Resurgent Russia

Russia has never been a friend to Pakistan, but that is no reason for any government in Islamabad to avoid movement towards more cordial relations with an increasingly important country. As has been shown in Georgia recently, the Russians are in no mood to take any nonsense from anyone, and are intent on once again being a power to be reckoned with. The declaration by the psychotic Dick Cheney that the recent Russian operation in the territory of South Ossetia "must not go unanswered" was silly bluster, and the remarks by Bush and Condoleezza Rice about Russian "aggression" and so forth are equally absurd.
In early August Georgia's president, Mikheil Saakashvili, an erratic US-educated, US-backed demagogue, ordered his US-trained, US-equipped troops to rocket villages and then invade the enclave of would-be independent South Ossetia, whose largely Russian-origin inhabitants were being protected by Russian soldiers. His soldiers fired thousands of rockets from multi-barrelled launchers into villages and towns, killing hundreds of civilians. The Russian army went in and thumped the Georgians. So who does much of the West blame for the conflict? Why, Russia, of course.
The hypocrisy of Western reaction to Russia's justifiable involvement in Georgia is ridiculous. Washington's condemnation of Moscow is bizarre, and for Bush to state, as he did on August 15, that "Bullying and intimidation are not acceptable ways to conduct foreign policy in the 21st century" is preposterous to the point of fantasy. Bush pronounced that "We insist that Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity be respected" which is rich, coming from a man whose drones continue to violate Pakistan's airspace to fire missiles that have killed scores of Pakistani civilians.
Because of George W Bush there is an ongoing US military occupation of Iraq, a country which posed no threat whatever to the United States and which on his orders was invaded illegally and mercilessly subjugated. His soldiers, outside the NATO command system (such as that is), have killed hundreds of Afghan civilians, resulting in futile protests by Afghanistan's President Karzai. Sovereignty, anyone?
For the West to try to assume a lofty moral position about Russian troops moving into South Ossetia to protect civilians from the rockets and other barbarity of the Georgian leader is not just laughably hypocritical, it demonstrates a weird consistency in an essentially US-centric view of international affairs. "You are with us or against us" is the battle refrain of Bush Washington's Crusade, and with some honourable exceptions the European Union governments (if not the peoples) are toeing the line of the lame-duck US president, pathetic in his desperation to show he is a force in international affairs.
The West ignores the fact that the US has been training and equipping Georgia's armed forces for six years and had a considerable military presence in the country, close to the Russian border. Last week US aircraft flew Georgian troops back home from Iraq, where they had been part of the US occupation "coalition," which needlessly provocative action will not be forgotten by Moscow.