Bush sends aid to occupied Georgia

It sounds like Putin has thrown down the gauntlet through Lavrov's statement with regard to virtual projects and real partnership. Multilateralism has evolved into a global consensus and regional power compliance system. Therefore, neither Obama's referral to multilateral/bilateral agreements or McCain's reassessment of Clinton agreements will carry much weight with Putin. Joe Biden needs to support and keep his mouth shut with regard to criticism and how to deal with the situation. Whatever decision Bush makes now, the next President is going to have to live with and that decision doesn't rest on Biden's shoulders. Our government doesn't allow a handoff system like the Russian's from Putin to Medvedev and then back to Putin. Putin is enforcing that old saying "possession is nine tenth's of the law" and right now we only one tenth to work with. There is no doubt, Putin is in command.

I agree with the above poster's comment. In addition, the U.S. isn't in a position to "draw a line in the sand" over Georgia. Whoever made the current Georgian leadership their pet project needs to concede defeat and salvage some advantage out of this fubar for the long term interests of the U.S., but of course for this to happen high ranking people in Washington are going to have to place a higher value on the benefit of the Republic than on their own careers (which doesn't happen very often in the Tide Water/beltway). Last point. If Georgia NEEDS the U.S. to airlift supplies in, then OBVIOUSLY there isn't anything like the kind of supply line that the DoS has supposedly been paying billions for these last several years. So airlifting supplies in now is a case of too little too late. Let's not now compound this nightmare by leaving U.S. specops guys unsupported in the field there. Georgia should obviously NEVER have been pushed as a serious candidate for NATO membership (or now we'd be facing a NATO war with the Russians rather than an embarrassing diplomatic/strategic retreat). Pull out U.S. forces in Georgia, and hold the bureaucrats responsible for putting the Republic in this untenable position under investigation (as there are a troubling number of big ticket "development" projects that don't seem to have materialized). The DoS has already dropped the ball in Iraq and Afghanistan and left the DoD holding their you know what's in their hands. It's time to hold foreign policy wonks responsible for geo-political mistakes that could have and should have been avoided. A. Scott Crawford