Scripps Howard: The 2014 Winter Olympics are to be held in the aging Russian Black Sea resort of

Scripps Howard: The 2014 Winter Olympics are to be held in the aging Russian Black Sea resort of Sochi, a sort of Atlantic City before the casinos arrived, and that gives the International Olympic Committee plenty of time to begin moving the games elsewhere.

The Olympic committee can be obtuse and tolerant to a fault of government misconduct, but pulling the Winter Olympics out of Sochi really is a concrete way of saying the world finds Russia’s invasion of a smaller, much weaker neighboring democracy unacceptable.

The Georgian-Russian conflict does not seem capable of a resolution that is either quick or happy. Holding the games in Sochi would be truly dreadful symbolism. Sochi is just a few miles and a short drive up the coast from Abkhazia, which Russia is close to wresting by force from Georgia, along with about half of the rest of Georgia’s Black Sea coastline.

Invasion of Georgia

Certainly by 2014 the world will not have forgotten that Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin hurried home from the Beijing Olympics to preside over his armored columns pouring across Georgia’s border.

Spurning Sochi might have special resonance with Putin. It’s said to be his pet project. He personally lobbied the IOC to hold the games there, and the Kremlin clearly hoped that a successful and spectacular games, much like they are doing for China, would show off a remade and resurgent Russia and win international respect and admiration.

Barring an improbable breakout of peace and understanding, Sochi is now too tainted to hold the games. There are plenty of other venues.