Boo hoo ... looks like its back to the tried and true method of getting information, spying! Its not as though they were really cooperative anyway now is it.

Quick! Maybe the Obamamessiah can use his golden tongue and tell them to stay in NATO; just like his 'success' in getting them to pull out of Georgia by the shear power of his words.

Allow me to pre-empt the coming snarky remarks about Bush's soul-searching looks into Putin's soul. Ok, he was overly optmistic in his words and the honeyed remarkes apparently didn't help soften Putin. But, regardless of what he was saying about how much he trusted Putin - all along he was preparing to put a missile defense system in Poland to protect against, um, Iran, yeah, that's it, just Iran. Really!

I don't believe that Russia is a Nato member? They were just given defferential treatment and consideration by the members of Nato. Please correct me if I am wrong.

The GOP administration sure did make the world safer..let's see...over 7,000 americans have died under this admin...Iran is stronger, China is stronger, Russia is getting even stronger...they do know their foreign relations don't they?

Next you are going to tell me that two guys with oil experience entered the white house when the price was $1.39 a gallon and messed that up too.

Exactly how have the Dems demonstrated they were able to keep other countries weaker?

Would it violate any treaties to do testing of nukeular weapons under The Kremlin ?

The reall killer about this is that we're talking about Patriots... a whole 20... now whether they mean 20 Missles or 20 Launchers, that makes a difference. The Patriot, despite all the hype is a so-so ABM.

Either way, the move is strictly symbolic in that according to reports, it's 20 Missles. Thats not like it can do a hell of a lot against Ivan and his what? 8500 MIRV ICBM force? If it's 20 Launchers, well, do the math 20 X 4 per Launcher, 80 Missles total. 80 Patriot 2s aren't exactly a major threat or showstopper...

Again, this's about strictly tweaking Ivan the Bear's nose...

DEFINATELY not worth a full scale war over.

Billburz, they were part of the Nato-Russia Council. It was for:
The NATO-Russia Council (NRC), was established at the NATO-Russia Summit in Rome on 28 May 2002. It replaced the Permanent Joint Council (PJC), a forum for consultation and cooperation created by the 1997 NATO-Russia Founding Act on Mutual Relations, Cooperation and Security, which remains the formal basis for NATO-Russia relations. The (NRC) is a mechanism for consultation, consensus-building, cooperation, joint decision and joint action, in which the individual NATO member states and Russia work as equal partners on a wide spectrum of security issues of common interest. The spirit of meetings has dramatically changed under the NRC, in which Russia and NATO member states meet as equals "at 27" in areas of common interest - instead of in the bilateral "NATO+1" format under the PJC.
according to the official website.

Q: Exactly how have the Dems demonstrated they were able to keep other countries weaker?

A: By winning WWII

North Country:

To use the "messiah"'s words, that's not the same Democrat party that I know now. Truman had the guts to see that war through, something Dems today are severely lacking.

Amen to that MO Tim,

I mean how can you compare jack mytha to Truman? FDR would've had that treasonous bastige in irons before he could spit out "Our fighting men are cold-blooded killers! And IT'S ALL THE PRESIDENTS FAULT!". Give me a break VC, er, uh, um, duh, doi, I mean, N.C.

Removing themselves is following through with what they had promised/threatened to do were we to go ahead with the missle defense agreements (e.g., radars in Czech Republic, missles in Poland).

Russia isn't trying resurrect the old Soviet Union, but the government is very paranoid about border security issues. Bush should not have provoked this paranoid, but oil wealthy government with the prospects of stationing any missiles in Poland. This only invited the invasion of Georgia and will certainly result in a nuclear border security threat right at the doorstep of the U.S. somewhere, such as new nuclear missiles in Cuba only 90 miles from the U.S. coastline.

Mr. Bush certainly knows how to provoke this paranoid government into irrational and dangerous behavior. Way to go George. And McCain will probably be a worst Cold War leader, alresdy boasting that he will kick Russia out of the G8. If one of these Cold War jerks doesn't start a nuclear war, then the other nimrod certainly will if given half a chance.

It's time to make Russia feel at ease about border security threats to their nation and start rolling back these tensions before this becomes a complete runaway train and kills a lot of people in both the U.S. and Russia and reduces a lot of families to just ashes.

Russia Pulls Out of NATO

Wow, Russia is in NATO? We learn so much about international affairs from the right. Let's ask McCain if Czechoslovakia is also a member.

Hooson - "somewhere, such as new nuclear missiles in Cuba only 90 miles from the U.S. coastline."

It's a shame hooson.

A real crying shame you can't "go back to the future" and undo all the brain damage caused by tumbling of that cheap assed chinese scooter.

Brian - "Wow, Russia is in NATO? We learn so much about international affairs from the right. Let's ask McCain if Czechoslovakia is also a member."

Guess you didn't notice that commenter indicated they may not be correct in thinking Russia was a member of NATO and asked if anyone would do so if wrong.

Nor do you note the correction, with link, was given.

Or did you see both and decided to be an asshat anyway?

Did they pull out, or leave voluntarily to avoid being shown the door?

Secondly, I don't believe they were actual members, but rather had a seat at the table.

Marc, there'a a huge difference between a constructive foreign policy and one that looks for conflict and elective wars around the world and sticks a finger in the eye of nations who are paranoid about border security issues and provokes them to wrath. If you can't figure this out, then God help.