Once again, I’m reassured that the best tv news is Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show. Fishki.net posted two clips in mid-August that are still eminently watchable (thanks to Roman for the link).
Background: Now it’s all calmed down, there seem to be four different sets of remarks which circulated about the war in the Caucasus.
- Strong line in Washington: Russia invaded. Georgia walked into Russian trap. Georgia is a small democratic country that needs our support (moral and military). For some reason, most western media and politicians seem to be following this line.
- Strong line in Moscow: Georgia attacked first, bombing Tskhinvali with heavy artillery on the night of 7-8 August. Since the vast majority of South Ossetians hold Russian Federation passports, Russia had to defend its citizens.
- Strong line in (western) blogs and ‘on the street’ in Berlin, Edinburgh, London: How on earth can the West be following the Washington line, and assuming that comments by Saakashvili are reliable and credible, when all the independent evidence shows that Georgia made the first serious sustained attack on South Ossetia, and that Saakashvili has exaggerated the threat from Russia and played down his own troop movements on every occasion possible? (Yes, they say, we know there were provocations from both sides – no war ever has one sole responsible party. Gordon Hahn has offered a sophisticated analysis along these lines).
- The Daily Show, and other commentators in the USA: Even if (1) were true, US politicians have no moral ground whatsoever to chastise Russia. Think Iraq. (Of course, Jon Stewart does it much more amusingly than me – watch the clips).
