BUSH POLICY TOWARDS RUSSIA HYPOCRITICAL OVER SO. OSSETIA

Why is Bush ratcheting up the tension with Putin, Medvedev and Russia over Russia's recognition of Independence for South Ossetia and Abhkazia?

Someone please tell me the difference between recognizing sovereignty for South Ossetia and recognizing sovereignty for Kosovo. In both cases, the inhabitants have an entirely different culture from the "mother country." The Kosovans are Muslim whereas Serbia is mostly slavic and Orthodox. People in South Ossetia are not Georgian and speak an entirely different language.

So how can Bush and Rice say it is illegal for Russia to recognize South Ossetia when the United States early on this year recognized the independence of Kosovo from Serbia? Rice says Russia's actions violate U.N. resolutions but she never quotes chapter and verse or gives any cites. And anyway, if recognition of South Ossetia is against international law, certainly the Kosovo recognition also has to be. Yet neither Bush nor Rice nor Cheney protested on behalf of Serbia. Why are they protesting now on behalf of Georgia and that hot head Saakashvili?

Here's what Saakashvili did to start this whole mess. On August 7th, he ordered the Georgian army, armed with the latest in American produced lethal missiles to fire upon civilians in South Ossetia's capital Tskhinvali. Instead of working through diplomacy to see if the Ossetians would consent to holding a referendum to see what they preferred in terms of sovereignty, Saakashvili decided to attack the Ossetians and kill them unless they agreed to be part of Georgia. It would be like the U.S. federal government firing missiles against the civilian population of Texas in the event of some federal-state disagreement. Civilized nations don't do this.