The Left versus Common Sense

I know, I know, no contest :)

I am continually amazed at the sheer "out to lunchness" coming from the so called enlightened Left.

Liberal blogger Liberal 4evr has a wonderful post about South Ossetia. Wonderful because it is so easy to dissect. It makes a nice light break from real work :)

It is amazing out there in media land, all are making their best to make the Russians the bad guys, Georgia invades a U.N. protected area, kill Russian peacekeepers, bomb civilians in the capital, over 3000 dead in south ossetian and they make the president of georgia the hero?

Wait? South Ossetia is a UN protected safe area? That is BS, it is not. Show me a link anywhere credible that backs that up? 3000 dead? Human Rights Watch alleged that the Russian death toll figure of 2,000 was unfounded and presumed it to be due to the result of an alleged "massive Russia propaganda machine which constantly repeats claims of genocide and exaggerates the scale of casualties." Russian peacekeepers? Originally, it was 500 Russians, 500 South Ossetians, 500 North Ossestians, and 500 Georgians under an OSCE mandate. Of course, the Russians armed the South Ossetians. UN peacekeepers don't tend to arm one of the sides. And let's not forget that the Georgians and the South Ossetians (maybe the Russians too) have been skirmishing over that area for years. Dozens killed over the years.

We see a few thousand people listening to sakashvili in the georgian capital, the media talks about the victims in geogia, under 50 people killed so far, but if we want to know what is really going on we have to watch the online Russia today to see georgians in their capital actually blaming sakashvili for all their pain, he is in a lot of trouble, geogians are already stating to blame him in great numbers but it is nowhere to be seen in our "independent media", the refugees of the war he started are not getting any help and lost everything because of his stupid decision to take on Russia, he must of had a go ahead from someone, he can't be that dumb.

Liberal 4evr you seem to have lost your period :) Oh wait, I found it at the very end. Wait a minute, are you taking the word of the Russian media over the likes of CNN, BBC, and Sky News? Seriously? Really? The same Russian media where if you are critical of Putin or the establishment you get poisoned or otherwise murdered? Of course I wouldn't blame the Georgians from being a might ticked off at their President over this fiasco.

I hate propaganda, it is, by far the most dangerous form of information that could cause a wider war. And as for the american politicians, I say this, Kosovo, Bosnia, seperated from Yugoslavia, and you said they had the right, and Serbia had no right to try to get them back with military violence, georgia tried to do the same thing Milosevic did, so whats the difference here???

I agree, propaganda is bad. However, your analogy is flawed, Yugoslavia basically disintegrated once Tito died. Croatia, Bosnia etc fought for their independence against Serbia who was trying to hold the failed state together. The UN put thousands of peacekeepers they to monitor the peace and disarm the combatants. There were war crimes committed by all the different sides, and there were a lot of sides. NATO intervened in Kosovo due to the prolonged, systematic ethnic cleansing that was occurring. They didn't intervene when civilians died during the course of "normal" fighting. Russia would have a lot more moral high ground if they hadn't invaded, and continue to occupy swaths of Georgia countryside.

If he was wrong then is not sakashvili wrong also? Should he not end up at the Hague? And another word "Iraq". So you have no high ground here, none what so ever. War is wrong on both sides, but one has to know the truth of how it started....

Repeat after me, Milosevic engaged in systematic state sponsored ethnic cleansing. So far there is little evidence that the same occurred in South Ossetia. Oh wait, the Russians claim this.

I have to give the BBC credit, they have started to talk about both sides, more about the georgian side, but also the other in a smaller tone.

I see, the BBC isn't a total loss then. Media bias indeed. You know, I must have missed the memo where all the media suddenly turned into stark raving mad and war waging bumpkins.