Georgia's mistakes

Michael Moynihan looks at how Georgia may have been trapped by their own mistakes:

The bumbling of Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili is a stunning sight to behold. This much seems clear: Putin and his surrogates in South Ossetia set a trap and the Georgians ambled into it, naively expecting his allies in the West to come to his rescue. And it is too early to tell just where the blame lies, though convincing arguments can be made for both camps. Georgia argues that it was responding to an attempted annexation of South Ossetia and consistent provocations from the Russian military; Russia claims it is merely defending the Russian passport holders of Ossetia from Georgia's all-out attack on Tshkhinvali, the regional capital. Both sides are engaged in heated, overblown rhetoric; both are making shocking and unverifiable claims. Georgia says that Russia is engaged in a campaign of "ethnic cleansing." Russian President Dmitri Medvedev told reporters that Georgia is engaged in "genocide." Both of these statements are to be treated with circumspection, of course, just as it is impossible to determine if the civilian casualty figures reported are accurate.