Russia
Technically they really invaded South Ossetia which really isn't part of Georgia. Its kinda of a defacto gov not even internationally recognized. The media other gov's make it out to be an invasion of Georgia. Most of the South Ossetians are actually pro russia. In fact this whole thing orginated because of a conflict between russians peace keepers and georgia military in the area. Who knows who fired first.
They ARE part of Georgia AND the South Ossetia de facto government isn't recognized anywhere (except Russia) because the world views that provice as an integral part of Georgia. Russia is trying to change that as they want South Ossetia for themselves.
The main reason a majority of "South Ossetians" are pro Russian is because most of them are not Ossetians but Russians. When Georgia became a democracy, applied for the EU and NATO membership the Russians got very upset they were losing the influence in the region. So they beefed up the so called "peace keepers" (trippled in size) who are basically Russian army and special ops soldiers who moved to the area right after the Soviet Union fell apart. At the time there was a conflict that the Russians instigated where they forced thousands of Georgians to ‘temporarily’ leave the area to preserve peace. Now we know better - in effect they clensed the area of all Georgians and moved in thousands of Russians into the area in the form of so called “peace keepers.”
Also, the Russian government gave Russian citizenship to anyone in South Ossetia who wished to get one. Imagine if Cuba tried to annex southern Florida and the Cuban government gave automatic Cuban citizenship to any Southern Florida resident - against all international rules but hey this is Russia and they got oil and gas so they can get away with murder.
So basically first they moved in thousands of Russian soldiers calling them 'peace keepers", then they allowed those soldiers to permanently resettle in the area and to bring their families with them while giving them substantial tax incentives. Then they gave Russian citizenship to all South Ossetians (even though they all have Georgian citizenships). Many Ossetians accepted the Russian citizenship because the province is very impoverished and the Russians flooded the area with freebies such as food discounts, free electricity, etc. - All to alienate the province from Georgia even more.
This has happened before. In 1939 the Germans dressed in Polish army uniforms attacked several villages in Poland looking for a pretext to "defend" the German minority in Poland. A few months later Germany invaded Poland and once the whole country was occupied they claimed big parts of the Polish territory as German lands.
Russia is basically repeating the same process. Amazing - the word’s largest country yet they always want more. Some 30 % of Finland’s prewar territory is today occupied by Russia, 10% of Estonia’s and Latvia’s territories are today in Russia as well. Russia still occupies several Japanese islands they captured after the end of WWII.
Throughout the centuries, whether led by a Tsar, a communist leader or a so called democratic president they've always hungered for more land.
I give it 2-4 months before Russia claims that the population of South Ossetia is asking to be incorporated into the Russian Federation and that Russia is allowing that to happen to defend its "citizens.". Then they’ll go after Abhazia (another part of Georgia), Crimea (southeastern part of Ukraine), will force a “volunteer” admission of Belarus into Russia, etc, etc. Putin’s years of training in KGB are now bearing fruit.
Last edited by ⌐ AV8OR WANNABE; 08-10-2008 at 02:38 PM.