You disgusting, hypocritical idiots make me ill. So many of you have made a hobby of whining about how the US should stop stomping around the globe like an arrogant, bullying Cowboy, complaining that the US is too trigger-happy, too militaristic, too much in thrall to the idea that it is democracy's savior. How many times have you said that it needs to behave more like say, the Europeans who have a much more thoughtful, diplomatic, sophisticated and international approach that didn't include so much violence?

Now that the US can't do anything about Russia's war against Georgia other than act exactly like the typical soft European power, you're complaining that it's helpless.

Well, what do you pathetic fools want? Do you want Bush to saber rattle, perhaps send troops to Georgia, fly F-16s around Tblisi to call Russia's bluff? Engage in some kind of brinkmanship? How big would your street protests be this time if the US was to behave this way? How big would the effigy of Bush be which you would burn in the streets of Paris and New York and San Francisco, you fools?

Don't tell me you want sanctions. They won't do anything in the near term to change Russia's behavior, and they won't hold together for any length of time since they control so much oil.

Don't tell me there is some "third way." There is not. Russia will only respond to credible threats of force. The only reason it's military mission is winding down in Georgia has nothing to do with "Sarkozy's truce." It is winding down because Russia's military mission is done. Russia has won. South Ossetia will be annexed to Russia and Saakishvili will be ousted and replaced with an authoritarian Putin stooge.

Georgia and other little democracies in that region have lobbied the West hard, desperately, to be included in NATO and the EU, because they are aware that their newly re-expansionist, authoritarian, aggressive former Russian masters wanted to rule them again. Ask yourself why the Russians are threatened by independent democracies on their doorstep. The reason Bush armed Georgia is not because Russia wanted to invade it to set up free elections and schools to study the Rights of Man.

What was the West to do, let them rot? Turn their back on them so as not get their hands dirty? Foreign policy is pretty easy I guess when you don't have any principles, isn't that right you wretched, whiny scumbags?

The US did everything it could, as best it could, under the circumstances.

Get used to this: well before we had ever heard of George W. Bush or invading Iraq, the US was not prepared to start World War III over a tiny little Georgia, but do what it could to help them.

If you want the US to be another, common little humble democracy like Belgium or Andorra or Switzerland, if you really want it to stop America from being the world's Cowboy, then stop demanding it does when Russian tanks start rolling through the next little democracies at will. This is what a non-Cowboy America looks like.

And stop whining!

nice fantasy you wrote, except it bears no realtion to the premise of the article.

>>The US did everything it could, as best it could, under the circumstances

NO!!! afer scoring the foothold in Georgia, it should have make sure, ruthlessly if needed, that the Georgian goverment would not fall to any Russian bait, and would not engage in suicidical frontal attack on S. Ostia. had the situation be reversed, Putin would have never let this happen, because, unlike our deluded leaders, he is realpolitic 100%, the bastard.

EarlyBird:

...Saakishvili will be ousted and replaced with an authoritarian Putin stooge.

Then Georgia will be better off without having an idiot in charge who recklessly provoked a war. Saakishvili is a nationalist thug who ordered an artillery barrage against Tskhinvali, South Ossetia's capital. He also sent the police to shut down two independent TV stations during elections.

EarlyBird:

Ask yourself why the Russians are threatened by independent democracies on their doorstep.

The Russians aren't stupid. They know that the neocons are trying to encircle Russia with missles as in Poland.

My post wasn't a direct comment on the article, you twit. Sorry if broadening the subject a bit is too much for you.

"Ruthlessly," "realpolitic" (sic). Quite the tough guy, aren't you? But whining in the next breath that the US is a bully.

Thanks for reinforcing my point.

ClaimsAdjuster: "Hurray for Russian expansionism!"

Have fun pressing that argument.

oh, I see. you just found another reason to bless us with your usual tired "lefty/libs" comments. foolish me to think otherwise.

where did you see me (or the original writer) whine about the US being bully? let me repeat this in the simplest way, special for you!

the problem is not the US being a bully. its the US being a STUPID bully, comprende? If you want to fight, pick your fights, otherwise you are exactly where your genius president and his cabal of "tough guys" left us.

This has nothing to do with the fact of Bush being a republican; Reagan, and more so Nixon, knew how to handle the world, having this twit of a president belong to the same party is a joke!

