News of the Paranoid

It seems that the Russians believe that the recent events in Georgia were done to help one of the presidential candidates (guess which one):

Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Thursday that he had reason to think U.S. personnel were in the combat zone during the recent war in Georgia, adding that if confirmed, their presence suggested "someone in the United States" provoked the conflict to help one of the candidates in the American presidential race.

This is from a story in the Post. Putin goes on in the story to say:

"If my conjecture is confirmed, then it raises the suspicion that someone in the United States deliberately created this conflict in order to worsen the situation and create an advantage . . . for one of the candidates for the post of president of the United States," he said. "And if this is a fact, it is nothing other than the use of so-called administrative resources in a domestic political struggle, and in the worst, bloodiest form as well."

You do have to hand it to the Russians in coming up with something so off the wall. It reminds me of those thrilling days of yester-year when the Soviets were completely paranoid about anything the U.S. did. Seems what's old is new again.

What is of concern is is this just a reaction to what Georgia did (which was very foolish) or is this just a first step in recreating the old Soviet Union. Perhaps a better example would be the old Russian Empire with Putin playing Czar.

Not that the US can do much about it. We are spread far too thin. Our rhetoric sounds very tired ans shrill in light of what we've done in Iraq. All we can really do now is watch and wait and hope for the best.