About Georgia

So it looks like the Russian offensive is stopping for now.

For those of you at home who don't know what happened let me break it down for you. This is Georgia:


It happens to be the birthplace of Stalin. That's just a fun fact unrelated to recent events.

Now if you look at the picture you'll see "North Ossetia" on the Russian side of the Georgian border. On the other side of that, not labeled is South Ossetia. It seems the southern Ossetians wanted to rejoin Russia. Mikheil Saakashvili, Georgia's president who is a right wing nationalist, countered this by moving the Georgian military into the area and cracking down on the separatists. Russia used this opportunity to appear like liberators by taking on the Georgian military in support of the separatists with a predictable Russian victory.

You may be asking yourself, "What the Hell does this have to do with us?"

Well since the breakdown of the Soviet Union, we have been trying to peel away former Warsaw Pact countries and getting them to join NATO. Russia sees this as a naked power grab in their sphere of influence. Saakashvili was convinced that Bush was going to back him up. After all Georgia actually had some boots on the ground in Iraq.

Saakashvili just learned that the word of Bush means didley squat.

And that's your Georgia Conflict round up.