Readers Weigh In On Caucasus Crisis, Western Diplomacy

The following comments reflect the views of DW-WORLD.DE readers. Not all reader comments have been published. DW-WORLD.DE reserves the right to edit for length and appropriateness of content.

I think any country or area should be able to secede if a super-majority wish to so long as sufficient consideration is given to those in the area that don't wish to secede. The idea that areas can't secede is promoted by governments who don't want to lose their power and control over others. Governments are to be servants of the people, not the other way around. -- Dieter, US

Chancellor Merkel's message concerning Russian occupation of certain areas deep inside Georgia was delivered with more clarity and resolve than I would have expected. In the greater scheme of things, Russia may well recognize that Germany will bend only so far to Russia's oil and gas blackmail. My respect for the chancellor has risen. -- WE Ivey, US

Congratulations! Russian media is filled with statements of the Western world being scared out of its wits by the "breakfast" in Georgia. It seems that Ukraine has a good chance of being Ivan's "lunch." But the true "dinner" will be held in Berlin. Don't worry, though, after everything is over with, gas will be very cheap for the surviving members of the German Autonomous Province of the Russian Federation. -- Gregor, Ukraine

I am surprised that Chancellor Angela Merkel did not visit Prime Minister Vladimir Putin while she was in Moscow and let her feelings known to him about what problems he is creating in Georgia. Russia wants to act like a dictatorship to Georgia and its democratically elected government. Europe still has one big card it can play. We know that US Secretary of State Rice will be visiting Europe about this matter, but the EU can still ask President George W. Bush to visit Moscow and Georgia. Bush can question both Medvedev and Putin about their actions and what they are trying to do with advances in a democratically elected country and bluntly tell them to mind their own business or face the music. -- Stuart John Pearson, Australia

Schroeder's involvement with Gazprom doesn't give him good credentials, opined one reader

It is ridiculous to pretend the rockets in the American missile defense are not directed at Russia. It is incredible that the EU plays along with this US drive for world domination. If you push Russia too far again, it is Europe that will pay the consequences. The foolishness and naivete of these ex-Soviet satellites will carry Europe into a disastrous conflict with Russia. The USA and England will gain either way. -- Mario Capo, US

It is not a pleasant or polite fact, but I am sure many sensible Germans have now come to the realization that Gerhard Schroeder, the former chancellor, who raised a "major international stink" by criticizing US policies over Iraq in an apparently successful re-election platform to win over pacifist German voter sentiments in his last term as chancellor, is little more than what the Russians call a "special unofficial contact" -- a spy, in effect. Schroeder demonstrated his "extra-curricular" arrangements with Moscow when he took up his cushy Gazprom project board chairman posting immediately after leaving office. You will recall he pushed through the Nord Stream Gazprom deal weeks before ending his last term. Now he wants to offer useful comment about the Russian invasion of Georgia? This is a really pathetic statement on contemporary German government performance. -- Michael, Canada

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