As McCain’s ads take the low road - including a recent one drawing numbers from a Tax Center that said he would swell the debt and defecit to record levels - Obama’s strike for the middle: The middle class that deserves someone appealing to them:

Lies. Temper tantrums. Willful ignorance of complexity.

McCain’s not 72 going on 73. He’s 7.

I must remind myself whenever I feel a pang of remorse over denigrating the man I supported in 2000, “He was so much older then, he’s younger than that now.”

Obama does get me hoping again, sometimes when I can barely dare to do so. The following glimpses from his campaign insiders - related by Howard Fineman - stand to make me electrified.

“If I had to bet my life on it, I’d bet it is Joe[.]”

Nothing in this race’s next phase could make me happier.

“Joe won’t be afraid to get in McCain’s face, which is what Obama needs,” said one non-contender source.

Absolutely. Just look at this strongly voiced article on the opinions of the left. People want blood in the sand, and Obama can’t be the one to go on the attack.

Biden seems to live for the attack.

And a source personally close to Obama simply said “Biden makes the most sense.”

And to answer the question you must be asking yourself, no, I am not that quoted source. I just say what they said, all the time.

As if reinforcing this, Obama cited Joe today in a speech he gave to the VFW. It not only underscores the importance Biden has had in this campaign - it was an emphasis of the Senator’s awesome foreign policy experience.

Biden is perfect. Now it remains to be seen if we can hope for perfection.

I almost titled this story - “AP Finally Reports Something Correctly”; it seems the Associated Press committed a Freudian slip in print when writing about McCain’s VP list.

“His top contenders are said to include Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty and former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney. Less traditional choices mentioned include former Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Ridge, an abortion-rights supporter, and Connecticut Sen. Joe Lieberman, the Democratic vice presidential prick in 2000 who now is an independent.”

It happens to everyone. What’s that old expression about broken watches telling the time twice a day?

And in related news, Bill Clinton knows what time it is - time to rally ’round the party standard and get to circling the wagons, with the Democratic Convention due next week.

Or, rather, he knows it’s time for self-serving, vindictive grandstanding, what with he and his wife (and even Chelsea and Socks and Hillary’s AV team) practically headlining the Democratic Cathartha-fest 2008. He gave a preview of coming detractions yesterday.

“Obviously, I favor Senator Obama’s energy positions, and Democrats have been by and large the more forward-leaning actors,” Mr. Clinton said. “But John McCain has the best record of any Republican running for president on the energy issue and on climate change.” He added, “I’m very encouraged about where the presidential rhetoric is in this campaign.”

The message is clear: Since my wife’s not running, it doesn’t matter a good goddamn who you vote for.

In order for that message to change, the Democrats better get wise to the fact that the Clintons are as much a part of the vain, backbiting Bush era as the man in the White House himself.

News broadcasts are beginning to address the some key points that the media has been pussyfooting around for the ten days of the Georgia conflict:

* What about the history of ethnic cleansing and oppression against the Ossetians by the Georgians?

* What could Georgia have been thinking, massacring the Ossetians in Tshkhinvali when they knew full well the Russians were lying in wait on the border?

* Are there any ‘good guys’ in this?

Tragically, for the purposes of the media, the question to the latter is “no.”

The Georgians apparently thought because Bush shared hot dogs with their President in the White House rose garden, he could unleash multi-launch rocket systems on civilians and we would back him to the hilt when Russia predictably struck back.

The Russians did, in my estimation, stop an ethnic cleansing, but they have since acted in typical imperialistic fashion, visiting a serious serving of Shock And Awe on the Georgians as they dismantle their infrastructure, consolidate their defense in the separatist provinces, and generally gloat.

The closest to a hero would be the South Ossetians, but if the media paid attention to these people now - a fascinating, exotic ethnic minority with a colorful warrior tradition stretching back to ancient Greek times, of whom only 700,000 remain - it would really mess up the whole “poor Georgia, bad Russia” narrative. Besides, the Ossetians are honoring that warrior tradition by pillaging Georgian villages by all accounts.

The lessons in this conflict are many and tragic: The mainstream media still flat-out lies to turn a bloody buck out of a war. The USA is as impotent, thanks to the Bush military adventures, as was feared. Russia’s strategic capital is seriously on the rise.

