The Russian Trap

Georgia did initiate the attack on the province of South Ossetia with bombings of government buildings and other civilian targets.

Things are not as simple as that. South Ossetian forces and non-uniformed Russian instigators have been shelling nearby Georgian villages for weeks and conducting irregular attacks against Georgian forces permanently deployed near South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

Russia had prepositioned substantial forces to bases in the region in order to take advantage of an inevitable Georgian response to these provocations. Russian military hackers were actively disrupting Georgian government websites and communications since mid-July.

Russian media propaganda - all Russian media is now under direct or indirect government control - had prepared the country for a "peacekeeping mission" and "war of liberation".

Georgia fell into a trap; that much is clear. To blame her for initiating this war is uninformed.