What the hell is wrong with Sakaashvili?

Not good news for fans of stability in the Caucuses.

“We had a choice here,” he said. “We could turn this country into Chechnya — we had enough people and equipment to do that — or we had to do nothing and stay a modern European country.”

He added: “Eventually we would have chased them away, but we would have had to go to the mountains and grow beards. That would have been a tremendous national philosophical and emotional burden.”

That line, at the end of the NYT's account of Sakaashvili's response to the terms of the peace agreement with Russia, is certainly funny. But it's also reflective of just how delusional the Georgian president is. His army was crushed, territory was lost, and their chances to join NATO are shot. Yet, he's going to go back to the same policy that existed prior to his instigation of the current conflict. He even stated that Abkhazia and South Ossetia would be "forever as always" a part of Georgia's territory.

That is absolutely insane.

More of the South Ossetian War

Great video from Reuters:



Read the article here.

Also, I'm hopeing this isn't related but I highly doubt it's not, but I was listening to Echo Moskvy - the only remaining liberal radio station that broadcasts internationally that I'm aware of - and on the air were a lot of comments about how Russians were pissed at the apparent confusion in their government's response to the crises. Essentially, they were unsure of who to listen to: Putin or Medvedev. This has been repeated in a few of the articles I've read today on the subject, most notably in the NYT's four page summary published today.

Well, now it's not on the air. At all. I can only hear static. There's been nothing in the news about it, but I'd be curious to know if it's not broadcasting in Russia either, or if their international or internet feed is down.

Russia at war?

Russian tanks entered Georgian territory, apparently. I don't have access to the internet for half a day and this shit happens?

Saakashvili's probably exaggerating a bit and his pleas for American intervention are somewhat naive. But whether provoked or not, Russian military aggression right now is just bad.

Hopefully more information will be forthcoming today or tomorrow.