For good reason.

Every American has blood on their hands.

Two stolen elections and all anyone cares about is the price of gas!

Pathetic!

I can't believe that I am now so jaded as to believe that the Republican administration led Georgia on to believe that they could act with impunity with the US ready to defend them. Only to cut and run so that now they can have a REPUBLICAN CAMPAIGN ADVANTAGE!

McCain gets to look tough, the populace is ready to flock to the tough guys and the Obama strategists are left wringing their hands!

Won't Obama even state how this all happened because of the ineptitude of the Republican administration?

I am overwhelmed with fear that we are now controlled by a propaganda machine that is willing to start wars in order to maintain power, as they did during the first mid-term elections.

Am I the only one thinking this way?

We have 1000 soldiers in this country bordering Russia and we fly 2000 Georgian troops home to fight the Russians and we (the US) are not setting this up?

you build your home on a flood plain, you get flooded, and insurance is hard to come by. worse, you don't get any sympathy.

if you accept the premise that every politician has greasy ethics and many would sell their virgin daughter for a winning vote margin, then a nation that puts it's direction in the hands of politicians is playing russian roulette, and pulls the trigger every 4 years. you're never gonna get a philosopher king, and occasionally you get a nixon, or a johnson, or a reagan, or a bush, or a worse bush.

talk about dumb! dumb for doing it, dumber for never realizing the system guarantees frequent shit storms. it's not bush, people. it's the jerks who vote for pollies while knowing they can't be trusted alone with a minor child, much less a national treasury.

jerks? that would be you, not the politicians- they're laughing, you're crying.

Bush calls the Kurds "enemies", and given the chance, he or his surrogates would kill as many of them as he could.

Thank god he is fighting them over there. Imagine what he might do to us.

It's Bush and Cheney, and all Republicans and their supporters.

And the whole right-wing mentality of safety through bullying.

Great article, Mr Cole. There's not much to add to your solid points, but you do deserve better comments.

The war in Iraq was a great stupidity; the problems in Georgia may be only the first bad consequences. Ah, America! Will Putin now be able to claim that Saakashvili is just like Saddam Hussein?

Many opposed the U.S. invasion of Iraq as a matter of principle. The removal of Saddam Hussein by multi-lateral action under the aegis of the UN was not beyond the reach of persistent diplomacy.

The U.S. should have the courage of its convictions regarding the "rule of law" and resist the temptation to take unilateral unprincipled action. How, exactly, will the U.S. object when some other government arrests Western journalists as "enemy combatants" or subjects American service personnel to "enhanced interrogation?"

"Might makes right" is the ultimate justification for many of the current administration's foreign policy actions, and the specious superficial justifications that have been offered for preemptive war and other unprincipled actions will likely give intellectual cover to our enemies for decades to come.

American history points over and over to Americans gaming the circumstances when it suited deeper desires and rooted views.

Hence any number of "treaties" signed with Native Americans which when it suited WashingtonDC were cast aside quite easily when it suited WashingtonDC. On other hand the same treaties were used to provide cover for claims WashingtonDC might construct for any range of Native American conduct or desires to hold tribal lands that WashingtonDC wanted to gut or subvert.

We know WashingtonDC was very content to be sole "atomic power" after 1945. This was how the Americans liked it and wanted it to stay. When the Soviets also fielded atomic weapons this came as a most unwanted equalization for WashingtonDC. Since then other countries have also gained atomic weapons and means to deliver them. Israel has a odd status of having atomic weapons (well known fact) yet offers no "official" standing on this known status. Iran now coming under much pressure to yield to American and Israeli desires to preserve singular Israeli odd non-treaty (illegal)atomic status.

With Americans now aiming to frame Russia as the menace in Central Asia this leads to viewing past few years history of Americans pushing NATO membership into ex-Soviet Union zones.

Dick Cheney surely has fingerprints all over this being the case as do several other PNAC neo-cons he runs with.

Americans may not like the idea of Russia pushing back. Americans do not like push back. See Native American history if you doubt this.

Iran may now have gained some space and time(a Russian gift?). American neo-cons will go after Russian "transgressions" readily. This is American neo-con red meat. They can not ignore it. See Cold War and how WashingtonDC created myths and tales about Soviet Union to feed more American militarism and hyped "security" premises.

Anyway Condi is going in now. More interesting question surely being what was Karl Rove doing in Georgia just recently?

The idea of McCain winning WH in Novermber 2008 over a return to American Cold War era politics based on/powered on Russian fearmongering surely an unforseen turn of events.

Russia as "the menace" is a neo-con fixation of the first rank. Iran may get lucky after all.

Are we crazy ?

1. Energy prices are high and getting higher .

2. Health care prices are high and rising .

3. Food prices are high and rising .

4. Travel costs are high and rising .

5. Broadcast commercials are loud and getting louder .

6. Clothing prices are high and rising .

7. Liberties we had are gone and dwindling .

AND YET MANY OF OUR ELECTORATE HAVE CHOSEN SIDES AND ARE ARGUING FOR MORE OF THE ABOVE . IT’S AS IF THEY WERE IN A HYPNOTIC STUPOR AND CAN NOT FEEL PAIN .