One good thing is that, though around 2,000 of the 38,000 South Ossetians were killed, and almost all fled their homes, no more were lost because Russia didn’t check with the UN Security Council, or rely on sanctions, or insist on multi-party talks - but because they rolled in and stopped the massacre.

And this is finally being said - albeit without acknowledgment - on some major media outlets is a good thing indeed.

Among the more gut-curdling and inhuman of Jerome Corsi’s repugnant distortions about Obama was the allegation that the Senator cast a vote for infanticide - a claim Corsi’s feckless partisan meat puppet of a show host, Sean Hannity, just nodded to; and a claim Corsi made on no less than three separate occasions, not counting his book.

Jerome Corsi, author of the book, The Obama Nation, falsely claimed on Hannity’s America that Sen. Barack Obama said, “Even if a child was born … the woman still had the right to kill the child in an abortion.” Corsi similarly falsely asserted on Hannity & Colmes that “[a]fter a child’s born, Obama … in the [Illinois] state Senate, wanted the child killed if the mother desired an abortion,” and on Sean Hannity’s radio program, said that “Obama’s on record as let’s kill the baby if that’s what the mother wants.” In fact, Obama has never supported giving people the right to kill their children.

Tragically, millions of Americans will likely not make the obvious assumption that such a claim is preposterous. Research shows that Corsi is being thoroughly mendacious - the law he refers to would not have defined what “born” or “alive” meant, while at the same time letting family members bring lawsuits against doctors they thought acted inadequately. It was bad law - either doomed to die quickly or to drag costly suits into its slow demise.

But this all raises the question, where does Obama stand on “life” and “choice” issues, and what, if anything, has he sought to do about them?

We are given a clearer perspective on the complexity of that answer by Obama’s handling of the Illinois Liability Law above. For Obama did support another bill, the Born Alive Act, that bestowed the full rights of a human being on a child born during the process of an abortion. In essence, it’s intent - protection of a born child - was the same, and of his interest.

Does this mean Obama is not in favor of unrestricted abortion rights? It may dismay progressives - or excite centrists and pro-lifers - to hear that he has supported banning various late-term procedures.

How does he maintain that 100% NARAL record, then? Obama has never failed to vote in support of a female individual’s right to the procedure. Yet he has claimed that the restriction of the procedure in the more gruesome instances is warranted and legal. And he has gone an extra step, taking the rhetoric he laid out in his political writings and incorporating them into the policy action of the party he had won the leadership of.

Obama, and key others in the Democratic Party and the former-GOP pro-life community, have lately strove to make abortion reduction a bi-partisan issue by putting it in the Democratic Party platform. Yes, it is now an official part of the platform to pursue the goal of reducing incidence of abortion. And, as I noted in a previous post, it is high time that they wrested this particular moral high ground from the tenuous, exploitative grasp of the GOP.

I say “exploitative,” because the GOP platform has been anti-contraception, anti-sex education, anti-natal welfare, anti-adoption, but fiercely and uncompromisingly anti-abortion. It smacks of callous calculation rather than actual concern that they have no real functional interest in preventing unwanted pregnancies or providing for the chaotic circumstances that afflict any unprepared mother, but are obsessively interested in the child when it’s in the mother. One may argue that the GOP does care about those other concerns, but it is hard to argue that their policies have made that care manifest in a way that helps.

the Republican line on abortion–the singular focus on banning it–was just a cynical ploy. I know that many GOP leaders were sincere, but overall the strategy was simply to oppose abortion symbolically while doing nothing to reduce abortions in real life. Moreover, there is evidence from history and from around the world that banning abortion would not even reduce abortions (have we ever banned anything successfully?).

Pro-life Christians are finally getting this.

This has left the “life” issue up for grabs: Not just “life” as defined as opposition to a woman’s right to choose to terminate a pregnancy, but “life” that can expanded to include care and respect for all phases of the process - for the sexually active girl or woman, for the life whose fate depends on her, and for the child that must be cared for all the more after its born. And this is what the 2008 platform seeks to achieve.

The effect would be profound, in that it would turn an issue that has only been useful as partisan demonization - and hardly for limiting abortions - and transform it into a bipartisan call to provide actual care for all life. If Obama is both sincere and committed to the causes he has been bold enough to speak on extensively and candidly in the past, especially in his writing, the Republican wedge issue that only fosters the problem may be turned into an urge to support Democratic social aid programs.

