Neither region wanted to be in a Georgia which has gone out of its way to alienate the residents (bombing, shelling and using tanks against them never ingratiates, a lesson the US could also learn). Meanwhile the russians have always been there as a helping hand, saving their bacon when the Georgians attacked on previous occasions.

The UN and NATO threw away their veto when recognising Kosovo, and haven't really got a leg to stand on. It'd be an entirely different situation if the russians here annexing land against the will of the inhabitants, but it seems to me that there is a justice here, however rough and in breach of the "international rights of sovereign states to do what they like to their populations", and I cannot fault the breakaways in any of the three cases.

Yes, there are wider issues. As somebody wrote elsewhere, cannot remember where, imposed politically convenient borders often have a habit of interrupting social patterns of interactions established over centuries. The Caucasus, as the Balkans, are such and wherever you draw the line you'll have genuine problems. I still favour generous compensation for those displaced or feeling obliged to move. I do not, in any way, believe it is a good solution but borders are not eternal and must sometimes accomodate social reality.

The Georgian government could have been a friend to the S. Ossetian and Abkhazian people. It chose otherwise and is paying a price for that choice. But it was a choice they, not the Abkhazians and S Ossetians, made.

keep to the Fen Causeway