As for secession, if ethnic cleansing was going on, then certainly the Ossetians are justified in seeking separation from Georgia, though the Georgian population of Ossetia makes in rather complicated. That is why the U.S. needs to mind it's own business.

Contrast this with Kosovo, where there was a brutal ethnic cleansing by Albanians who came in as immigrants, even if many had been there for a long time. If we were to do as some Albanians do, and base land claims on the possibility that ancient Illyrians might have occupied what is now Kosovo way back when, before movements of peoples changed ethnic arrangements in the Balkans, that would only make things, once again, inextricably tangled.

The claim that the Serbs were ethnically cleansing Albanians has been debated, I dont think they were, and they had every right to stop ethnic cleansing of Serbs from Kosovo, including military invasion, and if that were the case, the U.S. was wrong to intervene.

In any case there appears to have been more than a little misunderstanding between us and I do not wish for that to continue. Suffice it to say that the U.S. needs to stay out of both conflicts, and if it had done so, much of the evil that has taken place would not have happened. That was the whole, though obviously not mentioned, rationale underlying my argument. When we make internet posts, we often dont word things the way we should, or leave things out, and misunderstanding often ensues especially when we dont have time to consider the effect of what we have just written.

I really dont care who controls South Ossetia in the long run, and I am dismayed that Georgia, surrounded by powerful Muslim states which one day may conquer Georgia once again, has now been alienated from the one major European power which is capable of helping Georgia against them and which is close enough to do so. They made a big mistake, though an understandable one, in allying with the U.S. and it's aims at encircling Russia and controlling resources.

A decade? Are you moving forward Saakashvili's rise to power to *1998*?. Please check your facts.

"10,000 Russian troops" -- the key word is *Russian.* And if the 30,000 Georgians were to defeat the 10,000 Russians, there were going to be 10,000 more Russians there shortly, followed by another 10,000, etc., etc. Because Russia is much, much larger than Georgia and has many more than 4,000,000+ citizens. As it is, Georgia lives to fight another day, if they so choose.

So Mr. Wilson said that paleocons would be right to support Russia in this conflict. I would call this "taking sides." I took his comment to be more than hypothetical, but perhaps it was just hypothetical. If the latter was the case, I apologize, but can you see how I could make such a mistake? I subsequently typified his comment thus: "Please read Mr. Wilson’s posts. If he claims to be a paleoconservative, then we have an instance of a paleconservative who would like to take sides here, at least in sympathies." At the very least, Mr. Wilson said that paleocons would be right to support Russia. That goes beyond Mr. Higdon's "none of our business" line. Perhaps "none of our business" is Mr. Wilson's own position, but that's not what he said. He defended paleocons siding with Russia.

Subsequently Mr. Wilson wrote: "Then you suggest to Mr Higdon that I wish to take sides against Georgia. There you go again. You have tried to make me look like some kind of partisan, and I am not. Georgia is an ancient nation with a wonderful culture, and I am certainly not anti-Georgian. My intention in posting here was to learn more about the situation and exchange valid points, but it was not to be arrogantly insulted by someone who accuses me of partisanship where I have none, accuses me of dishonest emotional manipulation, and misrepresents me and myself to others. Do not put words into my mouth, and do not misrepresent my intentions."

You say that paleocons would be right to support Russia. You did not balance this with a statement that paleocons might also be right to support Georgia. I interpreted this as partisanship, which is not a forced interpretation as far as I can see. I explained above that when I addressed emotionalism, I was trying to debunk emotionalism I have read in posts other than Mr. Wilson's. I now add an apology -- I should have stipulated in my original post that I did not detect such emotionalism in your own post. But claims about Stalin often bear emotional baggage, so I wanted to strike down any attempt that *a reader* might have to "read between the lines" (even if you didn't write anything there, Mr. Wilson). So I apologize for not making that stipulation to begin with. In any case, as I showed, Stalin was not the first person to unite South Ossetia with Georgia.

You claim now that you do not wish to get into percentages. Yet earlier you claimed that the South Ossetians should be acknowledged as the current native population and that Georgian ownership is "ancient history." It clearly is not ancient history, as almost a third of the current population is ethnically Georgian. You made claims, and I rebutted them, and in my opinion successfully, if I must say so. All of this was in order to defend the Kosovo/Ossetia analogy, which I was first to advance and which you then critiqued. So I was rebutting your critique. If your critique fails, I don't see how I am being "insulting" when I point this out. I apologize for the offense.

I guess you've never heard the American saying about "the best defense"?

If there's one thing we seem to be good at, it's being offensive.

Let them argue. I has sweet FA to do with Spain or any other NATO member.

If the US wants to go to war war with Russia, go to it. NATO members are obliged to joint defense, not offense.

"That the Georgians would fight for rugged, inhospitable territory"

They won't even fight for Tbilisi, showing how useless they are as "allies".

They're good at fighting villagers, but after a decade of US and Israeli training, with massive arming from Ukraine, the US etc., their almost 30,000 man army (plus 4,000,000+ citizens) ran away from 10,000 Russian troops.

Pathetic.

Or perhaps they saw no reason to fight for South Ossetia.

I guess if there was an election today. then Suckassfeelie would get less than 5% of the vote.

It seems that many Georgians are less bothered about the Russian presence than Hot Air and NRO and the talk radio windbags are.

"Russia has issued new, reduced casualty figures for the Georgian conflict, with 133 civilians now listed as dead in the disputed region of South Ossetia.

The figure is far lower than the 1,600 people Russia initially said had died.

Prosecutors say they have opened a case against Georgia for genocide, while Tbilisi has already filed charges of ethnic cleansing against Moscow. "

Perhaps you have made some valid points concerning historical matters, though most are quite irrelevant as to the immediate, here and now causes of the conflict. Then you suggest to Mr Higdon that I wish to take sides against Georgia. There you go again. You have tried to make me look like some kind of partisan, and I am not. Georgia is an ancient nation with a wonderful culture, and I am certainly not anti-Georgian. My intention in posting here was to learn more about the situation and exchange valid points, but it was not to be arrogantly insulted by someone who accuses me of partisanship where I have none, accuses me of dishonest emotional manipulation, and misrepresents me and myself to others. Do not put words into my mouth, and do not misrepresent my intentions.

If you wish to discuss the Caucasian troubles, stick to respectful exchange and honest, respectful disagreement, or admit that you are worthy of neither.

http://www.charlestonmercury.com/articles/2008/08/12/news/doc488f51c00f823182575839.txt