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Russia Roars, NATO Purrs

Alliance needs to step up and protect Eastern Europe

By Kevin Spak, Newser Staff

Posted Aug 22, 2008 7:51 AM CDT

(Newser) – Russia had better watch its back. NATO has proven that if it goes around invading its neighbors, the world’s mightiest alliance will take action and…er… cancel the next NATO-Russia Council meeting. That’s the lone consequence NATO put forth in its statement on the “situation in Georgia,” a document that Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post finds “almost comically evenhanded.”

The statement dares not even say, for example, who invaded whom. “We deplore all loss of life,” it reads, as if the attack were a bus accident. It’s a ridiculous display because the stakes are so high. If Russia unseats Georgia’s government and NATO does nothing, it will demoralize Eastern Europe and signal a return to Russian power. Today’s Russia has geopolitical pressure points. Why aren’t we pushing them?

[Images (4)]

[Quotes (2)]

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, right, meets Prime Minister Vladimir Putin in the Moscow Kremlin on Wednesday, Aug. 13, 2008. (AP Photo)

Chances are Putin's not losing sleep over that NATO-Russia Council Meeting. (AP Photo)

Condoleezza Rice addresses the media at NATO Headquarters after attending an emergency NATO foreign minister meeting in Brussels, Tuesday, Aug. 19, 2008. (AP Photo/Yves Logghe)

Russian President Vladimir Putin smiles during a Railway Congress in Moscow's Kremlin on Wednesday, Oct. 24, 2007. (AP Photo)

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Having launched a fearsome tautology Moscow's way, what further action does the Greatest Alliance of All Time take? Cancels the next NATO-Russia Council meeting. - Charles Krauthammer

Read the first five paragraphs of the NATO statement on the Russian invasion of Georgia and you will find not a hint of who invaded whom. - Charles Krauthammer

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Russia Roars, NATO Purrs