Posted 8/08/2007 05:44:00 PM by Douglas

What happens when a second grade pissing match turns into an international incident? When you're Russia and Georgia.

A missile that landed in Georgia was ditched, not fired, by a Russian jet as it fled Georgian airspace, a Georgian official said on Wednesday as the United States and Europe urged the two powers to stay calm.

The missile weighing about a ton landed -- but did not explode -- in a farmer's field about 65 km (40 miles) west of Tbilisi on Monday, sparking a slanging match between Georgia and Russia and re-igniting old tensions.

Georgia initially said the missile had been fired by Russian jets. But a Georgian official told Reuters on Wednesday that the Russian pilot dumped the missile after coming under fire from separatist forces in South Ossetia, a Moscow-backed breakaway region of Georgia, in an apparent mix up.

Mix up? Dumping ordinance in a "mix up?" That doesn't really answer anything, does it?

As Russia continued to deny any involvement in the incident, the United States and the European Union both appealed for the two sides to cool rhetoric and show restraint.

Is this a bar fight? Two blow-hards bow up at each other, and their friends are standing behind them trying to calm them down?

Russia has denied its military had anything to do with the missile and instead suggested Georgia may have dropped the bomb itself to provoke a spat with Russia.

So they're "making up" shit to start a war? Read the whole thing, it just gets better.