Prelude to something imaginably awful

For those of you still not quite certain who the monsters are in this recent conflict between Georgia and Russia, perhaps this AP article will help you figure it out.

Here's the first three paragraphs -- click the link above if you want the rest:

Aug 16th, 2008 | TSKHINVALI, Georgia -- Russian troops and their allies forced Georgian men at gunpoint to clean the streets of South Ossetia's bombed-out capital Saturday, avenging Georgia's attack on the breakaway province a week ago.

Three teams of ethnic Georgian men in their 40s and 50s were seen hauling debris from the streets of Tskhinvali. When approached, one of them confirmed he was being forced to work.

"Labor even turns monkeys into humans," said a Russian officer, who along with armed Ossetians escorted one group of about two dozen Georgians through the streets of the capital.

Let's see, forced labor of non-combatant members of an ethnic group. Comparisons of said members of ethnic group to sub-human species. Where have we heard about that before?

Maybe those in the press and pundit class will stop being so knee-jerk quick to blow off comparisons between the newly-bellicose Russian bear and the rise of Germany in the late 1930s.

Probably not, though. We can't seem to do the right thing at the right moment anymore.