Georgia

The country, not the state, attracted my interest today, after reading the story on yahoo news about the Georgian army moving in to retake South Ossetia. I wikipedia'ed Georgia, and found out some pretty cool stuff about it.

First, after the US and Britain, Georgia has the 3rd most troops in Iraq- 2000, and growing. These troops serve honorably and ably. Next, Georgia is a Christian state, and has successfully fought for it's independence against Muslim foes for centuries. It also was on the correct side of the Russian Civil War, opposing the Bolsheviks.

Most of the news about Georgia centers on it trying to re-establish control over it's breakaway provinces of Abkhazia and South Ossetia. From my reading, Abkhazia seems like a puppet of Russia who has engaged in ethnic cleansing and other bad stuff, but historically was a part of Georgia, and probably should be under it again. South Ossetia is similar- part of Georgia for centuries, broken off and used by the Bolsheviks as a tool, and now playing a similar role for Putin. I'm going to guess that because the US has now trained about 16% of it's military, it is going to eventually regain it's territories.