Messing with history in Georgia, South Ossetia, Abkhazia and Russia

John Cole did a Sunday morning round up on the situation between Georgia and Russia. It's a good introductory summary including a link to Greg Djerejian at The Belgravia Dispatch who has apparently come out of semi-retirement from his blog to comment on this situation. John also references Daniel Larison at Eunomia. If you want the short version on background, John's post gives you a start.

Greg Djerejian's post is worth reading in its entirety in that it adds some perspective and knowledge that you won't find in the US press coverage. It certainly hasn't been evident in the NPR coverage.

Steve Clemons who also gave Djerejian's post a nod has his own background summary of the Georgia-Russia clash.

Dimitri Simes, President of the Nixon Center, was one of the leading foreign policy experts in Washington to predict some kind of hot clash between the former Soviet state of Georgia and Russia involving the autonomous provinces of South Ossetia and Abkhazia at the time Kosovo declared its independence. [...]

... Simes convinces me in his important Foreign Affairs essay, "Losing Russia," that much of what we are seeing unfold between Russia and Georgia involves a high quotient of American culpability.

But it's Daniel Larison at Eunomia who's been discussing this intelligently for a long time and continues to do so in these posts. (He also gives Djerejian a nod.)

• Dashed Expectations - 8-10-2008
• Even Fools Are Responsible For What They Do - 8-10-2008
• Anti-Russian Bias - 8-9-2008
• Georgia And Russia - 8-9-2008
• Georgia - 8-8-2008
• Against Saakashvili, Not Georgia - 4-29-2008
• Our Man In Tbilisi - 11-9-2007
• Not What He's Cracked Up To Be - 9-4-2007
• The Suffering Georgian Land - 8-11-2004

He covers McCain's reaction with a nod to John Cole's summary on it in this one: McCain's Georgia Obsession. And in this one: Reflexive Hostility Has Its Advantages.

HIs commentary on traditional news media and columnists' pronouncements and editorials is interesting. I suspect he wouldn't like hearing this but it wouldn't look all that out of place on Daily Kos.

• The Washington Post: More Than One Can Play This Game
• The Wall Street Journal: Overstretched
• The Times (UK) and the NY Post: The March Of The Apologists
• The Guardian: A Not So Cunning Plan
• On Anne Applebaum: So Very Predictable

If you skim through those and their associated links, you'll have the equivalent of a crash course on the history of Georgia, Russian and their satellites.

One more thing to be noted and that is that Randy Scheunemann, McCain's chief policy advisor in this area, is neck-deep in lobbying conflicts of interest. Lindsay Beyerstein at Majikthise has an exclusive scoop on just how deep he is and with what dubious (Chalabi) partners. Given what we now know, the prospectus descriptions of what his organization will do for potential clients just scream 'culture of corruption'. TPMMuckraker expanded on his history in Iraq in "McCain Adviser's Horrifying Iraq Track Record: Will the Press Notice?"