Now the international community should assemble the facts as objectively and correctly as it can.

As I said in the previous thread, Georgia’s President Saakashvili should be compelled to clarify his explanation that “the only option we had was to use long-range artillery” to destroy a key bridge near the city of Tskhinvali because “150 Russian tanks were approaching the region.” Exactly where were those Russian tanks while Georgian long-range artillery was bombarding the civilian population of Tskhinvali — oops, I meant to write: — bombarding a key bridge near Tskhinvali.

And let’s collect a lot more information about the Ossetians and their activities. What are the Ossetian organizations that have been attacking Georgians? How are they funded and armed? Who are their leaders? What do they want?

From the Russians we can ask for information about their relationships and cooperation with those Ossetian organizations and Russia’s efforts to control those organizations.

Do the Georgians living in South Ossetia have their own armed organizations that have been attacking Ossetians? How are they funded and armed? Who are their leaders? What do they want?

From the Georgians we can ask for information about their relationships and cooperation with those Georgian organizations in South Ossetia and about Georgia’s efforts to control those organizations.

Most fundamentally, the international community should explore possible resolutions to the ethnic conflict between Georgians and Ossetians. Why do the Ossetians want to become independent from Georgia? What Georgian guarantees, investments and reforms might satisfy the Ossetians? Is reconciliation still possible?

What do the Russians think about a future unification of South and North Ossetia? Would the Russians be willing to grant independence to a unified Ossetia or at least to keep Russian military forces out of it?

It seems to me that the best solution might be to allow the South and North Ossetians to unify into one entity that has to provide its own military and security forces. Russia should remove all its military bases from that area. In other words, Ossetia would be militarily weak enough that Georgia should not feel threatened by it.

As part of this re-arrangement, the Georgians living in South Ossetia should be offered money to resettle out of that area into Georgia proper.