Ping!
What one must remember is that South Ossetia is part of GEORGIA, not RUSSIA. If the Georgians went back in to reestablish its authority over its own territory, it has every right to do so. Russia, on the other hand, has no right to invade a sovereign state’s (Georgia) territory merely because some of its population is what Russia considers Russian. Although, even that isn’t exactly true, as there is North Ossetia, a region within Russia made up of, obviously, the same ethnic minority of peoples who aren’t true Russians either, as are found in South Ossetia. So depends on what your definition of Russian is.
Where the US and EU loses their moral authority, and what is, IMO, holding the Bush Admin and the EU back from doing much about this is the fact that we did the same exact thing in Kosovo, which was part of Serbia and was a breakaway republic, just like South Ossetia. We bombed Serbia, just as Russia is now bombing Georgia, for the same reasons, to support a breakaway territory that by virtue of population growth had become almost all Muslim and ethnically more aligned with Albania next door (just like Russia being next door to South Ossetia). And we were the ones bombing Serbia, who was naturally aligned with Russia because both were Orthodox Christian, and our bombing by the Clinton Admin, along with the backing of the EU, in order to establish an independent Kosovo, annoyed the heck out of Russia. So, bottom line, what goes around, comes around. How can we now slam Russia for supporting South Ossetia and for invading Georgia when we did something very similar when we supported Kosovo and bombed Serbia. It’s called our own policies coming back to bite us in the butt. Thanks Bill Clinton.
Of course one can also say, when will it all stop? How many breakaway territories can any country tolerate? Yugoslavia was totally chopped up. Little countries like Czechoslovakia become even more tiny when split in two. What would the US do if say, Texas, or California decided to break off from the US? Russia, who is all for South Ossetia being its own entity, has been fighting tooth and nail against the breakaway republic of Chechnya for years now, not allowing them the same “freedom” as they seem to want for South Ossetia. Plus, of course, oil politics come into play. I believe Russia, if they thought they could get away with it, would like to reincorporate Georgia back into the Russian Federation as they want to get their meat hooks into the oil pipeline that runs through Georgia that via Turkey then sends oil to the EU, bypassing Russia. Russia wants control over all pipelines sending oil to the EU, as they can then manipulate Europe like puppets on a string by controlling all oil spigots to Europe. Whenever the EU would do anything that displeases Russia, she can hike the price of oil, or slow down production, or shut off oil supplies to the EU.
Ah yes, nothing ever quite seems as it really is, when you dig below the surface. Serbia must be laughing their *ss off today as I’m sure they see this as divine retribution. Politics, ain’t it fun?