South Ossetia

[Steel God]

Hi Mick;

Years ago we had a current events forum that generated a lot of traffic, unfortunately most of the traffic generated was in bad blood between members because current events, by their very nature, are much less clear cut than historical events. That lack of clarity contributes to emotional passions governing the debates and not facts and academic points. For that reason we shut down the Current Events forum, and do not condone the posting of current event threads of a political nature.

Having said that, I will not lock the thread unless it becomes necessary to do so.

The short answer to your question of does this make the Russians the good guys is, like it always is in such things, dependent on your point of view. The Republic of South Ossetia is not diplomatically recognized by any of the member nations of the UN. (reference: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/South_Ossetia) So for the purposes of "politics", the UN chartered nations are obliged to treat this strictly as an invasion of Georgia by Russia. Is that the "truth"? I am not inclined to have an opinion, but I think it demonstrates my point about how current events are not always as clear and, therefore open to dispassionate discussion, as history is.