So am I right in thinking that you're saying if 2000 people died, the invasion was justified, but if 133 died it wasn't? By that reasoning, how many people would have needed to die in the attack on the World Trade Centres before the invasion of Afghanistan was/wasn't justified? If only 200 had been killed would the US have shrugged it's shoulders and decided not to invade? More interestingly, think about it in terms of the % of that countries civilians killed - if the rough estimates available are accurate and about 70k people were living in South Osseta, and 133 of these were killed, then thats ~0.2% of the population. The % of the US population that died in the attack on the world trade centres was ~0.001% (so 200 times more people proportionately died in South Osseta to use your own (likely underestated) figure). Or to put it yet another way, do you think that Britain (as a main ally of the US) would be justified in going to war with a country if that country attacked the US and killed 600,000 people? A poor comparison (since it'd probably be more likely to be the other way around, and the case of South Osseta isn't quite that simple anyway), but it hopefully helps illustrate the point.

-double post-

And not just Arizona but Texas, New Mexico & California?

That is precisely my argument. Your argument was based around how the number was low hence there wasn't justification: "Do you believe the Russian invasion was justified by the death of 133 civilians?".

I truly think you missed the point. It is not the numbers of people killed it is the lies told to justify an invasion by Russia. They lied about the numbers thinking that it would give them reason to attack. All that was pointed out was that instead of 2000 people killed it was 133 so far. In telling the lie of 2000 they had no justification to invade. Russia invaded a nation, an act of war, and justified it by saying that 2000 Georgian citizens were killed by Georgians. This is like looking at crime stats and Canada invading Detroit because of the murder rate.

This is not true no matter how you spin it. I watched former Ambassador Holbrook give his report live. That is not the Georgian side it is the view of a former diplomat, one that has no love for the current administration.

Russia has been using propaganda for the last 10 years to put people in place to begin the new Russia republics. They have openly murdered journalists and political enemies. This has all been documented in the world press. It was also documented in the world press that Russia has funded the people in Georgia and those people went on and ethnic cleansing campaign that ended with Georgia launching a military crack down on that area that was repelled by the Russian army. Part of this ethnic cleansing was witnessed by Ambassador Holbrook and reported live on television. So, no, I am not taking what the Georgian President said as fact without checking it out. Just like I am not dismissing what the Russians said as propaganda without checking it out.

I am sorry but this is again not true. I have yet to see a proven lie told by the American government. Can you provide some for me to check out, or are you going to say that some blogger said it so it must be true and leave it at that? You are not going to tell me how we blew up the WTC buildings are you? Or that famous lie about WMD? Those have been investigated in and out of government and no lies were found other than political opponents saying they were lies to gain political advantage. Like I said show me the lies and I will condemn them.