John McCain's statement:
Today news reports indicate that Russian military forces crossed an internationally-recognized border into the sovereign territory of Georgia. Russia should immediately and unconditionally cease its military operations and withdraw all forces from sovereign Georgian territory. What is most critical now is to avoid further confrontation between Russian and Georgian military forces. The consequences for Euro-Atlantic stability and security are grave.
The government of Georgia has called for a cease-fire and for a resumption of direct talks on South Ossetia with international mediators. The U.S. should immediately convene an emergency session of the United Nations Security Council to call on Russia to reverse course. The US should immediately work with the EU and the OSCE to put diplomatic pressure on Russia to reverse this perilous course it has chosen. We should immediately call a meeting of the North Atlantic Council to assess Georgia’s security and review measures NATO can take to contribute to stabilizing this very dangerous situation. Finally, the international community needs to establish a truly independent and neutral peacekeeping force in South Ossetia.
Barack Obama's statement:
I strongly condemn the outbreak of violence in Georgia, and urge an immediate end to armed conflict. Now is the time for Georgia and Russia to show restraint, and to avoid an escalation to full scale war. Georgia’s territorial integrity must be respected. All sides should enter into direct talks on behalf of stability in Georgia, and the United States, the United Nations Security Council, and the international community should fully support a peaceful resolution to this crisis.
The NYT shows that 1,500 are dead already and the Washington Post has one called "Stopping Russia".
THE OUTBREAK of fighting between Russia and the former Soviet republic of Georgia was sudden but not surprising. Conflict has been brewing between Moscow and its tiny, pro-Western neighbor for months. The flashpoints are two breakaway Georgian provinces, Abkhazia and South Ossetia -- the latter being the scene of the latest fighting. The skirmishing and shelling around Georgian villages that prompted Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to launch an offensive against the South Ossetian capital, Tskhinvali, may or may not have been a deliberate Russian provocation, to which Russia's tank and air assault was the inevitable follow-up.
How the international community handles this situation is critical and TigerHawk states the situation spectacularly:
Another is that Barack Obama took the same position as a European Union that is very worried that Russia will cut off its supplies of natural gas and the most politically weak president since Jimmy Carter's hostage year of 1980. Neither are in a position to do anything other than call for completely ineffectual international condemnation. John McCain understands, however, that the next president will have the difficult task of persuading Europe -- all over again -- that it should side with Pax Americana rather than be Finlandized by the resurgent Russian Federation. Winning the political argument inside Europe and the other states peripheral to Russia will require clear American leadership, precisely as it did in the 1940s and 1950s. Transnational progressive platitudes run the risk of losing the important argument over the security of Europe and the other weak powers on Russia's frontier. George W. Bush has given up out of political weaknesses and organizational exhaustion, Barack Obama is giving up out of transnational romanticism, and John McCain is signaling the world that the United States under his leadership will be a reliable ally.
The Politico is right, this was the "3am" moment, but their analysis is wrong, because you do not caution the victim to show restraint, you tell the aggressor to back the hell off.....as John McCain did.
Once again Obama proves without a doubt that he is too inexperienced to deal with a world crisis and would not be a reliable ally.
I would take it a step further to say that most people I have spoken to do not trust Russia and never have. Russia has also been one of the UN weak links in getting strong meaningful sanctions against Iran and has been directly responsible for watering them down to the point that they have been ineffective.
I cannot see Obama's statement giving those people very much encouragement that he can be trusted to handle a serious crisis that involves Russia.
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