We helped in Iraq - now help us, beg Georgians

This is just a sad story all around. We train a former Soviet republic's army and happily accept their troops in Iraq, then said former Soviet republic is attacked by an entire armored field army and we do nothing.

Why did we not react? Undoubtedly we fear an official Russian-Iranian defensive pact (the unofficial one has been in place for years). We also fear the outbreak of a world war when our troops are already overstretched, highlighting the problems with our foreign policy in general - why are our troops overstretched to begin with? What if Georgia and Ukraine had been fast tracked to NATO membership in April and this happened? Could we have washed our hands of the situation and allowed President Bush to play volleyball with Misty May in Beijing during the outbreak of a war? Could we have helped Georgia if we weren't overstretched? Would American military response even be a question if there wasn't a binding alliance such as NATO drawing us into conflicts? America can no longer complain about Germany, France, et al, not helping enough in the GWOT; a small former Soviet republic gave us a brigade of their finest in Iraq and now are under attack... and we are looking the other way.

This action undoubtedly was planned beforehand by Russia. With the Russian Army's equipment in disrepair, how could Russia quickly field and execute a mission with an armored field army on such short notice? The answer is simple - they had been planning for this invasion for quite some time and were just waiting for President Mikheil Saakashvili to make the first move (which he did on August 7th).

Don't think that this doesn't have anything to do with oil or Iraq either. Russia will undoutedly regain control of another Black Sea pipeline (meaning price gauging ala Turkmenistan and Ukraine) or badly damage it (cutting down on efficiency and perhaps raising price). Either way, Turkey, a NATO ally, will be quite angry since the pipeline runs into Turkey. In addition, Georgia's 2,000 troops in Iraq are being sent home to Georgia to fight the Russian hordes funneling into Georgia.

Finally, perhaps we could pay close attention to the Russian Army's use of overwhelming force in order to break the will of anyone thinking about resisting. They aren't fighting a war on the cheap, they are ensuring victory. Also, where is the international community's outrage at the loss of civilian life in this conflict?