More words

more
war..

We can ask the question: Did Misha [Saakashvili] go too far or get pulled into a trap? But it really makes no difference right now. Russia has just declared the 'post-Soviet era' over and a new age has begun.

Thomas Goltz

• Georgia's foreign minister is due to meet Nato officials on Tuesday. Russia has also requested an emergency meeting with Nato, saying the organisation should hear Moscow's side before making any decisions

• The US and several European nations have begun to evacuate hundreds of their citizens from Georgia

• Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania and Poland issue a joint statement saying that as "once-captive nations of Eastern Europe" they share a "deep concern" about Russia's actions towards Georgia

• The G7 group of developed countries issues a strongly-worded statement calling on Russia to accept the EU-brokered ceasefire agreement

Forgotten in war

Old Man at the Bridge
Ernest Hemingway
1938

70 years ago, this summer, the famous war journalist and author wrote this short story about the refugees caught between two armies in the Spanish Civil War. Last weekend's Russian attack on Georgia should not distract us from this new war's new refugees.

An old man with steel rimmed spectacles and very dusty clothes sat by the side of the road. There was a pontoon bridge across the river and carts, trucks, and men, women and children were crossing it. The mule-drawn carts staggered up the steep bank from the bridge with soldiers helping push against the spokes of the wheels. The trucks ground up and away heading out of it all and the peasants plodded along in the ankle deep dust. But the old man sat there without moving. He was too tired to go any farther.

It was my business to cross the bridge, explore the bridgehead beyond and find out to what point the enemy had advanced. I did this and returned over the bridge. There were not so many carts now and very few people on foot, but the old man was still there.

"Where do you come from?" I asked him.
"From San Carlos," he said, and smiled.

That was his native town and so it gave him pleasure to mention it and he smiled.

"I was taking care of animals," he explained.
"Oh," I said, not quite understanding.
"Yes," he said, "I stayed, you see, taking care of animals. I was the last one to leave the town of San Carlos."

He did not look like a shepherd nor a herdsman and I looked at his black dusty clothes and his gray dusty face and his steel rimmed spectacles and said, "What animals were they?"

"Various animals," he said, and shook his head. "I had to leave them."

I was watching the bridge and the African looking country of the Ebro Delta and wondering how long now it would be before we would see the enemy, and listening all the while for the first noises that would signal that ever mysterious event called contact, and the old man still sat there.

"What animals were they?" I asked.
"There were three animals altogether," he explained. "There were two goats and a cat and then there were four pairs of pigeons."
And you had to leave them?" I asked.
"Yes. Because of the artillery. The captain told me to go because of the artillery."
"And you have no family?" I asked, watching the far end of the bridge where a few last carts were hurrying down the slope of the bank.
"No," he said, "only the animals I stated. The cat, of course, will be all right. A cat can look out for itself, but I cannot think what will become of the others."
"What politics have you?" I asked.
"I am without politics," he said. "I am seventy-six years old. I have come twelve kilometers now and I think now I can go no further."
"This is not a good place to stop," I said. "If you can make it, there are trucks up the road where it forks for Tortosa."
"I will wait a while," he said, " and then I will go. Where do the trucks go?"
"Towards Barcelona," I told him.
"I know no one in that direction," he said, "but thank you very much. Thank you again very much."

He looked at me very blankly and tiredly, and then said, having to share his worry with someone, "The cat will be all right, I am sure. There is no need to be unquiet about the cat. But the others. Now what do you think about the others?"

"Why they'll probably come through it all right."
"You think so?"
"Why not," I said, watching the far bank where now there were no carts.
"But what will they do under the artillery when I was told to leave because of the artillery?"
"Did you leave the dove cage unlocked?" I asked.
"Yes."
"Then they'll fly."
"Yes, certainly they'll fly. But the others. It's better not to think about the others," he said.
"If you are rested I would go," I urged. "Get up and try to walk now."
"Thank you," he said and got to his feet, swayed from side to side and then sat down backwards in the dust.
"I was taking care of animals," he said dully, but no longer to me. "I was only taking care of animals."

There was nothing to do about him. It was Easter Sunday and the Fascists were advancing toward the Ebro. It was a gray overcast day with a low ceiling so their planes were not up. That and the fact that cats know how to look after themselves was all the good luck that old man would ever have.

How to murder a small country

and get away
with it

(A Russian convoy outside the village of Dzhaba in South Ossetia. Prime Minister Vladimir V. Putin of Russia declared that war has started.)*

Motive

Claim that the country to be invaded is oppressing a minority population, preferably located along a shared border.

Example: Nazi invasion of Poland,
3 September 1939

(A Russian mobile artillery unit fired toward a Georgian position outside Dzhava on Saturday.)

Opportunity

Choose a time of the year when the attention of the world is otherwise occupied or in late summer/early fall when journalists are usually on vacation.

Example: Japanese invasion of China,
7 July 1937

(Russian air attacks struck two apartment buildings in Gori in what an official at the Georgian Interior Ministry called a major escalation.)

Means

Take advantage of other great powers' fears that their involvement could escalate the invasion into a broader regional war.

Example: Soviet invasion of Czechoslovakia, 21 August 1968

(One Georgian soldier, his face a mask of exhaustion, cradled a Kalashnikov. We killed as many of them as we could, he said. But where are our friends?)

Sound
familiar?

* Excerpts and photos from the NYTimes.