Eteraz Online : اعتراض آنلاین A Bewildered Conscience Blindly Groping for Clarity : Dissent is the Only Response to Manufactured Realities. "Eteraz" means "protest" in Farsi and Arabic, and the aim of this blog is to both analyze and question received dogma and the obfuscations which so often blight and warp media coverage and discussion of Middle Eastern politics and culture. Monday, August 25, 2008 Russia and Iran: crisis of the west, rise of the rest

OpenDemocracy.net posts translations of posts by LJ user pepsikolka (Samira Kuznetsova), a blogger living in Poti, Georgia: here, here, and here. (Earlier GV translations of pepsikolka's posts are here and here.)

China Updates Was China truly ready for the Olympics? Posted Aug 25 2008 by Li Datong*

In Open Democracy, Fred Halliday wrote: "There is still a reluctance among many analysts of international relations to believe that local and/or 'small' actors in a political situation - in this case the Georgian leadership - have their own agency, freedom of manoeuvre, and responsibility (a flaw that is shared by that particular kind of American - and of course 'anti-American' - leftist for whom everything that happens in the world must by definition be the United States's responsibility: an understudied genre of vulgar imperialism).

Was China truly ready for the Olympics?by Li Datong*For China the Olympic Games were the most important event of the last few decades, a showcase for its organisational capacities and proof of its athletes’ physical prowess as they triumphed in the medal count. It was a show that the government in Beijing wanted “free of politics” but which itself “politicised” first. Here is an analysis by Li Datong, a Chinese journalist fired for criticising censorship.

Egypt: Writing at Open Democracy, Egyptian Tarek Osman says watching the Olympics held in China leaves Egyptians with a 'sweet and sour' taste in their mouths.

Russian war and Georgian democracy August 22, 2008 openDemocracy August 22, 2008 Ghia Nodia The war leaves Russian ambitions for regime change in Tbilisi intact. But the Georgian nation and its society have survived a great test to emerge the moral victor, says Georgia's minister of education, Ghia Nodia.

Russia and the Georgia war: the great-power trap, by Ivan Krastev - Open Democracy Russia's flawed understanding of 21st-century international politics means that its military success in the war with Georgia could be followed by its strategic defeat, says Ivan Krastev.http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/russia-and-the-georgia-war-the-great-power-trap

Russia and Iran: crisis of the west, rise of the rest Paul Rogers Moscow's war in Georgia and Tehran's nuclear challenge highlight the failings of United States and European security policy, says Paul Rogers 21 - 08 - 2008

Georgia and citizen war reporting 22 Aug 2008 16:13:00 GMT Written by: Andrew Stroehlein Reuters and AlertNet are not responsible for the content of this article or for any external internet sites. The views expressed are the author's alone. Evgeny Morozov has a great piece over at openDemocracy dealing with citizen journalism in the Georgia-Russia conflict. It confirms my opinion of citizen journalism -- which in short tends to be the same as my opinion of citizen dentistry. Some things should be done by professionals. A sample from Morozov’s article, “Citizen war-reporter? The Caucasus test”: [The conflict] was a perfect opportunity for citizen reporters to fill in the gaps [of official claims and counter-claims by belligerent parties]. The fact that they didn’t in the first days of this quick war may reveal that - in war reporting at least - the great promise of citizen journalism is often an empty one. He goes on to say that there has been plenty of blogging about the war, but it was mostly propaganda shouting and hardly much in the way of fact-based reporting. (journalist Goga Aptsiauri’s blog from Gori is an exception)

The historical echoes with Russia's entry into Georgia have been repeatedly heard in recent weeks in the European press. On openDemocracy.net, the Bulgarian think-tanker Ivan Krastev writes on the conflict and notes that Russia's “punitive incursion into Georgia is not a remake [of 1968]; its conditions, motives, driving certainties and governing justifications are different”.

Russia, Iran: Crisis of the West Image: NATO Moscow's war in Georgia and Tehran's nuclear challenge highlight the failings of United States and European security policy, says Paul Rogers. By Paul Rogers for openDemocrac

Abkhazia and South Ossetia: heart of conflict, key to solution by George Hewitt (George Hewitt is professor of Caucasian languages at London's School of Oriental & African Studies (SOAS). Among his many works are "Peoples of the Caucasus" (in F. Fernández-Armesto, ed.), Guide to the Peoples of Europe (Times Books, 1994) and (as editor) The Abkhazians, a handbook (Curzon Press, 1999).The Georgia-Russia war of August 2008 carries a vital lesson: the small territories that broke from Georgia's control in the early 1990s have their own voice, identity, and interest. They must be active participants in deciding their own future, says George Hewitt, the leading scholar of Abkhazian linguistics and history. (This article was first published on 18 August 2008) - Open Democracy

In Open Democracy, George Hewitt, professor of Caucasian languages at London's School of Oriental & African Studies, wrote: "The torrent of media commentary on the Georgia-Russia war has been characterised by near-obsessive geopolitical calculation, which - as so often where Georgia and the region is concerned - tends by default to view Georgia's 'lost' territories (if they are viewed at all) as nothing more than inconsiderate and irritating pawns on a global chessboard. For this reason - but mainly because Abkhazia and South Ossetia matter in themselves and are central to any resolution of the issues underlying the Aug 2008 war - it is useful to consider the arguments for taking them and their claims seriously.

South Ossetia Once again, I want to strongly recommend OpenDemocracy, this time for its series of articles on South Ossetia and its consequences. Today's article is by my good friend Ivan Krastev, arguing inter alia that Russia may be a loser as well. At the start of the war they ran a good piece by Caucasus vetern Tom de Waal, "An Avoidable Tragedy". See also these pictures by the children of South Ossetia, and the various other pieces they have done on the region. And in general, keep an eye on the open_democracy feed, or however you prefer to read it.

claimed Ossetians only appeared in Georgia on the coat-tails of the Red Army's invasion in 1921

Welcome to the party: US convention follies The party conventions and the choice of vice-presidential running-mate are key events in any United States election. They do not always go according to plan, recalls Godfrey Hodgson. By Godfrey Hodgson for openDemocracy (19/08/08)

Lots of excellent comment on the above on OpenDemocracy Russia.

Russia: ideology becomes a mash-up Solzhenitsyn's death triggered a battle on the Internet as bloggers rushed to accuse, dismiss him or defend him. The Kremlin has found a powerful propaganda machine for its brand of ambiguous authoritarianism, argues Evgeny Morozov