Oh cr@p; I can't go away anymore

History just keep creeping up. Now it looks like their playing Stalin's Organ in Georgia.

I'm not even close to catching up from being gone for the last couple of weeks - but I had to drop this in your lap.

Georgia, a staunch U.S. ally, launched a surprise military offensive to retake South Ossetia and reportedly killed hundreds of people, triggering a ferocious counterattack from Russia that threatened to plunge the region into full-scale war.

Moscow, which has close ties to the separatists, sent a column of tanks rolling into South Ossetia and reportedly attacked two Georgian air bases as it moved to assert itself as the dominant regional power.

This could get ugly real fast. This is, in theory, Georgian sovereign territory - just like Chechnya is to the Russians.

Talk about conflicting signals; Kosovo, Nagorno-Karabakh. Watch very close.

Georgia has troops in Iraq - they want to send some more to Afghanistan. They have spent the last decade "Westernizing" their armed forces. They want to join NATO. They want to join the West --- they also want to unify their nation. They are a very close, if unofficial, ally of the USA.

Russia has, as always, a hurt pride. Ungh.





Those who have been following know this is just the latest. If you want to know what it looks like, a few months ago, to get shot down by a MIG-29, click here. For a first hand report from an American Expat Melissa in the Georgian capitol, Tiblisi, click here. All her videos here.

As a side-bar to a good friend of this blog; AW1, my condolences about your sister.

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UPDATE Georgia has asked the USA to help bring its 2,000+ troops back home from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Georgia will withdraw 1,000 soldiers from its military contingent of around 2,000 troops in Iraq to help in the fighting against South Ossetian separatist rebels, a top Georgian official said.

Georgia has asked the US military to provide aircraft to move all Georgian troops home from Iraq as fighting rages in South Ossetia, a US military official said Friday.

Think about it a bit.