BUSH WANTS TO TEACH THE BEAR HIS OWN LESSON

How interesting, with Russia's invasion of Georgia, Bush and McCain have discovered that, "in the twenty first century, nations don't invade other nations"! Having finally learned that lesson, presumably down stream of our Iraq invasion, Bush wants the Russian Bear to learn it as well. Surprising that just as Bush and McCain move into the current century, Putin displays his own cold war mentality.

Bush's neocons assumed America was the only super power and hence free to ignoring rules that apply to others. With America's militarily exhausted and tied down in the resulting folly in Iraq and needing Russian cooperation with terrorism and Iran, Russia has decided it too is a super power again. The Georgia invasion is a maneuver to extent its sphere of influence. For what? Same reason Bush invaded Iraq, Oil. Russia is about to replace our man in Georgia (or intimidate him) thereby extending their control over a potentially significant source of oil in Central Asia. They are selling oil, we are buying. In the end this is about economics, not democracy, their up ours down.

Can Europe, which needs Russian natural gas as well as oil really punish Russia for this, as Bush is threatening? Perhaps, if not then Bush will have broken the rules and lost while Putin, capitalizing on that loss, will have broken the same rules and won. (Perhaps it is better to elect leaders that are smart rather than ones you would like to drink a beer with?) In either event, has this problem not been seen coming for sometime? Are we not here because our government has been more interested in the welfare of western oil companies than preserving economic security (and the environment)? Undue special interest influence over the decision making process in our society has generated this situation.

Had we, as Carter urged, continued on the path of conservation and development of alternative energy following the OPEC embargo, the incentive for this happening in Georgia would be absent. There would be more oil still in the ground and less demand for it, less carbon in the air, a dollar stronger, a more favorable balance of trade, less debt owed to sovereign wealth funds and our economy more secure.

The up side is, it may be good for the environment. Perhaps, with a newly renegade Russian Bear standing more squarely and less benignly on a larger part of the world's oil supply the public interest can break through the three hundred pound linemen of the hydrocarbon industry lobby toward a rational energy policy.