We've already noted that Venezuela's Hugo Chávez says he is seeking a "strategic alliance" with Russia. Now he weighs in decisively for Moscow in the Georgian crisis. VenezuelAnalysis reports Aug. 15, that upon his arrival in Paraguay the previous night for the inauguration of President Fernando Lugo, Chávez took the opportunity to accuse the US of directly intervening in Georgia. "I am almost certain that it was the president of the United States, the imperialist George Bush, who ordered the movement of the Georgian troops towards South Ossetia, killing innocent people, and with good reason Russia acted," Chávez said. He charged that the US is attempting to rein in Russia, "because this country rose up and now is a new world potential thanks to the work of ex-president Vladmir Putin."

Georgia's Foreign Ministry said Aug. 16 that Russian-backed separatists in Abkhazia have seized 13 villages in Georgia and the Inguri hydropower plant. Russian army units and separatist forces shifted the border of breakaway Abkhazia toward the Inguri River, setting up a temporary administration in the seized villages. The power plant and most of the villages are in a buffer zone established by the 1994 UN-brokered ceasefire. The buffer zone stretches from Abkhazia's Gali region and Georgia's Zugdidi region, including a narrow strip between Abkhaz territory and the Inguri. Abkhazia's de facto president Sergei Bagapsh acknowledged the Abkhaz move into the buffer zone would violate the ceasefire terms, but asserted that Georgia was the first to break the truce. (AP, Aug. 16)

A double suicide attack killed at least 19 Shi'ite pilgrims and wounded 75 in a town outside Iskandariya Aug. 14. Two female suicide bombers detonated their explosives vests amid the group of pilgrims headed for Karbala to commemorate the birth of the Twelfth Imam. In another incident, a roadside bomb killed at least two pilgrims and wounded seven more as they walked through Karrada, a central Baghdad's neighborhood, embarking on the pilgrimage. (AlJazeera, Aug. 14)

The Polish government signed a deal Aug. 14 to host a 10 interceptor missiles at a site along Poland's Baltic Sea coast as a part of the US "missile shield" plan. The site, staffed by US forces, would complement a US radar installation to be based in the Czech Republic. Washington says those facilities, to be operational by 2013, would complete an anti-missile system already in place in the US, Greenland, and Britain. In return, Poland will receive "enhanced security cooperation"—most significantly, a separate missile defense system for its own armed forces. A US Patriot missile battery is to be relocated to Poland from Germany for this purpose, to be initially operated jointly with the US. (NYT, RFE/RL, Aug. 15)

An Aug. 15 New York Times story, "Signs of Ethnic Attacks in Georgia Conflict," states: "The identities of the attackers vary, but a pattern of violence by ethnic Ossetians against ethnic Georgians is emerging and has been confirmed by some Russian authorities." It quotes Maj. Gen. Vyacheslav Nikolaevich Borisov, commander in charge of Russian-occupied Gori, as saying, "Now Ossetians are running around and killing poor Georgians in their enclaves." It also cites Human Rights Watch as saying it had "documented attacks by ethnic Ossetians in and around Tskhinvali." Yet the HRW press release on its report from Georgia also noted the "plight of ethnic Ossetian villagers who had fled Georgian soldiers"—a plight not mentioned by the Times. We hope HRW will write a letter to the Times calling the newspaper out on this critical omission.

Robert Scheer uncovers an interesting piece of the puzzle as to what transpired in Georgia over the past week. But he can't resist the temptation to portray it as the entire explanation for the war—in further evidence of the current hegemony of the Conspiracy Theory of History in dissident (and even not-so-dissident) discourse these days. From AlterNet, Aug. 13, emphasis added. Our commentary follows.

While mainstream media coverage in the West has generally painted a once-sided picture of arbitrary Russian aggression against an innocent Georgia, much of the "alternative media" is merely inverting the equation—and arriving at similarly skewed perceptions. We hate to have to call out Bruce Gagnon, because his Space4Peace.org website is a vital resource. But just because he's up to speed on weapons in space doesn't make him politically astute about other things. His Aug. 12 blog post—highlighting the similarly faulty analysis of one Patrick Schoenfelder—is a case study in mere kneejerk reaction to mainstream portrayals as a substitute for actual thought. We reproduce it below with untruths and distortions in bold. Our commentary follows.

Russia says it is gathering evidence for charges of genocide against Georgia, accusing it of driving 30,000 refugees out of South Ossetia. Georgia responded by filing a case against Russia at the International Court of Justice for ethnic cleansing between 1993 and 2008. (London Times, Aug. 13) Human Rights Watch reports that on Aug. 12, its researchers "saw ethnic Georgian villages still burning from fires set by South Ossetian militias, witnessed looting by the militias, and learned firsthand of the plight of ethnic Ossetian villagers who had fled Georgian soldiers during the Georgian-Russian conflict over the breakaway region of South Ossetia." (HRW, Aug. 13)