Orac,
Fact? Or opinion and reportage?
And in any case, the piece to which you link gives as many emotive stories of Georgian atrocities as it does of Vadim and his Ossetian buddies' bloodthirsty rhetoric.
"Witnesses told of cars filled with fleeing Ossetian refugees being shelled by Georgian tanks.
They claimed that in one incident Georgian soldiers finished off the wounded by pouring fuel over them and burning them. Independent human rights observers confirmed that civilian targets had been repeatedly hit, including basements where terrified residents had sought refuge and were trapped for days. Moscow has claimed that some 2,000 people died at the hands of Georgian forces – including 15 Russian peacekeepers.
However, Human Rights Watch, the American group, said that Russian estimates were “suspicious”. Doctors at the main hospital said that 44 dead had been brought to the city morgue. Whatever the final death toll, few dispute that the city suffered destruction and that civilians were hardest hit. Nor is there any doubting Albina Shanazarov’s tragic fate. A 13-year-old girl, she sought to flee the city with her mother and three sisters. They set off with other civilians in a bus, which was ambushed by Georgian forces as they tried to reach Russia.
“A bullet smacked right into the steering wheel. I had to stop and we scattered along the highway,” said Guram Beloyev, the bus driver. “It was dark and I was hoping they wouldn’t see as we hid but they must have been using night-vision goggles because the Georgian sniper fired pretty accurately. Albina was terrified and ran towards me. That’s when she was hit by a bullet that smashed right through her chest. She died almost at once.”
None of it leads one far from the conclusion that Saakashvili (whose mandate is pretty slender) has been engaging in some high-risk populist brinkmanship, and despite his democratic and pro-Western credentials he has been stupid and wicked, resorting to military adventurism to gain popularity at home and in a misjudged effort to secure stronger support from the West.
The enemy will sometimes do good things (like Germany attacking Stalin in '41, perhaps, or like the Germans respecting the monastery at Monte Cassino until after we reduced it to rubble) and your allies will sometimes do wicked things. Life isn't black and white and Georgia=good/Russia=bad is witless and simplistic.