"International Relations" Part Deux.

By now everyone has heard about yet another instance of one nation "loving" another. Loving in this case is much like the "loving" that a serial pedophile has for his 3 year old daughter. I of course am referring to Russia Vs. Georgia. Last night in e-mail discussions with a friend of mine whose business it is to ascertain political risk for oil and gas operations, I speculated that I thought that Bush would do two things. He would send American troops in a peacekeeping/humanitarian role, and he would push for accelerated NATO membership among all of the former Soviet republics that wanted in. Word has it that Bush has done the first thing as of now. He is sending humanitarian relief in the form of US Military C-17 transports with relief supplies into the country as I type. This does three things:

• First, it shows both Georgia and Russia that we really do give a crap and that we are willing to put our money (or more accurately, our soldiers) where our mouth is.
• Secondly, it provides humanitarian relief to the populace which sorely needs it.
• And third, it ups the ante to Russia. If Russia wants to continue beating up on this infant of a country, they will have to do it with US troops in the way. Does Russia REALLY want to run the risk of attacking US troops?

This is the LEAST we as a nation can do. Georgia sent a very large fraction of it's military might (such as it was) to support our mission in Iraq. We pledged support for it's entrance into NATO. We encouraged Georgia to develop it's democracy. We need to support it every way we can.