Report: Georgia Triggered War With Russia

A 9-month international investigation into the 2008 war in the Caucasus concludes that Georgia triggered the war, but that Russia had prepared the ground, broke international law by invading Georgia as a whole and that Russia-backed South Ossetian militias conducted ethnic cleansing of Georgian civilians, according to a copy of the conclusions reviewed by the Wall Street Journal.

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The conclusions found that Moscow was justified in its initial intervention, because some of its peacekeepers in the territory were, or were in danger of being killed. But the report leaves neither side looking good.

Will this report, with its unambiguous conclusion (as demonstrated by the WSJ's headline), lead to a change in the narrative, into which the Georgian war fit so snugly, of an imperialist Russia bent on dominating its neighbors and aggressively asserting itself in Europe?

As the report, which seems pleasantly even-handed, makes clear, Russia did not cause the confrontation, but took advantage of it by pushing further into Georgia's separatist regions that justified by a defensive intervention. While this can and should be condemned, it is hardly the behavior of an aggressive imperialist, but rather the logical reaction of a proud and prickly country who is offered an easy opportunity to hit back against the long-established narrative of decline and irrelevance. It is a lesson (yet another one they will ignore, one might say, wearily) to the neo-cons who mistakenly see war and intimidation as tools to reinforce US power around the world.

It is also, hopefully, a lesson to all the neo-con followers (Democrats, European politicians, and pundits everywhere) who, out of genuine belief, fear of retaliation, corruption or incompetence, have encouraged, or let happen, reckless Western imperialist policies that waste trillions, weaken democracy at home and abroad, and end up creating more enemies and weakening our security.