Devil Went Down to Georgia

On the first anniversary of the so-called Georgia-Ossetia war, the most that can be said is that it didn't really matter.

Ossetia, we hardly new ye.

(The Economist)

"Depending on where you stand, the war can be seen as the sinister culmination of a systematic provocation by a neo-imperialist Russia or as a murderously aggressive gambit by a Caucasian strongman wrongheadedly backed by the West."

— The Economist

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Soooo, um... why can't we see it as the sinister, systematic, provocation by a neo-imperialist Russia of a murderously aggressive strongman wrongheadedly backed by the West?

Some of us hope we CAN have it all, after all, but seriously, the side-taking in a conflict hardly anyone in the West even knew existed until it erupted in light gunfire was specious Cold War nostalgia, and little more.

"With a detailed chronology of who did and decided what in the days and hours leading up to the war still (oddly) unavailable, an accurate assessment of the causes of war is still impossible."

At best, these are all bad actors sitting on a narrow trade route from which very few of the real, native inhabitants derive much benefit from the real resources over which the world is arguing.

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