I think it was.

I'm pretty sure they accepted a resolution in which if Sadam didn't let inspectors in then attacks would be sanctioned to attack Iraq.

Just france and everyone else never thought the US would actually go with it.

As i remember the resolution and Iraq's breaking of it was the first thing mentioned when the international community started a fuss.

Communist russia was actually worse then Hitlers Germany.

They killed more of their own people during the same era of Hitlers rule then Hitler did. For what it's worth.

Usually reported is like 20 million people. He just did it in Eastern Europe so people care less... and was also more of an equal oppurtunity butcher. Of course the guy who esitmated that said it was likely underestimated and could be raised by as much as 50%. Hell it might even be more considering what they considered deaths when estimated.

This is a totally different government... but yeah. Plenty of people had plenty of reasons to hate communist russia... and have plenty of reasons to be edgy when the government starts backsliding back into a dictatorship and invading former soviet block countires.

Stalin was much worse then Hitler. Or maybe just as bad with more oppurtunity.

If a murderer saves your life it doesn't change the fact that he's a murderer.

(Note: Different government in russia currently however, even if they are backpedalling from democracy to a military dictatorship.  Though most people tend to not trust military dictatorships who usurp the rule of the people.)

The head of OSCE (currently the Finnish foreign minister) is travelling to Georgia on Monday, and he says that he doesn't expect a short-term resolution of this crisis.

http://www.yle.fi/news/left/id98396.html

I would say Hitler was worse than Stalin simply through his cold killing machine designed to wipe out an entire race - Stalin simply didn't give a fuck about his people and let them starve to death. Either way, both were dicks.

This situation could turn out really bad, if it's true that Ukraine is fighting alongside Georgia then this has the potential to boil over big time. Aren't both Georgia and Ukraine being courted for NATO membership?

I don't think anyone said they're fighting alongside each other... Russia just said Ukraine supplied them with weapons and moral support for going into Ossetia. Yes, both of them were supposed to enter NATO at some point, mainly because the USA wanted that to happen.

If Russia does something to Ukraine, it's game over... I don't think they will though.

PS: From what I read, that famine caused by Stalin was not simply an accident ;)

Not true.

Stalin executed something over like a million people for political reasons.

Along with millions of others sent to die in the forced labor camps... which really in reality or practice wasn't much different then the German forced labor camps of WW2.

Edit: Also i believe both were promised Nato membership.

No but it wasn't on the same level of official killings that the Germans had. Stalin did what he did for power, Hitler did what he did because he was a right evil racist sod.

I disagree. I believe Hitler did what he did for political reasons and to gain power as well... and eventually he as all dictators did bought into his own lies and his own "greatness". Which was the same thing that happened to Stalin. Besides which, after blaming the jews for all of Germany's problems keeping them around really would hurt him politcally. They were just as politically motivated as the russian killings i'd guess honestly.

The offical killings were on the same level i'd say. They are just well less documented because we never invaded russia. Aside from which, the Gulags killed way more people then the German death camps mostly for ridiculious reasons... like accidently spilling something on a picture of stalin in a newspaper.

The Gulag and deathcamp things were well past keeping power.

In some cases they just rounded up every man in a village and would send them off to a labor camp. That's well beyond the scope of keeping power.

Hell they had quotas of people to send to their deaths.  To say he isn't as bad just because he decided to kill more then just one racial group seems wrong. (Though some were specifically targeted.)

Well, the baltic countries (Poland, Estonia, Lithuania etc) have declared a resolve to stop Russia from furthering this conflict any more, only question is, what is the UE and NATO going to do about it?

One thing that must be said, for us Poles, Russia is right now testing just how far they can go without being punished by the world nations. You see, for some time now Russia has been saying that east Ukraine wants to seperate from the west and be part of Russia (obviously false). So probably they are only using Goergia as a field experiment. That's why my country wants Ukraine to be admitted to NATO as fast as possible, to prevent this kind of actions.

BTW, it's pretty obvious also that Russia want's Goergia to either be pro-russian, or crippled, the country would be able to create a new oil/gas pipelines that would avoid Russia, thus crippling russias monooly on these vital for Europe resources.

@Menago KF: That pipeline already exists, and there were bombs dropping nearby today... A clear warning from Russia to Europe and the US which are the recipients of that oil.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan_pipeline

Azerbaijan has already halted part of its exports (the ones going through Georgian ports):

http://afp.google.com/article/ALeqM5gVEVAFFG3fCTHSyXJtrW3C6quvWQ