Reply #6: Interesting bit I found:

[bemildred]

"What is really telling are two things:

First, it is now being reported in numerous blogs and by Jonathan S. Landay who has done a great job on this for McClatchy Newspapers that Team Bush made very clear to Russia that if Georgia went into South Ossetia and Abkhazan, Russia could “take care of business” provided it did not go into Georgia proper but did not tell that to Georgia which had it known that would have behaved differently – one would hope.

Richard Armitage who besides being Number 2 at the State Department under Colin Powell and a combat veteran but also uses a bit of wit to enliven the proceedings is quoted as stating "The Russians have clearly overreacted but President Saakashvili...for some reason seems to think he has a hall pass from this administration.” I strongly suspect that Scheunemann told Saakashvili that the US would back his play.

Secondly,CNN had an interview with Saakashvili with the header stating “Georgian president to McCain: Move 'from words to deeds'”. In the body of the interview as reported in CNN:

“Georgian president Mikheil Saakashvili on Wednesday called for John McCain and other American leaders to do more for Georgia in their response to the conflict in his country. ‘Yesterday, I heard Sen. McCain say, ‘We are all Georgians now,’ Saakashvili said on CNN’s American Morning. ‘Well, very nice, you know, very cheering for us to hear that, but OK, it’s time to pass from this. From words to deeds.’ ”

Saakashvili said action is more important than rhetoric in the face of “brutal” and “deliberate” Russian violence. He urged the United States to take the lead in installing an international peacekeeping force. I should note that Obama has called for that from Day One – in fact for several years.

http://www.californiaprogressreport.com/2008/08/doublespeak_on.html