Can Obama speak strongly enough to be considered sincere? All indications are that he will do just that tomorrow at the Faith Forum to be held at the Saddleback mega-church. It falls to him to not only regurgitate the Clinton-era idiom of “safe, legal and rare” about abortion, but to synthesize the effort to actually reduce abortions with the earnest concern for all life.

I trust he won’t disappoint. Obama devotes a whole chapter of Audacity of Hope to the subject. There is no doubting his depth of consideration, feeling and concern; he at one point compares the guilt of some women over their past abortions to that of former slave holders - clearly he recognizes the severity of the decision involved. And that he, not McCain, is a zealous Evangelical Christian, gives him additional premium to his claim of spiritual investment in a better life.

Today, Matthew 25 - a progressive Christian group central to the nascent efforts like those above - released a commercial for Obama.

It is the organization’s title - the Biblical passage that says that those who don’t just bide time in this life, but work at charity, are saved, and any who do less are damned - that resonates with Obama’s faith. He has been an activist for the poor, the disadvantaged and the denounced on both sides of the political spectrum. There is no doubt that he struggles for the least of us.

We’ll see what stand he takes for “the least among” the pro-life movement tomorrow.

I recently received an annoying chain e-mail sarcastically listing reasons for voting Democratic, among them:

“I’m voting Democrat because I love the fact that I can now marry whatever I want. I’ve decided to marry my horse.”

I wrote a reply of my own reasons, and submit it below for your amusement or to start our own counter chain e-mail.:

Why I’m Voting Democratic

I’m voting Democratic, because I want to be taxed less, and what I do pay should go to uses other than socialism for corporations’ bloated offshore operations.

I’m voting Democratic, because freedom of speech is fine even when the government, church and homeschool moms are offended by it — and because privacy of speech is for all American citizens, not just the ones the White House likes.

I’m voting Democratic, because it’s time to finish what we started in Afghanistan, and bring the 9-11 architects to justice, no matter what side of the Pakistani border they’re on.

I’m voting Democratic, because regardless of whether global warming is manmade, the future of business is resource management for out-of-control consumers like China - and I want America to lead the future of business.

I’m voting Democratic, because a nation that codifies religious belief into law is what we should be struggling against overseas, not trying to create here at home.

I’m voting Democratic, because the middle class needs financial help - not by the time profits “trickle down”; right now.

I’m voting Democratic, because the Constitution is a living document - and were it not for pointy-headed kooks, “separate but equal” would be the proud cry of the South today.

I’m voting Democratic, because my right to bear arms matters less to me than my desire to see my nation’s troops armed in the field properly, given a clear mission, and treated right when they’re brought home.

I’m voting Democratic, because marriage should always be a power of one’s church or faith, not of the state.

I’m voting Democratic, because oil companies need more help like Iraq needs more dead GIs.

The Clintons have returned in force. Just like Caesar at Pharsalus, you think you have them pinned down and starved out, then you drop your guard for a moment and for the throat they go. In this case, they just got Hillary’s name entered as a possible Convention nominee.

The New York Daily News reported recently that Clinton had asked not to be nominated. But at a fundraiser last week in California, Clinton told supporters she was looking for a way to recognize them at the convention. “I happen to believe that we will come out stronger if people feel that their voices were heard and their views respected, she said. “I think that is a very big part of how we actually come out unified.”

That “way” will just happen to be a parade of division, a muttering chorus of doubt like a bad case of tinitis.

Colbert was right. This isn’t just “catharsis.” It’s a whole damn Greek drama.

Why the DNC allowed this to happen is beyond me - like we need more mania, arrogance, disunity, incompetence, nostalgia, avarice, back-biting and partisanship in this campaign. It certainly isn’t for the cause of banding behind Barack, as recent events have shown.

First we had Bill using an ABC exclusive interview opportunity to gripe about the primaries and deny that Obama’s ready to be President:

Then it came out that, behind closed doors, Hillary had encouraged her supporters in “PUMA” (Party Unity My Ass) to find some way to express the will to nominate her at the convention.

All this is occurring with the backdrop of The Atlantic having published the e-mails of the Clinton campaign; e-mails that reveal:

Above all, this irony emerges: Clinton ran on the basis of managerial competence—on her capacity, as she liked to put it, to “do the job from Day One.” In fact, she never behaved like a chief executive, and her own staff proved to be her Achilles’ heel.

