Georgia's claims -- that it waged a precise attacks on separatists, while the Russians went on a indiscriminate rampage during their August war -- are growing more suspect by the day. First we learned that Georgia showered South Ossetia with cluster bombs that killed at least three civilians.
Now, independent military observers at the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe are suggesting that Georgia’s military attacked the separatist capital of Tskhinvali "with indiscriminate artillery and rocket fire, exposing civilians, Russian peacekeepers and unarmed monitors to harm," according to the New York Times.
Wow, a "shower" of cluster bombs killed three civilians. I don't think that word means what they think it means.
And while civilians should not have been targeted, lumping in civilians with Russian so-called "peacekeepers" and whoever those monitors were is highly misleading. I don't recall that the Russians ever produced actual bodies in their claims of slaughter, so reports of artillery fire in a war aren't terribly persuasive to me.
The Russians set the Georgians up, as I noted soon after the war. The Russians arranged a nice provocation and had their forces conveniently ready to immediately invade Georgia:
The ramshackle Russian military, rusting away for two decades now, miraculously put together an invasion of Georgia, flying in paratroopers even from distant basesd, within hours of being attacked by Georgia? You seriously believe that version of events?
Russia got their South Ossetian goon allies to shoot at the Georgians and the Gerogians obliged by shooting back--which triggered the overt Russian invasion of Georgia. That is the reality of the situation.
Georgia fell for the provocation and gave Russia the excuse to invade. Although to be fair to Georgia, the Russians may have invaded anyway even if Georgia had held fire initially. Russia just would have needed to lie just a little more in that case to make up the Georgian provocation.
If you really believe the Russian military was able to pull together an invasion on the fly after a sudden and unexpected Georgian attack, you are a fool or a member of the Russian media.
The Georgians, clearly, were fools to respond to the Russian provocation. And the Georgians did not follow rules of engagement that we would follow. But the Russians were the aggressors and the bad guys in this war, efforts to white wash Putin's aggression to the contrary.
UPDATE: Cue the idiots. Robert Scheer, one of our age's greatest fools, lines up against the Georgians and with Putin. For those like Scheer, no American ally is pure enough and no actual or potential enemy can be tainted even a little bit. I cannot fathom what it must be like to be such a person.
