Sovereign State of Georgia

When word hit the presses that Russian tanks were rolling into Georgia, every Johnny Reb south of the Mason-Dixon line grabbed his rifle and marched to Atlanta.

Ok, so you know that didn’t happen. But I almost wish it had. As it stands, Comrade Stalin…I mean Medvedev…is getting away with murder, as he sends his Russian horde deep into neighboring Georgia–supposedly to force a ceasefire, but continuing to bomb and slaughter even as the miniscule Georgian army has ceased retaliation.

On one side, a former Soviet satellite seeks to reclaim its own breakaway province of South Ossetia. On the other, a corrupt Russian government dreams of reclaiming its Soviet empire, and has sided with Ossetian rebels and even granted them Russian citizenship, as it does everything in its power to prevent Georgia from joining NATO.

Let’s be clear. The Russians have never had the respect for human life that the west does (shallow though ours may be). When Americans bomb enemies, civilian deaths are a regrettable consequence we try to avoid. When Russians bomb enemies, they don’t care who dies. In its Communist days, Russia slaughtered its own people by the thousands, because if there is anything we’ve learned from the global Marxist experiment, it is that Communism preserves the system at the expense of the people. Two decades after the collapse of the Berlin Wall and the demise of the U.S.S.R., the Russian people have not entirely overcome their grim legacy.

Let’s also be clear that Russia considers Georgia her own. Unlike other breakaway nations, Georgia belonged to Russia for three centuries and is the birthplace of Joseph Stalin. For this reason, it’s safe to say that things will only get worse before they get better. Russia has no intention of conceding anything. The cold war has returned.

Or has it?

When crises strike, we know which country always comes to the rescue. No, not France. Not Mexico either. Not even the good people of Tibet. Yes, you guessed it: the hero is none other than the Great Carbon-Producing Satan, the United States of America. But with our military already strained by prolonged commitments in Iraq and Afghanistan, and an election season upon us, Bush won’t want to stir things up by getting involved in a small dispute on the other side of the globe. And if Bush won’t do it, Europe certainly won’t. Russia knows this, and that is why they will do as much damage as they can for as long as the opportunity lasts.

One wonders how different the relations between Russia and the West would be today, had the unruly medieval Crusaders not sacked Constantinople. The failure of eastern and western Christians to unite against Muslim aggression resulted in a de-Christianized Middle East and the creation of Turkey. Now, a post-Christian Russia is increasingly siding with Muslims against the West, and, like her Muslim allies, using the oil market to control us.

One has to wonder whether the cold war ever really ended.