Also clarified was the strategy of the Clinton campaign against Obama - that being to always be on the attack; to go for his person, not his policies; to cast him as “foreign” and not Americans. These are the very strategies of the GOP, and they are attacks that the Clintons have never refuted - have, in fact, only underhandedly stoked. It is no surprise that they are attacks that still have edge and venom to them.

What is a surprise is that all of this amounts to the DNC and the Obama campaign spotlighting the Clintons at the Convention. Given key speaking slots - even for Chelsea - and central billing on the schedule, they will be dominating the coverage with their controversy, their undermining unpredictability, their swaggering spitefulness.

Already they’ve managed to secure a rotten plank in the DNC platform, one emetically toxic to the cause of feminism, that as much as states that Hillary’s primary loss was due not to Obama’s excellence but to “demeaning portrayals of women [that] cheapen our debates, dampen the dreams of our daughters, and deny us the contributions of many.” How proponents of the Clinton position cannot see that their planned “protest’s” tawdry emotionalism, passive-aggression and self-indulgent divisiveness would be pathetic regardless of gender is beyond me. That they are not only allowed, but even endorsed, and transformed into an animus to accuse media bias and therefore dismiss the failings of the disgusting Clinton campaign as non-existent is a slash through the hamstrings for both women’s equality and political progress.

It is likely that the foundation of the Convention will be further cracked as the insurgent cries of PUMA get to voice their open-throated outrage that their cult idol, Clinton, did not triumph - or in the hopes that she still will.

Why the Democrats are not preventing this, and letting the isolated and bankrupt Clintons just starve away in a pit of their plummeting poll numbers, is beyond me. They are putting the knife to their outstretched throats for the sake of some nebulous loyalty to the wheezing machine of the past. They just don’t get it - the last thing this xenophobic feeding frenzy of a race needs is more blood in the water.

Why they don’t get it is one of the chief reasons it took a city-annihilating hurricane, an economic topple, two debilitating and senseless wars, massive civil rights violations and a smattering of sex scandals to bring them back to something resembling power in 2006: The America of today does not crave complexity, revolutionary anger, minority sensitivity, heated debate and diversity.

The America of the 21st century is scared, tired, hopeless.

They want simple answers, unflagging positivity, overweaning pride, absolute loyalty and unity.

Until the DNC gets this, they’re never going to really hold the throne.

And if the ravenous Clintons - who have already muscled their way into turning the Convention into televised party suicide - have their way, that throne will be set on one of the prettiest and most promising pile of broken dreams we have seen in over a generation.

Cranky wrote me an e-mail regarding the coverage of the Georgia conflict. I post it here, along with my response, because I think hers is a question playing on the minds of many as the media beats the war drum against the ravening Russian bear and all debate is drown:

So why is everyone, including Obama (although he did call for diplomatic resolution), on Georgia’s side? I thought they invaded first!

CW

I replied:

Dear CW,

Georgia counts South Ossetia as part of its territory, even though South Ossetia’s had de facto autonomy since Georgia became Georgia.

So South Ossetia wasn’t invaded, technically - it was just shelled, bombed and assaulted by tanks. That’s why the news often calls it a matter of “Georgia attempted to regain control of the breakaway district of S. Ossetia” - because they were trying to conquer the rebels; not that they ever *had* control.

However, as I note in my writing, “attempted to regain control” means hitting civilians with a day-long bombardment with Multi-Launch Rocket Systems, and then burning alive whatever survivors were left in the basements.

Why is everyone on Georgia’s side? Well, largely because it serves our interests to be. They’re a check against Georgia in the region. Secondly, because the details of the ethnic cleansing have long been ignored, and the story has become more about Russia’s response - and when it will end - than what initiated it.

Considering that the Russians are now either seizing what they’re sitting on, or leaving scorched earth in their lazy wake of withdrawal, expect sympathy for the cause of their intervention to continue sinking.

Numbers like Mark Nickolas discovered are why whenever I hear the term “liberal biased media” these days, I get another white hair. They prove the media’s not liberal, or ideological, or even sensible.

