Fred: Georgia certainly is not a Russian revenge for Kosovo, or payback for Kosovo. Not if you see it from Russian side. But they use the same words and rhetorhic the USA used when they bombed Serbia over Kosovo. So, from your side, Georgia is “a payback”. You created the precedent and you got it.
It started as long as in 1992, when during the first uprising in Kosovo, Miloshevich abolished Kosovo autonomy. The USA president G. Bush Sr. made an encouraging for Albanians statement that USA would protect Kosovo Albanians. After that Kosovo insurgency was fanned, supported politically, assisted financially and militarily by the West, mostly by the USA, as the instrument to remove Miloshevich from power. The KLA was taken off from the USA terrorist organizations list. The USA Albanians volunteered to join the KLA. The KLA tactics was to provoke Serbs by attacking and ambushing them, and each time Serbs were the ones to blame. Kosovo Albanians staged humanitarian “catastrophe” and “genocide” by leaving their villages in front of Serbian advance (often under the KLA order), and each time the judge was a USA ambassador in Macedonia, who from the first glance could identify the victims of the shootings as “poor civilian Kosovars killed by cruel Serbs”. How all this ended? The USA said, that Serbs had lost their moral right to govern Kosovo.
What happens with Ossetia is pretty similar. Ossetians wanted to separate from Georgia. There was inter-ethnic conflict with a lot of civilian casualties and destructions. Russians protected Ossetians by sending their peacekeepers there. They promised them further protection. They said they would not allow any military actions by Georgians. Ossetians denied access for Georgian to their area. They had their own elections, they kept provoking Georgians by shooting at their villages. And Russians blamed Georgians all the time. This time Georgians attacked the Ossetian capital causing heavy civilian casualties. Russians called it “genocide” and “humanitarian catastrophe”. They intervened to push Georgians out of Koso… err, form S. Ossetia. Where you see the difference?
That Milosevich was “a thug” and Saakashvilly is “a nice guy”? Well, this is a matter of tastes. And how can you explain it to the dead Ossetians?
What is next? I think Russians are going to make a statement that Georgia lost its moral right to govern S. Ossetia and Abkhazia…
P.S. Separation of this two regions from is the Russian objective. The pipe stays aside and has nothing to do with this Russian operation. The pipe is not the Georgian only property. It was built with the money from a few Western oil companies, Kazakhstan, Azerbaijan, and Turkey. Russia has good relations with all of them other than Georgia. Russia’s oil business is going well. She is getting her dollars- this pipe is not an obstacle. Why would Russia go after the pipe? Just to get in troubles?
