http://www.realclearpolitics.com/…

Mikheil Saakashvili’s decision to use the opening of the Olympic Games to cover Georgia’s invasion of its breakaway province of South Ossetia must rank in stupidity with Gamal Abdel-Nasser’s decision to close the Straits of Tiran to Israeli ships.

Nasser’s blunder cost him the Sinai in the Six-Day War. Saakashvili’s blunder probably means permanent loss of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

After shelling and attacking what he claims is his own country, killing scores of his own Ossetian citizens and sending tens of thousands fleeing into Russia, Saakashvili’s army was whipped back into Georgia in 48 hours.

Vladimir Putin took the opportunity to kick the Georgian army out of Abkhazia, as well, to bomb Tbilisi and to seize Gori, birthplace of Stalin.

Reveling in his status as an intimate of George Bush, Dick Cheney and John McCain, and America’s lone democratic ally in the Caucasus, Saakashvili thought he could get away with a lightning coup and present the world with a fait accompli.

Mikheil did not reckon on the rage or resolve of the Bear.

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Who’s to blame for the Russian Georgian conflict?

A response by a US Russian immigrant

Perhaps we should show US 8-15 y/o’s videos like this so they know who they will be shooting at in 10 years.

Isn’t it more like Wall Street was slipped some PCP? Between the Federal Reserve, Congress and the executive branch we’ve got inflation, wars, deficit spending, subsidies, regulation, artificially low interest rates and other interventionist policy. All of which distort market reality and now we are in the comedown and it sucks a lot more then a hangover.