They are merely deliberately stupid, arrogantly untruthful, gluttonous, sycophantic greedheads who have the interests of a fight promoter and the morals of a gulag commandant.

For the numbers show that even compared to Karl Rove and parties with an ideological bias, the media is harsher in its estimate of Obama’s appeal and abilities: That the polls of Zogby and the like compile to show Obama 127 electoral votes ahead, Rove at 77 ahead, the Cook Political Report at 66 ahead - and all of these are far larger than the most preferenntial media outlet, CNN, which has Obama at only 32 ahead.

Most channels and print media figures hover around 28 by Nickolas’ discovery; the Washington Post even goes so far with poll gymnatics to put McCain ahead by 6 EV.

The media is, for the time, wrong. The professionals, after all, are getting far different numbers than the ones that illustrate the campaigns as a tooth-and-nail death match that could swing either way (so stay tuned!).

But the media tells people what’s true and what they should feel about it. People react accordingly. And so the question becomes how long before the self-fulfilling prophecy of a tight race is born out, and the media - as they did with Iraq - coaxes the public to embrace the disaster they’ve dreamt up.

McCain’s disastrous economic policies are imprinted with George W. Bush’s legacy and thrown in his face with this new ad from the Obama campaign.

The ad will hopefully remind voters that unless they change who’s in charge economically, they’ll keep getting what they’re getting economically.

But loud and clear, it states Obama’s for the middle class - a tune he should trumpet as much as possible.

Brilliant observations on the Clinton campaign - and Cult of Personality - by Stephen Colbert:

Gorbachev wrote on the Caucasus crisis for the Washington Post today, and so injected much-needed integrity, honesty and accounting into the dialogue. Given its earnest and measured tone and its succinct history of events, I feel it deserves reading in full.

I recommend you spread the word about it, for the agony of the Ossetians starves for exposure. The media is talking about it as a Russian trap. Whether one chooses to see it that way or not, the bait that the Georgians took was ethnic oppression and genocide.

That needs to be known.

To that end, I’m posting it in entirety here:

MOSCOW — The past week’s events in South Ossetia are bound to shock and pain anyone. Already, thousands of people have died, tens of thousands have been turned into refugees, and towns and villages lie in ruins. Nothing can justify this loss of life and destruction. It is a warning to all.

The roots of this tragedy lie in the decision of Georgia’s separatist leaders in 1991 to abolish South Ossetian autonomy. This turned out to be a time bomb for Georgia’s territorial integrity. Each time successive Georgian leaders tried to impose their will by force — both in South Ossetia and in Abkhazia, where the issues of autonomy are similar — it only made the situation worse. New wounds aggravated old injuries.

Nevertheless, it was still possible to find a political solution. For some time, relative calm was maintained in South Ossetia. The peacekeeping force composed of Russians, Georgians and Ossetians fulfilled its mission, and ordinary Ossetians and Georgians, who live close to each other, found at least some common ground.

Through all these years, Russia has continued to recognize Georgia’s territorial integrity. Clearly, the only way to solve the South Ossetian problem on that basis is through peaceful means. Indeed, in a civilized world, there is no other way.

The Georgian leadership flouted this key principle.

What happened on the night of Aug. 7 is beyond comprehension. The Georgian military attacked the South Ossetian capital of Tskhinvali with multiple rocket launchers designed to devastate large areas. Russia had to respond. To accuse it of aggression against “small, defenseless Georgia” is not just hypocritical but shows a lack of humanity.

Mounting a military assault against innocents was a reckless decision whose tragic consequences, for thousands of people of different nationalities, are now clear. The Georgian leadership could do this only with the perceived support and encouragement of a much more powerful force. Georgian armed forces were trained by hundreds of U.S. instructors, and its sophisticated military equipment was bought in a number of countries. This, coupled with the promise of NATO membership, emboldened Georgian leaders into thinking that they could get away with a “blitzkrieg” in South Ossetia.

In other words, Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili was expecting unconditional support from the West, and the West had given him reason to think he would have it. Now that the Georgian military assault has been routed, both the Georgian government and its supporters should rethink their position.

Hostilities must cease as soon as possible, and urgent steps must be taken to help the victims — the humanitarian catastrophe, regretfully, received very little coverage in Western media this weekend — and to rebuild the devastated towns and villages. It is equally important to start thinking about ways to solve the underlying problem, which is among the most painful and challenging issues in the Caucasus — a region that should be approached with the greatest care.

