While Russia should probably have kept its nose clean here and stayed out of direct military conflict, I believe your assessment of what America should do is probably the best thing we could do. We are in no moral position to do anything after the invasion of Iraq (which you probably would have done yourself a favor by mentioning).

But what I think is lost here is that little ole’ Georgia isn’t that good of a country. Rumors of tortuous prisons and supposed oppression of the people in South Ossetian make me think that America would probably do that same thing in Russia’s position, whether it be right or wrong.

As for Kurt’s comment, I’m sure that you know I have one of the most complex views on Iraq out there (kinda a cross between Chuck Hagel and the McCain plan. Looking back, we either a) shouldn’t have gone in or b) had a MUCH better plan. Now that we’re there, we sould move troops to the borders to guard Iraq [Hagel plan], and let Iraq deal with the civil unrest that htey understand more than we do. This means that we have to make sure the Iraqis are getting trained [McCain plan]. It doesn’t matter how LONG we’re there, but how MANY of us are there – remember people, we’re still in Korea, but nobody’s complaining!)

But Kurt brings up a decent point: Russia has a good comeback to us saying, “You can’t do that.” The Detroit Free Press had an editorial saying basically that earlier today.

Kurt… You have no idea why we are in Iraq do you?
This is nothing compared to Iraq, matter of fact its totally opposite