I will try and bear Millman's and Martingale's comments in mind in drafting a response to another scathing response to my letter in today's Irish Times, above.

My concern with trying to challenge the whole framing of Russia bad, US good is that Challenging a whole paradigm like that is very difficult to do in a short letter which is generally only allowed to make one point if it is to have a good chance of publication.  However I will do my best:

draft response

Madam - Sean Steele, Letters 20/8/08, accuses me of "scraping ever harder at the bottom of the barrel" in a  "desperate attempt to excuse (the) Russian aggression against Georgia" and that the Russian bombing of Georgia explains why Georgia feels the need to employ lobbyists in Washington.

He rather misses my point on both counts.  I am not in business of excusing Russian or any other Countries' aggression against a smaller country or territory, nor am I naive about the lobbying processes that go on in Washington.

Quite the reverse: the evidence indicates Randy Scheunemann, Senator John McCain's senior foreign policy adviser, may have used his influence on Georgian President Mikheil Saakashvili to persuade him that "Washington would have his back" if he invaded South Ossetia - especially during a US Presidential election campaign.

In so doing he handed his current employer, Senator John McCain, a badly needed boost to his floundering Presidential campaign at the cost of another embarrassing defeat for "the West" in the battle for supremacy (or stability) in world affairs.

It is not in Ireland's or in Europe's interest to rekindle the Cold War just for some perhaps fleeting advantage in a domestic US political campaign.  There is an ever increasing economic, political, energy and environmental interdependency between western and eastern Europe (including Russia) and the fanning of Cold War embers by either Georgia invading South Ossetia supported by "the West", or by Russia invading Georgia is the very last thing we need.

Already this has resulted in Poland and the US today signing an agreement to site US anti anti-ballistic missiles on Polish territory, allegedly aimed at rogue states or Al Qaeda - when in practice, only Russia has ballistic missiles capable of reaching Europe.

The successful enlargement of the EU was achieved in large measure by the ending of the Cold War.  Why ever would we want to re-start it - even if it does play well in some sections of domestic US politics?

Vote McCain for war without gain