Manch, I don't support Russia but I have symphaties for the Georgians, and just because of Sakaschwili is a Harvard educated lawyer, fluent in 5 languages and western orientated he is actually more guilty.
He has lost his sense for reality and acted the last years blindfolded.
And remember my words - No western gouvernment will pressure Russia seriously. The Russian bear will do with the Georgians now what he wants and they will suffer hard.
Thiswas absolutly not necessary. S. should have used the salami technique. He should have made Georgia simply more attractive then Russia. Cultural and Economical. So the Ossetians and Abchasians have themselve orientated to Georgia instead of Russia.
During this process and later too, he should have made compromises with Russia, put himself a little bit down. In order to not provoke the bear.
But now all is lost. Thanks to Saakaschwili. 
Russia has changed. It is back and their administration intelligence services and military work again very well, like you can see. They have plans for world power again, but they are acting not irrational, even a lot of deeds of them are very evil.
Pheasant, I don't agree with the basic premise of your argument and suppport Georgia and Mr. Saakashvili. Mr. Saakashvili was instrumental in turning Georgia ecomony around and significantly reducing levels of corruption in Georgia. However, I do find that your reasoning and logic has a lot of merit and bears a certain validity. I agree, and I don't know the whole picture, that, perhaps, Mr. Saakashvili could have done more to stay away from Russian provocations and should have tried his best not to behave like a bull in china shop. Perhaps he underestimated Russia and overestimated his own capabilities. Also, I agree that even though Europeans are as incapable of pressuring Russia as your average 50 year old pressuring his boss for a raise, US intervened and very effectively is sending Russians home packing with nothing.
As far as salami approach - yes, a great point! But, Georgia already has a relatively prosperous economy, much better than that of Ossetia and Abkhazia. But can Georgia compete, as far as bribes to the local mafiosi governments, with the Russian petro-dollars?
I have a gut feeling that Georgia was setup by Russians in response to the Kosovo travesty. How come, if this was a major offensive by Georgia, knowing that there was a readied 58th Russian army pulled right to the Georgian border, Georgians were not mobilized? Even more telling, they had only one or two brigades(!!!) operating in the theater! This doesn't compute very well. Another tell tale sign is that all Georgian actions against Russians clearly were conducted in an add-hoc manner - no permanent or semi-permanent defense positions were erected, no coordinated artillery support, solders still staying on their military basis right in their barracks, around 50 tanks captured by Russians were not manned, etc, etc. And, btw, where are all these 2,000 corpses?! These are just a few doubts of the sincerity of Russian claims that I have.
I have another feeling that Russia, even more aggressively, is going to target Israel via its proxies to get back at America.
Topic: Jewish people killed by Georgian army (Read 10682 times)