>http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article4500362.ece
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>As a Russian jet bombed fields around his village, Djimali Avago, a Georgian farmer, asked me: “Why won’t America and Nato help us? If they won’t help us now, why did we help them in Iraq?”
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>A similar sense of betrayal coursed through the conversations of many Georgians here yesterday as their troops retreated under shellfire and the Russian Army pressed forward to take full control of South Ossetia.
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>This whole thing is confusing. Some one who knows please correct me. Didn't this start because Georgia decided to retake the area that had won independence? Didn't Georgia start this mess and then Russia stepped in to help Ossetia (probably political)?

My understanding is that South Ossetia considers itself ethnically distinct from Georgia. With tacit Russian support and armed/guerrilla "resistance" they achieved a considerable amount of de facto autonomy.

However, it is also my understanding that this led to a power vacuum in South Ossetia which organized crime was quick to take advantage of. As a result, the region is now a hotbed of corruption, arms and drug dealing etc. With no de facto state authority, South Ossetia could basically be considered a "failed state", and as such has been a considerable nuisance to Georgia (putting it mildly).

South Ossetia is still, de jure, a part of Georgia and I think the Georgian incursion was/is an attempt to "clean up" this mess.