As we should. The author's response to my post (on another thread), portraying it as if I was offering excuses for Bush, betrays his bias rather than mine, and calls to question the integrity of his research. (Sorry madfly, I just broke a fingertip and am having difficulty typing so I have been slow responding).
It is entirely possible in a military command structure consisting of millions of personnel and with many layers of management, for a newly-elected President of an opposing party who can't even get his appointments confirmed, to be unaware of a small, previously authorized, and possibly semi-clandestine operation in a remote country (the Georgian public might not all appreciate our being there after all). In my judgment, to make his lack of attention to this matter an issue of "leadership" is a bit over the top simply because of the scale of the operation. Were there perhaps 1,000 personnel or so involved, then it would be obvious enough to be more of an ethical issue insofar as his campaign promises are concerned.
That is the weakness in the article. It and the subsequent clarifications on this thread clearly substantiate that US troops are are in Georgia under UN command during Bush's presidency. That does not mean that Bush knowingly authorized the action to proceed under UN command in violation of his campaign promise. He may have approved the budget for it, but the information might have been buried in a 1,200 page budget memo for all I know (9/11 has certainly kept Bush preoccupied).
The test will be to see what Bush does now that it has been brought to light.
I too will be waiting to see what he does.
As we should. I give it a week for him to get it checked out and verified and another two weeks for orders to get the matter handled through diplomatic channels (budgets, authorizations, accounts, and all that). Give it a month after the date we are sure he personally knows about it, and we should know our answer. Our intrepid reporter should be more than willing to verify receipt of notification.