Powerline's John Hinderaker posts on the energy pipelines that are a big part of the struggle between Russia and Georgia, and Bill Kristol points out that Georgia has been a very good ally in the war against the jihadists and would deserve our strong help even if Russia hadn't obviously violated an international border.
The impact of the Russian brutality is deeply damaging:
"Russia has applied unprecedented military power . . . and it is of such amplitude that it would have scared much bigger states," Alexander Lomaia, secretary of Georgia's National Security Council, said in an interview. "This war has changed the whole system of values of pro-Western, liberal-minded people. I don't want to be a bad prophet, but why would Russia stop here? There are other countries where Russia thinks it has a claim to territory."
The U.S. needs to rush relief to Georgia and to continue the blunt condemnation of the Russians. It has taken the weekend for the MSM to figure out that Russia is attempting to turn an ill-advised effort by Georgia to reassert control over its land into a strategic thrust against the West, but the butchery and the bombing has clarified the picture. Russia is killing many innocent civilians far from the area where Georgia attempted --rightfully if not prudently-- to move its forces. That's the bottom line.
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