One thing's for sure, these guys never miss an opportunity to make a quick buck.

The great diplomat GW is recruiting more countries to join the US-led military alliance NATO. The original purpose of NATO was to defend any country in the Alliance facing aggression from a non-member.

If you only read the US headlines this recruitment seems like a great idea. Recruit more countries to NATO so they can help the US fight the War on Terror. Unfortunately only a section of southern Afghanistan is completely controlled by NATO forces and Ukraine will not be supplying any significant military help.

Another US Media driven angle is that the US is trying to protect its people by setting up a missile defense system over Europe. Never mind that we already have enough missiles to blow up the world 10x over. It all sounds so great.Russia does represent an increased threat to US hegemony and we should be developing relations with former Soviet Union countries. We should even try to facilitate a European Missile Defense system for future combat.

In reality, the expansion of NATO is not so the US can receive much needed help from countries capable of providing Arabic-speaking military officials, which would really help out our current soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan. It's also not to surround Russia with flimsy NATO-aligned countries.

The song remains the same. It's all about oil.

These former Soviet Union countries have access to valuable oil reserves and pipelines running through the Baltic Sea. These operations are not covert in the international media. The world knows what we're up to. These pseudo recruitment's would've been a great strategy if we weren't already involved in the occupation of another sovereign nation for their oil.

Is the real No. 1, Dick C., who visited Eastern Europe last year, leaving the MIddle East to Condi and Petreaus and sending a figurehead like Bush to small Eastern European countries to do something he can't screw up, like close more oil deals?

This administration, the great diplomats / military strategists / war president regime shouldn't be spending time forging unbinding relationships with countries that cannot help us RIGHT NOW. No amount of money is worth securing more oil contracts when the lives of our own people are at stake in Iraq.