Charen omits a lot on Georgia dispute

As usual, Mona Charen's Aug. 18 opinion column left out a few things.

She might have written the Russian attacks on Georgia were in reaction to Georgian military action against South Ossetia, a pro-Russian region of Georgia that wants to reunite with the region known as North Ossetia, which is in Russian territory.

Does this sound like something we want to get involved in?

There is plenty of blame to go around to all parties in this affair, including Russia, but is it too much to ask to be honest about how it started?

Instead, we get Ms. Charen's nonsense about rapist and rape victim.

Sen. Obama's initial call for "restraint on both sides" was entirely appropriate since he does not direct our foreign policy. That would be the president, who was busy at the Olympics acting alternately bored and like he was on spring break.

Sen. McCain, however, jumped right in for the Georgians. It would have been nice if Ms. Charen would have told us that Sen. McCain's chief foreign policy adviser, Randy Scheunemann, and his business partner, were paid $800,000 as lobbyists representing the government of Georgia from 2004-2007.

They lobbied Sen. McCain or his staff on 49 occasions during that period.

The partner still represents Georgia. High on their lobbying agenda has been Georgian membership in NATO, an objective supported by both Sen. McCain and the Bush administration.

Ms. Charen didn't want to tell us that if Georgia was in fact a NATO member, the Russian attack on Georgia would have been considered an attack on the United States.

How does the idea of sending American soldiers over to fight and die to solve a problem between North and South Ossetia sound to you?

The "experience" and "judgment" of John McCain would have put us right at that point. Bruce Henke

Bartlett