Doug,

I seriously doubt that Russia is truly interested in winning a propaganda war, despite the ubiquitous nature of their agents of disinformation in all these weblog discussions (and their allied Western useful idiots squawking about Kosovo being the raison d’etre for this attack). Their only purpose is to blunt an early, hard public opinion against Russia, and thereafter when the Russians have Georgia digested it’s not going to matter anyway.

Russia did this:

1. To take out a country on its border that is a U.S. ally.

2. To humiliate the United States and send the message that the U.S. is an unreliable ally and cannot defend anyone.

3. To seize the oil pipeline which we helped build and cut off a non-Russian controlled supply of oil to Europe.

4. To show Europe that it is well and truly on a dog collar with the leash and lead running from Moscow.

5. And possibly to set up its air force in Georgia to help Iran if we should inaugurate an air campaign to destroy Iran’s nuclear weapons’ development programs and enrichment facilities.

6. To stem the tide of falling oil prices.

Make no mistake about it, as small as Georgia is this is a serious defeat for the West an our country.