When the problems of South Ossetia and Abkhazia first flared up, I proposed that they be settled through a federation that would grant broad autonomy to the two republics. This idea was dismissed, particularly by the Georgians. Attitudes gradually shifted, but after last week, it will be much more difficult to strike a deal even on such a basis.

Old grievances are a heavy burden. Healing is a long process that requires patience and dialogue, with non-use of force an indispensable precondition. It took decades to bring to an end similar conflicts in Europe and elsewhere, and other long-standing issues are still smoldering. In addition to patience, this situation requires wisdom.

Small nations of the Caucasus do have a history of living together. It has been demonstrated that a lasting peace is possible, that tolerance and cooperation can create conditions for normal life and development. Nothing is more important than that.

The region’s political leaders need to realize this. Instead of flexing military muscle, they should devote their efforts to building the groundwork for durable peace.

Over the past few days, some Western nations have taken positions, particularly in the U.N. Security Council, that have been far from balanced. As a result, the Security Council was not able to act effectively from the very start of this conflict. By declaring the Caucasus, a region that is thousands of miles from the American continent, a sphere of its “national interest,” the United States made a serious blunder. Of course, peace in the Caucasus is in everyone’s interest. But it is simply common sense to recognize that Russia is rooted there by common geography and centuries of history. Russia is not seeking territorial expansion, but it has legitimate interests in this region.

The international community’s long-term aim could be to create a sub-regional system of security and cooperation that would make any provocation, and the very possibility of crises such as this one, impossible. Building this type of system would be challenging and could only be accomplished with the cooperation of the region’s countries themselves. Nations outside the region could perhaps help, too — but only if they take a fair and objective stance. A lesson from recent events is that geopolitical games are dangerous anywhere, not just in the Caucasus

Moscow has agreed to cease hostilities in Georgia, which means that it’ll stop major offensive action while snatching up the last bits of contested land not under its tank treads, like Abkhazia’s Kodori Gorge. And, as we anticipated, they presented the terms that define their ideal outcome to the conflict:

Russia’s foreign minister called for Georgian President Mikhail Saakashvili to resign and Medvedev said Georgia must pull its troops from South Ossetia and Abkhazia — the two breakaway provinces at the heart of the dispute.

I would imagine that Russia will budge on the former point, but their actions show they’re not giving ground on the latter - literally, in that they have waited until they physically control all the terrain of the breakaway districts. Russians respect real politik in a way that is decidedly old school - their treaties expect and present control in fact, not just handshakes. It’s clear that they neither trust the Georgian government to make good on their political deals with them, nor the Georgian armed forces to restrain themselves from being a threat. So they have put their trust in forced submission and annihilation of Georgia’s arms.

Why shouldn’t they? Georgia has given them - and any objective observer, particularly the Ossetians - no reason to trust.

For those just tuning in to the Caucasus mountains - the factious Big Brother to the Balkans where tribal conflict is concerned - Georgia has a recent history of mafia oligarchy masked as democracy. In ‘89 to ‘91, Georgia banned Ossetian language, banned Ossetian political opposition, rejected all subsequent attempts for freedom from Georgian control. In ‘91 to ‘92, it was open season in South Ossetia, with Georgian soldiers going from house to house, killing and burning to drive the people out. Then came actual war, humanitarian crisis, only stopped by the resolve of the South Ossetians, Georgia’s internal fragility and Moscow’s intervention.

The new President of Georgia, Saakashvili, was hailed as a break from that corrupt past, but while he has proposed lovely plans of virtual autonomy and cultural advancement, his actions are to only press the Ossetians harder. He tried a US-backed crackdown-cum-invasion in 2004, failed, offered democratic rights, and then undercut them by running intelligence operations to destabilize Ossetia.

And now, he went with total war. Russia has responded in kind, albeit without seeking actual conquest of all of Georgia. The censure on the West has been considerable, almost universal. But I would ask the West, and you, dear reader, what should have been done otherwise?

Russia is criticized for intervening in this “internal conflict.” But Darfur is an “internal conflict.” Rwandan genocide was an “internal conflict.” Saddam’s incursions into Kurdistan, including the gassing of Halabja, were “internal conflicts.” And in each of those cases, unless military force was used to intervene, genocide was the result.

