The army of Georgia began a military operation yesterday to retake a "breakaway" provence. The US military had been training them and supplying them with weapons. Civilian deaths are high, but no accurate count can be determined at this point. The citizens of the area in question hold Russian citizenship. In retaliation, Russian troops have crossed the border and began bombing other parts of Georgia. The Georgian leader so much as said he figured it would be a good time to start this operation because the world's attention is focused on the Olympics.

This is about oil and realignment. Georgia wants to join NATO and is a route for oil that bypasses Russia. They sent troops to Iraq and want to be the west's boy in the region. Russia sees this as unacceptable and still wants to influence, if not control their ex- territory.

Here most media gives the headline "Russia invades" which is true but misleading, and the extent of our role in this misadventure is yet to be determined, but we clearly have been a party to this bloodshed. The cold war strategy of using surrogates to fight our battle continues, US vs Russia.

While the UN, Nato the EU and the White House are calling for a ceasefire and finding fault with both parties, McCain has given us a taste of what his future foreign policy would be. By condemning Russia only, and making no mention of the fact that the hostilities were initiated by Georgia and they killed many civilians, he demonstrates the Bush approach of making of bellicose, inflamatory statements in the height of a dangerous situation. One of McCain's chief advisors was formally a lobbyist for the government of Georgia, and the gop candidate has also called for the ouster of Russia from the G8 group. In other words, diplomacy my ass, BRING IT ON (2).

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This reminds me of Israel believing they could wipe out hezbollah in Lebanon. Georgia picked a fight they could not win. Russia, is not known for concern about human rights, with their own breakaway republics suffering genocide, and a crackdown on freedom of the press etc. The Georgian leader was on shaky political ground and thought he would have NATO back him up on his military assault. Instead we have a widening conflict, more casualties and the continuation of ethnic and political rivalries that will perpetuate the cycle of bloodshed.

Oh yes Jeff, it is about oil, much more than NATO membership.

Good analysis here about the tepid response by the US.

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Seems to me that there's sufficient blame on both sides of the issue. Just a nasty situation. Yet another reminder of the havoc that national pride and oil lust can cause.

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by George Monbiot in the Guardian. Bush is working hard to maintain the impetus for the military to be continually sucking up vast sums of American taxpayer dollars for no good reason.