. . . stepping up to soap box . . .

I had an opinion or two about the US invading Iraq back in the day. Before the invasion I was concerned about the geopolitical standing of the US if we unilaterally invaded a "sovereign" country. I was also concerned about the actual effect on terrorism (repeatedly, and logically, noting that bombing the crap out of a group of religious zealots might not be the best way to make our country safer - in fact it might have the opposite affect - whereas dealing with the root causes of the ignorance and hatred might be more useful).

I can't help but chuckle (yes chuckle, in order to keep my sanity I have to laugh at the mostly insane world - I certainly do not mean to belittle the situation and the all too real consequences - getting to that) when I hear Condoleeza Rice, and other representatives of the Bush administration, pretend to be outraged at the Russian invasion of Georgia. They even had the balls to teach W the word "sovereign" and put it in the talking points. (And I may have confused the Georgias back in the day, but this time I am sure they are talking about the former Soviet territory ;).)

Yes it's a bullshit move by the dictator they now have in Russia, Mr. Putin. For years he has been destroying democracy there (shutting down the press, murdering journalists, jailing private citizens that disagree with him, stealing businesses from the private sector and taking them for the government, changing the government rules to suit his whims without a democratic process, etc), and for years we have mostly played along without batting an eyelash (an eyelash on the same eyes we used to look into Putin's "soul" to be certain he is a good guy, mind you).

So the move certainly is something the be outraged about, but just where does the US get off in putting anyone on notice about "invading" "sovereign" countries? (And I mean in reference to Iraq for now, let's leave any other US invasions of territory in the past out of the equation for the moment, such as the *democracies* the US pushed out to get in *dictators* they wanted, for example in Central and South America - and let's also ignore the current dictators the US supports in Pakistan, Uzbekistan, and other areas. The Iraq move itself is enough to make such a position by the US laughable.)

Maybe it's just me, but the world not paying any particular attention to the US administration throwing around "strong words" about the Russian invasion just doesn't seem surprising (one of the consequences of the damage done as a result of the Iraq decision). When the kid that steals everyone's lunch money for years finally tells the new bully to cut it out, it just doesn't seem to resonate.