No South Ossetia for Zimbabwe

"Zimbabweans must realise that the country is in a practically binding state of socio-economic emergency," Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono said.

"As such, there is need for a universal moratorium on all incomes and prices for a minimum period of six months," he added.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7569894.stm

What does a country need when its economy has been completely trashed by its government? Some verbosity and grandiosity from its Reserve Bank governnor, obviously. '...a practically binding state of socio-economic emergency'? What'dya do, eat the dictionary?

Personal hobby-horse: 'Mr Mugabe has denied he is ruining the economy, laying the blame instead on international sanctions he says have been imposed against Zimbabwe.' Where is the editor? Does he or she not know that this is a blatant, and easily disprovable, lie? There aren't any international sanctions against Zim, just targeted ones against ZANU PF, as any fule kno. Sadly, because the BBC and many other big media outlets don't bother to correct lies like this, every cab driver and pub pundit I talk to rails against the persecution of Zimbabwe by the domineering West, especially Britain. The fact is, there has been virtually no action on Zimbabwe at all, outside of a lot of grumping. Should there have been?

I just saw on Fox News Milliband saying that Russia probably broke international law in Georgia. When talking about places like Zimbabwe and Georgia, surely we ought to steer clear of invoking International Law? Both Mugabe and Putin love to trumpet the Wests picking and choosing when International Law suits and when not. Lets not give them a freebie. There is no International Law, none that means anything. For International Law to work, there would need to be something bigger and stronger than nations to enforce the law when the big nations got out of line. And there isn't. Wishing don't make it so. Far better than the fiction of International law is a commitment by all nations to a few crucial principles- like not carving up other peoples countries viz both Serbia and Georgia.

Russia has been waiting since Kosovan independence to show the world that this principle, of national integrity, was no longer valid in the international arena. It has now, and I'm not sure its wrong. That doesn't mean I don't sympathize with the Georgians, although Saakashvili is a tool. His hubris and overreach brought upon his people a terrible shock- although the casualty figures seem to have been multiplied dramatically by both sides for the same reason. It will take Georgia some time to come to terms with what happened. They have yet to lay the blame at the right door- their own stupid leader.

Is there an element of truth in the Russian story? Was theirs a humanitarian intervention of sorts, much like the NATO one in Serbia on behalf of the Kosovans? There is prima facie evidence for it. Saying that, it seems vastly overshadowed by the faux-SuperPower geopoliticizing which followed the initial intervention. So, who is going into Zimbabwe? A small invasion on behalf of the White Farmers anyone? Crickets chirp, tumbleweeds blow past.