I'm pretty sure that the President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, gained overall. 

Sorry, I'd write more, but I don't make a living off the truth.

Saakashvili REALLY stretching things now

I start out unsympathetic to Saakashvili.  I consider him, perhaps incorrectly, the aggressor in the current conflict.  Saakashvili is on CNN saying that no one should appease Russia, that America never appeased anyone.  He's saying that the closest parallel is Czechoslovakia before WWII, where "10 of millions people died." 

For the last 8 hours, although Saakashvili has said the Russians were still in Georgia, there are no verified reports of the same.  You all remember, just a few days ago, when the Georgian Foreign Minister was saying the Russians were in Gori, but a Reuter's reporter, in Gori, looking around, said the city was deserted, and no one was there?

Russia Today Interviews

According to one person interviewed, Saakasvhili is a "mad" "fascist" "terrorist," while many seem to agree he's engaged in "genocide" against Ossetians, a process, a number have said, has gone on for "100s of years."

Bush Calls for Halt to All Violence

Apparently "all" does not include Iraq or Afghanistan.  Sorry, distant cousins!

Bush was only talking about Georgia, while Saakashvili has requested in the last hour that Georgia's Parliament declare war on Russia.  It's a war they can't win.  I hear most S. Ossetians like the Russians, more, so it would be like forcing themselves on an unwilling population.  Hmm, maybe that's why George Walker is behind them?  No, seriously, if America had spare military capacity, and it turns out Georgia's claims about how the violence started (very important to me) are true, we could do a little dance.  Now we can do next to nothing.  Realist speaking, Russia still has the 2nd most nukes in the world.  Economy and trade speaking, Russia has industrial workers and a large industrial base, and tons of natural resources.  McCain, though, wants to boot them from the G-8.

Will anyone ever clear up who actually started this incident?

My Surmise

America pushed through the "Rose Revolution" in Georgia at a relative high-point.  The total morass that has become the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan were not yet horrible. 

The recent actions are basically the natural rollback of that overstretch.  Face it, America has no connection to the Georgian (or South Ossetian, or Abkhaz) people.  I don't get the impression that all Georgians are unequivocally of the opinion that they are glad it happened.

So, the conclusion?  Saakashvili will not remain as Georgian President, instead a pro-Russian Georgian will be placed in office.

Well, that's my guess, but unless America is willing to really push (with our armies in Iraq and Afghanistan?  We simply don't have the bodies!), Georgia is a tiny country on the border of mighty Russia, and the result is inevitable.

I still don't think Russia will invade Georgia proper with land troops unless Georgia (ludicrous!) tries to invade Russia, or starts exterminating Russians living in Georgia.

Russia Today calling Georgia the invader, and gross violator of human rights

Officially, of course, South Ossetia is part of Georgia.  RT journalists saying Georgia used the Olympics as a cover.  Sorry I mostly have the Russian perspective here.  They are saying Georgia is engaged in "gross aggression" against "civilians."  RT's American apparatchik is telling Russia to escalate the violence.

This article is an analysis of South Ossetian issues in 2006.  It puts forward the idea that Saakashvili can not maintain him and his party in power unless he retakes control of Abkhazia and South Ossetia.  This is also from the Russian perspective, includes many, many experts.  Again, however, this is a 2006 view.

At the conspiracy theorist level, it useful to see this quote: "At the time of the Rose Revolution, the kneejerk anti-America crowd squawked about how it was all the work of the CIA and George Soros. Now [Dec 2007] Saakashvili is squawking about how the current wave of protest is all the work of Russian secret agents."