The intercepts circulated last week among Western intelligence agencies, part of a Georgian government effort to argue that Georgia was under invasion and attacked defensively. Georgia argues that as a tiny and vulnerable nation allied with the West, it deserves extensive military and political support.
Democrats have warned that Ms. Palin, a first-term governor, is woefully inexperienced and is not qualified to serve a “heartbeat” away from the presidency. In her first interview for over two weeks, the 44-year-old mother of five struggled, when asked her views of the Bush doctrine, which states the United States will mount a preemptive strike against a looming threat if it deems itself at risk.
An association of nationalist groups, the All-Tatar Civic Center, swiftly published an appeal that “for the first time in recent history, Russia has recognized the state independence of its own citizens” and expressed the devout wish that Tatarstan would be next. The declaration was far-fetched, its authors knew: One of Vladimir V. Putin’s signal achievements as Mr. Medvedev’s predecessor was to suppress separatism. The Tatar movement was at its lowest ebb in 20 years.
‘South Park’, a cartoon aimed at adults and featuring a group of nine-year olds in a Colorado town, has courted controversy since its 1997 debut, lampooning celebrities, politicians, religion, gay marriage and Saddam Hussein.
Russian president Dmitri A. Medvedev announced Monday that Russia had agreed to withdraw its troops by mid-October from its positions in Georgia outside the breakaway regions of South Ossetia and Abkhazia. But Mr. Medvedev said Russia would stand by its decision to recognize the two breakaway regions as independent nations.
The Bush administration must keep up the pressure on Russia to withdraw its remaining troops from Georgia and permit deployment of neutral peacekeepers. At the same time, the administration — which allowed this crisis to get out of hand — must be careful not to incite more conflict or give the Kremlin any more excuses.
The aid — along with Vice President Dick Cheney’s high-profile visit to a region the Russians call “the near abroad” — is sure to inflame tensions further. Russia’s leaders have openly accused the United States of having provoked the conflict by arming the Georgia military while encouraging its aspirations to join the NATO alliance.
Georgia is already drawing up lists of options, including restoring the military to its prewar strength or making it a much larger force with more modern equipment, like air-defense systems, modern antiarmor rockets and night-vision devices. So far the Bush administration has avoided publicly discussing how best to rebuild the Georgian military.
Dmitri A. Medvedev speculated that the war in Georgia was intended to benefit one of the candidates in the American presidential election, almost certainly a reference to Senator John McCain. He said the United States armed Georgia and then “gave Mr. Saakashvili carte blanche for any actions, including military ones.”
The Russian Prime Minister, taking a break from lambasting the West over its support for Georgia, apparently saved the crew while on a trip to a national park to see how researchers monitor the tigers in the wild.