Nightmare in Ossetia

There is terrible news from a distant land. Most people never heard of Ossetia until 2004 when Chechen rebels took over a school and held all the children, teachers, and parents hostage. The siege ended in a massive storming of the school in which over 385 people where killed. That was in North Ossetia, which is an autonomous part of the Russian Federation.
South Ossetia is home to about 70,000 people, most of whom are Russified and most of whom carry Russian passports. The Ossetians embraced Christianity in the 9th century. After that, they found themselves faced with formidable enemies like the Mongols and the Chechens, Tatars, and Ingush...these latter groups were devout muslims and attacked the ossetians relentlessly. In the end of the 18th century and beginning of the 19th, they found a useful ally in the Russian empire. Large numbers of Chechens and Ingush were deported during and after WWII by the soviets because of their collaboration with the nazis.Later on, they tried to return to their original homes and began re-establishing their old enclaves.

Now we have Georgia, an ancient country (christian too) that is at the crossroads between east and west. They tried to take Ossetia in 1991 sensing weakness in the Russians. Now, there is a big problem between Russia and Georgia. DO NOT BELIEVE EVERYTHING YOU HEAR AND READ ABOUT THIS CONFLICT! That includes my own efforts. But this is not black and white, good guy bad guy. Americans love that shit, but this is not one of those situations. This is a situation involving oil and strategic control. Be warned, reports of atrocities and attempts to destroy oil pipelines need to be taken with a whole damn bag of salt.