In a Seattle Time August 24 Letter to the Editors Donna Quilter of Issaquah wrote the following:

"Thank you for publishing the Mikhail Gorbachev column clarifying at last the situation that the mainstream media has so muddled (Thursday).  It is not the Russian bear pouncing on poor little Georgia without cause, as our neocon administration and John McCain would like us to believe.  It was a calculated attack by Georgia against South Ossetia, which wants to remain an independent state backed by Russia.  Much of the fighting seems to have been done by the Ossetians against the Georgians, their ancient enemy.

"The militarization of Georgia by the U.S. and its push to admit that country and other border states to NATO, despite promises not to do so, surely fed this conflict.  And the jingoistic statements of the president and John McCain, repeated over and over by an unquestioning media, remind me of the lead-up to the Iraq war, with intelligence on the subject in letters to the editor.  But where is the news analysis, the background, we so need?  We should not have to look to the opinion page for that."

Condoleezza Rice is chasing around the world as fast as the jets can speed her.  Rice is trying desperately to make political commitments in Czechoslovakia, Poland and Iraq that will expand the horrifying rule of the Bush regime long after it has left office.