At the end of the day Russia was responding to a (probably provoced) Georgian invasion of Souther Ostetia. Georgia used heavy arms and artillery, and certainly caused the death of hundreds+ of civilians.

To -not- expect some sort of Russian response was nieve, to lauch such a ill advised campaighn was criminally negligent – and quite possibly a War crime.

Sure the Russian response was overly heavy, went further than it should; and was certainly largely oil and politicaly motivated (but then so is the far worse mess in Iraq and the middle-east, of course!), but do we really want to be protecting an unstable bombastic nationalistic Georgian leader in such a conflict!???

Do you want to start a regional conflict over such a leader??

The same exactly could be applied to the Polland missle issue…

Its obviously (to the rest of the world) targetted at Russia, and serves to inflame rather than calm the situation.

Or do we want to see Russian arms in Iraq and Iran as well..!??

Bizare!!