The American media has been running with the border security conflict news story between Georgia and Russia the last few days and unfortunately inspiring new Cold War tensions as a result. Perhaps even the slight surge of support for John McCain has been as a result of the media inspiring fear of Russia among the American public while ignoring the numerous ways in which Russia still actively continues to be a constructive world community member.
The American press seemed to totally ignore an important Mideast Black Sea resort peace effort by Russian President Dimitry Medvedev and Syrian President Assad that encouraged more direct talks between Israel and Palestinian leaders and encouraged waring Palestinian groups Fatah and Hamas to unite and speak as a single voice for peace.
Instead of reporting important Mideast peace news such as this that the government of Russia is actively involved in, nearly all of the recent American media news about Russia has been dominated by a dangerous trend to completely vilify this state because of a border conflict they are having with the government of Georgia. And the Bush Administration only helped to stoke the flames by working with Poland to place antimissile missiles in Poland, which could fuel a new and dangerous arms race as an overreaction to the ongoing localized political and military feud between Georgia and Russia. John McCain also capitalized on the situation by calling for Russia to be kicked out of the G8.
The fact of the matter is that Russia hasn't recently stopped becoming a mostly constructive world community member in the last few days just because of their ongoing feud with the government of Georgia. If Bush and McCain were really the wise leaders on foreign policy that they really claim to be, then they would call for some peace talks between Russia and Georgia to peacefully resolve any differences and not blow the situation into an international arms race by placing any antimissiles in Poland aimed at Russia. A few Patriot missiles or 10 Interceptor missiles is hardly any defense against 5518 Russian nuclear warheads, but just enough to make Russia angry and create unnecessary new world tensions and allow the local Georgia conflict to cast a far larger shadow than it really should. The Georgia situation needs to be played down, not played up to dangerous heights.
The Georgia situation doesn't need to become the trigger point for a dangerous new arms race, but unfortunately Bush is allowing that, and John McCain is apparently reaping some political benefits from the Bush Administration's total mishandling of this localized feud between Russia and Georgia because the American public is mistaking this ineptness for strength.
It is a very good time for all tensions to pull back and prevent this situation from becoming like a runaway train where a dangerous new arms race or a military standoff between the United States and Russia results in some accidental war.
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