Russia's excuse for invading Georgia is a transparent act of aggression performed unilaterally by one nation against another. Russia's lame excuse for the invasion is "protecting" ethnic Russians in the Georgian province of South Ossetia. I can't believe that such a pathetic excuse can still hold credibility in the modern world. This most closely parrallels the "protection" of Sudeten Germans in Czechoslovakia.
For one, Russia has no right to invade a nation because it disagrees with the internal affairs of that nation. If abuses were performed against passport holding Russian citizens, then Russia could ask that they be returned to Russia. If these ethnic Russians do not hold Russian passports, then Russia has no right to invade in their name.
For two, if Russia felt there were abuses of Russians in Georgia, they could have taken their claims to the UN and used their considerable influence to have the UN "protect" them.
BTW, both wars in Iraq were conducted by international coalitions and conducted under the auspices of valid and binding UN Security Council resolutions. There is no parallel between Iraq and Georgia.
Sorry, although well put, I think your argument is just based on shades of gray. I see it much simpler.
You say,
there is no place in the modern world for naked unilateral aggression of one country against another. The case of Georgia is simply the case of one superpower using overwhelming force to expand it's hegemony in it's local region.
This is
PRECISELY what we did in Iraq. The
ONLY difference is that Iraq is not in our local region. Both Bush's, GW and his father before him, wanted Hussein out of power. Excuses were just cooked up to make the invasion seem legitimate.
The fact that the Iraq war was fought by a coalition doesn't make it any more legitimate than what Russia is doing. The US went before the UN and convinced other world leaders that invasion was the right thing. Therefore it was
Bush's idea. He simply duped others into following along. That doesn't change the fact that it was started by a single country.
Bottom line is, we went into Iraq because we didn't agree with it's government and wanted to change it in a way more advantageous to us. It's the same exact thing. You can argue the subleties all you want. It doesn't change the fact that the act, at it's core, is identical.