Now we have a case where a brutal genocide was beginning - Tskhinvali teems with horror stories. And what happened? Russia did not propose sanctions in the UN to spend months of diplomacy trying to effect an economic change that might shift the democratic political climate in Georgia. Those sanctions would have been shot down by the USA anyway. Russia did not waste “harsh words” condemning Georgia’s genocide, as Bush has done with Darfur, leading to an estimated 400,000 dead and climbing.

Russia stopped it. It stopped the threat, right then and there, and made sure that the perpetrator cannot break trust and try again.

So I ask you, what would have been better?

Had Russia stood by, South Ossetia would likely have been cleansed by Georgia. The policy that eradicates their language and bans them from having local political power would have been cast in the rotting bodies of far more than the 2,000 Russia reports.

And believe me, the USA would have done nothing. The UN would have done nothing. It would have just been another “internal conflict” to make a tear-jerking documentary about and then forget.

Instead, whether we like Russia’s political gain from it or not, we have an example of a nation that tried to commit genocide and lost political, military and economic might because of it. I do not celebrate the suffering of the Georgian people. But I laud the lesson learned by the Georgian government.

For it comes down to this: Would we rather have South Ossetia cleansed of its native people by our ally, than see our enemy be the one to prevent it? And what alternative was there, if genocide was to be stopped?

I would urge you to put that question, and the facts of South Ossetia’s history, to any who have been paying attention to or commenting on the conflict.

“2,000 dead” is hard to put into distinct, precious human terms.

This article from the Guardian, reporting from the refugees just fled South Ossetia from the Georgian attack, does just that.

Here are some strands from the people who have survived the efforts of our “good ally, pro-West Georgia” to strangle their nation:

It began with shelling, targetting the places civilians would gather, like hospitals and aid centers.

Luize Dzagoyeva, 36, a hairdresser, said she had left Tskhinvali at dawn in the back of a truck which came under mortar fire as it travelled north. “We sat for four days in a cellar, without food and water,” she said. “When we came out we saw the whole street had burnt down. The city was gone – only ruins were left. It was a slaughter. First they bombed and shelled us. Then the tanks came in and levelled the city to the ground.

“I don’t know what I will do now. My town no longer exists. My brother is still there fighting.”

While billions gaped at the wonder of the world come together in amity and peaceful competition at the Olympic ceremonies, Georgia annihilated an entire city of people:

Sasha Khugayev, 48, said he had left South Ossetia on Friday: “In Tskhinvali you can’t find one brick standing on top of another. The city is still disputed. There are Georgian strong-points on the hills surrounding it.”

Even under threat of Russian intervention, the Georgians came in to the city they had shelled and began taking it out, block by block:

“My relatives told me Georgian soldiers burnt to death a family of seven people in their apartment. An 18-year-old boy who climbed out into the street for a few moments was shot dead by a sniper.”

Those they couldn’t kill, the Georgians succeeded in driving off.

A woman dressed in a nightgown and slippers from Khubis Ubani village said: “I saw our house in flames as we ran. There’s nothing left for us to go back to. Our lives are ruined.”

Then you hear the kind of hyperbolic grotesquery that’s a trope of Eastern warfare - stories so ghastly you doubt their source while at the same time feeling ashamed to do so:

“A 78-year-old woman with an infant under each arm was crushed by a tank!” cried Kazbek, 45, who also claimed Georgia had released hundreds of criminals to fight in the conflict.

Whether it is true or not, the loss and rage, soul-deep, of the Ossetians is true:

Nearby stood Gennady Dzhioyev, 38, unemployed. He said: “My cousin came from Dmenis village last night. He got two bullets in the back. We’re going to go there and slaughter the Georgians like the fascist pigs they are. If the Russians let us we’ll smash them all the way to Tbilisi. We are a warrior race, we know how to fight.

They do, and so do their neighboring tribes. From Dagestan and Chechnya, bandits and rebels who had been customarily aligned against Russia have joined the Ossetians to fight off Georgia.

Fighters from other warlike north Caucasus republics, such as Chechnya and Dagestan, are though to have crossed mountain passes to join regular Russian troops battling Georgian forces.

Whatever arrogance and sadism drove Georgia to start this cleansing, despite surety of Russian response, now stands to visit a fierce price against it.