We're not fooled - Georgia attacked Ossetia!

Western media coverage would have you believe Russia has just full-on invaded Georgia! In fact, Georgia attacked Ossetia and Russia moved in to defend it - as mandated to do by the UN. 

South Ossetian War – an alternative Olympics

On the 8.8.08, the day the Olympics began,  war broke out in the Caucusus. Western media quickly portrayed this as a Soviet invasion with Russian tanks going in. (Now they tell us of the 40th anniversary of Russia sending tanks into Czechoslovakia.)

You could be forgiven for missing the rather important fact that Georgia attacked first. Especially if you are a sports fan.

Since the 1990 breakup of the Soviet Union, Georgia has been taken under America’s wing. That is, its military wing. This includes aid, military aid, weapons and military advisors. Georgia’s entry into NATO is being considered. At NATO’s 20th summit, this April in Bucharest, French and German resistance scuppered Georgian wishes to join NATO. Georgians favour this by 77% to judge by the referendum in January 2008.

But why would Georgia attack its own province of South Ossetia?

In the 1990s, S. Ossetia made a bid for independence from Georgia. Its friends and neighbour North Ossetia is over the border in Russia proper and S.Ossetia, too, has a large majority Russian population maybe 90%. After this bid for “freedom” the UN intervened and Russia has had peacekeepers in S.Ossetia for a decade under a UN mandate.

Georgia wants its province back, no doubt, but there is good reason to believe that Georgia, as a client state of the US, was put up to the attack, maybe to test Russia, maybe to seriously engage Russia, in the manner of Chechnya, while something else happened, perhaps in the Middle East. Chechnya is just over the border, Grozny only 30 miles away and Beslan (of massacre fame) only 20.

Russia reacted strongly: it will have seen it coming, it has protested NATO's closeness to Georgia. In particular Russia will have kept a close eye on a “Georgian” military exercise, “Operation Immediate Response”, held directly before and involving 1000 AMERICAN military advisers.

It was worth Georgia's gamble, apparently, as Russia, historically, has been unpredictable about which allies it helps, or not.

However, Russia has slapped them down and hard. Now we see Russia being very slow to pull out as terms are argued over,  and also getting (rightly) irritated by US “Missile Defense” in Poland.

Russia, of course, is very important to European energy now. The BTC pipeline goes right through Georgia. Its biggest customer is BP. So naturally Britain won't have any great problem with getting Georgia into NATO. - Martin Deane