Ayalon,

If my characterization of whiny ass, incoherent lefty idiots who in one breath excoriate the entire American project and demand American pacifism, and in the next demand that the US "do something" about a renegade Russia - perfectly and with a story book ending of course - don't pertain to you, then you have no need to take offense or respond.

In fact, you were the furthest person from my mind. I barely know you. I can tell you're much clearer thinking and mature than such idiots as Candoxx, and clowns like Bsharp and a whole host of others.

I could not agree with you more about Bush. The man has been an absolute disaster. I agree that the US needs to have a much smarter, more effective foreign policy.

This is where you and I and the idiots part ways: you and I believe America needs to have an effective foreign policy, needs to be engaged in the world and "do something," whereas the idiots endlessly say that America itself is the world's biggest problem to begin with and should just "mind its own business."

But, when something blows up in Georgia and the US is helpless to "do something," they whine about that. Well, they should be cheering US impotence in this instance, if they are really serious about their positions in the first place.

Of course, they're not. Instead they are children, glib faux "leftists" whose only position really is to simply sneer at and criticize anything the US does because it feels sophisticated. It is actually a mockery of true, dedicated and thoughtful anti-American "leftism" which at least has a philosophy behind it.

The problem is, these fools still vote and still affect American foreign policy decision making.

How do you think the people I aimed my original post at would feel about your position that the US should be a "smarter" bully? Do you think they approved of Reagan's or Nixon's foreign policy posture? Try that on a few of the Fraysters whining about US policy and Georgia.

Thank you for some nice words

But let me just ask you. Where are these people you aimed your original post at? You yourself admitted it’s not the article; browsing at most the posts here, most critics were not that far off from me, or you for that matter. I would posit that true faux "leftists" as you call them, people who truly hate what America stands for, are a very small minority in this country. Your original post put you square in the middle of the pack screaming “anti-American” at any attempt to criticize this disaster of an administration. This is where my outburst came from, not that I’m especially proud of it.

Last night I was watching ch. 13, honestly I was just browsing away from the Olympics, and watched a hardball interview with Russia’s ambassador to the UN. I could not help but feel envious of seeing just a smart and eloquent person work for the ruskies; who do we have?

BTW IMHO candoxx (and a few others I noticed) is not an idiot but a paid employee of Russia.

Yes, I wonder where the true leaders are. It's scary. I look forward to a President Obama. I am still a registered Republican who has not voted for one since 2000 (and to my ever lasting regret). I am adrift now, with what has become "conservatism." I remember when it was conservatives who were the ones who put pragmatism first and were skeptical of grand government schemes to remake anything, let alone the world.

It's really sad.

I can't help but be excited for what Obama represents historically, but most of all I am desperate to simply "turn the page" on the Bushies and the entire GOP right now. The best thing that could happen for conservatism and America is for them to have their heads handed to them and for them to be in the wilderness for the next eight years getting back to basics and purging the Bushies.

Just hearing Obama speak well is an exciting concept now.

>>I look forward to a President Obama

even though he is the big unknown to me, there is a desperate need to (in your words) "turn the page" on the Bushies and the entire GOP. To be honest, when you came with your top-post I just took you to be one of the Bushies. Are you sure you are the same poster, not his brother/wife by any chance?

However, if I had to bet my money it wouldn't be on Obama. Call me a pessimist, but this is how I see it. On a deeper level, I am so disillusioned with the political system we have now it’s hard for me to get excited about anyone. Whoever gets elected, Congress will still be occupied by cynical special-interests financed hacks, and most people’s votes will still mean nothing

No, I'm the same guy who wrote the top post. Listen, I'm the guy who cried watching Reagan's funeral. And now I have an Obama sticker on my car.

My father, a dyed in the wool conservative, is also considering Obama, which is enough to make my head spin. The man is 75 years old, ex-Air Force.

I too am worrying that Obama is not going to make it. I have always predicted a very close election, and back a year ago when McCain looked like he didn't have a chance at the nomination, and was having to carry his own luggage through airports, I predicted on this Fray that he would be the next president of the United States. I hope I was not prescient.

Another big part of why I want Obama in is that Bush has done such a good job of making national security and the war "his" issue, that he's possibly really convinced a good half of the nation that it is "his." I think too many Democrats, in their gut if not their brains, really think that once Bush goes away so will so many national security challenges, like Islamic terrorism and so forth. Not so.

Let's cross our fingers.