Re: South Ossetian conflict
Quite frankly this mess puzzles me. On the one hand I do not really understand what the Georgian president wanted to achieve with this course of action other than angering the Russians. The methods he and his commanders chose were downright amateurish and - if the current chain of events and discrediting Russia were the goals - these guys screwed up royally. Did he hope for a NATO intervention? Snort! Yeah, sure. Is he trying to make his country and himself look like the poor victim? Could have worked, except that little issue with shelling residential areas.
But: Russia's reaction is overblown. What makes it worse (in my eyes) is the saber rattling and the loudmouthed cawing. Maybe I'm a cynic or simply allergic to Russian propaganda (had enough of it growing up in the GDR), but it sounds too much like the old stuff from pre-1990. And even if part of it is true, we Krauts have a saying: Wer einmal lügt, dem glaubt man nicht, auch wenn er gleich die Wahrheit spricht! (loosely translated: He who lies once won't be trusted even if he speaks the truth.)
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