Quote Originally Posted by birdgirl73
Tough economic sanctions are hard because Russia is an economic powerhouse on its own and can cause us and the rest of the world some retaliatory economic pain in return if we try to do that. It'd be different if they were a smaller, weaker country that was more heavily influenced by strong-arm tactics, but they're not. Russia has lots of industry and manufacturing and, for instance, can manufacture and export steel at cheaper prices than we do, which makes this a tricky situation. We've already run into trouble with the World Trade Organization trying to impose tariffs on them for steel exports a few years back.

We're in a bad spot, too, because our own economy can't take any further strains at the moment and what we do internationally affects us at home since we're a globally interdependent economy.

Condi Rice is far too smart to want to be a politician or run for office. I admire her for that. I also admire her for the fact that she's a wickedly proficient piano player and can speak Russian, Spanish, French and German in addition to English. I hope she'll return to teaching. She could have lots of far-reaching influence by helping teach future diplomats and probably be much happier doing so.

There's good stuff to be read on the topic of Russia and Georgia at this site and the links it provides.
Moscow sends troops into Georgia; Europe and America wrestle with the ramifications. - By Ben Whitford - Slate Magazine
Condi Rice is a terrible politician---------------
"I don't think anybody could have predicted that they would try to use an airplane as a missile, a hijacked airplane as a missile." condi rice
Or this one "Usama determine to strike" which was thrown under the bus by this condi...................