re: Will we look like fools if the administration keeps spouting off about Ukraine

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How is this different from the Bush administration's response to Russia invading Georgia? Is the Bush admin considered feckless for their milquetoast response to the previous Russian incursion? Or do we have to apply some double standard as a poster above implies? What is the criteria for applying that double standard?

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I hope you are not referring to me regarding your statement about double standards. I honestly remember very little about the Georgia affair and Cheney's involvement in it so it would be foolish for me to comment on it. I don't have the time to read up on it today but if it went down as you have indicated it likely made us look weak. There are few things that upset me as much as empty threats.

I don't remember every little detail, but I did remember that when tensions were getting high and Russia was about to take their capital, we sent our SOS to the city that was fixing to be taken over. Essentially daring Russia to try us. Not to mention the missile shield Bush fought so long to get put around Russia. I think Obama scraped it though, not sure though.


from: World Socialist Web Site:
LINK

"Fearing direct geopolitical confrontation with the US, however, Moscow did not decide to formally recognize the independence of these two regions. Instead, in April, a decision was made to begin full-scale economic collaboration with them



Another indication of the United States’ determination to support Georgia is last week’s visit to Tbilisi by Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice. Within the framework of this visit, which was linked with the signing in the Czech Republic of an agreement to build elements of American anti-missile defense, Rice declared that “frankly, some of the things that the Russians did over the last couple of months added to tensions in the region.”
The American Secretary of State also said that admitting Georgia to the Membership Action Plan (MAP) for NATO would help regulate the frozen conflicts in Abkhazia and South Ossetia, “therefore the USA will try to add Georgia to the MAP.”
If this decision is made—which would be in December of this year—for the first time since the end of the “Cold War,” the world will confront the danger of direct military confrontation between Russia, which as before maintains a powerful arsenal of nuclear weapons, and NATO."