The trigger to this entire event is Kosovo. The Russians said months ago that breaking the Kosovo “enclave” off....as a separate state from Serbia, was wrong. So here we are. NATO and the US will do nothing to protect Georgia, and they knew that.
In a few weeks...prepare for another enclave in some other country to cry out for help from the Russians. They will arrange a second operation to show the US and NATO that the Kosovo deal isn’t finished yet. Add in the Poland missile deal....and we’ve got a royal mess for someone to clean up....and it won’t be Bush.
Kosovo wasn't a "trigger" -- it's an excuse. Russia could give a rat's patoot about Kosovo or Serbia -- all these "ethnic separatists" are simply pawns in Russia's power plays. Triggers to be pulled when convenient.
Cold Heat is correct -- the story of ethnic cleansing in S. Osettia hasn't stood up to scrutiny -- so the lament about Kosovo is now the siren song of the Kremlin thugs.
Next up: the "ethnic separatists" in Ukraine.
Norton and pepsionice are right— nobody’s trying to excuse Russian actions here, and they have to be discouraged from any further military adventurism. But it was incredibly stupid to recognize Kosovo unilaterally like that, and give Russia a pretext for South Ossetia.
There were no good guys and bad guys in Serbia. The Islamofascist Albanian KLA— which has links to Osama bin Laden— was just as guilty of perpetrating atrocities against Serbs, Gypsies and even fellow Albanians as was Milosevic. Yet Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton needed something to distract attention from Blow Job-gate and Bill’s impeachment, while Madeleine Albright needed something to distract from her incompetence. Then George W. Bush stupidly embraced the same policy and Condi Rice, right up there with Albright in the incompetence sweepstakes, urged outright recognition of Kosovo— an outright violation of international law, UN Resolution 1244, and the old Westphalian principle of international sovereignty.
If Kosovo can just break off like that, then so can Aztlan in the US Southwest, so can Hawaii, so can the Sioux, so can Florida, so can Vermont. All one needs to do is start up some nasty attacks, organize a few gangs, then complain to the international press about government “oppression” when the authorities respond, and voila— you have a pretext for independence. It’s coming to the USA as well.
Russia is just applying the same logic to South Ossetia. I don’t agree with Russia anymore than anybody else does, but we opened the door wide open to them.
The solution, simply, is to withdraw recognition for Kosovo, and demand Russia do the same for South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Almost all countries in the world have not recognized Kosovo, including close US allies like Israel and the Philippines, and it will never have a UN seat. It’s also not viable— it’s a narcostate, and the KLA specializes in human smuggling and weapons trafficking.
So just do an exchange— Russian peacekeepers allowed to join with US and European peacekeepers in Kosovo, while we get to station our own peacekeepers in South Ossetia and Abkhazia. Not ideal, but imposes some semblance of stability and exchange.