Well, I’m unnerved by how much a meme that is repeated over and over early enough seems to become “Gospel Truth” in classic information cascades. But, all it takes is a break at the top of the cascade for mass opinions to shift.

However, these ghostly creatures breathing into my personal cyberspace are more than a little threatening. Is this somewhat like knowing that 1/3 of your neighbors regularly talk things over with the KGB? Or is it like living in Georgia with a siloviki gangster-state 20 miles from the main national road and rail artery?

Why don’t people get it: that South Ossettia is a construction that started with the Czars. Actual, non-ethnic Russian Ossettians exist, of course, but they are a miserable minority anywhere they are found in Georgia. They were installed as safekeepers of the Czarist military roads, which continues to be their reason for being.

It seems to me that the Russkie disinformation campaign has succeeded in spades, because _no one_ is questioning the nature of the South Ossettian enterprise. It is a gangster operation, not an ethnic community. The Ossettians there are totally run by ethnic Russian siloviki. Siloviki are war-lord gangs profiting from chaos, comprised of: Putin himself, the secret forces, and hordes of high-ranking Russ military.

When they come to Brighton Beach to look after their Heroin trade, we call them “Russian Mafia”. They call themselves “Officers” and have the credentials to prove it.

I think the idea that President Not-Putin is reining in the siloviki to be a hopeful fantasy, but this article does expose what we are dealing with in Russia:

S. Ossetia Crisis Could Be Russia’s Chance To Defeat Siloviki By Yulia Latynina

http://www.rferl.org/content/South_Ossetia_Crisis_Could_Be_Russian_Chance_To_Defeat_Siloviki/1189525.html