Now here is how they are the same, South Ossetians were just as dead when the ethnic based tensions erupted.

And when South Ossetians got in charge, to be totally honest, there were ethnic based reprisals against Georgians.

I'm not saying one group is better than the other, but its clear from both sides, that they don't live together.

Your problem is seeing the world as a cold war between Russia and the United States.

Russia may indeed be the voice for these small people, but its about South Ossetians, not about Russia.

Ossetia is an ancient people, not some recent uprising of a religious group or something of that nature.

Again, I cannot stress how irrelevant it is, about how the Soviet Union treated Ossetia. Ossetians where dominated by the much larger Soviet Union, just as they can be dominated by the much larger Georgia.

But throughout all that time, they remained a separate culture with their own language, their own traditions, and their homeland in tact.

There would be nothing good about sacrificing them to the Georgians now. Democracy or not, this is a democracy that has proven time and time again it does not restrain itself or protect ethnic minorities.

p.s the main idea about Kosovo, is somehow they couldn't live in Serbia, despite the fact that Serbia is a democracy.

Same is true here in Georgia. yes its a democracy, one where the government is in complte control of the media. One where opposition political groups are brutally repressed.

The pro-US. groups win elections being funded by the U.S.

It's a pseudo-democracy.

You know, its hard for people to believe. I've never been to Georgia, but I was in Ukraine, when the group 'Pora' was handing out money, purchasing votes. It came out later they were funded by the CIA, to the tune of $41 million dollars.

It was a huge amount. The U.S. accused Ukraine of not being a democracy, but they must have believed the votes would count, because they spent the money, and they got the win, installing the pro-western government.

It's hard to believe until you see it. Then you can scream it to the roof tops and noone will hear you.

It's a sweet gig being the U.S. government. I have no doubt your ridiculous biased article was written entirely by you, with no help from the government. I guess what it comes down is the extreme desire to be mainstream, and the government is the one that defines mainstream.

We have a free press, it just, unfortunately is true that a free press hardly produces better results than a non-free one.

Media conglomeration means that most media outlets are owned by a few large conglomerates who can tailor the "news" to be whatever they choose.

We now know what was largely suspected already: Fox News, owned by Rupert Murdoch, was directly repeating Bush administration talking points and became, in essence a propoganda arm for them.

Judith Miller was using her "sources" to report white house propoganda as news in years past as well.

Of course not all media is as blantly porogandistic as Fox News but they do often follow a similiar line because there are so few owners.

The FCC has been allowing continued media conglomeration and because of this it has become increasingly difficult to find the "truth" or even for some stories to get any attention at all.

There is little or no "free" press in this country anymore. It was bought and paid for by corporations at a very high cost both in dollars and at the cost of an uninformed electorate.

Control of the press is not nearly as organized as you apparently believe. For example, with newspapers publishers occasionally get involved and try to dictate how a certain story is reported, or whether it will be reported. This is rare and usually fought by the editor. Even then, the publisher is far from being the same thing as the owner. I suppose you could make the argument that with a Murdoch-like political atmosphere reporters and editors could fall into line in an attempt to further their career, but in my opinion it would require much more evidence to support any claim of any sort of organized mouthpiece for ANY agenda whatsoever.

You don't like Fox News? Yeah, me neither... but their problems are a result of hiring political hack after political hack, not asking Rupert which stories they should or shouldn't run.

The uninformed electorate is not a result of a lack of a "free" press in this country, of that I am sure.