Look beyond Georgia
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The Russians have invited us all to the Real World Order
BY RAMZY BAROUD (World View)
20 August 2008
JUST as the world's attention was focused on China's Beijing Olympics, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, on August 7, invaded a tiny breakaway province of South Ossetia.
The initial attack on the S. Ossetian capital, Tskninvali soon extended to an all out war, which eventually invited Russia's wrath, and the death of thousands of innocent civilians on both sides.
Prior to Saakashvili's war, little was known about the political specifics of that area and the brewing decades-long territorial disputes which date back to the early 20th century, but was highlighted during an intense civil war that followed the breakdown of the Soviet Union and it's satellite states. Georgia's successful secession from the Soviet grip, understandably, inspired independence fervour in ethnic regions within Georgia. The small region of S. Ossetia - majority ethnic Russians and minority Georgians - sought to join the N. Ossetian province, which remained part of Russia. Another region was Abkazia, whose protracted fight with the central Georgian government has also provoked much violence.
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The Russians have invited us all to the Real World Order
BY RAMZY BAROUD (World View)
20 August 2008
JUST as the world's attention was focused on China's Beijing Olympics, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili, on August 7, invaded a tiny breakaway province of South Ossetia.
The initial attack on the S. Ossetian capital, Tskninvali soon extended to an all out war, which eventually invited Russia's wrath, and the death of thousands of innocent civilians on both sides.
Prior to Saakashvili's war, little was known about the political specifics of that area and the brewing decades-long territorial disputes which date back to the early 20th century, but was highlighted during an intense civil war that followed the breakdown of the Soviet Union and it's satellite states. Georgia's successful secession from the Soviet grip, understandably, inspired independence fervour in ethnic regions within Georgia. The small region of S. Ossetia - majority ethnic Russians and minority Georgians - sought to join the N. Ossetian province, which remained part of Russia. Another region was Abkazia, whose protracted fight with the central Georgian government has also provoked much violence.
--MORE--