Recognition

Wikipedia:

"The 2008 South Ossetia War was a land, sea and air war fought between the Republic of Georgia, on one side, and the separatist regions, South Ossetia and Abkhazia, and the Russian Federation, on the other. Ongoing occasional skirmishes were reported to have escalated to a war early in the morning of 7 August, 2008, with an attack by Georgia into the break-away region of South Ossetia. The following day Russian forces attacked Georgian units in South Ossetia and subsequently moved farther into mainland Georgia.

A preliminary ceasefire was signed by Georgia and Russia on 15 August, 2008. The Russian military has announced a ten-day withdrawal from advance positions, while Georgian authorities have expressed discontent with the rate and extent of the pull-back, and with the continuing Russian presence in port of Poti.

The number of refugees from South Ossetia fleeing into Russia reached an estimated 30,000 of the 70,000 overall population. Meanwhile by 18 August, about 68,000 ethnic Georgians had fled their homes due to the conflict.^[18]

On August 26, amidst the ceasefire, Russia formally recognized the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia.^[19] Georgia rejected this move outright as an annexation of its territory;^[20] Western nations such as the United States and Germany have also opposed such a decision.^[21]"

(Copy and paste, the easy way to fill a blog. Sorry.)


I might be a little bit stupid. I understand why Russia wants to recognize the independence of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. What I do not understand is why the world reacts the way it does.

Let me tell you a little story about two brothers and two dogs. The brothers are grown up and belonged once to the same family. The two dogs were part of the same family as well. The youngest brother feels he can claim the dogs because they ran away from home at the same time he did. The oldest brother does not claim the dogs. He accepts that the dogs choose the house they like most and feels honoured that they look for shelter with him.

The younger brother made a deal with a very big and mighty Uncle that actually was not a part of the family before. This uncle never liked the older brother because he is always showing too much independancy and Uncle feels best with total obeyance.

So Uncle has a plan. He is telling the younger brother all of the time that the dogs are his and that he should protect them against his brother. That the dogs prefer to be with the older brother is totally ignored. "They will get used to you if you are a tough boss for them, so don't be weak".

The youngest brother not only claims the dogs, he wants to put them on a chain. When the dogs do not like that he decides to punish them and starts mistreating one of the dogs by throwing sharp stones at it.

The older brother does not like the mistreatment he sees and decides to help the dogs to get rid of the chains. But to be able to do that he has to enter the territory of his younger brother and so he does.

Uncle has a lot of very timid nephews. They say as he says, they see what he wants them to see. Uncle calls his nephews and shouts: "Do you see what that big brother is doing to his younger brother? He is invading his house!"

The nephews were in the middle of a game and look up very disturbed. "What a bad guy!"

The older brother moves away from the house but not without breaking the chains of the dogs. And Uncle with all his nephews are shouting so loud that nobody will ever remember why the older brother wanted to release the dogs.

"How do you dear to break those chains! You are violating all rules." The older brother does not care anymore. He tried to explain the situation of the dogs from the beginning but nobody listened. Nobody is listening now and nobody will listen to him.

Was the older brother the one that started this nasty thing? Was it the younger brother? Were it maybe the dogs? Or might it be that Uncle is the one who benefits most from this little conflict that doesn't mean a thing on the scale of violence he always uses against his chained dogs?

I am confused.