South Ossetia

I'm putting the snake post on hiatus for the moment.

I think that this is far more important then that.

On the same day that the world saw the opening of the XXIX Olympic Games in Beijing...




...The Army of the Russian Federation entered South Ossetia in Georgia.

It's funny how that works isn't it?

This occurred less then a day after a ceasefire between the Georgian government, and the Russian backed South Ossetian separatists.

Today however, there was more news of this new war.

The Russians bombed the Georgian city of Gori.

Gori is a Georgian city 25 km away from South Ossetia.

The eyewitness story reveals quite a bit, at least with what the Georgian people think.

From what I can tell the Russians entered South Ossetia under the pretext of helping the South Ossetians maintain their pretend country, they are in a similar position to Abkhazia.

I guess that means that bombing military bases on the other side of the country is there to protect the South Ossetians. Who apparently have Russian passports.

I think the Russians don't see the South Ossetians as a breakaway group any more. They see them as a Russian enclave within Georgia. I guess that their actions, if supported by the other states in the Russian Federation in the Caucasus, would score them some pretty big brownie points.

There is also quite a bit of political manuevering going on as well.

Georgia pulled their troops out of Iraq, which I guess would put pressure on the US to get this conflict over and everything sorted out because even though I don't know what the Georgian contingent is doing over there, but I'm guessing that the US probably needs them.

But what we really have to look at is that innocent people are once again being affected by the actions of a few groups.

What makes it more annoying in a way is that it runs completely contrary to the whole ideal of the Olympics. And what makes it even worse is that the area of land in question, South Ossetia, is considered to be part of Georgia by everyone except Abkhazia, which also doesn't exist, and the South Ossetians themselves.

The only conclusion that I really can draw from this is that Russia considers South Ossetia the same way that the US considers Taiwan (or as they are known in the Olympics, Chinese Taipei). They don't officially accept that it exists, but for all intents and purposes they do.