A View from the Frontier

I broke my bicycle frame on the Dalton Highway today and had to hitch-hike back to Fairbanks to buy either a new bicycle or a new frame.

Upon returning I learned that, according to the Times headline, "the Russians have invaded Georgia". Startled, I read a few of the background articles and found a slightly fuller explanation, from which I have excerpted this paragraph:

When Western countries decided to recognize the independence of Kosovo from Serbia, Putin declared this a dangerous precedent that opened the possibility of a change of status for Abkhazia and South Ossetia. The war of words grew hotter; Russians shot down a Georgian drone aircraft; bombs went off in Abkhazia and South Ossetia; Russian aircraft flew over the disputed parts of Georgia. Finally, at the end of the first week of August, the Georgians reacted and launched a major attack on Tskhinvali, the capital of South Ossetia. They quickly overran much of the enclave, nearly taking the city. But the Russians returned with a ferocious counterattack, retaking the capital and upping the ante with bombing outside of South Ossetia.

Keep in mind that "the disputed parts of Georgia" is an oxymoron. From Moscow they are just as much "the disputed parts of Russia". That is what "disputed" means.

I have been out of town and out of touch for a considerable time so I do not know whether the Times and other Western media covered the Georgian invasion of disputed territory as avidly as they are currently reporting the Russian response. The article I have excerpted was buried four layers deep in the Times website. The current Times front page story as nearly omits the initial Georgian attack as they think they can get away with. This makes the story read like brain-dead anti-Russian propaganda. Is the Times, the Newspaper of Record, acting as a shameless mouthpiece for the Administration? It sounds like it to me.