Quote:
Originally Posted by Yoda9864
We better not do anything. Why does the US bud its head into everything?
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Well it doesn't look like we will do anything, but in the long run I still think we are in for a long ugly relationship with Putin's Russia. This was a statement of warning to the former soviet states that are now democratically elected: Don't get too used to this freedom thing or we'll smack you around.
I've been thinking about this, and while there are no real white hats in this affair, Russia is by far the biggest offender. Here is why:
1) South Ossetia is a part of Georgia that does not get along with Georgia proper, and has been in political conflict with Georgia since 1992. Now while you can disagree with the tactics Georgia used to re-unify their nation, and I do, they were under their rights to send military into their own nation.
2) Russia has had "peace keepers" in South Ossetia for a long time. Russian troops stationed on Georgian soil essentially occupying it.
3) When Georgia sent the troops in to the province in their own country, Russia butted THEIR heads into georgia's business and started to whoop that ass. Andd they whooped it almost back to the capital, LYING to the world the entire way, denying they had bombed infrastructure and Gori. Russia claims acts of genocide on Georgia's part as justification for their involvement, but witnesses of this outside of Russian claims are few and far between while there are many independent reports of Russian brutality.
So to put this into Western terms, lets say Maine wanted to secede from the US, and the US said no. So Canada sends troops into Maine, even though it is none of their business, and the US is left to wonder if Canada is trying to claim Maine by defacto ownership. When the US sends troops in to reclaim Maine, Canada goes apeshit and throws everything have at the US and marches all the way down to Washington DC.
IMO Russia's motivation was two-fold:
1) Scare the hell out of Westernized caucus nations.
2) See how far they could push before anyone pushed back.
They succeeded on both fronts.